Hugging the Soul

Naughty Krishna holding a piece of candy

The other day, an old friend came up to me, put his arms around me and started hugging me.

Who can resist a big hug?

Not me. I immediately put my arms around him.

Then I began to wonder, What makes a hug so much fun? The pressure of the arms? The warmth of the body? The feeling of someone breathing?

Maybe the feeling of the skin. I touched his face. Nope. Not that either.

Then I remembered what Srila Prabhupada told us many years ago. The pleasure comes from the soul. When we hug someone, we hug a soul, though the bodies get in between.

No soul? No hug. Who wants to hug a corpse?

Yeah. I went over and turned on the computer, and up came a photo of Marilyn Monroe, once world famous for her beauty. But what man would want to even look at that body today? The soul has been gone for sixty years. Just the thought makes me shudder.

A Soul in the Tomato

The afternoon was getting on. I walked over to the kitchen where my roommate was cutting some bright red tomatoes. Have you noticed that the internet tells us to buy fruits and vegetables with shiny skins and bright colors?

Bright red shows a healthy tomato. And good health means life. And life means the soul. So the internet really wants us to buy our fruits and vegetables while the soul still lives in them.

Then I went back to the internet. I saw an article denouncing the falsity of the law of karma. How can karma exist? said the article. Don’t we all know that bad things happen to good people?

Oh? Want to deny the law of karma, do you? Well it would help if you knew something about it. What does the law of karma actually say?

Stealing an Old Lady’s Purse

The Vedas tell us that karma follows you from one life to the next. So maybe you take care of the sick in this life, but you break your leg.

Why? Because you stole the purse from an old lady and knocked her down in the life before.

Generally, though, karma brings both good luck and bad. So the creep down the road who steals from the charity collection box inherits a big house from his great aunt Myrtle.

Feels good to know how the universe works,doesn’t it?

The Fragrance of Wet Mud

Then I found an article about people working to save the mangrove forests. Mangrove trees grow near water, and I remembered gardening when I was younger and digging my hands into wet mud. It feels soothing on my skin, and the fragrance drives away my worries.

In fact, in the Bhagavad-Gita, Lord Krishna says, “I am the original fragrance of the earth.” (7.9)

Have you ever wondered where the flowers get their sweet smell? I’ll tell you. They get it from the earth. Where else could it come from?

A Secret about the Earth

And flowers are the essence of perfume. So the next time you expand your lungs to let in the jasmine incense, give a thought to Krishna, the original fragrance of the earth.

Want to know a secret about the earth too? About why we say Mother Earth?

The earth also has a soul. The Vedas call her Bhumi Devi (“Goddess Bhumi”). Mother Earth is a great devotee of Krishna. And as one of the mothers of humanity, she provides the grains, vegetables, and fruit that nourish us.

Don’t believe me? I didn’t make it up. Honest. You can read it in the Srimad Bhagavatam.

So the next time you see a field of wheat remember that Goddess Bhumi provides this for her children.

Don’t Step on Your Mother

Many sages and yogis say a prayer to the earth as they get up in the morning. “Please excuse me, my dear mother,” they pray. “Please forgive me. I am about to put my feet on you.”

I looked at the imaginary mud in my hands. “I am touching my mother the earth,” I thought.

Then I saw a little green bug running down my hand into the mud below. My mind went back to 1970 to our center in Los Angeles. I was sitting with the others in the lecture hall as sunlight poured in through the windows.

We listened, hanging on to every word as Prabhupada spoke.

“If you try to catch a little bug,” said Prabhupada, “he will run away because he has free will. This free will is the perfection of God’s creation.”

My mind came back to the present. I ambled over to the dining nook where my hugger friend was chomping down on bright red tomato slices wallowing in sesame oil.

“I learned something about the soul today,” I thought. “Thank you, Krishna.”

⁓Umapati Swami, November 23, 2023

Eternally touching my head to the floor at the lotus feet of my spiritual master, Srila Prabhupada, for showing me this.

Write to me: hoswami@yahoo.com

© Umapati Swami 2023

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 followers 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.