I have given lectures over the years- many now- and I’ve been in front of different audiences. Sometimes the audience was very nice, like devotees, and then it’s easy and all nice Krsna conscious things come out from your mouth. But I’ve also been in very mundane atmospheres; there was a student society and boy…! They had a bar and there were no chairs in the bar and there was sand thrown all over the bar, even on the tables there was sand and dirt! And they had a pedestal for a lecturer. And we were invited and they said, ‘Yes, you can stand on there and give your talk! That’s it!’ So I fell in the trap and stepped on that thing and I started talking. And even in the middle of the first sentence they started to attack- verbal attack- one after another… ‘But, no! We don’t agree!’ this…that! ‘Your first letter was wrong!’ It was a battle uphill and of course we try to preach but it’s very hard to get any further. Like I could hardly get to the ‘k’ of ‘karma’! At best I could sort of approach reincarnation but they wouldn’t really get me off the ground, you know! In other words, it was hard to get to Krsna, to get to devotional service and so on. It was very hard. When the lecture was over, they were serving prasadam and because there were practically no tables or chairs, so we just served prasadam at the bar! And I went behind the bar! And then I started preaching from behind the bar and suddenly they listened! Suddenly I was an authority- suddenly I was a bar keeper! And all my arguments came across. And by Lord Caitanya’s mercy, Prabhupada’s mercy, somehow or other, it worked out! I’ll never forget that program! And I was also quite happy to leave…! And to go back to a nice temple with a group of devotees who were all in the mode of goodness and were just like, ‘Haribol Prabhu! Vanca kalpa…’ or chanting the Siksastakam on the way to the bathroom! So nice…!
(HH KKSwami, May 2009, Radhadesh)
