Volume 5, Chapter 12

[Guest guest]

Diary of a Traveling Preacher

 

Volume 5, Chapter 12

 

December 18, 2003 - January 30, 2004

 

 

"Hankering for Home"

 

 

Early last December, I was at the airport in Warsaw, checking in for a

flight, when I heard someone call out, "Hari Bol!" I looked up and saw that

it was a stewardess passing by with a flight crew. I was busy at the ticket

counter, so I just smiled back.

 

I was on my way to London, where I would catch a connecting flight to an

Islamic country. An hour later as I entered the plane, I saw the same

stewardess, and she greeted me again with a cheerful "Hari Bol!"

 

"Hari Bol!" I answered. I looked at her badge and saw that she was the chief

purser.

 

After we were airborne she came by and sat on the armrest of the seat

directly across the aisle from me. A few passengers raised their eyebrows,

but she was not disturbed. "I can afford it," she said. "I've been with the

company for twenty years. I'm retiring next month."

 

"Congratulations," I said.

 

Her face became more serious. "You know," she said, "I was married to a

Hare Krsna devotee when I was young."

 

My own eyebrows went up. "Oh really?" I said.

 

"Yes," she answered, "but he'd left the movement by the time we met. He was

a disciple of the founder, Swami Prabhupada. He referred to his departure as

blooping."

 

"Yes," I said, "that's the sound an object makes when it falls into the

ocean. When a devotee leaves the movement and falls back into the ocean of

material existence, we call it blooping."

 

"Well he certainly struggled with his decision to leave," she said. "He

didn't actually tell me that he had been a devotee until late into our

marriage. For years I saw him wrestle with conflicting interests. On the one

hand he had a deep interest in spiritual things, but on the other he had an

uncontrollable urge to enjoy the material.

 

"One night we got drunk, and on an impulse he took me to your center outside

of London, the place George Harrison bought you. I don't remember much, but

when he started to cry in front of the altar, we were asked to leave. It's

the only time I ever visited one of your temples.

 

"As time went on, my husband succumbed to his material passions and started

to take drugs. In a desperate move to help him, I got the principal book of

your faith, the Bhagavad-gita As It Is from a friend. My husband had spoken

of it many times. I must have read that book ten times cover to cover,

hoping to learn what had once satisfied the soul of my husband.

 

"As I learned the Gita I began sharing my understanding with him, wanting to

revive his faith. I even memorized certain verses and would repeat them when

he was really down and out. As his drug addiction deepened and he began

stealing to maintain it, I often searched feverishly through the Gita,

looking for passages or words of advice that would turn him away from his

decadence.

 

"But it was of no avail. After some time the combination of drugs, internal

conflicts, and pressures of life caused him to go mad, totally mad. I had to

commit him to a mental hospital. He has never recovered and is still there

to this day."

 

She had been speaking with emotion, and several other passengers were

listening in. They looked as amazed as I must have.

 

"It was a painful loss for me," she continued, "and I never remarried."

 

Then she put her hand on my shoulder. "But do you know how I survived that

and many other trials in my life?" she asked.

 

"How?" I asked, almost on behalf of the other passengers listening in.

 

"The philosophy of the Bhagavad-gita," she said with a relieved smile. "I

still read the Gita every day. It's in my carry-on luggage up front. If it

weren't for that book, I'd probably be in the same madhouse as my former

husband."

 

"I'll be retiring soon and plan to buy a little house in Wales," she

continued. "And you know how I'll spend much of my time?"

 

"No, Ma'am," I said. "How?"

 

"Reading the Bhagavad-gita," she replied.

 

Suddenly the flight ran into turbulence and the "fasten seatbelt" light came

on. The stewardess nodded a little to confirm her last statement, and got up

to go. As she was leaving, I called out to her. "Ma'am," I said, "can I have

the address of the mental hospital? I'd like to try and help your former

husband."

 

She shook her head. "No," she said, "I can't do that."

 

"Please," I said. "It's important to me. He's my spiritual brother."

 

"I'm sorry" she replied, and she turned to walk down the aisle. "I wouldn't

want to open that chapter of my life again."

 

When the plane landed and the passengers began to disembark she was standing

at the door, smiling politely as we filed out. I stopped and gently tried to

encourage her to tell me where her previous husband was, but she wouldn't

give in.

 

"Move on!" a man shouted behind me.

 

I thanked the stewardess for sharing her story with me, but I walked out of

the plane with mixed emotions. I was elated to have met someone who had

found such shelter in the teachings of Bhagavad-gita, but distraught to hear

how another, a Godbrother, in fact, had failed miserably to do the same.

 

In a men's room in Heathrow Airport, I changed from my devotional clothes

into something more Western and waited to board my connecting flight. I felt

a bit uncomfortable, as I had to remove my neck beads and Brahmin thread and

replace it all with a New York Yankees baseball cap.

