Tribute for Taru (written for a memorial held by his family)
Dear Friends,
I say friends not because we have ever
met, but because of the close friendship
I had with your intimate relative and
friend, a kind soul I knew as “Taru”:
devotee, writer, public speaker,
humorist, ascetic and a true lover of the
Supreme Lord. I dare say that my
knowledge and appreciation of Taru
differs considerably from yours simply
because of our varied perspectives. You,
of course, knew him as a close relative,
someone you grew up with and loved, or
nurtured into adulthood by your good
guidance and love. Others of you were his
contemporaries in companionship and
again, dare I say, love. But as Taru
matured into manhood his interests and
attentions were diverted. He (seemed to)
began to distance himself from your love,
and he sought his love elsewhere. And
this, I know, must have broken your
hearts. Where was your dear Tom? Why had
he gone off to some commune in the back
hills of West Virginia? Did we do
something wrong?
Well, let me set your mind and fond
memories as ease. All of your nurturing
loves combined to develop the most
magnificent, benevolent, and spiritually
advanced Taru, who was my dear friend.
Today’s society places little value on
those traits of character which are truly
admirable for those seeking spiritual
advancement in this human form of life.
Too often we throw aside truthfulness,
austerity, cleanliness, and mercy for
greed, hypocrisy, deceitfulness and other
lustful ambitions which we will not
discuss on this auspicious occasion. But
Taru held the truly admirable
characteristics of saintly behavior like
a torch as he sough to find the essence
of all existence.
Although we are not here today to discuss
religious philosophy, I could not in good
conscience offer any homage to Taru
without glorifying what he held most dear
to his heart. So please give a moment of
your time to contemplate the essential
life teachings that Tom held so dear and
to which he dedicated his life. To this
end please allow me to crack open the
timeless transcendental teachings of
Vedic culture, in order to shed some
light on Taru’s truly saintly character.
Unknown to our culture, but commonly
accepted throughout time and the varied
universes, concrete spiritual direction
is available to all humanity in the
eternal spiritual instruction coming from
the Lord Himself. To that end Taru humbly
submitted to a bonafide spiritual
teacher, one who actually knew God
personally, His Divine Grace A.C.
Bhaktivedanta Swami, loving referred to
as Srila Prabhupada by his disciples.
Srila Prabhupada, a pure devotee of God
of the topmost stature, accepted Taru as
his disciple. And Taru accepted Srila
Prabhupada as his guru, his spiritual
instructor, and he took the instructions
of Srila Prabhupada as his very life and
soul. This was not done as some passing
fancy. He did not fall sway to some
charlatan swami. He was not conned into
some mindless cult, for you know his
determined character would never fall
prey to any cheap tricks when it came to
that thing he held most dear, true
knowledge - the absolute truth. Rather
Srila Prabhupada offered the topmost
knowledge of the soul and a simple
spiritual solution to the dilemma of
material existence, pure love of God
through complete immersion in God
consciousness by chanting the Lords holy
names. And of all Gods hundreds and
millions of names the name Krishna,
meaning “all attractive”, Rama meaning
“all powerful” and Hare “the one who
takes away all obstacles” are most
significant. Thus this practice of
spiritual realization is commonly
referred to as the Hare Krishna Movement,
for the followers chant
Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna
Krishna, Hare Hare
Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare
Hare
to attain spiritual perfection.
I know that if I were personally with you
today, many of you would approach and
ask, tell me about the time you spent
with Tom. What did you do? how did you
live? where did you live? what kept him
in a farm commune in West Virginia
instead of studying at the university or
working in a profession? So let me
provide a small glimpse into those days
on the farm back in the ’70s.
Our lives were very austere and simple. I
would imagine your conception of a monks
lifestyle in a monastery would not be too
far off, except I truly doubt that monks
enjoy their spiritual practice a fraction
of the extent that we enjoyed our
experience as young men in Krishna
Consciousness. We were truly thrilled
daily, as we seriously worked to purify
our minds and existence by the simple
process of devotional service to God. Now
don’t get me wrong, giving up the carnal
pleasure of material life is no walk in
the park, but when the going got rough we
took shelter of the good guidance and
saintly association of those who were
more spiritually advanced and steady. And
that’s where Taru shined. He was fully
convinced of the significance of
spiritual advancement and determined to
take full advantage of its benefits. His
spiritual guidance was much sought after.
It was as if he had been doing this for
lifetimes, which from his shared
realizations I have no doubt that he had.
Oh, did I mention, one of the fundamental
understandings of Krishna consciousness
is that we are eternal souls and are
subject to reincarnation until we become
fully spiritually realized.
So back to life on the farm. We got up
every morning very, very, very early. And
after rising at such a Godly hour
(another belief of Krishna consciousness
here, early morning is the absolute best
time to make spiritual advancement) we
proceeded to wash off the foggy mind and
dirty body with a nice cold (in winter
bitterly cold) shower. Now that got the
blood flowing, and we proceeded to the
community’s temple to sit in meditation.
