Making Connections
Brampton, Ontario
Daruka, my support person for this year's trek through half of Canada, sent me a DVD featuring his photos of CanWalk 4 highlights. He did a fine job covering the journey with subtitles, "Towns and Villages", "It's About Meeting People", "Making Friends", "Damn the Car", and "Cycling". It was well received at ISKCON Brampton and Toronto. Naturally the presentation's aim was to promote pilgrimage.
Pilgrim I am; maybe a city pilgrim. After the Sunday feast in Toronto, I took to the streets with intent to chant on my beads and make the connections. The maha mantra rolled off the tongue while feet were in motion.
I met a fellow who is by profession a cook. It's not the first time I met him. We had a former discussion about life and about whether a divine power really existed or not. He went on and on in the conversation in what seemed like perpetual speculation. This time around he was attempting to do the same. Before he lay out his doubt I suggested, "Listen, when you cook up a great gourmet meal you don't intellectualize the product. You eat it and you appreciate it."
On Queen Street, further down on my walk I met another chap who has origins from Hungary but born in Canada. He met one of our monks, Shivarama Swami, on the phone on his way to Budapest. The encounter with the swami was rather impactful. This fellow recited for me the entire maha mantra. He said he read the book, "Chant And Be Happy" and had some profound spiritual experiences.
In the Gita, Sri Krishna speaks about the direct perception approach. As I continued the final leg of the evening's jaunt I grabbed ahold of those words, the vibration, and felt at least at peace if not protection.
10 KM
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