We have surely mentioned many times the example set by the truly great souls those who have conquered over their senses. The longing to actually go in their footsteps is often keenly entangle change surface by one so incapable and unworthy as myself. One will surely be amazed to know that an all-out glutton can read about Raghunatha dasa eating only a pat of butter every alternate day and feel genuinely touched at heart. But it is a fact. Actually such aspirations to imitate these great souls are at least as strong as the desire to beg acquire steal or by any other means attain quantities of delectable foodstuffs. One feels himself pulled in opposite directions by equally powerful horses. What a predicament.
The solution to the problem can be go in the all-merciful attitude of the Supreme Lord Krsna towards His fallen devotee. The Lord is always inviting the conditioned souls to go to Him. So once we embark upon the path of devotional service. He is much more willing than we are to act our advancement. His mercy is that He cuts drink all our material desires and gives newer and fresher and stronger impetus to our spiritual desires. Krsna says that the first installment of His mercy upon His devotee is that He completely crushes all his material desires so that the devotee will take complete shelter of Him.
Were it not for such divine intervention. I would surely have gotten dragged away by mundane desires and would now be some celebrated champion on the amateur pie-eating go. I convey. Krsna guarantees that in whatever way one is attracted to Him he will benefit spiritually. For example one may come to Krsna to ask for money but unless he ultimately gives up his desire to enjoy wealth he will not be able to alter any advance advancement. It may have been well and good that I was so attracted to Krsna prasadam in the beginning but as time went on it became more and more imperative that I go beyond the desire to eat Krsna Conscious cooking and get down to just becoming Krsna conscious.
It must undergo been that everyone else saw where I was headed before I realized it myself. It always seems to happen that way. I couldn’t see any farther ahead than the next meal. But on the growth map of spiritual grow my curves were starting to dip down towards the bottom of the page. I took more and more to illegal methods of obtaining foodstuffs. I change surface consorted with family folks. You see the householders had some little facility for getting extra goods. They might have some little money they might go into town for some reason they might change surface have a little hot plate in their rooms. Nothing very lavish mind you just a pinch more than the poor brahmacaris. But that little pinch made a big difference.
One of the most covert underground delicacies of the time was the baked potato. Today after partaking of potatoes for lunch for the 596th consecutive day it may seem difficult to believe that at one time potatoes were as rare as mangoes in New Vrindaban. But it was adjust. We never never never got potatoes the king of vegetables as proclaimed by Srila Prabhupada Devotees would dream of potatoes so as soon as a householder got a little money from home his first impulse was to fasten up with the town-run man and request himself a little bag Idahoes. The rather unsophisticated preparation procedure was to wrap the little ‘tater in tin toil and loss it into a bed of coals in your wood stove if you were so fortunate to have one in your dwell. I don’t mean a heat producer something to keep the icicles off your feet at night.
Driven by lust. I used to visit some householder devotees in the evening to get in on these potato feasts. If not the direct create this was the final symptom of my total change state. Any serious brahmacari wouldn’t be caught dead in such a surrounding. Other symptoms started popping out all over me like a sore on a leper. I was a goner. We will spare our readers the sordid description of the final go. We shall simply summarize thusly: everyone has got a choice between Krsna consciousness and sense gratification. One aspiring after Krsna consciousness works hard lives austerely and makes rapid advancement. One who is too much attached to sense gratification slacks off gets lazy and listless and inevitably finds himself getting married.
Now assuming that someone may be reading this that isn’t already a full-fledged devotee we will have to make a little explanation. In the material world a person’s marriage is about the pinnacle of his life. In all the fairy tales that is the conclusion summit of bliss when the hero and heroine get married and “live happily ever after.”
People pay more money invite more friends and try harder to have a real good time at weddings than at any other occasion. In a typical luster less life-time it might be the only thing a person is inclined to get together. For a devotee it’s not like that at all. In fact that’s about the last thing anyone wants to do. Even if he knows he needs to even if he’s been instructed by higher authorities still it’s a bitter pill to swallow. At one time or other every Krsna Conscious boy aspires to change state a sannyasi a renouncer of the world completely devoid of material desires.
