Mayapur, India
It Started At the Shoe Rack
After a modest morning walk I was destined for the Pancha Tattva Hall and then the adjoined Radha Madhava Temple. There is an arrangement for parking your shoes. For those we call Srila Prabhupada disciples (students) a separate shoe rack is reserved. While other racks are available for others pilgrims' shoes are apparently dispersed on the ground at the temple's entrance. The shoe rack for those of us in the mature category (Srila Prabhupada disciples) it is three-fifths empty. In 1977 when I first came to India, Mayapur, for pilgrims, we had one sole guru. There were over five thousand of us and practically all of the pilgrims were "us." Now in 2015 a number of the early day pilgrims are aged and some have passed on.
It's just an observation. The gathering in the temple was for a sit down to a class on the Bhagavatam. I was one of those sitting down but my seat was higher because today was my turn to deliver the class. I was accommodated on the vyasasan, the seat of the representative of Vyasa, the great compiler of Vedic knowledge.
It's a larger audience than usual, five hundred or so, and yet a greater listening audience over the air waves was additionally present.
Two points made which I recall at the time of my sending this entry are as follows based on 6.4.27-28 from the Bhagavatam:
1) As fire is found in wood, as spirit is found in all life forms, so also Supersoul is realized by the sincere human.
2) More important than the sacred sound is the devoted because where there is devotion there is the sound.
This evening a second audience became a reality. To a packed house in the Samadhi Auditorium came to view our "Little Big Ramayan" drama.
I was humbled by the response of both crowds.
May the Source be with you!
8 KM
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