Thursday, October 22nd, 2009

The Good Past

Toronto, Ont.

I stopped by to see a god-brother at his vintage clothing shop. His name is Kuladev and is originally from Brazil. He was formerly in his pre-marriage years a brhamacari (monk) leading a strict life. In the setting of Kuladev’s store with old time clothing dating back to the twenties he got to reminiscing about life, when he was single.

“I would get up at 1:30 am each morning, shower, put on my devotional clothes and chant on my beads, study and then go out distributing Prabhupada’s books on the buses. I would give out six to seven hundred books a day. I had become the top distributor (amongst the brahmacaris) in all of Brazil.”

All this he recollects in great fondness.

“I then went to India to be a pujari (priest). In Rio and Vrindavana (India) I had the best years of my life. And I was so focused and happy .

Knowing Kuladev I have found him to maintain a level of higher consciousness over the years even though buried in business. He has three such vintage shops two of which are called, “Flashback 1” and “Flashback 2” in hipster Kensington Market.

I had been walking about searching for a cabinet for my drama scripts and other hard copy material to do with my administrative tasks as well as clippings and other related material to do with marathon walking. I ended up in this side of town and my highlight of the day was seeing Kuladev and hearing him become a child again, so to speak, telling of the good old days. He definitely went into his own flashback in recollection of his time of purity and innocence.

“Please”, I asked him, “come to the temple one day and tell all about your glorious past when you would announce in Portuguese your message of living in harmony with nature to passengers and how they took to receiving, reading and enjoying those books.”

Kuladev said he would find such time to do that. “After Halloween when my stores are less busy,” he said as he was complying to the need to recall the good stuff of the past. “I would love to.”

As I trekked back to the ashram I thought “Kuladev was caught up in the practice of remembering or as the technical term is in Sanskrit “smaranam, going back mentally to the good past.

12 Km