I was scheduled to visit Dubai for Gaur Purnima. It was my first visit to this part of the world, and the local leaders had arranged a variety of programs in the area. However, it all came a little different than expected....
After a couple of days, the war started to break out, and some US Military bases and ships around Dubai and other parts of the Emirates were attacked. Sometimes we heard heavy and close-by blasts taking down the missiles and drones – my host stayed near the port which was not such a safe location. So for the following two days we stayed home, and I offered all the programs online.
After a couple of days, the war started to break out, and some US Military bases and ships around Dubai and other parts of the Emirates were attacked. Sometimes we heard heavy and close-by blasts taking down the missiles and drones – my host stayed near the port which was not such a safe location. So for the following two days we stayed home, and I offered all the programs online.
As the situation quickly escalated, I rang the German consulate in Dubai and got the advice to leave the country overland to Muscat/Oman which was not so affected by the disturbances, and thus the airport in Muscat was still functioning. I was also advised to register with ELEFAND – an Electronic Registration of Germans Abroad, an official crisis prevention list managed by the German Federal Foreign Office. They regularly send updates according to the country mentioned in one's registration.
I spent time researching things and finally came to terms with the idea to better leave the country. I was not so concerned for my personal safety but was rather afraid to get stuck there and miss my flight booked for the 17th of March from Frankfurt to the US. So I had to make sure I would reach Germany within the next week or so! In the early morning of Gaur Purnime, my hosts drove me across the border to stay with the devotees in Sohar/Oman. The border crossing was very smooth – no traffic, no queues and no questions asked! I expected something different. Later I heard that 12 hours later there were huge queues! In times of war we have to be quick....!
Sohar has a nice nama hatta community, and we had a sweet little Gaur Purnima gathering with around 50 serious devotees participating. Upon the request of the local devotees I stayed another day and had an evening program which was also well attended.
The next morning, the devotees drove me from Sohar to Muscat where I was well received by an eager gathering of devotees. They have the tradition that whenever a preacher visits, the devotees gather in somebody’s home and take lunch together with the visitor. A nice tradition and loving exchange which brings devotees together. We had an evening program on the same day which was very well attended by around 60 or more devotees gathering in a big home.
In the middle of the night I received a call from the Office of Foreign Affairs in Berlin, offering me to get on a special flight to Frankfurt the next evening, designated to evacuate stranded German tourists. I had left a message through ELEFAND that I have to return to Germany as soon as possible, and indeed, within 10 hours, they contacted me! Something which I didn’t expect considering that there were 30,000 German tourists stranded in the Emirates. I accepted the offer to get on this flight, although I also felt sorry to leave the nice community of devotees. But I concluded it was good to return to Cologne as soon as possible since I had a lot of errands to do before flying out to the US.
During my time in the Middle East I remembered that His Holiness Niranjana Maharaja was in Kiev at the same time, and I felt I was sharing a little of the war-adventure and spirit....
The short visit to the Middle East gave me a good idea of the nice communities of devotees there, and I hope to be back in the future....
Death is the only part of life that is a hundred percent certain. Everything else may or may not happen; we don’t know. But death will happen for sure! It is unquestionable! And yet, we expertly keep pretending that death will never happen to us. And death sometimes reaches us quicker than we expect it to. Even when we are young, something may suddenly happen and boom – we are
instantly kicked out of our body. We don’t know when this tragic moment might strike us?
Despite Krishna having given us many warnings about death – when death comes to knock on our door, we exclaim, “Oh, how unexpected!” Why should we allow it to be unexpected? In fact, it must be expected to come at any time. The fact that we call death an unexpected incident clearly shows just how much we want to keep ourselves deluded. Merely joining ISKCON and taking initiation does not mean that we have successfully embarked on the internal work of confronting ourselves with the topic of death. Devotees may sometimes be caught by death without warning. And then they say, “Oh no! I never thought that this would ever happen to me!” Or, “to my wife or husband.” So even when we are initiated devotees, we run the risk of conveniently maintaining an attitude of denial while turning a blind eye to the existence of death, pretending it will never happen.
