Jacksonville, Florida
Poker Man and the Robes
The passenger next to me on American
Airlines was a professional poker player.
From what I gather, he does this for a living. He showed me from his iPhone the recent poker
champ, a Vietnamese American, who championed a tournament “just five minutes
ago, as we speak,” winning for himself 8
million dollars.
A nice chunk indeed.
My friend next to me wasn’t just keen on
poker—which is argued by some as a game of skill over a game of chance—he asked
me if he could take a photo of my robes.
I said, “Sure! Go ahead!”
At that instance I was distracted, for
across the aisle there was a collapse of a piece of luggage. I turned my head and it just so happens my
friend was only interested in the robes.
My head was turned and didn’t make it into the pic.
“My girlfriend has clothes of the same
colour,” he said. The stitch would be
something different, I’m sure.
Anyway, with these same robes on, I was
whisked away to Jacksonville, in Florida, once we landed. There, I was asked to speak to a group of
sincere seekers about “Tales From Trails,” and what it means to get around on
foot and receive reactions from passersby who don’t see spiritual attire very
often. I inserted the philosophy of the
“Bhagavad-gita” and told of our
guru’s remarkable achievements. Now, the
members of the group are not robe-wearing kind of people. Rather, this gathering of youth demonstrated
their individuality as free spirits. At
the same time, the tales, philosophy and chanting resonated like anything. I felt I was in a loft speaking to youths
much like in the early days in Manhattan, when counter-culture radicals stepped
into an ancient world of sadhus and
monks who were talking about and living simple lives.
May the Source be with you!
7 km
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