Fwd: Volume 7, Chapter 17

[Rishi Shonpal]

Finally the wait is over! Once again the word amazing comes to mind.

Your das,


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---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Indradyumna Swami <Indradyu...@pamho.net>
Date: Mon, 11 Dec 2006 21:09 -0400
Subject: Volume 7, Chapter 17
To: "IDS Diary (of a Traveling Preacher)" <IDS....@pamho.net>

                        Diary of a Traveling Preacher

                           Volume 7, Chapter 17

                      September 19 - October 5, 2006

                          By Indradyumna Swami


                           "Luck of the Irish"


When I was young, my mother would often speak of her Britannic forebears.
"Your grandmother was from Wales," she told me on many occasions. But what
she liked best was the Irish part. "Your grandfather was an Irishman from
Cork," she would say proudly.

When my father would talk of his German roots, she'd pretend not to hear.
"Look at the faces of these children," she would say. "Irish eyes are
smiling."

"Luck of the Irish, boy!" she yelled from the grandstands when I won a
high-school swimming race against all odds. Sometimes she'd say the same
when I got good grades on my exams.

No wonder, then, that I was always curious about Ireland. Whenever something
would come up in the news about the country I would take special interest
and read it, and when Saint Patrick's Day came around each year I would wear
something green. And I knew not to mess with the full-blooded Irish boys
with names like Sean, Kerry, Neil, and Ryan in school. They were dirty
fighters. They kicked below the belt and continued punching even after you'd
given up.

My curiosity about Ireland faded with time, and when I became a devotee I
learned that we are all eternal spirit souls, part and parcel of Krsna.
Nevertheless, when the Irish devotees contacted me early last September and
asked me to take part in a traveling festival in Ireland, the curiosity of
my youth was revived.

"Will there be a festival in Cork?" I asked.

"No," said Gaura Hari das. "We'd like to do Dublin and Galway.
Tribhuvanatha's festival programs were always successful in those places."

My Godbrother, Tribhuvanatha das, who passed away several years ago, was
Irish. He was a pioneer in introducing Krsna consciousness in Ireland, and
his traveling festival programs made our movement well known there. But the
programs were discontinued after his demise.

I thought for a moment. "I'll come," I said. "I have heard that Irish people
are pious. And it would be an honor to revive the festival program that
Tribhuvanatha prabhu began. We'll dedicate the festivals in his memory."

And so on September 17, I went to the airport in Warsaw for a flight to
Dublin. As I walked through the airport, I decided to buy a few toiletries,
so I went into a small shop and waited in line. The line was long, so I
picked up a Time magazine and started browsing through it.

Suddenly I heard a man's voice behind me: "Old wine in new bottles."

I turned around and saw a well-dressed gentleman.

"I thought you people didn't read that stuff," he said.

I quickly put down the magazine. "Uhi Generally we don't," I said
sheepishly.

Then I saw that he had a magazine in his own hand. He smiled and put it down
on top of mine. "I don't want it either," he said laughing. "I just picked
it up so I could get in line behind you."

"Really?" I said.

"I just got married a few hours ago," he said. "My wife and I are going to
Spain for our honeymoon."

"Oh," I said. "Congratulations."

"When I saw you walking through the airport, I ran after you," he said.

"What?" I said.

"Yes," he said. "You see, we want you to bless our marriage."

The woman behind the cash register looked up.

"I'm a businessman," he said, "and I travel a lot. I often buy books from
you people when I pass through the airports in America. I know what you're
all about.

"Today at the wedding the priest gave a very boring speech. He must have
given the same talk hundreds of times. My wife was crying. The whole thing
didn't feel right. We feel if you consecrate our marriage it will be
blessed."

I felt a bit embarrassed. I looked around and saw the cashier smiling.
"Isn't that sweet!" she said with a sigh.

I thought for a moment and then put up my hands. "May Lord Krishna bless you
and your wife with a prosperous and spiritually rewarding marriage!" I said.

"Thanks so much," he said, extending his hand to shake mine.

Then as he turned to go, he wheeled back around and put a $100 bill in my
jacket pocket. "That's for the mission," he said with a smile.

While on the three-hour flight, I took the 100 dollars out of my pocket and
placed it carefully in my handbag. I made a mental note that I would use the
money for the festival in Ireland.

I was apprehensive, to say the least. I knew the festivals wouldn't be
anything like our festivals in Poland, which after 17 years are organized
and efficient. Despite all good intentions, the Irish program would be
piecemeal, thrown together with elements from various places.

Devotees who had free time would join us from England, Ukraine, Russia, and
Poland. The festival paraphernalia would come from the remnants of
Tribhuvanatha's old program and from a small festival program in England.
Some householders would also lend us a few items. The only sure thing would
be the stage show, as I had invited a number of talented devotees who
perform at our programs in Poland.

I arrived in Dublin the day before the first festival. My apprehensions
seemed justified when I spoke to Tribhuvanesvara das, a Polish devotee who
had come to Dublin early to lead Harinamas and advertise the festival on the
streets.

