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.”