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“Prabhupäda: (sound of bird chirping) …take the fruits and singing morning. They are happier.

Just see the birds and bees. They have no anxiety for maintaining the body or fulfilling the necessities of life. Early in the morning they are not anxious. They dawn and they chirp and they fly to somewhere, in any tree, and the fruit is there. A little fruit, that is sufficient. And that is eating. And sleeping? Any tree, they’ll sit down on the top and sleep. “

Bhagavad-gita 16.11-12 – Hawaii, February 7, 1975

“The first chirps of the waking day birds mark the “point vierge” [the virgin point] of the dawn under a sky as yet without real light, a moment of awe and inexpressible innocence, when the Father in perfect silence opens their eyes. They begin to speak to Him, not with fluent song, but with an awakening question that is their dawn state, their state at the “point vierge.” Their condition asks if it is time for them to “be.” He answers “Yes.” Then, they one by one wake up, and become birds. They manifest themselves as birds, beginning to sing. Presently they will be fully themselves, and will even fly.

“Here is an unspeakable secret: paradise is all around us and we do not understand. It is wide open. The sword is taken away, but we do not know it: we are off “one to his farm and another to his merchandise.” Lights on. Clocks ticking. Thermostats working. Stoves cooking. Electric shavers filling radios with static. “Wisdom,” cries the dawn deacon, but we do not attend.”

Thomas Merton. Conjectures of A Guilty Bystander. New York: Doubleday, 1966: 131-132 Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1968: 18-19

“Prabhupada: (Sounds of birds singing) Just see how. What is this?

Tamala Krsna: That’s the bird that was singing. [break]

Prabhupada: …there? A small bird!”

July 28, 1975, San Diego