Volume 7, Chapter 15

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Diary of a Traveling Preacher

 

Volume 7, Chapter 15

 

September 9 - 12, 2006

 

By Indradyumna Swami

 

 

"Bearing the Burden"

 

 

During the festival in Odessa, one of my aspiring disciples asked to see me.

Fifteen-year-old Radha Sakhi dasi was born into the Krsna consciousness

movement. When she was a child, I gave her a lot of attention and care, as I

do for many children, and while we talked, I could tell that such love had

borne fruit.

 

She told me that her mother had recently passed away, a few weeks after

suddenly coming down with a lung infection. Radha Sakhi was alone in taking

care of her and was with her when she died. Though shaken by her mother's

impending death she bravely collected herself, and put a Tulasi leaf into

her mother's mouth, poured Ganges water on her head, and loudly chanted the

Hare Krsna mantra into her ear.

 

"You did the right thing," I told Radha Sakhi. "Just as your mother brought

you into the world and helped you become Krsna conscious, so you helped your

mother to leave in the most auspicious circumstances. Mother and daughter

have proved themselves to be the best of family members by serving each

other's deepest interest: to return back to Godhead."

 

The day before I left, I initiated 10 people, bringing the number of my

disciples close to 2,000. The next morning as I was packing to leave, I had

a small seizure. My body stiffened, my neck and arms were full of intense

pain, and I couldn't speak. It lasted only a minute or two but left me

exhausted. As I went to lie on my bed I tried to understand why it had

happened.

 

"I am in good health," I thought.

 

Then I remembered that the same thing had happened two years ago, just after

another initiation. Although Tamala Krsna Maharaja once told me not to

attribute bad health solely to the karma of my disciples, I couldn't ignore

Srila Prabhupada's statement in Perfect Questions, Perfect Answers, that a

spiritual master takes on the burden of the sinful activities of his

disciples.

 

"Krsna is so powerful that He can immediately take up all the sins of others

and immediately make them right. But when a living entity plays the part on

behalf of Krsna, he also takes the responsibility for the sinful activities

of his devotees. Therefore to become a guru is not an easy task. You see? He

has to take all the poisons and absorb them. So sometimes - because he is

not Krsna - sometimes there is some trouble"

 

[Perfect Questions, Perfect Answers, Chapter 6]

 

I had thought about stopping initiations last year but decided to continue.

Now, as I lay on the bed, it became obvious that something had to change. I

decided that from now on I would accept disciples only if I knew them well

and had long-standing relationships with them. I would be more selective.

 

Then I got up to take a shower. While lathering I slipped and fell, hitting

my head hard on the floor. I was knocked out for a few moments. Then I woke

up and stumbled back to the bed.

 

"That makes my decision even more firm," I thought.

 

That afternoon a young man approached me with a letter of recommendation

from his temple president asking me to accept the boy as an aspiring

disciple. I politely refused. Word spread quickly.

 

After the festival, I left with my Russian disciple and translator,

Uttama-sloka das. Dressed in dhotis, we flew from Odessa to Kiev, where we

would catch a plane to Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, Uttama-sloka's

native country. It is a small Muslim country on the Caspian Sea bordered by

Russia, Iran, Georgia, and Armenia.

 

At the airport in Kiev I ran into Prabhavisnu Swami, who was on his way to

another region in the CIS. "Are you going into a Muslim country dressed like

that?" he asked.

 

I had been in a hurry when I left Odessa, and it hadn't occurred to me that

it might be wiser to travel in conventional clothes.

 

The trip had been organized months in advance, but because of the outdated

communications in Azerbaijan we had not been able to contact the temple or

local devotees for weeks.

 

"It's like flying into the unknown," I said to Uttama-sloka.

 

"We don't even know who's picking us up," he said with a half-hearted laugh,

"or where we'll be staying or even if they'll have prasadam ready."

 

"I love it," I said. "This is sannyasa: completely dependent upon the Lord."

 

But the love wasn't without apprehension. I felt nervous as I mulled over

Prabhavisnu Swami's comment about my clothes. I recalled the last time I

visited Azerbaijan two years ago, when an official had demanded a

hundred-dollar bribe as I departed.

 

I turned to Uttama-sloka "Do any tourists ever go to Azerbaijan?" I asked.

 

He laughed.

 

I looked around the cabin. I saw only Azerbaijanis, silently staring back at

me.

 

I turned to Uttama-sloka. "There's a heavy mood in here," I said.

 

Toward the end of the flight, as I was nervously arranging my documents for

entry, I noticed a large man sitting across the aisle, wearing a black coat

and sporting a big mustache. He suddenly turned to me. "Hare Krsna!" he said

loudly.

 

I don't know who was more startled, I or the other passengers.

 

"Are they going to wash your feet when you arrive at the temple?" he asked

in a booming voice. He was speaking Azerbaijani, and Uttama-sloka

translated.

 

Everyone looked at me, and I wasn't sure how to reply. Either way would

confirm that washing the feet of distinguished guests was part of the

tradition I followed. I doubted any of the passengers had ever heard of such

a thing. Then the same man came to my rescue.

 

"It's not our Islamic custom," he said, "but nevertheless it is your

tradition's way of honoring guests. And respecting guests is very much part

of Islamic culture."

 

I took a quick look around and saw a number of people nodding their heads in

agreement.

 

"How do you know about this?" I said.

 

He laughed. "I used to live next to your temple in Baku," he said. "Every

time a guru would come I would watch the reception from my window. You are

good people. You love Allah with a passion."

 

I looked around the cabin again. Everyone was smiling at me. All my

misgivings vanished.

 

When we landed, the other passengers stepped back to let me take my baggage

out of the overhead compartment. Some motioned that I should go forward and

be the first to leave the plane.