A Vaishnava can turn any calamity into a golden opportunity to take shelter more seriously of the lotus feet of the Lord and His devotees by holding on to them. Adversities have the power to shake us up and drastically transform our spiritual practice. They can have us shifted from our comfort zone of material satisfaction and complacency and make us wake up to the facts of reality that we will soon have to move on. We may realise that all our big successes and achievements will have lost all their significance when we face death – they will have no importance then. All that we will be allowed to keep is our relationship with Krishna and His holy name – that’s all. Nothing more. A sobering experience when we stand closer to the edge of life.
I remember hearing one of our sadhus sharing with devotees some personal experience in this connection. During his routine medical check-up, some irregularity caught the attention of the sadhu’s doctor, who immediately exclaimed, “We have to examine this – it could very well be cancer!” So the doctor took a biopsy, and the results of the analysis took more than a week to come. And then Maharaja laughingly said, “In these ten days, I probably chanted the best rounds of my life!” He had experienced an entire shift in
his consciousness, thinking, “This may very well be it! The end of this life!” A true wake-up call! Later, it turned out not to be cancer after all.
On the 7th of March I flew from Muscat to Frankfurt....
Your servant, Devaki dd
Please visit www.theholynameretreat.net
www.therootsofspiritualculture.net
https://www.facebook.com/instituteforspiritualculture/
I spent time researching things and finally came to terms with the idea to better leave the country. I was not so concerned for my personal safety but was rather afraid to get stuck there and miss my flight booked for the 17th of March from Frankfurt to the US. So I had to make sure I would reach Germany within the next week or so! In the early morning of Gaur Purnime, my hosts drove me across the border to stay with the devotees in Sohar/Oman. The border crossing was very smooth – no traffic, no queues and no questions asked! I expected something different. Later I heard that 12 hours later there were huge queues! In times of war we have to be quick....!
Sohar has a nice nama hatta community, and we had a sweet little Gaur Purnima gathering with around 50 serious devotees participating. Upon the request of the local devotees I stayed another day and had an evening program which was also well attended.
The next morning, the devotees drove me from Sohar to Muscat where I was well received by an eager gathering of devotees. They have the tradition that whenever a preacher visits, the devotees gather in somebody’s home and take lunch together with the visitor. A nice tradition and loving exchange which brings devotees together. We had an evening program on the same day which was very well attended by around 60 or more devotees gathering in a big home.
In the middle of the night I received a call from the Office of Foreign Affairs in Berlin, offering me to get on a special flight to Frankfurt the next evening, designated to evacuate stranded German tourists. I had left a message through ELEFAND that I have to return to Germany as soon as possible, and indeed, within 10 hours, they contacted me! Something which I didn’t expect considering that there were 30,000 German tourists stranded in the Emirates. I accepted the offer to get on this flight, although I also felt sorry to leave the nice community of devotees. But I concluded it was good to return to Cologne as soon as possible since I had a lot of errands to do before flying out to the US.
During my time in the Middle East I remembered that His Holiness Niranjana Maharaja was in Kiev at the same time, and I felt I was sharing a little of the war-adventure and spirit....
The short visit to the Middle East gave me a good idea of the nice communities of devotees there, and I hope to be back in the future....
Death is the only part of life that is a hundred percent certain. Everything else may or may not happen; we don’t know. But death will happen for sure! It is unquestionable! And yet, we expertly keep pretending that death will never happen to us. And death sometimes reaches us quicker than we expect it to. Even when we are young, something may suddenly happen and boom – we are
instantly kicked out of our body. We don’t know when this tragic moment might strike us?
