No Retirement
24/06/10 16:16
This morning was a larger darshan as several devotees arrived from other parts of Venezuela and everyone jumped into the available cars to come to Purujit's home for morning darshan. Srila Acharyydeva responded by extending the darshan for over two hours and accepting gifts from many as well as fielding questions from all over the room. At one stage he asked me to speak briefly, and I mentioned the Gita veres including 'rasa varjam raso 'py asya' which mentions that in order to leave our lower habits we need to get a real taste for spiritual life. At the end of my talk I mentioned my eagerness to return to Venezuela in the near future whereupon all of us 20 and 30 something mridanga players would be retired, and the young 7, 8 and 12 year olds would be doing all the kirttans. Srila Maharaj smiled after my talk and simply said, "There's no retirement in Krishna consciousness," confirming my joke. Rather we look forward to "prati-padam" at every step, more service opportunity and the corresponding reward of further engagement.