Dear Devotees,

I will share with you an intimate and personal experience I had today.

Here in Davidson, after many days of uncomfortably warm weather, the weather is cool. The heat here is not really severe. But, I grew up in California near the cold ocean, and so I am used to cool, dry weather.

I went for a short walk to finish my last two rounds and chant noon Gayatri. The cool weather put me in a nostalgic mood, awakening deep feelings and memories of my childhood. Seeing some young people playing, riding bikes, intensified this feeling.

We practice buddhi-yoga, in which we connect to Krishna through objective reasoning. And so using my God-given buddhi, I clearly saw that I cannot go back to the past, because the past does not exist, only the present. Also, if I think seriously about the past, I will see how imperfect it was, even if present nostalgia wants to filter out all the unpleasant memories.

I then saw the obvious: I must go forward to Krishna. My material childhood was just an imperfect reflection of my eternal youth with Krishna. We will live eternally in a perfect world with young Krishna and His perfect, beautiful boyfriends and girlfriends. And so the nostalgia of this day pushed me forward to Krishna, not back to an imperfect past that no longer exists.

With best wishes,
Hridayananda das Goswami
September 14, 2014