Wednesday 16 October 2019

Wednesday, October 9th, 2019


Frankfurt/Chennai

What Does a Monk Do…?

What does a Hare Krishna monk do on a plane?

Well, this one (me), isn’t walking, for sure. I covered a short distance, with Victor, at the Frankfurt airport.   https://www.instagram.com/p/B3bNzpdBmhS/?igshid=1ryg158k6onza

“We’re boarding,” he said, while in the queue, “and we’ll probably be flying over my homeland, Romania.” 

“You might be able to look down and see the house where you grew up,” I said. (Laughter)

So, what do I do while in flight?  My first order of business is to chant my prescribed or final amount of rounds on my meditation beads.  Secondly, today, I read a section of the Bhagavatam, the portion about the cosmic form of Vishnu. I also completed, from scratch, the writing of two entries for my daily blog.  (That took fifteen minutes each.) And since I just cannot get any sleep on the plane, I have some time to kill. Okay, so let’s have a look at “Hostile Planet,” a series of documentaries.  Good stuff! I captured a segment, on my phone, of penguins trying to feed their young.   https://www.instagram.com/p/B3bLQPmA7SQ/?igshid=1d564mukjl2oj

Not only do they struggle on land and in water, but it becomes inevitable that all wildlife in grasslands, oceans, mountains and jungles, go through amazing trials in life. 

Check out Chapter Eight, Text 16, of the Gita:

A brahma bhuvanal lokah
punar avartino ‘rjuna
mam upetya tu kaunteya
punar janma na vidyate

“From the highest planet in the material world down to the lowest, all are places of misery wherein repeated birth and death take place.  But one who attains to my abode, O son of Kunti, never takes birth again.”   From Bhagavad-Gita As It Is by A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada

We all struggle but certainly we can reduce pain, perhaps even attain a body of non-material qualities by altering our habits.  Let’s get clean, then no worries!

May the Source be with you!
1 km


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