SOULS ON FIRE #118 | The Jolly Monk and the Frustrated Worker
A short story
Amid the lockdown in Auckland, a man was trapped in a quarantine facility with nothing to do but eat rations of crickets and Coca-Cola. He was alone having been divorced from his wife. Ever since he told her he wouldn't take the vaccine her respect for him faded away until she eventually packed her things and left him taking their 5 year old child with her. Her last words he heard from her were "I can’t live with a conspiracy theorist and jeopardize our health and comforts. I'm leaving with our son to continue living the life God wants for us. You can be stubborn and die from covid"
He was lonely, extremely frustrated with life in lockdown that had no end in sight and he was feeling utterly hopeless, until he remembered a chance encounter with a Hare Krishna devotee only 4 weeks prior on Queen street. He was smoking a vape in his lunch break and scrolling Facebook when the saffron clad monk said "He mate, are you working hard or hardly working?" He said "piss off tranny"
The devotee laughed and said "look man I aint no transgender. These are the robes of a vaisnava. And what makes you think you can question my masculinity anyway? Here you are working like a donkey thinking you're happy because you can spend your meager income on cigarettes and devices just like they want you to. And what are you doing with your so called existence anyway? You think life is about keeping a roof over your head don't you?
The man said "Who do you think you are?"
"I'm a devotee of Lord Krishna sir and I live to serve Him by teaching unfortunate people like you how to be happy through devotional service"
This encounter left him with a sour taste in his mouth at first but now it sounded like wisdom.
That conversation with the monk replayed in his mind more and more until all he could think about was the words of the monk. He also remembered the way he laughed after he had called him a “tranny”. He wondered how he could have remained peaceful despite his harshness. Out of curiosity and a desire to understand the source of the monks generosity he searched online for "Hare Krishna," where he discovered the Bhaktivedanta Library. One verse in particular stood out to him:
"The stage of perfection is called trance, or samadhi, when one's mind is completely restrained from material mental activities by practice of yoga. This is characterized by one's ability to see the self by the pure mind and to relish and rejoice in the self."
He read about the Maha Mantra and decided to give it a try. As he chanted, he felt a sense of peace and contentment that he had never experienced before.
Through his daily chanting, he found a connection with Lord Krishna and it felt more pleasurable than anything he'd ever experienced. One unexpected result he got from the chanting was he saw that the quarantine facility was not a prison, but an opportunity to explore the depths of the spiritual world. He also saw that his divorce was the first step towards becoming truly connected and that the marriage lacked connection due to lack of spiritual understanding.
When he was finally released from the quarantine facility, he emerged with a newfound sense of purpose and a deeper understanding of the world around him. He knew that he could always find joy and fulfillment by embracing the teachings of Krishna, no matter what challenges he faced.
He visited the Hare Krishna farm community he had read about online as soon as he could and discovered like minded people living a natural life with Krishna consciousness as their sole purpose just like the monk had claimed. He asked the residents if they knew the monk he had encountered and they explained that he had been caught on camera talking to someone without a mask and distributing literature containing “misinformation”.
The man felt sorry to hear this news and wondered if it was he who the monk was talking to without a mask. Thinking this monk had done him a great service through his words he decided to take the matter into his own hands.
To be continued…
If you’re in Northland this is for you.
Get amongst some sublime sound and some fine whanau.
We’ll have a kirtan sound experience and a feast of Krishna Prasadam (bless kai)