People in our community aren’t always punctual. The standard joke is, “We follow IST,” translated as Indian Standard Time or ISKCON Standard Time. Seriously, I don’t laugh at it anymore. Shobam is in his twenties, and he joined our walking team which agreed to meet at 8 AM for the start of the trek. When the topic came up about the chronic lateness, I said to Shobam, “Can your generation change that?”
“I’m going to try,” he said.
The Ledges Trails at Cuyahoga National Park is just ideal as a place to explore. There’s gorgeous hard and softwood trees, rocks, moss, ledges, crevices. And there’s nice pedestrians who had the same idea as we did. The sun was shining, so were people. Temperature when we started was 18º Celsius and climbing. We took to the trail to learn and love.
The evening sangha was held at an enthusiastic household in Solon, a few miles (this is the States) from the park. Srimala, a most competent leader, lead the kirtan. I read my poem, “Big Cat,” describing the Lion Avatar. All enjoyed. Then we delved into Chapter 7 of the Gita where the dialogue between the wise Krishna and student Arjuna, continues. Questions rolled out – relevant. What is on people’s minds is the tension between Pakistan and India, the Kashmir incident, and what to do and how to we respond to the radical terrorists that seem to be driving communities and nations?
My response was, “While a good defense to react to horrific acts of violent aggressions goes on, we need to cultivate ourselves as strong devotees and spread higher consciousness by teaching, opening centres, distributing books and prasadam.”
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