Instant Inspiration At The Gallows

The amazing potency of Srila Prabhupada's distinguished books are beyond anyone's imagination. We are very sure that it is an established opinion in the minds of all the readers of his books.

Here is one incident which took place in Singapore that shows its magnificent glories. It happened sometime in the early nineties.

There happened to be a young man who, in the quest for riches started to get involved in drugs which he thought would bring instant wealth. In the process of dealing with drugs, he was soon arrested by the strong arms of the law. Singapore has very stringent laws governing drugs. Anyone caught in possession of anything more than 14 grams of heroin is punishable by the gallows. Sure enough, he was found guilty and was sentenced to death. It was too late for anything else to be done for his folly and it has cost him his life.

As is stated in the Bhagavad
Gita, the three gates to hell are lust, anger and greed. So anyone caught in these webs of  the material modes of nature progresses
steadily to hell. Unfortunately, many are unaware of this transcendental knowledge.

Fortunately, he had a devotee friend who had heard of his plight and was concerned. In one of the meetings with him in the prison, he gave him one of Srila
Prabhupada's books, The Science Of Self Realization.

We can only imagine how painful it would be for person in this situation. One would be tormented by excessive fear and anxiety. Lord Krsna
also confirms in the Bhagavad
gita
that birth, death, old age and diseases are very painful and are the real miseries of the material world.

How timely that this young man had received the book of Srila Prabhupada! Soon he was very engrossed in it as it was the right medicine that he really needed. A few days later, his time was up. It is a general custom that the criminals are taken to the gallows in the early hours of the day and are hanged at dawn.The guards involved remark that a person in this situation usually breaks down and is unable to walk. They wail and they have to be dragged to the gallows. It would be a very painful scene to witness.

In this case, however, much to the amazement of the guards, the said young man was remarkably undisturbed. He was on the contrary, very cheerful and he bravely walked to the gallows and even told the guards that he was not afraid of death as he had firmly taken shelter of Lord Krsna  through his Holy Name.

             
 

apannah
samsrtim
ghoram

yan-nama
vivaso
grnan

tatah
sadyo
vimucyeta

yad
bibheti
svayam
bhayam

 
 

Living beings who are entangled in the complicated meshes of birth and death can be freed immediately by even unconsciously chanting the holy name of Krsna, which is feared by fear personified. [SB 1.1.14]

This is the amazing result  by coming in contact with a pure devotee of the Lord. The Srimad Bhagavatam also says:

etavan
sankhya-yogabhyam

sva-dharma-parinisthaya

janma-labhah
parah
pumsam

ante
narayana-smrti

 
 

The highest perfection of human life, achieved either by complete knowledge of matter and spirit, by practice of mystic powers, or by perfect discharge of occupational duty, is to remember the Personality of Godhead at the end of life. [SB 2.1.6]

With this we can safely conclude that this young man must have made it successfully either to the spiritual world or taken a better birth in the higher planetary systems.

anta-kale ca mam
eva

smaran
muktva
kalevaram

yah
prayati
sa mad-bhavam

yati nasty atra
samsayah

 
 

And whoever, at the end of his life, quits his body, remembering Me alone, at once attains My nature. Of this there is no doubt. [BG 8.5]

 
 

Another wonder: In the Singapore jail's death penalty department, they do allow a priest to conduct the last prayers with the departing soul. If he is a Christian,a pastor does it and similarly for the Buddhist and the Muslim but the Hindus do not have a priest and one particular Hindu guard does it for the Hindu inmates.
We had the opportunity to meet him and question him as to what he does for the dying Hindu inmates.
He said that he did not know the procedures as he was not well-versed in the scriptures and only does what is best to his knowledge.
He said that he would give in the hands of the dying person a bunch of Tulasi leaves and say some mantras.

When we heard this we were astounded as that is what will save the dying soul from going to the hellish planets and promotes the soul to the spiritual world  as anyone coming in contact with Tulasi at the moment of death is saved from the hands of Yamaraja and promoted to Vaikuntha. In the Skanda Purana there is another statement about Tulasi, as follows: "Tulasi is auspicious in all respects. Simply by seeing, simply by touching, simply by remembering, simply by praying to, simply by bowing before, simply by hearing about or simply by sowing this tree, there is always auspiciousness. Anyone who comes in touch with the tulasi tree in the above-mentioned ways lives eternally in the Vaikuntha world."

We were very happy to hear of this and we were very sure that this young man must have undoubtedly made it back to the spiritual world!

Srila
Prabhupada's book distribution ki jaya!!