"For a few days we had six or seven devotees going out," he said, "but
yesterday there were just three of us. I played accordion and sang, one
devotee with a bandaged hand played karatals, and a new boy with long hair
wearing Levis handed out invitations."

"That's definitely not the impression I like to make on Harinama," I
thought. "Everything should be first class."

"Of course," I continued thinking, "the holy names are transcendental and
always have a purifying effect on those who chant or hear them. But if they
are presented in an attractive way, there's more chance the conditioned
souls will take an interest."

I recalled a letter Srila Prabhupada once wrote to my Godbrother Upendra:

"I shall call you and some other students to assemble there to practice
Sankirtana in a systematic way. Of course, chanting Hare Krishna does not
require any artificial artistic sense, but still, if the procedure is
presented rhythmically, then the people may be attracted more by the
transcendental music."

[Letter, June 1, 1968 ]

The next day we went on Harinama with 15 devotees. Unfortunately it was
raining, and we had to shift from one shop awning to another for protection.
Some invitations went out, but by the end of the day I was feeling that
attendance at the program would be small.

Fortunately, because of the expert management of the local GBC man, Praghosa
das, our movement has an excellent reputation in Dublin. Our two vegetarian
restaurants are well known, and for weeks in advance, customers had been
informed about the upcoming program.

The next night, the hall was packed with over 500 people. It was an old,
musty place, used mainly for rock concerts. Hundreds of posters of different
bands who had played there were plastered everywhere. The place looked as if
it hadn't been cleaned in years. I asked the technicians to keep the hall
dark, flooding only the stage with lights.

Although we had not rehearsed our show, it went off well because the
performers were experienced and skilled. The crowd loudly applauded the
Bharat Natyam dances, enjoyed the bhajans, roared with approval at the
martial-arts show, sat in awe at the yoga demonstration, and listened
attentively to my lecture at the end. Everyone relished the prasadam, and we
sold many books.

As we left the hall that evening I gave a sigh of relief. "But the next
town, Galway, won't be so easy," I thought. "The last time Tribhuvanath and
his festival program visited there was ten years ago."

The next morning, in pouring rain, we traveled west in a caravan of vehicles
to Galway. It was an interesting journey through the lush, green Irish
countryside.

"It rains more than not," said a devotee.

"More than not?" I asked.

"About 275 days a year in Galway," he said.

As we drove on I noticed row after row of stone fences.

"I don't see wooden fences," I said.

"The soil is rocky," a devotee said, "so for centuries when farmers tilled
the land they took the rocks and made boundaries with them. It's unique in
this part of the world."

After hearing a little Irish history, I couldn't help but ask a question I'd
always had about the country.

"Are there really leprechauns?" I said.

"No Irishman will deny it," a devotee said with a smile.

Then his face became serious. "But you can never borrow money from them," he
said.

"Why not?" I asked.

"Because they're always a little short," he said with a grin.

The devotees burst into laughter, and I lost all hope for the existence of
Ireland's fabled creatures.

After five hours we reached Galway, a town of 100,000 people. I was
surprised that my tourist book listed it as one of Ireland's major cities.
As we drove along, the sun appeared briefly from behind the clouds, and I
marveled at the beauty and quaintness of the town.

The next day the rain lightened into a drizzle, and after a morning program
at our base, we drove with our caravan of cars into town and parked near the
main street.

As we assembled for the kirtan, I picked up a drum and tried it out. It
sounded dead. Then I noticed we only had two pairs of kartalas, and they
were small. But the worst came when I saw devotees putting signboards around
their necks advertising the festival program.

"Take them off," I said to the devotees. "We're not the Salvation Army."

Soon our little ragtag group began chanting down a pedestrian street about
300 meters long. Despite the fact that a nice devotee couple lived in Galway
and sometimes did kirtan on the same street, it soon became obvious that
most people had never seen devotees before.

School had just finished and suddenly the street was full of high-school
kids. As we passed a group of older boys, one took a bottle of beer, shook
it, and sprayed us all over.

Suddenly I saw another group of young men walking quickly toward us,
apparently with the intention of crashing through our ranks. As I stepped
forward, a brahmacari caught my arm.

"They can be mean," he said.

I flashed back to my youth. "Don't mess with the Irish boys," came to my
mind, and I stepped aside. As they reached us we opened our lines and the
boys walked through without incident.

"I wonder what kind of program we'll have in this town," I thought.

Some people stopped and stared, but most just walked by as we chanted down
the street. We were an unfamiliar sight, and it would take time for people
to get used to us. By the end of the Harinama four hours later, people were
beginning to smile. We had only just broken the ice.

"Tomorrow will be better," I said to the devotees as we drove back to our
base that afternoon.

The next day I took the devotees out early, before 10:30 AM. Dark, ominous
clouds hung in the sky. In the chilly morning air, people walked quickly
down the street, somber looks on their faces. But this time, no one took
notice as we started our kirtan.

I turned to Tribhuvanesvara, our kirtan leader, and asked him to give it his
best. He thought for a moment and changed to an upbeat melody on his
accordion. The devotees began chanting and dancing down the street in great
pleasure.

