Doing the Needful for Krishna in Emergency

On the way to the Baltic Summer Festival we hit a snag in our otherwise smooth travel connections. After coming from Austin, Texas to London via a stop in New York, we were landing at Helsinki with an hour and five minutes before our next flight to Vilnius, Lithuania. We had made the same connection for the 2012 Summer Baltic Festival with no problem. This time however things were different, very different. Instead of our plane pulling up to the terminal for an easy exit via the jet bridge, this time our plane parked at great distance from the airport and we took a bus to the terminal. This delayed us by quite a few minutes. By the time we got to passport control it was 3:15pm. Our boarding passes for the next flight said that we would be boarding at 3:45pm for the flight to Vilnius. At passport control I checked the sign for our flight. It said that our gate, 17A, was a 15 minute walk from passport control. I could see that things were getting a little tight. We had only 15 minutes to make it through passport control.

The sad reality was that there was a huge queue with hundreds of people waiting to get through passport control. There was no way we could make it in time. We would miss our flight. Our luggage would be removed from the plane. We would have to spend the night in Helsinki and go the Vilnius the next day. I was scheduled to give a seminar on devotee relationships the next morning at the festival. That seminar would be canceled. It was not a pretty picture.

But then my most practical wife and preaching partner, Vishnupriya devi dasi, boldly did the needful in Krishna's service. She went way up to the front of one of the lines and explained our situation to a gentleman standing in the line asking if we could cut in front of him. He compassionately agreed. Now we were only five or six people away from clearly passport control. But then we noticed there was a major hang up at the front of our particular queue. The border guard and the oriental man trying to clear passport control were locked in a deadlock of incommunication. Neither could speak each other's language. The border guard would not allow him to clear passport control. There was a big delay while they waited for a translator to come. Again we were in a jam.

So my wife then asked someone in another queue if we could cut in there. A man angrily objected declaring that he had to board his plane by 3:55pm. When I told him that our boarding time was 3:45pm he calmed down and withdrew his objection. In this way we finally cleared passport control and after walking as fast as we could to the other side of the terminal we made it to our gate on time.

If we had just done the normal thing that people are supposed to do, patiently wait in line, we would have missed our flight. But because we were willing to do something extraordinary when the need arose and because Krishna and some people were very kind to us we made our connection and we are now here at the Baltic Festival in time for me to give the devotee relationships seminar. The lesson to be derived? Social conventions can be placed aside when there is an urgent need in Krishna's service.

Sankarshan Das Adhikari

Distributing Prasadam Upon Our Arrival
21 July 2013--Summer Baltic Festival

Answers by Citing the Vedic Version:

Question: Chanting For Others is Effective?

When we chant the Hare Krishna mahamantra or pray for somebody else does this effect that person or not?

Your servant,
Mantreswer Shyam Das

Answer: Induce Them to Chant for Themselves

Every time we utter Krishna’s name this automatically bestows benefit upon every single living being in the universe, but not as much as when they personally chant. Therefore if you want to give the greatest benefit to others you should dedicate your life for inducing everyone you know and meet to chant Hare Krishna.

Sankarshan Das Adhikari