…ITH ME, BE THOU MY DEVOTEE, WORSHIP ME AND BOW DOWN TO ME; THUS, STEADFASTLY UNITING THY HEART WITH ME ALONE AND REGARDING ME AS THY SUPREME GOAL, THOU SHALT COME UNTO ME. May John now find peace at the right hand of his guru, Swami Pavitrananda. …
…n composed music for the weekly service. The choir book is filled with his compositions. He studied Indian music and his compositions often showed an Indian quality. With his musical gifts he was able to put to notation the many Indian songs he heard here and in India. The choir book is also full of them. He also created original music for the 4th of July Vivekananda festival every year since from its inception in 1961 to 2013, 52 years. After com…
…’s nothing I can add, except that he was an unusually understanding, wise, compassionate, and diplomatic editor. I developed an enormous amount of respect for him, and consider him a saint. I gather from various sources that he was treated rather shabbily in his later years by the power structure at the Vedanta Society of New York (West Side center), and if that is true, I find it lamentable. Saints and power structures often have problems — see M…
…ing editor of ‘American Vedantist’ (AV) magazine published by Vedanta West Communications. It was funny, how I felt like I was one of “Charlie’s Angels” — a popular television show of the 1970s in which you never saw or met face to face the person in charge, but communicated to him by voice only! We discussed by phone the possible topics of my articles for AV and somehow, even on the phone, John came across as a very nice and easy to talk to kind…
…devotion to Vedanta. But it was not until I heard John perform some of his compositions live that I fell in love with his music. On Saturday, October 6, 2012, John was at the Vedanta Center as part of an in-town retreat on “Worship of the Divine Mother.” That afternoon, he gave a concert of songs appearing on his new album “All That Exists Art Thou.” (I teased John that I met him while he was doing his album promotion tour.) I was transfixed. I co…
