Wednesday 4 April 2012

Tuesday, March 27th, 2012

8 and 12 hours

Paris, France

It was morning landing at Charles De Gaule airport with an eight hour layover. From there the balance of day and night was on flight 00 45 Air Mauritius. It was Day Two without any real walking.
At seat 9F I had relative comfort. On the partition wall in front of me a tiny notification read “BABY MAX. AGE 12 Months/ BABY MAX. WEIGHT 11kg/24 lbs.” To my left lying in the wall-attached basket was a toddler, stereo baby. They behaved ever so cool. The baby to my front left had the most amazing dad. Was he ever into parenting? Most helpful!

Time in the air was spent with mixed functions including a read on an amazon kindle. In an interview our guru Srila Prabhupada emphasized that sex indulgence, according to Vedic culture, is always restricted.

“Interviewer: Always restricted. For purpose of procreation only?

Prabhupada: Sex intercourse is recommended only for good children. That’s all.

Interviewer: Only to create children.

Prabhupada: Yes, good children.

Interviewer: Good children. Well, if the parents are good, then there is a remarkable probability that the children may have a chance to be.”

In the dialogue he endorsed the no-divorce policy and mentioned that in the British times Hindus were forced to register formally their marriages, even though it did not necessarily enforce methodology with regards to faithfulness.

Finally what stood out in my mind from the reading was our guru’s equating building character to following the four regulations of no illicit sex, no gambling, no intoxication and no meat eating. These rather stringent principles have been integral to my whole devotional life. It’s always a reinforcement of things when you read that loyalty to these straight habits are character-building.
The interesting twist on it is when the interviewer remarked that he had known people of principles that were very rotten. Prabhupada agreed, therefore the real thing is the spiritual consciousness behind it.

After twelve hours we landed. The babies didn’t cry.

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