Tag: saint

Be careful what you think around saintly persons!

When we visit the great saints, and when we pray to them, are our prayers heard? Is there any reciprocation? How do we know it was not our imagination?

In various pilgrimages to visit saintly persons, I have had the good fortune to get much reciprocation.

With a saintly person who is yet in flesh, reciprocation is easy to get, they will convey that to you in word and deed, sometimes they will put that in writing too.

But what about the saintly persons in “samadhi” or trance, who are physically entombed (sometimes while still alive, at their instruction), but who are clearly not dead and gone.

What to speak of death for a saintly spiritually perfected being, there is no death even for all of us – we don’t die, we just carry on in some other guise. For someone like me, there may be positive and negative consequences of our actions in a future lifetime… but for a genuinely saintly person, they are eternal residents of the Kingdom of God, while still being available by prayer to the likes of me.

But in prayer and meditation, how to know if what we have received is actually from that saintly person and not a concoction of the mind? After all there are so many who claim to “speak to God” and yet do despicable things. I am personally not comfortable sharing my inner feelings here in this article, but I do have one recent experience with a great saintly soul which was a very sweet interaction, if somewhat painful for me! 🙂

Recently, I visited Mantralayam, in South Central India, the place where Sri Raghavendra Swami, a great 17th century saint, resides in samadhi. Thousands of pilgrims throng his shrine, and ask for all sorts of things. In my previous visit in 2019, I had asked “How may I serve you” and the inspiration came “Help people understand what to ask of me”… so I dedicated my time there to distributing spiritual literature from the 20th century saint Srila A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. I was summoned to the administrator’s office, interrogated, and then the administrator, satisfied with my responses, took some books for himself and gave me permission to distribute books there anytime… More about those experiences at another time.

Raghavendra Swami is a great saint who taught about Krishna and in order to attract attention and seriousness to his teachings, he performed some miracles… a lot of people have forgotten his actual instructions and are fully enamored of the miracles, and go asking for mundane temporary blessings that are surely taken away by all-devouring death. But such a great saint can give complete relief from all material misery by granting the ultimate spiritual perfection!

I have had many other interactions with him, but I will keep that private for now… here is one, where I got a gentle fatherly slap from him!

The day we arrived, I was very hungry, having fasted all day during the long bumpy journey, but the Prasada (sanctified food) served in the temple was somewhat scanty and I went to bed hungry… in my childish impudence on my way back from the temple, I happened to “complain” silently in my mind to Raghavendra Swami that his assistants didn’t ask me if I wanted more, rushed me out, and so I went hungry. I was like, how is it that someone, one of your servitors, comes to your place and goes hungry.

The next day, I rose early well before sunrise, took my bath, meditated at the temple doors before they opened, then performed my mantra meditation right at the shrine, and later that morning, went again to obtain more Prasada (literally food received as Krishna’s mercy)… and was secretly worried that I might go hungry once again! So, in the second course, I rushed to asked for more. The serving priest took one look at me, and gave me a MASSIVE glob of rice, and I was satisfied that this time I would be just fine, my quota was met, and I had enough.

But poor little me, I had not factored in the remaining courses coming, all different varieties of very delicious rice preparations with sides! One course, two courses, three, four… a total of 8 courses were served, and each one was a fresh surprise to me, and before I could react, the item was served on my banana leaf plate with great speed, the next course arriving while I was heads down, before I could finish what was on my plate.

I have a vow of never wasting any Krishna Prasada I have been served on my plate, so I put it all away somehow, with great difficulty, laughing to myself at the same time at the transcendental trick that was played on me.

I was barely able to stand up and walk on my way to washing my hands and mouth! Needless to say, I didn’t need anything to eat for a long time to come!

It was almost as if “Oh, you say you went hungry yesterday, so let’s see how much you can eat!” a light-hearted challenge from Raghavendra Swami! And I must happily say that he won, and I lost. He could, that powerful personality, from his Samadhi, arrange to supply me with more than I could possibly eat, not a word said to anyone!

