Diary of a Traveling Preacher 6.18

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Indradyumna Swami

17-Oct-05

IDS Diary (of a Traveling Preacher)

Volume 6, Chapter 18

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Diary of a Traveling Preacher

 

Volume 6, Chapter 18

 

By Indradyumna Swami

 

August 26 - September 26, 2005

 

 

"Taking Care"

 

 

Soon after our summer festival season, Nandini dasi and Jayatam dasa

offered to organize a retreat for me so I could recover from the strain of

61 festivals in three months.

 

No doubt I needed rest, but I turned the offer down. "I need to keep

active," I thought, "otherwise the pain of separation from the festivals

will be too great."

 

Jayatam was not happy. "Srila Gurudeva," he said, "you're almost 57.

You should start taking better care of yourself. It took you a long time to

get over that flu recently."

 

Then an invitation came to a festival in the city of Odessa, on the

Black Sea in Ukraine. I jumped at the chance.

 

"At least take time to go swimming," said Jayatam. "It will do you wonders."

 

"Good idea," I said and threw a pair of swimming trunks in my suitcase.

 

The three-day event turned out to be one lecture and kirtan after

another, and I only saw the sea from a distance. But on the evening of the

second day, my body gave me a warning.

 

I stepped forward to lead arotika in the main tent. A thousand

devotees had crammed in, eager for kirtan. As I reached down to pick up a

mrdanga, I felt a sharp pain shoot through my right side. I stood up

straight, and the pain slowly subsided.

 

"Too much lunch," I thought, and I started to sing.

 

As the kirtan built up, I passed the microphone to someone else and

began dancing with the devotees. After an hour we were all leaping high.

Suddenly I felt the same sharp pain in my abdomen. I continued dancing,

trying to ignore it, but it became too much.

 

I had to slow down. I took back the microphone and starting singing

again, but the pain kept getting worse. My voice trailed off, and I had to

bring the kirtan to a close.

 

"More kirtan!" the devotees shouted. "More Kirtan!" I tried to smile

as I turned around and walked to the nearest chair.

 

A brahmacari quickly walked over to me. "Is everything okay?" he

said. "You look pale."

 

"I feel fine," I said. "No problem."

 

A few minutes later a senior devotee began lecturing on stage, and I

retired to my room.

 

"I'll be okay tomorrow," I thought as I drifted off to sleep.

 

The next morning I was to give Srimad Bhagavatam class. As I sat

playing the harmonium and singing before the lecture, I felt the pain in my

abdomen again.

 

"What's happening?" I thought, and I quickly ended the bhajan.

 

That afternoon, before leaving for Poland, I initiated 10 disciples

in my room. Sadhumati dasi, an 85-year-old disciple came in to receive

gayatri mantra.

 

She had tears in her eyes. "I've waited years for this moment," she

said. "Guru Maharaja, I've had a hard life, but the Lord has always watched

over and protected me."

 

As I was chanting the gayatri mantra in her right ear, the pain in

my side appeared again. I winced, and I struggled to keep my concentration.

 

I was curious how Sadhumati had kept her strong faith in the Lord

throughout her life, so I asked her to tell me about herself.

 

"I was born near Nikolayev, Ukraine," she began, "the youngest of

six children. My family was very poor, and life was austere. Even as

children, we worked so hard that we rarely had time to attend church.

 

"I was in my early twenties when World War II started. I was sent to

Saratov to sew clothes for the soldiers. Those were difficult times. We got

only 500 grams of bread a day. Sometimes I cried because I was so hungry. I

remember praying to God that I wouldn't starve.

 

"I thought that anything would be better than the terrible

conditions we lived in, so I volunteered to fight on the front lines.

Because I was a woman, the local military commander refused, but I insisted,

and he finally agreed. The Russian army had lost many men in the war. After

three months of training, I was sent to help defend St. Petersburg from the

Nazi invasion.

 

"Although I was a communist, I had deep faith in God. I saw many

terrible things during the war. I often prayed, 'My Lord, if I'm killed

today, please take me to You.'

 

"Once I had to climb a telephone pole to fix a wire. Just at that

moment two fighter planes collided above and the falling debris knocked me

down. I was severely injured, but I survived.

