We have a nice house program near Bakheng temple, Siem Reap Cambodia. This program was arranged by Keo Sophat Prabhu, our Cambodian devotee live in Siem Reap. The place is beside the Phnom Bakheng, the hill where an ancient temple dedicated to Lord Siva situated. It was built at the end of the 9th century, during the reign of King Yasovarman (889-910). We came there with five devotees include Kiśora Kṛṣṇa Prabhu and Viṣṇurāta Prabhu. There are some families living closed by, and they have a small temple where they regularly do worship to the Lord every morning and evening. The head of this temple is a man who has retire from the army job. He is now practicing more meditation in this place, He pray more intensively to Lord Budha and Lord Viṣṇu. In his altar there is also one statue of an old sage stand up with the stick on his hand, they usually called it “Lok Ta Esey” mean the Rṣi. Prabhu Kiśora was explaining that, this Ta Esey is Rṣi Vyaśadeva who is the incarnation of Lord Kṛṣṇa who has written the Vedas. And then Kiśora Prabhu also explained what the Veda is, what the purpose of the Veda is , and then he introduced Mahamantra as the easiest way to attain peace in mind. This Mahamantra is written in the Veda called “Kali Santarana Upaniśad” spoken by Lord Brahmā. They listened attentively, and gave some good comments.
All of that people are so nice, they are full of smiles. Sometime they wonder when they look at us, because we dress like a monk with dhoti but we play the music and we drive motorbike, this is uncommon things in Cambodia. And as usual Prabhu Sophat explain to them who we are, why we dress in such a way, where we coming from , and our goal to help our Guru to maintain an ashram in Siem Reap also one farm in Angkor Thom district. He explained that we play music or driving motorbike is merely only for the services unto Lord Kṛṣṇa.
Then we performed about one hour singing Hare Krishna Maha Mantra at that family house, and we have some discussion about their activities. They mentioned that as a Khmer people they will continue to respect their ancestor tradition to meditate and praying to Lord Viṣṇu and all the incarnations of the Lord, who present in every ancient temple of Cambodia especially Angkor Wat, Bayon and Bakheng Temple. They have been practicing this tradition. They also maintain one banyan tree which is very sacred in Cambodia, and also in our Vaiṣṇava tradition. We gave them few books in Khmer language, while they came to know that our Indonesian monks speak Khmer, and they so surprised. We closed the program by taking group photo and distribute the prasadam. They invited us to come again next time, and they accompanied us to the road and said good bye.
Hare Krishna
Reported by Gunāvatara Dāsa Prabhu
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