Toronto, Ontario
The Before and Now
It was in that same queue at the Vancouver Airport that the fellow next to me asked another curious question, after I told him I was a Southern Ontario kid raised on a farm, and that I became a monk in 1973.
“So what’s behind a boy from small-town Canada becoming a Hare Krishna monk?”
My answer was: “I was drawn to the simple life and to spirituality. It came so naturally, and no doubt, it had something to do with my previous life and how I lived that out. My inclinations from then spilled over into my current life.”
The man was intently listening and with a smile. It was just too bad our line was moving, and that we boarded the Air Canada plane, with him having his secured seat way in the back and mine being fairly close to the front on Flight 126. We could have had an ongoing dialogue.
Back at home in the ashram, I worked hours in a sedentary fashion on the phone and with pen on mission-oriented projects. It was fun, but in the evening, our ashramdwellers came together for our weekly gathering over Russian potato salad and a reading/discussion from Prabhupada’s Nectar of Devotion. The topic was about fructified and unfructified seeds of karma,in regard to living out life reactions from our former lives, both good and bad.
In the discussion with Madhu and Andrey, we identified four positive assets that a person reaps from pious actions in the past—wealth or comfortable living, intelligence or common sense, good parentage, and physically wholesome features. It was an interesting theme.
My last thoughts of the day, as I stood in the temple, were of the image of Radha’s, whom I refer to as the Queen of Toronto.
May the Source be with you!
3km
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