SAVED MANY TIMES

This is a little of some of my struggles and how I got some help when I really, really needed it.

Devotees of Jesus have saved me many times and supported my Krishna conscious path.

In the late 60's I had fallen into drug abuse, my favorite the psychedelics. I wanted answers. What was life all about? What was really going on? Why was I so confused about everything? Why didn't I have any self control? Why was my mind in a tumult? I got to a point where I could not maintain myself anymore. I refused to talk and was diagnosed catatonic schizophrenic . I simply sat staring off into nowhere. Actually I was meditating on a zen koan, "What is the sound of one hand clapping?"

I was admitted to a state mental hospital in Massachusetts which has since then been condemned and closed down. If you want a taste of hell, that's it. But for me... ah... at last I could do nothing and try to be peaceful even though everyone around me was really, really crazy. There were two Jesus's, a Buddha and a satan and me... staring off into space.

There was an older woman there who simply prayed all day long on rosary. I sat at her feet and listened. She also stared off into somewhere else but when I sat with her she would look at me out of the corner of her eyes.

I met my first spiritual teacher there...a nurse that I'd never seen before, only saw once... when she gave me a message that changed my life... and then never saw again after that.

In such places people scream and yell and break windows. I thought, "Okay, here's my chance. I'll never get another opportunity to act crazy like this and be accepted as normal. Even applauded by my peers."

I took my sneaker off and began pounding on one of the mesh-reinforced windows and screaming. The nurse came up behind me and ordered, "Stop that." Her voice was so commanding that I stopped. Sneaker in hand, she led me into the nurses' conference room. No patients ever were allowed to go in there. I sat at one end of the long conference table and she stood at the other end, all white uniform with a long ankle-length skirt that made swishing sounds even when she was standing still. She stood like a tower and leaned on her hands on the table staring down at me as I sat slumped over in a chair at the other end holding the sneaker.
She said, "There's nothing wrong with you!"

I thought, "Oh oh. She knows, I'm just miserable with my ignorance and can't seem to find real knowledge."

She continued, "The only thing wrong with you is...you have no faith in God!"

That was it, a heart transmission. Her words still echo in my heart fifty years later, "God. God. God."
No one ever spoke to me like that before with such compassion, such firm conviction, such causeless love for me as another living being lost and suffering. She didn't say a particular name of God. She just left it at that. It was my order to begin my serious search for God. But I am certain she was a Christian.

Okay, so where is this God if indeed there is one?
It wasn't long after this blessing that I moved into the Hare Krishna temple in Boston, 1971, and began to practice Krishna consciousness under the direction of Srila Prabhupada. I was eager to hear and chant and serve the mission of Lord Chaitanya. That desire took me many places and into many different situations.

After Srila Prabhupada disappeared I lost the thread. My anarthas that had been put on hold because I was too busy serving, now... with the difficulties I found in trying to stay engaged and serving the mission started creeping back. It was a wild ride. On the one hand continuing to try to remain engaged in serving the mission of the Lord and on the other hand not finding the shelter I needed.

Enter a messenger from Jesus. There was a young woman who would come regularly to the Boston temple for the Sunday feast and loved to chant with a tambourine and dance. I was going out everyday distributing books and asked her if she would like to help. It was the beginning of wonderful friendship. She was a Christian who could appreciate Jesus and Krishna.

I found the temple devotees stiff and unfriendly. This person was warm and loving. She was a little heavy with a moon face and a voice like an angel. She was accustomed to sing with a guitar in the park. We began going out on sankirtan. She moved into the temple but found it too restricting. We left the temple and traveled on sankirtan. Singing and chanting and distributing books. We visited people at their homes and taught them how to chant. We chanted on the streets, in the subways, everywhere we went. We traveled across country and landed in Oregon. I would read out loud from Bhagavatam. She was chanting 16 rounds and would tell me about Jesus and love of God. It was very powerful.

In Oregon I ran onto difficulty. I received a letter from a GBC that said our service was not bonafide and that we should stop and try to work with a temple president. We had tried that but I felt that no one would support such an unusual program. I became confused. Was I doing something wrong? My doubts became bigger and bigger and finally we separated. The separation was a very sad scene.

I drifted further and further away like someone that had fallen off a ship and was simply trying to stay afloat without completely drowning. Finally I gave up. No service, no association. One night I took everything I had that was connected to Krishna, saris, cartals, books... and burnt everything in a bonfire on the beach in Oregon. As the flames rose I prayed, "I know You are there. I don't know what You want me to do. And Now I am not at all sure who You even are? You please show me if You are Krishna or Jesus or someone else?" I felt now I was free to actually find God.

There was a mail service I used since I was living in a van at a campground and the mail service made it look more like I actually had an address. The woman who ran the mail service was a Trinity Pentecostal Christian. She glowed with a clear complexion and deep piercing but gentle eyes. And she was a vegetarian. Pentecostals aren't necessarily vegetarians, but this person was. I felt I could relax a little. She invited me to their worship.

They worshiped God in spirit. In their humble meeting place they would sing a few songs and wait for the spirit. If the spirit didn't move they would all just go home. When the spirit moved it got wild. People throwing shoes in the air, and talking in tongues, dancing all around the room. They were very nice people. Three and four generations in the church. I went on outings in the bus with them and attended their meetings. I was water Baptized and was waiting for the spirit. But it didn't come.

One day at the library I thought, "Let me see what there is in the philosophy department." I ran my hand along the books and it stopped on the beige hardcover Bhagavad gita abridged that I had distributed so many of. I had a realization, "These books don't belong to me. They belong to Krishna."

Circumstances changed and I move back to East Cost. One of the first things I did after the move East was to find a Trinity Pentecostal community and attend a Thursday night meeting. To my surprise the speaker, a woman, started to talk about Hare Krishna. She said, "We have been given something very special by Jesus and it is our duty to help others. How is it that the Hare Krishna's are making so many new Hare Krishnas and we are not getting any new people?" She said Hare Krishna so nicely. Loud and clear. Hare Krishna.

It is not either one or the other. It is both. Jesus has appeared after Krishna and before Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. He is preparing the ground for pure love of Godhead. His teaching is beyond rules and regulations. It is pure compassion. And this is ultimately the preaching mood of Lord Chaitanya. Lord Jesus is a great Vaishnava.

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