Way Down Beneath the Ocean
By Srila Jiva Goswami dasa
My body lies under the ocean
Far under the Causal Blue Sea
My body lies under the ocean
Oh send forth my body from me
What is this all about? As each successive material endeavor dashes upon the rocks, you’d think I’d finally give up gladly. I don’t pray for death anymore. I can see that is just now coming. What I pray for is to be off this horse; out of this boat when the final crash comes. I don’t want to be weeping, “Oh, how will my wife pay the bills,†or “What will my son do in school.†Will I have the flavor of Mercy which came to Ajamila? I have named my wife Narayana.
As an avowed but cock-a-mamie atheist, I used to sometimes attribute an imaginary boldness and daring to such public declarations as, “If there is a God, let Him strike me dead!â€
This morning, while toweling off after bath, my mind flashed back to that time when I was barely beyond toddling; that which is essentially me is just the same now, practically 70 years later, at the fag end. Drying off this miserable dripping body, it is still me, me in here. Using a towel after bath, going through precisely the same process, I flashed in my mind, to a time when I was just over four, in St. Albans, Jamaica, New York New York, not really long ago. Not really changed at all. Hello?
“There,†I’d say. “I wished for God to strike me, and He did not.†We know now, dear Friends, of course He is. I no longer wish for Death. I understand now what that phase comes with. It’s already done, in affect. I’m not so much chest thumping now.
I hope I can go quietly and rightly. There is a process. Hare Krsna Hare Krsna Krsna Krsna Hare Hare Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare.
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