Sitting on the sandy bank of the Ganges, Radhanath Swami gazed into the cloudless blue sky. There, a hawk, wings extended, soared the airways. His reddish-brown feathers shone in the sun as he hovered lower and lower, till he was just a few yards above Radhanath’s head, his glistening yellow eyes intently scanning the river. Suddenly the hawk plunged headlong into the Ganges. There, a frantic underwater skirmish ensued until the hawk emerged with a flapping  fish, about a foot long, pierced in the grip of his talons. Squirming desperately, the fish was carried overhead and into a nearby forest.

Radhanath Swami recounts in his memoir The Journey Home:

Looking on I reflected, “The unsuspecting fish, who knew nothing but a life in the river, went about its routine like any other day, but in an instant was ripped out of its reality to meet with death. Like that fish, we routinely live our lives hardly aware that, at the least expected moment, the yellow-eyed hawk of fate in the form of crises, tragedy, or even death, may wrench us out of our comfortable environment. We regularly hear of it in the news or see it around us but rarely take seriously that it could happen to us. Perhaps the lesson here is to guard against complacency and give higher priority to our spiritual needs. If the fish swam deeper, the hawk would not be able reach it. Similarly, if we go deeper into our connection to God, we will find an inner reality so deep and so satisfying that it lifts the consciousness to a place where we could deal with the effects of unforeseeable fate with a stable, detached mind.”

During the course of his travels, Radhanath Swami had become quite attached to the spiritual books he carried. He had gradually gathered a small library in a cloth bag. Except for this heavy bag of books, his only possession was a begging bowl and a branch used as a walking stick. Many times he considered reducing the weight of this burden, but every time he looked through the books, trying to decide which ones to give away, he found he could not part with a single one.

Among them were the Bhagavad Gita, Bible, Upanishads, Autobiography of a Yogi, books on Buddhism, one by Shankaracarya, and the Krishna book personally given to him by Srila Prabhupada. Because each was special to him and he worried he might never find it again, he lugged this bag of books wherever he went, often exhausted from the load. Now, near Connaught Circus in New Delhi, he set the books down on a street corner. Auto rickshaws zoomed by spewing trails of black diesel smoke. Cars jammed the street, each trying to squeeze ahead of the other. Bicycle rickshaws, handcarts, and ox-driven bullocks moseyed by, while battered trucks blared their horns and blasted out clouds of carbon monoxide. Amid it all Radhanath Swami waited for the traffic light to turn green.

Suddenly, a man stormed at him, grabbed the back of his neck with a vice grip and stuck a metal stick into the hole of his ear. He gouged him deeply, scratching away painfully. Radhanath Swami shivered. Who is this man? What was he doing? Would he puncture his eardrum? The man kept gouging and Radhanath Swami found himself totally under his control, afraid to move. Next, he released Radhanath Swami’s neck, yanked the metal out from his ear, and held it up for him to see. Attached to man’s stick was a big lump of earwax. Radhanath Swami was delighted, as he could hear better than he had in years, at least in one ear. The man then demanded one rupee as the price to clean the other ear. But Radhanath Swami had nothing. The man bargained but to no avail, leaving Radhanath Swami with a dirty ear.

Radhanath Swami says in his book, “I couldn’t believe it. I had no idea how filthy my ear had been until I felt what it was like to have it clean, especially compared to the other one. With a rueful smile, I drew a parallel to the spiritual journey. Perhaps, I thought:

The dirty wax of egotism accumulated in the heart prevents us from clearly hearing the Lord’s voice within. A guru, with the stick of knowledge, cleans our hearts. It’s really ugly to see what may come out, but by following patiently, we keep cleaning.

Another lesson I took from this experience was this:

Sometimes the Lord gives us a free sample of religious experience, but for more, we must pay a price with the currency of sincere dedication to the process of cleansing. My hearing was now like an unbalanced stereo system. I knew I had cleansing still to do, and on many levels.”

Radhanath Swami waited on the street corner until the traffic light turned green, but when he reached down to lift his bag of books—it was gone. He was frantic. He searched the four directions, running here and there, asking everybody around, but to no avail. He had to come to grips with the reality that his books had been stolen. Standing on that corner, he lamented.

