Hare Krishna

Hare Krishna

Welcome to my blog space; where I shed my material fears and inhibitions and share some of my spiritual realizations and understandings.

A bit about myself, I was born in a very religious family in Southern India. Both my parents grew up in the atmosphere of Sri Vaishnavism (One of the sampradayas for which Sri Ramanuja Acharya is the head). When I was around 4, we left India to come to the Middle East. It was here that my parents got into KC. So, I have been virtually brought up in this movement. My parents took initiation in late 90s with HH Jayapataka Swami.

Though my parents were in KC, they never really forced a lot on me and even from a young age let me chose on what I wanted. Though they insisted on attending Bhagavad Gita classes and being a Vegetarian, there was never a push and they gave me space to decide what I really wanted to do. I think it was that push that helped me question a lot of the traditions from a younger age.

When it was the time for me to go to University, going against practically every devotee we knew, my parents agreed to let me come abroad to study. The usual perception is always that when some one, especially at the age of 17, and more so a girl, goes abroad, it is going to be a serious blow on their spiritual growth. However, I am more career oriented and materialistic than most people,so I persisted. Another reason was, so many Maharaja's I met, told me about how active KC is in North America too. And reading stuff about Pandav Sena activities just got me more excited about going abroad.

Another key reason was, I wanted to challenge myself and see how strong is my faith which at that point was very shaky. I needed to question it and being in my comfort zone, I would never get the answers I am looking for.

Once I came to Canada to study, for the first time I had to face NUMEROUS challenges to pursue my KC life. However, amidst all these hardships, many realizations dawned to me about the interesting aspects of studying here. Possibly the biggest being that, for the first time, I had questions and those were being answered.

Today, I don't consider myself worthy enough to be called a devotee. But as an aspiring 2nd generation ISKCON devotee, I see myself and many like me playing a huge role in pushing the movement forward, along with the balancing act of handling our material lives normally. The new mantra is 'dovetailing' and it still remains a challenge on how to dovetail.

It is a tight rope walk, but I have the stick called Prabhupad's mercy and a soft landing called Devotee association below me, and for me destination, none other than Krishna Bhakti.

I think this tight rope walk would be a rather enjoyable one as I balance to seek Bhakti.