ISKCON Halifax

On Fri­day we drove out of Van­cou­ver about an hour to Stawa­mus Provin­cial Park.  Keith, Cory, and I hiked up about 750 m to the high­est peak in the area.  It took about 3 hours.  It was steep.  There were chains and iron lad­ders at some spots.  Along the way we met Chris who was hik­ing bare foot.  Ini­tially I was think­ing, boy this guy is austere! 

As we were talk­ing with him I found out it wasn’t by choice but because a big blis­ter had devel­oped on his big toe and had popped. 

When we finally got to the top, the view was obstructed by trees so we ven­tured down a lit­tle to the cliff’s edge, out of view of all the other hik­ers.  What a spec­tac­u­lar view.  It was a sheer ver­ti­cal cliff.  On the left was a deep gorge.  Cory was remark­ing how the fear that arose in our con­scious­ness when we were stand­ing on the very edge of that gorge look­ing down was due to con­di­tion­ing — think­ing I’m this human body that CAN’T fly or keep from falling over and dying if I get any closer to the edge.  But we were watch­ing the squir­rels who were scram­per­ing OVER the edge at ease!  Then Keith was glo­ri­fy­ing the free­dom of the bird, but Corey pointed out how fear­ful they are — look­ing for food and how they fly out of neces­sity to pro­vide food and shel­ter for them­selves and their fam­ily.  The free­dom felt by a self real­ized soul is far beyond our mtl con­cep­tion of free­dom.  Fear­less­ness (from death) is a sign of self-realization and real freedom.

We are chomp­ing on cel­ery and peanut but­ter when Chris comes down and ask us if we want to smoke pot with him.  Keith sud­denly says,“we’re monks.  We don’t smoke pot.”  I was think­ing, “way to go Keith!”  Then we went on to explain bhakti yoga and mantra med­i­ta­tion and said, “Let us offer you some­thing, an ancient book of wis­dom called Bha­gavad Gita.”  He gladly and grate­fully received it. 

Where and how did you get your first book authored by Srila Prab­hu­pada?  We’re eager to hear from you.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 31st, 2010 at 2:59 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.