Friday, October 30th, 2015

Friday, October 30^th, 2015

Blacklog Valley, PA

Police Again

A man in a pick-up truck was passing by where Vivasvan was parked.  He rolled down his windows and warned him, “I’ll give you a heads up. The police are back there and they caught some prisoners”.

Vivasvan was wondering if this was the same scenario repeating itself again - The Walking Monk, wearing orange, has been mistaken for an escaped convict.

Sure enough, that was the case.  The police had received complaints from some suspicious people.  Two officers came to the place where Tre’von, Mandala and I were trekking.  I asked one officer if they could please notify all the police stations across the state of Pennsylvania about what we are doing so that we could avoid these kind of encounters in the future.

“I’m rather harmless”, I said facetiously.

“Of course you are”, expressed the officer, a little embarrassed.

The second officer volunteered to say, “Well, it is Halloween time but things still happen.  A few years ago we got a report that someone saw a hand sticking out of a car trunk.  We thought it was a prank but when we investigated it, it happened to be an actual body”.

What he was saying is that these things do occur; it is not simply that people watch too many horror movies.

Today I was also involved in a presentation at the religious department of Juniata College with Professor Susan Prill.  I was asked to speak about Krishna consciousness and ecology.  I quoted the first verse from the text, Sri Isopanisad:

“Everything animate or inanimate in this world is owned and controlled by the Supreme Lord.  Every living being is entitled to his or her individual quota and should not accept more than necessary, knowing well to whom everything belongs”.

One interesting thing that Professor Prill pulled out for us was an 18th-century, page-by-page, handmade, calligraphic presentation of the Bhagavata Purana with Sanskrit script and one-of-a-kind paintings.  We were somewhat wowed by that.

As far as the students were concerned, the response was very satisfying.  Some of the students insisted that they wanted to do some walking, and we happily received their company. Professor Prill also joined us.  She is very cool and she is also a vegetarian.

May the Source be with you!

21 miles / 33 km