Update from Bhakti Ananda Goswami

UPDATE FROM BHAKTI ANANDA GOSWAMI Dated: November 20, 2012

Dear Friends, As you may know, our Dear Friend, David Ernest Wachter (DEWnada) has made and/or collected and made available online about 80 hours of audio recordings of my lectures, and of conversations with me. Due to DEW / David’s great efforts, these are available for free at

http://archive.org/search.php?query=bhakti%20ananda%20goswami%20AND%20mediatype%3Aaudio 

There are also many hours of old video recordings of my research, which were made by others, which should be collected, digitized and posted online. I do not presently know who has these many recordings. I have a few. 

There are also many hours of my LOST Marylhurst College Bachelor’s Degree and Goddard Graduate School Master’s Thesis history and theology research-related recordings that I still want to RE-DO, and hours of my devotional music and poetry, which have never been recorded before. 

When, from 1980 to 1983, I was doing the musicology portion of my PLE and Independent Studies Degree work, at the Catholic Marylhurst Colleg (University) in Lake Qswego, Oregon, USA, I updated my previous research into the history and theology of Catholic CAROLING, going all of the way back to the pre-historic worship of Rhoda-Kore (Radha) and Helios Kouros (Krishna) on Their Sacred Lotus (Nymphia) Island of Rhodes in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea. Related to this research I also did a musical and theological comparison of Gaudiya-Tradition related Vaishnava Hymns, with European High Church Hymnology, and my studies of American Negro Spirituals. As part of all this I did vocal performances of all three types of Sacred Music, with some of the Bajans and Spirituals accompanied by my own piano arrangements of the same. 

At the time I had a repertoire of over 100 such pieces, which I used to play in public at the ecumenical religious services that I conducted and participated in. By the time that I was doing my Marylhurst College Degree work, I was already having a lot of difficulty with my hands and voice, due to both injuries and high spinal PPS Post Polio Syndrome. Still I made it through my research work and performances and was given graduate-level credit for my efforts. Regrettably none of the old audio tapes of this College work from the early 1980s have survived, and my PPS neuro-muscular and old neck injury problems have led to a complexity of problems, including life-threatening central nervous system apnea, other cardio-vascular and respiratory illness, low oxygen brain damage, serious neuro-derm deterioration of my forearms and hands, which was so bad that for a year skin was sloughing-off of them up-to several times a day, and chronic voice and swallowing difficulties. After more than a year on antibiotics my arms finally healed, but the skin is very fragile now. 

Recently David (DEWnada) sent me a very nice computer-compatible digital recording devise, so that I could save typing time and energy and thus respond more to the many questions that I get, and so that I could record my devotional offerings of music and verse, and speak more on the hundreds of subjects that I have studied over the last 40+ years. This devise can upload recordings directly to facebook or to the Internet Archive site that DEW set-up for my ministry…

http://archive.org/search.php?query=bhakti%20ananda%20goswami%20AND%20mediatype%3Aaudio 

or my Youtube Channel (set-up for me by James), etc. My Father, Ralph Sherman can help me to make and upload the recordings, but unfortunately my voice and swallowing problems have continued to be much worse this last year and getting worse each month. This is why my Family Doctor (since the 1970s) managed to get me an approved medical insurance covered appointment with my previous voice and swallowing Throat Specialist. 

I have not had an insurance-approved return visit to this Throat Specialist / Therapist since my successful voice-recovery therapy sessions ended in 2000, after 5 months of inability to produce any vocal sound, during which I could only whisper. That health crisis was brought-on by my “Pharaohs of the Sun” Lecture Tour in California. At that time the diagnosis for my voice-loss and swallowing problem was reached by a dynamic barrium X-ray imaging swallowing study, and cameras threaded through my nose into my throat to record my throat muscles and vocal chords in action, to determine what was wrong. The conclusion was that a combination of my old throat injury, plus high spinal Post Polio Syndrome (PPS) neuro-muscular dysfunction was my problem. In addition to my therapy sessions intended to teach me how to produce and protect a new voice, and to swallow safely, my Specialist restricted me to 1/2 hour a day of speaking, and She obtained a small wear-able battery-operated voice amplifier for me, so that I could speak softly and not strain my already weak respiratory and throat muscles, and strained vocal chords. Unfortunately this equipment was stolen a couple of years ago, when the little RV trailer that I was living in was broken-into and robbed of all of my few possessions. 

This week I saw my previous Throat Specialist / Therapist again. Some simple tests showed that I am not creating enough air-pressure accross my vocal chords to produce a normal voice, and this causes the strain that wears-out my voice and damaged throat muscles so quickly. Since I was once (for years) on a respirator for Polio-related CNS respiratory-drive and respiratory-muscle failure, this recent deterioration in my respiratory muscle function is not a surprize to me. The question now is what is the degree of deterioration and whether I have scarred vocal chords (or worse) due to years of continuing to speak with this chronic problem. So my Throat Specialist is trying to get the insurance approval to re-do my circa 2000 voice and swallowing tests, to compare my present results, and see if there is any ‘preacher’s nodules’ vocal chord scarring, or growths. In the meantime I must try to improve my air-flow and restrict my talking as much as possible. In the last year I have had to increase my 2 liter per minute oxygen usage from resting-only to computer-use time too, due to frequently losing consciousness while trying to work on the computer. 

If I have one character-flaw, or asset, to use in my devotional service, it is stubborness. I am not a quitter. Adversity only tends to bring-out the fighter in me. So I am not giving-up on using the new digital recording devise that Dear David E.W. sent to me, in this Ecumenical Ministry. I hope to learn that I do NOT have scarred or tumorous vocal chords, and that I can continue with my plans to record small books, answers to questions, lectures, sacred music and verse for free posting on the internet, and distribution world-wide. I want to increase my ‘preaching / teaching’ efforts and productivity in many different ways. I live to serve and deplore ‘down time’, and any lost opportunity to spread the GOOD NEWS of Lord Balarama’s (Jesus Yupa Dhvaja’s) Mercy on all of the fallen souls of Kali Yuga! 

All glories to chiVALrous, VALiant, BALA-DEVA, Lord BAL-THEOS, TOBA-YAHU / VASU-DEVA, the descending SAVIOR of ALL WORLDS, and to the NON-SECTARIAN HARI NAMA SANKIRTAN MOVEMENT of SRI SRI GAURA-NITAI, and all Divine Blessings to the related Global Mission of our Saint Francis of Assisi Ecumenical Retreat!