 

"After the war I married a soldier, and we had three children. When

my eldest son grew up, he fell into bad association and started drinking and

taking drugs. To maintain these vices, he began stealing. Finally he left

home. Suddenly life had no meaning for me at all, and I prayed desperately

to the Lord to help me.

 

"Then one day my son came home to visit, and I saw many wonderful

qualities in him. He'd given up his bad habits and was peaceful and serene.

He said it was due to his faith in God. He told me he had joined a spiritual

movement from India and asked me to visit his temple. When I did, I was

impressed with the spiritual atmosphere.

 

"I visited the temple regularly. I was happy in God's house, cutting

vegetables and cleaning floors.

 

"Several years later you came to visit us, and after your first

morning class, I asked if I could become your disciple. Now I am getting my

second initiation, and I feel completely safe in Krsna's hands."

 

I was amazed. "Such is the mercy of the Lord," I thought, "that an

elderly woman from the Ukrainian countryside-a former soldier in the Red

Army-has become a brahmani Vaisnavi."

 

I asked her one last question. "Despite your 85 years, you look

quite healthy. What is your secret?"

 

She smiled. "I take care of myself," she said.

 

Her answer echoed the advice Jayatam and Nandini had given me a few

days earlier: to take better care of my own health.

 

"In one week I'll be in Hungary," I thought, "and I'll see a doctor

about the pain in my side."

 

After I arrived in Budapest, the devotees quickly arranged an

appointment for me with a good doctor.

 

The doctor wanted me to first have a blood test and an ultra-sound

scan of my abdomen. During the scan a trainee-nurse gasped in shock. "O my

God!" she blurted out. "Your liver is so swollen!" The older nurses

admonished her with strong looks.

 

"So that's were the pain is coming from," I said.

 

Several hours later, the doctor was studying the scan. "How long

have you had this condition?" he asked. He looked concerned.

 

"I've felt the pain for ten days now," I replied.

 

"Ten days?" he said. "And only now you've come in?"

 

I was silent.

 

"Have you ever had liver problems before?"

 

"I had hepatitis A in India 10 years ago," I said.

 

A devotee who had come with me spoke up. "And he assisted a senior

devotee in our movement, Sridhar Swami, in his final days. Sridhar Maharaja

had hepatitis C. Indradyumna Swami ate something that Maharaja had eaten."

 

The doctor looked worried.

 

"You can only get Hepatitis C from contaminated blood," I said to

the devotee.

 

"Or food contaminated from blood in the mouth of a patient with the

virus," the devotee replied. "Maharaja's gums were bleeding toward the end."

 

The possibility that I could be seriously ill suddenly hit me, and I

began to sweat.

 

"Hepatitis C," I thought. "Can kill."

 

I felt weak.

 

"We need to see the results of the blood tests tomorrow," the doctor

said in a professional tone. "There's no use discussing this any further

until then."

 

On the way back to the temple I was quiet. Back in my room, I sat on

a bed. "Is this the beginning of a long drawn-out disease?" I thought.

 

I shook my head. "No, no," I thought. "It's much too early to start

thinking like this. The doctor said we should wait for the results of the

blood tests."

 

But the persistent pain, the worried look on the doctor's face, and

the devotee's words had all affected me.

 

"If it actually turns out that I have a serious disease," I thought,

"I'll keep preaching as long as I can and try to deepen my own Krsna

consciousness at the same time. And I'll make a serious effort to renounce

everything that's not essential to awakening my love for Krsna."

 

I looked around the room and managed a small laugh. "I doubt whether

such nice facilities as these will have any relevance when death is just

around the corner," I thought.

 

I shook my head and began to talk softly to myself. "Shame on you,"

I said. "You're probably more aware of Hurricane Katrina and the war in Iraq

than Krishna's pastimes in Vrindavan."

 

I caught my reflection in a nearby mirror. "And you've put on

weight," I said.

 

I reached for a pen and paper. "Eat frugally," I wrote.

 

"And how have I been spending my spare time?" I thought.

 

"Socializing," I said softly, answering my own question. "But better

to use that time in study, chanting the holy names, and prayer."

 

Someone knocked on the door, and I awoke from my self-analysis.

 

"Come in," I said.

 

A devotee opened the door and peeked in.

 

"Maharaja," he said, "what did the doctor say?"

