Friday, March 4th, 2016

Friday, March 4th, 2016                                                       

Mayapur, India

Not Always Rosy

I had met Jaya Vijay at a festival in the Berkley area some years ago and had marvelled at his working efforts.  He was a padayatra (Pilgrim) leader for 10 years from 1986 to 1996.  He is indeed inspiring. I wanted to include him in this blog about the purifying nature of walking.  An article appeared in the recent issue of Padayatra: Worldwide:

“When you watch a Padayatra India slideshow everything seems rosy, but in fact it

was very difficult.  Walking the highways in India is no place for a lady or gentleman.
Some of the truck drivers are very rough – sometimes they go off the road or hit the
oxen.  We got malaria and dysentery.  When the devotees get ill, it’s difficult to
recover and keep moving at the same time.  They have to stay on the tractor. They
don’t have a private room.  Maybe once or twice a month we might get a private
room.  Usually we stayed in open schools, where there was no privacy at all.  People
watched you when you took your bath or passed stool. Sadhu means “open book” – it
is another definition of a sadhu – there is nothing to hide.  You have to learn to sit
down on your mat and be in your own mental world and do your own thing. 
Sometimes it’s hard to do it because you’re tired and you have people looking at you,
laughing at you, joking about you.  It’s a place to learn tolerance; it is not a joke.  I
have seen many devotees blow it or hit each other, not out of contempt but because
they’d just had enough.  I have seen lots of sannyasis go crazy with the kids.  It is very
difficult.  Some devotees got injured.  There were broken wrists and ankles, one
devotee was hit by a truck, and another from Finland died when he fell under the
tractor in South India.  Sometimes we present the rosy side of padayatra, but to pick
the roses there are many thorns, and sometimes you get pricked.  It’s not a piece of
cake.  In the long run it’s very purifying – the most purifying program in our whole
ISKCON society.”

(The Most Purifying Programs, by Jaya Vijaya dasa, Padayatra Newsletter, 2016)

May the Source be with you!

6 Km