Work! Rain!
Durban, South Africa
“Hard work!” is what our guru, Srila Prabhupada, wanted of us. At least he said “Work now, Samadhi later!” Samadhi means “meditating”. When he spoke to us about taking ashram or monastic life seriously he used the term “like military training”. He also said of those who reside in the monastery ashram “no lazies and no crazies”. The whole idea is to take a grave approach to spiritual life and to put out all efforts for pleasing the guru and for making spiritual advancement. At customs I mentioned to the officer that I am in Durban to contribute to the Festival of Chariots. I restore in my mind the fine details of what “contribute” means. Kirtan leading, drama direction and delivering classes are what’s expected of me.
When it came to our first day at drama practice, the crew did just what we reportedly opened with…hard work. Thank Krishna for the wet weather. This is conducive for the extra exertion. Whereas Mayapura was hot and boiling, Durban was wet and rainy. A nice change indeed.
Other than Maha Mantra as a continuity from Mayapura the rest of the crew is absolutely new. We start the production from scratch. The tekkies and three of the volunteer actors are known to me and so certain expectations are mutually established. This saves time. And there’s always one more thing that’s understood…you put it all out there. You give it all you got. You actually surrender.
I delegate choreography to a new take on the dance pieces. We don’t necessarily duplicate. I permit creativity and in this way the new crew feels a sense of ownership. This is important in bringing about a certain “originality” to the piece.
One more beautiful element to our gurus’ directive for leaders was to always present fresh challenges to those they work with. It’s always a great formula in stirring up attraction to the service and in making it attractive.
Hard work + creativity + bhakti = perfection.
5 KM
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