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Mr. Dangerfield joins the Hare Krishnas – "what's a guy gotta do??"

  [Note - it is necessary for the reader to know who Rodney Dangerfield is, or they may not understand this joke, so there is commentary at the end to give context, and show how this relates to our devotee society.] 

This is the story of how Rodney Dangerfield read some of Srila Prabhupada's books, and then he decided to become a Hare Krishna, and move into the temple. He asked the TP what he should do for Krishna and the TP said, "Just use your talents in Krishna's service."

So, one night at the Sunday feast, he did his routine, standing at
the microphone in dhoti, sikha and tilaka.

"What's a guy gotta do to get a little respect around here?" Rodney
tugs his neckbeads with two fingers and stretched his neck out and
jerked his jaw around with a plaintive expression on his face, "Ya
know, I just can't get no respect!"

"Ya know, the other day they asked me to give the Srimad Bhagavatam
class, and they announced it at Tulasi puja, and nobody came. Well, I said to myself, `Ok, I'll just preach to the four walls.' And so I
was just preaching away and then I heard a low rasping sound. `What
is that?' I asked myself, and I stopped to listen. It was snoring!!
Even the four walls fell asleep!! Later I found out there was a
devotee sleeping and snoring in the hall." [he tugs his neckbeads and jerks his head around, "What's a guy gotta do to get a little respect around here?"]

"Ya know, I've been a Bhakta for six months now, and there's new
Bhaktas coming all the time, some here only a few weeks, and already, all of them are cleaning the temple and cutting veggies in the kitchen, and I'm still cleaning the stool room! So I goes up to the temple commander and says, `what's a guy gotta do to get a little seniority around here?' and he goes, `you're as senior as they come,Rod, and besides, you got so much talent, the stool room's never been so clean, and it's hard to replace an act like that." Rod tugs at his neckbeads and grimaces, and says, "how much talent does it take to scrub a toilet? I can't get no respect."

"Can't get no respect," Rod says as he tugs at his neckbeads, "Ya
know, the other day I had to disguise myself as an old man, put gray
in my hair, hunch my back and hobble around with a cane, just so some devotees would open the door for me and show me a little respect." [he tugs at beads and says, "no respect."]

"Ya know it? Every time I walk in the room, some devotee rushes to
light some incense. Yeah, ok, I know that devotees in old bodies
sometimes have a little smell, old people do that, but this is
ridiculous. Do they have to make it so obvious? Every time I raise my arms in kirtan, some Brahmacari makes a face like there's a
smell in the air." [tugs at his neckbeads and say, "what's a guy gotta do to  get a little respect around here?"]

"The other day I was trying to give the Bhagavad-gita class, and some Brahmacaris were taking subji in the hall, and one pokes his head around the corner and say, "Hey prabhu, can you hold it down in there a little? We're trying to take subji here, can ya give us a little peace?" [tugs on beads, and says, "I just can't get no respect."]

"Can you believe it? The temple has this pet parrot, and this parrot
only says two words, Hare and Krishna. He's never said anything else. Well, [tugs at neckbeads] I walked into the room the other day, it was just me and the parrot, and he pointed his wingtip at me in derision, and chanted, "Godas, Godas, Godas" over and over again, and laughing hysterically so much he fell off his perch." [tugs at
beads, "I can't get no respect round here."]

"The other day I was giving the Sunday feast lecture, and I tell ya,
devotees are so rude sometimes! Devotees were walking in and out all
the time, making so much noise, I could hardly hear myself talk. Some Mataji motioned me to quiet it down a little, her baby was soundly asleep and I was waking her up! There were hysterical peals of laughter out in the hall all the time. After 20 minutes everyone was sleeping or staring out into space. Some devotees were yawning and looking down at their watch, making sure I saw them do it, and then giving me the evil eye. When I said, `we're not these bodies,' some devotees looked at me as if they were insulted. Finally I said, `Jai, ok, it's time to take the feast!!' Immediately all the devotees from the hall came pouring into the temple room with a roar, dancing like madmen and chanting, `Jai, Haribol, Finally, glory, glory, he's done, he's done!!." [he tugs at his neckbeads and says, "I tell ya, a guy can't get no respect around here!"]

