“I am never lost to one who sees Me in all things and sees all things in Me, nor is he ever lost to Me”…

Yesterday I started a split shift at Red Hat Asia Pacific where I work. We cover the phone calls from North America’s 6pm-9pm, which is 8am-11am local time in Brisbane Australia, and then we handle overflow from the EMEA (Europe Middle East Asia) region in their 9am-11am timeframe, which is our 6pm-9pm. The glories of globalization.

When I say I started a split shift, I was supposed to start a split shift. What actually happened was a different story. Rewind to the day before. I am talking with my coworker Wade: “Dude, the EMEA rollover is not going to happen tomorrow”. “Why not?” “Well you see, there is a big festival on at the temple, so I have been praying to Krishna that it won’t happen.” “What? It is soooo going to happen. You can pray to whatever little Deity you like, but the EMEA rollover is happening!” “It’s not happening man. Forget it. It is off.”

You see, yesterday was the appearance day of Srimati Radharani. Srimati Radharani is the “Hare” in Hare Krishna. God is not just male, both male and female aspect are there, in perfect harmonic relationship. So the appearance day of Srimati Radharani is as important, if not more so in some senses, than the appearance day of Krishna, which we recently celebrated.

The scheduling of the EMEA rollover for this day was particularly inauspicious for me, and I worried about what I would do. Would I be consigned to a mundane environment during this important spiritual festival? Don’t get me wrong - working at Red Hat is great, but on the one day of the year when devotees chant Radharani’s name in kirtan, I would rather be in the temple.

So the day ended, and there was no announcement of the cancellation of the EMEA rollover. The next day we began at 8am, during the NA twilight, and fielded calls from US customers. I looked up at my picture of Sri Sri Radha-Giridhari, the Radha-Krishna deities installed in the farm in Auckland, New Zealand and said to myself: “Krishna is not for fulfilling our desires, we are for fulfilling the desires of Krishna. Dear Radharani, my personal desire is to go to the temple tonight, but whatever happens is Your will.”

By Radharani’s arrangement, I spent several hours alone on this day. In the middle of the day we were free to leave, and had to be back at 5pm. I spent some time sitting at the train station working on the study guide for “Science of Self Realization”. Returning to work at 5pm the announcement came.

EMEA roll-over put off until the next day.

“So Wade, are you a believer?” “No!”

“Well, believe or not - see you later!” “What? You’re leaving?”

“Hey, I didn’t arrange for the EMEA roll-over to be cancelled to stay here….”