Tuesday 28 April 2009

Saturday, April 25th, 2009

Habits Hold On

Waikiki Beach, Hawaii

The public at Waikiki are accustomed to the chanting party coming through on the streets. At least shop owners are. The tourists turn over constantly and they are from all over the world.

With some seniority on my side, I tried to implement some standard of orderliness to the party of chanters, which seemed to have some positive effect.

My preference as a venue would be to a quieter park area where you might find more sober humans and hence more thoughtfulness.

Of course, people have slipped into bad habits. Perhaps you have heard it- a habit is like a cozy warm bed, easy to move into but hard to get out of.

Here’s another one. Habits are like a thread. You keep adding and they turn into a rope.

How about this one. Habits start by being too weak to be ‘felt’ and then end up being too strong to be ‘left.”

Whether booze or drugs they consume a person and then spit him or her out.

Here’s a last one. Before you realize that you have got the habit, the habit has got you.

Our guru, Srila Prabhupada, most empathically encouraged abstinence and to explore a pleasure within. Encounter a higher (spiritual) taste and all else appears so secondary.

Hawaii is an interesting place. It harbours natural beauty parallel to high end habits of humans. I see lots of spiritual facilities in Honolulu. Waikiki on the weekend at dusk isn’t much of a place for a monk.

7 Km

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