Cutting the Knot of Ignorance and Illusion 

Speaking vigorously in the Bowery loft, even until he becomes physically exhausted – sometimes shouting, sometimes pleading, sometimes laughing – he gives his audience as much as he feels they can take.  As the emissary of Krishna in the disciplic succession, he can boldly shout that everyone should dovetail with the Supreme.  He can speak as strongly as he likes for as long as they are willing to listen.  He is a sadhu (the Sanskrit word means “saint” and “one who cuts”) and he repeats the same message that for thousands of years sadhus of the original Vedic culture have spoken.  He is reviving the eternal spirit of Vedic wisdom – to cut the knots of ignorance and illusion.

Everything is illusion.  From the beginning of our birth.  And that illusion is so strong it is very difficult to get out of.  The whole thing is illusion.  Birth is illusion.  The body is illusion.  The bodily relationship and the country are illusion.  The father is illusion.  The mother is illusion.  The wife is illusion.  The children are illusion.  Everything is illusion.  And we are contacting that illusion, thinking we are very learned and advanced.  We are imagining so many things.  But as soon as death comes – the actual fact – then we forget everything.  We forget our country.  We forget our relatives.  We forget our wife, children, father, mother.  Everything is gone.