New Vrindaban Brijabasi Spirit

by Bhakta-Chris

At a recent Wednesday night kirtan-katha-prasad program for our lovely friends in Athens, Ohio, I had a very interesting discussion with an older gentleman in attendance. He was mildly eccentric, believed in many practical aspects of Krsna consciousness (like living with the land), and had even spent some time in New Vrindaban Dham. He indirectly implied to me that he believed that Krsna was a “cosmic astronaut”, who had come down to us in times gone by via the standard interstellar travel apparatus of a giant alien spaceship, and was most likely going to do the same at some point in the near future.

I simply responded with “hmm….that’s interesting” and didn’t pursue the point any further. It was a barometer check for me, for only mere months ago I would’ve been eager to engage in such metaphysics. You see, when I was a child, when I went to my friendly public library, I would instantly go to the beginning of the Dewey Decimal System and check out all the books about UFOs, Bigfoot, and the Loch Ness Monster. I watched “The X-Files” religiously every Friday night (and I was hooked from the beginning-I certainly jumped on no bandwagon!). Being someone, like so many seekers and searchers going beyond the mundane, some of whom who have become so fortunate to have the association of Vaisnavas worldwide, I have always been fascinated with mysteries of the paranormal. Even in these tender-bhakti days, I still claim much fascination, eagerly thumbing through “Alien Identities” and “Spiritual Warrior I” to gain the Vedic perspective on these topics, although I spend much less time than before in perusing these subjects in cyberspace.

For our friend in Athens, while it is true that Krsna certainly descended to this Earth planet from realms way beyond, it brings no permanent realization to consider Him or any other great spiritual personality as just simply being a visitor from outer space who confused or tricked us into mass worship with a big spaceship and mystic abilities. Granted, this may be true in some cases (see Ezekiel’s wheel in the Bible), and it is also true that materially advanced beings are visiting this planet at the present moment and may make themselves more present to us in the near-future, it is the sweetness of Krsna’s pastimes and the realizations of the previous acaryas that make His presence here on Earth much more than just some spooky conspiracy.

What I am slowly realizing with such conspiracy theory and paranormal venturing is that it is so much of a distraction to the actual mysterious, awe-inspiring, and wonderful nature of the Truth (The same goes for conspiracies and sordid politics within our KC movement-I’ve heard such speculation accurately described as “taking a chainsaw to your devotional creeper”). So many people go in circles trying to figure out if Dick Cheney flew one of the planes on 9/11, or if Princess Diana was a shape-shifting lizard from Mars, that they actually contribute nothing meaningful to society’s ills, even though they may think they are pulling back the veil of illusion. As Fox Mulder said “The truth is out there”, and it’s sitting right on your bookshelf inside the Gita or the Bhagavatam. Conspiracy and conjecture are just a few more of the enticing but poisonous arms of Mayadeva, and we will do best for Guru and Gauranga by avoiding them as much as humanly possible. Just remind me of that next time I waste a few minutes checking up on the latest UFO sightings.