By Radhikakrpa Devi Dasi
âIs it Sai Baba?â a bold voice questioned me over my shoulder aboard the Cathay Pacific flight from Sydney to Hong Kong. I lifted my head out of the book I was reading and turned my face towards the speaker to find a tall lady dressed in an official attire with a pleasing personality stood indicating at the ring in my second finger. The lady seemed Chinese. Instantly I replied, âno, itâs of my spiritual master.â I could read the blank look on her face as she repeated, âwho?â
As a preacher I often look forward to indulge in such conversations. To make things easier for her to understand I quoted the phrase âHare Krsnaâ and now that sounded familiar to her. But she had no clue to itâs philosophy or so and she seemed interested.
The book in my hand was the best thing I thought at that time to make her aware of the message I wanted to give. The book I had grabbed to read on flight though read many times always inspires me was âYour everwellwisherâ with Srila Prabhupadaâs picture on the cover. She took the book from my hand and stared in to the back page of the cover as if reading through the gist of the novel. Then looking at me she introduced herself saying she was Wendy Lease; the flight manager for Cathay Pacific. She resided in Hong Kong and she often traveled far and wide to inspect Cathay flights.
I appreciated her intelligence both in the material sphere as well as in spiritual ( seeing her interest in me). In the meantime I also introduced myself briefing her on my family and about my attire and the makeup ( the tilaka and neck beads).This intrigued her . She now sat on her knees in the slim passage in between the two rows of the seats. The plane was all packed on this side of her existence with all seats occupied. Wendy said that she had passed across me many times during her inspection as it was a 9 hour flight and she said my appearance attracted her to halt to talk to me. Strictly no self glorification ( all Guru and Krsnaâs mercy), to her I looked pretty unlike other co-passengers serene and calm.
I gave all the credit to the man on the cover, the founder acharya of International Society for Krsna Consciousness. She was now fascinated with Prabhupada. Her interest overtook the discomfort she was going through with sitting on her knees in the passage frequently rising up to give way to other passengers and the moving food and drink trolleys.
She patiently listened to the spiritual doctrine put forth in Bhagavad Gita. She even went ahead in going through a power point presentation in my laptop on the scripture not paying any attention to the rows of people from various nationalities including Australians, Irish, French and even Indians wondering what was going on. It was for nearly two hours she engrossed herself into such a grave discussion.
Wendy disclosed that she had no children and was glad when I gave her the âdarsanâ of âBal Gopalâ on my computers; it simply stole her heart. She now longed to have the picture which I promised to mail her soon.
An announcement by the pilot took our attention; broke the spell of the divine aura. She had to now bid goodbye to me as now her duty demanded her as the plane was about to land in a short while. With a promise to be in touch we exchanged email idâs and hugged lovingly.
The plane landed at Hong Kong and I had to rush to the exit door as the connecting flight to New Delhi ; my destination was about to leave in half an hour .At the exit door was standing my dear friend Wendy Lease with other air hostess giving farewell smiles. As she saw me approaching she said âHare Krishnaâwith a big grin on her face. I asked to have a picture with her to which she nodded her head and one of her juniors jumped ahead and took the camera from my hand and clicked that memorable picture with a friend made in mid-air.
I boarded the next plane smiling to myself with my day being made.
These little everyday encounters are an important part of the sankirtan mission. People are always noticing us even when we are not aware of it. Sometimes they become interested enough to talk to us (Navina Nirada Prabhu told us on Saturday that he always keeps books handy for such occasions, and often distributes a Bhagavad-Gita and collects a donation as he travels from place to place.)
Yesterday, for example, I was chanting japa on Capitola Beach near my home, and I saw an older English lady carrying a stylish cloth bag with “Hare Rama Hare Krishna” written in devanagari letters on the side. I asked he if she knew what it said, and she said “no.” I told her, “This is Hare, this is Rama, this is Hare and this is Krishna.” To my surprise, she told me she had noticed me chanting Hare Krishna on my rosary. She and her husband humbly thanked me, and she folded her hands and said “namaste” with a smile.
Later, two middle-aged Indian men addressed me in Hindi from behind. Somehow I realized they were talking to me and managed to respond in some rudimentary Hindi. Later they said they spoke English but wanted to see if I could speak Hindi. They had both been living in San Jose for many years, but had never visited the ISKCON temple, although one of them had been to ISCKON in Juhu and Vrndavana. (His friend asked, “Mysore Vrindavan?” and he replied, “No, Mathura Vrndavan.”) They promised to visit ISV.
Mind you, I am walking around in pants and shirt with short hair (no sikha). But still, people are noticing me.
On Saturday as I was packing up my book table and very softly chanting to myself, a girl turned around and said, “There you are. I thought I heard someone chanting Hare Krishna.” She took a Spanish “Volver y Nacer” book to give to her mother.
One of Vaisesika’s iron rules of book distribution is, “The more you show, the more you sell.” Just by being “out there” among the people we touch so many lives.
I have experimented with setting up a book table, offering a little incense and sitting in a portable chair just chanting japa or reading. If find that even if I do not try to stop people, favorable people will come up and buy books. I recommend this for devotees who do not like to do book distribution because of the difficulty of stopping strangers who are not interested. In the right spot you won’t finish a single round without distributing a book, and you will have many friendly, favorable interactions.
Jai! All glories to the Sankirtan Devotee’s! Even the ones who don’t know they are!!
As Akruranath Prabhu confirms Prabhu Vaisesika’s rule of “exposure”, you can be anywhere and sincerely practice “Bhakti Yoga”, others will automatically be drawn to your connection to the Spiritual World.
Just by Radhikakrpa Devi Dasi’s example she has rekindled another Soul’s original interest in Spiritual enlightenment.
If we at least maintain our personal practice and sadhana, the Lord is so kind that we become instruments in His mercy. This is something that fulfills the heart so well that it self-perpetuates our desire for more preaching, sometimes to the point we have to “curb our enthusiam” or we’ll over-whelm innocent by standers (which sometimes is needed).
Personal experience myself, when shopping in a ware-house store. Wearing a t-shirt with an illustration of Maha-Visnu and my japa-mala around my neck, brought forth a comment from a couple of customers who had not seen any “Hare Krishna’s” for years. All I had with me was a K.C. CD and they happily took it and I let them know how to get connected again. Such is Srila Prabhupada’s movement, even a fool like me could preach, what to say of those who actually endeavor?
I know there are many examples, each unique and amazing, we just have to keep the faith and other will also enjoy that space, keep up the great work all you Sankirtan Devotees, undercover and otherwise!!