Shoreline Miracles

By Indradyumna Swami - 8.8 2025

Diary of a Travelling Monk, Volume 15, Chapter 31

When I was a teenager, a friend and I were walking past a church one afternoon. Out of the blue, he turned to me and asked, “Brian, do you believe in miracles?”
I thought for a moment and replied honestly, “I don’t think so. There’s no proof that miracles exist. I remember someone asking my father the same question and he quoted the scientist Carl Sagan: ‘Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.’”
My friend asked me this question 60 years ago. But if someone were to ask me that same question now, my answer would be very different. I would say without hesitation, “Yes — I do believe in miracles. In fact, I have experienced one myself. My spiritual master saved me!”
I recall the words of my spiritual master, Srila Prabhupada, when asked whether he could perform miracles, he smiled gently, gestured toward his disciples, and said, “My miracle is that I have made all these Western boys and girls devotees of Krishna.”
His words remind me of something the Christian evangelist Nick Vujicic once said: “I know for certain that God does not make mistakes, but He does make miracles. I am one. You are, too!”
My own conviction in this truth is anchored in a famous verse:
yatha kascanatam yati
kamsyam rasa-vidhanatah
tatha diksa-vidhanena
dvijatvam jayate nrnam
“As bell metal is turned to gold when mixed with mercury in an alchemical process, so one who is properly trained and initiated by a bona fide spiritual master immediately becomes a brahmana.”
(Srila Sanatana Goswami, Hari-bhakti-vilasa 2.12)
Skeptics may dismiss such a statement as pre-scientific allegory, but interestingly, science itself is edging closer to proving the conversion of mercury into gold possible. A recent article in The Financial Times reported:
“A fusion energy start-up claims to have solved the millennia-old challenge of how to turn other metals into gold. Chrysopoeia, commonly known as alchemy, has been pursued by civilizations as far back as ancient Egypt. Now San Francisco-based Marathon Fusion, a start-up focused on using nuclear fusion to generate power, has said the same process could be used to produce gold from mercury. In an academic paper published last week, Marathon proposes that neutrons released in fusion reactions could be used to produce gold through a process known as nuclear transmutation.”
(The Financial Times, July 22, 2025)
In a similar way, a soul born into the most humble circumstances can, by receiving initiation into the Holy Names, be transformed into a pure-hearted Vaisnava. This was – and still is – the heart of Srila Prabhupada’s mission. In a morning conversation with his disciples in 1970, he spoke of the miraculous nature of this movement:
“People are appreciating that in such a short time this Hare Krishna mantra is spreading all over the world. It is Krishna’s miracle. If Krishna desires, let there be miracles!”
And there will be more. By Srila Prabhupada’s causelss mercy, countless conditioned souls will be delivered in this age of Kali. As the Visnu-dharma says:
kalau krta-yugam tasya
kalis tasya krte yuge
yasya cetasi govindo
hrdaye yasya nacyutah
“For one who has Lord Govinda in his heart, Satya-yuga becomes manifest in the midst of Kali; and even Satya-yuga becomes Kali-yuga for one who does not have the infallible Lord in his heart.”
Actually, the appearance of miracles is part of our lineage, beginning in earnest 500 years ago during the pastimes of Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu. The scriptures recount how He revived the dead son of Srivasa Thakura, healed the leper Vasudeva, cured the son-in-law of Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya from terminal cholera, revealed His transcendental form to him and Ramananda Raya, and even transformed the hearts of the proud Mayavadi sannyasis in Benares with His effulgent presence. During Ratha-yatra, He was seen simultaneously in several different kirtan parties — a divine mystery beyond material logic.
And these miracles have not ceased. They continue to this very day. At our festivals along the Baltic Sea coast, I have been witnessing, every day, the truth of Carl Sagan’s maxim — “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” That evidence is not theoretical — it is alive in people’s eyes, voices, and choices.
At our recent festival in Rewal, a gentleman hurried to greet me after my stage lecture, handing me a new copy of the Bhagavad-gita to sign.
“Nine years ago,” he said, “my wife, my daughter, and I came to your festival. I bought a Bhagavad-gita that day — not for me, but for my daughter, who was only nine at that time. Knowing she was much too young to understand it, I kept it in our attic until her eighteenth birthday, just three days ago. I wrapped it in beautiful paper and ribbon and gave it to her. When she opened it, her eyes lit up. ‘Daddy,’ she said, ‘this is something I really want to read.’”
“And the one you’re holding now?” I asked.
He smiled. “This one is for me,” he said.
