In Vrindavan, actually at one point, I was the Temple president of a temple there. it was a very big temple, much bigger than this one... so i never had a peaceful moment! Prabhupada our founder Acharya made the rule and the rule was to sign off every cheque that goes out of the temple. A lot of cheques everyday, lots of them, so they come all the time: "please can you sign this, please can you sign this?" Sometimes I was in the shower, they would knock on the door and say "please please open up, can you sign this cheque?"!Somehow or other I would escape sometimes, escape the office and go to Govardhana..not far..20km from the temple(the hill that was lifted by Krishna) and then I thought that.."Ah today I will have a spiritual day and then I will meet people there and they would say 'i've been looking for you all week..can you please sign this cheque?'"!...Yes too much..I was thinking that my life has been spoilt.. So one day I decided that today I will go for a walk in the fields , no one will find me there, and it was true, I was having a great time walking in the fields and everything was nice, and then I met one farmer there....kind of a simple man.
He said "Do you see this land?" "Yes" "It is my land" "Oh, it is very nice" " Yes and the crop that is growing on this land is the best! It is the very best crop"..he is a like child..look at my bike it's the very best.
"really , is this your crop? Oh really nice ..uh"...just treating him like a child and he said "Yes you know, i come here everyday" "Really you come here everyday?"
"Yes I come here everyday for one hour" " Really? you come here everyday for one hour?" Farmer said " Yes and then I go home and then I do Puja" Then I thought this man isn't so childish! he works for one hour everyday and then the rest of the days he is doing Puja! ...and me I spend my whole day signing cheques and what not! He is simple, probably has a house, little two rooms at most, he probably has several children and they help him do Puja and like that simple life ....... very simple life but actually he has time for spiritual life.
(HH KKS 15/02/2009)
