Wednesday, 7 November 2012

Monday, November 5th, 2012

Life and Passing
 
Markham, Ontario

As usual, every morning Praveen faithfully comes to the morning Sadhana and reads a passage from the Gita before the group of us. Today the verse 6:25 reads as if our spiritual journey is like a steady walk.

"Gradually, step by step, one should become situated in trance by means of intelligence sustained by full conviction, and thus the mind should be fixed on the Self alone and should think of nothing else."

That's profound! One is not expected to reach self-realization overnight. It takes time. It does take time to reach any destiny by whatever speed or mode of travel but "śanaiḥ śanair" gradually step by step is the principle.

This morning also I attended the funeral of one of our senior men, Sesha Prabhu, who was born in Guyana and who helped pioneer the consciousness of Krishna in that country. He passed away on October 31st with mantras being chanted all around. He was an inspiration. And so is his daughter, Dwarka, who remained so composed throughout the ordeal of her father's passing.

My main contribution at funeral gatherings is to see that kirtan chanting prevails. And so that is what transpired.

For the evening we celebrated life. Our Scarborough community sang "Happy Birthday" to Dhira Nitai, who turned 62, only we put a Krishna spin to the song which goes like this: "Hare Krishna to you!". So we celebrate a soul's entrance, even if it be a birthday or a passing away. But for my return trip back to my ashram my kind driver told me of a non-celebratory event. A young man crossed the very street we were on earlier in the day. A mercedes hit him and ran over him. The driver got scared he took off. A black Honda then drove over the victim, stopped and reported to the police who came and then also accidentally drove over the corpse. Eventually the mercedes driver turned himself in but how tragic a story.

You see, cars don't move with śanaiḥ śanair. They "zoom zoom" and then claim lives. Damn them!

7 KM

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