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In this
age of Kali the only means of liberation from the clutches
of birth and death is the congregational chanting of the
Hare Krishna mantra. Due to mercy of the Supreme Lord Sri
Krsna, who comes in this age in the form of his devotee
as Lord Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu and his top most servitor
Srila Prabhupada, devotees in every town are distributing
this vibration free of charge and liberate poor living entities
from the entanglement of sinful activities. Unfortunately,
ignorant people do not know the benefits of hearing the
Holy name of the Lord and they put hindrances in the execution
of the sankirtana yajna. Furthermore, this Hare Krsna movement
with its clear plan to respiritualize the entire society
and put a hold on the exploitation of the human form of
life under the guidance of the saktyavesa avatara jagad
guru Srila Prabhupada is a real threat to the materialistic
leaders, who are conditioning people to have animal conciousness,
in which they can control them.
The Montreal metro(subway)system is full of spots on various
stations, where musicians can play. People usually give
them a small donation. Prabhupadanugas from our Sri Sri
Radha Damodara temple took advantage of this great opportunity
and started using these spots for their Hare Krsna mantra
chanting and soon became popular among the curious bypassers.
The people traveling by metro often dance, chant the Hare
Krsna mantra, or simply smile at us, give a donation, or
buy a book. This is all due to hearing of the mahamantra.
The soul becomes awakened and expresses himself in multitude
of ways. Furthermore, with exotic appearance, transcendental
sound, and most of all vibration descending through the
parampara, the devotees are surely a big contrast to other
musicians who usually play the same catchy songs over and
over just to make money. Where there is success, there must
be envy of course and it did not take long for the demoniac
to notice us and the big tug of war was set into motion.
For the last few years we have had many people trying to
shut us down by one way or another. Whether it's a so-called
Christian, crazed out drunkard trying to throw a garbage
can at us, or simply people complaining blocking their ears,
security harassing us about the volume, all of them are
trying very hard to stop our propaganda. Lately, while chanting
we have been harassed by 6 security officers in one harinam
session which beat all the records. Obviously those, who
always oppose the instructions of the sastra started to
feel the heat of the Holy name. It has penetrated their
snake holes and awakened their watch dogs. As Srila Prabhupada
says: What is our fault? Our only fault is that we chant
Hare Krsna.
In the first attempt, the security has tried to lower our
volume, although it is our experience that many musicians
who play mundane sounds have their amps blasting much louder
without anyone really complaining. Bhakta Colin seeing that
perhaps we could deal with them in a civilized manner humbly
suggested to make an agreement on a volume, which we would
follow from then on. In this way, we would avoid further
confrontation, the security would not waste time and could
concentrate more on the real villains in the subway and
last but not least the harinam could go on without interruption.
He started lowering the volume turning the knob down to
zero and asked them to tell him when the volume is acceptable.
Bhakta Colin turning the volume very slowly looked at the
cops, but the security kept silent until the volume indicator
was on zero and we could not hear the instruments at all.
"This is alright." -said the officer. "What a rascal." -we
thought and laughed. user posted image After we explained
that practically it was of no use for us to bring our amp
if the volume is on zero, somehow or other we managed to
convince them to have a little volume and with that we continued
in a blissful harinama. This was going on for a few cherished
minutes after which a second troupe of security officers
came and interrupted our work again. user posted image "We
have received 2 complaints: one is that you are too loud
and the second that you are shouting at people to give you
money. If this goes on, we will have to shut down the sign
completely". After demanding the law in metro in regards
to the volume limit for the musicians we have not received
any conclusive answer. Furthermore, we have never asked
the people for money. Following the example of other musicians,
we have placed a guitar case in front of our matrass and
people, who wished so, dropped us contribution into the
case without even talking to them, so it was naturally a
false claim. In the end, the officers concluded that the
law is that as soon as there are two complaints from the
passengers, they have to shut down the musician spot and
that is even if the complaints are false. This was of course
a fabrication and the security was exposed when we challenged:
" Suppose I make a false accusation and I say that one man
in the subway has a knife, are you going to shut the sign?"
"Yes." -the security answered. "O.k. So I'm making the accusation
right now, shut down the sign." Being exposed they took
shelter of threatening and wanted to give us a ticket. user
posted image Disgusted and anxious to continue the harinama
we have suggested them to turn off our amp and promised
to chant without it. They agreed and left. Towards the end
of our session however, something topped all our expectations-a
third pair of security came and again complained about the
chanting. user posted image We asked: -What is your problem?
-It's too loud. -But your colleagues just left and we made
an agreement with them. -I don't care, it's too loud. -So
if we just stop playing the instruments and we just sing,
would that be ok? -But it's not singing, it's yelling! So
in this way, the security have revealed their complete bias.
In fact, it is possible that they did not really know why
they are stopping the harinama party being controlled by
the maya devi potency. As Lord Krsna and Srila Prabhupada
are present in Their names by trying to stop the vibration
of Their glorification we can conclude that these people
want to kill Them. In this way we are more and mroe convinced
that this place is a Raksasaloka(planet of demons) and one's
only shelter is this sankirtana movement. The security is
supposed to protect the people from dangerous elements,
unfortunately in this age rogues and bandits are professing
as security and harass innocent devotees, who are delivering
the most essential knowledge to the people. One can hardly
imagine what kind of punishment is awaiting these people.
We have stopped the amp since then, but we all continue
to chant every day at the Snowdon metro station usually
at 1.00. You are invited to join us and experience real
transcendental excitement.
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