Who’s buying Gita’s at the Harinam at Union Square?
A group of young people who get together and read Plato’s Republic chose Union Square because of the good weather one October day. When they passed our harinama party, a devotee lady invited them to offer candles to Damodara, and they all did, holding their Republics in their hands. I talked to their leader about Plato’s analogy of the cave and how this world is a perverted reflection of the spiritual world, where we love God in different relationships. He asked what the relationships were, and I described them. He asked if they were in a hierarchy, and I explained their order of intimacy.
I considered that if they liked philosophy enough to read the Republic every week, they would be able to handle Bhagavad-gita, so I showed the book to their leader. He was impressed with the Sanskrit and the word-by-word translation, and he bought the book.
A young lady from Long Island came up to the NYC Harinam book table and told how she had been a ordained Buddhist monk in Thailand. She was a singer, and after a week she was kicked out of the ashram for humming, among other things. Rama Raya Prabhu and I explained that positive spiritual engagement was more practical and enjoyable than escaping material desire through meditation on nothingness, and she was very receptive. Turns out she went to the same high school as Rama Raya, a few decades earlier. I told her, “If you have enough enthusiasm to get ordained as a Buddhist monk, you definitely would be able to get into reading Bhagavad-gita,” and she ended
up buying one.
ys, Krsna Krpa Dasa
