LA Times on Vaishnava Survivors of Tragedy

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Tragedy Has Spiritual Lesson For Krishna Followers

 

FROM LOS ANGELES TIMES

 

USA, Jul 27 (VNN) — Members of a Venice temple have a new sense of

devotion after two of their own were injured in last week's crash in

Santa Monica.

 

by Daren Briscoe, Times Staff Writer

 

The rhythmic chant that Daniel Farina believes is the path to a

higher spiritual plane hadn't yet dissipated when his ears picked up

another sound.

 

Metallic, regular and unfamiliar, the sound carried across the air

of the Santa Monica Farmers' Market last week where Farina and other

devotees of the Hare Krishna faith were seeking donations of surplus

vegetables.

 

Attuned to danger by his years as a Marine, Farina, 32, turned to

look, but it was already too late. A flash of maroon was all he saw

before a crushing blow to his left side launched him into the air.

 

It was only later that Farina learned the details. His steps that

day had carried him into the swath of destruction created in the

center of the market by a car driven by 86-year-old George Russell

Weller.

 

Ten people were killed and dozens injured, including Farina and

another Krishna follower. The "chk--chk--chk" of Weller's car

clipping the awning poles of the market's vending booths was very

nearly the last sound Farina ever heard.

 

Just three weeks earlier, Farina had joined the Radha Krishna Temple

in Venice. After experiencing the scale of carnage and human

suffering wrought by the crash, he might seem like a prime candidate

for a crisis of faith.

 

Instead, the crash seems only to have increased Farina's devotion to

what followers say is the oldest system of religious belief on

earth. He is happy, he said during an interview at the temple, that

his reflexes didn't kick in quickly enough for him to avoid being

hit.

 

"If they had, I would be giving the credit to my military training,"

he said.

 

Instead, being struck by the car and surviving with nothing more

than a bruised hip has convinced Farina that he was protected by the

tilaka paste that Hare Krishna devotees daub on their bodies, that

he was fortified by chanting God's name in the minutes before the

crash and that he was spared because of his devotion.

 

The crash, he is certain, had a higher purpose.

 

"It's going to help me understand my rightful place in the

universe," he said.

 

In fact, the crash that nearly killed two of their own has served as

an object lesson for all 18 members of the Radha Krishna Temple.

 

But it inspired no sermons at the two-story temple on Dudley Avenue,

where there was no spiritual counseling, prayer meeting or, in fact,

any attempt at all to explain the horrific event.

 

"No one sat down and said, 'How are we going to figure this out?'

said Jaga-mohan Das, the temple president.

 

Instead, each of the temple's vaishnavas, a Sanskrit term

for "devotees of Vishnu," was expected to consider the crash from a

perspective in which it is said that not a blade of grass moves

without the will of the Lord, and in which the physical body is

sometimes compared to a prison from which the soul must escape.

 

In the Hare Krishna system of belief, the Hindu god Vishnu, who is

also known as Krishna, Rama, Hari and Narayana, is the supreme being

in a universe populated by thousands of lesser demigods.

 

Humanity, they believe, has an eternal bond with Vishnu, but has

turned away from that spiritual relationship and become fixated on

the material world, which leads to sin.

 

To restore their relationship with God, vaishnavas must renounce sin

and perform devotional service, or bhakti, the main component of

which is the maha-mantra, the "Great Chant of Deliverance."

 

A prayer that calls upon Vishnu to engage a vaishnava in service,

the chant is frequently and publicly recited, and to outsiders is

perhaps the most familiar feature of the Hare Krishna faith:

 

Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare, Hare Rama,

Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare.

 

It is this prayer that Jaga-mohan, Farina and six other temple

members were chanting at the market in the minutes before the crash,

Jaga-mohan believing that they would provide a dynamic contrast to

the studied silence of a group of Orthodox Jews standing nearby.

 

After a market employee complained about the din of their chanting

and the cymbals that the devotees were using as accompaniment, Jaga-

mohan said, he asked for three volunteers to ask the market's

farmers for bruised produce.

 

Two of those volunteers, Abirama Das, 22 and Jagadish Das, 26, have

already taken names given to them by a guru, whose assistance, they

believe, is required to achieve the spiritual plane. Das, the

surname taken by all devotees, is Sanskrit for servant.

 

Jagadish had just collected a bag of vegetables, he said, when the

same noise that Farina heard also caught his ear. He turned to see

the crowd parting "like the running of the bulls."

 

The hurtling car that nearly ripped the bag of vegetables from his

hands also hit Farina and Abirama, who suffered two broken legs and

a broken shoulder.

 

"We have slogans about not being attached to our material bodies,"

Jaga-mohan said. "But when one of your friends is almost obliterated

by a car you may begin to question that belief."

 

Not so for Farina, who has redoubled his chanting since the crash.

 

He had a ready answer when asked why he thinks he was

spared. "Because I haven't met my guru yet," he said.

 

Copyright 2003 The Times Mirror Company; Los Angeles Times