Wednesday 13 February 2013

Wednesday, February 6th, 2013

Lost!
 
Miami, Florida
 
“Oh no! I lost my guru!” went his frantic mind. Garga Muni, a local astrologer, had set out to pick me up at the Miami airport. In fact, he came early, as did my flight. But our paths did not cross. Garga made his way to the info booth and had a pager message over the intercom, “Will John Vis (my legal name) please come to concourse D on the second floor.” So, I did, and was found. Garga Muni was relieved.
He considered himself lost at one time and then became found once he took to Krishna. As the song Amazing Grace expresses, “I once was lost but now I’m found”, we all may have found ourselves to be wretches at one time, until we came upon our spiritual calling. How desperate souls sometimes get.
After a fairly complete day of meeting, greeting, counseling people, I took to Grand Avenue at Coconut Grove. Walking the expanse of Grand Avenue put me through the high and low ends of American life. The high end was rowdy with liquor in their stomachs and liquor in the air. The low end, a potential danger district, was more quiet, but no less disillusioned. I felt a sense of compassion because of the lostness of their situation. Why do people resort to either the foolhardy lifestyle, or the near poverty level? This is America, and in many if not most cases, citizens have choices. In my thought process what also came out is I feel myself so fortunate to be in the spot where I am, being in a renounced order. I guess it is part and parcel of the vocation to feel the emotion of sympathy.
I question the way folks are, and yet I understand that when there’s a gap in your life, you have to fill it in with some substance. My lingering thought on the matter is, “Spiritual values can fill the vacuum and make things right. If we do that then we don’t need to feel lost, ever.”
5 KM

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