Chant so sincerely

I've never seen devotees chant so sincerely drums.jpg (30626 bytes)

Chapter Three

Three days into our journey, we noticed some smoke coming from the river bank.

The captain informed me, "That's an Indian village."

I immediately went to tell the devotees that we were going ashore. We had reached our first village! We cast anchor in the middle of the river and about nine of us got into the smaller boat. We took with us a pot of kichari and some books.

We started the engine and headed toward the shore. We noticed some faces looking at us from out of the jungle. As we got closer, some village men slowly moved to the river bank to watch us. We must have looked as strange to them as they did to us. I had been told that many of these people had never seen a white man, what to speak of a white man with shaved head, tilaka and saffron robes. I took my danda just for security.

The people on the shore were motionless and I knew this was making the devotees nervous. Generally you can understand somebody's intention by looking at his face and the way he moves. But there was no motion. They just stood there, about fifteen of them. And I prayed, "My dear Lord, please protect us."

In Amazonian history there has been some violent conflict between the villages. Stories of tribes parading with the shrunken heads of their foes, flutes of their victim's leg bones and necklaces of their teeth, must have been running through the devotees' minds at this crucial stage. When I looked at the other devotees I could see how scared they were. After some minutes the thought occurred to me, "After so many years of training I can't remember what I'm supposed to do!"

"Let's chant, Prabhus!" But there was silence. "CHANT!" I can honestly say that I've never seen devotees chant more sincerely. They were really chanting from the heart. "Hare Krsna Hare Krsna Krsna Krsna Hare Hare Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare!"

With the nectar of the holy name, the tense atmosphere and fearful situation quickly dissolved. As the holy name permeated the air, it also touched the hearts of the Indians on the bank and they started to move. They could see that we weren't coming to take anything from them. After all, what kind of thief, dacoit or rogue, comes to your village chanting and dancing? They felt the non-envious spirit of the vaisnavas

They began to dance. As we came closer we could see them swaying back and forth in time to the music. By the time we arrived at the bank; it was just like we were meeting old friends.

As we entered the village the devotees were ecstatic. They realised that we were preaching in a village where sankirtana had never been. I reminded them that Bhaktivinoda Thakur had said that if someone takes sankirtana to a place where it has never yet been, he personally accompanies them.

The village was poor, with only two streets. Needless to say, everyone saw us and the devotees seemed to be distributing a book to almost everyone. We also brought candy for the children. I spent time taking videos and pictures.

To try to teach these people about Krsna was very interesting. Krsna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, is the ultimate understanding in Vedic literature. But how could I introduce the conception of God as a cowherd boy, the transcendental flute player, and the beloved of the gopis, to these village Indians who didn't know anything but worshipping trees, rivers and stars? After thinking for some time, I came up with an idea. In the Amazon River there are many huge snakes. So I thought to tell them the story of Aghasura.

I told them, "There once was a snake as big as the river."
"Ohhhhhh......"they all gasped.
"His name was Aghasura. And Krsna, God, is the name of the person who killed that snake."

Then they got some idea of what was God.

"God can kill a snake as big as the river!" They had some appreciation now.
I asked them, "can anyone in the village kill a snake that big?"
"Oh no. We can not kill a snake that big."
"So who can kill the snake as big as a river?"
"Krsna can."

Later that day, we went to meet a Christian priest living in the next village. As we approached his hut he came out to greet us. He had left America as a young man to come to the Amazon to preach. That was thirty years ago. He impressed me as a real missionary. He was dressed in some type of robe that was full of holes. He wore sandals that were practically worn off his feet. He had long hair and a long beard. He was holding his rosary beads. My first impression of him was that he was a sincere and honest devotee of the Lord. When he saw me, there was no hint of surprise on his face. Yet he had probably never seen or heard of a devotee of Lord Krsna.

Very nicely he said to me, "So you are a man of God?"
I said, "Yes father."
He said, "Please sit down."

I took a seat and we began to discuss our religions and how in many ways they were alike. There was no envy or aggression on his part and we spent quite some time together. It was a wonderful experience. He was the first of many priests we were to meet on the journey.