 
 

By Sundar Gopal Das

The Power Of The Holy Name

We have another interesting story to share with you.

In 1975 we were just beginning our Krsna conscious life and it was very ecstatic. In those early days we were trying to serve Srila Prabhupada to the best of our abilities. It was very trying and challenging as we were all very naïve and green about almost everything.

We were renting a bungalow house at 5 Gardenia Road and were using it as a temple. There were no full-time devotees then and hence we all used to meet regularly on the weekends for a Sunday feast program. The Sunday feast was well attended and we used to have very loud Kirtans, chanting the holy names of the Lord from 5pm in the evenings to 9pm followed by the lovely Sunday feast.

We were all very enthused in trying to be of some service to Srila Prabhupada in trying to spread the movement in this part of the world. It was the beginning and we were very determined to help Srila Prabhupada in his mission.

As our Sunday program began to grow we were having very big kirtans and this was indeed creating a problem with our neighbors as it was a very quiet and posh neighborhood with many rich people residing there.

Soon without our knowledge one particular neighbor started a campaign to have us evicted from the place. He was very determined and was going door to door trying to gain support from all the other neighbors. We believe he must have got a lot of support.

One one fine Sunday program, we had a very ecstatic kirtan and we were all dancing in bliss. The next day we learned that the gentleman on the campaign had a fatal heart attack and had passed away in the night. He was very antagonistic to the chanting and was very envious of the devotees. It was indeed a very high price to pay to be against the chanting of the Holy name. We leave it to the readers' discretion on his circumstantial death but we strongly believe that Lord Nrsimhadeva must have got rid of him for creating these disturbances.

Soon after, the campaign too mysteriously died a natural death as the others saw the outcome of what would be the result. They were very frightened by the death of the gentleman who was not very old but was quite young and healthy. They did not try to intervene again.

We continued our weekend Kirtans without any hindrance thereafter. The neighbors then onwards, were very respectful of the devotees and they too began to relish the power of the holy name.

By the mercy of Srila Prabhupada and Lord Sri Krsna Chaitanya Mahaprabhu we were successful in pushing on the movement despite the many obstacles we had faced as we progressed along.

Sankirtana Maha Yajna ki jai!

Sundar Gopal Das

Sarngapani, the Pigeon

Hare Krsna!

Please accept my humble obeisances at the lotus feet of all the readers of this article. All glories to Srila Prabhupada!

We have an interesting story to share with all of you.

It is regarding a pigeon that was coming to our temple sometime in 1989 while we were located at 169D Bencoolen Street. Our temple was on the fifth floor of the building. We had a nice program and many devotees were frequenting our place for our morning program as well for prasadam.

On one particular morning, after our morning program, i.e. after the Bhagavatam class, a pigeon turned up at our temple. We thought that either like any other bird it would eventually leave or that it might have been injured and wanted some safe place till it gets better. On the contrary, we found that it was neither the case. It was perfectly healthy and was not keen in leaving our temple room except for flying out occasionally and coming back soon. In fact, it was very happy to be with the devotees. It would fly and rest on their shoulders and even walk along with them as and when they were chanting their japa. It was very astonishing to see this. It was not frightened at all by the presence of any devotee. This was going on for some days and we were all becoming quite attached to it as well. In fact, we started to call it "Sarngapani", which is another name of Krishna meaning the wielder of the bow, Sarnga.

A couple of days later, while we had our morning kirtan, it actually joined in the kirtan. It was amazing to see this. It was actually dancing with the devotees. Sometimes the devotees, while dancing, twirled around in the middle of the kirtan and this bird too did the same. When the devotees jumped in the kirtan, the bird also jumped. It was indeed a very astonishing sight. It was relishing the kirtan along with the devotees.

We were all very amazed by this as usually when there is a loud kirtan with big cymbals and mrdangas, it is only natural for any animal, what to speak of birds, to be frightened; but it was not the case with this particular bird. The kirtan too went on for a considerable period of time as it was very inspiring for all to see a bird dancing ecstatically in it. We too were all dancing very ecstatically along with the bird.

After the kirtan was brought to a close, the bird left and was never to be seen again. We presume that it must have left for the spiritual world if not for a better birth.

This is all not very wonderful in the kirtan of Lord Chaitanya, as birds, deers, tigers and elephants too had participated in dancing with the Lord but to witness this pastime with the pigeon merely only strengthens one's faith in the holy name of the Lord.

When will I be able to obtain the mercy of the Lord to relish in the kirtan and to dance in ecstasy?

Hoping this would inspire everyone in Krsna Consciousness,

Raghupati Das, Sri Krishna Mandir