Janakanatha Prabhu

Now let us offer our respectful obeisances unto all the Vaisnava Devotees of the Lord who have dedicated their lives to the propagation of the Holy Names of The Lord, and can fulfill the desires of everyone ... just like Desire Trees.

In the late ‘70s, one Bhakta Jesse, having just read "The Bhagavada Gita As It Is," by His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, approached the Hare Krsna Temple in Columbus Ohio, with the intention of becoming just like The Devotees.

One of the first Devotees Jesse saw was Jaknakanatha Prabhu.

Janak was up on a high ladder, carefully carrying out a task Bhakta Jesse could not comprehend. There was paint, and Jaknakanatha was wielding a brush, Jesse could see that, but surely, he could not be actually painting the Temple! To the best of Jesse's New York knowledge (such as it was) ... painting a building is a project carried out by a virtual team of workers.

This team of workers would spend days erecting scaffolds, unrolling massive tents of drop cloth, shouting, joking and clattering with the gusto of transposed garbage collectors. For such a team to paint a building the size of the Columbus Temple would take several trade union enhanced weeks of absolute disturbance, discomfort and displacement for residents and neighbors.

Painting a building, from all that Jesse had experienced to that point, was not something done by one diligent young man on a ladder. Quietly singing, with bucket and brush ... one calm and graceful person ... it just wasn't done that way.

Later, on the porch, Jesse made bold to ask the eminently approachable Janak if he'd ever painted before. Janak seemed surprised and pleased with the question. "Painted before?" He responded. "No."

To Bhakta Jesse this too was mighty strange. Not only was there no crew coming tomorrow, here was a free and open declaration of a total lack of previous painting experience.

"Well, how will you do this then? Paint this whole building?"

A lot of us might have answered Bhakta Jesse by saying, "With this paint, this ladder, and this brush." But Janak understood the question better than the person who was asking. His response was even more disarming: "I got books from the library."

It was not long then before the Temple was completely and beautifully painted, by Jaknakanatha Prabhu. How Krsna accomplishes so much with but a stroke! Not only was the building painted, but Bhakta Jesse was able to just barely witness an act of Devotional Service, the Heart of Bhakta Yoga.

Would that lesson have had as much of a lasting good impression on Jesse as it did the building upon which Krsna poured His Love through His Agent, Jaknakanatha Prabhu, my Eternal Elder God Brother.

Janak is a Devotee among Devotees ... uncomplicated, power by virtue of simplicity and humility. I beg to give a better example.

Years after the painting exposure, Bhakta Jesse was Srila Jiva Goswami dasa, and he was riding to Columbus Ohio from New Vrindabana, in West Virginia. Bhakta Vatsala was driving. Janak and Jiva were passengers. Janak preferred to sit in the back ... his heart bothered him, and he liked to lay down.

I don't remember the nature of our mission ... just that I had karotels, and the car was one of those New Vrindabana "specials:" Donated, and barely maintained, one would ride in such a car and hope it would hold together. Today, decades after, when your correspondent sees such a car on the road, I think of Old New Vrindabana: The mud, the lack of alignment ...

On I 70, assisted by the then 55 MPH national speed limit, we chugged up one hill, fighting the urge to stick a foot out and paddle, scooter fashion near the ever slowing top.

Then we careened down the next, again willing the feet not to extend to the pavement where they itched to reach out and drag, shoe-smoking brake fashion, as we'd speed up alarmingly towards virtual perigee.

The motor went, patamooshta, patamooshta, patamooshta, drawn out at the top of the hills, compressed and quick at the bottom. We rode without talking.

Then: KABLEW!! A thread bare tire was suddenly gone.

Bhakta Vatsala Prabhu brought us safely to a stop well off the side of the highway. Cars and trucks which passed us now were in a distinctly different dimension.

We moved now at the speed of the grass and gentle hills of the Ohio dairy farms around us. We more clearly saw those trees and pretty buildings ... unlike the dashing pounding traffic going by to our left.

Bhakta Vatsala popped the trunk, and of course the spare tire was flat. We were fortunate as it was that: A) the trunk opened, and ... B) there was a spare at all. We were miles from the next exit. Bhakta Vatsala took the flat spare from the dusty trunk, thunked it out upon the pavement and began walking. I knew his immaculate white dhoti would soon be smeared with grease and dirt.

Janak sighed and stretched on the back seat within. I reached back in the car, got the karotels, perched on the guard rail and began chanting and singing: "Hare Krsna, Hare Krsna Krsna Krsna, Hare Hare! Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare!"

Cars and trucks thundered by in oblivion.

Janak reclined in graceful repose. Clouds bubbled in the blue overhead. The wind made grass tips dance and weave in the fields around us. The sound it made was like an ocean.

Time stood still.

Someone asked me a little while ago why I chant "Hare Krsna" when an animal darts out before our on rushing car. I'd not thought about it before, but this is true: In that sub-moment before the car strikes the hapless chipmunk, bird, or squirrel, at the Hare Krsna vibration, there is a timeless moment of contact ... driver ... creature ... Krsna.

Time stands still.

Then, By His Causeless Mercy, creatures may escape.

Back then, next to Jaknakanatha Prabhu on the side of the Ohio highway, in the midst of that perfect summer day, I chanted and played the karotels, because my Guru told me to. I knew not. I know not.

Bhakta Vatsala had disappeared over the next hill and then he was back with the repaired firmly bouncy tire ... not returning along the same distant path, but literally back ... mounting the tire with the spinning four way wrench. His white dhoti was immaculate as ever. Not a smidgen or smudge.

I kept chanting and singing. The only thing missing was the sound: POOF!

No mention was made then or subsequently about what we might have been doing or what might have happened or how it was.

One thing: Janak came to me a few days later and said, "Oh Jiva ... I've been meaning to tell you ... that time we were on the side of the road ... with the tire?"

"Yuh?" I mumbled.

Janak laughed and clapped me on the back. "I just wanted to tell you ... that was one of the best times I ever had in my life ..." he said. "It was perfect ... I'll always remember it."

Today, August 4, 2002, yours truly wonders how it would have been for three "normal" people in similar straits: There would have been railing, argument, recrimination. Denial ... frustration ...

For us ... for anyone ANYONE ... in the proximity of the practice of Bhakta Yoga there is all only Peace ... which given the lack of understanding on my part sums out to the finding of and immersion in the one and only Real True Absolute Magic.

God forever Bless the Devotees and those who would serve Them. Beyond thanks ... the ever empowered Jaknakanatha Prabhu ... Elder, Exemplary and virtual Pool in the Fountain of Salvation!

Hare Krsna Hare Krsna Krsna Krsna Hare Hare!
Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare!

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