A preface for the upcoming updates

I'm kind of at an interesting point in this little project, and I haven't yet figured out how to progress through the next few entries that I plan to do as part of the chronological story. I have actually sat down several times over the past week and tried typing something out for this, but so far I haven't really made it past the first paragraph or so before my mind kinda freezes up and I don't know where to take it. I think there are a few reasons for that.

Firstly, most of the things that I have discussed up until this point have been things that I have pondered over for a longer period of time, in some places years of thought have gone into these words. And I have also had the chance to remove myself from the situation a bit to think it through from a new vantage point. However, now I'm in a totally different situation when I try to write these next few updates. Now I'm talking about things that I really haven't had the chance to thoroughly process or think about in a reflective way. I also feel like I am still tied up in the processes and events which I need to next describe. This makes it a bit harder to talk about honestly and humbly I think.

I also have this feeling that the next few updates will be the ones that some may use to create value judgments on me, perhaps as an effort for them to reconcile my decisions with their own worldviews and life stories. In a lot of ways, this blog was much easier to write BEFORE I discovered that so many people were reading it. Not entirely because I have been worried what people will think, but more that at times I've purposefully structured my entries to keep people interested. Though the thought has always been in my mind that people will use information from my blog to back up their own world views, indeed that will be one of the issues that I will bring up as I start to describe in more detail the events leading up to my leaving the monastery altogether, and how my thoughts developed over that time to make me feel most resolved that I needed to leave.

Without a doubt writing this blog has been an interesting emotional experience for me, and at times it's taken a lot of emotional energy to actually write about these things. In particular, describing the events of Suzy's death really did take me at least a week to properly get over, it was a draining thing to discuss. And for different reasons I also think that describing the events leading up to my final decision to leave this community will also be a somewhat emotionally taxing situation. I want to actually be in a solid emotional situation before I start writing about it, just so that I can ensure that I write with honesty, and not allow simultaneous emotions to filter through. This past week has definitely not been the week for such a task.

I will probably start writing again tonight, but I do have some relatively early appointments tomorrow morning, which will take me over an hour to walk to, so I'm probably not going to stay up late tonight to finish it off. But for those who have been asking me whether I am going to continue with this project, have no fear, I will be. It's on my mind, I'm just wanting to finish this up properly.

Once I am done with the chronological story telling, I will most likely just start telling various stories of things that occurred over the years, things that I think are relevant, but I skipped over in the first telling so that I could get to some of the most important episodes.

Thanks for everyone who has been reading and passing this around. It's actually amazing how many people have had a read of this. I'm completely surprised at some of the people who have sent me messages, e-mails and phone calls over the past month or so. Some of those messages have come at just the right moments, it's been remarkable.

Starting to finish.

I'm usually someone who is open and willing to accept the blame in things that go wrong. I think that is an important trait I learned while in the monastery. I think this is especially important when dealing with problems of the interpersonal type. No matter what interpersonal issues arise, chances are everyone involved had their faults in it. And it's almost always the best position to first of all acknowledge and deal with your own fault in a problem before tackling the faults of others. I think there also comes a point where all avenues have been exhausted, and it's time to give up the situation altogether. I definitely think it's foolish to give up on relationships without first putting in the solid effort to fix the problems in them, but I also think there comes a point where defeat has to be admitted. Knowing exactly when to admit defeat is probably the toughest part of interpersonal dealings.

Over the years, as my time as the manager of the monastery, and the most proficient communicator of our management and leadership team, I often had to write letters to our authorities about the problems that were arising with other members of the monastery. Sometimes I had to describe in detail some of the problematic behaviour that was going on, whether it was dishonesty, rough dealings, overly competitive relationships or personality clashes. This time, I was given two days off by the management team to write an e-mail explaining my own problems, with a sense of much more severity than the e-mail I had sent the year before.

I sent an e-mail to my Guru explaining in a fair amount of detail why I was finding it so stressful to continue living in the monastery. I think I have pretty much explained everything in my previous updates. For one, I was feeling overwhelmed by all the of responsibilities that I had to deal with. I was cooking three days a week for universities, trying to run a dynamic program with the sustainability network, looking after the books and accounts, monitoring income and expenditure, and book sales, making sure bills were paid, and people were fed and everyone had something to do. I had to communicate with people around the country, even around the world, to keep everything running. And I found myself being the person who had to think for everyone else in the monastery. I was glad to have a lot to do, but it was just becoming more than I could cope with, but every month it seemed like something new was being added to my list of things to do. I just wasn't a strong enough, or organised enough person to be able to deal with it all.