 

I was on my way to one of the more conservative Islamic states, and in order

to understand the country more, I had bought a book on Shariah, the Islamic

law that governs strict Muslim societies. As the flight took off and I

started reading, some of the laws raised my eyebrows again, more than once.

 

Shariah states that a murderer must be killed in the same way that he

murdered but can be set free if the bereaved family agrees to take some

money instead of having the murderer killed.

 

A thief must have his hand cut off, and if he steals again, he will lose the

other hand plus a foot.

 

A man may keep four wives but cannot keep two sisters as wives.

 

Women must be fully covered at all times except in the privacy of their

homes.

 

I began to realize the strictness of the country I was entering, and as we

were landing, I pushed my Nrsimha salagram deeper into my bag, hoping that

if I was searched, the customs officials wouldn't find Him.

 

It didn't work. After clearing immigration, I approached customs control and

was stopped by two women in burkas, the full black dress worn by Muslim

women with even the eyes covered by a black veil. The women asked me to step

to one side. Then two men in starched white robes came over and asked me to

put all my belongings onto a table. As I laid my saffron cloth out they

looked surprised, but when I put my Srimad Bhagavatam on the table their

eyes opened even wider.

 

"What is this?" the man asked in broken English.

 

"A storybook," I replied.

 

"What is in the shoulder bag?" he asked.

 

"Not much" I replied, pretending I didn't know he wanted to see it.

 

"Put it on the table," he said.

 

I had no choice, and after a few moments they were inspecting my japa beads,

and to my horror, my Nrsimha salagram.

 

"My Lord," I prayed silently, "please forgive me."

 

One of the customs officials started to smell the salagram. "What is it?" he

asked.

 

I was so distraught I couldn't reply.

 

"What is it?" he repeated impatiently.

 

"What does it look like?" I said, not wanting to further my grief by having

to refer to the salagram in some mundane way, and in front of the Lord

Himself.

 

"It looks like a stone," he said.

 

"So?" I replied.

 

And he put Him back in the bag.

 

They seemed eager to inspect the rest of my belongings, but suddenly another

official came up. "Are you a soldier?" he asked me.

 

I saw my way out of the predicament. "Yes, sir" I replied with confidence

thinking back on my days as a marine. "Lance Corporal Tibbitts. First

Infrantry Battalion, United States Marine Corps. My company is on duty in

this region."

 

"Fine," he replied. Then he turned to the other men. "Let him go," he said.

 

As I walked out of the airport, loudspeakers from nearby mosques reminded

the faithful that it was time to bow toward Mecca, and a number of men

spread their rugs on the ground to pray. I even saw several cars stop and

men get out on the sidewalk to bow.

 

My contact picked me up, and we drove to the place where I would be staying.

As in other strict Islamic states, I noticed the streets were clean and

everything seemed orderly. Bars, discotheques, and nightclubs were

conspicuous by their absence, and men and women did not mix freely. It was

easy to distinguish the two: the men wore bright starched white robes, and a

number of women wore dark black burkas, covering them from head to toe.

 

"Put your baseball cap back on," my host said as we pulled up to his house.

 

"It's only a few meters to the front door," I said, a little surprised.

 

"It only takes one complaint here," he said soberly.

 

Programs were held in the evening in different houses, quietly, behind

closed doors that blocked any noise. I was told that programs were not

forbidden but any excess would not be tolerated.

 

During my visit, I favored lecturing more than kirtan. I had plenty to say

because I had plenty of time to study. Confined to my room and not able to

wander outside freely, I managed to read Teachings of Lord Caitanya from

cover to cover in 7 days.

 

I wasn't used to being inside all day, though, and at one point I became

restless, almost desperate. "I'd like to go home," I said out loud to myself

one morning.

 

But then I looked in the mirror and scolded myself. "Home?" I asked. "A

home? You're in the renounced order. You should be ashamed of yourself!"

Then I imposed a small punishment on myself for my momentary lack of

sannyasa dharma. "Tomorrow," I vowed, "I will fast all day."

 

The day after my fast, my host came and said that we were going to drive

out of town for a program with workers from India. "Laborers from abroad?" I

thought. "Sounds like it will be a real simple program."

 

As we drove through the countryside, I noticed many date trees lining the

road. My host turned to me. "Shariah states that you can receive a huge fine

for indiscriminately cutting down a date tree," he said.

 

"Really?" I replied.

 

"Yes," he said, "and God forbid if you hit a camel with your car. They are a

protected species here. And if you do hit a camel, you'll get instant karma.

They are so top-heavy, with their long spindly legs and heavy bodies, that

they immediately come through the windshield. Many people have died in that

way."

 

"That's interesting," I said.

