At Least One Sincere Devotee - Calcutta Analyzed

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At Least One Sincere Devotee: Calcutta Analyzed
By Dvarkadis das

Dear CHAKRA,

Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada.

I have been in ISKCON (Poland) for 10 years. Currently I am a grhastha devotee and live in the city where there is no temple. Fortunately, I have an Internet connection to the Vaishnava world.

I have just read article by Deepak Vohra about the Calcutta Rathayatra. The first impression one gets after reading it is that Bhakti Caru Maharaja was making propaganda to promote success.

I want to share with you my own experience to illustrate my point.

Once, in the spring of 1995 in Bielsko-Biala, Poland, devotees who had been with Indradyumna Swami's festival party for five years went through a crisis. They did not feel inspired to work hard because there weren’t many people coming to the festivals. During one harinam, after some period of chanting, many devotees simply rushed for shops, ice cream, a walk in the park, etc. I was amazed to see my spiritual master, Indradyumna Swami, standing alone (with only someone to translate) in front of a small crowd of people. He was inviting them to attend what he called a colourful, wonderful and happy Hare Krishna Festival.

I could not understand his vision at the time because for me the reality was quite different. The festival was anything but that. But today I know that sannyasis have different vision than ordinary people. And the Hare Krishna Festival in Poland is now a big success.

Internal fighting and sense gratification is destroying preaching results, but if there is at least one sincere devotee our movement will go on.

Hare Krishna.

Your servant,

Dvarkadhis das

© CHAKRA 12-July-2001

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