AND THERE WE WERE...ON HARINAM SANKIRTANA

     Great miracle today. Poor old Dad, 95. Nothing works. His body is a mess. Can hardly walk. And now also his mind is becoming feeble. I accompanied him to the doctor.

     After the examination we were waiting on a stone bench near the entrance to the medical building. There were several similar benches lined along the walk way to the parking lot under a canopy. People were coming and going to their doctors. Mostly limping or in wheel chairs. Father was trying to be cheerful but there was a mood of hopelessness underlying whatever he said, A kind of desperate sadness and depression. Not like him. He is usually very cheerful even in the most difficult situations.

     He was grumbling. Complaining. Whining. It was very difficul to hear the constant stream of negativity and misery as it poured forth. I was chanting softly on my beads. But all of a sudden I just started loudly reciting mantras I knew from the Gita, and Isopanishad, pranams. I couldn't chant the Maha Mantra because he is very resistant to Krishna's name. So it was other Names of the Lord that streamed out.

     The people walking by began to smile. And I realized we were in public sankirtan. Several months ago I expressed a strong desire to the Lord that my father could go on sankirtana before he dies. Today we were on sankirtana.

     

     This went on for some time. One man stopped when He heard Hari... He did a complete about face. He was glowing and looked very beautiful. He was originally from the Islands. We talked for quite sometime. The three of us. All topics of devotional service. At one point we were discussing reading scriptures and how reading out loud engages three of the five senses... the tongue, the eyes and the ears...and so captures the mind from wandering.  He hadn't thought about it that way and was accustomed to reading silently and even praying silently. But now he wanted to read and pray out loud.

    My father added that it was not just by practicing something that we find God. But we find him through His helpers and His helpers are everywhere. Which quite stunned me, because that is the quintessence of devotional service.

    We three discussed many things like, the importance of surrendering, love of God, the goal of life, how difficult situations help us to advance. The material world had dissolved and were we simply swimming in the ocean of nectar.

     Sri Krishna Chaitanya sankirtana movement, ki jaya.