The Kuli

My schedule in 2008 started to take on an even more hectic appearance than previous years. Along with the Tuesday, Wednesday and now Thursday cooking and serving food at universities, and the Thursday night classes at the yoga centre, we were also trying to push the sustainability network with different events during the week. This included late night movie screenings, weekend gardening workshops, cooking classes and more. Oh, and during this year I also managed to organise vegan cooking classes at MIT campus in Otara. All this on top of my personal studies, my management services (which were full-time on their own) and being involved in the yoga centre activities. It was a very busy year, and the most hectic of my life I think. And with the extreme busy-ness I started to find it increasing difficult to cope with the social dynamics around me, especially what I perceived as the incompetence of both the younger monks and the leadership, both of whom would constantly approach me, even after I had gone to be, with what I saw as simple questions that anyone should be able to answer. It was stressful. What friendships did exist during that time within the monastery were stretched to the limits. I did yell or snap a number of times, just frustrated that I couldn't walk through the house without being approached from all angles with people asking me where the salt was, why the computer was typing in ALL CAPITALS, or if I knew of a good remedy for their health ailments. At the same time my constant work was being ignored to the point where some people actually openly admitted that they thought I was wasting too much time because I wasn't distributing books.

In April 2008 our monastery received a some emotional softness in the form of a very kind and gentle monk. This young monk had grown up in the Hare Krishna movement, living from the age of about 4 or 5 in a Hare Krishna school in India. He always smiled, and his eyes almost always looked like he was about to cry because of compassion for other people. In fact, during his month-long stay with us I witnessed his eyes brim with tears on many occasions.

I had a short break in my university schedule during this monks visit, which meant that for about two weeks we were the only two at home in the monastery during the day. He was a very heart felt monk, who had seen EVERYTHING in his time as a devotee. He had a lot of insight into the dynamics of our monastery. All of the observations I have made in here were identified by him as well. He saw the harsh treatment, and the lack of respect, and the struggles of the management and leadership. He discussed how he worried about certain devotees because of their behaviour. One devotee was renowned for chanting so fast, though he actually seldom verbalised the entire mantra he was meant to chant. Many times he would just repeat the same word 9 times, moving his beads regardless. Our little visiting monk found this to be very worrisome.

If you have ever spent time with Indians, you will probably know that they are a bit more comfortable about issues surrounding their personal space than most westerners are. When you meet up with an Indian, they will often shake your hand and continue holding your hand while you discuss things. For the western mind this often creates an awkward moment. You want to pull your hand away, but you aren't sure what to do. It never bothered me much, but I used to watch a lot of westerners squirm their way through the situation. Our visiting monk was very reliant on physical contact while discussing issues. He and I developed a close friendship while he was staying with us, and as we talked we would often be holding hands, sometimes embracing and cuddling. That was how he operated. And sometimes, when we discussed difficult personal issues between the two of us, the physical contact helped calm the pain.

My visiting monk friend had been through some very difficult times in his life. Hare Krishna schools do not have the best track record, at least not in the old model that ran the schools. There was a lot of nasty behaviour going on within those boarding schools, both carried out by the teachers, principles and by the students and residents. There was physical assault, sexual assault and extreme emotional bullying. My friend, being the runt of the school, felt the brunt of this misbehaviour. He was never once bitter about it, but nor was he willing to dismiss what had gone on within those school walls. Although I was well aware of this situation before meeting my friend, hearing him describe things, and seeing the reactions he was experiencing made it all the more real and heart wrenching for me.

We would also discuss difficult points of philosophy. There are occasional philosophical controversies which would arise in the Krishna consciousness community, and I made a point of studying the arguments and counter arguments when I had the chance to, so that I could understand what the official line was for our movement. But I seldom met a devotee who understood the implications of many of these arguments. My visiting friend was one such person, so we would discuss the ins and outs of these issues. In some areas we disagreed, and continued to disagree after discussing them, other times we both shed knew light on the subject, and coloured our previous standpoints with a bit more grey than we entered with. Even when in heated debates about the origin of the soul and the implications of that issue on the overall process and philosophy, we were still holding hands or cuddling on the floor.