Then Rod told a joke and nobody laughed, and he said, "what's a guy
gotta do to get a little canned laugher around here?"

Comments-

This joke isn't about ridiculing devotees, maybe you have to be a citizen of the USA, and 40-50 years old, to know who Rodney Dangerfield is, very funny man. His constant line is, "I can't get no respect." The joke is just about him being a devotee and doing his comedy routine. If you ever saw his routine, then you would get the joke. And most of us Americans over 40 have seen his
routine.

Rodney Dangerfield is funny, because he points out that in our materialistic society, actually nobody respects the other person. He makes an exaggeration out of this fact. We are all envious of each other, this is what he is saying, actually he's saying the same thing we say, but in a language the common man understands, and makes it funny. Rodney says that his wife and friends, his dog, no one gives him any respect, and Americans relate to this, they see it in their own lives, and the exaggeration makes it funny. Actually it is a tragedy where everyone is exposed at being envious and
selfish, but the comedy routine makes it funny, though true.

So Rodney joins the Hare Krishnas, this is good, but he still makes the same kind of jokes, but they are exaggerated. Because, even though we are devotees, and we know to respect all others, still in our kanistha stage, we sometimes tend to be impersonal to each other, and to the non-devotees also. So Rodney picks up
on this tendency to be impersonal, but in an exaggerated way.

Since he is a bhakta, he still needs to learn the lesson of not being desirous of receiving any respect from others, but to just give others respect. This is the lesson that we all learn as Bhaktas, to reach that stage of humility where we understand that respect is better to give than receive. In fact, we must give
all respect to others, before we can ever begin to get a little respect in return. This is the lesson that Rodney is slowly learning.

Otherwise, it's just a joke. Some like it, and maybe some don't. Some have to analyze it to death. Everyone is different, so some relate to it and some don't. If you don't think it's funny, then let it go. The tendency to analyze it to death means that it has somehow touched a question in your mind, maybe we see the
same thing in ourselves, that we need to work on just giving respect, and not expecting it, and therefore it has some value.

This is very interesting on many platforms, even psychologically and logically, because sometimes I have noticed that this ideal of respect-giving we are propagating as devotees is something that looks very nice in a book or in a speech, but in reality sometimes it is impossible to know what to make of it. It is a wonderful principle but not always so easy to understand practically. This is because everyone, including Krishna devotees, are individuals and subject to their own sets of mind, intelligence and ego.  So we should remember that it is not an absolute truth that only the newcomer bhaktas are the ones who need to be taught humility. The custom of giving respect to others can be grossly misused by someone who takes for granted that he is on a higher platform just because he´s been in the movement for a longer period of time or has a responsible position, as well as by someone who knows he is a beginner but tries to appear as being more advanced. And the idea of hierarchy, in which we discriminate between bhaktas and initiates, men and women, superior and inferior, temple president and dishwasher, sannyasi and grihastha - is itself a perfect breeding ground for misuse of respect. So one must be careful and not just depend on the superficial differences between certain members of a community in order to decide how amounts of respect are to be distributed. I have seen myself several examples of "highly-advanced" temple presidents and maharajas who have taken advantage of the fact that they are always given respect automatically. In any case, it is not the giving or receiving of respect that is dangerous in spiritual life, but the tendency to *expect" respect. I personally believe that everyone is worthy of respect, not just according to external position. BM

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Be here now - be somewhere else later, what's so complicated? - Swami Beyondananda

We live in a decaying age. Young people no longer respect their parents. They are rude and impatient. They frequently inhabit taverns and have no self control. Inscription, 6,000 year-old Egyptian tomb

Birbal, the brahmin, was so wise that King Akbar decided to become a brahmin, too. Birbal tried to convince him that it was enough to be a good man, but Akbar insisted and demanded a ceremony. Claiming he was taking Akbar to a holy man who could turn the Moghul into a Hindu brahmin, Birbal escorted him along a river where they found a man scrubbing a donkey. The man explained, "I am changing my donkey into a horse. A holy man [Birbal in disguise] said that if I stood by a river and scrubbed my donkey, it would turn into a horse." Akbar laughed at the fool. "It won't work. It can't work." When Birbal laughed, Akbar realized he had been tricked.

Vani or Vapu??