I was also having a hard time dealing with the others in the monastery. I think partly because I was doing so much, and often having to pick up the pieces and spend sometimes days fixing mistakes that others had made. It feel like I was holding everything together sometimes while the others were blissfully unaware how we continued surviving week to week.

I just didn't have the compassion or leadership skills to delegate tasks out to others very well. I had a hard to accepting the inabilities of others as I saw them. Every management meeting just filled me with frustration as we discussed for hours with no firm result on anything in the end. I just didn't have the strength to rectify these issues on my own.

Because of all of this I had started becoming less and less enthusiastic with my spiritual practices. Finding time to read was made doubly hard by the fact that I started to dislike reading altogether. Focusing on my chanting and meditations became more difficult as I was either rushing to finish my rounds before I had to start cooking, or else I was sleeping in because of exhaustion and having to chant instead of attending the morning prayers and programs. I just started to lose attraction for these things as time went by. And in the meantime, my attraction had started to become preoccupied with things like my bike, and thoughts of activism, and the prospects of leaving the monastery and starting to a career.

I wrote all this in my e-mail to my Guru, and said that, in my opinion, it was time for me to leave the monastery, I just wasn't going to be able to remain there peacefully much longer. At the time of writing it, I was pretty certain that I wanted to leave Krishna consciousness altogether. But, at the end of the e-mail I said that I wasn't going to rule out any possibilities. At that point I was feeling a bit pragmatic about it all. I was feeling less and less satisfied with the philosophy as it was presented to me, so my contemplations of remaining within the community were of a more pragmatic nature, if it suited my purposes I would stay. At the very least it would give me a chance to continue working on my personal character.

One thing I found incredibly interesting about this period of time was how interested the management was to ensure that no one else in the monastery knew I was having personal struggles. That was something I never liked that much. There was a culture within the community of silence when there were problems, especially problems with people who were looked up to within the community. It was like the other managers and leaders of the monastery were a little bit uncomfortable with the fact that I was being totally open about how I was feeling in the situation. They didn't seem to have the precedents to rely on to deal with it at all. And so when some of the other monks asked why I was getting a few days off, they weren't certain how to answer them. If they asked me, I would just tell them. I was beyond the point of burn-out, and I was writing to my Guru to let him know that things needed to change and fast.

There were several results to my e-mail. My Guru called up at some point, I recall, and we had a brief chat about things. He said at first that he would look into things, and try and find a way for me to pass on my responsibilities to others so that I could have a break from management. He said that I had reduced his stress over the years by looking after the place nicely, but now I was feeling that burden too strongly myself, and so it was causing it's damage to me. However, it wasn't until a month or even longer I think, maybe two months had gone by that it was finally decided that I would split up my services and spread them amongst some of the other monks in the monastery.

My Guru also decided that he wanted each of the members of the management team, at that time four of us, to get together and discuss our strengths and weaknesses. He asked me to write to him with all my possible complaints that I may have about all the other members of the management team. I wrote a novel, which I always do when I write. He was definitely concerned, and disappointed by some of the things I had to report. But despite his constant requests to have a meeting together it just never happened. Our management team was notorious for NEVER honouring meetings and meeting times. We made plans for meetings on many occasions, which never happened, and simply resulted in me becoming more and more dissatisfied in my situation. When we finally did manage to get it together to have these meetings, the result was even more depressing. It turned into an empty show. We would spend time focusing on one member at a time, and we would each discuss what we perceived were their strengths and weaknesses. It was good in the sense that, for the first time, we discussed some of the major character flaws we saw in others. The downside was that, despite having these things shown, there was no effort to improve that I could see from anyone else. I was also especially disappointed that, when it came time to discuss my strengths and weaknesses, I was left being complimented and given very little to work on. I was a harsher critic on myself than the rest of the managers were.

