YAMARAJA’S DILEMMA

“There was a prince.” Prabhupada began a story to illustrate his point. “His name was Satyavan. But he was to die at a certain age, his horoscope said. But one girl named Savitri—she fell in love with that boy. Now she wanted to marry. Her father told her, ‘He’ll die at certain age. You don’t marry.’ But she was bent. She married.

“In course of time, the boy died—say after four or five years—and the girl became widow. But she was so staunch lover that she won’t let the dead body go away. And the Yamaraja, he came to take the soul away. So this chaste girl would not allow the husband’s body to go away.”

By Prabhupada’s voice and widening eyes, he appeared as Yamaraja, the lord of death, speaking to the widow Savitri: “‘It is my duty that I should take. You give it up. Otherwise, you’ll be also punished.’ The girl gave up her husband but followed behind Yamaraja.” Then Prabhupada’s Yamaraja, by a slight dropping of his voice, became compassionate: “‘My dear girl, you go home. I give you benediction that you will have a son. Don’t cry for your husband.’ But Savitri continued to follow Yamaraja. Yamaraja said, ‘Why are you following me?’”

Then Prabhupada’s Savitri spoke-not in a feminine voice, but with the reasoning and heart of Savitri: “‘Now you are taking my husband. How can I have my son?’”

Prabhupada spoke as narrator: “Oh, then he was in dilemma. He returned her husband.

So, similarly, there is a technique. If you take to Krsna consciousness, then your husband, or this human form of life, is guaranteed.”

The devotees understood the gist of the story, but they weren’t perfectly clear what their lives had to do with the woman in the story. Some, however, understood: if they took to Krsna consciousness, their ill-destined lives could become auspicious.