Letting Off Steam

by Jivananda dasa

Today is the 4^th of July. Today we wake to fight for our independence, not to celebrate our freedom as a nation, but to fight for our right to worship our spiritual masters, Lord Caitanya and Nityananda Prabhu.

In all the prison of this nation and the entire world, we fight for our right to cant the Hare Krsna maha mantra as our life and soul. We fight for the right to have and use sacred mala japa beads and to keep them in sacred bead bags, as Srila Prabhupada asked us to do

We fight for the right to wear a sikha and tulasi neck beads, our sacred Vaisnava indicaters. We fight of the right as second initiated devotees to wear a sacred Brahma thread. We fight for the right to have nice vegetarian foods to offer Krsna with the hopes of someday having meals of real temple-style prasadam sent into prisons from a devotee prasadam factory.

We fight for he right to have devotees come in from outside to lead us in kirtana, give class and spiritual counsel. We fight to be recognized as an authorized religion in every prison of this world. We fight to have Krsna conscious books, tapes, CDs, DVDs and videos to learn from.

Today we fight for our right to live!!

We are waiting and praying for all of ISKCON to say in one voice, “They will not go quietly into the night. They will not vanish and disappear into the prison system to practice Krsna consciousness in secret. They will not stop preaching and sharing the Lord’s glories. We will not allow you to call them a gang and Srila Prabhupada’s books gang related material. Inmates shall stand and fight now for themselves but for each other and all those that come after them. They are the servants of the servants of the servants of Lord Caitanya, Nityananda Prabhu and of our beloved Srila Prabhupada!”

We will stand and fight for our religions rights. This is what July 4^th is all about; the freedom to worship God in whatever way our hearts lead us to and to be one nation under God – Krshna. This is what our matieral fathers gave their lifes for – our religious freedom!

Today we fight for the rights of all Vaisnava devotees everywhere. Today we fight for our Spiritual Independence Day.