The third thing that happened after my letter was that my expressed desire to leave the monastery was, for the most part, dismissed. Within the Krishna community, if you are not a monk it is pretty much expected that you will be getting married. There were aspects of that part of the community that I found a little bit odd. In particular was the fact that a lot of the ladies seemed to discuss their marriage hopes amongst themselves. Since leaving I have heard from a few friends that some certain members of the female side of the community had their eye out to marry me, which I have to say is something I find a little bit creepy now.

When I said that I wanted to leave the monastery, the connotation was that I wanted to get married. Which i don't think was entirely the case, but within that community that was the connotation. I definitely knew that I just wanted to do a whole bunch of things which weren't really suited for a monk to do. I wanted to get involved in activism, I wanted to ride my bike, and have a few different bikes. And I even wanted to go to hardcore and punk shows, and see my little brothers' bands play. I wanted to be able to visit my friends outside of the Krishna community without having to feel guilty for doing it. So, essentially, I didn't want to be a monk anymore.

The basic reply to my request to leave the monastery was that getting married would be an even more stressful and frustrating endeavour than the monastery was for me. That living with a woman would be infinitely worse than living with 8 monks, regardless of how annoying I found the other monks.

I found this response a little bit frustrating for various reasons. If someone is asking to leave a monastic life, I would think it would be best for them to leave. But, I also disliked the dichotomy of 'either monk or married'. Ex-monks tend to be married rather quickly, and often through arranged marriage situations, with some choice exercised. I didn't like the thought that if I left the monastery, I would be instantly encouraged to prepare for marriage, and then lined up with a single woman from the community. For starters, as I said in my previous update, my parents are my primary example of a successful marriage. I could not see within the Krishna community a relationship that came close to theirs. And even worse, from what I knew of the ladies in the community, I didn't really see any who I thought were capable of that. My Guru sometimes let me know about the struggles in the ladies communities, I think perhaps sometimes he was trying to discourage me from considering leaving the monastery by letting me hear how 'crazy' the ladies were. I'm sure they are nice people, but as I've told a few friends, if I ever do consider marriage, I'm not the type of person to settle for less. And since I was already considering leaving that community as it was, it didn't seem pragmatic to get myself in a marriage situation within that community, only to leave anyway. That wouldn't be a very considerate approach at all. I think it is sad that sometimes marriage has been used in that community to retain members. Not so much in the immediate community that I was part of, but the Krishna community in general had that approach many times.

Essentially, the result of my raising personal concerns, and acknowledging that I wanted to leave was that I was given the chance to offload my services, and train other people to take over my jobs. That and I was given a trip to India as a spiritual recuperation trip, a trip that I never ended going on. For me, I considered this the final death thralls of my spiritual life. The only thing keeping me now was that I liked the projects I got to do as a monk with the eco and sustainability community, but once the year came to an end at the universities, and once I had managed to sufficiently train up some replacements, in my mind I would be free to leave the community altogether.

The last six months or so that I spent in the monastery were probably my most stressfree of all the years I was there. The main reason was that I knew the time was coming to an end. I had made up my mind, I was preparing to leave Krishna consciousness.

I forgot to give this one a title...

I took a trip to visit my parents in Whangarei around the end of June 2009. The occasion was their 30th wedding anniversary. I remember spending a lot of time on the internet during this visit, mostly watching bike videos on youtube, and checking out ebay for deals on vintage bike parts so that I could finish putting together my green bike. I definitely knew at that point that I was experiencing a change in motivations in my life. My spiritual and religious life was taking more and more of a back-seat position in my mind. i was becoming increasingly dissatisfied in the community I was living with, yet I was finding more support and better friendships with people outside the community.

For about 9 years now I have been posting on one rather dynamic discussion board on the internet. Over the years I have made what I consider to be some solid friendships with the people on that board. My posting on there has gone through it's ups and downs, but after Suzy's death I found myself posting on there more often, partly just so that I could have some people to talk with that I could actually relate with on a personal level. The monastery was really not the place for that, not that I didn't try. A lot of the people on this internet forum are from the same background as me, I can relate to them. And some of them I look up to in a lot of ways.

In 2009 I think I relied more on the internet and that discussion forum more for friendship and a sense of community than I did on the monks in the monastery. I knew that wasn't the healthiest state to be in, living in a community that wasn't providing friendship or a real sense of a caring community, and instead getting that in virtual form. I also knew it wasn't good for the longevity of a monastic life.

