By: HG. Vishnurata Das
I grew up in a farmer family, but it lasted only until I turned 12 years old when my father changed his occupation to a teacher (government service). Those days we used to go to our farm to cultivate some crops and we had 6 cows including two bulls that my father used for ploughing. Every Saturday night I would stay overnight on the farm with my father. One of the reasons why I loved to stay overnight was because we had grown corn on the farm and I loved to eat fresh barbequed corn. Those days there was no chemical used in our land. But now such a simple and blissful life is gone. By the way, that was a small overview of my life.
One of my friends in Sri Dham Mayapur, H.G. Gopeshvar Prabhu from Ukraine, grows some vegetables in the back yard of his residence. He approached me, requesting me to help take care of his beautiful garden for 40 days in his absence. He had to leave India for Ukraine to renew his passport and visa. I was very gladdened by this offer and with whatever skill that I still had as a farmer that I had learnt in my young age, I put to use in taking care of his garden.
In this little garden, we have grown two types of shaak (green leafy vegetables), green shaak and red shaak, some tomatoes and basils. Every day, I had been spending a minimum of one hour for gardening. Every alternate day (once in two days), I get a bunch of fresh organic shaak for the Lordships, Sri Sri Radha Madhava, Sri Sri Pancha-tattva and Lord Nrisimhadev.
H.G. Gopeshvarprabhu had once told me before he had left “… mostly I am growing shaak because Lord Chaitanya likes shaak very much, so please bring some for Him on a regular basis as much as this garden can provide… This is my service….” I could see how much love he has for the Lord! By his mercy now I can experience what he would when he brings the fruit of his sweat to the temple kitchen. Somehow I feel so happy when I see Lord Chaitanya’s face whenever I bring a bunch of organic shaak which is grown with love and devotion.
This is my second week as a gardener, I have another three and a half weeks to do this wonderful service. But this is not the end of my gardening service, I have got very much inspired by H.G. Gopeshvar Prabhu to do gardening and make some pure offering for the Lord. I just recently moved to another place, and it has some small plot which can be used as a garden. I definitely will do something useful out of it.
Krishna says in the Bhagavad–gita 9.26 “If one offers Me with love and devotion a leaf, a flower, a fruit or water, I will accept it”. With love and devotion means something that which is grown by devotees with love and devotion, not that something that we buy in the market with no guarantee of its purity.
