Volume 7, Chapter 14

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Diary of a Traveling Preacher

 

Volume 7, Chapter 14

 

By Indradyumna Swami

 

August 26 - September 8, 2006

 

 

"Our Fervent Prayers"

 

 

After the Polish festival tour, I went to New Vraja Dhama in Hungary. Under

the guidance of Sivarama Swami, it has become one of the most successful

communities in ISKCON. I had planned to read and chant in the spiritual

atmosphere there, but instead I found myself giving most of my time to my

disciples, some of whom had even come from Croatia, Bosnia, and other

neighboring countries to see me. And I, having been away from them for a

year, was just as eager to see them.

 

Then I went to Ukraine and participated in the yearly one-week devotee

festival in Odessa. Once again, every minute was spent teaching and

counseling my disciples. I often ask my disciples how they joined the Krsna

consciousness movement, and in Odessa I found the story of a mother and

daughter, particularly interesting. It is often miraculous how fallen souls

are reunited with the Lord and His devotees.

 

Kishori dasi, 91, was born into a poor but pious Russian family in 1915. In

her youth, she was saw her grandfather, who had never been sick a day in his

life, pass away at the age of 115 in a church while reciting the names of

God.

 

"But why should we talk about my past life?" Kishori humbly protested. "It

was only suffering and misery."

 

"Sometimes it's good to remember our past," I said, "so we can appreciate

our good fortune in the present."

 

Reluctantly, she continued. "We lived in a small village in the Russian

countryside," she said. "I was the youngest of 11 children. My mother died

when I was two, and my father struggled to maintain us by working in a

factory. As soon as we children were capable, we worked in the fields. I

remember hot summers harvesting hay and harsh winters huddling around the

fireplace with my brothers and sisters in our wood cabin.

 

"We never had much time to play. Our only solace was going to church on

Sundays. We'd walk 12 kilometers there and back. I always prayed to God to

take me to heaven. I told him I wasn't happy on earth.

 

"But things got worse before they got better. When I was 12 my father died,

and we children became orphans. All of us had no choice but to stop school

and go to work. It was either work or starve. I found work in the same

factory my father had served in most of his life.

 

"Fortunately, a teacher in a local school took pity on me and tutored me in

her spare time. Going to church and praying to God was all that made sense

in life at that time, but as I grew older, I became dissatisfied with the

sermons, as they didn't explain enough about God. I was frustrated. 'How

will I ever know Him?' I often said to my friends.

 

"Life in the village was always the same. The main activity of the men was

getting drunk and fighting. I wanted to escape, but where could I go? Again

I prayed to God for help."

 

Kishori paused for a moment. "Guru Maharaja," she said, "who will care to

hear my story? Most Russians have a similar story: a hard struggle for

existence."

 

"I agree," I said, "but I'm sure it will make the final chapter of your life

all that more relishable. Please go on."

 

She sighed. "Yes, Guru Maharaja," she said. "My tutor taught me accounting,

and when I was 18 I was able to get a good job at military base 100

kilometers away. I moved there, eventually met an officer, and married him.

 

"But our happiness was short-lived. World War Two started, and he was sent

to the front. I was alone for four years. I was fortunate that at the end of

the war he came home, although severely wounded. But at least he came back.

Most of his fellow officers didn't. I had to give solace to many widows."

 

As Kishori was speaking a number of children came into my room to see me.

Kishori turned to them. "Guru Maharaja is asking me to speak about my life,"

she said. "But real life began when I met the devotees of Krsna. Before that

it was only one sad story after another. Take my advice and always take

shelter of guru and Krsna. Never stray from the instructions they give you."

 

The children just stared at her with blank faces.

 

"Before the war I had given birth to Thakurani dasi," Kishori continued. "Of

course, she wasn't called Thakurani then. Neither of us could have ever

imagined one day we'd be devotees of Lord Krsna. She was my only daughter,

and as she grew up we became very close, especially after my husband died.

Thakurani and I spent a lot of time at the church, but my frustration with

finding answers to my deeper questions rubbed off on her.

 

"After she married, she was shocked when her husband, a staunch follower of

the Communist Party, began denouncing God. She couldn't bear it, and she

eventually divorced him. We became despondent, caught between a religion

unable to answer our soul-searching questions and a government steeped in

atheism. We often prayed that God would lead us to the truth.

 

"In the early 1960s we became desperate to find a path that could explain

everything about God and how to love Him. Having no one to guide us, we did

the only thing possible at the time: we searched for knowledge in the public

libraries. The Communist Party was proud of its large libraries educating

people in all sorts of mundane knowledge, but because of the volume of

literature, spiritual books also found their way onto the shelves.

 

One day we stumbled across a copy of the Bhagavad-gita printed in the late

1800s. The library did not lend out books, so each day we would return and

eagerly read the copy in the library. It seemed to answer all the questions

we had about life, death, creation, God, and the spiritual world. We read

with a passion.

 

With further searching we came across an old copy of the Mahabharata. We

spent all our spare time in the library reading it together. Finally, we

decided we must have the books for ourselves, so for months we painstakingly

copied them by hand. It took time because, as you know, the Mahabharata has

thousands of verses. By copying them we also mastered them.

 

But as a result, we encountered a new type of frustration. We learned that

to realize the knowledge we had to serve a spiritual master. But where in

Russia, deep behind the Iron Curtain at the height of Communism, would we

find a guru? We became hopeless, but continued praying.

 

"Years went by. We found other scriptures from India in the libraries. They

all reinforced our understanding that we needed personal guidance from a

spiritual master. And we were getting older. By 1989 I was 74 and Thakurani

was 51. There wasn't much time left, but one day the Lord took compassion on

us.

 

"It was in the spring of 1990, on the eve of the fall of Communism, when we

were walking down a street in Odessa and a young man quietly approached us

with a book under his arm, all the while looking around to be sure the

police weren't watching. We were startled when he put the Bhagavad-gita As

It Is into our hands. We wanted so much to purchase it, but we didn't have

enough money.

 

We took his address, worked hard at extra jobs for a few weeks, and after

contacting him again, bought the Bhagavad-gita. We were thrilled when he

told us there were a number of people meeting secretly to read and chant

Hare Krsna together, for Communism was still in force and religious meetings

were forbidden.

 

"We were happy to finally find people like us, interested in the culture and

philosophy of India. But one thing was still missing: we didn't have a

spiritual master. Our prayers for mercy reached a feverish state.

 

"Finally the Lord heard us. Six months later the regime fell and you came to

Odessa to give lectures on Bhagavad-gita. That's when you accepted us as

your aspiring disciples. The next year we were initiated.

 

"The Lord waited a long time to answer our fervent prayers. From my

childhood I was always praying to him. I'd almost lost hope, and finally he

rescued us."

 

Kishori chuckled. "Guru Maharaja," she said, "may I stop speaking about

myself now and say some words in glorification of you?"

 

I laughed. "Let's not spoil the story," I said. "It may well go into my

diary."

 

Kishori nodded and smiled.

 

dinadau murare nisadau murare

dinardhe murare nisardhe murare

dinante murare nisante murare

tvam eko gatir nas tvam eko gatir nah

 

"O Lord Murari, during the beginning, middle, and end of all our days and

nights, You always remain the only goal of our lives."

 

[sri Daksinatya, Srila Rupa Goswami's Padyavali, Text 73]

 

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