One day, after giving a lecture, I was sitting on a wooden bench under a Kadamba tree in the garden looking at a butterfly. She was such a beautiful creation of God. She was drinking nectar from flower to flower and I was chanting my mantra, “Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare/ Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare,” very softly and very peacefully. Although in Mumbai, I felt a million miles away from the hustle and bustle of her.
Suddenly, I saw three college students running towards me. I could practically hear their heartbeats. One of them told me that he was traveling on a train a few minutes ago and there was a bomb explosion on that train. Then he saw some bodies hanging from which blood was coming out. There were businessmen, workers and women running while screaming and crying.
While they were explaining this to me, they informed me of an urgent phone call that I had to take. I ran upstairs and answered. I could hear one of the Bhaktivedanta Hospital leaders on the line. “You should see the scene here. It’s horrible! Almost every minute, bodies are brought in by ambulances, in rickshaws, on arms and backs. All our beds are full and practically the entire space of the Hospital, every inch of it, is covered. of ether from wounded or dead corpses”.
This was on July 11, 2006. Later, an official announcement said that 209 people were killed and about 700 injured. Thousands of people lost their loved ones and millions were terrified. There were seven explosions in seven trains in a matter of eleven minutes in the suburbs of Mumbai.
I reflected and remembered the story told to me by one of my dearest friends and godbrothers, His Holiness Sachinandan Swami Maharaja.
His father was an officer in the SS, the hated Nazi killing machine. And his father had a friend who had been directly involved in the slaughter of thousands of Jews and found colorful pictures of butterflies, butterflies flying up and down, drawn by people who were about to die. They were drawn with colored chalk on the walls. It was such a joyous peace of art in a place of death so morbid and dreary. He was very curious. What does this mean? So he asked several of the Jews. “Why do you draw butterflies?”
Most people were unresponsive, but one old man said, “Young man, I’ll tell you. A caterpillar is in a very, very painful situation, where it’s wrapped in a cocoon. It can’t even move. But through that painful experience that the caterpillar transforms and comes out as a beautiful and colorful butterfly, then is free to fly in the sky, bask in the sun and go from one sweet flower to another, drinking nectar.
Similarly, it keeps us as ‘caterpillars’ in these concentration camps of horrible imprisonment and suffering. But we have faith in God, and by that faith we know for certain that we have the greatest hope: if we devoutly remember him, our death will be a transformation, and our souls will be free.
When the officer heard it, it completely changed his view of the world. Previously, Hitler’s propaganda brainwashed him into thinking that the Jews are subhuman and that they are the agents of evil and that they were inherently evil. But these people had a philosophy that gave them so much hope and inner joy, even in the face of impending cruel death.
Interestingly, the next generation in Germany rebelled a lot against what their parents had done. One of those revolutionaries was Sachinandana Swami, who was searching for a higher truth and meaning. He then came across Srila Prabhupada’s books and gave his heart to Srila Prabhupada.
His father and relatives were exterminating Jews by the millions and many of my aunts and uncles, who were Jews, were killed by them. How come we’re best friends? That is the power of bhakti. We rise above past and present wrongs in the form of ignorance, violence, and hate. We are together with one voice and we realize that we are connected. Every living thing is part of God. “ahaà beja-pradaù pita”. Krishna says in the Bhagavad-Gita: “I am the father who gives the seed of all living beings.”
Now, remembering all this as I sat back watching butterflies, I felt the need to convey this message to humanity: if we learn to turn to God in every situation, we will find hope even in the midst of fear. The eternal but urgent need for everyone is to understand the peace formula of the Bhagavad-Gita: the one Supreme Lord is the owner of everything that exists, everything is ultimately for His enjoyment, and He is our all-loving wisher. Whoever lives according to these principles finds inner peace and can spread real peace abroad. He is beyond all sectarian concerns. This message is fundamental to real civilization.