Thursday 9 April 2009

Tuesday, April 7th, 2009

Durban, South Africa

To walk in South Africa you might consider your neighborhood. My place of residence at the temple in Chatsworth (near Durban) is situated in a mediocre-safe vicinity. I will not be shy to say as the sacred texts, the Vedas, say that in this material world there is no safe place. At every step there is potential death.

Going “goom goom” as it is said in Hindi or “round & round” is the most secure path custom-made to circle the temple. Clockwise circumambulation around sacred ground has been a practice since time immemorial for pilgrims.

A brief amount of walking is all I have time for. Today’s rehearsals kept me going for a good twelve hours. It’s no burden for me as long as cooperation among actors and technical people prevails. A film director who has worked with some of the screen greats such as Richard Burton, Allan Bates, Rod Stergis, Johnny Depp, and others told me about his career. “It’s an obsession. It’s not work at all. It’s an obsession.”

And that’s certainly the way I feel about drama in spiritual consciousness. There is so much to gain from performance with a message and what to speak of the good passions behind a theatrical formation.

Thank God that our guru, Srila Prabhupada, gave me so much support to transcendental theater.

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