 

My host turned to me with a puzzled look. "Interesting?" he said.

 

"Not interesting in the sense of entertaining," I said, "but in a curious

way."

 

His misunderstanding of my comment only added to the frustration I was

feeling from living in isolation, and I was feeling the rigors of my

self-imposed fast the day before. "I'd sure like to be in Vrindavan right

now," I said to myself.

 

We pulled up to an old warehouse. "I'll make this real quick," I thought.

 

I pulled my Yankee baseball cap squarely over my forehead, adjusted my belt,

jumped out of the car, and walked quickly towards the entrance before any of

the locals would notice me, as was the usual procedure.

 

As I entered the reception office, I was surprised to hear a wonderful

Bengali kirtan tape over the sound system. "Sounds from the spiritual sky,"

I said to myself. "It's almost like being in Mayapura." I closed my eyes and

paused for a moment to take in the auspicious sound.

 

My host took my arm. "Let's move into the main room," he said. Reluctantly,

I tore myself away from my brief moment in the spiritual world.

 

But what a wonderful surprise was waiting for me! As I opened the door, I

was stunned to see a group of 40 Bengali men, many in dhoti and kurta,

playing mrdangas and kartalas while chanting the holy names and dancing in

ecstasy. It wasn't a tape I had heard after all. It was a live kirtan.

 

A devotee was singing and the others responded:

 

"Gaurangera duti pada, jar dhana sampada, se jane bhakati-rasa-sar"

 

It was Savarana-Sri-Gaura-Mahima (The Glories of Sri Gauranga), a song from

Narottam das Thakur's Prarthana: "Anyone who has accepted the two lotus feet

of Lord Caitanya can understand the true essence of devotional service."

 

"Gaurangera madhura-lila" The lead singer sang loudly, "Jar karne prabesila,

hrdoya mirmala bhelo tar"

 

And again came a chorus of voices in their mother tongue:

 

"Anyone who has accepted the two lotus feet of Lord Caitanya can understand

the true essence of devotional service."

 

With their arms upwards and their eyes to the sky they sang:

 

"Je gaurangera nama loy tara hoy premodoy, tare mui jai bolihari"

 

"One who simply takes the holy name of Gaurasundara, Sri Krsna Caitanya,

will immediately develop love of God. To such a person I say, 'Bravo! Very

nice! Excellent!'"

 

The men were dancing gracefully, and their faces and movements were full of

feeling. They were so absorbed in kirtan rasa that they didn't notice I'd

come in.

 

Suddenly they saw me, and they all dove in front of me, offering obeisances.

I stood there embarrassed, feeling unworthy of the attention of men who

displayed such feeling for Lord Caitanya.

 

One of them handed me a drum and I started to sing slowly,

 

"sri-krsna-caitanya prabhu doya koro mor, toma bine ke doyalu jagat-somsare"

 

"My dear Lord Sri Krsna Caitanya Mahaprabhu, please be merciful to me,

because who can be more merciful than Your Lordship within these three

worlds?"

 

Oblivious to where we were, we dove again and again into the nectar of

chanting the holy names for over an hour. Though we were strangers, the joy

of the kirtan made us one spiritual family, and we chanted and danced with

abandon, as if we had known each other for years.

 

After bringing the kirtan to a close, I asked them to suggest a subject for

my talk. A small chorus of men spoke up. "Speak about Gauranga Mahaprabhu,"

they said almost in unison.

 

So I told about the pastime of Lord Caitanya's taking sannyasa. When I got

to the part about the barber cutting Mahaprabhu's beautiful long black hair,

several of the men had tears in their eyes.

 

After an hour, I concluded, and because it was getting late I stood up, but

they immediately put a mrdanga in my hands. "More kirtan!" they said. "More

kirtan!"

 

"Who has come to enliven whom?" I thought. "These men are very merciful to

me."

 

Again we had kirtan and then relished a traditional Bengali feast, complete

with Lord Caitanya's favorite preparation, a leafy vegetable called sak. At

the end, I was inundated with Bengali sweets.

 

In the three hours I spent with those men I learned an important lesson. In

their association I became oblivious to the discomforts of being in a

foreign land and felt perfectly at home, in a spiritual atmosphere. I

realized that although my preferred places of residence, the holy lands of

Vrindavan and Mayapura, were far away in India, they are in fact manifested

wherever devotees are chanting the Lord's holy names. It was a valuable

lesson and one I pray I will not forget.

 

"When Krishna descended on the earth, He appeared in Vrindavan. Although I

am presently living in America, my residence is in Vrindavan, because I am

always thinking of Krishna. Although I may be in a New York apartment, my

consciousness is there, and this is as good as living there."

 

[srila Prabhupada, Path of Perfection, Page 128]

 

www.traveling-preacher.com

Official website for Diary of a Traveling Preacher