Thursday, August 22nd, 2013

We Love You

Hirsch, Saskatchewan

I left the campsite and found myself moving under the blue moon. At 4:30 AM all was calm and in some way, all was bright. The coyotes really sang out in response to the moon god, that then stirred up the local dogs. The howls outdid the barking though. The coyotes won out for making noise.

All around there were massive gas torches at the summit of stacks. The road started picking up with traffic – mostly trucks en route to oil rigs. Southern Saskatchewan is in an oil boom period. Fortunately many of the oil workers are kind enough to honk or wave or stop and encourage in some way. It seems that maybe that this is their first step at self realization.

On that note, here’s an excerpt which I read to Daruka as he was fixing sandwiches in preparation for our break time:

“The very first step in self realization is realizing one’s identity as separate from the body, ‘I am not this body, but am spirit soul’ is an essential realization for anyone who wants to transcend death and enter into the spiritual world beyond. It is not simply a matter of saying, ‘I am not this body,’ but of actually realizing it. This is not as simple as it may seem at first.

Although we are not these bodies, but are pure consciousness, somehow or other we become encased within the bodily dress. If we actually want the happiness and independence that transcend death we have to establish ourselves and remain in our constitutional position as pure consciousness.”

-From Beyond Birth and Death by Srila Prabhupada.

With death, well, it came to a close call. It was about 8:45 PM when a motorist was speeding. An officer came chasing madly after him. The driving offender registered at 149 km per hour. While the officer ticketed the driver he kept his flashing lights on which caused other traffic to slow down and to move on the highway’s shoulder where I happened to be. It was dark. The oncoming driver didn’t expect to see a pedestrian, let alone a monk. He got shocked out of his wits and reported to the police, “Who is that guy?” This was in earshot.

Once ticketing was done, the officer drove up to me, who has been accosted by a cloud of mosquitoes by the way. The guy was nice and went out of his way to drive me to our encampment, a good 20 kms away. He admired the walking project and expressed his appreciation as we were driving.

Such was the response from people in general today, “We love you,” is becoming a regular mantra.

So now where was Daruka all this time, my support person? It was a small slip up. His watch stopped, and that caused a deception of time.

35 KM