our relation with srila prabhupada is eternal

[KISHORESINGH 0]

<TABLE id=HB_Mail_Container height="100%" cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0 UNSELECTABLE="on"><TBODY><TR height="100%" UNSELECTABLE="on" width="100%"><TD id=HB_Focus_Element vAlign=top width="100%" background="" height=250 UNSELECTABLE="off">By Rod Davis Srila Prabhupada: “If you are completely sincere and genuine, then you do not have to find Guru, he will find you”.

An interesting ISKCON pastime I heard recently in Vrndavana about a hippie in 1966 that used to travel around in Ken Kesey’s psychodelic bus dance group, travelling around America handing out Kool-Aid drink laced with LSD and putting on plays in colourful hippie gear that set a trend among the 60’s youth. Somehow one of Srila Prabhupada’s original Srimad Bhagavatam’s was in a small library section on the Kesey bus and read by such future devotee’s like Mohanananda dasa. One young hippie on that bus however, was not satisfied in just reading the amazing book Srimad Bhagavatam; he was determined to find the author of this wonderful Vedic text and was prepared to travel all around India until he found this amazing Sadhu if he has too.

When the Bus reached New York, Kesey and the Pranksters visited Leary in Millbrook, NY, at his psychedelic retreat called “The International Federation for Internal Freedom.”, it was founded when Leary was fired from Harvard University for doing research with his students on the hallucinogenic drugs LSD-25 and Psilocybin. This young hippie however, stayed on the bus, kept reading the Srimad Bhagavatam, and never did met Leary at that time. Frankly he did not really care, he had had enough of LSD and realized God can NEVER be found in a pill and decided to go on a spiritual quest to India in search of the ’swami’ who wrote the Srimad Bhagavatam.

He then decided to leave the merry pranksters and leave for India; he bought a ticket and was on his way to the Kennedy Airport. On the way however, he had sometime to spare and went by Tompkins Square Park to see what the ‘acid head hippies’ were up to. As he went by in the taxi he saw this big crowd of hippies dancing, he was curious and told the taxi driver to stop, then went over, investigated, and found an elderly sadu leading the chanting of Hare Krishna. He watched with some curiosity as he danced with the other hippies and wondered if the Sadhu he would eventually find in India, who wrote the Srimad Bhagavatam, would be like this Sadhu. Anyway the kirtan stopped and this Sadu began reading from the same book he was reading on ken Kesey’s Bus.

Now this young hippie just was even more determined to seek out the writer of the Srimad Bhagavatam seeing this Sadu also reading it. Eventually the reading stopped and this young hippie went over to the Sadhu and said

‘Sir, I am also reading this book also and I am now just on my way to the airport to fly out to India, I am determined to search all over India for this Sadhu’.

The elderly gentlemen Sadhu chuckled to himself and said to the young hippie ‘You do not have to go to India, I am here in New York, I am the translator of this book the beautiful Srimad Bhagavatam”

The young hippie was without words, he was ecstatic and had tears in his eyes and fell at his feet. Then Srila Prabhupada, the elderly sadu said to the young hippie

“Just see, if you are completely sincere and genuine then you do not have to find Guru, he will find you”

Hare Krishna All glories to Srila Prabhupada!

Srila Prabhupada explains that all of us are all looking for a way to establish our original eternal relationship with Krishna as follows - “Established means re-establish. It (our perpetual ’svarupa’) is already established. We have got different types of relationship. That is called svarupa-siddhi. When you are perfect in spiritual life, you will understand automatically. Nitya-siddha krishna-bhakti. When one becomes perfectly spiritually realised, then he understands what is his relationship is. This relationship is eternal”.

December 7, 1974, Bombay)

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