 

The woman at the immigration desk smiled and asked if I was going to stay at

the Hare Krsna temple. When customs officials asked if I had any goods to

declare, I replied that I didn't. One of them smiled. "But do you have any

Hare Krsna baklava?" he said, referring to a traditional Middle-Eastern

sweet.

 

"No," I said. "I'm sorry, I don't."

 

"Make sure you have some on the way out," he said. "We work both directions,

coming and going."

 

As I walked toward the exit I looked up and saw a sign: "Welcome to the

country where it is a tradition to serve and respect guests."

 

I chuckled. "Things have certainly improved since my last visit," I thought.

 

When Uttama-sloka and I left the terminal we were greeted by about 50

devotees. As I walked along, the devotees gave me flowers and garlands,

which I immediately distributed to the many curious Azerbaijanis watching.

Each time I offered someone a flower I would greet him. "Salaam aleikum," I

would say. "Peace be unto you."

 

"Wa aleikum salaam," they would reply, wishing me the same.

 

I marveled at being so openly received in a devout Muslim country.

 

As we drove to the temple, I spoke to my disciple Sahadeva dasa. "Things

have changed," I said.

 

"Yes and no," he said. "The government wants to join the European Union, so

it is welcoming foreigners and making it easy to come and go. It wants

foreign investment and US dollars for its large oil reserves."

 

Then he lowered his voice, as if out of habit, "But the government is very

corrupt," he said. "The officials keep most of the money and the people

remain poor. I won't say more."

 

I looked out at the city. It appeared much as it did when I first came, in

1992.

 

"What is the population?" I asked.

 

"Eight million," said Sahadeva, "but 20 million Azerbaijanis live next door

in Iran."

 

"How is that?" I asked.

 

"Gasoline costs one US cent a liter in Iran and bread is practically free,"

he said.

 

I was happy to be back. Baku is one of my favorite places for preaching. I

can never get over the fact that I can preach freely there, in the midst of

the Muslim world. All of my 25 disciples in Azerbaijan were born in Muslim

families, but no one opposed them when they joined the Hare Krsna movement.

 

The next morning, Sahadeva told me a bit of recent history. "Some years ago

the government cracked down on the 200 non-Muslim religious movements in the

country," he said. "We thought we were finished. But then it officially

registered 20 of them, including us."

 

"Why did it do that?" I said.

 

"The government was primarily concerned about the opposing political parties

using religion as a front," he said. "Many of the groups were merely facades

for political opposition. Because we're a purely spiritual movement with no

political intentions, the government had no complaints. But it did place

some stiff restrictions on us. After all, it is a Muslim country. It forbade

us to preach outside Baku, and we are not allowed to hold public programs.

People can only visit our temple. But we got permission to distribute Srila

Prabhupada's books anywhere we want in Baku."

 

I smiled. "Lord Caitanya's secret weapon," I said.

 

"People like us and know who we are," he said.

 

I got first-hand experience of that as we drove through the city. When we

stopped at a red light, two men walked by in front of our car. One man

turned to the other. "You see in that car?" he said. "It's a Hare Krsna

guru."

 

The next morning I was thinking of visiting the local hospital to follow up

on the seizure. But just as I was about to bring up the idea, I overheard

two devotees joking about the doctors in Azerbaijan. "When a patient goes to

the hospital," said one, "the doctors have to decide whether to treat the

patient or let him live."

 

I just kept quiet.

 

My heart goes out to the devotees in Azerbaijan. They preach in an isolated

part of the world and are rarely visited by senior devotees, so I decided to

go ahead with the initiations they had planned, although I knew little about

some of the candidates. I have always relied on temple presidents to

recommend disciples, just as Srila Prabhupada did.

 

Before the ceremony I asked to meet the candidates. One man in particular

caught my attention, as I had stayed at his house when I was in Azerbaijan

two years ago. He was originally from Iran, but he took up communism and

fled to Azerbaijan when it was a republic in the former Soviet Union. He

started a business in Baku and soon became wealthy.

 

Later he fell away from communism because he saw it failing. He turned again

to Islam and became a devout Muslim.

 

Then several years ago he met the devotees and was fascinated by the

philosophy of Bhagavad-gita. He was impressed by the temple programs but

hesitated to fully surrender because of his attachment to wealth. He then

went to India, on a pilgrimage to learn more about Krsna consciousness.

Overwhelmed by the beauty and transcendental atmosphere of Vrindavan, he

decided to become a devotee. I was in Vrindavan at the same time, and one

day he approached me and asked to become an aspiring disciple.

 

That night he prayed to Sri Sri Radha-Syamasundara at our temple and asked

Them to take away any impediments to his Krsna consciousness. After he

returned to Azerbaijan, his business failed, and he started a smaller one

that brought in less money but gave him more free time.

 

"How do you use that free time?" I asked. I wanted to see how serious he

was.

 

"I use it to chant between 32 and 64 rounds a day," he said.

 

At the initiation ceremony, I mentioned that his life was simpler than when

I first met him. "Allah always gave me what I wanted," he said, "but Krsna

took everything away and left me only the shelter of His lotus feet."

 

Everyone smiled.

 

"I can easily bear the burden of a few more disciples like this," I thought.

I handed him his beads and gave him the name Nilacala-candra das.

 

"Caitanya Mahaprabhu has forbidden, 'Don't make many siksas, many

disciples.' But for preaching work we have to accept many disciples - for

expanding preaching - even if we suffer. That's a fact. The spiritual master

has to take the responsibility for all the sinful activities of his

disciples. Therefore to make many disciples is a risky job unless one is

able to assimilate all the sins."

 

[Perfect Questions Perfect Answers, Chapter 6]

 

Indradyumna.swami (AT) pamho (DOT) net

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