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After lunch prasad expertly prepared as usual by Atula Krishna Prabhu's wife, Lasamayi Devi Dasi, I rested for a while after the long and tiring journey which had started at 4 a.m.
In the evening we had bhajans in the presence of Her Divine Grace Tulasi Maharani, a recent and divinely welcome (and luxuriantly growing) addition to the home (her sweet name shared incidentally by Atula Krishna and Lasamayi Didi's only daughter).
The family had elected to stay with Lasamayi's mother over the nights, kindly giving their small but comfortable house over to Mohita Krishna Prabhu and myself for the duration.
Thurs 3 Nov: morning
Now, if I may digress a little, I had sometimes found it a bit difficult to connect satisfactorily with the general folk in Italy, in the preaching field (i.e. not our devotees), despite the fact that as generally Catholic, in line with my own upbringing, and as a people, by their nature, I found myself quite 'sympatico' with them. This was somewhat baffling me and it was as if I had been searching for some trick, some technique or some key, perhaps, to break through the barrier. But it seemed to me I was trying too hard and wasting energy worrying that they could not understand me, etc. This time my realisation was that behind all this, of course, was the fear of failure and of rejection, which though partly a trait of character, nonetheless stemmed from my attachment to the result. And it was this which was making everything much heavier than it needed to be.
And taking that further, I realised that one can only be attached thus, if one is thinking of himself as important:
“Feeling important makes one heavy, clumsy and vain. To be a warrior one needs to be light and fluid” (Don Juan Mateus)
So in this way a practical lesson was brought in front of me, again, from the basic teaching of the Lord in Bhagavad-gita; and so, depending on the Lord, and trying in a very relaxed, open way (but still with full energy and determination) to do the service, things turned out better all around. (In any case, experience will tell us that people respond much better when approached in this way.)
In Italy, the shops and offices all close for lunch at 12.30 or 1 p.m. and remain so during 'siesta' time, opening again at 4 or 4.30 p.m. But the evening period takes on a more 'festive' mood as folk come out for a little relaxed 'retail therapy' to meet up with friends in the 'piazzas' and bars, or apparently to just come out and be seen (style being quite important here. I always make sure my shoes are polished, at least...!) Consequently I would be going for 'bhiksa' during the morning session.
Friday 4 Nov: Morning
So Mahaprabhu's message of divine love does not wait for any particularly favourable context to be preached; it is in fact the people's heart's own property, and we are only going to remind them of that.
Around 1 p.m. Mohita Krishna Prabhu met me at the Central
Station (Termini) again and we boarded a packed bus to Via Argentina,
to Govinda's Restaurant (run by Iskcon) for lunch. It is simpler in design
and menu than its Milanese counterpart, but includes the Rome Iskcon Temple
complex. After a simple lunch we chatted briefly with the devotee staff
there (the President is a long-time Srila Swami Prabhupada disciple originally
from New York) and then took another 'standing-room only' 'nectar-bus'
back to Termini. I had suggested the possibility of a taxi, but when Mohita
Prabhu explained the notorious circuitous route and consequent exaggerated
fare of the Roman Taxi.... in some ways, Italy is (and this I mean not
in a derogatory sense) 'half-way to India;' the telephone and ticketing
systems may be other examples....
From Termini we took a local train ('regionale') to Ciampino (yes, the
same one where the airport is!) to visit the house of Syamasundara Prabhu
and Jaya Sri Devi Dasi. Their apartment is only two minutes from the station;
we had phoned ahead so Jaya Sri met us at the station. In fact Syamasundara
Prabhu himself was not home until late so we had a kirtan before their
Deities, Lords Jagannath, Baladev and Subhadra, followed by a nice snack
(Didi had baked an apple strudelji) and talked about the Italian yatra.
In fact the couple's few possessions were all packed in bags in the hallway,
as they were preparing to move apartment the very next day. (Later Syamasundara
Prabhu phoned me and expressed his appreciation that we had visited their
apartment before they left; it was fortuitous also, in that they were
unable to attend any other programmes on the Terni tour due to Jaya Sri
Didi's stage of pregnancy....)
This evening was quiet, as we were tired after the day but still we managed
a small arati programme back at Atula and Lasamayi's house. Vijaya Gauranga
Prabhu, with his daughter, also arrived from Citta di Castello, a town
50 km or so north, to stay the next couple of days, along with our trusty
translator, Paolo.
Sat 5 Nov: Morning
We had again this year a most able translator in the person of Paolo, mentioned earlier. He is an older devotee who is very affectionate with us. (As my own Italian improves I can understand more and sometimes had to correct him a bit when I knew he was not giving exactly the sense on some more subtle points, or was getting a bit carried away; but mostly I was happy to let him preach according to his inspiration also, I am sure it was just as valuable as what I could say....) About 9.30 p.m. we had to draw to a final reluctant close, and sweet samosas and laddus were distributed to all.
Sun 6 Nov
Ouch! The phrase 'a bear with a sore head' comes to mind,
as this morning I was feeling the result of my exertions last evening.
