Two Worlds
Toronto, Ontario
A royal wedding, Bin Laddin's death and a national election is what a mundane world is engrossed in. They are relevant but relative. Over the Internet devotees were drawing an interesting comparison to a more Absolute world - the marriage of Sita to Rama, the death of mega-demon, Kamsa and citizens happy with a life-long Vedic monarch. This all makes for lively discussion.
Back to our world. A group of us took to a late-coming spring walk. If Toronto is the raccoon capital of the world, there is no reason to doubt. A whole group of them perched on lofty branches had their loud screeching party. It certainly caught our attention. And to add to Sunday morning joy a brilliant red cardinal bird appeared to follow us monks on our trail. "Is he looking for a mate?" asked one of our renunciates.
"Yeah, everyone's got a problem," joked another one.
Monks can joke too.
Our evening temple open house program featured the launch of this year's Ratha Yatra season. You could feel the intense spiritual drive motivated by a youthful committee who unveiled this year's (the 39th) promotional image - a bearded happy-faced wheat-toned Vaishnava male suspending in the air a musical drum in celebration of the colourful event. The image has that Oriya-edge to it and it looks great, not mundane in the least.
I had to sit there feeling blessed about the culture of transcendence that I'm part of. I became a monk thirty-eight years ago and have had a chance to flip both sides of the coin. I've seen the mundane and swam in the insane. Now I'm locked in God's arms and things will never be the same. There's all these beautiful bright images and a spiritual way of viewing these objects.
2 KM
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