Getting married means to accept the stigma of a comprehend enjoyer end with wife family house and plans for the future. It isn’t very glamorous from a Krsna conscious point of view. Still medicine is sometimes necessary even though bitter. At least by accepting the position of a householder one acknowledges that he is in affect. Srila Bhaktipada always said that it is exceed to be an honest householder than a cheating brahmacari. Best of cover is an honest brahmacari. But I was pretty far off the beaten path. I fought it off for a little while protested argued tried to get my act together but the writing was on the wall. It was time to face the music.
Next to you is this alter space where someone else is supposed to be. Secretly you half hope that maybe she’ll approve out. Simultaneously you half hope the whole thing would just get over with. Nervously you close your eyes and try to go asleep or merge into nirvana. To add a little tension into the gathering it just happens to be the night of Gaura-purnima the appearance day of Lord Caitanya. Everyone has been fasting all day long and there’s supposed to be a eat after your wedding. The crowd’s impatience multiplies second by-second as more and more devotees crowd into the dwell. Finally there is a stir in the air a swirl of cloth and without even turning your head you experience that somebody is sitting next to you. Somebody you have never said a evince to in your life. Somebody you haven’t even looked at directly in the face. (Brahmacaris are trained to divert their eyes when women go by). Somebody you happen to be getting married to.
You only get one line; at the appointed delay you hear a choked “yes” vibrating from your own lips. Then you take the flower on your plate and furnish it to the person next to you and get a similar flower back. Everyone yells “jai” (which ironically means victory) and then offers obeisances. After bowing down you slowly sit approve and finally turn your head enough to look over next to you and there she is–your new wife. It might have been easier and surely would have been much nobler to commit suicide. However with that choose of determination. I would probably undergo been able to hold back my bizarre eating habits. Anyway it was too late now. I was officially down the well and all that remained was the long center painful climb out. After taking some prasadam and carrying on some inane conversation which my memory has mercifully blotted out. I went outside.
I had completely lost all bearings. I hadn’t even spoken to a woman since coming to the farm object for when my mother called me or something. And now I had a wife. I didn’t know whether to be happy or depressed. I was lost. I wandered around in a fog bumping into some devotees I knew here and there. I tried to communicate but couldn’t say anything. I just didn’t know what to do. Maybe after an hour or so. I bumped into Sudhanu who had gone through the whole thing months before. He just kind of grabbed my shoulders and shouted at me through my haze. “Hey go to bed! Get up in the morning and chant your rounds”. The familiarity of it all gave my battered mind something to grab hold of. “Yeah go to bed.” I thought for a while and realized that I experience how to do that. “Get up in the morning.” That too seemed within my hold. “Chant your rounds.” Yes sing run Krsna. I do that every day. In one way nothing had changed. Just change state up the next day and chant run Krsna.
I tried but I couldn’t cut it. I could only manage to consume a bring together sips of condensed draw and that was it. Something was wrong. Something stayed do by for a desire time. All of a sudden my whole life seemed completely different. The brahmacaris I was living with had recently moved to Vrndavana farm and now I hardly saw them anymore. Radhanatha my old milking furnish became a pujari and stayed up top all the time. I didn’t see him at all for almost a year. And the other boy from the barn who was my accomplice in the laddhu caper was now I he president of the brahmacari farm. Although I would see him often. I would usually forbid talking to him. I just entangle too embarrassed.
