By Suresvara Prabhu
When I grew up in Krishna consciousness—in the 1970s—we were very sympathetic to the Vaiṣṇavas in the former Soviet Union. After all, they were persecuted, jailed, and tortured by the KGB. Yet, they remained seemingly indomitable and could not be broken. We would hear their stories and think, “Wow, this is amazing.”
In 1991, however, the Soviet Union disbanded, and we soon received word that the first group of Russian devotees would come to India.
Keshava Maharaj was one of the Vaiṣṇavas who greeted them in Kolkata when they first arrived. He told me a touching story:
“When the devotees from the Soviet Union came, we offered them a big feast. I sat next to one humble soul. He looked at his plate and picked up a piece of papaya in his hand and raised it up. He turned to me and asked, ‘A fruit?’ I nodded. He bit into it and cried. He had never seen a papaya in the Soviet Union. He never tasted anything so wonderful. I was shocked that his previous existence was so seemingly deprived.”
When the first contingent of devotees from the former Soviet Union visited Vṛndāvana, where I was living, we met them at Bhaktivedanta Gate on Bhaktivedanta Swami Marg and ushered them into the temple for darśana. We honored and glorified them. As they approached the front entrance to the temple, we showered them with rose petals from above.
Śivarāma Swami and B.B. Govinda Swami were especially eager to honor them. Govinda Swami, a gourmet Hare Krishna cook among his many talents, made them an amazing feast, which they served in Tamal Krishna Goswami’s house.
Their plan was to honor these devotees for their sacrifice. And while it may sound strange when I describe it, their plan represents how much we revered their courage and the suffering they underwent to spread the mission of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu.
Their plan was as follows: the two Maharajas would serve them so much prasāda that their plates would be piled with remnants. They also placed sand in front of the doorway so that when the Russian devotees left, the dust of their lotus feet would mix with that sand. After the Russian devotees departed, they would eat their remnants—and bathe in the dust of their lotus feet. And they did.
As for me, I was housing arguably the most persecuted and toughest of the Russian devotees: three Armenian brothers—Syamasundar Dāsa, Kamala, and another whose name I forget. One of them, Sarvabhauma, wrote the book Salted Bread.
After the feast at Tamal Krishna’s house, Syamasundar, who had been tortured in prison, started to complain to me. He was disturbed when he found out that the Maharajas had eaten their remnants and bathed in the dust of their feet. In general, the high level of respect he received since coming to India upset him.
In broken English with a heavy Russian accent, he expressed his feelings:
“I think it even more dangerous here than in prison. In prison, they can only harm your body, but here, with all this worship, they can kill your bhakti.”
Just as he was griping about the worship he was enduring, Kamala—very tall and imposing—was walking by. He overheard what his brother was saying, stopped, turned his head to me, and in a very heavy tone commented:
“Queen Kunti was right.”
For those unfamiliar with that reference, he was alluding to the famous statement by Queen Kunti, who lamented Krishna’s imminent departure at the end of the Mahābhārata war. She prayed:
“I wish those calamities would come again and again so that we could see You again and again, for seeing You means that we will no longer see repeated births and deaths.”
We genuinely feel closer to God in times of tragedy—but how many of us value God’s presence and shelter to that degree?
Dear Lord Śrī Krishna, I pray that one day I can value Your presence in my life so much that I too may proclaim, “Queen Kunti was right.”
Source: https://www.dandavats.com/?p=115718
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