< ?php the_ttftext ($text = "How extraordinary is the mercy of the Lord?", $echo = true, $style="English", $overrides=""); ?>
By Lalita Madhava devi dasi
After living in the Alachua community for more than 25 years (it is now funny to think that as one of 7 or 8 people living on the New Raman Reti Farm in the early 80’s, I was singlehandedly 15% of the community!) I recently moved back to New England with my children and granddaughter. Though we loved (and desperately miss) the Deities, the temple and the devotees and are now actually gearing our lives and business to where we can spend half the year there, we could no longer handle the intense, overwhelming Florida climate year round. And although I am originally from Boston and we’d at first intended to move there, we ultimately chose to live in the gorgeous, historic, cultural, intellectual and art-centered town of Brattleboro, VT because we felt it would be a more sattvic environment for a child.
And here we are. After some initial challenges, which included an ankle broken during the move (and subsequent hysterical scene in which I lay at the bottom of my back stairs, cursing and sobbing in the azalea bushes), a 16-hour flight-from-hell courtesy of USAirways and, stupidly in retrospect, taking an apartment sight unseen due to the time constraints created by the immediate sale and 30-day closing on our house in Florida (and having that apartment turn out to be a very bad choice) – deep breath, everyone! – we are now finally settled in a lovely Victorian house with hardwood floors, southwest facing bay windows and 10′ ceilings. And as an artist (a jeweler specifically), my studio has amazingly opulent floor-to-ceiling windows which overlook beautiful downtown Brattleboro.
So there I was last night, sitting in my beautiful studio at my work table, thinking about new designs. I make hand-fabricated bracelets, brooches and necklaces set with rare and unusual gemstones and individually hand-stamped with Bhagavad-gita verses, which I sell in upscale mainstream art galleries. With my workspace freshly organized after the second unexpected move, I was meditating on green Mali garnets and spectacularly swirling Sierra Madre agates, imagining what I might do with them.
My contemplation was interrupted by a knock on my studio door. My daughter, Krishna-darshan, was urgently saying, “Mata, come here! Come here right now!” I followed her into the living room, where she put her finger to her lips, saying “Shhh”, and pointed toward the ceiling, indicating that I should listen to the faint, muffled music coming from the upstairs apartment.
When I did, I could not believe my ears. “Govinda Jaya Jaya” from the old Radha Krishna Temple recording?!? Stunned, I stood still as a statue and just kept listening. Next, my neighbor cranked up the volume and began exuberantly singing along with Mother Yamuna’s “Govindam Adi Purusam,” the intimately familiar song that is played in temples each morning at Greeting of the Deities! Wow. I was speechless. I was so blown away by this – by how it was such an amazing manifestation of Lord Krishna’s mercy toward us, living in a town with no devotees and no temple – that I just stood there crying in my living room!
A little while later, when I finally composed myself, I called my upstairs neighbor, Maria. Prior to this I had had only 2 or 3 brief conversations with her and knew only that she was from Caracas, Venezuela and that she was a vegetarian, something she’d mentioned previously in the context of informing us about a community Thanksgiving event taking place in Brattleboro.
“Maria,” I said, “I couldn’t help overhearing the music you were just playing.” She was immediately apologetic and begged my forgiveness for playing music too loud. “No, no,” I interrupted her, “it’s not that. It’s just that that music is very special to me and I was surprised to hear you playing it.” I then went on to explain that I was a Hare Krishna devotee and that the Radha Krishna Temple tape had special significance to me and I wondered where she got it. “Oh my God, oh my God! You’re a devotee?” she exclaimed. And the amazing story Maria proceeded to tell me blew my mind even more than it already was.
Growing up in Caracas, her father was a hunter and she had a vivid and disturbing memory of him bringing home a deer that he’d killed when she was 4 years old. By the time she was 7, however, he’d converted to Hinduism and become a vegetarian, aggressively preaching to his children to stop eating meat and telling them that it was “poison.” By her early teens, Maria herself had become a committed vegetarian.
Several years later, Maria left Caracas and moved to New York City. During her early years there, she received word from her parents that her 13-year-old brother had left home and joined the Hare Krishna Temple, where he lived for more than 10 years – a decision her parents were favorable toward since they appreciated the beliefs and the philosophy of the Hare Krishnas. Eventually, Maria herself began attending the 55th Street Temple and came very close to joining the Movement.
For whatever reasons, she did not move into the temple at that time, and eventually moved to Brattleboro, Vermont, where she has continued to pursue her education and professional life. Maria described the Radha Krishna Temple tape as being “so important” to her and said that she usually “plays it early in the morning.” She said that to her it is “sacred, beautiful, enlightening and enduring” and that in listening to it “a very powerful energy is transmitted to you.” “Elevating” and “empowering” were adjectives she also used to describe the chanting. “So purifying,” she said, “it connects you to Him, to the real Creator.”