I had to engage in an emergency mind/body rejuvenation programme with
nutrition, massage, pranayama and meditation to offset the horrible suspicion
that I would not be fit for this evening's event. (As Srila Sridhar Maharaj
writes in 'Golden Volcano,' speaking about Krishna consciousness requires
utmost concentration, and writing perhaps even more so because it is being
recorded in black and white as a testament-in-time that anyone can see
and examine, so it must be 'on the mark' as it were; so please excuse
the deficiencies in the present account....)
After lunch I went out for a walk with Mohita Krishna Prabhu. It was quite
rejuvenating in the ozone-fresh air after the rain; and then we discovered
a little chapel dedicated to San Giovanni and spent a delightful half-hour
chanting there. There was beautiful organ music playing there also and,
unable to find the human source of it anywhere, I was just beginning to
wonder if I was having 'an experience,' that the ethers had somehow opened
and I was blessed with hearing the sounds of paradise... when I discovered
it was piped, i.e. a CD playing! Well, whatever gets the people in, I
suppose....By 4 p.m. or so I was feeling considerably better and ready
for the programme; and I decided to approach it a little differently this
time, i.e. to try to keep things shorter and to the point. If you will
allow me a small observation here: one of the things noticeable in public
programmes, which I am sure can only increase as Kali-yuga progresses
- and this is quite apart from any lack of skill (or divine inspiration!)
in the speaker, as in my case, to keep the audiences interest - is people's
generally amazingly short attention span. ( I heard that in the MTV training
school in the U.S., one of the first principles of video-film making there
is that you cannot hold any camera shot for more than three seconds.)
This of course is one of the symptoms of the present age recorded in the
Srimad Bhagavatam 5,000 years ago; it is no surprise, then, that the yuga-dharma
is Harinam-sankirtan and not studying or hearing philosophy. (Of course
in the case of a purely-realised devotee, whatever he speaks, though apparently
philosophy, ontology, etc. is actually Hari-katha - a different case no
doubt....)
So, to our story: some beautiful flowers had come from somewhere this
morning and one young devotee visiting from Naples, Haridas Prabhu, busied
himself making garlands for our Sri Guru-varga pictures at the programme.
The programme flowed in its own way, yet seemed to have a radically different
atmosphere than last evening. Afterwards I met informally with the audience
and we had a group photo taken. I talked particularly with one guest,
a Mr. Gupta from Delhi, who seemed to be having a marvellous time and
praised my Sanskrit (I told him truthfully I didn't have any but that
after being around these Scriptures a few years, some of it had probably
rubbed off on me) and I encouraged him, and his (Italian, Catholic) wife,
who wanted to know if being a vegetarian was a must for making spiritual
progress....
Returning to the house, we had a lovely supper and swapped stories of
the day's events.
Mon 7 Nov
The family saw me off with my packed lunch at the Terni
train station; Mohita Krishna Prabhu accompanied me as far as Rome Termini,
where he was being met by his daughter, Devaki Devi Dasi, in her car,
and from there they returned to his house near the beautiful village of
Montone (which, as its name suggests, is situated on the top of a small
mountain! Usually I would stay at least some time there with him but he
apologised on this occasion that his house was being entirely refurbished...).
I was bound for Genoa, a historic city (which place in Italy is not?)
on the Italian Riviera. The journey here was about five hours so I had
plenty of time to reflect on life, death - and also write this diary.
Sitting in the train it struck me, not for the first time, the sad fact
of the pathos and predictability of most human beings' lives. This is
not meant as a value judgement, merely an observation. Here, they just
mainly stared out of the window, stuck in their minds, thinking, thinking...
and many times I have observed, for example, people sitting together for
a long time in a cafe or restaurant, say, not saying anything or even
looking at each other. It seemed to me this silence is not because they
are so at home in each other's company - that would be rather nice - rather
that their lives are so empty, in the real sense, that there is actually
nothing to say. How sad that is. As Berkeley said (it is mentioned by
Srila Sridhar Maharaj in 'Subjective Evolution'), "The world is in
the mind" - not that the mind is in the world. A description I read
recently puts it well:
"Human beings are perceivers, but the world that they perceive is
an illusion: an illusion created by the description that was told to them
from the moment they were born. So, in essence, the world that their reason
wants to sustain is the world created by a description and its dogmatic
and inviolable rules, which their reason learns to accept and defend."
('The Wheel of Time')
But without the grace of a peep into the subjective evolution of consciousness,
what can they otherwise do? They are helpless. Death, as Srimad-Bhagavatam
says, like a lion is waiting to devour the man but he is unconscious of
the fact, so all his acts are insipid, pointless. We, if we have been
blessed with some light to see, despite whatever mountains we have ourselves
to cross, must surely feel, as human beings, a natural wish to help our
human family as Mahaprabhu's order declares: yare dekha, tare kaha, Krishna
upadesa....
Italian Tour, Part 2 to follow.....
- BS Tridandi Swami
Sri
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