SHAVE AND SAVE

Friday, January 16th, 2026

Longdenville, Trinidad

Dronacharya is a professional barber, and he took some time out from his work to do my first time ever shave all around the head (except for a faint shika at the back). A straight razor it was and a clean job indeed. It is the look that our guru, Prabhupada, preferred for his students.

Anyways, I was preparing for an afternoon ceremony, an initiation for six people, their first diksha and one person, Sriya, accepting her second. With Umapati as the presiding priest whom I sat near to, I gave a message based on the Gita 1,16–18, verses focusing on the conches blown by heroes on the Pandava’s side. The verses actually encourage a kind of bravado found in warriors at the start of a battle, this one being the famous Kuruksetra War. I was trying to instill in the candidates for diksha to think like a warrior, a challenge against the enemy. For all intents and purposes, the enemy must be identified as the internal one, which is actually plural — lust, anger, greed, madness, envy, and illusion — internal foes. Let us fight the good fight.

One couple that took initiation was young. They wanted to join me on my night walks. They told their story of some obstacles. Recently their house burnt down. One month ago, he was assaulted, bound at the wrist, then thrown over a steep cliff when the two gangsters could not find anything on him to steal. His name is Mitra, and he took the Sanskrit name of Manu Samhita. Her name is Cynthia with the new name being Chaitanya Shakti. Another couple, a doctor, Kuldeep is now Kuladev. She is Bhavana, now Bhava Bhakti. Kamali is Kama Dhenu. Donna is now Daya. Congratulations!

MAY THE SOURCE BE WITH YOU

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