By Yudhisthira dasa
My Story
In 1971 when I was studying at SUNY Buffalo (and playing on the college tennis team), many of the now famous shaved-up orange-robed ISKCON devotees were a regular part of the landscape on campus. At that time, I had little contact but would stand around to stare at their alien appearance and briefly listen to their message. In those years, I hadn’t found my passion and was passing time in college as one of many of America’s “disillusioned” youth.
Fast forward a few years and I was accepted for a tennis teaching job in Canada as Peter Burwash was just starting his tennis management company, Peter Burwash International. I was already leaning towards a vegetarian diet and Peter’s 24/7 no smoking, no drinking, no drug policy sounded like a healthy option for my lifestyle at that time. While he didn’t force vegetarianism upon anyone, his “inner circle” was all vegetarian at that time, and he encouraged it strongly.
At Peter’s 2-week training center in Canada, I quickly transformed from a passive and relatively unmotivated 21-year-old into a driven and passionate part of Peter’s company. He quickly became my inspiring and encouraging mentor and more. Peter was smart, intuitive, and very charismatic. But there was much more, as I would soon realize.
After 2 weeks, I was selected to head up the first tennis teaching program in Hawaii out of the 120 coaches who attended that Canadian Tennis College in 1975. Within a few days, I was on a plane with Peter from Toronto to Honolulu.
Picture an overly excited 21-year-old arriving in Hawaii with a guide like Peter Burwash. Since I was to house-sit Peter’s Waikiki apartment, Peter sat me down within minutes and said, “I have something to tell you.”
Peter then told me the story from a few months earlier in 1974 when he was playing frisbee on Hawaii’s famous Waikiki Beach and how a wayward wind blew his frisbee throw-off course hitting a Hare Krishna devotee in the head. The way Peter told the story, it was fate. He explained how he got a book on spiritual life with an invitation to a Sunday Feast and that the “Krishnas” were now his friends. He needed me to know that I might get a phone call in his apartment from someone saying, Hare Krishna. Fortuitously for me, Srila Prabhupada had been in Hawaii for a month and was flying out the very next day. Peter asked if I wanted to drive to the airport with him to see Srila Prabhupada and his departing entourage. Immediately, I felt the wheels of fate were guiding me in this new episode of my life, and I was just a fumbling actor in an exciting life drama that was playing out very spontaneously.
Read more: https://iskconnews.org/eternal-gratitude-for-peter-burwash-1946-2022/
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