Chapter 48

[Guest guest]

Diary of a Traveling Preacher

 

Volume 3 Chapter 48

 

September 4 - 15 2001

 

 

The day after our successful but tense festival in Brzezny, I woke up early

and took a walk alone in a nearby forest. The peace and quiet of the forest

were in direct contrast to the life I had been living for the previous five

months on our festival tour. The strain of constant opposition from the

church and government authorities, violent attacks on our festivals, and the

physical exertion required to push on for so many months had left me

exhausted. Of course, it was a most welcome exhaustion, as every ounce of my

energy had been used in the service of guru and Gauranga. Still, for the

first time on the tour I looked at my pocket calendar to see how many days

were left. When I saw that only one week remained, my mind drifted

momentarily to Vrindavan and the many holy places there that I longed to see

- hopefully even more intensely than ever before, because of the

purification that comes from preaching. I thought to myself that I wished I

were more advanced and could stay on the front lines indefinitely, as I saw

Srila Prabhupada do when he was with us. For eleven years he traveled

incessantly, circling the globe twelve times, preaching the glories of the

Lord. But he also spent a "lifetime in preparation," as his biography

states, a good portion of that time in Vrindavan, where he chanted the holy

names, wrote his purports on Srimad-Bhagavatam, and imbibed the mood of our

previous acaryas.

 

I have also seen that the success of the preaching of Godbrothers like

Sivarama Maharaja and Bhakti Bhrnga Govinda Swami has been in direct

proportion to the time they spend in bhajan, hearing and chanting the

glories of the Lord. I considered that going to Vrindavan was the natural

step to take after the tour was over, not simply to recuperate my strength,

but to purify my heart and deepen my realizations of the glories of the Lord

for future preaching.

 

A sudden cold breeze followed by many falling leaves further indicated that

our festival tour would soon come to a close and woke me from my daydream in

the forest. I hurried back to the base to plan the last remaining festivals.

When I arrived devotees had already finished breakfast and Nandini and Radha

Sakhi Vrnda approached me to report about possible towns where we could hold

our final programs. As we sat down to discuss the options, however, it soon

became clear that the struggles we'd had for months would continue to the

very end.

 

Nandini said, "Guru Maharaja, we're not having any success arranging

festivals. Everywhere we go, mayors and their town councils have been

forewarned not to cooperate with us. In many cases they are fearful to even

meet with us. Obviously, something is going on behind the scenes. After the

last festival in Brzezny, it appears that someone has organized a campaign

to prevent us from having any more festivals in this region."

 

It was clear that, for the time being, we had to change our strategy. We met

with our festival council and spent the entire day discussing how to

continue our preaching for the remaining seven days. Finally we decided to

go to the nearest town, Piotrkow Trybunalski, and approach the owner of the

hypermarche there to ask if we could hold a festival in the parking lot of

his shopping complex. A similar festival in Belchatow two weeks earlier had

been our most successful program of the autumn tour to date.

 

But the city council of Piotrkow Trybunalski was one of those that had most

recently refused us permission to put on a festival. In fact, the council

wouldn't even consider giving us permission to hold a simple harinam

procession through the town. There was even an article in the town newspaper

in which the local priest was quoted as saying that if anyone in Piotrkow

Trybunalski attended one of our festivals in the region and happened to

touch Raju, our padayatra ox, they would immediately go to hell!

 

Our strategy for trying to do a festival at the hypermarche of Piotrkow

Trybunalski was that it was private property and therefore not under the

jurisdiction of the town council. The only problem was that we wouldn't be

able to advertise by distributing invitations on harinam. But we decided

that if the owner of the hypermarche agreed to the festival, we would send

devotees out individually on the streets to hand out invitations. It seemed

unlikely that the city council would forbid that.

 

As soon as we approached the owner of the hypermarche, he immediately agreed

to the proposal. He said he had heard how successful our festival had been

at the hypermarche in Belchatow, and then - with a smile on his face - he

related how it had simultaneously increased business in the shopping

complex. He said we should make it a three-day event and that we could

distribute invitations at all the entrances to the shopping center. I was

elated, remembering how hard it had been to get permission to distribute

books at shopping malls during the years I did book distribution in France.

 

Knowing that it was going to be the last festival of our tour, devotees

worked around the clock, distributing invitations at the hypermarche, on the

city streets, at apartment blocks, and at red lights at intersections. The

city officials quickly got wind of the festival, and the owner of the

hypermarche received many threats, but he didn't back down.

 

While preparing for the festival, I noticed that all the devotees looked as

exhausted as I was, but everyone continued to work hard, wanting to finish

the tour on a high note. In five days we distributed close to 50,000

invitations, and on the morning of the festival we drove to the parking lot

of the hypermarche in great expectation. But as the day wore on, our hopes

for a successful event were dampened by our foremost enemy: rain. Just two

hours before we were to begin, huge dark clouds appeared in the sky above,

and just as the festival opened they poured down torrents of rain.

