Page 18 - OSSISPS - Eng
P. 18

preface                                                   xii

          the chairman of that temple was temperamental and should be
          dealt with carefully. After my lecture there, a middle-aged Indian
          man asked (in a superficially reverent tone that indicated that he
          thought he knew a lot), “Swamiji, you have spoken about bhakti.
          However, I have learned that jïäna-yoga, karma-yoga, and bhakti-
          yoga are all the same and lead to the same goal. Can you please
          explain more?”

          I posed a counter-question: “Sir, have you read the Bhagavad-gétä?”
          I pointed to the copy of Bhagavad-gétä As It Is that I was holding.

          The man mumbled something and repeated that he thought
          jïäna, karma, and bhakti were all the same.

          I raised the Gétä in my hand and told him, “Sir, first read this book,
          and then speak.”

          The man replied, “But you said that only Kåñëa is God. However,
          we worship Murugan and Gaëapati. What is wrong with that?”
          I replied, “Worshiping anyone other than Kåñëa is like placing a
          garland on a dead body.”

          The man became furious and started jumping up and down as if
          he was about to hit us. His wife held his shirt to restrain him.
          Just then the ärati ceremony began. The man went to the notice
          board inside the temple and tore down (and into pieces) the poster
          that advertised the weekly  iskcon program, and then shouted
          something in Tamil. (Later Romapäda Däsa told me that the man
          had said, “How dare this person come into our temple and tell us
          that we are worshiping dead bodies?”) He again tried to run at us
          as if to strike us, and again his wife held him back by his shirt.

          I gestured to Romapäda Däsa and said, “I think we should leave
          now.”
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