Ask the Author: Bhakta Jim
Answered Questions (9)
Bhakta Jim
There are many fictional worlds I've enjoyed reading about, but I'd have to say the only one I could imagine myself living in is the one Donald E. Westlake created for his Dortmunder novels. I'd be a member of the gang. I'm reasonably handy with computers. Maybe they could use someone like that.
Bhakta Jim
I'm going to finish Ramesh Menon's translation of the Bhagavata Purana. I'm about halfway through at the moment.
I'm definitely going to read The Fall of Colossus and Colossus and the Crab by D.F. Jones.
I may read Monks in Manhattan by Jnanagamya Dasa. This is a novel by a current member of ISKCON. Back when I was involved with ISKCON I couldn't even read novels, let alone write them.
Vrinda Pendred's thoughtful review of Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin convinced me to buy the e-book, so that's on my list.
I will very likely read more of Donald Westlake's works, especially the humorous ones.
Finally, I hope to be reading for review a good draft of A Great Noise In The Welkins, my own second novel.
I'm definitely going to read The Fall of Colossus and Colossus and the Crab by D.F. Jones.
I may read Monks in Manhattan by Jnanagamya Dasa. This is a novel by a current member of ISKCON. Back when I was involved with ISKCON I couldn't even read novels, let alone write them.
Vrinda Pendred's thoughtful review of Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin convinced me to buy the e-book, so that's on my list.
I will very likely read more of Donald Westlake's works, especially the humorous ones.
Finally, I hope to be reading for review a good draft of A Great Noise In The Welkins, my own second novel.
Bhakta Jim
While there aren't any mysteries in my own life like that, I've come within spitting distance of some dillies.
Back in the late 1970's I was involved with the Hare Krishna movement. The movement had lost its founder shortly after I started attending the Sunday evening programs. The founder had turned over the running of the movement to a small group of followers, who initiated disciples on his behalf. With his death these men considered themselves his successors and wanted to be treated as the founder had been treated, basically as worshipable on the same level as Krishna. To deserve this they needed to be on the spiritual plane, without the desires and weaknesses that ordinary devotees of Krishna had. That made them gurus.
I had direct experience with two of these men. One of them, named Jayatirtha, lived in England, and since our temple was in Chicago we didn't see him that much. That was probably a good thing. While the rules of the movement forbid of from using any drugs, including chocolate and cola, this guru frequently used LSD. He thought himself the reincarnation of Jesus and was murdered and beheaded by a follower who thought he was the Antichrist.
Before that happened he had given up control of the Chicago temple to another guru named Tamal Krishna Goswami, who came to live with us full time. This guru had taken care of the founder in the months before his death, and some devotees today believe his care may have hastened that passing. I have no reason to believe that.
Another rumor about Tamal Krishna was that he had led another devotee to commit suicide. I knew this devotee. He had been a teacher in the temple for the newer devotees and had taken a vow of lifetime celibacy. The story goes that Tamal Krishna had told this devotee that he needed to consider the new gurus as equal in every way to the founder, and if he did not he could not go to the spiritual world after dying. This devotee then committed suicide.
What Tamal Krishna was supposed to have told him is plausible, but the idea of this devotee committing suicide for any reason is hard for me to accept. Certainly the movement did not approve of suicide.
There were many other scandals in the world of the Hare Krishnas back then, and they have been well documented.
Back in the late 1970's I was involved with the Hare Krishna movement. The movement had lost its founder shortly after I started attending the Sunday evening programs. The founder had turned over the running of the movement to a small group of followers, who initiated disciples on his behalf. With his death these men considered themselves his successors and wanted to be treated as the founder had been treated, basically as worshipable on the same level as Krishna. To deserve this they needed to be on the spiritual plane, without the desires and weaknesses that ordinary devotees of Krishna had. That made them gurus.
I had direct experience with two of these men. One of them, named Jayatirtha, lived in England, and since our temple was in Chicago we didn't see him that much. That was probably a good thing. While the rules of the movement forbid of from using any drugs, including chocolate and cola, this guru frequently used LSD. He thought himself the reincarnation of Jesus and was murdered and beheaded by a follower who thought he was the Antichrist.
Before that happened he had given up control of the Chicago temple to another guru named Tamal Krishna Goswami, who came to live with us full time. This guru had taken care of the founder in the months before his death, and some devotees today believe his care may have hastened that passing. I have no reason to believe that.
Another rumor about Tamal Krishna was that he had led another devotee to commit suicide. I knew this devotee. He had been a teacher in the temple for the newer devotees and had taken a vow of lifetime celibacy. The story goes that Tamal Krishna had told this devotee that he needed to consider the new gurus as equal in every way to the founder, and if he did not he could not go to the spiritual world after dying. This devotee then committed suicide.
What Tamal Krishna was supposed to have told him is plausible, but the idea of this devotee committing suicide for any reason is hard for me to accept. Certainly the movement did not approve of suicide.
There were many other scandals in the world of the Hare Krishnas back then, and they have been well documented.
Bhakta Jim
Steed and Emma from the TV show The Avengers. You could argue that they aren't a couple because they aren't romantically involved, but I wouldn't.
Couples that have been together a long time are more interesting than those just starting out.
Couples that have been together a long time are more interesting than those just starting out.
