Illegal Resources: A Specific Account...

Krsnanatha · July 22, 2003

A friend of mine was the Temple President at a farm community in Europe in the early eighties. One day he returned from a couple days of visiting some other temples in the region to find a large expensive irrigation system waiting to be installed. As Temple President he was well aware that there was no money for the purchase of this expensive irrigation equiptment. He asked where hence it had come and was told "Oh So an So Prabhu, gave several thousands dollar for the purchase.

It was a well known fact that this friend of the temple was making his money through some connection to the distribution of illegal drugs. My friend told the devotees they needed to return the irrigation system and get the money back.

The cause for this decision was explained to me as being two fold. One was he did not want to give the impression to the donor that he could "wash" the Karma from his activities by offering some of the fruit to the devotees and Krsna. Second he wanted no financial connection between the temple and this illegal drug activity.

As attractive as it may have seemed at the time to simply take the several thousand dollars and use it in Krsna's service the devotees didn't. The equipment was in fact returned, and the Temple President took the Laxmi and went to the door of the donor and politely returned it explaining why he felt he could not and should not take the money. Not much concern was further paid to the event until years later.

At a festival a devotee approached this Temple President and told him "You don't know me but you made me a devotee."

The unknown Prabhu explained that he had years back been a friend to this man connected to the drug dealing. They would smoke marijuana together and the dealer would make conversation about Krsna and the philosophy connected of Krsna consciousness.

He said he had never much taken these discussions seriously as such conversation was always spoken while a large cloud of reefer smoke enveloped the room. All the talk of purity of character and pursuit of an absolute standard of moral integrity and behavior seemed at the time just so much pie in the sky talk given the atmosphere in which such talks were conducted.

That is until one day when they were hanging out and a knock came to the door. It was the Temple President returning the several thousand dollar donation. This impressed him right off the bat as his experience with religionists was that they generally spent the vast amount of their waking hours hunting down money often by "hook or crook". But what really shocked him was what he heard. Listening from the other room he had heard the Temple President thoroughly explain to the donor the reasons why this money could not be accepted from the platform of operating only in terms of what Krsna and Prabhupada would sanction. Hearing this he was convinced that while his friend might not properly represent the behavior proposed in the philosophy there were, somewhere out there people would did. He became determined to seek them out, which he did, eventually joining a temple somewhere else in Europe. This boy over time became one of that temple's best preachers distributing thousands of books and collecting many thousands of dollars in the course of this preaching. From a calculative point of view, he collected far more money than the donation which had years before been returned. what to speak of the thousands of souls eternally benefited from his activities as a preacher in Sri Chaitanya's Mahaprabhu's sankirtana movement.

The Temple President obviously had no clue this would eventually play out in this way. He simply did the right and honest thing and left it up to Krsna to create the results from there. We may think we can manipulate the material energy in some less than moral or righteous manner and may even appear to get the result we desire but ultimately Krsna will the final arbitor.

I am similarly reminded of a time when a carefully crafted campaign was conducted at one temple to endear the local people of the town to the devotees. The devotees engaged in free prasadam distribution to the local homeless and poor, interfaith dialog in the local religious community and they also participated in some community social events. It worked. The locals began to see the devotees as just nice regular folks who merely happen to put loving God at the top of their list of things to do every day. That is until early one morning.

On this day a couple of devotees were caught stealing flowers which had recently been planted as landscaping for large local building project. Much of the goodwill which had been generated towards the devotees evaporated when it was publized that they were out in the wee hours of the morning digging up and stealing less than a hundred dollars worth of Marigolds.

A huge effort for preaching was all but erased by a plan to "save" a handful of Krsna's Laxmi by stealing these plants instead of properly buying them.

It is in my view ALWAYS best to operate within the confines of so-called mundane morality and let Krsna dictate the results from there.

theist · July 23, 2003

This is a very important lesson.

July 23, 2003

If Krsna would supplied Draupadi with unlimited cloth to thwart the evil intention of the Kurus to publically humilate her, He will also equally expose the hiding place of the most carefully concealed scandel.

No matter how much thought and effort goes toward keeping the details unseen Krsna seems to always step in and snap on His big flood light.

I always enjoy seeing or hearing about how the "Krsna factor" shook out some situation. Either how a devotee came to know of the wonderful result produced from simply doing the right thing or the spanking applied to those who feel themselves exempt from the principle of action and reaction