Notes from the Editor

Gifts and Gatherings

A GROUP OF TEENAGE KIDS have commandeered a full sixteen pages of this issue of Back to Godhead. And we’ve been glad to see them do it.

We’re not interested in hardcore music and youth scenes. But we are when they’re connected with Kṛṣṅa.

Because Kṛṣṅa is purely spiritual, everything linked with Kṛṣṅa becomes spiritualized. So, for example, we don’t care about battlefields—places where people go about killing one another.

But we’re interested in the Battlefield of Kurukṣetra because Lord Kṛṣṅa appeared there and spoke Bhagavad-gītā to His devotee Arjuna.

So it is that we’ve dedicated a large share of this BTG to Shelter, a Kṛṣṅa conscious rock band. We started with just a short article, but the kids (their word) had more and more to say. And what they were saying made sense, because these are not just kids—they’re philosophers and devotees.

Our thanks, then, to Bhakta Vic, Raghunātha Dāsa (Ray Cappo), and the other members of Shelter for what they’ve contributed to this issue of Back to Godhead—and to the youth of today.

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Thanks also to the many other devotees and readers who’ve been contributing to BTG.

BTG is your magazine, and we welcome you to take part in it. We thrive on your comments, your questions, your criticisms. We’re enlivened by your ideas and suggestions.

Writers, artists, photographers—we especially invite you to use your talents and skills for BTG. As the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam tells us, whatever gifts we have reach their highest perfection when offered for the Absolute Truth.

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Our “Gatherings” feature, started in our last issue, is growing quickly.

I myself have had the opportunity to visit several of the gatherings listed, and I can say from my own experience what a pleasure they are.

It’s a pleasure to get together with devotees who’ve taken what they’ve learned from Śrīla Prabhupāda and put it into practice in their homes. And I’m sure it’s a pleasure for them to share it with others.

Of special appeal to me at many of these meetings is the mixture I find of devotees from India, devotees from the West, and the Western-born sons and daughters of Indian families. At gatherings like these, the Western devotees deepen their feel for the value of the Vedic customs and culture. The Indian devotees feel inspired by the Kṛṣṅa consciousness of their Western friends. And the Western-born Indians get a lift from both sides.

Ultimately, we find, “Western” and “Indian” don’t really matter at all. When we chant Hare Kṛṣṅa we forget who we supposedly are and enjoy serving together in our true identity as spiritual souls.

I’m delighted that Back to Godhead is able to spread the word of these spiritual gatherings. This is precisely the sort of networking for which a magazine like this is ideal.

—Jayādvaita Swami