“You atheistic pigs!”
I was distributing books with Krishnaloka & Gokul-lila during the December 2016 marathon. We were in Levin, a small town about an hour outside of Wellington, New Zealand.
Standing outside the post office, I see two white-collar boys walk past me. Not expecting them to be anything special, I stop them and try to show them books. One boy says he is a Christian.
“That's all right,” I say. “We're not trying to change any religion, just saying there is always more to know.”
The boy asks me if I know where the ancient yoga text comes from.
“Devil's work,” he declares, and walks away.
A little up the road, Gokul-lila had just distributed a Gita to a very sweet man who had lost both legs. The man told her that he'd just come from the Christian bookshop down the street and had asked whether he could busk with his guitar in front of their shop. They shooed him away. Feeling hurt by the Christians, he met Gokul-lila and heard about Krishna.
After the exchange the man was waiting at the stoplight, where he was approached by the same two Christian boys I met. The man was very humble and smiled at the boys yet seemed happy and thankful he had received a Gita.
Not long after this, I stopped a slightly older man and was explaining The Science of Self Realization to him, when the very same Christian boy from earlier interrupted our conversation.
He said, “Excuse me, sir, you go to church. Jesus is the light, the way, and the truth! What this lady is preaching is not the way of Jesus. She is trying to pollute you with devilish nonsense.”
The man I was trying to show the book to suddenly rejects it and shakes hands and exchange smiles with the Christian boy. I turn around and try a different person.
Again he approaches us: “You go to church. I see you on Sundays. Why are you listening to these girls who don't go to church and don't follow Jesus?”
The man hands me back the book, saying, “Yeah, I go to church, I go to church!”
This happens a few more times.
Getting fed up, I go back to my bookbag. Gokul-lila, who has witnessed all this, was now approached by the two boys.
She asked them, “Please leave my friend alone. She's new to being out here. Give her a chance. I'm happy to talk to you after you have calmed down!”
For just a moment she could see that they realized they were getting really heated, and then something switched and they completely lost it.
They went off again: “You're misinforming these people. We're just trying to protect them! You're the ones who are wrong, not us!”
Gokul-lila and I asked the two Christians to leave us alone. But every time we said something, they would get angrier, shouting back, “We're not harassing you!”
After five minutes of this, a lovely older women stopped and asked whether we were all right. We complained about the boys.
The women talked to the boys. She said that if the girls asked you to go away, then you should listen to them and leave.
The two boys did not seem ready to listen to the new women and asked if she was a Christian.
She replied, “Yes, all my life. And I think what you're doing is wrong.”
This spiraled into another argument about how she was a bad Christian.
We ended up threatening to call the cops. Instead we called Krishnaloka, who was doing books in a nearby car park.
Krishnaloka arrived and walked straight up to one of the Christian boys and said, “You're harassing my daughter! What would your pastor do if he knew you were here?”
Her words didn't defuse the situation, and we had call the cops.
When a policeman arrived and heard from us and the elderly women who had taken our side, he went to talk to the boys, who were sitting on the stairs praying.
The boys jumped up and explained their innocence to the cop. They seemed quite surprised when the cop told them to move down the street. It didn't take much for the conversation to take a turn for the worse and resulted in the boys yelling at the cops and the cop yelling back. While this was going on, I was showing around Chant and Be Happy to people. I warned one girl (who had been observing the fiasco) about the boys, and soon she was approached by the blonde boy who had caused the most trouble.
The girl put up her hand and said, “I'm actually interested in this.
Go away.” The boy didn't have much time to react before the cop grabbed him, cuffed him and his friend, and arrested them both.
One boy spit and shouted, “You atheistic pigs.”
You never know what you're going to find in Levin.
Five Chant and Be Happy books were distributed, proving that people can always see through the illusion of Maya, no matter what the circumstance, and Krishna protects his devotees and the distribution of Srila Prabhupada's books.
Your servant,
Bhaktin Amakaya