Despite Krishna having given us many warnings about death – when death comes to knock on our door, we exclaim, “Oh, how unexpected!” Why should we allow it to be unexpected? In fact, it must be expected to come at any time. The fact that we call death an unexpected incident clearly shows just how much we want to keep ourselves deluded. Merely joining ISKCON and taking initiation does not mean that we have successfully embarked on the internal work of confronting ourselves with the topic of death. Devotees may sometimes be caught by death without warning. And then they say, “Oh no! I never thought that this would ever happen to me!” Or, “to my wife or husband.” So even when we are initiated devotees, we run the risk of conveniently maintaining an attitude of denial while turning a blind eye to the existence of death, pretending it will never happen.
A Vaishnava can turn any calamity into a golden opportunity to take shelter more seriously of the lotus feet of the Lord and His devotees by holding on to them. Adversities have the power to shake us up and drastically transform our spiritual practice. They can have us shifted from our comfort zone of material satisfaction and complacency and make us wake up to the facts of reality that we will soon have to move on. We may realise that all our big successes and achievements will have lost all their significance when we face death – they will have no importance then. All that we will be allowed to keep is our relationship with Krishna and His holy name – that’s all. Nothing more. A sobering experience when we stand closer to the edge of life.
I remember hearing one of our sadhus sharing with devotees some personal experience in this connection. During his routine medical check-up, some irregularity caught the attention of the sadhu’s doctor, who immediately exclaimed, “We have to examine this – it could very well be cancer!” So the doctor took a biopsy, and the results of the analysis took more than a week to come. And then Maharaja laughingly said, “In these ten days, I probably chanted the best rounds of my life!” He had experienced an entire shift in
his consciousness, thinking, “This may very well be it! The end of this life!” A true wake-up call! Later, it turned out not to be cancer after all.
On the 7th of March I flew from Muscat to Frankfurt....
Your servant, Devaki dd
Please visit www.theholynameretreat.net
www.therootsofspiritualculture.net
https://www.facebook.com/instituteforspiritualculture/
I was scheduled to visit Dubai for Gaur Purnima. It was my first visit to this part of the world, and the local leaders had arranged a variety of programs in the area. However, it all came a little different than expected....
After a couple of days, the war started to break out, and some US Military bases and ships around Dubai and other parts of the Emirates were attacked. Sometimes we heard heavy and close-by blasts taking down the missiles and drones – my host stayed near the port which was not such a safe location. So for the following two days we stayed home, and I offered all the programs online.
As the situation quickly escalated, I rang the German consulate in Dubai and got the advice to leave the country overland to Muscat/Oman which was not so affected by the disturbances, and thus the airport in Muscat was still functioning. I was also advised to register with ELEFAND – an Electronic Registration of Germans Abroad, an official crisis prevention list managed by the German Federal Foreign Office. They regularly send updates according to the country mentioned in one's registration.
I spent time researching things and finally came to terms with the idea to better leave the country. I was not so concerned for my personal safety but was rather afraid to get stuck there and miss my flight booked for the 17th of March from Frankfurt to the US. So I had to make sure I would reach Germany within the next week or so! In the early morning of Gaur Purnime, my hosts drove me across the border to stay with the devotees in Sohar/Oman. The border crossing was very smooth – no traffic, no queues and no questions asked! I expected something different. Later I heard that 12 hours later there were huge queues! In times of war we have to be quick....!
Sohar has a nice nama hatta community, and we had a sweet little Gaur Purnima gathering with around 50 serious devotees participating. Upon the request of the local devotees I stayed another day and had an evening program which was also well attended.
The next morning, the devotees drove me from Sohar to Muscat where I was well received by an eager gathering of devotees. They have the tradition that whenever a preacher visits, the devotees gather in somebody’s home and take lunch together with the visitor. A nice tradition and loving exchange which brings devotees together. We had an evening program on the same day which was very well attended by around 60 or more devotees gathering in a big home.