Our meditation was not a silent staring
at the tip of he nose, nor contemplation
of the third eye or even looking at our
navel. We chanted Hare Krishna on beads,
absorbing our minds in the Lords Holy
names
Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna
Krishna, Hare Hare
Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare
Hare
This we did for a couple of hours, and
then we proceeded to worship at Radha and
Krishna’s altar by singing and dancing
together, this time we added musical
instruments as we chanted.
And then you would look around and Tom
was gone. Yes, he would just vanish from
the temple and become an entirely
different personality, a young cowherd
boy. If you were to follow him you would
soon find him at the utters of cows,
filling bucket after bucket with fresh
warm milk. Later that kind offering from
mother cow would be skimmed of its creamy
butter, cultured for fresh yogurt, the
butter clarified for ghee that was used
to fry breads and vegetables. You can’t
imagine all the wonderful and fully
nourishing foods from the milk the cows
so graciously provided through Tom’s
loving service. I feel another belief
coming on, yes, yes there it is - we
observed a diet of strict vegetarian fare
of fresh vegetables, fruits, grains and
milk products. These were all prepared
with love and devotion and offered to God
for His pleasure and later relished at
meals as Krishna prasadam (mercy). We
will return to this a little later.
As the day progressed, Taru spent much of
his time reading scripture and writing
wonderful articles for the local
community journal The Brijabasi Spirit.
He and I would also do graphic layout and
camera work together to prepare this
monthly publication. Taru was involved in
so many varied services at New Vrindaban
Community that I can’t even recount them
all. But there was not a moment of his
valuable time that he did not use fully
in spiritual service. As I said, he was a
true saint.
During the summer months I had the
pleasure of sporting with Taru in the
late afternoon at the local bathing pond.
This spiritual reservoir was named Radha
Kunda and provided not only relief from
the summer heat and ones daily fatigue,
but also washed us of any offenses in our
spiritual practice. The significance of
this bathing ghat (pond) is beyond the
scope of this presentation, however, let
me just say it was a transcendental
experience millions of times more
enlivening than just a swim in the lake.
And Tom very much enjoyed this.
You are certainly aware that in most
spiritual disciplines a celibate life is
accepted by the highest order. For Taru
this was certainly the case. For a very
short time he was married to one of the
most celebrated, beautiful, and
spiritually advanced young ladies in the
community. But his fixed determination to
exclusively dedicate everything to
spiritual advancement made it difficult
for him to see the significance of a
spiritual union in marriage. This union
was unfortunately very short lived.
Before I conclude there is one other very
amazing characteristic of Taru which I
must mention - his HUGE appetite,
actually it was voracious. Now I touched
upon earlier the fact that as devotees we
only eat food that has first been
lovingly prepared for the Lord’s
enjoyment. By this humble approach of
only eating what God has first tasted,
one’s eating transforms into the taking
of a holy sacrament. Once this holy food
becomes available to the devotees, it is
called prasadam, meaning “the Lord’s
mercy”. And it not only nourishes the
body, but it also purifies one’s
existence due to the spiritual touch of
the Supreme Lord. Taru absolutely LOVED
this manifestation of the Lord’s mercy.
He, like a lovesick teenager, was so
smitten with prasadam that he would
embark upon countless adventures in his
pursuit of his heart’s desire. I will not
even try to recount these adventures
myself, as Taru himself has personally
written a series of articles entitled
“Confessions of a Prasadam Addict.” I beg
you to please take a few minutes out of
your busy lives and personally associate
with Tom through these writings of his.
This will truly bring great joy to your
heart and a hugh smile to your face,
maybe even an uncontrollable laugh to
your being, and you will certainly enter
into his intimate association through
these wonderful articles.
Although Taru accepted and embraced a
lifestyle of spiritual discipline quite
contrary to our western ways, and
although he threw aside all that we often
value and cherish, and even more personal
to you, although he may have seemed to
have push aside YOUR love for him, this
was certainly not the case. Rather, by
enveloping himself in determined (and let
me tell you Taru was the most determined)
devotional service to the Supreme, he was
truly offering the very essence of his
eternal love to both you and all of
humanity. Such a truly saintly character
is hardly ever seen in today’s world.
Well, as I said, Taru was truly as saint
among men. He was that rare pearl that
only every hundreds of years washes upon
the shore with the trillions of grains of
sand. More I cannot say least he take
offense at my praise out of his profound
humility.
So among all these varied words, I hope
you have gained some insight that has
only increased your profound love for our
beloved Tom, and my dear friend Taru. I
was most fortunate to have had his divine
association and presence in my life. His
saintly character and determined example
of what it means to truly be a man of God
I hope will some day become that torch by
which I too may find a way to our beloved
Lord.
Thank you so very much.
Dulal Chandra dasa