A devotee from Europe was sharing a room with another devotee in India. As they were preparing to sleep, this European devotee advised the other devotee, “Don’t use mosquito oil, it will kill the mosquitoes. It’s better to use a mosquito net.”
The other devotee was puzzled. It was already 9:30 at night and he wondered where he could find a mosquito net at that hour. He thought to himself, “Maybe I’ll get one tomorrow; it’s too late now.” But the European devotee insisted, “No, no, you must use the mosquito net. Killing mosquitoes is not good.”
Curious about this sudden concern for the well-being of mosquitoes, the other devotee asked, “Why are you so compassionate toward mosquitoes all of a sudden? What’s your story?”
The European devotee then shared his story: “I was once a soldier in a rebel army during the war in Croatia. It was my routine to kill dozens of people every day. One day, during the war, I captured a man, put a gun to his head and told him I was going to kill him. But the man looked straight into my eyes and said, ‘You can’t kill me.’
I was bewildered. I had a gun in my hand, and I was about to pull the trigger. ‘How can’t I kill you?’ I asked. The man smiled and said, ‘I am eternal. I am not this body; I am a soul. So are you.’
His words were too bewildering for me. I took him inside a room, closed the door, and said, ‘Tell me more about what you’re talking about.’ What impressed me the most was his fearlessness. He wasn’t giving this lecture in an air-conditioned hall; he was speaking these words with a gun pointed at his head.”
The man then explained the essence of the Bhagavad-gita in just 10 minutes—covering topics like “Who am I?”, “What is God?”, “What is karma?”, and even predicting the consequences of killing so many people.
When a devotee fears material association and starts associating with devotees what happens he becomes uninterested in material enjoyment and his real position of bhakti becomes manifest.
Srila Prabhupada
The European devotee continued, “That conversation changed my life. The man who spoke to me was a devotee, and after hearing him, I became a devotee too. I later received a Bhagavad-gita from someone, read it, and was completely transformed. I wanted to share the message of the Gita with others. Although I was still in the army, just as Arjuna was a warrior who heard the Gita, I became dedicated to spreading its teachings.”
Intrigued, the European devotee released the man and asked him where he could find more knowledge like this. The man, always ready to preach, gave him the address of the nearest location where he could learn about the Gita. The European devotee then left the army, joined the association of devotees, attended programs, and eventually became one of the best book distributors in Europe.
He concluded his story by saying, “This is the power of the Bhagavad-gita. Before I read the Gita, I had no clue about the goal of my life, and I was willing to commit any act without considering the consequences. But after studying, following, and practicing the Gita, just see its power—someone who was willing to kill multiple people every day without a second thought now does not even want to kill a mosquito. That’s the power of the Bhagavad-gita.”
(As told by H.H. Bhakti Govinda Swami)