Hare Krsna. All glories to the assembled devotees. All glories to Mother Kaulini.
Mother Kaulini’s passing was very difficult for me. I actually never fully recovered from her leaving GN, some years ago, and moving to Stuyvesant Falls. She is such an integral part of my “Gita nagari experience” because of my early years at GN.
I moved here from the Boston temple in the mid or late ‘80s. Without going into the history, at that time GN had more or less just collapsed from a large thriving community of perhaps 100 devotees, with tons of money, and lots of activities; to a mostly penniless, group of a handful of devotees, struggling just to maintain things. Yet, those were my happiest days ever in KC. Partly that was due to the fact that I was finally out of the city and living in the country, as I had wanted to do since I was a little kid. Partly it was because my sadhana and engagement in service was at a peak, unmatched before or since.
But the main reason was the strong family atmosphere in our small tight knit community. I did not think of it like that at the time, but we were just like a family, with all of the family archetypes. Svarga and Vegavati were the helpful and affectionate aunties. Suresvara was the scholarly uncle and advisor. Bhubrt was the competent and responsible uncle that made dynamite halava. And you know that uncle that shows up for Christmas dinner that everyone loves, and works hard, but is just slightly weird enough to make everyone a tiny bit uncomfortable.
That was Gudakesa. And Saci Suta was like my big brother. Although he was a little younger than me, he was guiding me as a new GN resident, and showing me the ropes; how to drive a tractor, herd the cows, shovel the manure, work really hard, and how to negotiate with Bhubrt to get money for farm supplies, and offering his friendship. To this day, he is probably the only rich person that I am not envious of. And the grand matriarch of our family was Mother Kaulini.
She was temple president, head of the kitchen, head pujari, head of the milking department, and was exactly like a loving mother to all of us. She kept everyone going by her orders, her begging, her preaching, her love, and especially her example. For some time I actually did not understand how she could be so devoted to such a struggling reduced project. Then a few years later, I got married, and was living in the temple before I got my own place. One time Mother Kaulini asked me to do some service, and I objected. She said, “Acarya, you have an obligation”. I didn’t like to hear that. As a new grhasta, I had tons of obligations, and resented her adding one more to my list, although I still surrendered and did what she asked of me. But in thinking about it over the months and years, I appreciated what she said. She had an extremely powerful sense of obligation to serving Srila Prabhupada, Radha Damodara, and all of the cows and devotees at GN, and that carried her through so many years of difficult service.
And Mother Kaulini, did not have a very easy life. First of all she was raising her son Rama, by herself. When I came to GN he was a teen in high school, and being a devotee kid in public school at that time was a lot harder than it is now. The necks then were even redder than they are now, and being a Krsna was ample cause for teasing and bullying, but Rama got through it on the strength of his tolerance, good looks, winning personality, and strength of character. Saci, who was very close with Rama, and I would sometimes hang out in his trailer, and he also had the only TV on the farm. But I swear, we just watched Jeopardy for its educational value, and the news of desert storm, and okay, a couple of times we watched Hee Haw.
Tell about first black kid in Juniata. Her love and concern for her son was obvious, and her happiness, pride, and relief, as he reached the various milestones of his life was clear. First graduating high school, then getting a job as a California Highway patrolman, becoming the body guard for Govenor Ahhnuld, and finally getting married and having a beautiful family, all gave her great satisfaction.
Her health was also a constant source of difficulty for her. She worked unceasingly and really hard for many years, but she was not what you would call a very strong or robust person. She was always very austere and skinny, and prone to colds and whatnot. And as the years went on the health issues compounded. Lyme disease, diabetes, that auto-immune problem, and finally and most devastating of all was the cancer diagnosis.
I would not say that these things never worried her or depressed her, but they never interfered with her core commitment to serving Srila Prabhupada and Krsna. Srila Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura explains this when discussing anyabhilasita sunyam. He says that anyabhilasa sunyam means devoid of all other desires, but anyabhilasita sunyam means, “Devoid of other desires, which are as deep-rooted as one’s nature.” In other words, due to emergencies, or the tribulations of material nature, different desires or concerns may come and go, just like when the Vrajavasis sometimes pray, “Krsna save me!”, or Srila Prabhupada being gored by a cow on the streets of Delhi, and wondering, “why is this happening to me.” None of this interferes with the devotees core identity and obligation to serve and love krsna.
Another difficulty was her position as manager at GN. She did not like managing, she did it because it had to be done. Nor did she have what one might consider to be qualities needed to be a manager, but she always did the needful, to the best of her abilities, and with love and respect for the devotees under her. I remember especially one time, years ago, when one crazy person was trying to hijack GN for his own purposes, and Mother Kaulini expressed how she was so disgusted, and so tired of the whole management thing, but her love for GN kept her vigilant and at the helm for many years despite that.
Maybe because of these difficulties, or maybe it was just her nature, she could sometimes be very grave in appearance. Has anyone seen the drawing of Kaulini that Jayadeva is working on? It captures that gravity perfectly. Bhakti rasamrta Sindhu describes how a devotee in bhava can be very deep and grave, so that their emotions are not very easily shown by external behavior, just like a great mountain in the ocean does not disturb the ocean at all. And a devotee can also be very sensitive and easily moved, like a pebble tossed into a puddle.
And cooking with Mother Kaulini and the other devotees was one of my favorite activities. I always tried to please her with my cooking, and some of the things I made, especially dahi vada, and chewda, she really liked. But it was also hard for me, because I like heat and chillis, and she had no tolerance. She used to do this weird thing where if a prep had too much chilli she would start sneezing. So sometimes she liked my cooking, sometimes she was say it was good but too hot, and sometimes she would just chastise me, like the time I made chilli pakora for an offering, and she bit into it not knowing what it was. And her own cooking was great. Her most famous wonderful prep is her besan laddu, but she was a great all around cook. The prep that sticks in my mind the most was deep fried eggplant and panir calzones for Rama’s birthday.
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