Maria went on to tell me that she “feels very bad” that she didn’t join the temple back then and that she often wonders “how her life would have been different” if she had. When I told her that we try as often as possible to make the 2-hour drive to the Boston Temple, she said she deeply missed the Deities and the temple and wanted to go with us whenever we went.
Another interesting and quite comical twist on the whole situation was that I have repeatedly offered Maria prasadam – such as chocolate cake and gourmet homemade pizza cooked from scratch by my daughter, Krishna-darshan – and she has repeatedly politely refused. I could never understand why. It turns out that she is an ethical vegetarian and was afraid to accept our food because it might contain rennet cheese or other non-vegetarian ingredients! I almost fell over laughing!
So, as I said, here we are! In gorgeous Brattleboro where we thought there were no devotees, but where we have a devotee neighbor and an on-site manager whose partner manages the Natural Living department of the famous Brattleboro Food Co-Op and, inspired by my daughter’s name, ordered Krishna “statues” to sell in the gift wares section of the store when we moved in!
The Lord is amazingly kind and merciful!
Calling All Preachers!
Mature, liberal-minded Vaishnavas are needed to help open (or contribute funds toward opening) a center in gorgeous, progressive and highly-intellectual Brattleboro, Vermont. Brattleboro is a beautiful and amazing town on the Connecticut River in southern Vermont just north of the Massachusetts border. Down-to-earth yet ultra-sophisticated, it has a huge alternative community of vegetarians, spiritualists and natural healers who practice, of all places, at the local hospital! Just to give an idea of how ready for and receptive to Krishna consciousness this town is, one of the featured events on January 2008’s “First Friday Gallery Walk” downtown was a presentation of vintage 1920’s and 1930’s Krishna Calendar Art by a gallery specializing in Indian art and antiques! Spectacularly beautiful throughout all the four seasons (and especially so in autumn), even the winters here in southern Vermont are mystical and enchanting, with the dazzling, sparkling snow!
We have abundant energy and enthusiasm for preaching, harinama (our family is practically a kirtana party unto ourselves!), book distribution and prasadam distribution, but feel that we really need Vaishnava association and help in starting up a grass-roots preaching program. Senior devotees who have now reached retirement age and are looking for a project, young couples, single people with missionary zeal and little overhead, ecstatic kirtaniyas – please visit us in wonderful Brattleboro (Brattleboro is centrally located equidistant from all of the New England airports – Boston, Manchester NH, Hartford/Springfield CT, and Albany NY) and give this town serious consideration as an incredible place to serve Srila Prabhupada by spreading the Holy Names in every town and village! Begging your help in Lord Caitanya’s mission, we remain
Your servants,
Lalita Madhava d. d. Krishna-darshan d. d. Radha-ramana dasa
Home: 802.579.1222 Cell: 352.871.6902 Email: Brattleboro.Yatra@gmail.com
Informational Links:
http://www.brattleboroareaguide.com/picture.html
http://www.motherearthnews.com/Nature-and-Environment/2007-08-01/Great-Places-Brattleboro-Vermont.aspx
Hare Krishna. Awesome story. Of course with a little experience we should expect that Krishna will take care of us like that, but Krishna seems to prefer giving delightful surprises instead.
About 9 years ago I was living in the Adirondack mountains, and one day I was feeling depressed for lack of devotee association. I remarked to my wife that there is probably not one devotee within a hundred miles, then I left for work.
A short while later, as I was walking into the healthfood store where I worked, I heard someone yell “Jaya Radhe!” from across the street. As it turned out, one devotee whom I knew (Bhakta Eli) had grown up in that town, and happened to be vising home and walking by.
A few weeks later I was having lunch in a neighboring town, and I saw Eli walking by outside, so I went out to see him. As it turned out, he was in the process of trying to sell a Bhagavad-gita, but he actually didn’t have one. I have no talent for book distribution, although I really wish I did, so I try to keep a few books with me in case I might get lucky. But here was Bhakta Eli selling a book that he didn’t even have. Fortunately I had a new copy in my car just a few feet away, so someone got a Bhagavad-gita As It Is that day. Hare Krishna.
Haribol Lalita Madhava!
PAMHO. All glories to Srila Prabhupada.
It is nice to see you back here on Dandavats after some time. It is also nice to hear how you are settling in Brattleboro and helping expand the sankirtan movement there.
In Bhakta Rod’s article, “Guru? He will find you. . .”, and in the ensuing discussion, there was some mention of the “synchronicity” or unusual “coincidences” that devotees frequently encounter, especially when being drawn into the Movement or to their spiritual master.
