Sankirtan Adventure
By Krsna-Rupa Devi Dasi
Hare Krishna!
Inspired by the email aboutChaitanya das and the Brahma Kumaris on the train. Yes it is true that the Lord protects his devotees. A difficult situation occured to me on sankirtan last month in Newcastle, near Sydney, Australia. My husband took me to a market where he had been distributing books, so that we could do a harinama for the nice people he had been meeting there. I wasnt so keen, I guess it was a premonition of things to come.
After chanting and dancing for half an hour around the market and pleasing the store holders, my husband wanted us to leave and asked me to keep chanting while he went to get the car. I felt awkward but went and stood where he had indicated, playing the mrdanga and singing the mahamantra.
It turns out I was standing right next to a stall run by a man who had refused to give my husband a donation earlier. He was really paranoid and it turns out he thought my husband had sent me to chant at his stall to antagonise him for being so cheap.
What a shame! he thought the chanting of HARE KRSNA was an attack at him rather than some mercy! It was completely an illusion that lead him to maddness- he came right up to me and started yelling in my face, right close to my face, a foot away. I just kept chanting and I found it really hard to keep my cool. He was screaming at me to stop and saying that no one wanted to hear me. So I said that no one wanted to hear him (it turns out he was selling second hand books, nothing at all spiritual), which I guess was wrong, but he was acting so mean and violent it was really polluting the atmosphere and scaring me.
At this point a lady just came over and started chanting with me! she stood next to me and said “what are the words?” and started singing, just to support me. She said no one has the right to be treated like this, religious or not. so she gave me her support and and chanted with me, just like that. Some others stood around clearly showing that they liked the singing. So I kept chanting, this brought the man back to me for the third time in a few minutes but this time he pushed me, by shoving the mrdanga really hard against my stomach. I really freaked because I am in a womans body and I felt a great injustice had been done as woman should be protected in sociey.
At this point my husband returned and spoke so calmly with the man to pacify him. However, the lady who was chanting with me was yelling at him. Another stall holder came over and got angry at him too, as she was a muslim lady who felt she had been discriminated against in her life due to her religion. I insisted on calling the police, who came promptly but who didnt want to charge him as I wasn’t injured. They gave him a warning. My guru maharaja said they should have put him in jail.
The lady chanting with us gave us her address and bought the Srimad Bhagavatam 1st canto for $10. then my husband took us back to the preaching centre where I was crying and trying to adjust. It was sunday feast that afternoon, and we didn’t have so many guests, but by Krsna’s arrangement the lady who helped me and her husband walked past the center just as the food was being served, we couldn’t believe it, we invited them in, we talked for awhile they took take-away prasadam, they weren’t very hungrey at that time.
I wrote to her 6 weeks later, and she is coming to our Vedic wedding next week in New Gokula Hare Krsna farm, NSW australia. She will again take prasadam, at our wedding feast, and get devotee association. So Krsna sent a nice lady to chant along with me who was being given a rough time when alone on sankirtan. But I was thinking of Haridas thakur and kept chanting. In the future I think I will only do harinama with an escort. The main thing is that I am praying that from this experience I can make a new devotee, so it is all Krsna’s mercy actually. Sankirtan Ki jai
by Krsna-Rupa D.D.
