Friday 2 December 2022

Monday, November 21, 2022

Buenos Aires / San Paulo

Last Hours in Argentina

My last hours were spent in comfort, both physically and otherwise. I was asked to give another Bhagavatam class, my fourth this week, and I caught up on some rest before the drive to Tigre. Tigre (Spanish for tiger) is a tourist attraction outside of Buenos Aires. There is located a vegetarian restaurant run by Daksha, and so visitors from other ISKCON communities in the country made this fine dining place their stop over before returning to, more in particular, Mar del Plata. We brunched. We chatted. We joked. We even created a massage circle before my departure for my flight. Most of all, we shared our realizations of guru, Prabhupada, through expressing our appreciation of his magnanimity.

What an enriching gathering it was, especially over the yummy prasadam.

Govinda Madhava drove me to the airport and once I arrived at the gate I sat next to a Brazilian man and an Argentinian woman. We struck up a great conversation surrounding spirituality.

The man asked why our group is so small, referring to Krishna devotees. And my response to him was that believers in Krishna on our planet numbers one billion. He also questioned the big gap in Christian belief and eastern belief, regarding the concept of reincarnation. At this point, the woman expressed that Christianity, which has roots in the Old Testament, attests to the principle of reincarnation. I further elaborated that practically all ancient traditions run parallel in concepts of soul transmigration. The man said he lived for some time in Japan, where monks were fighting with each other. My answer, “All problems stem from our misidentification of the self. We are spirits, not bodies.”

May the Source be with you!


 

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