Oh, so heres one reason why Krishna West is so important to me. When I was very little in the early 70s my fathers sister ran the Gurudwara, the Sikh temple in LA, she lived right next door. The philosophy of not being the body, of having many lifetimes, of connecting to God, of eating consciously as a vegetarian, of living in supportive community, the light and presence and love and divine connection I could see and feel was so amazing. It lit my heart on fire. BUT, my dad didnt see it. My mom didnt see it. And for a long time my grandparents didnt see it. I grew up hearing about how my cousin was in boarding school in India and how horrible it was that all he got was rice and dhal every day for lunch. They couldnt see past the tall white turban, the Sat Nams and the cultural differences to see that in so many ways she was being a far better Jew, a person of God, a light bringer and an inspiration. At the same time my mother has a passion for linguistics, mathematics, opera, classical music, high culture and the study of world religions and anthropology, from the Euro centric view point. She didnt see their light either. Why not? When I went to Israel as a young teen, it was obvious to me the piety of so many of the arab mothers in jerusalam. My Uncle was head of the Psych department at Hebrew University and he got it, but the rest of my Jewish family couldnt see beyond the poverty and the non western dress, and the external differences to their obvious beauty and goodness. So when I joined the Hare Krishna movement, I just couldnt be satisfied with something that would estrange jews, arabs, sikhs, christians, I already knew people would judge for the wrong reasons. I had seen it. My joining the Hare Krishnas was a stance of joining the family of change agents of all those who were dedicating their lives to align with and serve the one god for real, to elevate themselves and purify themselves and to help each other. The most amazing people can become invisible to good peoples vision because of leaving an impression that causes them to not look close enough and take the person seriously or to see them as other. What HDG is presenting is an attempt to be relevant to Western people and from my life, it is obvious that there are many successful, smart, responsible people who are not fringe and not rebellious but would otherwise be open to a far deeper connection to God/Krishna as long as they could see it was real, it was elegant, it was respectable and elevating them and it was not an assault on their particular senses. Jaya Shree Krishna! Happy Janmashtami!
Posted on: Mon, 18 Aug 2014 04:39:51 +0000
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