My First
Day in Jail - By
Kaunteya Das
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Dr.
Vasanthi and the boys
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I
mean my first day preaching in jail. The desire
of doing something in the prisons had been off and
on in my mind since a long time. On top of that
recently the ISKCON Prison Ministries joined the
ISKCON Congregational Development Ministry as an
integral part of it, and therefore I also felt that
it was my duty to become more acquainted with that
reality. A few days ago I got the opportunity to
enter a prison and give a lecture to the inmates.
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The
meeting has been arranged by Mother Vasanthi, better known
in the devotee community and in her workplace as Dr. Vasanthi.
She has working for more than ten years as a physician
in various prisons in Madras, India, and since joining
ISKCON she has worked to introduce Krishna consciousness
in six of such institutions, engaging her medical position
and her personal influence (and her compassion…). It wasn't
always easy. A few months ago, for instance, after the
Hindu-Muslim riots in Gujarat, the political administration
of Tamil Nadu (the state of Madras), to prevent religious
tensions, banned all religious preaching in the jails.
But she kept going, and now that the emergency has eased,
she is able to bring even other people to meet, talk with
and chant with the inmates. So
a few days ago I went with her to the Madras Central Jail
or something like that, a prison for two thousand inmates.
She has so much clout in the ambience that nobody checked
me, even cursorily (I could have brought anything inside).
Anyway, she brought me to a place that previously was
the prison hospital and that she turned into a temple
(I tell you, many ISKCON centers in the world don't have
such a well-ventilated, spacious temple room).
I
counted 33 laminations of standard BBT paintings gracing
the walls and giving the place almost the look of an art
gallery and certainly a very spiritual atmosphere. The
place of the "temple" is peaceful-it doesn't even feel
like being in a jail. Outside, in front of a little shrine
of Durga Devi, a John Lennon-looking inmate from North
India was absorbed in reading scriptures.
She showed me the recently-build
fences to protect the prison offices: sometime back the
inmates burned a guard alive-an especially nasty one apparently.
Hmmm… we are in a prison after all…
I was curious and expectant
to see the inmates I was supposed to preach to. How would
they look? What would their mood be? But seeing them was
an anticlimax: these are normal people. In one sense more
normal than those outside, their humanity and vulnerability
more evident. They made wrong choices; they made mistakes;
they are now paying. But they are extremely fortunate:
I remembered the episode in which Haridasa Thakura is
brought to jail and told the prisoners: ""Now you can
all together constantly chant the names of Krishna and
think of Krishna. Here you have no envy or trouble from
others, so you can humbly chant and think of Krishna.
Otherwise if you again return to material enjoyment, by
bad association you'll forget everything about Krishna."
We had a lecture and then
a bhajan that transformed into kirtana. They were very
sweet and appeared grateful. Dr. Vasanthi told me that
sometimes back-before that batch got released-she had
the temple room filled with prisoners who were chanting
sixteen rounds.
There is an amazing opportunity
to preach to millions of men and women suffering in the
world's jails. Many of them are much more receptive to
Lord Caitanya's message than those outside, distracted
by the myriad of objects and names and forms, their mind
spinning in an endless sequences of illusory engagements.
I had the clear insight
that to preach to these same people would have been much
more difficult if they were outside, in the world at large,
embedded in their often dysfunctional environment and
weighted down by unhealthy association. While they are
in jail they have plenty of time to reflect, to read and
to chant, and to realize that real freedom is only at
the lotus feet of Krishna. |
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Devotee: I want to preach more and become free from my family entanglement . . .
Srila Prabhupada: Ahaituky apratihata. Why don''t you understand? Preaching cannot be checked by anything-if you want to preach. In any circumstances you can preach. - Morning Walk, Chicago, 8 July 1975
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| If you could ask just one question to Srila Prabhupada, what would that be? (This is an example of question that could be answered individually on paper, before sharing, so that people are not influenced by what others say.) |
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