Saturday 5 September 2009

Thursday, September 3rd, 2009

To Concentrate on H O H

Labasa, Fiji

In Fiji residents either drive a car, hop on a bus or walk. No one cycles. There is no in between, I don’t know why?

One day myself and walking companions did happen to converge at a service station with a group of bikers. They could never come anywhere close to demonstrating a demeanour of Hells Angels. People here are just too sweet to show intimidation.

But more about the Native Fijians. In the precious night our lively chanting party seemed to have some spellbound effect on folks. They just stood and stood until one fellow broke the ice by gyrating to our music. He was a powerfully built middle-aged Fijian and when he persistently swirled his hips around and around it brought us all to the point of hysteria. Somehow or other the man did some “seva” or service by getting the local people to totally become comfortable with the chanting.

In the early 4:00am Radha Madhav and I did sweat profusely from the intense weather while the rear walker of this hour was all bundled up in hood and jacket. We retrieved from the road at 6:00am just to be near a fan or an AC. By the afternoon favorable rains came down bringing down the temperature.

Outside Labasa, Radha Madhav and I were driven to the top of a hill to Nityananda Hall which is graced with petite Krishna Deities. The hall filled up with people of all ages to hear a newcomer speak. Me! And so we made it fun. Incoporating mime, charades and oral fill-in–the-blank we combed through Chapter 11 of the book “Krishna” all in an effort to put our minds off our puny mundane concerns and to concentrate on our Heart of Hearts, H O H.

11 Km

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