The kirtan got stronger by the hour. Around noon, when bright sunshine
suddenly appeared from behind the clouds, many people looked up and then
smiled at us, as if to attribute the flood of warmth and light to the kirtan
of the holy names.

We passed close by a group of shoppers. "What in the world are these people
doing?" A woman asked her friend.

"They're worshiping Krsna, stupid!" her friend replied.

A devotee who was distributing invitations came up to me. "Guess what," he
said. "I overheard a man speaking to his friend over his cell phone. The man
said, 'The Hare Krishna's are everywhere and they look so happy. I'm
thinking to join them. No, seriously, I am.'"

By the time we left at 3:00 PM, exhausted but happy, auspiciousness
prevailed. At the end of the day, I had some hope that our program would be
successful.

"O King, when the devotees of Lord Krishna dance, their steps crush the
inauspiciousness of the earth, their glances destroy the inauspiciousness of
the ten directions, and their upraised voices push away the inauspiciousness
in the demigods planets."

[Hari Bhakti Suddhodaya 20.68 ]

The next day we performed Harinama at a local university. Again we tried our
best, but although the students looked at us curiously, they didn't appear
interested. I noticed a lot of invitations in the trash cans. Afterward, the
Harinama devotees put up posters, but they were quickly covered by other
advertisements. As we drove home that evening, I was again apprehensive
about attendance at our upcoming event.

"We need another Harinama like yesterday," I thought as I drifted off to
sleep that night. "One's not enough."

But any hopes of another were dashed when I woke up the next morning and
looked out the window. It was pouring rain.

We arrived early at the festival hall that afternoon. I was pleased to see
that it was modern, well equipped, and clean. I counted 600 seats.

"It's a nice hall, but it will look empty if only a few people come," I
thought.

As the afternoon wore on we waited impatiently for a crew of technicians to
arrive and set up the stage, lights, and sound, but no one came. Finally,
just three hours before show time, one technician showed up.

"Where is the rest of the crew?" I asked.

"A show?" said the young man. "We thought you were just going to pray."

Immediately he began preparing the lights on the stage. But he seemed new on
the job and unfamiliar with the equipment. From time to time he would run
back to the sound desk, fiddle with it and then run back to the lights. Time
passed and soon there was only 90 minutes to opening. He became frantic.

"Even I set it all up in time," he said, "I won't be able run the lights and
the sound simultaneously."

"Well," I said, "I've got several qualified men here who can easily set this
all up and run it all as well. Can you use them?"

"I don't know what the boss will say," he replied.

"We have no choice," I said strongly.

"OK," he said relieved. "Let's get to work."

Immediately several of our men, seasoned by years of experience on the
Polish tour, jumped into action. In an hour everything was up and running.

Meanwhile the rest of us set up the book table, shops, and prasadam.

Then with 15 minutes until opening, we sat back and waited for the guests.

A trickle of people began arriving at 6:00 PM. As they took their seats, I
went behind the stage and told Tribhuvanesvara to start the bhajan. Then I
went back to the main entrance and waited. Minutes later a few more people
arrived. At 6:30 there were only 30 people in the hall.

"This is what I was afraid would happen," I said as I turned and walked to
the stage.

"Guests or no guests, let's start the show," I said to the devotee stage
manager.

I went back to the dressing rooms and sat down. An hour passed. The
performers went on one after another.

"All of this for so few people," I said out loud.

"What do you mean?" said Dina Dayal das, just back from his second martial
arts performance. "The crowd is getting bigger by the minute."

I jumped up and rushed out to the front of the stage. I couldn't believe my
eyes. The hall was more than half full, and people were still flowing in.

"There are over 400 people out there," said a devotee. "They all came a
little late, probably because of the bad weather."

I stood and watched the crowd. They seemed mesmerized by the show.

Toward the end, I came on stage and gave a lecture. Through the bright
lights I could see everyone listening attentively, so I took advantage of
the opportunity and spoke for over an hour. No one moved.

Then we had a rousing kirtan. Many in the audience jumped up from their
seats and danced with us in front of the stage. Afterwards we distributed
prasadam. Soon the guests left, many with Srila Prabhupada books under their
arms. Fully satisfied, I walked back to the dressing room to gather my
things.

"I never imagined so many people would come," I said shaking my head.

A devotee passed by. "Great show, Maharaja," he said. "And against all odds.
It was such bad weather, and we had so little time for advertising. How'd we
do it?"

I smiled. "Luck of the Irish," I said, "and no doubt, the mercy of the holy
names."

Srila Prabhupada writes:

"I have tested it definitely that melodious vibration of Sankirtana, if
performed by serious devotees, can attract people from the very spiritual
platform, and it at once makes the spiritual background very smooth, where a
spiritual instruction from the Bhagavad-gita can be implemented very nicely.
So my first concrete program is to organize such a Sankirtana party."

[letter to Harikrishnadas Aggarwal, March 3, 1968]

Indradyu...@pamho.net

www.traveling-preacher.com
Official website for Diary of a Traveling Preacher

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