Today, I had such an experience. Not once, twice.
I wish I was a more serious devotee that at the point it happened, I thought of the Lord. To be honest, the first time today, my mind just went blank. It happened at one of the busy intersections here, an intersection I cross almost a billion times each day. It was my right of way, and I was running to catch the street car. Suddenly, in a few mins, all I hear is LOUD horns, a screeching sound, a woman's voice screaming "what the h**l are you doing ??" and I am on the ground, not hurt, not flat on my back, but kinda squatted and my mind blank. All I remember was the driver of the street car getting out to see if I was fine. When I regained some sense, I tried to see if the driver of the car that almost ran over me was around, and to my extremely annoyance, I found out that the car just drove past me after seeing that I wasn't dead. At that point, I was just mad. Before that, my mind was blank.
As I sat in the street car, thinking of why people drive so silly and trying to chant to calm myself down, I realised that my round wasn't at all effective. Just then, my stop came and as I was about to step out, I was held back by someone and thankfully so, because another car, for no rhyme or reason, sped the way through the free lane where he was supposed to stop to wait for us to get off the street car.
Again, saved, just by an inch.
After such an adventurous 10 minutes of my life, I crossed the road and sat on the stair case of the University building, closed my eyes, trying to clear my head which had completely shut down and I felt cold. After a few minutes, as I slowly opened my eyes, the reality hit me that both times I was just a step away from "death", but both times, my mind just blanked out, didn't think even once about Lord Krishna.
Is that how its going to be when the final moment actually arrives?
Its a very scary thought. After hearing so many lectures, reading so many books, its surprising how in such a situation, our mind so covered by conditioning of this material world refuses to still go towards Lord Krishna. Even at such a pinnacle and brink of suffering, does it seek to enjoy.
To me today, it wasn't the fact that I was almost hit was shocking, it was more shocking to realize that I am not able to think of the Lord when I need him the most.
However, the most beautiful thing, which made today bring about a major spiritual realization is that He REALLY does have your back!! I mean, I was just a step away and even inspite of me not thinking about him, he cared so much that he ensured that I was all alive to be able to blog at this unearthly hour. He gave me a small slap on the head to tell me not to be proud of my spiritual life but to be happy and consider myself fortunate to be even worth of getting something so special.
I was indeed a step away from death, but today, I have taken a step towards trying to become more Krishna Conscious!
2 comments:
Your blog post echoes of my own experiences with death. You're right - when I was THIS CLOSE to death, the scariest part that I reflected on for weeks afterwards was that: I didn't think of Krishna. I wasn't thinking of a little blue boy playing a flute when I'm on the brink of drowning!
Quite a conundrum... I would like to raise this question to more people. How much more important can you get than what you're thinking of the moment of death?
I agree !! Its a VERY scary thought.. and saddest part is we need events like this to prompt such feelings in us !!
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