For years I had hosted guests to Toronto by taking them to one of the better urban locations. That meant taking them for a walk through some of the green space in one of the many ravines — the Brick Works. Once we pulled out of that natural comfort we came upon Chorley Park and then the beautiful residential area of Rosedale.
There at the edge of the park stood a sweet elderly white-haired woman. She stopped her walking as soon as she saw the three of us saffron-clad monks ambling along. She remarked, “What is it?”
“We are monks from an order — Hare Krishna.”
“Hare Krishna!” she repeated for clarification. “Where are you from?”
“I’m from here. This is Krishna Prema Rupa from Switzerland and this is Bhaktivinode Swami from South India.” She was rather blown away by our appearance. Monks in Rosedale?
While still in Rosedale, but steps closer to our place of origin, a man on a scooter pulled over. “Are you guys Hare Krishnas?”
“Yes!”
“Oh! The seventies. My mother was a freelance journalist who took lots of pictures of you monks in the 70’s. I’ll pull out some of those pics from my phone. Here’s one. Maybe you remember him?”
And I did. “That’s Hiranyagarbha, a Sanskrit scholar, a teacher to me.” The fellow, super friendly, goes by the name Ben. He promised to send me more pics as a favour.
By the time we reached Ramsden Park, a tall local guy came to us in utter fascination. Intros were exchanged like the last two encounters. People were drawn to three monks and they expressed it.
Source: https://www.thewalkingmonk.net/post/noticing-three-monks
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