Sunday, November 16th, 2008

Sun. Nov. 16th, 2008 - Coconut Grove, Florida, USA

Lynnric, a young Norwegian student at FIU in Miami. She and her friend, a young Costa Rican male model had been driving around in the Coconut Grove neighborhood looking for Dharma House, a Buddhist resort. Her intention was to observe ceremonies and ask questions from a spiritual community outside of her own Christianity, as a school assignment. She spotted the robes on me and so her friend, the driver, made a sudden sharp turn to ask about her destination place. I had been walking with physician/friend Dr. Romeu (Murari Gupta is his spiritual name) when they couldn’t resist asking. We had no idea about the whereabouts of the place, but explained about our own Sunday Open House. So Lynn and her friend drove us to the Iskcon temple, where to her surprise were more students doing the same assignment for the same course.

Lynn was detailed about recording all answers to the interview by pen and paper. More students filtered in like a high tide coming in, some from the secondary school level. They all appeared quite excited about the monks and lay-members of our community (largely Hispanic) with our very outgoing approach to spirituality. With approximately seven drums resounding in an actively sharp acoustical room, it was in my estimation, a bit over-kill in the volume department. The mantra was drowned out at times. The students still appreciated the vibe though. Devotees enjoyed dancing and students enjoyed watching. I was not able to cover much mileage on foot but my mouth motored-off plenty to an inquisitive bunch of sincere seekers. For them it was not just a service they saw, but a group of blissful people sprung into action with an important message to tell them.

3 Km