|
also available in Spanish, click HERE
By Atma, Yasoda and Adi dd - http://www.vrindavan.org
Translated by Manah Siksha devi dasi
Thanks to the mercy of Gurudeva and Sri Krishna for permitting that Mother Gopa Kumara invites us to this page to share our life experience, which we hope from the heart will fill its mission.
We write you from Vishnu Priya Ashram of Grecia, a village in the northeastern Costa Rica, today the 27th of January, 20003, the celebration day for being initiated one year ago. Exactly at midday at the fire ceremony, our Gurudeva Srila Bhakti Aloka Paramadvaiti, shed the mercy of the Holy Names of the Lord upon us. At this moment we were five persons initiated, all prepared in time, in the group, now we are actually three. And that very day after the initiation, we had another mercy from Krishna. Gurudeva visited our house and said: “You are now Vishnu Priya Ashram and La Fundación Casa de la Sabiduría” and he left it written in his own hand. Later, the two sisters who were initiated with us, returned back to Colombia and left for us four works of abstract art by a Colombian artist as the first donation for the Ashram, and so began our life in Krishna consciousness.
Then, who are we? We are three Colombian Mothers, single and without a partner and without children, 46,40 and 27 years old; Yasoda Nandana and Atma Nivedana, psychologists, and Adi Purusa, forestry engineer.
How we came to know each other: Yasoda and Atma know each other since 17 years. They founded Aldía Asesoría Desarollo Humano and worked as adviser and/or consultants in different enterprises and religious communities in Ibagué, the capital of Departamento del Tolima, three hours from the capital Bogotá. Adi Purusa worked in a forestry company till her professional practice in1998, when she came to advisory bureau for personal training in Aldía, and since then she was not only a client, but also a friend and life companion. She moved from home, rented a house for home and an office, and there lived Atma and Adi and they had the office of Psychology and Forestry for three years.
The situation in Colombia: The situation in the country deteriorated. We tried to find the answer of our life, because we were aware of a service mission to God, but Colombia turned to be more and more difficult. Adi met the guerrilla twice with armed assault; they killed a companion - an agronomy engineer – and tried to kidnap one of her clients. Her work on the field was each day an immense risk, and for Yasoda and Atma the same. The company that survived in the agricultural sector, started to be surrounded by different guerrilla soldiers. They blocked the way, assaulted, kidnapped and blasted the reserve of the police, so they had no access. Each time to go out was an agony for the three of us, to not know if we would come back home. As Catholics, we knew that God would protect us and that His will would be done; we prayed and recommended us to Him constantly. We had an altar at home, a Bible, blessed water and all that we could to protect us from the surroundings and life in general.
From Colombia to Costa Rica: Trying to understand God, we analysed that it was a sign for us to get away from there, and we started to look for options in Colombia, but without any result. Then we looked in different places in Europe and even in America. For us the sign of God came when Adi was sent to Costa Rica for the rice cultivator group to those who were advising, to a seminary about Agro forestry in the CATIE – Turrialba in Costa Rica in March 2001, for 15 days. With the vision of a tourist, she was enchanted by the tranquillity, the security, better money and work possibilities, and she informed us about the option to move to Central America. We studied this, analysed with economical numbers, we asked people we knew with investments in the country and made the decision: That was the place.
We asked God for much light over this, and everything was given with an incredible facility. We understood that this was the will of God, otherwise nothing would have worked. Our speciality was considered with satisfactory for not being known and that it was needed in the contractor sector. The same thing happened with the experience in Forestry; they knew techniques to conserve nature, and the Costa Rican Consulate gave us the YES, with the permission to move everything from the house and the office on boat.
Costa Rica: Two and a half months later, on the 12th of June 2002, we were in San José, Costa Rica. Yes, a nice country and very calm, no violence, but… where was the reason we made the change? To come here was hard, due to the loving affection; we left our parents, our sisters and brothers, nieces and nephews, but in the heart there was a hope to find all answers of the agitation to God. Four months passed and nothing happened… there were no proposes for job, the money we had brought with us, was emptying, and an infinite agony weighted us. We fought with God, asked, prayed and of course we ran into debt to survive in our way.
The change and the longing for the new life began to be notable in health; grippes ad lumbagos, and one of us needed to have medicine, since the pain was unbearable and she had to stay in bed. What did God want with this our suffering? The lady who gave the injection recognized the accent and asked: Are you Colombians? My niece is a friend to a Colombian boy and the mother is from where you are. We were astonished; she was an ex work companion who had come one year earlier with her husband and children. We were given their phone number, and a few days later we finally called them.
