Wednesday, May 15th, 2013

The Lotus Centre

Manuels, Newfoundland

Nitai Ram and I clearly stood out in our robes as we descended the escalators at the Toronto Airport. At the base of the stairs a curious woman was waiting to address us.

“Where are you from?” asked the white haired woman, assuming we would say we are stationed some place exotic or even mystical.

“Here in Canada,” I said.

“Oh, I thought you might be from Nepal where I met some Buddhist monks.”

We clarified our actual allegiance, and were happy to have met her.

Once we arrived at the Saint John’s Airport and made our exit, we were met by our host, Rikin, and were struck by a top sail gale as the automatic door opened. Rikin had lined up an evening program for us. He mentioned to Nitai and I that our topic of discussion would be sadhana bhakti. My evening actually did evolve; he drove us to the Lotus Centre downtown. I was unprepared on paper, and gave the topic not even a mental preparedness. I decided to wing it and asked very competent Nitai to help in the presentation.

With the faith based sentiment, I believe if you kick start everything with chanting, things will naturally flow. Nitai Ram played beautifully on the mrdanga drum, as I led the singing, and attendees responded. Participation was great. I began to vocalize some thoughts that came out of inspiration.

“What we just did was perform kirtan. The pronunciation is ‘keer-tan’, like the word ‘ear’ with a ‘k’ in front of it, and not ‘curtain’, which is something you drape in front of a window. The group resounded in laughter, and from there Nitai and I basically laid out the components of sadhana bhakti yoga as we are accustomed to. It involves japa chanting, recitation of a daily mantra, and discussing it as a way to deepen our understanding of it, the ritual to honour the sacred green Tulsi plant, and a song for protection called the Narasingha prayer. It was evening and Nitai and I walked the group through basic morning sadhana (spiritual workout) as a way to suggest a transcendental day starter. The group seemed delighted. Several of them took home with them japa meditation beads.

0 KM