I discussed with him my pains at losing Suzy, and how it made me feel. He talked about his dissatisfaction over the issue that his previous principle, who he had witnessed carry out so many deviant activities over the years was still held in high regard within the community. We would chant Gayatri together, and sign kirtan. For me, it was both a period of spiritual inspiration AND a time of deep reflection on issues within our community, as well as becoming more honest about our own personal lacks and strengths.

My monk friend told me he was planning on leaving the monastic life. We said that he had always wanted to head towards a family life situation, getting married and continuing on with life in that way. We discussed the issue many times. The real reason he was with us was because he had brought his wish up to his authorities, and it was decided that he just needed some time away to get his thoughts together, and then he would continue on as a monk. I can attest that it is not exactly as easy thing to leave the monastic life behind, primarily because of the social structures in place to keep monks there.

I discussed my own realisations with him. I acknowledged that I was feeling so many different desires for things in my life which I didn't think could be restrained much longer by the confines of the monastery walls. I wanted to make the world a better place, and I was having doubts that Krishna consciousness was able to do that. I told him that I loved to study the scriptures and learn the philosophy, and I loved the things I was doing at the universities, and that I wanted to stay a monk for those reasons, because having a simple life meant that I would be able to focus on reading the books, and putting all my effort into my cooking for university events, and organising dynamic sustainability projects. He pointed out to me, rather starkly, that I hadn't picked up a book for the past three days that we had chatted together, so he doubted my sincerity regarding my love for studying. I realised he was right. Actually, my taste for studying had started to decrease, primarily because of the fact I felt I struggled to have faith in the scriptures as a whole, something I may get around to discussing at a later time.

His visit solidified a number of things for me. It increased my realisation that I had been neglecting my emotional side for a very long time. It reminded me of the importance of being physically comforted when dealing with difficult emotions. It made me question more and more my motives for staying in the monastery, and for staying in Krishna consciousness in general. It made me view the overall philosophy less and less as a black and white issue, and instead with many shades of grey. For the first time I felt like I actually had a deep heart connection with someone within the Krishna community who I could talk to about whatever needed airing. His visit gave me such a mental relief for that one month.

When he left to go back to his home temple, I missed his association greatly. My stresses quickly overwhelmed me again, and I started to struggle even more when dealing with the perceived incompetence of those around me. The management team was starting to drive me nuts with the hour long meetings to make decisions which were overturned by a single member of the management team a few hours later. I was sick of telling devotees again and again not to ruin the accounting systems by spending money from book sales before accounting for it. There were so many stresses. I just felt tense at all times that I was in the monastery, because I knew it was only a matter of seconds before someone would approach me with a complaint or a question which anyone should have been able to answer for them, or they probably could have figured out on their own if they had actually bothered to think about it first. It was driving me nuts. Even now, as I type this and remember how I felt during that time I can feel my body heat up in frustration. I remember that feeling all the time, almost wincing whenever I heard someone call my name. Now that I remember, the reason my reading first started to suffer was because I couldn't get through half a page without someone approaching me and asking me some insane question about something. If I wanted to read I had to do it while everyone was out of the monastery, but that was also the only time I had to catch up on my management services uninterrupted. It was a mad time for me.

Because of this madness and extreme stress, when I did manage to get away from it all, during my trip to Hamilton sometime around May, I felt my body completely collapse like someone cutting the strings which held up a marionette. Only my strings were the strings of stress. Hamilton was also the home of several of friends who I felt very indebted to for their support in my pre-Krishna years. I would probably not be alive without them I don't think, and I wanted to touch base with them again, I didn't want to risk losing another friend to the cruel hands of death without at least letting them know that I was grateful for their friendship. My visit to Hamilton opened my eyes to a lot of things about myself and my situation, and my return from Hamilton was the time I tried hardest to be honest about them all,