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By Kadamba Kanana Swami

Srila Prabhupada makes the point that Krsna is more eager for us to go back to Godhead than we are ourselves. We sometimes say, “Yeah, I definitely want to go back to Godhead…” but what if suddenly, we would get the opportunity?

One devotee, a friend of mine who joined ISKCON in 1967, when he was young, he was looking for the truth and he went into nature and sat down on a hill. He started meditating and he was thinking, “I really want to get out of this world.”
Suddenly he saw a big gate in the sky. The doors opened and a sage appeared. The sage said, “You can come,”
and he said, “Oh, well… but I am still young.”
Then sage said, “Okay, you can wait,” and the doors closed.
He thought, “Oh no! What did I do? I got the opportunity and I hesitated and now the doors are closed!”

Anyway, he went home and for some months nothing happened, then winter came and there was a lot of snow outside. One night, he was dreaming that he was flying in the sky. He came to a city which was built on hills. Then a voice said, “Go to San Francisco.”

So he thought, “Last time, I missed… So this time, I will do it!” He was very serious. He got up immediately and left the house, in the middle of the night in the snow.

He started hitchhiking and immediately one car stopped.  The driver asked, “Where do you want to go?” 
He said, “To San Francisco.” 
The driver said, “Get in. That is where I am going.” Everything was magic.

But when he arrived in San Francisco, nothing happened. So he stayed there. He got a motorbike and got a job with a courier service delivering packets and racing around on his motorbike. One day he had an accident and injured his leg and had to go to the hospital and all these things. After some time, he was a little better and one day, was sitting in a park, on a bench, with his leg in plaster and he still had crutches. He was in the Golden Gate Park in San Francisco and suddenly the Ratha Yatra came past with ten thousand people and Prabhupada was on the chariot! The kirtan was going on and when he saw Prabhupada, he recognised Prabhupada to be the sage in the sky, who had asked him to come in the doors! The Ratha Yatra cart was moving but since he could not walk because of his injured leg, it just disappeared. He was totally fried – two times, he missed out!

Anyway, after some weeks, his leg was better and he went to the police station to pick up his motorbike. He had brought a sleeping bag with him to take it to the dry cleaner. When he was at the place where the motorbike was stored, then he heard this noise, “Hare Krsna… (ching), Hare Krsna… (ching)” It was the same noise as that Ratha Yatra so he followed it and walked straight to the temple and the devotees said, “Oh, you brought your sleeping bag, you want to move in?” And this is how he became a devotee. It is quite a story. A five minute story but a nice story. It shows Krsna’s eagerness to take us back to Godhead, somehow or other!

Source: https://www.kksblog.com/2017/11/quite-a-story/