Vasant Pancami Das: An amazing preaching story from Africa.
From Kapila Dev Das:
How much knowledge do we actually need in order to serve the mission of Shri Caitanya Mahaprabhu? What if we are complete fools – can we still act as divine instruments?
For some years, I was managing a theatre company in South Africa called “The Bhaktivedanta Players” We would perform all the standard ISKCON plays, like “The Touchstone”, A-Class prisoner, C-Class prisoner” “Boatman, Boatman”. Then we started getting into more serious theatrical productions like serious portrayal of Ramayan, Krsna’s pastimes, Bilvamangala Thakur. Nice service. We were always performing somewhere.
One time we were requested by the Hindu Student Union to perform for their event, which they were holding in a medium-size tent behind the Chatsworth Sports Stadium – for an audience of about 200 people. I agreed and called up all our members telling them the time and place. On the day of the performance, one of our actors got a bit confused. He thought we were performing INSIDE the Chatsworth Sports Stadium. As it so happened, there was a big soccer match scheduled in the stadium between the Amazulu Warriors and the Kaizer Chiefs – the biggest rivalry in the Premier African League. The devotee was really impressed, “How did Kapila get so many people for our show. There were actually about 60,000 fans that day. He pushed his way right through the ticket line, telling everyone, “I’m with Kapila… Excuse me, I‘m with Kapila…excuse me, we are performing today.” No one knew what he was talking about, or who Kapila was, or what performance was going on. But he said it so confidently, that everyone just let him through. He was the only Indian guy in a sports stadium with 60,000 wild African fans. And he walked right into the middle of the field, thinking he would walk into me. But of course, I wasn’t there. So he thought he would do what we did for every other performance. He put his hands in the air, and shouted, “Hare Krsna!” The crowd shouted back, “HARE KRSNA!” Still, Kapila did not come out So he shouted again, “Hare Krsna!” and the crowd really started chanting uproariously. Hare Krsna. Hare Krsna! It was deafening. We were in that little tent behind the stadium, doing our little play, when all of a sudden, we heard this deafening chanting. We stopped in our tracks and just listened. The Hindu students thought we had organized this, and they were really excited. “ You see! Hare Krsna is really popular.” After that day, they told everyone in the Hindu community how popular Hare Krsna was in the African community. That encouraged many people to begin chanting. But anyway, this devotee was in the middle of the field leading 60,000 sports fans in a spontaneous kirtan and suddenly he realized, “Kapila is not here. He’s not coming. I am alone here.” He ran for his life out of the stadium, jumped in his car and drove home. I only found out what had happened the next day. I thought to myself, “Is this repeatable? Can we do this regularly?” At the time it didn’t seem so, but later events were to prove me wrong.
About one year later, I came back to the temple after a program distributing prasadam and the Holy Name, and got a message that I must immediately go to a particular address in the city for an important meeting. Although dusty and tired, I immediately went with my wife. The address turned out to be a very ornate penthouse office suite. We walked in into a large conference room with marble floors and mahogany tables. There were about 80 people in attendance at a meeting that had already started Many of them were military men. I noticed two generals and a large number of high-ranking officers. As we walked down the table to take our seats, there was silence. A few army officers made some joking remarks in Afrikaans and everyone laughed. Quietly I asked my wife what the officer had said and she quietly told me that it was quite a disrespectful remark – like we were a joke. We tolerated it and sat quietly, listening intently to what was going on. It turns out the National Police were kicking off a “Community Policing “ program to convince black communities that the police were their friends. The kickoff event would be an exhibition soccer match at the main soccer stadium in the city between the Amazulu Warriors and Kaiser Chiefs – the same teams that had been playing the day we had our “mistake kirtan” a year before. Various leaders attending the meeting were being asked for their budget requirements for the event. One person was organizing bus transport for fans and he said it would cost 120,000 Rand. Another was responsible for advertisement and said it would cost 180,000 Rand. And so on. Finally the MC turned to me and asked how much it would cost to feed 100,000 people. I said, “Thank you for giving us this opportunity to work with your dedicated team. It will cost zero.” There was silence in the room. The MC asked me how it could possibly cost zero. I informed him that the community was sponsoring our feeding program and they expected us to use our judgment to use their donations to help the community in the best way possible. I informed them that we considered the goal that the Police had of building communication with all communities to be vital and thus we must do whatever we could to support it. After saying this, I sat down. The room erupted in applause and they gave us a standing ovation.
Later at the event, we came out onto the field before the soccer match was to start and the SAP officials were going to introduce us. The 100,000 strong audience immediately began chanting the Holy Name in unison. Hare Krsna! Hare Krsna. Very loud; it was deafening. The police generals were shocked that the audience already loved us. From that day, we had a very positive relationship with the Police and the country’s leadership elite and they approached us whenever they wanted to do a community program.
I often wondered how these wonderful things happened? We had no qualifications. We were not learned or even particularly devotional. My conclusion was amanina manadena not expecting any praise but giving all praise to others kirtaniya sada harih one can chant the Holy Name constantly. I pray that Krsna might somehow guide a fool such as myself to become humbler than a blade of grass and more tolerant than a tree.