SIMPLY PLEASANT

Bhaktimarga Swami
4 days ago
2 min read

Thursday, March 6th, 2026

Brampton, Ontario

Uddhava and I had a pleasant trip on the GO train to the Mount Pleasant station in Brampton where a most amicable person, Anjit, picked us up for a home program, which, by the way, was also pleasant. To get to the GO station I decided to walk from our Midtown temple at 243 Avenue Road to the greater building, Union Station. I ended up detouring at Old City Hall. The distance was 4 kilometres. It was the interactions with pedestrians that made the walk better than pleasant.

At Yonge and Dundas, a man and woman were standing and talking. When I passed by them almost brushing against, them the guy said to his friend, “I think it’s a monk?” I kept walking, but turned my head like an owl, and I nodded, as if to say “Yes!” He reacted by saying, teasingly “You’re not a monk?” With a smile I blurted out “Oh, yes I am!” “No, you’re not!”

When I arrived at Union finally, just outside the building, two young women approached me as if I was a rock star, “Are you a monk?” “I definitely am.” “Oh, my God!” They were amazed, as if I was some big celebrity or a species of animal that was rare and about to go extinct.

When I entered the building I was looking for Uddhava, and I asked a middle-aged guy who had that radical look about him, “Where do I catch the GO train?” I asked.

“Well, there’s the Bay entrance or the York, over there. By the way, what order do you belong to?”

“Hare Krishna!”

“I used to hang out with the Ananda Margis; have done ashtanga yoga. Been voted as student council president at my school seven times,” etc.