As I described, in 2008 when I visited my friend and his wife in Hamilton, I became a bit jealous of his house, his future career and his marriage. We were from the same background, and I was inspired by his example of life. The same holds true to some of the people who post on this internet community as well. I found myself admiring their lives, their families, even their struggles were seemed more tangible and real to me than the issues I saw in the community around me. I actually found myself becoming more attracted to the concept of struggling through life in a material sense than I was attracted to the concept of struggling through life in a spiritual practice, primarily I think because of the fact I struggled to find a single example within my immediate community which I had any desire to emulate at all. All this served to push me more and more away from the community I was immersed in, and I become more and more frustrated having to deal with the community in anyway.

For my parents wedding anniversary I spent the day cooking. I didn't really do my best for this meal I'm afraid. I just kept it pretty simple. But I did try to put together a nice carrot cake with that classic matte white icing that is always used wedding cakes and stuff. I can't remember what that stuff is called, but it starts with a P and you can get a vegan version of it at the supermarket.

(My parents cutting the cake that I made for them)

My parents decided to renew their wedding vows in front of a few friends for this occasion. They happened to have a friend who was a licensed marriage celebrant to give the event that extra sense of authenticity. My mother had sent an e-mail out to everyone in our extended family asking them to write some words to congratulate my parents for the 30 years of marriage. She also made it clear that all four of us sons would be expected to say something as well. They invited a few friends over for the occasion as well, but it wasn't a big event.

I definitely cooked to much food, but I ate too much as well, so I think it evened out. I made some quinoa and blackbean patties, a creamy eggplant kind of dish, and I think one other bean dish. It was all rather rich in the end though, and I definitely got a bit of indigestion both from the quantity I ate and the richness. But that is often my style when it comes to food preparation and consumption.

(Me cooking, with the whole family hassling me :) )

Some of my parents friends who came had a few kids of their own who they brought along. The son was really into cooking, so he enjoyed watching me cook, and learning a few tricks and secrets of the kitchen. I think he also liked the fact that I cooked without recipes. I hate recipes sometimes. He definitely enjoyed the meal when it was ready to be served up.

My parents wrote their own vows to read to each other. I guess they weren't exactly 'vows' so much as just their thoughts on their relationship together over the past 30 years. Everyone who meets my parents, including people within the Krishna community, have always commented on their relationship, or their successful parenting. Sometimes some of the ladies from the Krishna community would stay with my parents and mention things like that to them or to me. The vows that they read out were definitely touched the heart of everyone who was there. There were some damp eyes while they read out their vows, and I would be lying if I said that my eyes stayed dry the whole time, but I imagine that would hardly surprise anyone.

(My parents dancing during their 30th wedding celebrations)

I had a realisation while they were exchanging their vows. I realised that one of the main reason I had I guess resigned to a single life was that I held no hope for ever having the kind of successful relationship that I saw that they have. When it came time for me to have my say as part of the days celebration that is what I said. I told them that they had effectively set the standard so high that it seemed unattainable for the rest of us. And the thought of a second grade relationship really wasn't that appealing at all.

I kinda realised that day that I wasn't really being a monk for the right reasons at all. I realised that my two main reasons for being a monk were that: 1) it gave me more time, free from having to worry about income etc, to do the things I wanted to do with my life. However, as time went by, those things seemed to change from spiritual practices to being involved in social justice activism and riding my bike. And 2) I was a monk because I knew it would be incredibly hard to have a marriage/relationship on the level as my parents.

That weekend gave me a lot to think about. The whole last two years was giving me a lot to think about. I think I started to feel a bit depressed in my situation. I felt like the community I was living in just wasn't fulfilling me in any of the ways I needed it to. I didn't feel spiritual enlivenment at all, I felt like we were just treading water in a lot of ways. We were hardly doing anything revolutionary or even really effective at bringing about a really positive change to the world around us, or even to our own lives. Our management team at the monastery was a total embarrassment in a lot of ways. Although I managed to squash my bullying tendencies by this time, and I was actually able to treat the younger monks with respect these days, I was still really struggling to deal with the leaders and managers. The leader who I wrote much about previously had returned, and a lot of the emotional blackmail tactics had returned with him, though I was much stronger in dealing with it these days. I just found it all so uninspiring. I couldn't see any example of a person within the Krishna community that I could look up to, or see myself following in their footsteps. I couldn't even really see people who had undergone any radical transformation of character as was so promised by the practice. Sure, people underwent some radical changes at the beginning of their days in Krishna consciousness, and that is admirable that people were able to give up their destructive addictions. But still those I was living with were certainly not exemplary human beings, at least no more so than my friends within the activist communities that I was dealing with, people who I started being more and more inspired by as each day went by.