After all, what does it matter a little less to eat once in a while, I did get food enough to survive, did I not? So clearly even though my original complaint was quite childish, Sri Raghavendra Swami did hear it, and acted on it, if only to give me a gentle slap in my face. And miraculously enough, even though I had eaten probably 5-6 times of my usual quota, I did not suffer from a stomach upset that day!

This was just one of many experiences I have had with the great saints, and thanks to their causeless mercy, I carry on in spiritual life. I am grateful for all the mercy I have received undeservedly, whether it was encouragement, or chastisement, and often, slaps in my face to set me straight.

So, when you’re around a saintly person, be careful of what you think, you might just get way more than you bargained for!

Devout Atheists

Does the phrase “Devout Atheist” sound strange to you? Do you know it takes a lot more faith and dogma to believe in atheism? Why do spiritualists bother with atheists?

Sounds strange? Using those words together? But a good friend, Aaron Joy, wrote that to me in an email, and the phrase startled me, and yet rang true!

He described how his parents were devout atheists!

To be an atheist requires a tremendous amount of blind faith.

Here’s the dogma. Once upon a time, no, wait, before time existed, or space or anything else, there was this big explosion that came out of nothing. The explosion happened for no reason whatsoever. And out of that explosion that came out of nothingness, this beautiful ordered well-designed universe showed up. All the planets in their intricate dance, all the stars and galaxies in their beautiful symmetric beauty were accidentally created. All the species with their well-designed abilities appeared by some carefully selected but random manner. All the seasons, the mountains, the rivers, the oceans, the beautiful sunrises and sunsets, they all just are an accident.

All the poetry in the world, the beauty of relationships, everything we cherish is no more significant than random electro-chemical flickering, noise in which we accidentally see any meaning.

Indeed, to be an atheist requires so much strength of belief. Despite evidence to the contrary that nothingness does not exist, that randomness is a myth, they stubbornly cling on to their concocted imaginations. Despite not even a shred of evidence that anything can come out of nothing, they continue to believe in the fairy tale of the big bang! My spiritual master Sankarshan Das Adhikari wrote about the hoax that is the BIg Bang Theory.

Bhakti Charu Swami said it very well. Once he was in Hyderabad, India, looking for a studio to make a movie on the life of Srila Prabhupada, the greatest spiritual leader the world has seen in modern times. He was speaking to the owner of one famous film studio. When the subject of the film was discussed, the owner arrogantly boasted that he was an atheist, by way of challenge.

Bhakti Charu Swami Maharaja calmly replied – if there is a blind man who cannot see the beautiful sun, what will you do? You will pity him. Similarly, we pity the atheists that they don’t see beautiful Krishna. And Maharaja took his valuable business elsewhere.

It is one thing to feel pity for someone who cannot see the sun, but what would you feel for the fool who refuses to open his eyes and look at the sun, instead claiming that the sun does not exist? So sometimes we use strong words, we call them fools and we call them rascals, we call them idiots.

We bear no ill will towards anyone. We are just like the surgeon cuts open the body of a diseased person to heal them and an oncologist (doctor who tries to treat cancer) gives poison (chemotherapy) to heal a person suffering from cancer. We bear only compassion. We know that it may not be well-received.

Radhanath Swami Maharaja tells the story of a saintly man who once saw a scorpion drowning. He immediately put his hand in the water and fished it out. The scorpion stung him and fell back into the water. He picked the scorpion up again, and got stung again. This happened several times before the scorpion was on dry land.

When asked about this, the saintly soul replied, “it is the scorpion’s nature to sting, and mine to serve”. So, we are simply trying to serve the poor deluded atheists.

I was once an atheist myself. I was saved by my all these spiritualists, and I even stung many who were trying to save me. But I am saved now, in spiritual consciousness, Krishna consciousness. If I can be saved, anyone can be saved.

Life after life, I pray to pay it forward and reconnect the lost souls to Sri Krishna, the loving, anxious Father, who ever beckons. What’s a few little stings in return for the privilege of taking one soul back home to Godhead?

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