LHASA, TIBET: Employing the brash style that first brought him to prominence, Sri Dhananjai Bikram won the fifth annual International Yogi Competition yesterday with a world-record point total of 873.6. "I am the serenest!" Bikram shouted to the estimated crowd of 20,000 yoga fans, vigorously pumping his fists. "No one is serener than Dhananjai Bikram--I am the greatest monk of all time!" Bikram averaged 1.89 breaths a minute during the two-hour competition, nearly .3 fewer than his nearest competitor, second-place finisher and two-time champion Sri Salil "The Hammer" Gupta. The heavily favored Gupta was upset after the loss. "I should be able to beat that guy with one lung tied," Gupta said. "I'm beside myself right now, and I don't mean trans-bodily." Bikram enjoyed a fast start at the Lhasa meet, which like most major competitions, is a six-event affair. In the first event, he attained total consciousness (TC) in just 2 minutes, 34 seconds, and set the tone for the rest of the meet by repeatedly shouting, "I'm blissful! You blissful? I'm blissful!" to the other yogis. From a purely fictional report circulating on the Internet

Some officials were trying to persuade an elderly lady not to make a long trip to India, fearing for her health.

She said, “I vant to go to India.”

“ No, no Mrs. Goldstein, India is a very hot and harsh place for an elderly woman.”

“But I vant to go to India.”

“No no Mrs. Goldstein, it is so hard to get cabs and get good food there, and there’s no toilet paper!”

“But I vant to go to India.”

“Well, Mrs. Goldstein, ok, there’s nothing we can say to persuade you otherwise, here is your passport for India.”

So Mrs. Goldstein flew to New Delhi and traveled on train for many hard miles to a small town far away in the northern mountains and had to even take an oxen cart for a long journey, and she finally reached the famous yogi’s ashram. There were throngs of people there waiting to have a brief interview with the famous guru. Mrs. Goldstein waited in a long line of people for eight hours, and finally she was nearing the end of the queue. She could see people prostrating and supplicating before the yogi who was sitting on a throne-like cushioned seat. When she was almost to the end of the line, the assistants of the yogi told her that since there were so many people coming to see the famous guru, that she could only speak 6 words, and 6 words only. 

Finally she stood face to face with the yogi, and his servants prompted her, reminding her to speak only 6 words, and she said, “Sheldon, its your mother, come home!”

This is a true and funny story. I used to live in Santa Cruz CA around the
early 90’s, and we, actually the whole state of CA devotees, used to have these
summer campouts every year, usually at Big Sur. Hundreds of devotees would come
from all over the state and set up tents and have campfire kirtans, so on, it
was really ecstatic. One summer we camped near a huge lake, and we all had to
walk through the trees and over some hills to get to our campsite. It was quite
a hike. 

There was one devotee, of the name of Raghava, who came with his son. They
somehow got lost from the group and didn’t know where the devotee camp spot
was. So they bedded down where they were. Raghava told something like this to
his son, “Don’t worry, we’ll find the devotees in the morning. All we have to
do is just listen closely for the sounds of fighting and argumentation, and we
just walk towards these sounds of arguments. There are no other groups like
devotees who are fond of arguing, therefore it will be easy to find their camp,
for there will be loud arguments by which we can find our direction.” Sure
enough, the next morning they heard loud bickering and arguments off in the
distance, and they easily found their way back to the devotees. 

A minister in King Akbar's court hated Birbal. He couldn't understand why Akbar made such a fuss over a Hindu. Akbar said, "It's not because he is a Hindu that I have him here, but because he's so intelligent and helps me whenever I have a problem. I don't think there's a single problem that he can't solve or a single question he can't answer." "What exaggeration!" the minister thought. One day the minister said to Akbar, "If there is any question Birbal can't solve, will you make me prime minister?" Akbar laughingly agreed. The next day in court, the minister asked Birbal, "Tell me how many stars there are in the sky." Birbal requested ten minutes to think of an answer, left the court and returned with a goat. He said, "If the minister wants to know how many stars there are in the sky, he should count the number of hairs on this goat. That will give him the exact number." 