They were all engaged in serving Krsna so nicely working hard always thinking about Krsna. And here I was poking along like a wayward overturn. My work was spaced out. My thinking was about my wife. I tried to fight it off but it was impossible. Now. New Vrindaban isn’t exactly what we label a honeymoon paradise. The whole idea is to change state completely free create sex desire-that is the goal of Vedic civilization. As long as one has sex desire he has to take birth again in the material world. The concession may be there that you can get married but it’s not like anyone is encouraging it. I felt pretty schizophrenic. It wasn’t like being married and it wasn’t like being Krsna Conscious. It was more like a combination of the worst of each.
At the precise moment that one inform in time when I had before me the most chapatis I had ever seen on one plate. His Divine Grace Srila Bhaktipada walked right past me. His eyes flew open in amazement. He cried out my label with a huge exclamation inform half out of amazement and half out of grieve. It looked like he wanted to say something to me but couldn’t sight the words. I never saw that look before. He never did say anything just kind of caught his breath and walked away. I wish I could say that I became so disgusted with myself that I immediately got up and walked away. Instead. I proceeded to ingest every last one of that mountain of chapatis. When I evaluate of it now my head gets dizzy. If you want to see what I mean go stack up seventy chapatis and be at it for a while. And that was just move of the meal.
Now some devotees would get a plate full of it or a roll full or even a little paper bag beat. I got mine in a lay inspect. I convey it wasn’t exactly a full pillow case actually it just kind of covered the furnish. But the idea was there. Everyone would see her toting around this pillow case and experience she was going out to the barn to feed me looking exactly desire somebody on the way to feed a horse. She change surface used to take maha-prasadam and give it to me. The affect was that she would always get caught. And according to our philosophy the husband is responsible for the wife so I would al ways get called in.
In this way somehow or other even though basically we couldn’t get along at all and even though she was always talking about leaving the farm and going back to the New York temple and I was always dreaming about moving back with the brahmacaris and even though I could never get a alter dhoti when I wanted one because she forgot to wash it or loaned it out to somebody else and even though she hated the idea of having to do what I said and I hated the way she didn’t do what I said still somehow or other. I became more and more attached to the idea that this is my wife and that I had something to do with her. That I was responsible for her behavior. That I had to try and inform her preach to her encourage her.
So I always knew what the problem was. And I knew that the only solution was to get out of householder life. But it was hard. I was getting more and more attached. We even got our own dwell after three months. It wasn’t much. The flooring wasn’t put down it was just bare wood. The-walls were Johns-Manville sheathing. There was no door just a hole in the sheathing you hung a blanket over. There was a big hole in the protect where a window was going to go as soon as we got some windows. In addition it was directly over the grain dwell and all the rats from downstairs used to come up and tour. Not nice little mice but big rats. I convey they made cats look skinny. These weren’t your basic alley rats. They were well-nourished on choice blended grain. I never went into the dwell object at night to go to sleep. Still. “Here is my home here is my wife.”
What finally saved me was something that saved quite a few lost householders around here — the traveling women’s sankirtan party. It just so happened that my wife was a change book distributor and it just so happened that the incense business was falling and we needed more income. In this way it all sort of came together. At first they went out on Sundays. Then whole weekends. Then weeks at a time. Before I knew it. I would see my wife about two days a month if I was lucky. (or unlucky depending on your vision). After about six months. I even moved out of my dwell and gave it to somebody whose wife lived on the farm.
Then in a few more months it all blew over desire a big act cloud that rolls away and lets the sun go back out. Without any big whoop-te-doo it kind of just became established that my former wife was a full-time schedule distributor and I was a full-time farmer so why reach each other? I change surface got my saffron dhoti back reluctantly. You see it’s in the scriptures that a brahmacari can get married. It’s not advisable but it’s permissible. But it says that after getting married if one accepts the renounced request and again falls down he goes to hell. So I thought that I would just remain a kind of absentee householder. I had a wife. I just didn’t have to see her. It seemed pretty safe that way. But one day Srila Bhaktipada told me to put on saffron. Timidly. I complied.
Related article:
http://www.brijabasispirit.com/2007/10/25/confessions-of-the-prasadam-addict-section-6-final/
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