THE OFFENSE, THE REMEDY, AND THE REMINDER
I went to one factory in Russia to distribute books. On meeting the secretary I asked to see the director. She went to tell the director that someone wanted to meet him. When he came out and saw me, he asked if I was a Hare Krsna. I said, “Yes, I am.” He then said to the secretary, “Don’t let him go, I’m going to call the police. These people should be crushed like cockroaches.” I quietly slipped out the door and went on to other places.
What happened afterwards was amazing. When the director went home, he found his daughter crying because his wife had had a severe heart attack. The next day, for no apparent reason, his son was imprisoned. The next day the director’s superiors, also for no reason, put him on leave and said from that day forward he should consider himself fired. To top it off, when he went home the next day, he found his house on fire. Luckily, the fire wasn’t big so the firemen were able to put it out.
Feeling hopeless from all his misfortune, the man sat down with his religious daughter to discuss how all this could have happened. She asked her father if he had committed any grievous sins recently. Reflecting on the days before the calamities came, he remembered the Hare Krsna person he had condemned. She immediately said, “That’s it, you offended a saint. We have to find out where he lives and beg for forgiveness. They have temples. We have to find out where the nearest temple is.”
Looking on the internet, they found the temple address, went to the temple, and entered the temple room. Looking around, the man said to his daughter, “That’s him sitting over there.”
They both came over to me. With tears in his eyes and begging for forgiveness, he spoke about all the misfortunes that had happened since he had insulted me. I was kind to them and said he should be careful about judging people. “Now you’ve learned a lesson.”
Some time passed and he again came to the temple and gave a donation to the deities. He invited me to the factory and said I should bring a lot of books and he would help me distribute them. He told the employees if anyone didn’t buy a book, they would lose their jobs.
He told me that after he had asked for forgiveness, his wife was discharged from the hospital; she hadn’t had a heart attack after all. Then his son was let out of jail owing to wrongful prosecution, and finally he had been reinstated at work. The only thing that remained from the offense was the fire damage, to remind him.
Your servant,
Ambarish Maharaja
