Tuesday 28 August 2012

Friday, August 24th, 2012

Keep Your Cool

Toronto, Ontario

I began a visit to my original training ground for walking, the ravine. It was rather late, 10 pm. As I left the city lights to descend to the ravine’s darker regions, something suddenly dawned on me, what if a psychopath killer hangs out here? He’s out of his mind and he’ll attack anything to give him satisfaction, even a monk.

I guess I’m not prime game, but for a deranged person with a dagger, anything could happen. This fear hadn’t arisen before while I was in the ravine. Perhaps because word got out by media that some body parts were recently found in a ravine by Credit River, a river I just traversed by way of a bridge recently. The incident, or tragedy, brought the fear close to home. Some runners near the river saw a dismembered foot with painted toenails by the water and reported it to police. This created quite a stir across the nation and especially what is usually known as a quiet safe community at Port Credit.

Come to think of it, a corpse was found at a ravine’s creek some years ago right in the area where I’m trekking, so here we are talking about fear and being a little cautious. I rehearsed in my mind what to do if there would be any foul play and I just resolved within, “Just remain Krishna Conscious,” I said to myself.

I was reminded of a story told by Keshava, a Godbrother, when he drove our guru, Srila Prabhupada to a beautiful natural area in California. A biker, shaven headed, on a Harley Davidson drove next to the car. He looked intimidating and tried to indicate that he wanted to communicate. Keshava was concerned, fearful, but our guru, being calm and collected, understood the man wanted to walk with him. Srila Prabhupada’s response was simply, “Yes,” and a great conversation ensued. Keshava was relieved because there were intimidating and threatening situations in the past.

The lesson is to always keep your cool. Keep your consciousness in the right place.

7 Km

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