The Little Blue Boy

Several devotees from various parts of the world have travelled to India, to find their Guru and inner peace. One such person – I am sure you may have heard or read – came to India to discover “the little blue boy – Lord Krishna”, from the United States.

Radhanath Swami was born as Richard Slavin in Chicago in 1950. At an early age he started to ponder on questions such as “Who am I and where am I going?”. In “The Journey Home” he describes his extraordinary expedition from the United States to Europe and then to India, over the land. In New Delhi, he had his first encounter with “the little blue boy”, whom he started to love at first sight.

The book is divided into four parts:

1. Journey to the East
2. Mother India
3. Himalayan Pilgrimage
4. Forest of Grace

The book has been endorsed by several great figures such as BKS Iyengar, the yoga guru, Saurav Ganguly, former Indian Cricket Team Captain, Ram Dass (Dr. Richard Alpert), Dr. David Frawley, and various celebrities, industrialists, scholars and university professors. The book also mentions various contemporary Spiritual Masters such as Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Srila Prabhupad, Swami Rama, Anandmayi Ma, J Krishnamurthy and Dalai Lama, with whom the author got a chance to interact with.

Following are some of the excerpts from the book:

1. Superficiality had no place in spiritual life. We must take personal responsibility. If we become overly attached to the externals, we may forget their very purpose: to purify the heart. (103)
2. Suddenly, from out of the stack of prints appeared a personality that attracted me like no other. He had a bluish complexion, wore a peacock feather in his crown, and played a flute while posing gracefully beside a river… Spontaneous tears filled my eyes. (105)
3. All sorrows come from the sense of I and mine. All sorrow is due to one’s keeping apart from God. (134)
4. (On Rasa dance) While the gopis live as cowherd maids, they embody the highest expression of the soul’s love for God, for please the Lord is their exclusive aspiration. This dance represents the most perfect intimacy between soul & God, free of any tinge of selfish desire but charged with fullest bliss. (260)
5. Let us take this microphone, for example. If it is used to sing songs about mundane passion, it is material. If, however, it is used to sing the glories of the Lord, it is spiritual. (319)
6. Perhaps this idea of detachment is just another product of self-deceiving ego, inducing me to feel superior to others. (319)
7. The name Krishna means all-attractive. He is all attractive because he is the reservoir of all beauty, knowledge, strength, wealth, fame and renunciation. (320)

It is a really beautiful book; it will make you fall in love with Lord Krishna. The author was lucky to have received spiritual lessons from Srila Prabhupad. The book is a fast read with 350 pages and can be read like a novel. It has several beautiful pictures of various sages, saints and seers of India.

I will humbly request to grab a copy as soon as possible and read it.