In the middle of the night I received a call from the Office of Foreign Affairs in Berlin, offering me to get on a special flight to Frankfurt the next evening, designated to evacuate stranded German tourists. I had left a message through ELEFAND that I have to return to Germany as soon as possible, and indeed, within 10 hours, they contacted me! Something which I didn’t expect considering that there were 30,000 German tourists stranded in the Emirates. I accepted the offer to get on this flight, although I also felt sorry to leave the nice community of devotees. But I concluded it was good to return to Cologne as soon as possible since I had a lot of errands to do before flying out to the US.
During my time in the Middle East I remembered that His Holiness Niranjana Maharaja was in Kiev at the same time, and I felt I was sharing a little of the war-adventure and spirit....
The short visit to the Middle East gave me a good idea of the nice communities of devotees there, and I hope to be back in the future....
Death is the only part of life that is a hundred percent certain. Everything else may or may not happen; we don’t know. But death will happen for sure! It is unquestionable! And yet, we expertly keep pretending that death will never happen to us. And death sometimes reaches us quicker than we expect it to. Even when we are young, something may suddenly happen and boom – we are
instantly kicked out of our body. We don’t know when this tragic moment might strike us?
Despite Krishna having given us many warnings about death – when death comes to knock on our door, we exclaim, “Oh, how unexpected!” Why should we allow it to be unexpected? In fact, it must be expected to come at any time. The fact that we call death an unexpected incident clearly shows just how much we want to keep ourselves deluded. Merely joining ISKCON and taking initiation does not mean that we have successfully embarked on the internal work of confronting ourselves with the topic of death. Devotees may sometimes be caught by death without warning. And then they say, “Oh no! I never thought that this would ever happen to me!” Or, “to my wife or husband.” So even when we are initiated devotees, we run the risk of conveniently maintaining an attitude of denial while turning a blind eye to the existence of death, pretending it will never happen.
A Vaishnava can turn any calamity into a golden opportunity to take shelter more seriously of the lotus feet of the Lord and His devotees by holding on to them. Adversities have the power to shake us up and drastically transform our spiritual practice. They can have us shifted from our comfort zone of material satisfaction and complacency and make us wake up to the facts of reality that we will soon have to move on. We may realise that all our big successes and achievements will have lost all their significance when we face death – they will have no importance then. All that we will be allowed to keep is our relationship with Krishna and His holy name – that’s all. Nothing more. A sobering experience when we stand closer to the edge of life.
I remember hearing one of our sadhus sharing with devotees some personal experience in this connection. During his routine medical check-up, some irregularity caught the attention of the sadhu’s doctor, who immediately exclaimed, “We have to examine this – it could very well be cancer!” So the doctor took a biopsy, and the results of the analysis took more than a week to come. And then Maharaja laughingly said, “In these ten days, I probably chanted the best rounds of my life!” He had experienced an entire shift in
his consciousness, thinking, “This may very well be it! The end of this life!” A true wake-up call! Later, it turned out not to be cancer after all.
On the 7th of March I flew from Muscat to Frankfurt....
Your servant, Devaki dd
Please visit www.theholynameretreat.net
www.therootsofspiritualculture.net
https://www.facebook.com/instituteforspiritualculture/
After a couple of days, the war started to break out, and some US Military bases and ships around Dubai and other parts of the Emirates were attacked. Sometimes we heard heavy and close-by blasts taking down the missiles and drones – my host stayed near the port which was not such a safe location. So for the following two days we stayed home, and I offered all the programs online.
As the situation quickly escalated, I rang the German consulate in Dubai and got the advice to leave the country overland to Muscat/Oman which was not so affected by the disturbances, and thus the airport in Muscat was still functioning. I was also advised to register with ELEFAND – an Electronic Registration of Germans Abroad, an official crisis prevention list managed by the German Federal Foreign Office. They regularly send updates according to the country mentioned in one's registration.
I spent time researching things and finally came to terms with the idea to better leave the country. I was not so concerned for my personal safety but was rather afraid to get stuck there and miss my flight booked for the 17th of March from Frankfurt to the US. So I had to make sure I would reach Germany within the next week or so! In the early morning of Gaur Purnime, my hosts drove me across the border to stay with the devotees in Sohar/Oman. The border crossing was very smooth – no traffic, no queues and no questions asked! I expected something different. Later I heard that 12 hours later there were huge queues! In times of war we have to be quick....!
