Saturday, February 21st, 2009

Toronto, Ontario

Indradyumna Swami and I sat in front of a group of local youths from the community in what we call the yellow room. As the guest of honour he spoke.

“My parents were both graduates of Stanford University. They were brilliant.” He went on to say that he didn’t follow their same studious past and so they asked him while he was in his youth, “What are you going to do with yourself?” He wasn’t able to give a clear answer and then he met some Krishna monks who had a tremendous impact. He discovered chanting and that was it. Life turned around.

In the room of the glowing youth many of the listeners held in their right hand a pouch or what’s called a bead bag which holds the individual’s meditational beads. Indradyumna, who is a very revered monk known for his organizing of grandiose spiritual festivals, noted that most of the listeners were daily chanters. Then he put a good word in for commitment and shooting for the golden figure of sixteen.

“Sixteen” refers to sixteen revolutions of 108 beads chanted. Each strand of beads numbers 108 of those beads. It was the expressed desire of our guru, Srila Prabhupada, to chant this prescribed amount of mantras daily. So the number “16” is etched in stone and Indradyumna was encouraging all present to shoot for that target which is a strong commitment of two hours daily.

After the fine session of emphasizing chanting I showed Indradyumna a new publication I picked up on my last trip to the States. The newspaper with one of those “zine” formats is called “Sixteen Rounds” and can be found on the internet at www.16Rounds.com. Articles of content are topical and attractive and are geared towards the well-being of all living entities, promoting spiritualiy and exposing the faults of materialism. The youth will love it. It’s a gem of a publication.

That’s 16 ROUNDS!