Wednesday 19 February 2014

Saturday, February 15th, 2014

Missing But Found

New Delhi, India

Its always an honour to speak about walking icons.  Before me were dozens of resident brahmacharis (monks), I talked about this young prince who actually ran away from home, perhaps walked.  He felt some neglect from his parents, a step mom and biological father.  He was only five. 

He took to the wilderness and also the trails of sadhus (sages) and finally found a suitable place for his meditation.  He met his guru there - Narada Muni, who gave him a mantra.  "om namo bhagavate vasudevaya".  From this mantra he becomes powerful as an ascetic and a medium to communicate with the Divine.  With his strong conviction and encouragement from the aforementioned personalities he had gone through an internal cleansing.  After a brief six months practice of both astanga and bhakti yoga, he decided to leave his place of meditation and return back home on foot, back to the palace actually.  The missing child came home.  Troubles and miscommunications were reconciled.  A regretful father and his two mothers (even the nasty step mom) had regained consciousness, so to speak.

I had been telling the boys from our little drama troupe after their terrific performance before a packed house at the temple that there is nothing more unsettling for me than when I see these bill posted, like at a bus station, of missing persons.  Mostly they are kids or teens.  In our Vancouver community one teen was last seen on a bus.  He never made it home and police have not heard hide nor hair of the unfortunate young fella.

Practically in most cases these missing persons did not go for a walk to achieve enlightenment.  Your imagination can go wild on what may have happened to such souls.

Dhruva's story was a happy one.  He had anger issues from time to time.  For the most part he championed those frailties and became a great leader.  It was  a pleasure to talk about one of my most favorite walking heros, Dhruva, to a group of great bhakti yogis.

May the Source be with You!

4 KM

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