A unique experience

Submitted by : Mahabhagvat Das
One evening, one day before this year's Ratha Yatra, we were out on Sankirtan, accompanying Bhaktimarga Swami and a group of devotees out on Harinam.I had fallen back, each conversation would put me about 50-100 metres behind the devotees and lost sight of the Harinam party which was moving very briskly.

I saw two men staring at me as I was chanting the Mahamantra silently and waited to strike up conversations. I approached them with a book. One of the men practically jumped out of his skin, almost dropped the cigarette he held, and hastily moved away. The other man, slightly older-looking, disgust evident on his face, with the index fingers of his hands brought together and held in front, to form a cross, roughly told me to get away and that this chanting and these books were all satanic, that it was evil, from the devil. I was taken aback. I had received strange responses before, but this was far out! I didn't want to push this poor man to any further acts of who-knows-what, but at the same time, I didn't want to go away, because then he would have thought that the sign of the cross "repelled" me, further strengthening his misunderstanding. :-) So I hung around there, smiling at him, telling him that this was actually the same way preached by Lord Jesus Christ, the way of devotion to God, that Jesus Christ had said "hallowed be Thy Name", and I was chanting names of the same personality Jesus Christ worshiped in his heart! But he wouldn't relent, he kept mumbling something under his breath, pulled out a cellphone, then a camera, and began snapping pictures of me, of the other devotees on Sankirtan.

Just then, the happily ecstatic and enthusiastic Harinam party, who had long passed out of our sight, returned from the other end of the street. The men got even more agitated, they began to grunt noises of disapproval, and mutter to each other, taking even more pictures, even crossed the street to take better pictures of the Harinam party, keeping a "safe" distance of course. I was angered, saddened, amused and disappointed at various times as I reflected on this experience of being treated as part of an evil empire. Of course, Sankirtan conversations can go any which way, and one has to know when to not push and when to back away - leave the unripe fruit.