Finally Heading out to Macedonia

It's 5:25am on 20 March 2007. We were originally slated to travel to Macedonia last weekend, but due to my being very sick I could not travel. But today I am feeling much better, so we are heading out at 10am this morning by car to the Bulgaria/Macedonia border. We will cross the border on foot and the Macedonian devotees are supposed to be there with a car to drive us to Skopje. It is supposed to be 4 or 5 hours of total travel time.

This is my first time to enter Macedonia. Srila Prabhupada has given us the mission to inundate the entire world with Krishna consciousness, so it's always enlivening to expand my preaching circuit to include more and more countries.

Sometimes when I fall sick I wonder why I am taking so much trouble with this aging body to travel and preach Krishna consciousness all over the world. But as the ultimate goal of human life is to become Krishna conscious, and as the more one gives Krishna the more he gets Krishna, it is therefore quite fitting and appropriate to travel widely for giving Krishna to as many people as possible all over the world. The personal inconveniences melt away in the sweet ecstasy of hearing and chanting the glories of that ever-sweet Lord who is constantly being glorified and worshipped with the sublimest music and the choicest poetry.

Answers According to the Vedic Version

Objection: Statement Was Narrow Minded...

You stated that anyone who is not surrendered to Krishna is classified as a barbarian. That's a very, very narrow minded statement, considering we are living in a world full of other religions, and that not all religions are so secular to treat Krishna and Jesus and Allah and Jehovah as forms of the same God.

Forgive me, for I am small and you are learned. Krishna also tells intelligent people not to disturb ignorant minds. You make such statements and ordinary, common people (who cannot do parallel thinking and understand it sentence by sentence) take you to be a Barbarian yourself. So, I humbly request you to speak in the language of common people please.

Thank you, God Bless all.

Pallavi

Response: Universal Truth is Not Narrow Minded...

I am surprised that you found the statement to be narrow minded because all the scriptures of the world assert that those who do not surrender to God are considered uncivilized or barbarian. The Bible refers to them as heathens. The Koran refers to them as infidels. And the Bhagavad-gita refers to them as naradhamas, low-class barbarians. Whether we use the Christian term, the Muslim term, or the Vedic term they all reach the same conclusion that those who turn away from God are uncivilized or barbarian. What I spoke was not my statement. I was simply repeating that which is universally concluded in all scriptures.

You are saying that I should not speak this way because it will disturb the minds of the ignorant. But so far nobody has expressed disturbance except for you. Since you are obviously an intelligent person, not from the ignorant, easily disturbed class, I found it amazing that you were disturbed.

One of my advanced students was simply wondering if those who are considered barbarian can also surrender to God. I simply replied to him that even such persons can be transformed by the power of God's holy names.

Sankarshan Das Adhikari

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