Friday 3 April 2015

Monday, March 30th, 2015

Durban, South Africa
 
No Regrets!
 
 
My first full day in Durban gives the chance for a more regulated schedule. Okay! So I started with circling around the temple, on foot of course. “This might be the safest place in South Africa,” I thought. “What would disturb me, or anyone for that matter, in this peaceful spot in Chatsworth, a Durban suburb?”
 
Mina birds flit from tree to tree. I don't consider that a distraction though, not even the trees, as flowering or as fragrant as they are. They only enhance the meditation that's wanted.
 
I was informed that a group from Canada was arriving at the temple today. Some adolescents were coming for a cultural experience. I asked the temple management if I could meet with them. Request granted!
 
At 11 AM I was asked to break from drama rehearsal to speak to the group, who were surprised to meet a Canuck who's a monk. I briefed them on our weekend festival, the Festival of the Chariots. Naturally I also extolled the glories of pilgrimage, explained my familiarity with the Trans Canadian Highway” which I hope may be renamed the Transcendental Highway one day.” (They laughed.)
 
Also, to visit the temple room where I engaged in practice for the second drama, four young men in white short-sleeved shirts came through the door. Instantaneously, “Mormons!” I thought. For four decades there has been a congenial resolution between the Mormons and the Krishnas, Yes, they were American and from the state of Utah.
 
“On a mission?” I asked.
 
“Yes for two years,” was their answer.
 
“And then you get looked after?”
 
“Yes, we get a wife and so on,” said one of the fellows as they laughed.
 
“Good system!” I remarked and bearing in my own mind that I have no regrets to staying single all this life.
 
May the Source be with You!
 
7 KM

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