Volume 5, Chapter 11

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Diary of a Traveling Preacher

 

Volume 5, Chapter 11

 

November 2 - December 17, 2003

 

"Will We Have Harinama?"

 

 

As my flight circled over Sarajevo, Bosnia, waiting for permission to land,

I saw that the first snow of winter had already fallen on the city. On our

descent, I also caught a glimpse of the ancient mosque in the city center.

During my last visit, seven years ago, Muslim soldiers attacked our Harinama

procession there. The people of Sarajevo were shocked by this provocation on

foreigners, only months after a prolonged war in the Balkans had ended, and

they came by the thousands to our festival the next day to express their

sympathy.

 

As the devotees drove me to an apartment, my mind was filled with vivid

memories of how the city had looked seven years ago, with almost every

building damaged by the war, so I was surprised to see that they had all

been repaired but one.

 

"International funding built the city back up quickly," said Damodar Prema,

"but no one wanted to fund the previous communist party headquarters, so it

remains a ruin."

 

"Things look normal here now," I said as we passed through the downtown

area.

 

"Only on the surface," said Damodar Prema. "There are still thousands of

international peacekeeper soldiers here. If they were to leave, a civil war

would erupt immediately. The tension between the Muslims, Serbs, and Croats

in this area goes back centuries."

 

"Remember the mosque you chanted by last time you were here?" he continued.

"It's right over there." He pointed down a street.

 

I couldn't look. I still see the mosque in my dreams. One doesn't easily

forget angry men stabbing devotees and beating them mercilessly on the

ground.

 

"Maharaja," said another devotee, "some devotees are asking if we'll have

Harinama while you're here. We haven't had one since the day you were

attacked in 1996."

 

I did not know what to say.

 

Damodhar Prema noticed my hesitation. "There is no law against it,

Maharaja," he said, "but there are two opinions among the devotees. Some say

the time is right to chant on the streets again, and others caution that

Sarajevo is seventy percent Muslim.

 

"What do you think?" I asked.

 

"I'm not sure" he replied. "There's an unspoken agreement among the

different religions here that none of them will agitate the situation by

openly proselytizing. But then again, Harinama is our means of spreading our

faith, isn't it, Maharaja?"

 

"Yes," I replied, "but it might better to wait to wait for a more favorable

time. There's a saying: Fools rush in where angels fear to tread."

 

I became lost in thought. "Did I just give a realistic assessment of the

situation?" I wondered. "Or was I speaking out of my own fear?"

 

The devotee community had grown significantly since my last visit. There

were now 100 members, but they still did not have a temple. Despite the

millions of dollars that have been spent on reconstruction in Sarajevo,

unemployment is high and devotees have difficulty finding work. They meet

regularly in each other's apartments, but the sense of a devotee community

is lacking because of not having a fixed center to congregate in.

 

I also discovered that their difficulties were not only in finding work and

getting a temple, but in forgetting the war as well. It was an especially

brutal war, with the city of Sarajevo under total siege for years. The

Serbian army encircled the city and mercilessly shelled the streets each day

without discrimination. People would stay inside their homes for months,

fearing to walk outside even to find fresh water and food.

 

Later, a devotee came to see me for a personal darsan. "How are you doing in

your spiritual life?" I asked.

 

"Maharaja," he said, "I can't get up early in the morning. I just wake up

and go back to sleep."

 

"That's not good," I replied in a stern voice. "You should be up before

sunrise to chant your rounds."

 

He looked down at the floor. "It's because of the war, Maharaja," he said.

"I'm still traumatized by it all. It was so horrible."

 

"Oh," I said, softening my voice, "I'm sorry to hear that. Just be patient.

You'll get better sooner or later."

 

"But will he?" I wondered. "I can't even look down the street where my

Harinam party was attacked, and this poor boy went through four years of

war. Better I offer some practical spiritual advice."

 

"Actually," I said, "the holy names are the only real solution to our fears

of material existence." Then I quoted a verse:

 

apannah samsrtim ghoram

yan-nama vivaso grnan

tatah sadyo vimucyeta

vad bibheti svayam hayam

 

"Living beings who are entangled in the complicated meshes of birth and

death can be freed immediately by even unconsciously chanting the holy name

of Krsna, which is feared by fear personified."

 

(Srimad Bhagavatam 1.1.14)

 

He looked up at me, hoping for more advice, but I left it at that. I knew

that if I wanted to be effective in my preaching, I too had to deepen my

faith in the holy names, and deep faith comes after years of concentrated

chanting and service.

