Don't Miss the Bus!
Congregational member Bhakta Pat, wrote this piece describing how service to Krishna has it's own special, internal dynamic.
Funny how things work out. I remember waiting for a bus one morning whilst I was on my way to work. We were waiting, the usual crowd, for about ten minutes. Along came a blind man who was trying to cross the road about twenty yards from where we were standing. We all looked on as he tried to step out gingerly,then came back, and tried putting his other foot out. This went on for a few minutes. Then one good Samaritan in our bus queue went up to him and said, I know not what, but he took the blind man by the arm, and together they went across, a bit like the game 'frogger', and the blind guy got to the other side. I was thinking to myself. “Wow, why couldn’t I have done that? That guy has some good karma coming.” Just then the bus came, and we all got on. I was looking out the window at “our” Samaritan, now stranded by the traffic on the other side of the road. The bus left with me looking out the window at him. I never forgot that lesson!
“Never volunteer for anything”, is the advice that most raw recruits get on their way to join up. And yeah, I can see the logic in that. And mostly I’ve lived my life like that. But there is another type of logic which turns everything on its head. Logicians, mathematicians, and all sorts of brainy guys cannot fathom it out, because it just doesn’t make “sense”. They tell you that if you have a certain amount of something, and you give some away, you’ll have less of it. They do not know that this world is a reflection, and that some things run completely contrary to our rules, in the true realm. Devotees all know, for example, that if we give some understanding of Krishna consciousness to someone else, that somehow or other we have more than what we started out with. Usually when we do something for somebody we expect to get some return for it. But with Krishna, the payment is….to do more for Him.
Take my own case. I haven’t done anything for years. Gaura purnima was coming up, so I decided that I would get some yellow balloons to decorate the temple, and maybe make some Krishna badges to give to the guests. So that’s what I did. People seemed pleased with them, and that was reward enough as far as I was concerned. The next day I got it into my head to look up Lord Jagganatha on the internet, and I found what I thought was some interesting stuff. “Hey,” I thought, “the devotees at the temple might be interested in this.” So I printed it out, and the following Sunday I brought it along. Yep! Everyone was interested. So much so that I got orders from people who each wanted a copy for themselves. I was pleased (my reward?), and the following Sunday I brought along several copies of the print-out, which were well received. A couple of days later I get a telephone call from a devotee I haven’t heard from in ten years or so. Can I do something for him?.. it so happens that I can.. so I do. The next thing I know is that I get an e-mail from another person whom I haven’t seen for a long time, asking how I am, and sort of passing the time of day. The upshot of which is that I am now engaged in writing this!….. Will I take the hint? This time if I get on the bus and look out the window, I could miss the bus! And what would the mathematicians make of that? Eh!