I was still so busy, and overburdened by a still ever increasing amount of responsibilities. I had to pick up the slack of responsibility from the other leaders and managers, and I literally had to make sure they didn't burn the house down on a few occasions. There just seemed to be no common sense prevailing in their actions a lot of the time. Sometimes the things they did were so unintelligent I was baffled that anyone thought it was a good idea at all. I was just getting so incredibly frustrated.

And so, one day, I called the managers to have a quick meeting, and I was totally upfront with them. I was not dealing with this situation at all, I wanted to leave the monastery, though I wasn't ruling out any possibilities, but if we didn't fix these things there was zero chance that I was going to be staying around. Actually, I already had next to no faith that we would be able to work our way through these things. In fact, they practically admitted that during this meeting. They acknowledged that in a lot of ways I just didn't fit in with this setting, or with the managers. They acknowledged their own lackings, and I acknowledged mine.

It wasn't an easy meeting to have with them in a lot of ways. But I was at breaking point, and I needed things to change. Already at that point I knew that there was little keeping me in that community at the time. Not much at all, aside from the fact that I just wanted to keep working on myself, trying to use the opportunity for personal growth. Sometimes I hear people say within that community that the only reason people leave that community is because they no longer want to work on themselves. I definitely have to disagree with that. At least in my situation, I left partly because I knew that I could no longer work on myself within their community, not in a positive way. I left knowing the fact that I would actually have to work on myself with a lot more determination once gone than I did within that community. I would have to ride without the training wheels and knee pads.

I had been the manager of the monastery for about four years or so, and no one else was capable of replacing me at the time. Although I desperately wanted to leave at that point, I still knew that I couldn't leave without first training up others to take over my jobs. Otherwise the monastery would end up in serious financial problems. We had a $1/4 million debt with our book supplier, it was a serious job looking after it all.

The management team decided to give me a couple of days off to think about things, and to write a letter to my Guru explaining the situation, which I did. The letter took a while to write. Aspects of his response were awesome, other aspects were a bit not. And there was a definite attempt to fix things in the monastery. I have even heard that there has been talk about dismantling it, but I'm not certain what the future holds for them. But I'll discuss my letter and it's responses later.

I like to ride my bicycle.

If I'm honest, the one thing that sticks out most for me in the year 2009 is bicycles. That pretty much sums up where my focus was for most of the year. Bicycles and sustainability. And finding a million ways to cook awesome food utilizing silken tofu.

What I did with my bikes was I took the first bike I got in 2008, and I did it up a little bit, made it a bit nicer, and then sold it for more than I bought it for. Combining that money with the money I got for Xmas I bought another BMX frame, and built up ANOTHER bike. It was that bike that I crashed and broke myself with. After that accident I went on the sickness benefit because of my injuries for a little while, which brought me in enough income to put towards ANOTHER BMX, which was better than the previous by far. However, I realised that BMX bikes are probably not the most suited for long distance riding, or commuting, which was something I wanted to get more into. So, that's when I decided to sell that bike, and buy a single speed road bike instead.

That's when things started getting crazy. I bought a fixed gear wheel set for cheap on Trademe, which was decent, and got into riding fixed. And I started riding my bike into town all the time. Whenever I would go to the yoga centre in town, I was riding my bike. This did wonders for my health, and my mental state I think. I would ride everywhere, whenever I had an excuse I was riding. I made friends with all the bike shops in the area, always looking for deals on parts and tuning everything up right.

