Tuesday 20 September 2016

Monday, September 12th, 2016

Monday, September 12th, 2016
Toronto/Washington

Walking Monk Goes to Washington

I would like to use the phrase “hop, skip and a jump” with regard to my journey today, but that’s not how it works for aircraft travel.  The flight from Thunder Bay to Toronto was brief. It wasn’t choppy, as the phrase suggests, nor was the one to Washington D.C.  The journeys were short and sweet, or more truthfully, sweet, because they were short.

I arrived at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport to be picked up by a Nepalese devotee, Chaitanya Nitai by name.  It is an enviable airport in that a gorgeous trail leads you directly into it.  It runs along the Potomac River and then under a canopy of a thousand trees.  This trail accommodates walkers and cyclists who can then come right up to the airport entrance.  I thought you could only do that in Thunder Bay.

I feel indeed honoured to reach the U.S. capital city to participate in ISKCON’s Historic 50th Anniversary, for it was fifty years ago that America started to acknowledge the work which was being done by Srila Prabhupada.  From 1966, when papers were signed and registered in New York City, to the early winter of ’77, a span of a mere eleven years, he established a worldwide adjustment in consciousness.  His aim was to approach life with a lighter tone, to experience bhakti, the essence of human sentiment.

Not all the world, at this point, has recognized his great worth.  The event tomorrow, held at the Capital Hilton, is a gesture to give credit where it is due.

May the Source be with you!

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