Krsna for President, By Suresvara Prabhu

[Guest guest]

>From BTG #26-05, 1992

 

AS THE U.S. PRESIDENTIAL race roars on, one night last week I had a dream.

The cows at Gita Nagari had me cornered in the upper pasture. They had heard

I was going to vote.

"Who's it gonna be?" they bellowed. "Tweedledum? Tweedledee? Tweedle3?"

I hadn't voted since 1968, I told them, when I wrote in Dick Gregory on the

Peace-and-Freedom ticket. The vote was a protest, a fistful of flowers. But

now everyone was up in arms, desperate for leadership. I said that was

auspicious.

"Auspicious?!" The voice was Cakra's, the herd spokesman. "Indeed! We've

been desperate for leadership for five thousand years, since the reign of

Maharaja Pariksit. Why are the candidates always cow-eaters?"

I hadn't heard this question discussed on the radio, so I started talking

about how I wasn't living in a temple anymore, how I was holding a house, a

wife, a child, and paying taxes, and how it was high time I voted again.

"Vote for whom?" asked Duhsala, who lowered her neck, munched a clump of

grass, and looked up at me again. "Do any of the candidates know who they

are, who they really are? Do they know who we are? We feel, same as they.

Look at us. We lick and love. We eat and sleep and lock horns. We're souls

inside, same as you, part of Krsna. Come clean, candidates."

Clean. Her words echoed the Bhagavatam. Clean, merciful, truthful, austere.

These qualities could solve the dualities of the day: pro-life vs.

pro-choice, black vs. white, ecology vs. economy, men vs. women, men vs.

animals. But dualities die hard, especially when you're dreaming.

"Ladies and gentlemen!" I announced. "We are on the eve of a great moment in

history. Politics as usual is dead. The enlightened people of this

enlightened country are about to elect the first enlightened chief executive

since the onset of the Kali-yuga, the present age of cheating and

degradation."

Just then, a swarthy man dressed as Uncle Sam stepped from behind a

sprawling oak. Buttons of all candidates covered him hat to toe. As he

strode forward to shake my hand, a thunder of bellows and boos erupted from

the herd.

"It's Kali!" cried Cakra. "Vice personified. I'd know him anywhere. Come on,

Gopala, let's vote." Gopala, the herd tough, lowered his horns and charged.

But Kali was already over the fence, tails and top hat flying. Deprived of

their man, the herd turned on me.

"They're all Kali's men," scolded Makhana-cora, spitting gnats. "Kali's

tweedles."

"Radio's got you hypnotized," muttered wild-eyed Rukmini, lumbering toward

me. "Baba, all you gotta do is open up the First Canto to see what's going

on. All those cannibals talkin' about the fiftieth anniversary of the

holocaust and how we have to learn from history. Hey, citizen, the holocaust

is now. Forty million cows murdered every year in America alone. Why isn't

that an issue? Because the majority of the electorate eats us. That's why.

So the politicians eat them. If you want mercy, you've got to give it."

I blinked and nodded. "Pride destroys austerity," lowed cream-colored

Subhadra. She'd guessed right. I was too proud to buy everything the cows

were saying. "If human beings would just control themselves," she went on,

"what a society we would have. We cows make milk, `liquid religion,' so your

brain can take to transcendental knowledge. And we make more cows. And bulls

to till the ground for food. And manure to make the grasses grow thick and

tall for us to munch and make more milk, and on the cycle goes. Krsna's

perfect cycle. Break that cycle and you start ruining the world. Listen to

this."

Subhadra nosed through an old clay-colored Bhagavatam. One hundred fifty

ears swung her way as she read from "The Punishment and Reward of Kali."

The cow stands with tears in her eyes, the sudra milkman draws milk from the

cow artificially, and when there is no milk, the cow is sent to be

slaughtered. These greatly sinful acts are responsible for all the troubles

in present society. People do not know what they are doing in the name of

economic development. The influence of Kali will keep them in the darkness

of ignorance. Despite all endeavors for peace and prosperity, they must try

to see the cows and bulls happy in all respects. Foolish people do not know

how one earns happiness by making the cows and bulls happy, but it is a fact

by the laws of nature.

If only my head wasn't so big, I thought, I could jump down a gopher hole.

"They get a little self-righteous, the Brown Swiss," said a quiet voice. It

was Mallika, the lone Jersey in the herd.

"The first year I was here, I wouldn't even graze with them. Too

sanctimonious. But they're right, you know. Kali really suckered you on this

race, Suresvara. You should know better. Prabhupada saved you. Why don't you

run for President?"

I told her there was no fire in my horoscope, and anyway ISKCON had its

brush with politics in the seventies. We started the

In-God-We-Trust-Party-for-Purified-Leaders. Prabhupada liked it, but he

didn't want his devotees getting covered with the dirt of politics, so he

stopped it. "We don't mind getting the post," he remarked, "but not at the

cost of our God consciousness."

"Then give people something to vote for," Mallika persisted. "Engage us

more, and Mother Earth as well. Like Krsna does. Live Prabhupada's books.

Make a revolution. Not just tell it, show it. Show people how to be clean,

kind, truthful, and merciful, and they'll demand it in their leaders. It

starts right here."

She dug the earth with her hoof. "Krsna says, krsi-go-raksya: farm the land

and protect the cows. Krsi means to pull. Pull the plow." She nodded toward

Mayapur, our one-horned ox.

"He needs more work. Can you engage him? In a sane society, everyone has a

cow and bull. You have two cars. You should have a cow and bull. A cow for

your milk, a bull for your garden. You don't have to be a farmer. Just be a

gentleman."

I don't know who was taking a bigger licking, me or the salt block. Vote for

Krsna, the cows were pleading.

Live like Krsna, not like Kali. Kali has already killed '92. When will we

challenge him? By '96? By Srila Prabhupada's centennial? Hmmm. A Vedic

village in place and prospering by 1996. Now there's one for the ISKCON

electorate ... I woke up sweating. No time for Tweedle Tuesday. We have work

to do.