Guru's mercy

atma · September 6, 2001

Today a devotee told me this story:

One Indian gentleman took initiation from Srila Bhaktisidhanta Sarasvati Prabhupada but due to material desires he abandoned the vaisnava principles, hung up his beads and went back to his bad habits. When he passed away, somehow the devotees heard about it and took his body for cremation even though he wasn't a follower anymore. They put the body in the pyre and when they were ready to lit the fire, all of the sudden, the man jumped out from the pyre. Every body got scared but he reassured them that he wasn't a ghost or anything like that and told them that he was in the presence of Yamaraja. Yamaraja was asking him: "why did you do this?, why did you do that?,etc" but he was so frightened that he couldn't answer him. When Yamaraja asked him: "who is your guru?" and he answered: "Prabhupada", he woke up just in time before they lit the fire.

After that he lived in one of the Gaudiya Math temples for 12 more years before he passed away.

This reminded me of a devotee that I knew. He took initiation from Srila Prabhupada in 1973. He did lots of devotional service but due to anarthas he fell down. Somehow he was always attracted to the devotees. In 1987 he showed up in India and he told me that he knew that he'll have a sudden and terrible death. A few months later other devotees came and told me this story: this same devotee got a house just half block from the temple and one evening during Lord Balarama's appearance day, this prabhu was walking towards his house when a man attacked him from behind stabbing him many, many times on his back. Wounded as he was, he crawled all the way to the temple, leaving a bloody trail and he reached the temple while the devotees were having kirtana for Lord Balarama. He passed away surrounded by devotees, in the middle of kirtan, with tulasi leaf in his mouth in an auspicious ocassion.

It just amazed me how compassionate the pure devotees are. Even when some person is completely fallen, Guru and Krsna remember the little steps that we did towards them.

What about other devotees, completely fallen but at the last moment they knew that death was coming and they took shelter of the vaisnavas. Sudama, Upendra and others come to memory.

How is that sloka? Little steps towards Krsna will protect us from the biggest danger?

And that is not been able to remember the Lord at the moment of death.