This post could well be titled “Inspiring Devotees Part II” but just for the sake of it I decided to change it a little. Before I relate the story let me write in something about my own self –When I had just started chanting and was quite new to the philosophy I aspired to become a Gopa in Goloka Vrindavan, that because I am not very fond of girly chores that keep the Gopis busy all day besides Krishna spends most of His time with the Gopas so that was it I wanted to be a cowherd boy. Later as I grew in Krishna Consciousness and came to know about Nitai Gaurhari’s wonderful Leela my aspirations shifted to becoming an eternal mridanga player in Gauaranga’s Nagar Sankirtan. Dancing, Chanting and pleasing the devotees by playing wonderful mridanga that became new definition of perfection of life for me until this happened (Read on -)One of my Godsisters who is a regular at Sri Sri Radha Gopinath temple ordered me to show around Sri Sri Radha Rasbihari temple. I readily agreed because she had just returned from her trip to Barsana as a volunteer in the Barsana eye camp, I was keen to hear her realizations. We met, I took her to Srila Prabhupada’s quarters where Jayshree Mataji blessed us with His Divine Grace’s Maha Maha Prasad. We sat in the library next hoping to watch some nice videos. I chose to watch a Prabhupada’s video and followed that up by a video on existence of soul hoping I would be able to pick up some arguments for preaching when suddenly I caught a glimpse of my guest watching most reverentially one of our Gurudev’s videos. Man!! trust me right at that moment I wished I had half the love and attachment that she has for Guru Maharaj. All glories to her! We moved next towards life membership hall where we were to honor dinner prasadam we settled around a table and then started our Krishna Katha. She told me that before going to the Dham she was to hand over her duties as the class representative of her college to one of her friends for she were to miss a couple of her lectures, as she did that news of her taking leave spread throughout her class and every one came up to her asking “Are you going home?” for she is an outstation student in Mumbai. She patiently corrected few early birds but to later she changed her answer to “Yes I am going home” for she realized that Barsana is every living entities’ home. To which I added “Wow!! Won’t it be wonderful that some day we will all go back home to be eternally with the Lord” picturing Gauranga’s eternal Sankirtan in the eternal sky in my head. She moved her head form left to right and said “You know Guru Maharaj very long back has explained we should only aspire for service” and boom!! I felt a bomb just exploded and my dream just got shattered. I think she read all this on my face for she continued to say “Please forgive me I really did not intend to offend you”. All I could say was “No No!! You are right that is what we should aspire for! Service”So there!! That is how I learned my lesson to aspire only for eternal service. No matter where Krishna chooses to put us in Prabhupada’s leela, Gauranga’s leela , His own leela service or where ever.
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