 

"Not much," I replied. "He's waiting for the results of my blood

tests, but it could be serious."

 

"I really hope not, Maharaja," he said and closed the door.

 

"Me too," I said under my breath. "But what if it's the beginning of

the end?"

 

As I lay down that night, the pain came back, and I tossed and

turned trying to find a comfortable position.

 

After some time I sat up straight. "Am I ready to die?" I said to

myself. "I should be. A devotee's whole life is preparation for that final

moment."

 

I remembered a Bengali Proverb:

 

bhajan kara sadhana

kara-murte janle hoy

 

"Whatever bhajan and sadhana one has performed throughout his life will be

tested at the time of death.

 

[srila Prabhupada lecture, Mumbai January 11, 1975]

 

I lay back down, and as I finally drifted off to sleep I made a

promise to myself: "Whatever comes of this, I'm going to try and become a

better devotee."

 

Five hours later I awoke, thinking I'd had a nightmare about being

sick. But the pain in my side came back, and I remembered the reality at

hand.

 

The morning dragged on as I waited to go back to the clinic.

Finally, 10 AM came, and when we entered the doctor's office, I saw the

results of my blood tests on his desk. He was on the phone, a serious look

on his face. I became nervous. After what seemed like an eternity, he

finished the call and picked up the results. He slowly turned around in his

chair.

 

It was a tense moment.

 

He looked over the results. Then he smiled. "I see we're not dealing

with anything sinister," he said. "There's no virus, infection, or tumor."

 

A wave of relief came over me.

 

"My opinion is that your liver was already weak from the hepatitis

you had years ago, and combined with your present state of exhaustion, the

long influenza you had, and perhaps the medication you were taking, it has

become swollen.

 

"The swelling will gradually reduce over one month, but only if you

take complete rest, eat properly, and do some moderate exercise."

 

As we came out of the office the devotee with me heaved a sigh of relief.

 

"That was a close call, Maharaja," he said.

 

"More like a wakeup call," I said.

 

"To take care better care of yourself?" he said.

 

"Yes," I said, "and to take Krsna consciousness more seriously."

 

His face brightened. "Soon you'll be just like before," he said.

 

I was going to agree, when I suddenly remembered my realizations the

night before. "Actually," I said, "I don't think things will ever be the

same again."

 

His smile vanished. "What do you mean?" he said. "The doctor said

you'll be fine in one month."

 

"Last night I made some promises to myself," I said, "and I feel

they are as valid now as they were when I thought I was facing a long

illness."

 

The devotee raised his eyebrows.

 

"There will come a time when a medical exam won't be so favorable,"

I said. "And no doubt, one day I'll have to die. I need to make some

adjustments in my spiritual life. A sannyasi is meant to be the emblem of

renunciation.

 

"A fish can swim in water, but if he tries to swim in milk he'll

drown. Similarly, one in the renounced order should live a simple life. If

he accepts too much opulence he can fall down.

 

"While I recuperate, I'll use the time to increase my hearing and

chanting about the Lord. It will help me and help my preaching. A sadhu

shouldn't be like a cow - always giving nectarean milk but only eating

grass."

 

"Where will you go to recuperate?" the devotee asked.

 

"For my body," I said, "I'll go immediately to Durban, South Africa,

and rest for a month in our temple there. And for my soul, I'll go to

Vrindavan during Kartika. I'll take shelter of the devotees there and try to

remember the transcendental pastimes of the Lord."

 

svantar bhava virodhini vyavahrtih sarva sanais tyajyatam

svantas cintita tattvam eva satatam sarvatra sandhiyatam

tad bhaveksanatah sada sthira care nya drk tiro bhavayatam

vrindaranya vilasinor nisi dasyotsave sthiyatam

 

"One by one, give up all activities that are averse to your internal

mood. Always meditate on the subject matter that is firmly fixed in your

heart. Consider all the animate and inanimate living entities of Vrindavan

to be absorbed in thoughts of Radha and Krsna. In this way always reside in

Vrindavan in a festive mood in the service of the youthful divine couple."

 

[srila Prabodhananda Saraswati,Sri Vrindavan Mahimamrta, Sataka 3, Text 1]

 

 

Indradyumna.swami (AT) pamho (DOT) net

 

www.traveling-preacher.com

Official website for Diary of a Traveling Preacher

 

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