ISKCON Halifax

I just fin­ished writ­ing two let­ters, one to my brother and another for my sis­ter. We have been so busy trav­el­ling and help­ing with fes­ti­vals that I haven’t taken the time to con­tact them. As I was writ­ing the let­ters I was reminded of a favorite author of mine who recently passed away. J.D. Salinger’s writ­ings inspired me to search for a more per­sonal under­stand­ing of the Absolute Truth, and to inves­ti­gate the inner cor­ri­dors of my own spir­i­tual identity.

I can’t exactly say what J.D. Salinger wrote that was so affect­ing; but, because he is just another spir­i­tual spark oper­at­ing under the influ­ence of the qual­i­ties and cir­cum­stances which he acquired at birth, my affin­ity for him could not have been ordained by any other source than a divine source. Oth­er­wise, why am I now tak­ing the time to offer some appre­ci­a­tion of this late author? His writ­ing was per­sonal and exact­ing, and encour­aged me to seek out authors who were even more per­sonal and even more exact­ing. And, to my great for­tune, not long after read­ing Salinger’s com­plete works, I met the devo­tees who gave me the asso­ci­a­tion of Srila Prab­hu­pada — the MOST per­sonal and exact­ing author I have ever read. My expe­ri­ence in read­ing Srila Prabhupada’s books or con­ver­sa­tions has been pro­found at those times when I am search­ing within his words for an answer to some per­sonal dif­fi­culty. tad vid­dhi paripratena paripras­nena sevaya, upadeksyanti te jnanam jnan­i­nas tattva darsi­nah (BG 4.34). His words pro­foundly affect me whether I know it or not, every­time I read. But, I wanted to take this oppor­tu­nity to offer my respect to Srila Prab­hu­pada, since I am real­iz­ing that he is con­stantly offer­ing me protection.

Hare Krishna

Jacob

This entry was posted on Friday, August 20th, 2010 at 3:11 pm and is filed under Traveling Sankirtan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.