Describe one incident in your life where you clearly felt the presence of Krishna?
I am a commerce student but weak in accounts. Recently, I appeared for my second year B-com exams, and it was predicted that only 30% of the university students would pass. My papers were horrible. If I failed I would have to join tuitions and spend whole days there neglecting my service to the Lord. So I prayed, “O Lord I want to advance in Krishna consciousness but if I fail I cannot fulfil this desire for some period. If You wish You can make me pass so I can increase my chanting, reading, and hearing. Still it is Your wish, whatever You will give me, I will happily accept it as Your mercy.”
The results came and I passed! It was the biggest surprise as the result was so tough that many scholars had failed. I knew that it was only due the mercy of Lord Hari; otherwise it was just impossible.
(Mala Sharma, Baroda)
I’m a 22 year-old student, and although I don’t really consider myself a devotee yet, I feel strongly for Krishna. I love to read about Him, listen to bhajanas, and play songs about Him on my guitar. Last Janmashtami I finally decided to go to a Krishna temple for the first time. On that special day, my friend and I visited the jam-packed ISKCON Mumbai temple. For crowd control, there were only two ways to enter. I couldn’t afford the first, which was for special donors only, and the second required a pass, which I didn’t have. I didn’t try to slip in, opting instead to take the Lord’s blessings from outside. I focused my mind on Krishna. Suddenly a couple approached my friend and I and told us we could use their passes. Thanking them profusely, we entered and soon found ourselves in front of the Lord and surrounded by devotees. I was shocked, as I had thought it would be impossible for a stranger like me to get in. I knew then that Krishna had touched my life and helped me gain His audience.
(Vikram Shekhawat, Mumbai)
On a recent visit to Guyana, I was travelling in a van full of devotees. Everyone was in an ecstatic mood as one devotee was speaking of her first visit to Vrindavana dhama. None of us had ever been there. We were running late, and our driver was speeding. Suddenly, he lost control of the vehicle. The van skidded and fell into a roll. It flipped over three times before crashing into a river. Everyone’s first reaction was to start screaming, but my mother shouted, “No, chant!”
We began to chant Krishna’s name loudly. Our driver managed to force open the door, because luckily it was the dry season and the river was not full. Local villagers came running, expecting to count the dead bodies, but one by one, all the devotees emerged unharmed. It was a terrible accident, but because we had been hearing about Krishna’s holy abode and chanting His name, we were all saved without even a scratch. Still trembling, we understood that Lord Krishna had protected us all.
(Radha Govinda Dasi,Panama, USA)
Some years ago, I was walking past a sweet shop when I spotted a display of huge rasgullas, white juicy sweets full of syrup. My taste buds became rampant with excitement. I could almost feel the taste of a rasgullas in my mouth, so I bought one. But it was Sunday and I was on my way to the Sri Sri Gaura Radha Krishna temple, so I decided I must first offer the rasgullas to the Lord. I took the rasgullas to the temple, and to my utter surprise, the moment it was being offered by the temple priest to the Lord, I felt a deep satisfaction. And I never again craved for rasgullas so much. I now understand that if we satisfy the Lord, we also become satisfied.
(Prem Prakash Pathak, Lucknow)
I was returning from Faridabad in my car, after a program with few other devotees. Suddenly, I realized that the brakes were not working! I lost my senses. Can you imagine driving without brakes on the roads of Delhi? Somehow, I drove for an hour, and then we started singing Nrsimha prayers. Believe it or not, as soon as we ended the prayers, the brakes began to work! It was Krishna who saved us on that day.
(Nandagopala Jivana Dasa Delhi)
One day in 1974, barely out of my teens, I was hitchhiking home for the weekend. I stood on the side of the road for hours, not helped by a particularly bad case of stomach cramps. Finally, a young man about my age picked me up. As I got into his car, George Harrison’s “My Sweet Lord” began playing on the car radio. Soon we were discussing spiritual life, and for the next hour we shared spiritual realizations. When he dropped me off, I suddenly felt the terrible cramps again. I realized that discussing topics of Krishna had lifted me clean out of my bodily conception. I had been interested in Krishna consciousness for some time, but now I was even more convinced that this was real transcendental life. Four weeks later, I joined the ISKCON temple in Ottowa.
(Krishnadasa Kaviraja Dasa,Toronto, Canada)
Why am I born as a human being amongst the 8.4 million species of living beings in this universe? Having been born as such, how I am getting myself detached gradually from material bondage and attracted to the Supreme Lord? Why should I be driven to visit my son at Detroit in USA, where he took me to the ISKCON temples in Detroit and Wheeling? Among the places I visited such as Hollywood, Disney Land, Grand Canyon, casinos at Las Vegas, the Niagara Falls, etc., why should I be attracted towards the ISKCON temples alone? How did I desire to chant the maha-mantra, beginning with a few rounds daily to twenty rounds everyday? How did I get the shelter of my spiritual master, His Holiness Romapada Swami Maharaja? How did my home become a temple with installed Deities? Aren’t these signs of Krishna’s direct involvement in my life?
(R.M.Manoharan,Chennai, TN)