Radhanath Swami Vyasa Puja Offering, 2018 Once upon a time there was a little oyster who lived with her colony along the coral reef off the coast of Tahiti. The colony was growing and thriving amid the swirling, brilliant turquoise ocean, where streams of golden light danced along the ocean floor. Little Oyster was happy.
One day, the water darkened to a blackish blue and turbulence swept through the colony. To Little Oyster’s shock and dismay, she saw oysters being uprooted and swept into the maelstrom. She huddled with her neighbors. They sucked more tightly to the rocky ocean floor, screwing themselves into the ground, hunkering down. But Little Oyster was not so strong. When the maelstrom approached, the sand filled the water in vicious swirls -- she choked. “Help!” she cried, but the oysters were all hunkered down. With one last SHLOOP she was sucked off of the floor and flung into the whirling maelstrom.
Little Oyster was swept through the ocean and she was utterly disoriented. Oysters are sedentary creatures. She had never heard of oysters being swept away into the ocean.
At last, at last, the roar of the storm softened and finally settled to a whisper and she was deposited upon a foreign floor, alone.
She shivered and glanced about her. She had somehow landed among a forest of kelp, the green leaves around her swaying gently and spiraling up toward the white and blue sun above In this undulating forest, she saw no other oyster. The image of her colony all shut down against the maelstrom - and her cries for help - flashed in her mind. Her heart stung. Little Oyster wept and her tears dissolved into the salty ocean.
Soon, the moon rose and shone in silver spears through the water, and still the pain did not go away.
The day dawned, the golden sun shining through the waters of this foreign, ethereal place, and still the pain did not go away.
Several days went by, and the pain worsened.
A passing swordfish heard Little Oyster’s cries and swam closer. “Hello little oyster, what brings you such tears?”
“Well, my heart is hurting,”
“Your heart? You know, I know a pretty good doctor, he’s just on the other side of this kelp forest,”
“A doctor?”
“Yes, he’s one of your kind, an oyster,”
“An oyster doctor? That sounds impossible,”
“It’s true. I’ve even known octopi who go visit him for help. I once helped a clam get to him, because clams are like you too, you know, a homebody and I had to carry him in my mouth. You know, you guys really should get around more,”
“Would you… would you take me to the doctor?” Little Oyster asked tentatively. “The pain is getting worse. It’s a physical pain deep inside, and I think there’s something going on for me, but I don’t know what it is. I need some help,”
“Sure Little Oy, I’ll take ya,” the swordfish said jovially. And with utmost care, he maneuvered his body to be horizontal with the ocean floor, gently moving his fins to precisely position his mouth around Little Oyster’s spine.
Suddenly, she was lifted off of the ocean floor. She gasped. She felt dizzy. She was so not meant to be gallivanting off into the ocean like this. This was crazy.
The swordfish swam through the undulating kelp forest, and gradually Little Oyster’s mind fell quiet, mesmerized by the beauty of a world she had never seen before. They swam past jewel-toned reefs and golden fish and bright red fish dashing in and out of their homes. Many smiled from their doorsteps and called out, “Good day, Swordfish!”
They reached the outskirts of the forest and the Coral City.
Swordfish brought her around the corner to a seemingly forgotten nook.
Little Oyster was surprised. She saw a whole motley crew of creatures lined up outside of this little cavern – a gangly octopus with his undulating arms and big, bulbous head, a jolly bright clownfish striped in a brilliant white and orange, and even a gigantic black manta ray, undulating across the ocean floor, his tail a deadly arrow behind him.
To Little Oyster’s astonishment, she saw that the multifarious creatures that were leaving the cave of the heart doctor carried iridescent white spheres that glowed.
“Swordfish, what are those white globes?”
“The heart doctor. He gives them away. They’re called pearls,”
“Pearls? And he gives them away?” Little Oyster exclaimed with a gasp. “They look… priceless.”
“They are. They have healing powers. When you hold one of those pearls, the pain in your heart kind of… dissolves.”
“Wow,”’ Little Oyster murmured. The pain in her heart was getting more and more acute, and her little oyster toes curled.
When their turn came, Swordfish and Little Oyster slowly entered the cave, and she was astonished to realize that the cave was glowing with the silvery glow of hundreds and hundreds of pearls.
And there, nestled among the glowing orbs was the heart doctor. Her heart leapt to see another oyster – she hadn’t realized how lonely she had felt these past several days. He was quite large, his rippled shell an iridescent saffron that glowed. The doctor looked at her with his golden oyster eyes and Little Oyster became shy.
“Hello doctor,” she said shyly.
“I am so happy to see you, Little Oyster,” he said kindly.
“And I am grateful to see you,” she said.
“I see you have a pain in your heart,” he said gently. His voice carried through the water in soft reverberations.
“Yes, doctor.”
“Please tell me what is hurting for you,”
“Well, there was this maelstrom that hit my colony about a week ago, and I was displaced, and my heart has been hurting ever since,”
“Hmmm…” The doctor murmured. “When do you remember the pain hitting you especially?”
“Well, there were clouds of sand… I called for help, but everyone had already closed their shells –“
“Ah, clouds of sand,” the doctor murmured, and his brown eyes shone. “A little grain of sand from those clouds entered your heart and is the cause of your pain. This pain you feel is the pain of betrayal. Betrayal is sometimes worse than death.”
Little Oyster fell silent, stunned with this diagnosis.
The doctor turned and placed his oyster foot upon several different pearls, seemingly testing each one, and at last he selected one and then held it out to Little Oyster. It was rather small and although it glowed it looked very old. “This is for you,”
“For me? This precious pearl?”
