kamalamala1 wrote:... very rare people use their free will properly for their (own) benefit...
One more thing about the situations chosen by ones own free will I would like to share with you Kamalamala. I don´t know if you were ever imprisoned, but I was. It was in December 1986 when I went with another devotee friend of mine, Brihad-bhanu, on a travel with our Ford Transit van which was loaded with hundred of books to distribute them in West Berlin. First, Brihad-bhanu drove the van while we started our journey from the Nrsimha farm in the Bavarian forest than after we crossed succesfully the border to East Germany and were on our way to West Berlin, he felt a little bid tired after traveling for about 500 km and we changed the driving of the van. It was so that on the highway there was much snow on some places and somehow after driving a few kilometers myself I unexpectedly lost control over the car. The car weels started sliping in the snow and all of a sudden I was slipping with my van on the opposite side of the highway. There it so happend that a Trabant car, which was driven by a woman, crashed with high speed in the side of my van. My van was slipping over the street and my car overturned on the side of the snow covered road. Brihad-bhanu was thrown out from the car when the car overturned and the back door of the car oppened and also all the books were lying in the snow.
After some time the East-German police came and also the emergency car which took the badly hurt East German woman to the hospital. I later heard that she broke her two legs at the accident when her small Trabant car crashed with my big Ford Transit van, but she survived the car crash. I and Brhad-bhanu were not heart at all. The police took us first to the local police station for interogation. At the interogatory they wanted to know who was driving the car and I said that I was the driver. Than after some time we were all of a sudden separated from each other, Brihad-bhanu was droven by the police back to the accidented car in order to take it away from there and I was put in another car and were driven to the local prison.
First, I thought that after a few days I would be freed from there since all this was an unlucky car accident and not something I did deliberately in order to hurt the other car drivers. In a nutshell my hope lasted eight month in order to become reality. It would have become reality much more earlier because everything depended on me and my free will. Now you might ask how is that? It was namely so that after one week or so, I do not know exactly how many days it were, an elegantly dressed man showed up in my prison and spoke to me. He presented himself to be my attorney. After a few minutes of discussing with me he came to the point. He told me that it would be very easy for me to be freed from this prison i was in and go home, even tomorow, the only thing that I would have to do is contact my familiy members or anyone I would know from outside and convince them to send 50 000 German Mark to a certain East German banc account in order for me to get freed until my court would began in about four month. Than I could present myself to the court and get my money back, of course if sentenced I would have to stay in prison, or if I would not come to the court the money would become state property. I asked the lawyer for how long I would have to expect to enter prison for the car accident which was caused by me. He said straightforwardly it would be around eight month I would have to stay in prison.
I said to him at our discussion that I could not decide about this, for me, great ammount of money so quikly and that I would let him know the next days what I would decide in this regard. We said to each other goodbye and the man left me. After a few days I was letting him know that I decided to not give this great ammount of money to the East German state authorities and that I rather would accept to stay in prison this eight month if I would be sentenced at the court so. By the way I felt myself completelly guiltless since in my country West Germany you would not be punished to go to prison because you caused a car accident. Just in very rare cases if driving the car while in a drunken state or something similar.
But this so called east German lawyer did not gave up so quikly to get to the money - for the state of course - only later I read somewhere that he would get also a part from that money. He contacted my parents and also Brihad-bhanu from the German farm and they together organized to get this 50 000 Mark together with the help of a rich devotee who rented to them the most part of that money and were sending them to the bank account of the East German state autorities so that I could be freed from prison. All that happened behind my back and without my approval while I was staying in the East Berlin prison. Than the time of the court came, it was exactly the day of Nrsimha Caturdasi in May 1987. There I met this lawyer again and also many family members from the woman who was hurt at the accident which became well again in the meantime. The court went on and than it was stopped so that the chief judge, a woman, could consult with the other judges and pronounce my sentence.
In the meantime the lawyer took me in another room and explaned to me that I could be freed this very day, the only thing what I would have to do is to sign a paper he already prepared to be signed by me which would mention that I would be in agreement to pay to the East German state authorities the ammount of 50 000 Mark. That paper he presented to me was a real eye opener for me, I did not expected this, nor did I knew that the money would already be in the hands of the East German state. I became so furious about what this so called lawyer did to me that I shouted at him, I don`t know exactly the words I said to him in my angry mood, but I said something that I would rather prefer to stay in prison than to give any money to this, in my eyes unlawful, Communistic state authorities.
Our discussion ended abrubtly and he accompanied me to the court again. There the female judge explained to me the sentence I already expected and which was already said to me by this lawyer. I had to stay eight month in prison for causing a car accident on the East German highway to Berlin. Now the reason why I tell you all this, dear Kamalamala, is that no-one and nothing can take away your free will, not even while beeing and having to stay captive in a state prison. You are always the one who is the decider, no one else. The basic point of everything one may do in life is that one should do it proactively out of ones own accord and take him-/herself also the responsibility for the outcome of whatever situations one may find oneself in in ones life.
This whole episode I happened to be in back than in 1986/1987 had even an in my eyes good side. After three weeks or so in the prison room I was staying until than alone another man from West Germany was put in prison. He caused also without any much guilt on his part, a big car crash with his German truck, he was a professionaly truck driver, on a East German road at night. He had to pay 100 000 German Mark in order to be freed from prison otherwise he would have to face a prison sentence in that East German prison of one year and a few month.
I convinced him also to not pay anything to that, as I viewed it back than, corrupt East German state and instead stay in prison and after he would be freed he would be without any debts to anyone. He listened to me and stood instead in prison, later he wrote me a letter when he was freed from prison where he thanked me that I convinced him to not indept himself his whole life. Another man with whom I became a good friend while we were staying together in that East Berlin prison even visited me on the German farm where I took care of the agriculture and the cows at that time and helped me there for a few month. He had to stay for seven years in that prison because he wanted to smuggle ones someone hidden in his car over the East German border to West Germany and was caught by the customs officer at the border.
Another man payed 15 000 Mark to be freed from prison, he had knocked down in an East German town with his car a streetlamp. If he would have not payed, he was a wealthy company owner from West Germany, he would have had to stay for 6 month in that prison. In that way that corrupt East German Communistic state made money with the car accidents and misfortune of the people from the West, especially those from West Germany. And not only that ones I was visited in that prison in East Berlin also by a well dressed spy from the East German Stasi, the East German spy organization, which was similar to the KGB in Russia. He tried hard to convince me to become a spy in West Germany for the Stasi and offered me, if I would be willing to do so, to be freed from prison the very next day. I did not agreed to his promising proposal and that was good so, since when I was freed from prison after exactly eight month, and crossed by train the East German border in the town of Hof, I was received by a man, a spy from the West German Verfassungsschutz. He showed me a few photos where I could recognize in one photo that East German spy who visited me ones in that prison in East Berlin. In this way this two German spy organizations controlled each other on a reciprocal basis for the benefit of their particular country and its organizations.