Wednesday, May 22nd, 2023
Regent Park, Toronto
I started packing early for next week's trip to South Africa in a room that is shared by a group of us in the ashram, particularly for reading and meeting. I was in the middle of adjusting contents in my luggage when in walks a group of readers, members of the Bhakti Academy.
Oh yes, it's already 3:30 pm, time for a group study on one of Prabhupada’s books. I moved over to the next room, my room, for getting some dictation done. Adjustments need to be quick. Adjustments are real. Covid taught us that.
After emailing was done, then came some work with assistance of tweaking the Kirtan Standards Workshop presentation. My eyes went to the old publication of Bhagavad-gita As It Is on my bookcase. Published in 1969 by Collier Books, Allen Ginsberg’s take on Prabhupada’s rendition is intriguing.
“The text is awesome. The vision of the Universal Form is equal to any sublime poetry of the West, superior in detailed image to Dante’s final Cantos’ Paradise vision… The explorations of Swami Bhaktivedanta are transparent and exquisitely detailed – expositions presented here for the first time to common public Western mind – a storehouse of old age, experience, devotion, learning, scholarship, Hindu granny-wisdom, sincerity, gaiety, and sweet transcendental insight.”
Naturally, I took to reading from 1.1 and on for a stretch of a text I'm familiar with, but still finding something new.
Speaking of stretch, it was time to. 6:00 pm and I'm on my way to a house program at Subal’s 3.5 kilometres away. The program was sweet and my return home was also on foot. At No Frills grocery store, I met two chaps singing. I whipped out my camera phone for a shot when one of the singers saw me and sang “My Sweet Lord.”
MAY THE SOURCE BE WITH YOU!
5 km
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