Kalachandji Das - Aindra: Kirtan Revolution

Kirtan Revolution

Copyright 2022 Carl Herzig (Kalachandji das) All rights reserved.

For further contact: Yadav Jani (Yadavendra Das) yadavrjani@gmail.com www.24hourkirtan.com

isbn 978-0-9995419-8-2

Published in the United States by Inword Publishers
Gainesville, FL
www.InwordPublishers.com

Book design and layout by Eight Eyes eighteyes.com
Genre: Biography & Autobiography / Religious

Preface vii

A personality like Aindra Prabhu cannot be described in one book. Meditative and explosive, serious and comic, shy and outrageous, simple and complex; a dedicated and expert musician, scholar, pujari, krtanya (kirtan leader), teacher, and disciple, Aindra was a composite of diverse, even contradictory qualitiesand often misunderstood. But he was always intense. And not merely different, but uniqueseeming to be not of this world or bound by it.

Whatever ones view of Aindras ideas, his potency cant be denied, and even today he remains a leader on the front line of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhus sankrtana movement, his kirtans touching hearts and transforming lives around the world, continuing to attract people to and support them in Krishna consciousness.

Many contributors helped produce this volume. Akincana Krishna das and a team of devotees conducted hundreds of hours of interviews; Vraja Kishor das drafted an early version; and Yadavendra das coordinated the project. Multiple readers offered comments, corrections, and suggestions or otherwise participated in the years-long effort.

Contained herein are stories told from the range of perspectives by individuals who interacted with Aindra Prabhu at different stages of his life. It is far from exhaustive and makes no claim to be the sole, definitive version. There are many, many inspiring and instructive stories about Aindra not included, and readers are encouraged to share their own experiences and views of his life, teachings, and influence.

Likewise, a great cast of characters played roles in Aindras story.
vii viii PREFA CE

Some may seem more prominent in this book because they are more extensively quoted, but as many as are mentioned in this account, even more are notand among them some of Aindras closest associates. Requests to not be included have been honored; other omissions are without intention. But none diminish any of those devotees importance or contribution to Aindrasand Srila Prabhupadasmission.

After Aindras departure, one senior devotee reflected, In order to understand Aindra Prabhu, first you have to love him. It is my hope that this volume will help readers get to know Aindra as a person and as a devoteeto come to love himand gain a clearer vision of him as an exemplar of dedication to chanting the Holy Names in kirtan and japa , maintaining ones spiritual vows, following the instructions of and remaining faithful to the spiritual master, reading books by Srila Prabhupada and the Vaishnava acharyas, serving Srila Prabhupadas Society, and reestablishing the practice of hari-nma-sakrtana .

In service to and for the pleasure of the Vaishnavas, I beg the readers forgiveness for any errors or offenses and humbly offer this volume at the feet of Sri Sri Radha-Shyamasundar, who daily cast Their munificent gaze and bestow Their blessings on the dedicated participants in Krishna-Balaram MandirsAindras24-hour kirtan.

Kalachandji das (Carl Herzig) May 15, 2021
PART
ONE

H EY, JULIE CALLED as she walked in, youre into spiritual things. Well, get a load of this !

Eddie was sitting on the floor, his long red hair draped around him. Julie tossed a paperback into his lap.
It was 1972, December. Eddie was only nineteen, but hed been reading spiritual books, like Ram Dasss Be Here Now , for a few years, searching, he said, for truth.
On the books cover was a painting of a beautiful, blue-skinned youth bejeweled and garlanded with flowers, standing waist-deep in an ocean beneath a cowl of hooded cobras, four arms aloft holding a conch shell, a lotus flower, a mace, and, encircling a raised finger, what looked like a ring of pure energy. Ornate lettering spelled out the title, r opaniad , and below was the authors name: His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada.
Eddie knew where Julie must have gotten it. The Hare Krishnas were all over, he later remembered. You ran into them wherever you went. Hed met the Krishna devotees a couple years before, singing and dancing out on the streets of downtown Washington D.C., and they had given him another paperback, Beyond Birth and Death , with a macabre cover image of a skull with a lotus flower growing out of its eye socket. Hed been intrigued but hadnt gotten very far into it. I was taken aback when I read in the first paragraph that we are not these bodies, he later remembered. And Prabhupada said that it was easier said than done, harder to realize than it sounded. So I shelved it and didnt read any more... it was just too heavy for me to deal with at the time.
He had met the devotees again that fall, at a demonstration against the Vietnam War. Playing gigs in local bars and clubs, hed developed a reputation as an emerging electric guitarist, and the band with whom he played lead guitar, Monolith, had recently opened for the popular rock group Iron Butterfly and had been invited to perform.
Hed been more into acoustic strumming, more as an accompaniment to sing by, one bandmate described. But there was a transformation when Eddie got behind that 56 Torino-red, white-pick-guard, triple-pickup Stratocaster. It was a sweetheart, and the sound he got out of that guitar was amazing. He was a rare talent. He would go into a trance, get in that zone. We had to make a recording so that he could hear himself, out of that consciousness. And then he started playing with sound on sound, having, like, a communion with his own playingyearning for perfection.
After their set, a friend had told Eddie that the devotees were in the crowd. You should check them out, shed said. Its your kind of thing. And he had followed her along a trail of incense that led to a circle of devotees playing hand cymbals and two-headed drums, singing their mantra.
One of them, a young woman in a sari, had handed him a magazine and a packet of incense, and hed given her all the money in his pocket: twenty-five cents. Hed thumbed through the magazine and giggled at a photo of the devotees unusual-looking guru. But when a devotee had explained their belief that God was a musician, a flute player, hed been impressed.
At seventeen, Eddie hadnt been able to absorb everything, but in the two years since, he had begun to take the idea of karma more seriously and had adopted a vegetarian diet. To cut what he had understood to be his bad karma to a minimum, hed reduced his diet to just a few figs a day. Normally, his brother John described, he was muscular, stout, chubby at times, but hed become gaunt, almost emaciated.