Toronto, Ontario
When I say it was a colourful day, I'm not referring to the spring flowers you observe in residential gardens. I spent a good four hours in a Human Rights Tribunal over an interesting merry-go-round issue that came to little resolve. Our mediation person found it an unique experience. It was not like a bland curry. It was spiced up. This can only remind us that human nature is a phenomena of complexities. I always admired the simplistic ways of wildlife. In my regular strolls I watch it and envy a more predictable behaviour there.
From the Tribunal office you are looking at a mere 3 Km walking distance from my home, the ashram. It's so central - our location. And on the same Bay St. not but ten minutes from there is St. Basil's Church, the venue for the funeral service of Professor Joseph T. O'Connell. Father Donovan presided over the occasion with the modest yet powerful series of presenters who spoke eloquently of this noted scholar of world religions and who completed at Harvard his Ph.D thesis in Chaitanya Vaishnavism. His wife, Kathleen, daughter Dierdre, and sons Mark and Matthew were present.
I was asked to speak at the reception from the standpoint of the professor's involvement in helping to establish our particular brand of Vaishnavism in the lineage of Chaitanya which is reflected by the great work of our guru, Srila Prabhupada. At the reception there was a comfortable mingling of friends, faculty members and of course, more family.
He was in many ways a visionary and activist type of scholar who planted many seeds of paradigm shifts leaning from prejudice to tolerance and acceptance. We have a great regard for this pundit and well wisher of the Hare Krishna movement.
9 Km
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