Volume 5, Chapter 1

[Guest guest]

Diary of a Traveling Preacher

 

Volume 5, Chapter 1

 

May 15-26, 2003

 

"Back on the Tour"

 

 

On May 15, I flew from Los Angeles to Ukraine for Nrsimhadeva Caturdasi. I

felt uplifted to be going back to Eastern Europe and to my responsibilities

on the festival tour in Poland, but the 36-hour journey, with connecting

flights in Detroit, London, Warsaw, and Kiev, left me reeling.

 

Indeed, I was not ready for the young man who approached me at Kiev Airport

and began preaching to me in broken English about the Second Coming of

Christ and the need for redemption. He ended by giving me a pamphlet and

asking for a donation.

 

"I don't have any money on me," I told him with a smile, "but I will be

happy to share my own understanding of God with you."

 

As we sat, I told him about the personal nature of Krsna and how we awaken

our love for Him by chanting His holy names. He listened attentively, and

then he asked if he could give me a donation. "I wanted a donation from

you," he said, handing me some bills, "but somehow I feel inspired to give

you one."

 

>From Kiev I caught a domestic flight to Dnepropetrovsk, where I was met by

several devotees. At the local temple, I quickly showered and changed

clothes, and then I went to a hall in the city for the first evening of the

festival. Jet lag was setting in, and I nodded off on the way, but I soon

awoke to the roaring kirtan of a thousand devotees gathered to greet me.

During the next three days we chanted and danced in great happiness.

 

Even so, I missed the company of my Godbrothers. For years I have attended

festivals throughout the former Soviet Union, often in the association of

thousands of devotees, but it was always with at least two or three

Godbrothers like Bhakti Bringa Govinda Maharaja, Niranjana Maharaja, or

Purnacandra Prabhu. I was always glad to be with them, as it takes immense

spiritual energy to enliven thousands of devotees for days at a time.

 

This time, I led most of the kirtans and gave all the classes, and because

my own birthday had come, I was the focus of attention. So while speaking or

leading kirtan I often kept my eyes closed, something I rarely do. I wanted

to envision my own spiritual master, the previous acaryas, and my closest

Godbrothers and to remember that by their mercy alone am I able to do

anything in Krsna consciousness.

 

dasavat sannataryanghrih

pitrvad dina-vatsalah

bhratrvat sadrse snigdho

gurusv isvara-bhavanah

 

"To respectable persons he [Prahlad Maharaja] acted exactly like a menial

servant, to the poor he was like a father, to his equals he was attached

like a sympathetic brother, and he considered his teachers, spiritual

masters and older Godbrothers to be as good as the Supreme Personality of

Godhead." [srimad-Bhagavatam 7.4.32]

 

Then I flew to Warsaw. The devotees wanted to greet me with the customary

etiquette, but even as they were garlanding me, I was already asking about

the preparations for the Festival of India. Half-mindful of the

pleasantries, I was wondering how things were progressing for the first

festival of the season, in Brodnica, just two days away.

 

Nandini dasi, however, could not wait to tell me about that day's filming of

a Harinam party for a new movie by Jerzy Stuhr, one of Poland's best-known

movie producers. Stuhr himself plays the lead, a man who joins the Hare

Krsna movement after a life of struggle and spiritual searching. The final

scene shows him shaved up in a dhoti and kurta chanting with the devotees on

the streets of Warsaw.

 

Nandini told me how Sri Prahlad and a kirtan party had met the film crew in

the center of Warsaw that morning. When Stuhr arrived, his make-up and

wardrobe team were at a loss as to how to dress him for the scene and asked

the devotees to help, so Jayatam das shaved him up in the dressing room and

helped him put on a dhoti and kurta as well as tilak and neck beads.

 

As the kirtan started and the cameras rolled, a crowd gathered, and many of

the people recognized Stuhr. As per the script, he went into the crowd, who

were amazed to see him chanting and dancing with the devotees, and handed

out invitations to the Sunday Feast at the Warsaw temple. The people were

thrilled to accept flyers from the hands of one of Poland's highly visible

media personalities.

 

After the filming, Stuhr joined the devotees and took prasadam. When Jayatam

asked if he had met the devotees before, Stuhr said he hadn't but that he

had been aware of them in Poland since his youth. He saw us as people who

represent peace, happiness, and goodness in society, and he wanted to say in

the movie that by following Vaisnava principles, people can live without

hypocrisy and falsehood.

 

Just then the film's female lead joined them, still aglow from the blissful

kirtan. "The final scene, where the devotees are chanting, is the best part

of the movie," she told Stuhr. "Without them it would be empty."

 

The film will be released in September, and it's expected to be an enormous

box-office success, like all of Stuhr's other work.

 

Then we set off for our base north of Warsaw, a two-hour drive. Nandini and

Radha Sakhi Vrnda briefed me on the Brodnica festival. Opposition to the

event was building: Priests in the local schools were warning the children

not to attend, and shop owners, fearful of reprisals by the Church, had

refused to let devotees put up festival posters in their shop windows.

 

Jurek Owsiak, the organizer of the annual Polish Woodstock Festival every

summer and an ardent supporter of our movement, inadvertently added to the

tension in an interview in Poland's prestigious Politika magazine. Upset

with the attitude of the Jesus People at last year's Woodstock, he said he

was not inviting them this year. Then the interviewer asked if the Hare

Krsnas would be invited. "Krsna, yes! Jesus, no!" Jurek replied with a

smile.

