INTIMATE DAY

Bhaktimarga Swami
Aug 29
2 min read

Saturday, August 30th, 2025

Toronto Islands, Ontario

If sangha has any deep meaning, then we have experienced it on this day. The spiritual company and community spirit is what I’m referring to here. It is the second day of our Jubilee Anniversary when actual saints converge for a power party.

How did it all play out today?

A meaningful mangal (early-morning ritual) began at the usual 4:30 AM time slot. Mangal is auspicious when the time of the day offers the greatest blessings. I asked my godbrother, Krishnadas, to lead the chanting, and from there, everything blasted off like some spacecraft shooting up in the sky. We both shared in delivering a class based on the message that God’s heart is made up of the devotional kind, and at the core.

For breakfast, our group of the 50 pilgrims enjoyed the Canadian favourite, poutine, vegetarian style. A slide show of vintage shots going back as far as the early 70s was on display, and so a pic was projected on the screen – those pioneers who remembered the event would blurt out and say something like, “OH!” We had good laughs.

A double-decker bus was arranged for us to go to the early places of locations of our devotion – 40 Beverly Street, 187 Gerrard Street, and finally, 243 Avenue Road. These are all places of pilgrimage for us. For a special treat, we then embarked on a boat to sail between the islands in Toronto’s harbour as there was a cluster of fifteen. Beautiful! A flock of swans, a family, added that natural pretty touch.

Finally, for the night, a remarkable turnout for kirtan happened with BB Govinda Swami making a grand finale to the day of devotion. Remarkable!