Naughty Krishna holding a piece of candy
One evening last June, I put down my Hare Krishna beads and logged on to the Internet. I held my breath as I saw news of a life-or-death drama unfolding on the high seas: five men locked in a small vessel lost somewhere underwater in the North Atlantic.
No time to waste. Their oxygen supply was dwindling.
A regular ship had towed the vessel, named the Titan, to a spot off the coast of Newfoundland, where it would descend to the ocean floor.
Why? To view the wreck of the Titanic.
But towing the Titan, smaller than a submarine, across the rough waters of the Atlantic instead of carrying it on deck may have weakened the hull. But the mission would go ahead. And besides, the builder had ignored safety protocols anyway, for the sake of “innovative” construction. He even bragged about it.
The ship’s crew bolted the five passengers—the pilot, a French Titanic expert, a British businessman, and a Pakistani father and son—into the Titan. They would have no means of escape in an emergency. And for a good reason.
Deep under the surface, the intense water pressure would crush to death anyone who managed to get out.
The boat then dropped the Titan into the ocean. The descent would take a few hours. But after an hour and a half, the ship lost contact with the Titan. Had the electricity gone out? Then the pilot should have brought the craft to the surface. Why hadn’t he?
A search-and-rescue operation began. Airplanes scoured the ocean’s surface. Sonar buoys listened for sounds of the vessel. Underwater robots searched the sea floor.
No clues until…
An underwater robot found pieces of the Titan scattered on the ocean floor. The “innovative” hull had succumbed to the extreme water pressure of the ocean’s depths. And the vessel imploded, killing all five passengers.
Some experts suggest the passengers may have had forty-eight seconds of warning. That would mean forty-eight seconds of terror in the thick black darkness of the ocean depths.
Now, I cannot stop wondering, What were their last thoughts? In the Bhagavad-Gita, Krishna tells us the importance of our final thoughts:
Whatever state of being one remembers when he quits his body, O son of Kunti, that state he will attain without fail. (8.6)
Well, I’ll never know. But at least I know the importance of the final thought.
The implosion would have taken just a few thousandths of a second, not even enough time for the brain to register any sensory impressions. They never knew what hit them. At least not until after they died.
They paid a lot of money for their underwater death. The French Titanic expert and the British businessman each paid $250,000, a quarter of a million dollars. The Pakistani paid half a million for the privilege of dying with his nineteen-year-old son.
And the pilot? As the CEO of SeaGate, the company that built the vessel, he paid with his life for his “innovations” and his disregard for safety. Well, everything has its price.
Yes, they paid a lot to die. Well, as the old saying goes, you can’t pay your way into heaven.
But what if you could?
What if money could help us attain heaven and even higher realms?
Lord Krishna to the rescue!
One who is unattached to the fruits of his work and who works as he is obligated is [a renunciant], and he is the true mystic, not he who lights no fire and performs no duty. (Bhagavad-Gita 6.1)
Here Krishna reverses everything we have heard about spiritual renunciants and their quest to renounce the world. We think of them as ascetics living in caves or forests, spending all their time in sedentary meditation.
Arjuna had the same thought. He would avoid the war by living in the forest as a monk and beggar. By renunciation, in other words.
But Krishna says no.
In one sense, of course, Krishna does encourage Arjuna to take up a life of renunciation, but not in the way Arjuna thinks. Or the way we think too.
Fight, Krishna tells Arjuna. Work as you should but not to keep the fruits for yourself.
Now most of us work to reap fruit in the form of money. And who will enjoy this fruit? Why, we ourselves, of course. Who else?
The four tourists on the Titan were trying to enjoy the fruits of their work when they paid a total of a million dollars to see a shipwreck. And what did they get for it?
Did it improve their lives? Hardly. Did it improve their deaths? Hard to say, but it seems unlikely.
Wait a second…
Did I say, “improve their deaths”? How can death be improved?
Well, what does death mean if not transiting to a new body and a new realm? So improving death means a better body and a better destination.
All right. But we’re talking about money. How does money fit in with a better death? It comes down to how you use the money during your lifetime. Let’s go back to the verse about renunciation:
One who is unattached to the fruits of his work and who works as he is obligated is [a renunciant], and he is the true mystic, not he who lights no fire and performs no duty. (Bhagavad-Gita 6.1)
Krishna recommends here that instead of using our money to visit shipwrecks, we should use it to broadcast spiritual knowledge for the benefit of all humanity. A simple idea.
Krishna’s followers, therefore use as much of their money as they can to publish books about Krishna, to put on public festivals showing the joy of Krishna Consciousness, and to open temples and centers.
And what do they get for it? A free trip to the Titanic?
This life of renunciation takes them to a better realm and a better body, ultimately to an eternal spiritual body in Krishna’s eternal abode.
By dedicating their money—and with it their lives—to Krishna they assure themselves of the best thought at the time of death. Srila Prabhupada writes:
When a living entity is accustomed to think of a particular subject matter or become absorbed in a certain type of thought, he will think of that subject at the time of death. At the time of death, one will think of the subject that has occupied his life while he was awake, lightly sleeping or dreaming, or while he was deeply sleeping. (Srimad Bhagavatam 4.28.28)
And Krishna says:
Whoever, at the end of his life, quits his body remembering Me alone at once attains My nature. Of this there is no doubt. (Bhagavad-Gita 8.5)
Who can imagine, then, what the divers aboard the Titan could have attained if they had used that million dollars for Krishna?
⁓Umapati Swami, August 1, 2023
Eternally touching my head to the floor at the lotus feet of my spiritual master, Srila Prabhupada, for showing me all this.
(Note: The opinions expressed in this article are my own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of any organization or any other person.)
Photo top: Naughty Krishna holding a piece of candy (Jishnu Das)
Write to me: hoswami@yahoo.com
© Umapati Swami 2023
Scriptural passages © Bhaktivedanta Book Trust
Srila Prabhupada
His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada is the teacher who brought Krishna Consciousness from India to the West and then to the rest of the world. He is the founder of the worldwide Hare Krishna Movement as well as the author and compiler of many works of Vedic knowledge. He left this world in 1977.
Umapati Swami
One of the first American devotees of the Hare Krishna Movement, he became Srila Prabhupada’s disciple in 1966. Since then, he has preached Krishna Consciousness in many countries and is the author of “My Days with Prabhupada,” available from Amazon. Now 86 years old, he has started this blog to share what he has learned.
Umapati Swami's Blog 