 

Jurek Owsiak is a devout Catholic. He is highly respected in Poland, and his

words carry weight, but his acceptance and tolerance of other religions is

not appreciated by some, and the magazine's use of the quote for the

headline to its article attracted attention even in rural Brodnica.

 

On the other hand, signs that our movement is gradually being accepted in

Poland continue to manifest. As we headed north, Radha Sakhi Vrnda received

a call from the town secretary of Brodnica. A woman had just stormed into

the mayor's office and demanded an explanation from the mayor himself: Why

was a dangerous sect allowed to hold a festival in the very heart of the

city?

 

The mayor showed her our brochure on his desk. The Hare Krsna Movement

represents the culture of ancient India, he told her, and added that he was

pleased to offer this to the people of Brodnica. Poland will soon be joining

the European Union, he said, and it was time for Poles to open up to other

cultures and traditions.

 

The woman was flabbergasted. She turned and left without another word.

 

It does seem that our struggle to push forward Krsna consciousness in Poland

is beginning to bear fruit. And why not? Srila Prabhupada once said that the

only thing that can stop this movement is internal difficulty - either our

own material desires or conflict within. If we are strict with ourselves,

always following the regulative principles and chanting our rounds, and if

we maintain respectful and friendly relations with the devotees we serve

alongside of, our movement will spread.

 

"Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu wanted to preach the sankirtan movement of love of

Krsna throughout the entire world, and therefore during His presence He

inspired the sankirtan movement. Specifically, He sent Rupa Gosvami to

Vrndavan and Nityananda to Bengal and personally went to south India. In

this way He kindly left the task of preaching His cult in the rest of the

world to the International Society for Krsna Consciousness. The members of

this Society must always remember that if they stick to the regulative

principles and preach sincerely according to the instructions of the

acaryas, surely they will have the profound blessings of Lord Caitanya

Mahaprabhu, and their preaching work will be successful everywhere

throughout the world." [Caitanya-caritamrta, Adi 7.171]

 

There is, however, one stubborn factor that does hinder our festivals and

makes them messy affairs: Rain.

 

It poured buckets as we drove north, becoming heavier with each kilometer.

It had been unseasonably cold and wet for two weeks in the region -

definitely not the weather we wanted, as we rely heavily on a successful

first festival. It sets a precedent for staging festivals in nearby towns.

 

The Mayor of Brodnica is sympathetic to our movement, and he had allotted

the town's center square for the event. "By giving you the best place in

town," he said, "I am sending a message to all the other towns in this

region. If you are successful here, you will have no problem getting

permission from other places."

 

Nonetheless, if it rained, the show would not go on, despite any amount of

preparation. As I looked to the skies, I couldn't help wondering whether the

dark clouds could possibly dissipate within 48 hours.

 

The next day the temperature rose a few degrees and the rain lapsed into a

drizzle, but on the morning of the festival I was disappointed to find it

was still drizzling. I put on my raincoat, covered my head, and went to the

temple. During Srila Prabhupada's guru-puja, all the devotees chanted and

danced in hopes of a successful beginning to the tour. Suddenly, at the

height of the kirtan, the clouds parted a little and sunlight came peeking

in through the windows. I turned to Gaura Hari das. "It's a sign from the

heavens," I said. "Everything's going to be all right."

 

By mid-morning, the tent crews were busy setting up the festival. Sri

Prahlad and I took a Harinam party around town one more time, distributing

what was left from the invitations given out over the previous few days, 20

thousand all in all. Gradually the skies cleared, and by afternoon it was a

beautiful day. The crew finished setting up on time, just as the women were

putting the final touches of color on the tents. At 4.30pm, our bhajan band

began a soft kirtan on stage as all 120 devotees took their places in the

shops, exhibits, restaurants, dressing rooms, and other areas. Now we would

wait for our guests.

 

It was an anxious moment. We had been working hard for six months making

arrangements, obtaining licenses, raising funds, and creating new exhibits.

There wasn't any reason to think no one would come - they'd been coming for

13 years - but this was the first festival of the year.

 

The mayor's words kept running through my mind: "If you are successful here,

you will have no problem getting permission from other places." I waited on

the edge of the stage, the very place where I had sat nine months ago, when

I watched thousands of people leave the final festival of last season. My

heart was racing.

 

Then they started to arrive - not just one or two at a time but in big

groups, pouring onto the festival grounds, smiling and laughing, ready for

the show. The crowd soon swelled to more than three thousand, with many

gathering in front of the stage. They wanted the music, the dance, and the

theater, the books and the prasadam.

 

I jumped down from the stage and began milling through the crowd. I felt at

home again, mingling with the people as they experienced the wonderful world

of Krsna consciousness. There was no place on earth or in the heavens I

would rather have been.

 

I couldn't help smiling. "This is only the beginning," I thought. "There are

forty-eight more festivals to come."

 

No doubt the sun won't always be shining, and certainly our opposition have

their plans, but with more than nine thousand people attending the three-day

event in Brodnica, we had achieved the auspicious beginning that the mayor

and all of us had hoped for.

 

The Great Festival of the Holy Names had begun in Poland.

 

akhila bhuvana bandho prema sindho jane smin

sakala kapata purne jnana hine prapanne

tava carana soroje dehi dasyam prabhu tvam

patita tarana nama pradur asit yatas te

 

"O friend of all the world! O ocean of love! The populace has become full of

deceit and bereft of knowledge. O my master! Kindly give them shelter at

Your Lotus feet, for the holy name, uplifter of the fallen, has become

manifest from You." [sarvabhauma Bhattacarya: Sri Gauranga-mahimamrta,

Susloka Satakam, Text 21]