Coming in touch with a long lost friend.
Orkut is the latest internet park for social networking. The moment you open an account, your old friends start pouring in with requests for reconnecting. Some friends are in the USA, some in Singapore, but with Orkut, you are always connected with your buddies. Once you are reconnected, the revival of nostalgic moments starts how we stayed together, how we enjoyed together, and how we miss each other. Then we update all our friends about our recent past and keep them posted on our present status. It’s all fun. You make new friends too e-friends whom you may never meet in person but they are still equally close. There are communities and fan clubs. There are many other such sites for social networking.
Orkut Addicts
Then there is the other side of the coin. Youngsters who are hooked to this networking create their own space, keep on updating their profiles and photos and just keep on chatting for hours. They probably speak less with their friends than chatting online. They prefer e-chatting over the use of vocal chords. If they get up in the night for some water, they check their scrapbook (Orkut inbox) for new e-mails. When they are away from the computer, they are still connected to Orkut through their mobiles. They believe in replying in minutes. For them Orkuting is an emergency.
Search Friends
As I was learning to reconnect to my friends I saw this small toolbar Search Friends. Type the name of a friend and his profile comes up. Thinking about the lost friends, I thought of Lord Krishna, our eternal friend and well-wisher. We are suffering because of this lost friendship. Our eternal bliss will be revived if we reconnect with Him. Once we add Him as our friend through the chanting of the holy names, we will be reconnected with Him. By chanting we will also become nostalgic about our eternal residence in the spiritual sky. Our spiritual memories will be revived and we will come out of the deluding amnesia caused by materialism. Then we will remember how we stayed together with the Lord and how we enjoyed together with His devotees. We will meet all our lost friends. We will join the community of pure devotees and join the fan club of Lord Krishna, the master of all mystics.
Stay Connected
Like those connected through Orkut mobile, we can also always remain connected with the Lord through chanting. Just dial the maha-mantra and stay connected. We can chant anytime, anywhere, in any condition. There is no network congestion. Even if the whole world wants to connect with Krishna simultaneously, He still can reciprocate with all of us. All we need to do is regularly recharge our devotional mobile batteries by hearing hari-katha and always staying within the “coverage area” in the shelter of the devotees. The moment we move out of this coverage area, we lose the signal and we will be unable to connect with the Lord.
Chatting and Chanting
While chatting on the internet, chat about Krishna, His pastimes and His philosophy. Because that is the order of Lord Caitanya: “Whomsoever you meet tell him to chant Krishna’s names.” So whomsoever we meet on the internet, tell them, “Chant Hare Krishna and be happy.” Talk of chanting while chatting, and no chatting while chanting. Lord Caitanya, in His instructions to Raghunatha Dasa Goswami says, gramya-katha na sunibe, gramya-varta na kahibe: “Do not indulge too much in worldly talks.” That’s what happens while chatting. Typically chatting starts with a note: “So what’s new?” What new thing will happen if we continue with the same old lifestyle? Material chatting will bind us more in the web of illusion, and spiritual chanting will open the doors to our eternal social life in Goloka Vrindavana.
Krishna in your Inbox
By abstaining from material chatting and by enhancing our spiritual chanting, which is like sending a friendship request e-mail to Krishna, one day the Lord will reply. Here is the reply we are waiting for:
My Dear Devotee,
I want to admit that I am also equally missing you. I am waiting for your return since you left the spiritual world. I still wonder why you left this blissful life. I am worried about you and that is the reason I accompany you as the Super soul in every species you enter. I was so happy when you received the rare human life. Now I am desperately waiting for you to turn to me. I was always prompting you to take up devotional service. But you never heard my voice as the noise of material cravings was too loud. Finally, you surrendered and I am so thankful to My devotees who took so much pain to introduce you to devotional service. Just stay with them, serve them, follow their instructions and keep on chanting intensely. I assure you that at the end of this life I will personally come to pick you up and take you back home, back to Godhead.
Things are blissful here as they always are. Every one is dancing and singing. We all are waiting for you to join us.
Your sweet Lord,
Sri Krishna
Yugavatara Dasa is an associate professor in Anatomy in a medical college in Mumbai. He is a regular contributor to BTG.