An aspiring yogi wanted to find a guru. He went to an ashram and his guru 
told him, "You can stay here, but we have one important rule--all students 
observe mauna, a vow of silence. You will be allowed to speak two words every 
12 years." After practicing yoga asanas, breath control, meditation and 
service for 12 long years, the day came when the student could speak to the 
guru. He said: "Bed hard." They fixed that, and he kept going for another 12 
years of silence, hard sadhana and austere discipline and got the opportunity 
to speak once again. He said: "Food salty." Twelve more years passed, and he 
spoke again. "I quit," he said. His guru replied, "Good. All you've ever done 
since you got here is complain anyway."

An American businessman was vacationing in a small Indian coastal town when a 
villager walked past with his bullock pulling a cart full of mangos. The 
American complimented the Indian on the quality of his fruit and asked if he 
had considered expanding his orchard and increasing his income. The Indian 
replied no, that he had enough to support his family's immediate needs with 
just a morning's work. The American asked, "But what do you do with the rest 
of your time?" The Indian said, "I wake up early, finish my work by noon, 
have lunch, play with my children, take an afternoon nap, and stroll into the 
village each evening where I sip lassi and casually visit with my friends." 
The American, a Harvard MBA, offered to help the poor farmer and went on to 
explain how he could expand his orchards, open his own grocery business, buy 
a fleet of trucks to ship his produce around the country, or perhaps around 
the world. Eventually he could take his business public, sell stock and make 
millions. "And what would I do then?" the Indian asked. The American replied, 
"That's the best part. You could retire and live a simple life. Move to a 
small coastal village, play with your grandchildren, take afternoon naps, 
build a garden for your wife, and stroll to the village in the evenings to 
sip lassi and casually visit with your friends."

Where’d Nityananda go? 
I don’t know!
You know how when you go out on Hari-nama and the chanting gets real intense 
and devotees huddle around each other like a football huddle, and they hunch 
over and everybody’s face is all there in the center, all looking each other 
in the eyes, all grinning and chanting real loud? You know, the mrdanga 
players are beating the heck out of the drums, the kartal player’s hands are 
moving so fast that you can’t see them, just a blur? And the devotees are 
getting this mad look on their faces? And the dancing is getting wild, with 
occasion wild jumping up and down? And the chants are getting real intense 
and real loud, and people are gathering around in amazement, just gawking at 
the devotees? You know what I mean? Well, there was this bhakta who, for some 
reason, always heard the words wrong. The chanting party got into this 
huddle, and the lead singer would start, "Gour Nityananda bol!!" and the 
response singers would sing "Hari bol, Hari bol!!" You know? Well, the bhakta 
misheard them, and he thought the lead singer was yelling, "where'd 
Nityananda go??" Like it was some kind of big question to the others, like 
where did Nityananda go? Apparently the lead singer thought that Nityananda 
went off somewhere, and he wanted to know where. And then the bhakta thought 
that the response singers were answering his question, and singing, "I don’t 
know … I don’t know!!" You know, the lead singer was yelling the question, 
"where did Nityananda go??" staring into the others faces, mrdangas blazing, 
kartals clanging, and the others were enthusiastically yelling back into his 
face, with gleeful grins, "I don’t know! I don’t know!"

Then the lead singer would ask again, like he didn’t understand their answer, 
saying, "Well where? Oh where did Nityananda go??!!" Like he was thinking, 
"Hey man, you know, like I asked you once before, and all you say is "I don’t 
know," but you say it like you are happy that you don’t know!! So I’m asking 
again, and I’m serious," again, "where did Nityananda go??" And the devotees 
would again, respond in ecstatic glee, "I don’t know … I don’t know!!" Like 
it was some really ecstatic thing that they didn’t know where Nityananda 
went!!

Well, after about a year, the bhakta started to wonder what was going on. I 
mean like, its been a whole year, and the lead guy is always asking this 
question, "Where did Nityananda go?" And they’ve always been saying, "I don’t 
know … I don’t know!!" Like if he doesn't know by now, after a whole year, 
then why don’t he just give it up?? And why do they keep saying "I don’t know 
.. I don’t know"?? You know, if they don’t know, and they keep saying so, 
then why does he keep asking??? Well, eventually the bhakta came around and 
asked a godbother, "What is it, that they are saying??" Well, I guess he 
found out. Well, you know, Nityananda never went anywhere, he was always 
there with the chanting. Haribol, Haribol.

God does not play dice with the universe; there is an order and reason for all of life. Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
 

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