Meeting Krishna consciousness and the Devotees: It was the phone number to a Colombian family, and we knew that Rubi and her husband were vegetarians and flirted with the Hare Krishna devotees, and that they had two children; Gerardito, 6 years old and Rubi, 4 years old, but we know nothing more. When we visited them, we saw with surprise their altar, their life style and how the children were so familiar with their God.
Rubi proposed a reunion to show us how to prepare vegetarian paella. It would be in our house, which besides, coincidentally, was only 10 minutes away on foot. The day came – a nice afternoon. The husband was not late in preaching and orienting around vegetarianism to Atma, meanwhile Yasoda and Rubi prepared everything in the kitchen, and the children calmly were together with Adi. Coming together the three of us, we shared all the impressions from the visit. Gerardo and Rubi invited us to become vegetarians not only for health, but also for a spiritual life, and that touched a very sensible string at that moment… it is this that God wants, all this because we should become vegetarians!!! Adi said: “I start at once”. Yasoda and Atma felt it like a sin to throw away the meat in the freezer. That week with meat was a disaster, and our conclusion was that God punished us for not clinching the matter. So, from the 17th of November 2001, we are vegetarians. Gerardo – Prabhu Caitanya Lila – from that day dedicated a great part of his time to talk with us about Krishna consciousness and Gurudeva, and to give us the nice gift of the Maha Mantra and his mercy had no limits. Every weekend we came together with his family; Madre Antayami and the children Madhava Krishna and Gopi Priya, always about the pastimes of the Lord and never missing a good prasadam and devotional music with Gurudeva.
Preaching to the group: At this moment, a Colombian friend who passed through as grave moments as we did, happened to be without anywhere to stay, and we in our worst economical worries invited her to share our apartment; this helped with the expenses and we had company in our material pain. And so we left this house for another that was three times less expensive; the three of us in one bed and she, Diana, in the other room: There she also began to receive Caitanya when he came to talk with us about Krishna consciousness and started to become motivated to submit to our vegetarian life and accepted what came. During two months we read holy texts day and night, finding that we were more Vaisnavas than Catholics. In December arrived the last member of our group – the little daughter of Diana, 8 years old. Diana did not know how the girl would react with our alimentation and our new habits. She, a 8 years old girl, came to be the engine in our spiritual life. She corrected us at lunch when we took the maha prasadam and if we did not pronounce correctly, she said: “It is maha prasada”, and pointed to the heart: “It is to nourish here”. Without japas but with Catholic rosaries that we had, we chanted the mantra they had given us. In the task to learn to live with strangers, to be tolerant and to be resistant to everything, we cried for not knowing how to survive, loaded with debts, and God only told us to study. It seemed as if He wanted our time exclusively, because it did not work anything to do, and among us, the tension increased, of course. They explained for us that it was anartas!! Anartas??? And they told us then to do it good, therefore we asked for more knowledge, and He gave us.
The most important detail was still missing – to surrender to a Spiritual Master, and to our surprise, the Prabhu told us that his master would come on the 26th of January 2002. We did not know what to do… Would He be our Master? And one thing that happened days before the arrival of Gurudeva; Yasoda’s mother who had asked her to come back to Colombia, became ill and died on the 20th of January, and we could do nothing, neither we had permission to leave the country and no money for the trip. The pain was deep, but it was the will of God!
Initiation: With closed eyes we recommended us to God, the five of us. We met Gurudeva at the airport and of course he stole our heart with his great warmth, the affection with which he burns for each one of his devotees, his wisdom and infinite qualities. We were initiated and soon we had the service we had searched for so much. This was our great response: “we did not come for a material mission, it was a spiritual mission”. It is only missing the names of Diana, Radha Madhava and the girl Lalita Sakhi. On the 28th they went back to Colombia and we were left completely helpless, yes!! We had nothing else to do, than to sell everything we had for the tickets to return to Colombia. But the selling was not sufficient for the tickets, so we had to change and fight to go on. Of course we did not have many things to take with us.
