Ruslan is a newish devotee from Ukraine. He came to our ashram during the time I was in India. In an effort to get better acquainted with him, I invited him to the streets of Yorkville and U of T. He doesn’t speak a stitch of English, so I tried to convey that he and I will concentrate on walking and japa meditation. He was okay with that. Both of us knew that the trekking was going to be interesting – navigating through a world of slush at intersections. The sun was upon us and the snow was bright.
The snow was plentiful and the temperature at 4 degrees Celsius created puddles which seemed more like rivers and lakes. Other pedestrians were in good cheer keeping a close look at every soggy step.
Back at the temple there was a celebration of wedding anniversaries. The Patels were honouring their 25 years of happiness – two couples from Muskoka and Stratford sat through and assisted in the Vishnu sahastra nam sacrifice. As usual, such events are colourful. Birthdays were also upon us, including our very young two-year-old. Mandikini was such a happy girl, of course, because of the attention as well as the cake.
I was humoured by an email sent by Michael Oesch, a dear friend that I wrote about in The Saffron Path. To his credit, he was walked across Canada and is a counsellor with Marijuana Anonymous where the organization is considering changing using the term ‘higher power’ instead of ‘God’. He added that personally he felt a more appropriate term would be ‘Bob, Observer of Bullshit.” I can see what he’s talking about. God notices a lot of mess that we create.
Source: https://www.thewalkingmonk.net/post/a-walk-a-cake-a-fire
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