One week has passed since the massacres at Virginia Tech. Complete coverage of it, including analysis, has appeared in every form of media. Everyone wonders what they would do in such a situation. Military and law enforcement people are trained to respond to armed aggression, but if they are rookies and not veterans, there may be some doubt in their minds as to their abilities.
Hladini dasi (b. Linda Jury), a long-term Big Jagannatha pujari of New Vrindaban, exhibited her courage on two separate occasions. In June of 1975, when the news of the shootings at Bohulaban reached her at Madhuban farm, she had such an adrenaline rush that she was able to carry Big Lord Balarama off of the altar, in order to hide Him.
In Liberia in the 1980s, she was in the group of devotees kidnapped from the Monrovia(?) ISKCON temple by a band of armed thugs that was carrying out the order of a rebel leader. It is reported that when she saw that these men were going to fire upon them, she rushed to grab a gun to thwart the murder of her fellow devotees. She was fearless. She thought only of the welfare of the devotees in the moments before her own certain death. She was a contemporary Vaishnavi heroine.
Filed under: Hare Krishna, New Vrindaban, life |
A good indication of your consciousness is what you do under extreme stress.
There is that famous verse from the Gita regarding a warrior’s duty:
“The Blessed Lord continued:
Considering your specific duty as a ksatriya, you should know that there is no better engagement for you than fighting on religious principles; and so there is no need for hesitation.” (Gita, 2.31)
I believe from everything I’ve heard about her that Hladini dasi exemplified this spirit.
She showed us that this is not a call for more violence, but rather for such selflessness that she didn’t hesitate or even think twice about risking and giving her own life for others. She may or may not have had her faults - I just don’t know enough about her - but when crunch time came, her actions show that she was fixed on Krsna and his devotees.