Ice is maya

Contributed by: Mahavishnu Dasa

Annada: I bought Srila Prabhupada a chaddar and I don't know why, but for some reason I didn't want him to know that it had come from the Khadigram at the Ashoka. So I took all the tags off and put it in a brown paper bag so there was no indication of where it had come from. I put the package on his desk and offered my obeisances. As I was getting up, Srila Prabhupada said, "This is from Ashoka Hotel?" To this day I understand that if it is Krishna's desire, Prabhupada can know everything, everywhere, at all times. Prabhupada's vision can be supernatural. One tends to forget that.

Dhirasanta: Srila Prabhupada was walking in St. James's Park, tapping his cane on the ice that had formed overnight. At one point he asked, "What does this mean?" We looked at each other and wondered what we should say. Prabhupada asked again, "What does this mean?" We couldn't fathom what Prabhupada meant. Suddenly he said, "Ice is maya. The original constitution of water is liquid, but when it comes in contact with freezing weather it becomes hard ice. And when there is ice, there is the possibility that you may slip." Prabhupada may have been breaking the ice because he didn't want anyone to slip. He continued the analogy, explaining that the heart becomes hard, but just as the sun rises and melts the ice, in the same way the continued chanting of the Hare Krishna maha-mantra softens the heart and reinstates the individual in his natural constitutional position.