"He will go to Krishna."

While Prabhupada rested, I tried quietly chanting my japa in the dining room. After a half-hour I grew drowsy and lay down on the floor. Thoughts of all the duties yet undone crowded into my mind?typing, editing, letters, cleaning the kitchen, arranging for laundry? fragments of Srila Prabhupada speaking entered my mind ? the solidity of his philosophical realizations ? my fortune in being able to soon see him again ? Suddenly I was awakened by the ringing phone. I ran to pick it up so it wouldn't wake Srila Prabhupada. Rupanuga was calling from Tennessee. I was happy to hear him, but he had a very unhappy report to make. Someone had thrown a fire-bomb into the house in Knoxville, where he was staying with three brahmacaris. One of the brahmacaris had caught on fire and had subsequently died in the hospital. Rupanuga thought Prabhupada should know and asked what ceremony they should perform for the boy's passing away. He told me some of the details?how the boy had impressed the hospital staff by his composure and his constant chanting of Hare Krishna while in a state of extreme pain from the burns all over his body. The attacker was unknown and the Knoxville police did not seem to be hot on the trail. I dutifully listened to the account and told Rupanuga I would tell Srila Prabhupada. When Prabhupada rose, he asked for a dob?the fresh water from a coconut. We had a collection of coconuts in the kitchen, and Sudama opened one, holding it on the rug in front of Prabhupada and chopping it open with a machete. Prabhupada said the drink was very nice, and he extolled the coconut, saying that if necessary one could live on coconuts by drinking their water and eating their fleshy insides. Eventually, I told Prabhupada about Rupanuga's call. Prabhupada asked, "Was he chanting at the time he passed away?" "Yes," I said, "according to the report he was." "Then it is all right," said Prabhupada. "He will go to Krishna." "Rupanuga said that the people of Knoxville, Tennessee, are very upset by the incident." "Of course they are upset," said Srila Prabhupada sharply. "But what can they do about it? They are jumping like monkeys in the water all day." Prabhupada was referring to the tourists' wasting of precious time down at the beach. The people of Knoxville, and all karmis, would always be upset?in illusion and always helpless before the material nature?as long as they did not take up genuine spiritual life. Prabhupada advised the devotees in Tennessee to wait two days and then on the third day hold a feast in honor of the departed Vaishnava soul who had given up his life for Krishna consciousness. "We have to die sooner or later in this body," Prabhupada reasoned. "This is a nice opportunity that he was chanting Hare Krishna. We should not lament. It will not go in vain that devotees are risking their lives. Lord Jesus was crucified, and what are we in comparison to him? Krishna was always fighting demons."