One weekend two of us decided to attend the E.C.O. conference, to network more with eco groups. The conference was far out west, but I was determined to ride to it, partly just because I liked riding my bike, especially long distances. And partly because I was determined to start relying on sustainable transport more often, especially when taking part in eco events. Unfortunately my friend wasn't much of a cyclist. Like, not even slightly. We rode together from Otahuhu to New Market, and it took significantly longer than usual. I was going perhaps a quarter the speed I normal travel at, and he was still lagging behind! From New Market we caught the train to Swanson, deep in West Auckland, and from there had to ride up this steep and windy hill to get to the conference centre. It took us about an hour or so to get up the hill and find the place, yet only ten minutes heading back down the hill. As we got close to the retreat centre my rear tire got a puncture. Did I mention it was raining? That was a definite adventure. And I don't really know why we attended the conference to begin with. On the way back into town we stopped off for a soak at the pools in New Market. When we got out to ride to the yoga centre for a special program that evening, the Auckland rain really hit us hard. We arrived absolutely saturated!!

It was around that time that I started attending meetings to organise for a big climate change action on the 24th of October. The 24th of October was an international day of action against climate change, and in New Zealand a large number of events took place on that day. At the first meetings we had for this in Auckland, different ideas for different actions were put forward, and we split up into groups who would focus on one specific action. I joined the other cycling advocates to organise a mass bike ride through the city. We had many meetings over the next few months, and the result was really an amazing event. In the end we had over 400 cyclists meet up in the city, and cycle together 12km to Mount Eden. We had a team of about 12 ride guides, who blocked traffic at intersections to ensure that everyone was safe as we rode. Some of us had practiced that route up to ten times, just to make sure the ride was perfectly, and it did for the most part. It was a huge success actually, a highlight for the cycle advocacy movement in Auckland for sure.

(I led the ride on the 24th. This is me on my green machine at the front of the ride)

Another inspiring event that I attended in May of 2009 was the GetAcross March, which was a protest action calling for cycle and pedestrian access to Auckland's Harbour Bridge. This bridge effectively splits Auckland in half, and if you are a cyclist, that means that if you want to get over to the North Shore, you need to shell out for a bus or a ferry to get you there. It is a definite barrier to sustainable transportation in the city. So in May around 5,000 people showed up to a protest to march across the bridge to show their support for pedestrian and cyclist access to the bridge. Unfortunately, although the police were happy to allow us all to have access to the bridge, the transport authority for Auckland said 'NO'. The head of the transport authority was actually at the protest, and repeatedly told everyone that they would not be allowed access to the bridge. Unfortunately for him, and the two dozen or so police officers who were to try and keep five thousand people off the bridge, people power had spoken, and we all decided that we were going to go on the bridge anyway.

When I arrived at the protest there were a whole bunch of speeches taking place, but I quickly got bored of them. Instead I made my way over to the police barricade which was blocking access to the bridge. It was there that Wayne, the transport authority head, was standing. A few of us on bikes stood there and mocked him for a good while, as slowly more and more people made their way over to the blockade. Wayne continued to deny us access, so a few of us thought we would make our way to the other motorway entrance down the way, and see if the police blockading there would be more lenient with us. When we arrived there, we found four police officers, and a lot of space to walk around the barricades, even with our bikes, which is what we did. To be honest, I was expecting to get arrested that day, because I was just determined to get on the bridge. But as it turned out, so was everyone else.

As I rode my bike up the motorway entrance, I saw that huge amounts of people were also fighting their way to the motorway. I actually saw a family scaling a fence to get on to the motor way onramp. The father climbed over first, the mother passed over the baby, then the baby stroller, and then she climbed the fence. It was amazing. I made my way to the entrance to the motorway, and there were four police officers now trying to keep a few hundred people off the bridge. It wasn't going to work. Suddenly, we saw a group of breakaway cyclists come from further up the motorway fly past us and up the bridge. There was a huge cheer, and it was on, we all rushed the bridge, and five thousand people disobeyed the authorities to have their say on sustainable transportation.

(That is actually me with my fist in the air riding over the bridge...)

That evening I was scheduled to cook the feast at the yoga centre, which I did. But my mind was fully occupied with thoughts about what had just happened on the bridge. To me, it was really inspiring to see so many people make a firm stand like that, it felt awesome to have taken part in such an event. The biggest civil disobedience act in New Zealand history. And it looks like it was a success. While cooking I was constantly texting friends who had also attended the protest, and I was searching all the news articles about it on the internet from my phone. It was an inspiring event.

