Lord Caitanya’s saṅkīrtana triumphs again.
Dhananjaya and I joined the saṅkīrtana party in the Murray Street Mall this evening at about 6:10 pm. It was a small party of men, mostly over fifty. Can you believe it? We were once twenty year olds in dhotis.
Now we are a bunch of fifty-plus year olds, in dhotis. “A bunch of old geezers making fools of themselves,” I thought to myself. “How embarrassing?”
“Yes! Embarrassing, indeed. Stop listening to the mind!”
“Prabhupāda started preaching at an age older than we, so what’s the problem? Let’s absorb ourselves (myself) in the chanting and forget about the externals?”
Walking south down Beaufort smiling pedestrians greeted us warmly, and respectful shop assistants waved and danced in time with the party. Ameyatma Prabhu led the chanting with the Jāya Jagannātha tune in remembrance of the fact that today is Guṇḍicā Marjana, in Jagannātha Puri. Moving west down Hay our senior troupe attracted a steady stream of mobile wielding spectators, happily recording the action for their Facebook friends.
In the middle of Hay, Ameyatma handed the lead over and I followed on with my favourite tunes learnt from the boppy, Mayapur recordings of Vaiyasiki in 1982. We rocked along steadily to the beat and tune, oblivious by now, of anything going on around us.
At the corner of Hay and William we were escorted by a yodelling drunk and his bemused (sober) mates, holding a wine flask on high as we moved east. We were then accompanied by a wispy, bearded, well-dressed, twenty something lad who seriously contemplated the mantra meditation.
“There you go,” I thought to myself. “It doesn’t matter how old or young you are.” This greatly fortunate young man stayed with us for more than half an hour, deeply meditating on and absorbing himself in the saṅkīrtana party reverie.
The mahā-mantra has His own way of working. We chant and He does his work. If he can work through Śrīla Prabhupāda at age seventy, he can work through us at sixty.
There were only nine of us. Each an enthusiastic, hearer and following on from that; an absorbed, seasoned, chanter. It was a pleasure to lead and hear the response from such enthusiastic, mature, street meditators; no-one window shopping here. Lord Caitanya and Prabhupāda taught me once again; to let go, enjoy and let them do the work.
Saṅkīrtana is such a sublime and pure experience of absorption. It directly removes us from the material and connects us with the spiritual. Good for us and good for everyone who hears.
There is a Hare Krishna Movement in the West.