Owls and Other Omens

 The earth trembled, meteors fell from the sky,

and the left side of men’s bodies shivered... 

Observing the inauspicious signs, the cowherd men, including Mahäräja Nanda, 

became very anxious out of fear. 

                                                                                ~Krsna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, 16 

My husband and I left early in the morning while the sky was still dark.  We had business to do in Raleigh, North Carolina.  He rode his motorcycle and I followed him, driving the car.

As we approached the town of Madison, about fifteen minutes from our house, my headlights glanced briefly over the form of a large owl, about two feet tall, standing to my left on the road. The owl and I caught each other's eyes for a split second as I drove past.  Startled by this unprecedented vision (I had never seen an owl in the wild, what to speak of standing on the road right next to me, and what's more, looking straight into my eyes!), I became concerned for my husband's safety, and for my own as well.  Concern grew into fear.  I felt that the owl had been led there by the Lord in his heart, just to give me a sign of something inauspicious to come.

It is said that when a demon sees inauspicious signs, he ignores them.  But when a devotee sees inauspicious signs, he takes shelter of the Lord.  I remembered having read this, so I immediately prayed for my husband's protection and chanted the holy names of the Lord with intense urgency. My husband was just ahead of me on the road, riding his motorcycle.  I watched him carefully and prayed for him for the remainder of the journey.

By Krsna's grace, and to my great relief, we arrived in Raleigh safely.  Our day went well enough, and by the end of the day, nothing untoward had happened.  We headed home, and made it there safely, again by Krsna's grace.  Though our trip to Raleigh was unmarred by calamity, over the next few weeks, I continued to see, hear and feel signs of impending ill luck.

There are many mentions in the scriptures of omens, both auspicious and inauspicious.  In fact, there is a science devoted particularly to understanding messages that come to us through nature. Srila Prabhupada writes, "In a book called Khanara-vacana, the various types of signs and omens are described." (KB 45)

Among other natural messengers, owls are mentioned in the Mahabharata as bearers of bad omens. "All sorts of inauspicious creatures––crows, owls and jackals––filled the air with their cries." (MBK, 2.35)  In the same section of Mahabharata, it is described that while in Dvaraka, Lord Sri Krsna and the citizens of Dvaraka-dhama became alarmed when they heard the cries of owls, jackals and crows.  During that time, they saw and heard many other inauspicious omens in Dvaraka, like earthquakes, bad dreams, rats and mice swarming the streets, and violent wind storms.  Lord Krsna even called a meeting to address the danger-foreboding phenomena that the citizens were seeing.  "O leaders of the Yadu dynasty, please note these terrible omens that have appeared in Dwärakä, just like flags of Death." (Ibid.)  He advised that the citizens move away from the city and that the leaders perform tirtha-yatra and tapasya, and give in charity to brahmanas in order to try to counteract the dangers that such evil portents predicted.

Some people think that those of us who believe in signs from nature are superstitious and that it's all in our imagination.  Although Lord Krsna appeared alarmed by the ill omens seen in Dvaraka, and even proposed suggestions as to how the citizens could counteract the impending dangers predicted by the evil portents, Krsna's devotees understand that omens are real and that they are arranged by the Lord to help mankind understand the future.  "According to Srila Sridhara Swami, the inauspicious sign in the sky was the appearance of a halo around the sun, on the earth there were small earthquakes, and in outer space there was an unnatural redness on the horizon.  These and other, similar omens were impossible to counteract, because they were personally arranged by Lord Krsna." (SB 11.30.4 Ppt)  Also, in the Valmiki Ramayana, it is said that Yamaraja, the demigod in charge of meting out punishments to sinful persons who have departed from their material bodies, sanctions the omens that are presented to embodied souls.  So such signs are not simply imagined by gullible, superstitious people.  They are generated and sanctioned by higher authorities.

After that day in Raleigh, my senses were on high alert.  Several times during the coming two months, I heard owls calling during the daytime and during the night in the forest just behind our house.  Every time I heard an owl call, I remembered what the Native Americans and other peoples around the world say that owls predict: the death of someone near and dear.  Each time I heard an owl call, I immediately took shelter of Krsna's holy names.

Finally, it became clear to me why I had been seeing so many inauspicious signs.  On October 24, 2013, less than two months after my first encounter with an owl, my sister informed me that our dear mother had just left her body that morning.  This mirrored the accounts that I had read about sequences of ill omens followed by the death of someone close.