Nevertheless, although it showered off and on throughout the festival,

several hundred people came and we considered the first day a relative

success. Little did we know that it would be the last festival of the year.

 

When we arrived back at our base, several devotees who had stayed back to

clean the kitchen ran up and told us about the terrorist attack on the World

Trade Center and the Pentagon in America. The viciousness of the attack and

extent of the destruction stunned the devotees. Along with the rest of the

world, we watched the news reports on CNN in the hotel lounge that night,

and the next morning I gave an impromptu class about how we should

understand the tragedy.

 

I began by explaining that devotees are not callous in the face of such

suffering and that our condolences went out to the dead, the injured, and

their families. I also predicted that the attack in the heart of America

would have many ramifications, including a protracted war on terrorism and a

likely recession. But, I said, we should not be shocked by such events.

Devotees of the Lord are always equipoised, being familiar with Krsna's

teaching in Bhagavad-gita that this material world is first and foremost

duhkhalayam asasvatam, "a temporary place full of misery." For a devotee,

the material world is always in a state of tragedy, but he remains

nevertheless always equipoised:

 

yam hi na vyathayanty ete purusam purusarsabha

sama dukha sukham dhiram so mrtatvaya kalpate

 

"O best among men (Arjuna), the person who is not disturbed by happiness and

distress and is steady in both is certainly eligible for liberation."

(Bhagavad-gita 2.15)

 

I told the devotees that although they were not forbidden to follow the

progression of events after the terrorist attack in America, which would

surely dominate the news for weeks or even months to come, they should not

become preoccupied with it. Their main meditation, as always, should be

their devotional service. I especially requested them not to allow the news

to become the only talk of the tour during the remaining few days. I didn't

want to see them huddling in little groups discussing terrorism and watching

the news on television every five minutes. The terrorist attack was a

catastrophic event that would surely effect major changes in the world, but

the sankirtan movement of Lord Caitanya was no less significant, in an

auspicious way. Whereas catastrophes take lives in great numbers, the

chanting of the holy names of the Lord saves lives in unlimited numbers. It

is the panacea for all problems.

 

I was just concluding my remarks by saying that we were fortunate to have

yet another chance to share the chanting of the holy name with people during

the remaining two days of festivals when Nandini came in distraught and

announced that, in sympathy with the people of America, the President of

Poland had declared that the next two days would be official days of

mourning in Poland - and that all public events of any nature were

canceled. The room became quiet as all the devotees realized that our

five-month tour had unceremoniously come to a sudden end.

 

Three days later, after cleaning and packing our entire five tons of

festival paraphernalia, we had a final festival just for the devotees,

honoring their services during the past months. After some emotional

farewells, everyone left in various buses to return to their respective

homes and temples. As I got into my van to go, my driver, Radhe Syama,

looked at me and said, "Guru Maharaja, you've been so busy that you haven't

told me where you're going! What direction should I start driving in?"

 

I paused for a moment and then replied, "I suppose you can begin heading

east toward Vrindavan."

 

Laughing, he said, "OK. I guess that means first of all heading north toward

Warsaw."

 

As we drove off, I was caught between the pain of realizing that the tour

was actually over and the ecstasy of going to the holy dhama. Trying to

focus on Vrindavan, I closed my eyes and thought of what I would say to

Srila Prabhupada when I got there. Each year upon arriving in Vrindavan, I

first go to his samadhi and report to him the results of my year's preaching

efforts. I decided I would simply repeat his own words when he learned that

the land at Juhu Beach was won after a great struggle: "Srila Prabhupada," I

would say, "it was a good fight."

 

It was a good fight, Srila Prabhupada, and for the most part we were

victorious. In five months, literally hundreds of thousands of people

attended our festivals. All of them heard the holy names, many took books,

and many more enjoyed prasadam. And by the causeless mercy of Lord Caitanya,

even our staunch opponents benefited by "unfavorably" uttering Lord Krsna's

holy names! We offer all the results to your lotus feet and pray for more

such service in the years to come. The recent tragic events in America will

soon give rise to many such preaching opportunities, and as devotees of the

Lord we must be prepared to meet the great challenges that lie ahead in this

regard. Now, more than ever, people are aware of the temporary and miserable

nature of this world. It is up us, your followers, Srila Prabhupada, to

enlighten them about the actual solutions to such problems:

 

"...[by the devotees'] broadcasting the holy name and fame of the Supreme

Lord, the polluted atmosphere of the world will change, and as a result of

propagating transcendental literatures like Srimad-Bhagavatam, people will

become sane in their transactions." [ SB. 1.5.11 purport ]