Saturday, January 26th, 2013

Hot Dancing

Calgary, Alberta

If you are familiar with the various chapters of the Bhagavad Gita, you may recall chapter 15 where it describes a banyan tree with its roots up and branches down. It is a rather mysterious section of the Gita.
 

This evening Jason's dancing at the kirtan reminded me of the banyan tree because his feet were up and his hands were down. Our kirtan was getting warmed up and just to make it "hot", knowing Jason to be a break-dancer, I asked him to come to the centre of our circle to ignite the night. With him coming to our event I was determined to get the most out of him, and to take our program to another level. This wasn't going to be a cute little pious conforming type of bhajan, but in the direction of a party-rocking kirtan. That it was!
 

I really had not a super clear idea where to take our guests until they came and I could see them. The program earlier at the Lakshmi Narayan Mandir threw me off a little. I was informed I was going to spend 2 hours with the youth of the area it turned out the age range was from 8 to 65. I didn't mind I just had to make quick decisions and make a few mental adjustments in my approach. We ended up making every thing interactive with Kirtan memorization and a theatre workshop. Acting out the images found in the Gita based on a number of images. It all worked out fine.
 

The realization I had was that the subject of the Gita is for all in as much as Kirtan is for all.
 

Back to the sweaty evening (and host Kashyapa deliberately cranked down the heat knowing many bodies would come to heat up the place). We all sat down and I took the opportunity to present a krishna consciousness 101, a basics on belief and thrust. The questions flowed from Matt, from Ramesh, and from others.
 

At Prasadam eating time Jason demonstrated that he is not just a dancer or dancing instructor he also knows a few things about life. Ramesh, the young Nepalese fellow with a lot of good questions, looked to Jason for some directions. Jason borrowed my drinking cup and said while holding that cup. "This is your comfort zone, this is where you are, but the magic happens here" he said raising his free hand outside the cup indicating we all excel when we stretch ourselves and go beyond what you think are our limitations. That was quite helpful for Ramesh coming from The Lord Nataraj, the king of the dancers - (a name for lord shiva).

 

7 KM