(Kadamba Kanana Swami, 15 February 2009)
In Vrindavan, at one point I was the Temple President. It was a very big temple so I never had a peaceful moment! Prabhupada made a rule that the Temple President was to sign off on every cheque that went out of the temple and there were lots of cheques every day. Lots of them and people would come all the time, “Please can you sign this? Please can you sign this?” Sometimes even I was in the shower, they would knock on the door and say, “Please, open up, can you sign this cheque?”
Sometimes I would escape the office and go to Govardhan, it was not far away, about 20 km from the temple and I thought that I would have a spiritual day but then still I would meet people there who would say, “I’ve been looking for you all week! Can you please sign this cheque?”
It was too much. I was thinking that my life had been spoilt. So one day I decided to go for a walk in the fields where no one will find me and I was having a great time walking in the fields and everything was nice! Then met one farmer there, a kind of a simple man.
He said, “Do you see this land? It is my land and the crop that is growing on this land is the best! It is the very best crop!” He was like a child, “Look at my bike, it’s the very best…”
“Really, is this your crop? Oh, it is really nice.”I said just treating him like a child and then he said, “You know, I come here every day for one hour!”
“Really, you come here every day for one hour?” and the farmer replied, “Yes and then I go home and then I do Puja!”
Then I thought, this man isn’t so childish! He works for one hour every day and then the rest of the day, he is doing Puja! And me, I spend my whole day signing cheques! He is simple, probably has a house, two little rooms at most, he probably has several children and they help him do Puja and like that, a simple life, very simple life but actually he has time for spiritual life!