Saturday, June 25th, 2011

A Teenager Wants To Grow

Brampton Ontario

The young teenager didn't want to be left out. His two older sisters were taking the bold step towards receiving diksha, a spiritual initiation. I agreed, as their candidate guru, to arrange for the future procedure for July 17th to be conducted at the Toronto Islands. One of the sisters, Patsy, has a career, and is married. Nalini, is single, and just a bit younger, has been following in the footsteps of her Dad, in business.

Their younger bro., Sanatan, didn't want to be left behind. He has been chanting a prescribed 16 rounds on his meditational beads for some time, a prerequisite for diksha. In addition from any intoxicants, does not gamble, or engage in illicit sex, and avoids eating meat, fish or eggs.

When I met Sanatan's father whose name I remember clearly as Willy back in the early ninties there was some resistence to tossing the meat out of the diet. Literally "throw out" were words strongly suggested by a friend of mine, who told Willy of his freshly bought chicken lying in the fridge's shelf. Willy reluctantly took the bird's dead body out of the fridge and tossed it in the garbage. As soon as the coast was clear, Willy, who was a new comer to Krishna Conciousness, went to the supermarket to purchase another chicken when my friend left the home.

It took sometime for Willy and family to adjust but gradually such dead animal body parts were kicked out of the diet. At the time of conversion Sanatan wasn't even conceived. To this day he doesn't know what chicken tastes like, let alone a drumstick. Lucky him.

"Why can't I jump on the band wagon with my sisters?" he thought.

So with encouragement from his dad, now Vaishnav by name, his mom, Janaki, Sanatan asked if he could be initiatied along with his sisters. After analyzing his situation I said, "Yes, why not?"

Sanatan was happy that he would now have officially, and in spirit a guru. According to the Gita to advance spiritual life one seeks the aid of the guru.

7 Km