{"id":173,"date":"2022-05-22T04:12:37","date_gmt":"2022-05-22T04:12:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/poetrybyjayanta.com\/?p=173"},"modified":"2022-05-22T07:24:35","modified_gmt":"2022-05-22T07:24:35","slug":"173","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/poetrybyjayanta.com\/?p=173","title":{"rendered":"Going Back"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<pre class=\"wp-block-preformatted\">I walked through downtown Brooklyn streets, in these days converted into upscale homes, looking for the site of my inspiration fifty years earlier. It was an eerie moment, finding the place of so much excitement but also turmoil in my life. It had existed in memory as a collection of strong experiences, waiting for the time they would have a place in my life again.\n\n<em>These universes are understood to be floating in the air that Mah\u0101-Vi\u1e63\u1e47u exhales. They are like atomic particles that float in sunshine and pass through the holes of a screen. All these universes are thus created by the exhalation of Mah\u0101-Vi\u1e63\u1e47u, and when Mah\u0101-Vi\u1e63\u1e47u inhales, they re-enter His body. The unlimited opulences of Mah\u0101-Vi\u1e63\u1e47u are completely beyond material conception<\/em>. Chaitanya-caritamrta, Madhya 20.279-80 Translation of Srila Prabhupada\n\nEvery temple is a holy site, a <em>dham<\/em>, it is said.\nThe Brooklyn Radha Krishna temple,\n  Henry Street and Kane,\n  in some ways it is gone,\n  its Deities and congregation moved a half-mile away\n  and its rooms converted into apartments for the young and rich.\nBut it remains a vortex, at the center of swirling memory,\n   claiming pieces and moments of the inner world I thought was mine.\n\nDriving by on the city highway,\n   I always glance that way,\n   and the brownstone area is still\n   awash in incense and leaping devotees\n   and it is always summer in hot New York streets.\n\nWhen cold breezes come through open windows\n  wherever I am, \n  I recall the temple in winter,\n  heavy wool socks and longjohns under <em>dhotis<\/em>,\n  and it is always a dark morning,\n  streets sunless with their frozen trash.\n\nStill I hear it,\n  before dawn \n  the young golden boy waving his brass bell,\n  past every cot and blanket.\n  A kid born there and capable of delivering wisdom,\n chiding and warning - \n \u201cSleep is ignorance.\u201d\n\nBut such things are not lost, \n   and we are permitted to remember our dreams\n   until they exist again.\n\n\n\n<\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I walked through downtown Brooklyn streets, in these days converted into upscale homes, looking for the site of my inspiration fifty years earlier. It was an eerie moment, finding the place of so much excitement but also turmoil in my life. It had existed in memory as a collection of strong experiences, waiting for the&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-173","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poems"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/poetrybyjayanta.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/poetrybyjayanta.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/poetrybyjayanta.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poetrybyjayanta.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poetrybyjayanta.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=173"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/poetrybyjayanta.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":182,"href":"https:\/\/poetrybyjayanta.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173\/revisions\/182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/poetrybyjayanta.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poetrybyjayanta.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poetrybyjayanta.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}