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A Krishna Guru once asked me why I revere Mary in the pantheon of the Gods. I said I don’t worship Mary but I love her and adore her. He laughed and said,” How can you love Mary when you don’t even know what she really looks like?” I said Mary is everything good and beautiful and I see her manifestations around me everyday. She colors my world that otherwise would be so dreary. Mary inspires me to write from the heart.
The Guru then said you must be hypocritical because you write about the Krishna while you remain steadfast in your Catholic beliefs. I said I write about the Krishna in the internet with the hope that I could capture the attention of the millions of agnostics in the United States. If I can draw them with a merging of modern Physics and Krishna, then that would be better than no religion at all. The hook is the innovation. They are highly intelligent and Catholic dogmas and Krishna themes have become staid for them.
The Guru scoffed at my motivation. He said you are doing it for money. I said yes but money is secondary. If I can turn one million agnostics around to embrace the knowledge of God without making a single cent, I would still go through with the whole process. If they each send me one (1) dollar and end up with a windfall of one (1) million, I will give half to the poor and keep half for myself.
The Guru laughed and said you are virtually a scam artist because you are pandering a religion that is worthless. It may be better than having no religion at all like you say but these people will not be saved because what you advocate is no better than a sham. “Do you think they can be saved and be reunited with the Krishna when they die?”
I replied that the novel religious themes I write in the internet are not geared to convert those with religious faiths to transfer to the Krishna. They are meant to convey knowledge of God to the atheists and the agnostics. I have no desire to compare Krishna to Christianity or Buddhism and try to harp the merits of the former as the truer form.
Which leads to the question are the Catholics going to be saved if they don’t know the Krishna? Of course not, but they will be saved in the name of Jesus Christ if they are true to their covenant with Him. Will the millions of Muslims be saved if they don’t know Jesus? Of course not, but they will be saved in the name of Allah if they are true to the Koran.
There is only One True God. He is known by many Names and many forms of worship stemming from the spawning of cultures, civilizations, and traditions among different races and nations throughout the history of man. Those who know Him by Yahweh will be saved if they remain faithful to the Gospel Truths embodied in the Ark of the Covenant bequeathed through Moses.
The above discourse prompted the Guru to take another tack. He said Christ refers to the Almighty God the Father and not Jesus Christ, the Nazarene who is man. “How can your God suffer like a man on the cross?” I said our Lord Jesus was a real man with real flesh and blood and was born of the Blessed Virgin Mary. In the same way as the Second Person in the Holy Trinity, He is the real Son of God and sits at His right Hand. Just like what you know in the Krishna as the expansions of God, Jesus Christ is God Himself.
The Guru said that this mouthful of isms is all too easy to say but quite rhetorical and hypothetical, and at best confusing with no practical bearing on everyday living. He taunted me by saying your Jesus of Nazarene figured in history 2,000 years ago and never showed His face hence. Maybe He is greater than Napoleon or Hitler but just like them He remained fixed in His episode in history.
I said I have a personal experience that our Lord Jesus Christ is present amongst us in the present time. In fact, He died for me twice. I saw the Guru get stumped by what I just said and stood there with his mouth agape. I unraveled the story to him as he stood dumbfounded.
It was in 1983 and I was the General Manager of Archers Travel in Ermita. The board appointed a new assistant manager to assist me with the rigors of the deployment of what was to be the beginning of a long exodus of Filipino contract workers to Saudi Arabia. There were limited flights to the Middle East back then as the Filipino Diaspora through overseas employment was just starting.
The first target was Dammam. There was a long list that showed we needed to capture airline seats at the rate of 80 a day with various airline flights. The capacity was in such short supply because no charters were mobilized yet and PAL was still scrambling to lease additional aircraft. There were desperate times when at prohibitive fares we had no recourse but to connect via European hubs as far as London only to backtrack from there to Saudi Arabia.
His name was JC. He had a biblical aura. His eyes were deep-set and poignant. He was of medium build, dusky with an athletic wiry frame. He grew up in Jolo among the Tausugs and so developed a habit which was the most stupefying of all his quirks. He prayed to both the Christian God and the Muslim God.
Back then we made extra commission by filling up seats of some airlines. They remained in the minority as most rode the high demand as their opportunity to maximize revenue and to be courted for the valuable limited inventory. The snotty European carriers thumbed their noses on the crass contract worker market where passengers tended to be ruggedly attired.
To line our own personal pockets with the incentive commission we naturally favored the airlines that gave such. When they get fully booked we made the groups scheduled for deployment to wait for the following week giving the guise that all the rest of the airlines had no more seats. To my chagrin, JC put his foot down and refused to play along even if he stood to get the second biggest share after myself.
“Joey “he said, “these people hocked their farms and their implements to the usurers just so they can get out to get better paying jobs abroad. They pay usurious interest rates and the quicker they can start earning in Saudi Arabia, the faster they can pay back their debts. The longer you keep them waiting in Manila where they have to spend extra for board and lodging, the more their families will get burrowed in ballooning borrowings and fall prey to the depredations of the money lenders.”
“You make money from certain flights a week anyway. We must all be content with that and not seek more over the anguish and suffering of our countrymen.”
I had no choice but to go with him. He could expose the whole rigmarole to the board if I persisted to ram it past him. For lack of an option to set him up to be booted out from the company at that early stage, I let the matter go begrudgingly.
It was that fateful summer day back in 1983 when I learned who He really was. We had to drive to Ilocos eight hours north of Manila to attend the funeral of the mother of our President of the company. On the drive back, as we tried to overtake a jeepney at a fast clip, it swerved and sideswiped us off the highway to crash into a tree head on. The car was a total wreck.
I stirred to a fleeting consciousness only to hear JC mumble weakly to the rescuers to cut me free first. “Get him out first, he has two children” were the exact words he said which are forever emblazoned in my psyche. For lack of the equipment available in the States which they use to cut through crumpled metal, it took a long time to get me out and whisk me by tricycle to a hospital in Pangasinan. By the time they got back to JC He had bled to death trapped in the twisted steel which became his deathbed.
And so I remember Him up to this day and never forget His example every single day and live my life each day to the best of my ability to emulate Him. I have done all I can to make Him come alive in the hearts of my children and will do the same if given an extension in longevity to do the same for my granddaughter, Sophia Leveriza Lina.
I love money and wish I had more of it. I envy those with the trappings of wealth. But because of His example it’s not the top priority in my life.
As for the Abba Krishna, I pray to Him too by His example just the same.
Merry Christmas.