Sohar has a nice nama hatta community, and we had a sweet little Gaur Purnima gathering with around 50 serious devotees participating. Upon the request of the local devotees I stayed another day and had an evening program which was also well attended.
The next morning, the devotees drove me from Sohar to Muscat where I was well received by an eager gathering of devotees. They have the tradition that whenever a preacher visits, the devotees gather in somebody’s home and take lunch together with the visitor. A nice tradition and loving exchange which brings devotees together. We had an evening program on the same day which was very well attended by around 60 or more devotees gathering in a big home.
In the middle of the night I received a call from the Office of Foreign Affairs in Berlin, offering me to get on a special flight to Frankfurt the next evening, designated to evacuate stranded German tourists. I had left a message through ELEFAND that I have to return to Germany as soon as possible, and indeed, within 10 hours, they contacted me! Something which I didn’t expect considering that there were 30,000 German tourists stranded in the Emirates. I accepted the offer to get on this flight, although I also felt sorry to leave the nice community of devotees. But I concluded it was good to return to Cologne as soon as possible since I had a lot of errands to do before flying out to the US.
During my time in the Middle East I remembered that His Holiness Niranjana Maharaja was in Kiev at the same time, and I felt I was sharing a little of the war-adventure and spirit....
The short visit to the Middle East gave me a good idea of the nice communities of devotees there, and I hope to be back in the future....
Death is the only part of life that is a hundred percent certain. Everything else may or may not happen; we don’t know. But death will happen for sure! It is unquestionable! And yet, we expertly keep pretending that death will never happen to us. And death sometimes reaches us quicker than we expect it to. Even when we are young, something may suddenly happen and boom – we are
instantly kicked out of our body. We don’t know when this tragic moment might strike us?
Despite Krishna having given us many warnings about death – when death comes to knock on our door, we exclaim, “Oh, how unexpected!” Why should we allow it to be unexpected? In fact, it must be expected to come at any time. The fact that we call death an unexpected incident clearly shows just how much we want to keep ourselves deluded. Merely joining ISKCON and taking initiation does not mean that we have successfully embarked on the internal work of confronting ourselves with the topic of death. Devotees may sometimes be caught by death without warning. And then they say, “Oh no! I never thought that this would ever happen to me!” Or, “to my wife or husband.” So even when we are initiated devotees, we run the risk of conveniently maintaining an attitude of denial while turning a blind eye to the existence of death, pretending it will never happen.
A Vaishnava can turn any calamity into a golden opportunity to take shelter more seriously of the lotus feet of the Lord and His devotees by holding on to them. Adversities have the power to shake us up and drastically transform our spiritual practice. They can have us shifted from our comfort zone of material satisfaction and complacency and make us wake up to the facts of reality that we will soon have to move on. We may realise that all our big successes and achievements will have lost all their significance when we face death – they will have no importance then. All that we will be allowed to keep is our relationship with Krishna and His holy name – that’s all. Nothing more. A sobering experience when we stand closer to the edge of life.
I remember hearing one of our sadhus sharing with devotees some personal experience in this connection. During his routine medical check-up, some irregularity caught the attention of the sadhu’s doctor, who immediately exclaimed, “We have to examine this – it could very well be cancer!” So the doctor took a biopsy, and the results of the analysis took more than a week to come. And then Maharaja laughingly said, “In these ten days, I probably chanted the best rounds of my life!” He had experienced an entire shift in
his consciousness, thinking, “This may very well be it! The end of this life!” A true wake-up call! Later, it turned out not to be cancer after all.
On the 7th of March I flew from Muscat to Frankfurt....
Your servant, Devaki dd
Please visit www.theholynameretreat.net
www.therootsofspiritualculture.net
https://www.facebook.com/instituteforspiritualculture/
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