Is it Worth It?

After sleeping on an all-night flight on Malev Airlines from New York to Budapest on an airline seat which did not recline to a proper sleeping position I woke up with excruciating back pain. Even though my sleep was deep, because my posture was not proper my back was thrown out of alignment. And now, as I write this, even more than 24 hours after my arrival in Sofia I am still feeling pain in my back. Such difficulties could make me doubt why I take such time, trouble, and expense to travel all over the world when I am already reaching a global audience every day from the internet. But such doubts were allayed when we experienced the loving greeting of the Bulgarian devotees at the airport. And my desire to travel and preach all over the world in spite of all difficulties was reconfirmed. As the sweet holy names of Rupa Manohar Prabhu's kirtan vibrated throughout the airport terminal we felt how we entering into the spiritual world. The entire scene became Krishna conscious as the people all over the terminal turned to their attention to the kirtan and our arrival.

Sankarshan Das Adhikari

Hare Krishna Kirtan Greeting at Sofia, Airport
(Rupa Manohar is on the right playing the accordian.)

Answers According to the Vedic Version:

Question: Karma or Free Will?

Hare Krishna

All Glories!! I have a couple big big question's which have been bothering me for a couple of weeks now.

If I'm walking down the street and see a person getting attacked by another person, do I just leave the person alone as it's that person's karma to get beaten up? If I do step in and help this person, am I just a tool of his good karma? Which is it, his karma or my free will to step in and help him? And my decision to help him, has it come about because of the good activity the other person performed previously to get the good karma of me helping him? In that case does that remove my free will?

Your help with getting my head around this is greatly appreciated.

Many, Many Thanks

Richard. P

Answer: Devotees Exercise their Free Will

Try to do something to save the innocent victim. One time in Australia there were some women trapped in a burning building. The devotees were getting ready for a Ratha Yatra festival and had a big canopy that was to be used on the Ratha Yatra cart. They took that canopy and run to the site holding the it open and had the women jump into it. The following news story from Melbourne, Australia's widely-read afternoon newspaper The Herald tells the story. The paper dedicated practically its entire front page to that morning's rescue. A three-quarter page photograph showed the devotees holding the canopy outside the burning building. Although, in their previous encounter, the news media had been unable to understand the disciples' love for their spiritual master, the rescue had been something that everyone could relate to. The article, entitled, "Krishnas Catch Leaping Women," described the dramatic event:

Three women jumped from a first floor window as fire raced through a city building today. They jumped into a twelve foot square canvas tarpaulin held in the street below by members of the Hare Krishna Movement. Three more women climbed down a ladder from the top floor of the three storey building ... The Hare Krishna followers rushed to the scene when they heard screams. One, who said his name was Steve, 19, said they were in the Hare Krishna building two doors away. "There were three women, all about 19 or 20, sitting on a first floor window ledge screaming for help, so we grabbed a canvas tarpaulin and held it out for them to jump into," he said.

One of the girls said "Someone yelled 'fire', and we raced to the window to find smoke everywhere. One of the girls smashed the window and the Hare Krishna followers held out a big piece of canvas so we could jump. I was petrified," she said.

Five women were taken to hospital for treatment for cuts, abrasions and smoke inhalation.
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If a devotee acts in Krishna's service it is outside of the dictates of karma. It it an exercise of his free will to facilitate that person having the opportunity to go back to home, back to Godhead in this lifetime. If sometime is rescued from fire or from a thief by a Krishna conscious person, they will always remember that person who rescued them. This appreciative remembrance of a devotee will be very favorable for them to awaken their dormant Krishna consciousness.

Sankarshan Das Adhikari