Metro police trying to shut down harinam

In this age of Kali the only means of liberation from the clutches of birth and death is the congregational chanting of the Hare Krishna mantra. Due to mercy of the Supreme Lord Sri Krsna, who comes in this age in the form of his devotee as Lord Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu and his top most servitor Srila Prabhupada, devotees in every town are distributing this vibration free of charge and liberate poor living entities from the entanglement of sinful activities. Unfortunately, ignorant people do not know the benefits of hearing the Holy name of the Lord and they put hindrances in the execution of the sankirtana yajna. Furthermore, this Hare Krsna movement with its clear plan to respiritualize the entire society and put a hold on the exploitation of the human form of life under the guidance of the saktyavesa avatara jagad guru Srila Prabhupada is a real threat to the materialistic leaders, who are conditioning people to have animal conciousness, in which they can control them.

The Montreal metro(subway)system is full of spots on various stations, where musicians can play. People usually give them a small donation. Prabhupadanugas from our Sri Sri Radha Damodara temple took advantage of this great opportunity and started using these spots for their Hare Krsna mantra chanting and soon became popular among the curious bypassers. The people traveling by metro often dance, chant the Hare Krsna mantra, or simply smile at us, give a donation, or buy a book. This is all due to hearing of the mahamantra. The soul becomes awakened and expresses himself in multitude of ways. Furthermore, with exotic appearance, transcendental sound, and most of all vibration descending through the parampara, the devotees are surely a big contrast to other musicians who usually play the same catchy songs over and over just to make money. Where there is success, there must be envy of course and it did not take long for the demoniac to notice us and the big tug of war was set into motion.

For the last few years we have had many people trying to shut us down by one way or another. Whether it's a so-called Christian, crazed out drunkard trying to throw a garbage can at us, or simply people complaining blocking their ears, security harassing us about the volume, all of them are trying very hard to stop our propaganda. Lately, while chanting we have been harassed by 6 security officers in one harinam session which beat all the records. Obviously those, who always oppose the instructions of the sastra started to feel the heat of the Holy name. It has penetrated their snake holes and awakened their watch dogs. As Srila Prabhupada says: What is our fault? Our only fault is that we chant Hare Krsna.

In the first attempt, the security has tried to lower our volume, although it is our experience that many musicians who play mundane sounds have their amps blasting much louder without anyone really complaining. Bhakta Colin seeing that perhaps we could deal with them in a civilized manner humbly suggested to make an agreement on a volume, which we would follow from then on. In this way, we would avoid further confrontation, the security would not waste time and could concentrate more on the real villains in the subway and last but not least the harinam could go on without interruption. He started lowering the volume turning the knob down to zero and asked them to tell him when the volume is acceptable. Bhakta Colin turning the volume very slowly looked at the cops, but the security kept silent until the volume indicator was on zero and we could not hear the instruments at all. "This is alright." -said the officer. "What a rascal." -we thought and laughed. user posted image After we explained that practically it was of no use for us to bring our amp if the volume is on zero, somehow or other we managed to convince them to have a little volume and with that we continued in a blissful harinama. This was going on for a few cherished minutes after which a second troupe of security officers came and interrupted our work again. user posted image "We have received 2 complaints: one is that you are too loud and the second that you are shouting at people to give you money. If this goes on, we will have to shut down the sign

completely". After demanding the law in metro in regards to the volume limit for the musicians we have not received any conclusive answer. Furthermore, we have never asked the people for money. Following the example of other musicians, we have placed a guitar case in front of our matrass and people, who wished so, dropped us contribution into the case without even talking to them, so it was naturally a false claim. In the end, the officers concluded that the law is that as soon as there are two complaints from the passengers, they have to shut down the musician spot and that is even if the complaints are false. This was of course a fabrication and the security was exposed when we challenged: " Suppose I make a false accusation and I say that one man in the subway has a knife, are you going to shut the sign?" "Yes." -the security answered. "O.k. So I'm making the accusation right now, shut down the sign." Being exposed they took shelter of threatening and wanted to give us a ticket. user posted image Disgusted and anxious to continue the harinama we have suggested them to turn off our amp and promised to chant without it. They agreed and left. Towards the end of our session however, something topped all our expectations-a third pair of security came and again complained about the chanting. user posted image We asked: -What is your problem? -It's too loud. -But your colleagues just left and we made an agreement with them. -I don't care, it's too loud. -So if we just stop playing the instruments and we just sing, would that be ok? -But it's not singing, it's yelling! So in this way, the security have revealed their complete bias. In fact, it is possible that they did not really know why they are stopping the harinama party being controlled by the maya devi potency. As Lord Krsna and Srila Prabhupada are present in Their names by trying to stop the vibration of Their glorification we can conclude that these people want to kill Them. In this way we are more and mroe convinced that this place is a Raksasaloka(planet of demons) and one's only shelter is this sankirtana movement. The security is supposed to protect the people from dangerous elements, unfortunately in this age rogues and bandits are professing as security and harass innocent devotees, who are delivering the most essential knowledge to the people. One can hardly imagine what kind of punishment is awaiting these people. We have stopped the amp since then, but we all continue to chant every day at the Snowdon metro station usually at 1.00. You are invited to join us and experience real transcendental excitement.