Dhamvasis

I was told that you should write down your realizations as soon as you have them or they soon disappear from your mind. Keeping this in mind, I did jot down a few of them when I was in Mayapur. The following is one of my journal entries from when I was there, January 2008.

An old lady pays her obeisances to Lord Nrshingadev. Her sari looks so old and raggedy. Her skinny bone structure belies the possibility that she might not have eaten for days. Her sari looks a century old and could definitely use a wash.
She gets up slowly after prostrating before the Lord....slowly unties a knot at the end of her sari. She pulls out a dirty , very muci looking plastic bag where she has coins. She slowly takes one out and drops it into the hundi box. Why am I so unfortunate to be born in a sophisticated environment where I am taught to question everything and look for the logic? Just because I chant everyday, love doing service, study bhagavad gita I think I am pious, devotional and religious. Hah! Do I really have the simple conviction that these pious villagers have? They seem ordinary....their condition seems pitiful, but .... I envy them. I envy their simple pure conviction in the supreme. I envy their pious religiousity that makes them give whatever little they have to the husband of the goddess of fortune.

I know Krishna is the supreme personality of godhead. I really do, and I am convinced of this fact. But, like BVP maharaj was saying the other day - when the doorbell is ringing, baby is crying, milk is boiling off the stove, one phone on the ear...even amongst all that juggling, when you know that Krishna is the supreme, that is when you have true conviction. It is quite unfortunate that I am not at that level where if I get into a car accident or fall or something like that, the first word out of my mouth would not be Nrshingadev. Conviction is when even your instinct follows Krishna.

I think for most people who join the movement including me, when I study and read about Krishna, his pastimes, his energies, although we know and accept it....subtly it is two different worlds. Definitely for me, there was a solid line dividing Krishna's spiritual world and the material world we live in. When I meditate on Krishna or his pastimes, it would definitely be Krishna in the spiritual realm. For all of these pious and fortunate souls, this line does not exist. Krishna is not looking down from above in his realm or comes down to visit every now and then....
He IS here..this is part of him. Fortunately for me, by being in Mayapur this line is becoming finer and finer :)