After realizing that the owls had been predicting my mother's death, I began to recall other omens I had encountered recently.  I had had a dream in which I had seen several large monkeys. Monkeys seen in dreams are also an inauspicious sign.  Some time before that, I had had a dream in which my mother came to give me a warm, loving hug, and then she proceeded to climb a staircase.  After waking up, I had conjectured from this dream that Mom was going to be leaving her body soon, and that she was going to ascend to a "higher place" after her death.

This material world is a prison-like place of misery and death.  Lord Sri Krsna is such a kind Father that He has given us sciences like the science of understanding signs and omens, just to help make our lives here a little easier.  He personally arranges to give us visible, palpable and audible portents that predict the future, so that we can take shelter of Him through proper precautions to avoid unnecessary dangers and difficulties while we're entrapped here and struggling along in this prison-like material world.

Srila Prabhupada has reassured us that because we are trying to be Krsna's devotees, Krsna has personally taken us into His loving care, and is, in fact, even minimizing our sufferings.  So although Krsna allows us to sometimes see scary dreams, or hear the shrill cries of crows, jackals or owls, or feel the earth tremble beneath our feet, as aspiring devotees, we can rest assured that Krsna is always protecting us.

As followers of Srila Prabhupada and as students of Lord Krsna's Bhagavad-gita, we know that we are not these bodies, but that we are the soul inside.  We know that our bodies and the bodies of our loved ones as well as the bodies of all created beings are temporary.  Sooner or later, they will come to an end and the soul will have to leave.  We also know that as aspiring devotees, whatever sufferings come our way, we deserve more than what we're getting.  One could say that just as a beloved child is sheltered from harm by a protective parent, we are "cushioned" by our loving Father from experiencing the intensity of suffering that we really should be experiencing due to our past misdeeds.

But despite this loving cushioning by our protective Father, Lord Sri Krsna, He still wants us to become wizened and take the necessary steps to extricate ourselves from the ever-revolving cycle of repeated births and deaths in this realm.  So while we're still inhabiting these bodies, Krsna very kindly helps us to remember that this material world is a dangerous place, and that it's not our real home. He reminds us in various ways of this fact, including through inauspicious omens and the inauspicious events that follow them.

By the Lord's amazing expertise, a devotee can experience auspicious omens such as throbbing on one side of the body (left side for women, right side for men) soft, fragrant breezes, sparkling rivers, happiness in his heart, and the sounds of geese flying overhead, while others around him are experiencing inauspicious omens.  To illustrate this phenomenon, there is a very nice description of how Satyaki, the Lord's personal friend, observed inauspicous omens at a distance, and at the same time felt the Lord's protection as he personally experienced auspicious omens close by.  "Sätyaki looked around as they sped toward Hastinäpura.  He saw various omens, both earthly and celestial.  Lightning flashed in the cloudless sky, and behind them showers of rain fell.  Rivers flowed backwards and the earth shook.  Sätyaki saw water gushing out of wells and fire blazing up on the horizon.  The atmosphere darkened and loud roars emanated from the sky, although no beings were visible.  Although Sätyaki saw all these terrible signs, the area around the chariot was mild and calm.  A cool breeze blew, carrying fragrant lotus petals and drops of water. The road ahead always seemed smooth and free of debris and thorns." (MBK 1.46 "Krsna's Peace Mission")

An auspicious omen can awaken joy in the heart, whereas an inauspicious omen can stir up feelings of fear. While contemplating the subject of signs and omens, I am reminded of how in the Bhagavad-gita, Krsna tells Arjuna that he should rise above happiness and distress, and become equipoised in his service.  As aspiring devotees, we can learn about the science of prediction based on signs in nature, but we must also learn not to be too concerned with the auspicious or inauspicious events that such omens portend.  Such equanimity is achieved by practicing to depend on Krsna in all circumstances and by always remembering that Krsna is perfectly in control of everything, including every minutely detailed aspect of our life.  A devotee can always feel safe in Krsna's expert hands because he understands that Lord Sri Krsna always has his best interests at heart.  He knows that Krsna has everything under control.  In fact, a devotee knows that not a blade of grass moves--and not an owl, or a crow, or a jackal cries--without the sanction of the Lord.