That same evening another man approached me with a confident air. “I know the Bhagavad-gita well,” he declared.
“Then you’ve read it before?” I asked.
“Not exactly,” he admitted. “I’ve collected over a thousand different editions in many languages. It’s my hobby, you see. I usually just browse them. But when I learned ISKCON had sold over 23 million copies, I knew I had to get one. The commentaries of your teacher convinced me. When I heard you were in town, I came straight here to get my own copy.”
Later on as I was watching the festival stage show, a middle-aged woman approached me.
“Do you remember me?” she asked.
“I must confess that I don’t,” I said apologetically. “I meet so many people in my travels!”
“I met you thirty years ago when I was thirteen,” she said. “Your festival touched me deeply. From that day on, I have prayed to Jesus every night to protect you. I’ve traveled widely, and whenever I see Hare Krishna devotees, I feel a kinship. But finding your festival again today feels like coming home.”
Encounters like these feel miraculous because they show me that the seeds we plant can lie dormant for years—sometimes even decades—before taking root, often in ways we could never predict.
In the same way that miracles are unpredictable, so too are the challenges. One such challenge occurred on the evening of our festival in Mielno, a “rough and ready” town famous for its bars and nightclubs. Stepping onto the stage to begin my talk, I noticed a group of young men in leather jackets and heavy boots watching me with open disdain.
We have had incidents in Mielno before, so as I approached the microphone stand, I glanced around for our security team. But they were nowhere in sight.
With some apprehension, I began my lecture. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the group slowly making their way toward the stage.
“Five against one,” I thought. “Not the best odds.”
Sure enough, one of them — clearly the leader — walked straight up in front of the stage. Looking up at me with narrowed eyes, he began to hurl insults.
Then an idea flashed in my mind.
Without breaking my train of thought, I fixed my gaze on him and, summoning all the power in my voice, I commanded, “Shush up!”
The words boomed from the two massive speakers in front of him, reverberating across the entire festival site.
Startled, he jumped back, blinking in confusion. Still dazed, he turned on his heel, muttered something under his breath, and walked back to his friends. Within moments, the whole group of them left the festival grounds without a backward glance.
The crowd erupted in applause. I smiled and picked up exactly where I had left off. Used in the service of the Lord, the power of sound can silence even the loudest opposition.
Fifteen minutes later, rain began to pour down. The audience scattered, except for one determined woman who ushered twenty children to the shelter of our nearby restaurant tent. She then returned alone to listen to the rest of my talk. A devotee came and stood beside her, holding an umbrella over her head.
When my talk concluded, she approached me with a steady gaze and said softly, “That one talk has changed my life. I now know who I am and where I want to go when I die.”
Holding up a Bhagavad-gita she had just purchased, she said, “I’m the director of an orphanage. These children are my family. I’ll read them this book every night, so they can learn what I’ve been searching for my entire life.”
She gestured for the children to come over. One by one, the children came forward — small hands reaching for mine, each handshake a silent connection, each smile an unspoken thank you.
In that moment, I felt my heart swell, my eyes filled with tears and I offered the following prayer to my spiritual master:
“My dear Srila Prabhupada, you alone are changing the face of the earth and giving her children new birth. Through your commentaries on the sacred verses of Bhagavad-gita, you are planting seeds of eternal life in the hearts of those who might never otherwise have known you. And somehow, by causeless mercy, you have placed me here — a witness, a servant — to carry your words from town to town, coast to coast, and soul to soul. May I serve you in this way life after life — in any land, in any circumstance — sharing your Bhagavad-gita, watching miracles unfold in the eyes of the young and the old, and hearing the Holy Names resound in places where they have never been heard before.”
In a letter to Sudama dasa on December 23, 1972, Srila Prabhupada wrote:
“When I was alone in your New York, I was thinking, who will listen to me in this horrible sinful place? All right, I shall stay a little longer, at least I can distribute a few of my books, that is something. But Krishna was all along preparing something I could not see. Now I can see it was a miracle. Otherwise, your city of New York, one single old man, with only a few books to sell for barely gaining eatables, how he can survive, what to speak of introducing a God consciousness movement for saving humankind. This is Krishna’s miracle. Now I can see it.”