In Krishna consciousness: We continued our preparation, forwarded the legalization of FUCASA, and intended to learn to serve Gurudeva. Knowing that the first is the request one do to get into Krishna consciousness, but that the most important is that our Master accepts us. With shyness we asked Gurudeva through the chat, if it was possible to have a second initiation. What a big surprise!!! He accepted and told us about his itinerary that he would come on the 20th of July; another gift from the Lord. The 21st of July, we had our second initiation!!! At this time we had to give up our professional work and learn to make samosas and to sell fast food of soy; hamburgers and sandwiches and later lunch for the workers of a construction, and with this we provided for two months and then the clients stopped to distribute fruit salads, but we went through it one day, and the income was not enough and thus we increased our rounds. Well, something was bad in our sadhana, that everything went bad, and we read the holy books and tried to get in contact with Gurudeva, who thanks to his page, his secretary Pancatattwa and his clear itinerary always can be found. His second lesson of life, to learn to administrate how difficult with a capitalistic structure and in this age!!! To learn to buy “the necessary”, to understand what is “necessary”, to give priority, to live from one day to the other, great efforts, sufferings and agonies and to be realists! We had nothing to pay the place where we lived, we had to change, but for a cheaper place, what would that be?! Well, after all, nothing was ours. We did not have neither “ours” nor “mine”, neither it was “what I would like”. Fighting with the mind all the time… This is from Krishna and Gurudeva; we should be flexible, subtle, light to be able to go from the hands of God, to free the bounds, the love for this way of living, and follow God and Gurudeva.
So this way we came to Grecia, a calm village, healthy in a natural life with a garden, together with our companion since 31st of July in our Vishnu Priya, Gopalito, a murti that was handed over to us by Prabhu Krishna Kumara and Madre Vrinda Devi, old devotees collaborating with Gurudeva. Sri Gopal has been for us an extraordinary companion. We cannot properly explain what Gopaito has managed to do in our hearts.
The Vishnu Priya Ashram is an opportunity of living in a community, for single women who search a higher purpose in their lives, you know. To manage to live under the same roof a certain number of souls, with the same goal, with the same inspiration, with the same instruction after the launch of an amount of anartas, and still there is immaturity that cause discord. It is not easy. A heroic task from our Gurudeva, who with his loving illumination has put the Supreme Lord in the centre and the common denominator in our lives so that we may tolerate, accept and learn to love Krishna, ourselves and our neighbour and bring forward the mission of life that he has given us, wherefore we are here to the cost of anything.
We give faithful testimony of that one who searches also finds, and that Sri Krishna protects and satisfies his devotees. In this hard process of adjustment in Costa Rica, being new here, without economical founds, without any professional platform, in the end… without everything, we miraculously carry on, on a wonderful path of service to God, in what He wants to put in our hands and hearts through our dear Gurudeva, our spiritual father. And once more we repeat to us that Krishna has the control when we see the abyss below without legalization and seeing how Colombians are deported. Without understanding how later everything will settle; over and over again and many times, we have to surrender into the hands of Krishna and accomplish the indications from our Gurudeva, and everything calms down. Así hasta que llegamos cambio tras cambio a escribir este relato sin merecernos nada pero deseando dar lo mejor a nuestro Gurudeva y a Sri Krishna que nos han traído a la vida a la luz a la esperanza con hechos, con realidades en carne propia, por la infinita misericordia del Señor que derrama a todos y que si encuentra no un corazón abierto sino una grieta quizá de dolor, por allí entra y nos roba la vida que es suya y nos enseña a volver a El, poniendo de nuestra parte, cumpliéndole a nuestro Gurudeva, siendo transparentes con El mostrándole nuestros defectos, dudas, problemas, debilidades. Siendo claros nos conoce y orienta directo a mejorar todo lo que nos impide crecer en el amor, ser entrega absoluta de amor a Dios.
We have found what does not exist anywhere, and nobody knows outside of Krishna consciousness, that there is a science of the soul, Krishna consciousness, and a Master of the art of Love, Srila Bhakti Aloka Paramadvaiti, who has saved us and saves us each moment and fight like nobody else for our growing in love with sweetness and with a maul when necessary.
Krishna let us discover that it does exist a method for to ripen, but one has to be strict in one’s practice. por eso no avanzamos más y cada día al ver nuestras debilidades y defectos requerimos apoyo de nuestros hermanos espirituales para verlos y poderlos superar a ver si algo podemos transformar después de tantas vidas infructuosas, intentos fallidos, al fin rendirnos rendirnos, rendirnos, rendidos rendirnos, para hallar la felicidad que existe en la vida con Dios. Ahí vamos en esta lucha contra nosotras y nuestra terquedad a ver si logramos volver a Dios.
Your servants,
Atma, Yasoda and Adi dd
Vishnu Priya Ashram Grecia
FUCASACOR.
|
