Prison Preaching

By Bhakta Jerry

‘HANUMAN EXPRESS DISPATCH’ Makes stop at Snake River

Hanumat Presaka Maharaja, lead navigator and the ships captain for the ‘Hanuman Express Dispatch,’ made a scheduled stop at Oregon’s largest prison, Snake River Correctional Institution on December 8,, 2007.

Maharaja lectured and spellbound nine inmates with his express dispatch emanating from the Srimad Bhagavad-Gita. Hanumat Presaka Maharaja read BG 3:42: ‘The working senses are superior to dull matter; mind is higher than the senses; intelligence is still higher than the mind; and he [the soul] is even higher than the intelligence.’

After Maharaja read the purport, many inmates were able to express their realizations on how the working senses have misdirected them to being victims of prison culture. Inmate Delaney Jones, recent attendee of the weekly Bhagavad-Gita class, addressed how his working senses had him consumed with being a major player in prison during his roughly twenty year tenure in Oregon’s prison system. ‘I had so much anger that I was only concerned about me’I wanted others (inmates) to see that anger and give me ‘fifty feet”I was more concerned with my prison reputation’many of us come back to prison because we loose that stature when we leave prison…

I had that mentality it is better to ‘reign in hell (prison) than serve in heaven’ ‘ Inmate Jones was prompted to make this statement after Maharaja quoted a line from Miltons’ Paradise Lost: ‘It is better to reign in hell that serve in heaven’ Maharaja explained the fall of Lucifer and the fallen Angles after their failed attempt to control and rule heaven. Maharaja highlighted this example in that it is comparable to our rebellious nature to serve our gross senses thinking that we are in charge verses serving the Supreme Lord Krishna, whom is factually in charge.

Maharaja added that Lucifer only had to repent to resume his position; however repentance takes work and conscientious effort. Inmate Eggelston remarked, ”is there any hope for redemption, does God simply just punish us for what we do, our bad karma’? Maharaja responded, ‘It takes time to correct behaviors and it takes patience’.

To expand and facilitate the inmates’ understanding it was also explained that Krishna facilitates or makes arrangements for our senses to be gratified. When things are unfavorable we consider it punishment from God, when in actuality we are choosing the degree of our suffering. When one comes to the realization that the duality of both good and bad are both suffering, then we may seek a higher purpose which are beyond the aforementioned distinctions.

Overall, Maharaja was quite impressed with the realization of the inmates. Maharaja reflected that these inmates come prepared to ask question about the real problems of life and reflect on them in a public setting as opposed to those that frequent the temples and underestimate or don’t fully appreciate relative the freedom and opportunity to pursue devotional life.

As an example, one such inmate Shawn Fretag, who has also severed nearly twenty years in the Oregon prison system, writes Maharaja frequently with inquires on how to overcome his lower nature and or how to resolve his twenty years of prison conditioning. Bhakta Shawn is an inspiring disciple of Maharaja and has fully disclosed his mind, his crime and intentions to become Krishna conscious. Maharaja stated: ‘The fortune is that these inmates know that they are in prison. At least they are trying to take advantage of this fact’. In this statement, Maharaja appears to acknowledge that the toughest part of a vaisnava’s mission is to get prisoners (the so called free society) to accept that they are inmates too.

The ‘prisoners within the prison within the prison’ have already come to that conclusion and are now seeking help to be truly free from the folly they also acknowledge they have created.

Submitted by Candra das