Saturday, 20 July 2019

Monday, July 15th, 2019


Toronto, Ontario

Pieces and Patches of History

I had before me two waves of people. First, there was the group of boys on tour for the summer, having the time of their lives, and second, Brian Carivana's group of mature folks who are here from all over the U.S. and Canada.  One woman is from Lincoln, Nebraska, which brings back walking memories from my U.S. adventures.  They, the second group, are spiritually inquisitive.  "How does Hare Krishna compare to other paths and how does it compare to my own?" was the thinking?

The two groups were pleased with my presentations.  Even the young boys were keen to hear of how a few poor monks and nuns from the ’70s crop—I'm in there—collected the funds to get the down payment on the building we're in.

Some hours passed, and it was time for me to get over to see a ninety-two-year-old Bengali gentleman, and someone who personally used to visit our guru, Prabhupada, in 1968, in Montreal, as a fairly new immigrant to Canada.  His name is Mahadev Chakravarty.  He has history to tell, not only of those fine first days with our guru, but also of the Gandhi episodes of India's efforts to be free of British rule, covering the details of the tragic massacre at Amritsar, the love affair of Lady Mount Baton with Nehru and how that influenced Nehru to divide India, what to speak of the heroism of Subhas Chandra Bose, who was the only major instrumental person for India to gain her independence.

I walked a good ten kilometres to get back home.

May the Source be with you!
10 km


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