My first exposure to ISKCON

In year 1999, when I was in final year of BTech program from VRCE Nagpur (Now VNIT Nagpur), His Grace Muneesh Garg came to our hostel in Nagpur. His Grace Muneesh Garg after being selected in UPSC exam joined IRS Training center at Nagpur. Earlier he was pursuing his MTech From  IIT Delhi where he started spiritual practices under guidance of Dr PV Krishnan (His Grace Krishna Smarana Prabhu) who was Associate Professor in department of Applied Mechanics. Dr PV Krishnan Used to conduct spiritual classes at his residence in IIT Delhi.

Dr PV Krishnan gave him service of preaching Krishna Consciousness to students of various engineering college in Nagpur. His Grace Muneesh Garg was fully devoted to the words of his Guru and therefore as part of conducting his service he came to our hostel for preaching.

After meeting with him and seeing his simplicity I was very impressed. I bought a copy of Bhagvad Geeta As It Is by Srila Prabhupada and started reading the same. Though I was not very regular in reading Bhagvad Geeta, His Grace Munnesh Garg always inspired to read it and ask queries if any. One Sunday along with my friend Ketan Chavan I went to the IRS training centre hostel stayed with His Grace Muneesh Garg. We saw he used to prepare his food himself using a rice cooker. He was not taking the food from Mess. That day he prepared the food for us also and after offering the same to Lord we together relished the same. This was my first exposure to Prasada. Earlier I was thinking that offering some sweet to Lord is Prasad but there I saw that whatever you make you first offer that to Lord then take the remnants yourself. Food being offered to Lord does not contain onion and garlic and of course the it must be prepared using grains, fruits, milk & milk products and vegetables (purely vegetarian content). Once it is offered to Lord it becomes Prasad.

After taking evening Prasad we went to bed. Exactly at 4:00 am in the morning His Grace Garg got up from bed and woken us up too. We got ready in half an hour and chanted 16 rounds of Hare Krishna Mantra there. This was first time I chanted 16 rounds at one go. This was really wonderful experience for me.

Then after taking morning breakfast we came back to our hostel. There I realized that how caring  His Grace Muneesh Garg was!  He then arranged lecture of his Guru Dr PV Krishnan in our hostel at VRCE Nagpur. The lecture was very impressive and Dr Krishnan answered all questions raised by the fellow students.

One student asked that there are so much poverty  in India and you are teaching Krishna Consciousness to us. How they will take this process if they don’t have food to eat. Dr Krishnan simply answered, “you have food, you do it”. Later I realized that we are really lucky that we are not deprived of basic resources and still if we don’t use our time and energy in our spiritual development, we are just wasting the precious time given to us by Lord.

I also bought a booklet edited by Dr Krishnan titled ‘Science and Nescience’ from His Grace Muneesh Garg. That booklet had so many  wonderful article on myth of science and other areas related to evolution. I was really impressed that time so as now. Keeping that in mind I am going to put the articles as blogs in website www.bhaktmal.net with aim that it must be read by others. It has the power to change the way we look at world.

In year 2000 I got job and moved to Delhi. I wished to meet Dr Krishnan but could not get opportunity to meet him again nor could I meet His Grace Muneesh garg who later got posted to Bhopal as Asst commissioner of income tax in year 2000. Although I could not meet them again nor I have their contact details, I owe them for what they had given me. They had taught me by example especially His Grace Muneesh Garg who gave me his selfless associations and motivated me to move forward in Krishna consciousness despite my unwillingness at times.

Hare Krishna

Upendra Hari Das

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