Wrestling for Krishna: A Meditation Teacher’s Journey
April 23, 2013 (VNN) – by Sarvabhauma Dasa via Back To Godhead Magazine
How inspiration to become a devotee of Krishna came from two unlikely sources: an interest in wrestling, and words from the founder of Transcendental Meditation.
As a student, I competed in the sport of wrestling for eight years, from 1963 to 1971, but happiness eluded me. In high school, even when I won the California Interscholastic Federation championship at 123 pounds, I felt strangely empty inside. At the University of California at Berkeley, wrestling was a diversion, but I couldn’t forget the Vietnam War and the countless problems that hung over my generation.
Seeking inner peace and satisfaction, I learned meditation while in college. After graduation I trained to be a teacher of Transcendental Meditation (TM) and taught it for a few years. One day at a meditation retreat in Murren, Switzerland, five thousand feet high in the Alps, I saw a two-volume, cloth-bound translation of the Srimad-Bhagavatam published by the Gita Press, Gorakhpur, India. Curious, I opened one of the books somewhere in the middle and read.
A wrestler named Canura was addressing Krishna and Balarama.
O son of Nanda, O Rama, You two are well respected by courageous men and are both skillful at wrestling. Having heard of Your prowess, the King [Kamsa] has called You here, wanting to see for himself. . . . It is well known that cowherd boys are always joyful as they tend their calves, and that the boys playfully wrestle with each other while grazing their animals in the various forests.
—Srimad-Bhagavatam 10.43.32, 34 (BBT translation)
Since I identified myself as a wrestler, chancing upon this particular passage about Lord Krishna’s affection for wrestling—my first experience of the Bhagavatam—was a real coincidence. Previously God had seemed distant or unreachable, but now at the retreat visions of wrestling with Krishna sometimes appeared in my meditations. Imaginary or real, these encounters were ecstatic, altogether different from grappling with ordinary human beings.
At the retreat’s conclusion I passed through the Swiss resort town of Interlaken, where Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, TM’s founder, was giving a lecture.
When I entered the hall, the bearded Indian teacher declared, “TheBhagavata Purana [Srimad-Bhagavatam] is the topmost Vedic literature.”
I left Switzerland and moved into a meditation center in Marin County, northern California, but my enthusiasm to teach meditation was waning.
Then I thought, Why not read the book Maharishi had praised?
It was late summer, and I camped out on a friend’s wooded land in the foothills of the Sierra Mountains. After about a month, when I completed the Bhagavatam I began to understand that real perfection lies in devotional service to Lord Krishna, not siddhis (mystic powers), fame, materialistic religiosity, sense enjoyment, or even liberation.
