![](\"https:\/\/i.imgur.com\/Q4QIBMq.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Diary of a Traveling Monk
\nVolume 15, Chapter 20 August 28, 2022
\n\u201cOur Bus Driver\u201d
\nOur summer tour was coming to an end, and I noticed a mixture of joy and sorrow pervading our tour base. We had spent the best part of summer sharing our good fortune with others, so there was a great deal of joy. But it was late August and autumn was in the air; the summer was almost over and some sadness began settling in. It had been a tough summer with a lot of hard work for the devotees, but the reward was seeing the smiling faces of people as we handed them invitations to our festivals on harinam \u2014 and then to see their delight in experiencing the festival itself.
\nFor me, the greatest pleasure of all was seeing interest develop in unexpected quarters.
\nOur bus driver, Mr. Artur, is a good example. Every year we have a bus driver who stays with us throughout the whole summer. Most of our bus drivers over the years have done their job reluctantly and have showed little or no interest in who we are and what we do.
\nMr. Artur seemed to fit this model at first. But one morning on the way to harinam, something happened that revealed him to be far from typical. Every day devotees would begin the bus ride with loud kirtan calling upon Lord Nrsimha for protection on the road. On that particular morning, though, we didn\u2019t have the usual kirtan. Mr. Artur\u2019s eyes were glaring at us through the rearview mirror as he pulled out onto the motorway.
\n\u201cAm I deaf or something?\u201d he shouted. \u201cWhy aren\u2019t you singing? Remember this for tomorrow: if you don\u2019t sing, I don\u2019t drive!\u201d
\n\u201cWow,\u201d I thought, smiling to myself, \u201cthe chanting of the holy name has brought about a change in his heart!\u201d
\nFrom that day on, Mr. Artur showed more and more changes. Instead of sitting in his bus during the festivals, he started attending the events. I could see him from the stage when I was giving my lecture, sitting off to the side of the crowd and listening intently to my 40-minute talk.
\nAbout halfway through the tour, Jahnavi dasi told me he had confided in her.
\n\u201cHe told me that he had been very sick, and the doctors said it could be cancer,\u201d she said. \u201cWhile he was waiting for the test results, he was so terrified he might die that he bought a place in the cemetery for his grave. But the results were negative. Mr. Artur said he felt tremendous relief, but the experience made him realize that he had to find answers. He was left wondering about the purpose of life and what happened after death. He feels like he\u2019s found the answers now. There were tears in his eyes when he told me, \u2018You all have given me hope.\u2019\u201d
\nAs the summer went on, Mr. Artur came to feel like one of us. He became friends with the devotees, chanted and danced in the kirtans, and had ice cream waiting for us at the bus when we came back from a long, hot harinam. He became addicted to prasadam, consuming a large plate every evening at the festival. He seemed determined to try everything the restaurant had to offer.
\nOne evening, he came up to me. \u201cMr. Guru, can I speak to you?\u201d he asked. I saw he was holding a Bhagavad-gita.
\n\u201cOf course, Mr. Artur. What\u2019s up?\u201d
\n\u201cI don\u2019t have much money,\u201d he said, \u201cbut I have saved enough money to buy this book, the book you speak from every night. I\u2019m really enjoying it! I want to learn more about your way of life. I can see the world has forgotten the values that you keep and maintain. I\u2019m a simple man but I understand that without faith and without people like you, the future of this world is quite dark.\u201d
\nI felt he wasn\u2019t a simple man at all. He had lived a hard life that had afforded him realization, and his association with devotees had brought that out.
\n\u201cI read somewhere that a holy man was once asked what surprised him most about humanity,\u201d Mr. Artur said. \u201cThe holy man answered: \u2018I am most surprised that people sacrifice their health to make money. Then they sacrifice money to recuperate their health. Then they are so anxious about the future that they don\u2019t live in the present. They live as if they will never die, and then they die having never really lived.\u2019
\n\u201cI never understood what any of that meant until I came into contact with all of you. I was a sinner. Your lecture on the Bhagavad-gita each evening has made everything clear to me. I\u2019m really going to miss all of you when this is all over.\u201d
\n\u201cWe\u2019re going to miss you too, Mr. Artur,\u201d I said, and hugged him.
\n\u201cMr. Guru, can you write a dedication in my book?\u201d he asked.
\n\u201cSure,\u201d I said.
\n\u201cMr. Guru,\u201d he said as I wrote, \u201cif the bus company doesn\u2019t give me this job next year would it be OK if I came with my car and drove you around? What I mean is that I\u2019d like to be your driver and continue on this path.\u201d
\n\u201cYes,\u201d I said. \u201cI\u2019ll be waiting for you!\u201d
\nThat evening at our festival, I saw him carrying his Bhagavad-gita around the festival site. He was chatting to other festival-goers, and I could see that he was talking about the book. Watching him, I was reminded of Srila Prabhupada\u2019s words I had read the previous night:
\n\u201cWhen one searches for a devotee and fortunately gets a devotee\u2019s association one actually begins to study and understand Bhagavad-gita. By advancement in the association of the devotee one is placed in devotional service, and this service dispels all one\u2019s misgivings about Krsna, or God, and Krsna\u2019s activities, form, pastimes, name and other features. After these misgivings have been perfectly cleared away, one becomes fixed in one\u2019s study. Then one relishes the study of Bhagavad-gita and attains the state of feeling always Krsna conscious. In the advanced stage, one falls completely in love with Krsna. This highest perfectional stage of life enables the devotee to be transferred to Krsna\u2019s abode in the spiritual sky, Goloka Vrndavana, where the devotee becomes eternally happy.\u201d
\n(Bhagavad-gita 8.28 [purport])
\nI pray that by the mercy of Lord Caitanya, Mr. Artur comes to the stage of falling completely in love with Krsna and is transferred to Krsna\u2019s abode in the spiritual sky, where he will become eternally happy. After all, isn\u2019t that why we spent the entire summer holding festivals along the shores of the Baltic Sea with the people of Poland?
\nkalin\u0101 sad\u1e5b\u015ba\u1e25 ko \u2019pi yugo n\u0101sti var\u0101nane
\ntasmi\u1e41s tv\u0101\u1e41 khy\u0101payi\u1e63y\u0101mi gehe gehe jane jane
\nanya-dharm\u0101\u1e41s tiras k\u1e5btya puras k\u1e5btya mahotsav\u0101n
\nyadi pravartaye na tv\u0101\u1e41 tad\u0101 d\u0101so harer nahi
\ntvad-anvit\u0101\u015b ca ye j\u012bv\u0101 bhavi\u1e63yanti kal\u0101v iha
\np\u0101pino ‘pi gami\u1e63yanti nirbhay\u0101 hari-mandiram
\n[Seeing the pitiable condition of Bhakti Devi at the beginning of the age of Kali, Narada said to her], \u201cO beautiful faced lady! There is no age equal to Kali. In this age, I will personally preach your glories in each and every home and establish you within the hearts of every individual. Hear my vow! Giving priority to devotional festivals over all other forms of religiosity, if I do not spread you everywhere on earth, then I shall no longer be known as a servant of Hari. The living entities born in this age of Kali who become devotees will attain the abode of Lord Hari without hinderances, even if they are sinners.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Diary of a Traveling Monk Volume 15, Chapter 20 August 28, 2022 \u201cOur Bus Driver\u201d Our summer tour was coming to an end, and I noticed a mixture of joy and sorrow pervading our tour base. We had spent the best part of summer sharing our good fortune with others, so there was a great<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[94],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-101919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-testing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=101919"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101919\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":101920,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101919\/revisions\/101920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=101919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=101919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=101919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}