Your encounter with your upstairs neighbor Maria clearly fits into this category. Who would imagine that your upstairs neighbor would be a devotee! May Krishna continue to bless your life and service and preaching efforts in Brattleboro, Vermont.
[I might add that while it is nice that devotees develop large communities like that in Alachua, Florida, I am afraid that when we bunch up too much in one place we are missing the opportunity to connect with people elsewhere. While we need good association and deity worship, nice classes and so on, we continually see that Prabhupada has a use for devotees who move off to other places, like Brattleboro, Vermont.]
In my mother’s article, “Calling All Preachers,” she inadvertently neglected to include one of the most important groups of people we would like to extend an invitation to: THE GURUKULIS!!! Manu, bring the bus tour!!!
Krishna-darshana d.d.
Dear Akruranatha Prabhu,
Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada. Thank you so much for your kind encouragement and your gracious “welcome back” to Dandavats!
I wholeheartedly agree with your observations. For us, the pain of separation from the Deities I worshiped from the time I first moved into the Depot Ave. temple in Gainesville and the safety-net of the huge community of Vaisnavas is almost overwhelming at times. (My brahmana-initiated daughter, who was cooking half of the Sunday Feast by the age of 14, was definitely overwhelmed by hearing the Govinda Prayers being played by our neighbor and had to really contemplate the future, association-wise, with regard to her own baby daughter.) Yet the “rasa” of starting an exciting grassroots project in a town as wonderful as Brattleboro, especially with the kind of “synchronicity” you described and with the flood of positive feedback, from devotees in Vermont and around the country, we have received from this posting, is very sweet indeed!
I have never really felt “qualified” to start a project, but it’s kind of like an experience I had many years ago as an artist. Another very successful artist, who belonged to the same co-op that I did, worked in several different media and created these abstract, fused-glass pieces which he entitled, “Vision of the Pathfinder” and other equally mystical and spiritually-sounding names. I recall being blown away by the way serious and discerning art patrons would respond to this guy’s titles, as if he, a meat-eater, possessed some deep, mystical answers to the meaning of life and the universe and as if those answers could be imparted to them by buying his VERY PRICEY gobs of melted glass. (When I related this experience to my diksa guru Hrdayananda Maharaja, he jokingly commented that he “would pay money” for the privilege of “blowing up” modern art museums! – I hope he doesn’t mind my sharing that! – and I really hope the guy who made the glass sculptures isn’t reading this!)
To be continued…..about to get “truncated”…..how rude!…..
Second Half Of Truncated Submission:
At that time it occurred to me that, whoa, as a follower of Srila Prabhupada, I really DID have the answers to the meaning of life and the mysteries of the universe! I really DID have something transcendent to offer as an artist – and in the permanence of metal and stones from the earth! So at that time I began creating my one-of-a-kind Bhagavad-gita pieces – wide silver cuff bracelets, pins and pendants, hand-textured and set with luscious colored stones, and hand-stamped with my favorite Bhagavad-gita verses.
Amazing was the feedback I got that almost everyone who came into the gallery, even those who didn’t buy my work, paused at my jewelry case, which was prominently displayed near the front door, and READ THE VERSES on my jewelry! Even more amazing were the demographics of the gallery clientele who actually DID purchase my work – university professors, attorneys, policticians, physicians and high-powered businesswomen – who were prominently wearing Lord Krishna’s sacred words around their necks and on their lapels for all to see!
Similarly, I personally have no qualifications in this endeavor and am very fallen (and, to quote the famous line in Pride and Prejudice, in saying that I am definitely not afflicted with false modesty!). But we have a beautiful, richly-resonant clay mrdanga (the incarnation of Krishna’s flute), a big djembe and karatalas, we can cook buttery rice, subji, opulent puris and chocolate chip halava, we can set out a colorful madras displayed with Srila Prabhupada’s books, and we can speak basic philosophy. So in that way, whatever else we may lack, we have something incalculably valuable to offer that is not limited by our own personal limitations.
So here we are, Akruranatha Prabhu, trying to preach!
Thank you again for your encouragement. Please consider visiting here with your family to lend your expertise and give us your association! Then use your lawerly gift for persuasion to tell everyone you know how awesome Brattleboro is!
Your servants,
Lalita Madhava & Family
I wish to offer my sincere gratitude to all of the saintly Vaishnavas who have responded to our posting with interest and encouraging words. Excitingly, our first gathering is scheduled for February 16th! Please keep us in your prayers and please beseech the Lord to send devotees and empower us to spread the mission of Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu.
What a great story! Thank you for sharing this. Our older daughter and her husband have been living in Montana for some time, and we haven’t yet found any trace of devotees living there. If anyone out there in Dandavats land is near Helena, Montana, please let me know by writing me at babhru@gmail.com.