Thursday, February 8th, 2024
Alachua, Florida
My class today included two different age groups in the Bhaktivedanta Academy (BANA). The first group, the team, who are trying to figure out how they fit into the world found it interesting how a Canadian kid who was raised on the farm, could turn into a full fledged monk (sannyas) and who gave 50 years of his life to a mission and is now slowly stepping aside for a succession. I shared some poetry with the students including the one about gossip.
The same poem, "Loose Tongue Monster" I shared with an evening group, mostly youth age and it indeed stirred up interest. In fact some of the female listeners came up after to express that gossip was their weakness more in the way of receiving as supposed to delivering. They asked for practical tips how to overcome this insidious habit. I offered some suggestions.
"Walk away, or simply tell the mouthy person to stop, change the topic, start a kirtan, maybe say, "God doesn't like it." They went away happy.
I also spend a good amount of time at the Bhaktivedanta Institute with my friend Brahma Tirtha. This is the place where scholarly archives are kept with a well-kept library and space for meaningful meetings and the great minds.
The late Dr. Richard Thompson aka Sadaputa is one of those geniuses on the topics to include the paranormal and UFO's. He, in many ways was the backbone of BI, which was the brainchild of Prabhupada, an initiative to reach out to the scholars of both a scientific and spiritual backgrounds. I consider Sadaputa a personal friend. We once got stuck together in a wicked snow storm in Buffalo.
MAY THE SOURCE BE WITH YOU!
4 km
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