Friday, September 5th, 2014

Toronto, Ontario

Rivers of People and Rivers of Water


In the course of a day I meet a good number of people, they show up at our temple ashram for a different number of reasons.  People come for darshan, viewing of the Krishna deity, some sample food at our Govinda’s, a vegetarian restaurant within the building, some people come to hear and learn from classes that we offer and from seminars on the bhakti sciences.  Others are volunteers who come to help with kitchen work, or cleaning, or maintenance work.  The numbers add up over a day’s stretch.

So I meet these great people, but I haven’t developed the skill to remember their names very well.  Today a walkers’ club came to eat at Govinda’s.  They are a seniors group and they come quite regularly.  One of the members has a daughter in Kelowna, BC, a place that was a stop over for me during this year’s Trans-Canada trek.  I met her daughter at that time, she is a staunch mother, wife, and devotee of Krishna.  As mentioned, I failed to remember the names, but I am taken by the small world in which we live – the world of knowing someone who knows someone who knows you, even if you’re a relative nobody from another part of the country. 

Of course, when you meet somebody who shares the same walking passion as you, you get excited.  It made my day to meet a person who has a love for pilgrimage.  I was also thrilled to hear from her that the Pan Am Games are coming to Toronto next year, and will encourage the building of a Pan Am trail, which is really a series of trails that will be recognized as a unique route beginning from the northern part of the Humber River, leading to Lake Ontario, and then going east along the waterfront, and then north on either the Don or the Rouge Rivers.  This is ecstatic news.

The winding down message which I slept on at the end of the day, after a gathering with our Brampton community where we indulged in the Gita’s words, was from 17.15.  Here, the verse talks about favourable speech:

Austerity of speech consists of speaking words which are truthful, pleasing, beneficial, and not agitating to others, and also in regularly reciting Vedic literature. 

May the Source be with you!

2 KM