During the Path of Lockdown I had the desire to actually meet up with devotees. Learn as much as I can from people on their own path.

Brooklyn, In?

I found out that a devotee was painting the temple walls at one table while the Path of Lockdown continued. Her and another person was doing the work.

I agreed to come help in Brooklyn, Indiana. Never heard of the town before.

It was at a former Christian Church with a steeple and all. This was the very first *God wink* sent to me about chipping away my stone walls I solidified around the Christian faith tables.

Part of me was ready to not walk in and drive off. Think of me as that kid in third grade again. Approaching the new school table and finding a table with only one person so less awkward. Hands sweating freaking out. Nervous. What if they are mean? What if I’m too weird?

If I didn’t have one very supportive friend with me to approach this new table, I would probably have driven off. They had no cares for Bhakti but was there to support me. It didn’t seem that significant to me at the time. That is why our Spiritual Guide gives us hindsight; to help cultivate Gratitude.

Then you say Hi as you sit, and they greet you with the most loving embrace as long-lost friends. Thats literally how it went down! Hare Krishna and a Hug. She was the exact person I needed to meet in person first in the Path of Association.

She was an older woman. She was just as new as me to the path of Bhakti. She has children close to my age. Yet she just found her Spiritual Path. She would go on to get initiated. But more on that another day.

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The first initiated devotee I met, in person, is an amazing man named Gopal. He has become such a dear friend. He let me ask him the questions that I wouldn’t feel comfortable asking most devotees. He gave me the confidence to speak to other devotees.

He, how can I say this properly, he is the type of man that when I am around him, I feel like I’m a better man because he is in my presence. He has a smile that can melt even the coldest of hearts and he has the heart to go with it. Don’t get me started on his entire family. From his moms online Gita classes to his online Bhakti Sastri classes I am so fortunate to be in association with him, his wife, children and his entire family as often as possible. I seek out his table every time we are nearby on the train cart.

Upstate New York

Quickly after, The Maya Express took me all the way to Supersoul Farms in East Chatham, New York. To visit my Sangha Table. Now the “Wisdom of the Sages” table.

One story everyone will tell you about me in my normal life and the story I still tell myself all the time is I’m an introvert. I was soon to find out that, maybe my own personal narrative was wrong.

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We arrived a day early and was invited to a Kirtan (devotional dancing and singing). What was left out of the whole invite was the fact it was also a wedding. So now I’m not just meeting all my new friends, I’ve dragged that same supportive friend along, in jeans and hoodies, to unknowingly CRASH A VEDIC WEDDING in the woods.

The craziest thing happened. The supportive friend who was the extrovert, felt very awkward and out of place. Me? I reacted the opposite. The next two days I spent being the most talkative, active, participating, person in my entire life. I found the friends of Kaustubha, Raghunath, Mara, Vegan Trucker, the Naked Viking and many other names to many to cherish at the table in person. Raghunath as you can tell loves his nicknames. I embrace mine. I’ll tell the story of Arumar the Grateful soon.

I was sitting at lunch table talking to Paramananda, who is this cool a** punk rocker and monk. We are talking about our home lives. I mention I’m an introvert and he put his hand on my shoulder, stops me cold, and says, “nah brother, you are not an introvert”.

We talked more and he really brought it to my attention that when you are around those with the same goals, the same hearts, the same desires to learn about our Spiritual Path, they also have the same energy as me.

Paramananda’s conversation really opened up to me the truth about the Path of Association.

Just like the light of God is needed for us to find our Spiritual Path, that same energy from fellow devotees opened my Soul to being vulnerable and be more consistent in walking my Spiritual Path. It opened me up to express myself in ways I normally can’t do in my day-to-day life.

The Path of Association is another fundamental pillar I rejected for too many years. Thinking it was my fault. When in reality it wasn’t anyone’s fault, I just didn’t normally sit with the friends around my normal life, at the same tables on the Maya Express. I preferred the WOW table not the RPM table, the Cooking Table not the Fishing Table.

For years prior to Bhakti, I had found that my tables didn’t really fit with those who was nearby in my life. I blamed that on me. Thinking I was the problem.

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When we are on the Path of Association a table of strangers can feel like a table of family, and when we are on a different path than those at the table, even large friend & family gatherings can feel like a table of strangers.

I literally witnessed in real time how the Path of Association can convert an Introvert into an Extrovert and in the case of my friend, an Extrovert into an Introvert.

Did my friend not have the same level of Love as me? They did. Probably even more than me. They just weren’t ready to include this Path of Bhakti Association on their Path. No amount of forcing could change that.

I can’t say they were or weren’t on their Spiritual Path or on the Maya Express. That isn’t for me to assume.

Country roads, take me home, To the place I belong……….West Virginia?

As we started to open the doors to the temple in Indiana, my older new friend of mine needed a ride to small area called New Vrindavan, WV. Named after the Holy Dham Vrindavan in India.

I agreed to make the five-hour drive there and back to drop her off. Little did I know did it lead to the Path of Jesus and the Swami.

Yours Forever Grateful