These precious books enlightened me with knowledge and inspiration. They were an irreplaceable treasure in my life.
I received them from the benevolent hands of my teachers. My precious wealth has been ripped away.

Terribly sad, hopeless of their recovery, he walked away.

Radhanath Swami recollects in his memoir The Journey Home, “After taking a few steps, I became aware of how easy it had become to walk. The heavy burden that had troubled me for so long, the bag of books, was gone. Just as suddenly as I had felt despair, I felt liberated. Almost skipping, I reflected:

The nature of the mind is to interpret nonessentials essential. The mind creates artificial needs, believing it cannot live without them. In this way we carry a great burden of attachments throughout our life. Attachment is itself a great burden on our minds. We may never understand the extent of the burden till, like my books or the earwax, we’re free of it. But if we find joy within, we can live a simple life, free of endless complications.

I had begun to develop an attachment to finding the right path and teacher by my own will. Paradoxically, I now understood that in order to truly find what I was seeking, I needed to be detached and sincere. Whatever obstacles I was to encounter along the way would serve, I hoped, to bring me to ultimate freedom.”

“Our Little Richie is sweet, but so strange,” Radhanath Swami’s parents would often say when he was small. “Why is he like this?”  Radhanath Swami had odd habits. No one had any idea where they came from.

Until Radhanath Swami was eight or nine years old, he refused to sit in chairs while eating and preferred to sit on the floor, which his parents forbade. As a compromise, Radhanath Swami was allowed to stand at the dinner table, even in restaurants. It was a common occurrence for waitresses to ask if they could bring him a chair. “He doesn’t believe in chairs,” Radhanath Swami’s mother would reply with a shrug of her shoulders.

While Radhanath Swami’s parents took great care with their appearance, always dressing neatly and well, Radhanath Swami’s mother had to wash his new clothes again and again until they looked old before he agreed to wear them. When they bought new shoes for Radhanath Swami, he scraped them with rocks till they looked worn. Whenever his parents had a new car, Radhanath Swami squeezed onto the floor of the back seat until the car wasn’t new anymore.

Having better things than others made Radhanath swami feel embarassed. He idolized the poor and downtrodden. Once, Radhanath Swami’s father took the family to dinner at the local country club. Radhanath Swami disrupted everything by suddenly rushing from the table and out the door because he couldn’t bear to be served by the busboy who was his classmate. When Radhanath Swami’s Grandpa Bill found him sitting alone in the car, Radhanath Swami explained his feelings. “It’s all right, Little Richie,” Bill said. “You did the right thing. I’m proud of you.”

Radhanath Swami’s father’s father, William “Bill” Slavin, left a deep impression on Radhanath Swami’s life. His loving nature reflected the deep-rooted belief he had in his religion. Radhanath swami was fascinated to observe the quiet, unassuming way he tried to harmonize his old-world traditions with life in America. Often, Radhanath Swami would catch him praying softly to himself at family mealtimes as the rest of his family went about eating all around him.

When Radhanath Swami reached the age to enter Hebrew School, his father could not afford to send him. Still, he strived to give Radhanath Swami the best he could. When Radhanath Swami turned thirteen, he approached Rabbi Lipis to ask for a simple Bar Mitzvah to bless him. The stately, silver-haired Rabbi readily tutored Radhanath Swami in the basic prayers free of charge.

One day Radhanath swami asked him, “Rabbi, could you explain to me the meaning of these prayers?”

Tears welled in Rabbi’s soft brown eyes and he embraced Radhanath Swami. In his old-world Yiddish accent, his voice cracked with emotion, he told Radhanath Swami, “Little Richie, I’m satisfied with your sincerity to understand the meaning of this ceremony. It is becoming rare.”

“Rabbi, how should I pray?”asked Radhanath Swami.

A wide grin expanded across Rabbi’s square, slightly wrinkled face. Radhanath Swami felt sheltered by the Rabbi’s affection. Something, Radhanath Swami believed, every child needed.

“In the Talmud,” the Rabbi said, “a book on Jewish law written by Rabbis thousands of years ago, it is taught that it is better to pray to God for the strength to overcome temptations, difficulties, and doubts in order to do His will, rather than to pray for Him to do our will.”