Bhakta Jim
When I was in ISKCON (the Hare Krishna movement) our zonal acharya told us that there would be a devastating atomic war in 1979, two years after Srila Prabhupada's death, and that our religion would be the dominant one for those who survived. At the time I thought that if you wanted to write a science fiction novel about the Hare Krishna movement you could come up with a better story than that.
Thirty or so years later I started thinking about machine consciousness and how if something like that came to exist it would invalidate every teaching in the Bhagavad Gita, the most important scripture the movement had. I wondered if there was an intelligent way for a Hare Krishna devotee to react to that discovery. (There are of course any number of unintelligent ways for a religious person to react to a scientific discovery, but I've never found them interesting).
Writing the story made me think like a devotee again.
Thirty or so years later I started thinking about machine consciousness and how if something like that came to exist it would invalidate every teaching in the Bhagavad Gita, the most important scripture the movement had. I wondered if there was an intelligent way for a Hare Krishna devotee to react to that discovery. (There are of course any number of unintelligent ways for a religious person to react to a scientific discovery, but I've never found them interesting).
Writing the story made me think like a devotee again.
Bhakta Jim
I am currently revising a book that is already published, Shree Krishna and the Singularity. I worked on the original until I thought it was as good as I could make it. A few months after I published it I got a three star review from another author saying it was a great idea that needed LOTS of work. I corresponded with that author until I understood the kind of work it needed and how to do it, and that is what I am working on now.
After publishing my first novel I started a second one titled A Great Noise In The Welkins but that is on hold until my first novel is completely revised. Those few who purchased the original will be able to get the updated e-book for free, which is one of the nice things about self-publishing on Amazon.
After publishing my first novel I started a second one titled A Great Noise In The Welkins but that is on hold until my first novel is completely revised. Those few who purchased the original will be able to get the updated e-book for free, which is one of the nice things about self-publishing on Amazon.
Bhakta Jim
If you want to write fiction read the books by Jack Woodford. Many, many authors have learned the trade by reading those books. Woodford was not a great writer, but he knew how to teach the craft better than anyone.
Hemingway gave advice which I like, which is "Write drunk, edit sober." I take this to mean that you need to write the story without thinking about what the reader will think of you, but do think of that when you do your other drafts.
Finally, don't quit your day job.
Hemingway gave advice which I like, which is "Write drunk, edit sober." I take this to mean that you need to write the story without thinking about what the reader will think of you, but do think of that when you do your other drafts.
Finally, don't quit your day job.
Bhakta Jim
If you start writing with the idea that you want to live like Richard Castle you're probably going to be disappointed. Realistically, you're probably not going to get rich, or even make enough to quit your day job. Ray Bradbury said that his wife took a vow of poverty to marry him.
The best thing about being a writer is the writing. If you do it right your characters seem to act on their own, and the only way for you to know what they're going to do is to write it down as they do it. It's like your characters are telling you their story. It took me years to get to the point that my characters actually started to do that. I think the trick was that I was actually writing a story that I would have wanted to read if it had been written by somebody else.
The best thing about being a writer is the writing. If you do it right your characters seem to act on their own, and the only way for you to know what they're going to do is to write it down as they do it. It's like your characters are telling you their story. It took me years to get to the point that my characters actually started to do that. I think the trick was that I was actually writing a story that I would have wanted to read if it had been written by somebody else.
Bhakta Jim
Back in 1980 I had just gotten out of the Hare Krishna movement through deprogramming. A woman I cared about was still in the movement and I wanted to get her out. There were a lot of things going on in my head and I decided to write a memoir of my experiences and try to get it published. I wrote a rough draft on a manual typewriter and made copies for some friends but I never could bring myself to revise it for publication, and I figured that there wasn't likely to be much interest from publishers in a book like that anyway, so I put the manuscript in a box and ignored it for thirty years.
I got involved with the One Laptop Per Child project and ended up writing a book on computer programming aimed at children and their teachers. This was a fun project so I looked for something else I could write for OLPC and came up with the idea of writing a manual for making e-books. In the process of researching the subject I learned about Optical Character Recognition and realized that I had a way to turn my old manuscript into something that could be edited with a word processor. I had published my OLPC books using Create Space and realized that I could publish the memoir the same way.
The memoir needed a lot of work. Thirty years had passed and ISKCON was a different movement than it was in 1979. I decided to revise the original text and add a commentary to it from the point of view of someone looking back at his wasted youth. The result was The Life And Times Of Bhakta Jim and while it has not had a wide readership it has gotten some positive reviews on Amazon.
After that I decided to try my hand at fiction and I'm still working on that.
I got involved with the One Laptop Per Child project and ended up writing a book on computer programming aimed at children and their teachers. This was a fun project so I looked for something else I could write for OLPC and came up with the idea of writing a manual for making e-books. In the process of researching the subject I learned about Optical Character Recognition and realized that I had a way to turn my old manuscript into something that could be edited with a word processor. I had published my OLPC books using Create Space and realized that I could publish the memoir the same way.
The memoir needed a lot of work. Thirty years had passed and ISKCON was a different movement than it was in 1979. I decided to revise the original text and add a commentary to it from the point of view of someone looking back at his wasted youth. The result was The Life And Times Of Bhakta Jim and while it has not had a wide readership it has gotten some positive reviews on Amazon.
After that I decided to try my hand at fiction and I'm still working on that.
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