“Yes. Hold this pearl and you will experience healing. This pearl is prayer made solid and is medicine for your soul,”
Little Oyster gingerly held out her foot and felt the smooth, slightly rippled surface of the pearl.
“I will tell you a secret, little one,” he said suddenly, somberly. “All of these pearls come from my own heart,”
“Oh wow,” Little Oyster murmured, somewhat shocked. “Your, um, heart?”
“Well, near it, anyway. You see, Little Oyster, we are humble creatures, but there is something special about us. When some pain enters our heart, like that grain of sand in the maelstrom that fateful day a week ago, if we turn to the Lord with sincerity and gratitude for healing, then he gives us the power to create a coating around the shard that is giving us pain. This coating is called nacre. And if we continue to turn and pray to the Lord again and again, we can repeatedly cover that shard with this iridescent nacre so much that layer after layer after layer… this moonlike pearl emerges,” The doctor smiled gently and gestured to the glowing pearl that Little Oyster held in her feet. “Prayer made solid,”
Little Oyster stared at the pearl and back to the doctor, then back to the pearl.
“At the core of this pearl that you are giving me…” Little Oyster murmured, “is a shard of pain that was lodged in your own heart,”
“Yes,” he chuckled. “That particular one I’ve been saving to give to someone special. When I was just a young oyster, a friend of mine - a clam - told me that his whole family hated me and that one day, he would hate me too, just because I was an oyster. A shard of pain entered my heart that day, the shard of betrayal by a friend, the deepest pain anyone could experience. Worse than death,” his voice dropped low. “I prayed and prayed for understanding. The pain softened and softened until one day, I scooped this pearl out and laid it here in this cave with me. It was waiting for you all these years,”
“That is a sad yet beautiful story, doctor,” Little Oyster said. “Do these all come from shards of pain that were lodged in your heart?” Little Oyster gestured around her to the glimmering pearls that filled the cave.
“Everyone has shards of pain in their heart, little one. These pearls come from prayer and the Lord has made them. I am only the vehicle. What is more, Little Oyster,” the doctor leaned in and gave a small smile, “You can also create these pearls from your own heart. You are an oyster, too. If you turn to the Lord with sincerity and gratitude right now, the Lord can give you the nacre to coat that shard of pain in your heart. And one day, you will have something so beautiful and wondrous to share with the world,”
“You are saying that the grain of sand that entered my heart in the maelstrom can become… this?” Little Oyster held out the old, iridescent pearl, trembling.
“Yes,”
“But… why do you give all of these pearls away? I see so many leaving this cave with a pearl. And it took you years to make even one pearl!”
“People come to me for healing, little one, and the healing they seek is to be understood in their pain. These pearls offer that understanding, that compassion,” the doctor said. “I hope one day you will see that the pain in your heart may become a great treasure to offer the world one day,”
“Thank you, doctor,” Little Oyster brought the pearl to her shell and could feel some gentleness from the pearl reach out to caress her heart. A tear seeped into the salty ocean that surrounded her. “Thank you for your gift of understanding and prayer,”
The doctor only smiled.
Little Oyster requested to Swordfish to please take her back to her oyster colony. She shook with nervousness all the way, but clutched her prayer pearl for strength. At last, he dropped her off, and they nuzzled briefly. “Thank you,” Little Oyster said. “Thank you for all that you’ve done for me. The maelstrom lead me to you and to the heart doctor. I am grateful,” as soon as Little Oyster said the words, she felt a softening in her heart, a kind of milky suffusion that gave her peace. She realized that the grain of sand in her heart was being coated with nacre. After several minutes, the pain in her heart came back, but less sharp.
Through the heart doctor’s guidance, Little Oyster learned to pray. She lived among her colony, and every time the memory of that dark maelstrom haunted her heart, she would pray to God for healing and understanding, and the coating of nacre would cover the shard of pain. Again and again and again, coating after coating of prayer. She began to smile and sing again in her colony.
Two years later, held in Swordfish’s mouth, Little Oyster returned to that little nook beyond the kelp forest and entered the cave of pearls. She approached and held out her oyster feet to offer a shimmering white pearl to the heart doctor. The doctor’s eyes gleamed in the glow of the pearls in the cave, and he took the pearl in his feet. “Very beautiful, Little Oyster,” he murmured.
“Doctor,” she said, “I was hoping that if someone comes to you that needs this pearl, that you would give it to them for healing,”
“I shall,” he replied. “Thank you,”
And he placed her pearl in a little alcove behind him.
Thank you, Radhanath Swami, for the priceless gift of your compassion and prayer. You teach me and the world through your own example how to turn even the most painful experience into a pearl by turning to God with a heart of prayer, again and again and again. You teach me that there is no wasted pain in this world, only opportunities to pray and turn to Krishna.
Thank you for gifting me with a life of integrity, gurudeva.
Your loving oyster daughter,
Bhakti lata dasi
Even though Vaikunthaloka’s travels do not strictly fit the definition of a padayatra -he sometimes walked but mainly hitchhiked around the island- we decided to share his adventures with the Padayatra website readers since he has spent time on Padayatra India and took advantage of his Cyprus trip to meet priests and spiritually minded people . We can also see Krishna’s hand in his adventures, and that’s always the best part.
Padayatra South Africa began eight years ago when Lokanatha Maharaja instructed ISKCON Durban temple president Svarup Damodar to launch the programme in KwaZulu-Natal, one of the country’s largest provinces. The idea was to get the project under way and then have it gradually taken up throughout the country, and indeed after observing our efforts in Durban the devotees in Johannesburg were soon motivated to follow suit.
By Sesa Dasa
