Metal Festival
At the end of June there was a yearly heavy-metal festival called "Tuska (pain) Open Air Festival" in Kaisaniemi Park in the center of Helsinki.
I can easily get into some small talk with the participants of this festival, and on that weekend we distributed books at the Helsinki railway station, near Kaisaniemi.
Some 36,000 people participated in this festival, and streets were colored, or should we say, darkened, with men dressed in black, gothic-style; ladies with black, purple and red hair and black make-up. Many of them took our books.
On Saturday afternoon we always go for Harinama, and decided to visit Kaisaniemi. The response was, I could say, positively confused. The high decibels were tolerable outside the festival area, and we could chant nicely.
The headliner of this year's festival, Slayer, was starting at 7.30 PM on Sunday, and I decided to distribute just outside the festival area.
Amid these man in black and vampire-style ladies was one elderly man, propably Christian. Although by the Kali-yuga-festival standard the atmosphere was quite peaceful, the man said to me "…It is illegal to drink in public places. This is criminal activity. It is if we were in hell!"
I thought, "Yes, actually it is like that. I am just so conditioned to seeing all kinds of craziness, that it seems normal to me, and I still get some juice from the electric quitars and heavy drumming, but actually this scene is certainly from the lower planets."
But the response was very positive, I don't know if that was because we did one hour of intense bhajans on Sunday or simply Lord Nityananda's special mercy, but I have hardly ever met that many interested people in so short a time.
There is some special nectar distributing in dhoti to people dressed in anti-religious dresses, carrying pentagrams and upside-down crosses. It often seems that they are against Christianity, but consider us something completely different, and are often interested in mystisism, mythologies and things like that. Or else they are confused, and don't know how they should relate with us.
I just modify my mantras a little, and use a few more phrases like "this is a battle between devas and demons / mystisism from old India" etc.
I stopped one young man with the standard satanic symbols in his jacket, and before I managed to say hardly anything he started: "For some years I have tried to find some kind of philosophy or way for myself, but when I read this SSR, I immediately saw, here it is. I have another book also, and I will read it. I will come to visit your place some Sunday."
Then there was one couple; the lady had a pentagram tattooed to her body, some heavy pearcings in her face. They soon surrendered to Sixth Canto. I mentioned that many of these people don't like religions. She said,"Well, I don't like satanism; we are not into that, this pentagram….I was a bit intoxicated when I took this tattoo…"
One man around 35, dressed more ordinary, a little intoxicated, came. "Sorry, partying 4 days in a row, no money…but, I have already so many of your books, I am already convinced, you have already gotten me on your side…"
One boy came to our e-mail list, many others stopped to say that they read our books and like them.
Your Servant,
Muniraja Dasa