 

A devotee girl came to see me. "I just want to forget the war and get on

with my life," she said. "If it weren't for the happiness I find in Krsna

consciousness, I couldn't deal with the experiences I had in the war."

 

She was young, so I was curious about how she had experienced the war as a

child. I listened attentively, trying to grasp the ugliness of material life

through her in order to deepen my own detachment from this world of birth

and death.

 

drsta maya divi vibho khila dhisnya panam

ayuh sriyo vibhava icchati yan jano ayam

 

"My dear Lord, people in general want to be elevated to the higher planetary

systems for a long duration of life, opulence and enjoyment, but I have seen

all of these through the activities of my father... "

 

(Prahlada Maharaja, Srimad Bhagavatam 7.9.23)

 

"My family is Muslim," the girl continued. "When I was seven years old, my

next-door neighbor, who was Serbian, shot at me six times as I walked past

his house. I remember the bullets whizzing past my head. I ran home and told

my father, who was an officer in the Bosnian army. I don't know if he tried

to do anything, but several weeks later my father disappeared and was never

seen again.

 

"A few weeks later, the Serbian army in the hills fired several

rocket-propelled grenades onto the street where I was playing with my

friends. The explosions tore a huge gash in my head. I went into a coma in

the hospital when they operated on me without any anesthetic. There were so

many casualties in Sarajevo every day that the doctors ran out of it.

 

"But the whole experience eventually brought me to Krsna consciousness. I

will never leave this movement."

 

I believed her, and I appreciated her conviction, which made my own even

stronger.

 

"Although some of us begin as gurus for our disciples, it seems that these

disciples are sometimes more fortunate than we are ... Actually many of them

are elevated personalities."

 

(Tamal Krsna Goswami, from Vraja Lila)

 

My appreciation for the power of Krsna consciousness increased even more

when I asked another disciple how she became a devotee.

 

"When my son joined the movement, my husband and I were very upset," she

said. "We tried everything we could to dissuade him from becoming a devotee.

Months later, when he was drafted into the army to fight in the war, we

thought it was the best thing that could happen to him, but when he was

killed on the battlefront two weeks later, we were devastated. We didn't

know whom to turn to. We found his Bhagavad-gita in his room, and as we read

it, it became our only shelter. As a result, we ourselves soon became

devotees."

 

I had been looking forward to a public program the devotees had organized to

help people forget the war memories that haunted the city, but I was soon

reminded of the dark past. As I was lecturing to the audience of 300, I

spoke about death as one of the miseries of material existence. Suddenly 10

or 12 people in the audience got up and walked out.

 

I leaned toward my translator. "Why are they leaving so early?" I asked

under my breath.

 

"It's what you said about death," she answered. "People still can't deal

with the fact that they lost so many loved ones in the war."

 

Despite the constant reminders of the karma of Sarajevo, our devotional

programs elevated us beyond the dualities of material existence. We held

several events, including a nama yajna where we had kirtan with the devotees

for many hours in a rented hall. Another was Bosnia's first-ever Vedic

wedding. I performed the ceremony for Damodar Prema and Manjari Rupa in a

small hall near the center of the city.

 

At first I wasn't sure how successful the program would be. We had

advertised the historic event for 5 PM sharp, but when the time came, hardly

any guests had arrived.

 

"Where are all the people?" I asked a devotee.

 

"It's Ramadan," he said, "the holy month of fasting for the Muslims. They

only eat after sunset. At that time, the whole city slows down. Wait a few

more minutes, and guests will start to arrive."

 

By 6 PM all the guests had indeed arrived, and we had a particularly sweet

vivaha-yajna.

 

When the devotees saw me off at the airport, they thanked me again and again

for coming. As I waved my final goodbye from passport control, a boy called

out to me. "Maharaja!" he shouted. "Maybe next time we can have a Harinam

through the city!"

 

"Yes," I said to myself, "the day will come when the time will be right and

my faith in the holy name will have deepened."

 

kah pareta nagari purandarah

ko bhaved atha tadiya kinkarah

krsna-nama jagad eka mangalam

kantha pitham urari karoti cet

 

"Lord Krsna's holy name is the only auspiciousness in this world. If one

keeps it in his throat, then what is Yamaraja, the king of the other world,

to him? What are Yamaraja's sevants to him?

 

(Sri Anandacarya as quoted in Rupa Goswami's Padyavali, verse 21)

 

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