Frustration and absorption in technological no man’s land 

 When I went to Rourkela, I found that while I was staying in the guest room of the National Institute of Technology, I was lost in a technological no man’s land without any device to write my Gita-daily articles. 

My usual computer had been malfunctioning, so I had submitted it to the service center in Mumbai before I came to Rourkela. I had brought with me my old computer that I have kept as backup for just such emergencies. The next morning after the big college program, this computer just refused to start. 

I had brought a Bluetooth keyboard that works with my phone and it worked in the morning, but later during the day when I was traveling back to Mumbai, it mysteriously stopped working. 

I also had an Ipad, but it had got discharged and I had forgotten to get the charger with me – I was on just a two-day visit and the Ipad was the fourth backup option, something I hadn’t expected to need

I had a backup phone, but I had given it to a friend and hadn’t asked it back before the trip. 

In addition to the Gita-daily article, I had to edit and finalize two articles for BTG urgently; I started feeling frustrated that none of my five devices were available for me. 

And then the number five triggered an epiphany. I suddenly found myself smiling as I thought about how Draupadi had five protectors and still she was left defenseless. I had five devices and yet I was helpless. 

The comparison is outrageous – not having a working gadget is no problem at all when compared with being dishonored and disrobed. But the mind has a way of making problems seem unmanageably huge. And those whose work depends on technology know that having no gadget is terrible – something like having your car break down on an expressway in no man’s land. Actually, when the device stops working, it feels worse – like a plane running out of fuel in mid-air. 

Anyway, the comparison with Draupadi inspired me to similarly take shelter of Krishna. I started reading the sixth canto of the Bhagavatam which I have been studying to prepare for my classes at Govardhan Eco-village. And with that mood of shelter infusing my study, during the journey from Rourkela to Mumbai via Ranchi, I had the most absorbing scriptural study experience in a long time.  

And wonderfully enough, with my consciousness clarified and inspired by being sheltered in Krishna, I was able to do the editing of the articles much more efficiently – the work that would normally have taken several long hours, I was able to do in a few hours. 

I have never thought that the number “five” would become such a powerful uddipana (spiritual stimulus). Truly, the means through which Krishna can help us is amazingly inconceivable.