Friday,
July 29th, 2016
Jamaica,
Iowa
The
Walking Monk Takes His Path Through Ames
Bhaktimarga Swami,
who is often referred to as the Walking Monk, made his way through Ames on
Wednesday while continuing his mission to walk from New York City to San
Francisco.
This is the first
time Swami has walked border to border in America, but this is not a new
mission. In the past, he has walked
across his home nation of Canada, Ireland, Israel, Fiji, Mauritius, Trinidad
and Guyana.
These treks are not
simply a spiritual journey for the orange-robed Hare Krishna monk but more of a
way to spread his message of health and self-consciousness.
“I’m saying let’s
slow down. Let’s get more in touch with
ourselves by walking,” Swami said.
“Really, it’s to check the imbalanced lives we live. We are very much in
the consumer world, capitalism, and we just don’t take enough time for
introspection. So when you walk, you have time to just process things.”
Swami said that being
in Ames on Wednesday was also a celebration of a momentous occasion for
followers of the Hare Krishna movement because it marked the 50th anniversary,
to the day, of the movement being started.
“It’s a movement that
has its challenges but it exploded, went all over the world, and here we are 50 years later,” Swami said.
Born John Peter Vis
in 1952 in Chatham, Ontario, Canada, Swami said he found the Hare Krishna
movement to be similar in many ways to Catholicism, which was the religion he
was raised in as a child. Since making
the transition into being a monk, Swami said he started making his pilgrimages
to help spread his beliefs but to also meet people and learn more about
himself.
“It’s walking,
meditating, connecting with people, getting more in touch with yourself, and your
soul and just trying to be more contemplative about things,” Swami said. “When you walk at the human pace that we’re
supposed to, there’s an appreciation and sensitivity that develops.”
While traveling from
place to place, Swami said that the vast majority of his encounters have been
positive and people are usually very receptive of his message. However, there have been some troubling
encounters as well, including some close calls with grizzly and black bears.
“I have been mistaken
many times for being an escapee from a prison wearing an orange jumpsuit,”
Swami said.
He added that someone
also called the police on him when he was walking near a mental institution
close to Iowa City because they were worried that he was an escaped patient.
According to Swami,
he averages about 20 miles per day and at that pace he believes he could
complete his entire trip in about five months.
However, due to a prior commitment, he will stop for the summer once he
reaches Nebraska and then pick up where he left off next summer to continue on
to San Francisco.
Swami said that
during his trip in America, he has seen a different kind of culture that he
hasn’t come across in the other areas he has traveled. He said that he has seen most affluent of
neighborhoods and the poorest of ghettos.
According to him, America has several issues that has caused him to be
concerned for the world.
“America’s a place of
a lot of extremes,” Swami said. “Obesity
is a big problem. It’s embarrassing to
be human sometimes. People could do better.”
One thing that
walking across a country has taught Swami, is that no one is above the pains
associated with growing older or putting strain on your body. He said it is also part of his mission to
accept those pains for “austerity purposes.”
“It means to
voluntarily take up a little bit of inconvenience so to build character, to
toughen up a little bit, to be a tough boy,” Swami said.
May the Source be
with you!
20 miles
