Here is an amazing story extracted from our good friend His Holiness Janananda Goswami Maharaj’s diary:

“Just a few months ago in Vrndavana I had quite an amazing experience.
Sitting outside the MVT guest house one sunny morning, our conversation was suddenly interrupted by a loud bang. We looked around as to the cause. Some security guards are running in the direction of the overhead electric wires. What’s happening? Let’s go and have a look. Amazing – The same guards who throw stones, threaten and sometimes even hit the monkeys, are fervently trying to revive a baby monkey that has been electrocuted and badly burned. With cloth they are massaging the body of the stricken little creature. Somehow by their efforts the monkey comes to consciousness and crawls out of the cloth. Blood oozing from it’s burnt skin. An eye opening event – to see the pain in its eyes, the feeling of loneliness and helplessness. To feel that here is a soul just as much as I am, who is craving for love, freedom from pain and relationships. Now desperate for help and totally dependent. Surrounded by foreigners in human bodies.

Communication of a different nature. By some causeless good fortune for me, the tiny monkey crawls along and lays itself across my foot, holding on for reasons I do not know. Maybe seeking shelter and affection in times of intense distress. I crouch down and look at the little fellow. An intense feeling of a soul looking through the eyes of a monkey – please help me – please don’t reject me. I feel so much the suffering he is going through.

It’s a miracle, or rather the kindness of the security guards that he is still alive. How much this little fellow in the body of ignorance is teaching me about others and about life. Thank you little monkey. How much the guards have taught about life and how precious it is. When it comes down to it, if we don’t try to help each other who will. We will all be electrocuted one way or other in time. Race, species, age, gender, class, can all be bridged when we realize the emergency. I wish I could have done something more to alleviate it’s suffering but all I could do was to allow it to rest there for as long as providence ordained. and gently chant Hare Krishna at the same time. He is a resident of the Dhama and shocking as it may be, very fortunate to be in this position. Crowds gather round.

After a few minutes he slowly crawls away as if guided by the Supersoul into a nearby bush. Within seconds hordes of irate looking monkeys appear on the walls of the nearby buildings. The guards quickly usher us all away from the place and prevent any human entry. The monkeys mean business and will go to any extreme to achieve it.
Cautiously they approach, ready for war if necessary to reclaim their child. Guarded by the males, the mother swoops down and picks up the baby in her arms – he cannot hang on. She literally flies up the walls to the high roof and shelter from the danger of humans. It does not seem they appreciate the kindness of the guards. (of course we have created the inhuman cause of the monkeys suffering by putting such dangerous things as electric wires – particularly the loose ones in Vrndavana – hanging everywhere.
We have taken away their trees and claimed proprietorship over orchards. We even attack them when they try to get something to eat.) I wonder what will happen now – is there any chance of its survival? Will it be a cripple for its whole life, should it survive? We can but leave that in the hands of Krsna. This whole incident revealed so clearly the statements that the soul is equal in all bodies. For a few moments there it was, no longer a monkey and a so called human, but two souls feeling each others presence in a common union. The attachment of the family to their little one, even though an animal was so profound – they were ready to kill for him. The intense fear that exists in conditioned souls. The immense suffering, even without our knowledge, that is inflicted in this world. The natural compassion that is there in all souls which may spontaneously manifest when others are in distress. The lord is teaching us in so many ways. He is softening our hard hearts.
Two days later as I was walking along the path I see him again in the shelter of his mother. Still badly injured but none the less alive. The quest for staying alive is as strong in other species as it is in us. Thank you little monkey friend.“

Advertisement