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EDITORIAL March 5, 2000 VNN5621 Comment on this story The Expert And The Rickshaw Walla BY PANCHA TATTVA DASA EDITORIAL, Mar 5 (VNN) — (With Debt Owed to Dr Frog and the Scholar As Well!) I pull a rickshaw in Vrdavana Dhama, While I work, I keep singing a song, The Hare Krishna mantra is what I say, As I run through the streets, day after day. Not long ago, I had a fare, A little old woman with a pompous air, She climbed aboard and looked around, Then she said sharply, "Get me to town!" As I leaned and I strained, I sang my song; The Lord's Holy Names kept me going along, The lady in back leaned forward a bit, and then began laughing as if in a fit. "Do you know what you're singing, my little friend - These words that you speak as you run and you bend? I can tell you about them if you want to know; I'm an expert on Krishna - people tell me so! "I'm very modern and I'm progressive, you see, I chant Hare Krishna and believe what suits me, There are things in the scriptures that can't ever be true, But the sages meant well, so I give them their due." "What do you mean, my dear Mother?" I said, As I reached for my cloth and wiped sweat from my head, "The Bhagavatam is the Absolute Truth, This I have heard all through my youth." "That's fine for you," said the lady, turned red, "But I've gone to college and I'm well-bred, I'm a woman of distinction, with science degrees, Don't pretend to teach me, if you please! "You believe Bhagavatam because you're a boy, You've no education; you're just Maya's toy! Blind faith is a quality of the ignorant masses, But they've never attended psychology classes!" "My dear Mother, I believe I have heard >From my spiritual master that Bhagavat's words are non-different from Krishna, the Supreme Lord who is by all saints and sages adored." "A Bhagavatam-thumper!" laughed the lady out loud, And the veins in her neck began to stand out, "What do you know about Krishna, you dolt, You with no brains and the legs of a colt!" "I'll bet you can't read - you're not even a man, You scrape and you earn the pittance you can, No one will care if you live or you die, When death comes and takes you, no one will cry. "The Bhagavatam must be studied with care, To see all the wrongs and inaccuracies there, Those of us with brains don't believe what we're told Just because a saint said it, or because it is old." "My dear Mother," I said, "Great care must be taken, To hear from a saint in disciplic succession, If you hear from the right source, who cares what the mind Likes or dislikes, because truth you will find." "Enough!" said the lady, her hands all a'shaking Her lips quivering and her body a'quaking, "Now I'll say something about Bhagavat, If you listen a while I'll teach you a lot!" "That story in Third Canto, the child in the womb, The fetus all cramped in that tiny room, With blood, stool and urine circling Īround That's simply not true, let me say what I've found!" "I saw color pictures the scientists took, Pictures of the fetus, they'd fill a book, Oh so beautiful; but where are the worms, The stool and the blood, the nasty germs?" I said, "I have not seen this, my dear Mother," "But I remember the birth of my brother, When he was born there was an awful mess, To say it was unclean would not be a guess!" She said "You are a fool!" and clutched at her throat, She fell like a fish flapping out of a boat, Into the dust of Vrndavana Dhama Lying flat on the ground she was suddenly calm." That fortunate woman, though angry and cold, Left her body in Lord Krishna's abode, I took her remains to the cremation ghat And heard from the Bhagavatam right after that. I pull a rickshaw in Vrdavana Dhama, While I work, I keep singing a song, The Hare Krishna mantra is what I say, As I run through the streets, day after day. "Bhajan kara sadhana kara murte janle hoy" - "Whatever bhajana and sadhana one has performed throughout life will be tested at the time of death." (A Bengali proverb often quoted by Srila Prabhupada) Comment on this story  Contact VNN about this storySend this story to a friend
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