Monday 27 September 2010

Saturday, September 25th, 2010

Two of Us Meet

Kingston, Ontario

In this city located smack in the middle of Montreal and Toronto I came to see a dear friend Prabhapati. He works for a company that restores old churches. In the seventies we lived together with a group of other monks in the ashram.

When coming together with peers that you haven’t communicated with for some time and when there is a likelihood that communication will be somewhat limited the time spent becomes precious. I lost track of Prabhapati a few years ago. Even his email address was dissolved. Lo and behold a message came from him last summer. I was glad to hear he was alive and well. You can’t be too sure who lives dangerously or not.

We met at Macdonald park were there is an honourific statue of Sir John A. Macdonald, Canada’s first Prime Minister. The quote inscribed at the base reads, “ A British subject I was born. A British subject I will die. “ It sounds like his times were days of mixed fear and courage or just plain dangerous.

Prabhapati and I got “caught up” on things. He remains still very much connected to Krishna and Guru, judging by his words it wasn’t in me to ask him how he fared with his vows to Guru. In some ways it’s not my business and it was not my intent to be judgmental. (Who needs to go mental anyways?)

We relished the “old times” when we were younger and more passionate. Of the two he appeared to me to be the more passive and pensive one. He was the meticulous artist and had done paintings for BBT books.

I guess, down the road, so to speak, people will perceive our age group as pioneers of Krishna Consciousness. After all we did work hard, in fact we worked our butts off. We didn’t mind at all.

Time was short and I was to dash off to the city of Mississauga for an evening chanting session. A warm farewell concluded the exchange
Until next visit…

7 KM

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