Go For The Essence
Thunder Bay, Ontariop
After a 12 hour drive from Serpent River, our bus finally rolled into Thunder
Bay for a 3rd annual Krishna Culture Festival of India. The venue is great
every year. A park overlooking Lake Superior with a rock formation of The
Sleeping Giant set into it is the perfect location. There’s a huge stage with a
massive canvas marquee to shelter the performers. The free Indian feast is a
main attraction.
By 5 PM the area was thick with curious people, eager for the food, music, and
an overall sattvic or heavenly atmosphere. The mayor came offering a welcome
address. The emcees did a great job. There was music, dance of all traditional
kinds, exhibits and books on spiritual life.
People sometimes wonder what IS the culture of India anyway? Can the current
lifestyle of India reflect the REAL India? Is Bollywood the best representation
of the culture?
In essence, India is spiritual, or so, at the heart of it, that’s what you’ll
find, spirituality and dharma. That’s what our presentation of dance, drama and
kirtan reflected, the spiritual side of life.
I met and asked an upcoming law student, what is the philosophy of law, what is
at the core of law? And he explained that it depends on who you ask. For him,
it meant to protect, to regulate, to follow what’s natural. It sounded a little
like dharma, which refers to duty and to honour the natural order of things. We
discussed briefly about absolute law being eternal and man’s law being
relative.
After the festival a good number of people, 4000 came. Channa (chickpeas), rice
and naan bread just wasn’t being turned out fast enough. But the cooks were
doing their duty. It came as a surprise that in the relatively small city was
such an incredible turn out. The festival was over by 10 PM (now had there been
a beer garden, said one acquaintance of mine, “People would have stayed for
hours on end.”) For 5 hours there was a jam packed program of what is Indian
culture. Nutshelled, it was colour, smiles, optimism, and ultimately spirituality.
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