A world of Difference
Kadamba Kanana Swami
I was travelling to India, and there was a lady sitting next to me who was a yoga teacher. She was going to India for training with Iyengar. She was a serious yoga teacher, because Iyengar is serious yoga.
So anyway, she was a serious person, wasn't just in general but a thoughtful serious person. We had a nice discussion on spiritual topics, but I didn't immediately tell her that I was from the Hare Krishna Movement, since I was just preaching.
Then she said, "So, actually what are you?"
So then I explained, "Well okay I'm a member of the Hare Krishna Movement."
"Oh,no! Hare Krishna? Oh no!"
So I asked, "Well, what happened to you? Did you have a bad experience with the Hare Krishnas?"
She replied, "I got so badly cheated. You know I have one problem. I cannot say no!"
So you can just imagine, a sankirtan devotee found a lady who just couldn't say no! So she got a full set, the whole set, the complete everything, all the small books and everything. I don't know how much she paid but, she must have paid a lot for them. Then her husband came home, and there was a big drama! She spent so much money on these books, and they had been standing there and they are like the joke of the family. Whenever there was a family gathering, they have to make some jokes about her books:
"Oh! Look at them! There they are!"
She cannot throw them away, because she spent so much money on them. The books were just standing there to testify for her stupidity now she got cheated! So this is the story she had told me on the plane. Then I said, "Well, how do you know that you got cheated? Did you read them?"
"No, actually no, I never read the books."
"Why don't you read them? Maybe they're really nice, if you read them and find them really nice, then you can tell your whole family, "Actually I didn't get cheated they are good books, they're really nice."
She said, "This is great! I'm going to read those books!"
So sometimes just a conversation with someone can make a world of difference, that is also giving!
Akruranatha Dasa says:
This reminds me of the popular English fairy tale, "Jack and the Beanstalk." Young Jack's mother, driven by poverty, sends the boy to the market to sell the family's only milk cow. However, a silver-tongued salesman convinces Jack to trade the cow for "magic beans" which he brings home. The mother, thinking Jack had been swindled, throws the beans out the window. Overnight they germinate and grow to a giant stalk that reaches beyond the clouds, to a magic castle where Jack finds his fortune.
Perhaps the books this young woman who could not say "no" to will help her grow a giant bhakti stalk that pierces the sky and leads her to a world of magic and fulfillment beyond her family's wildest dreams.