And throughout this year the Sustainability Network that we were running at Auckland University was taking on a more and more stable form. We were having effective meetings, things were actually growing and developing. I remember after one meeting having a chat with one of my friends from the monastery about how satisfying that meeting was, and how it was completely the opposite of the frustrating meetings that I took part in a few times a week as part of the management and leadership team at the monastery.

Because I was cycling so much, I decided to put the time and effort into putting together a really nice bike. I bought an old '74 frame from TradeMe, and started doing it up, with good quality, vintage bits and pieces. I had it powder-coated a nice metallic green, with chromed forks. I bought new-old-stock bits and pieces for most of the components, and a few retro pieces here and there. The result was a masterpiece if I do say so myself. And one that was such a dream to ride around the city, to get me everywhere I needed to go without relying on fossil fuels for my transport.

What all of this did for me during 2009 was make me realise that the things I actually got a kick out in my life were no longer things with spiritual focuses. I also wanted to be an effective radical, and I felt that I could do that much better outside of the religious community I was part of than inside. My mind was always thinking about how to fix up my bike just a little bit better, where to ride that day, and just craving the feeling of going fast with the wind rushing past me as I rode. I was inspired by all these community drive protests I had taken part in. They made me feel like I was part of something bigger, and that was actually going somewhere, instead of being stuck in what was feeling like a stagnant community with little forward movement or development. Our meetings at the monastery were getting increasingly frustrating for me, as we spent hours discussing the same things, and never progressing on anything. Meanwhile I was attending meetings with various groups, including our own Sustainability Network, which was always developing and pushing forward. I realised that my desires to the life of a sage was decreasing day by day, and my desire to be an effect agent of social change came back to the forefront of my mind. Since I had started feeling more and more let down by the decisions of the management committee at the yoga centre, I just found myself becoming more and more dissatisfied with the community I was in. Interacting with the monks at the monastery and dealing with the other managers in our wider community just started to become more and more frustrating for me.

Over the year things just deteriorated continually in that direction, until I started to realise that I now had more reasons to leave that community then to stay. But I also knew that it wouldn't be easy for me to just get up and leave, and it wouldn't be easy for the monastery to suddenly lose the manager who was the only one that currently understood all the systems that kept the monastery function. So I devised a plan to slowly back out of my duties until I felt I could leave altogether.

Yeah, I know this isn't a proper update...

I know that I promised a number of people that I would get a new entry up today, but it just isn't gonna happen I'm afraid.

I've had a really busy weekend, and since getting my new computer I've spent a lot of my computer time getting it customized just to my likings. As a result, I just don't think I have the focus to write an update today.

Here's a quick run down of my weekend:

Friday I checked out a site where a new community garden is being set up in Mt. Albert. It looked pretty awesome! Then I arrived back home to find that my computer arrived, which was also awesome! After getting distracted by my computer for a little while I made my way into town to meet up with a friend to go to an anti-whaling protest. I was a bit late, as usual, but as it turned out the protest organisers were late also. The protest was a street theater style protest. We had an big inflatable whale that was being harpooned and cut up by the 'scientific researchers' while myself and other protesters handed out 'whale meat', which was actually nicely wrapped styrofoam covered in red paint stuff. The protest was outside the Japanese consulate.

After that, we went back to my friend house, and I pretty much just played on my new computer for a while. After that I made my way to another friends birthday party, but on the way to the bus I caught up with another friend I had planned to meet up with that day anyway. Her, one of her friends, and I spent two hours hanging out on the side of K road just chatting about so many interesting things. It was actually a lot of fun. Then I caught the bus to my little bros' place, did a few things on my computer, then headed to the birthday party. It was a chilled out and relaxed affair, but I enjoyed just hanging out and catching up with everyone there.

Saturday was a fundraiser vegan sausage sizzle for the animal rights op-shop we're setting up. Unfortunately I slept in a bit that day, and missed with the initial set-up. We were just down the road from Eden Park, selling sausages to the cricket fans going to see NZ get beaten by the Aussies. Sadly, we didn't do as well as we had hoped, and didn't actually cover our costs. We have loads of sausages left, which we'll selling at $13 a pack if anyone is keen and wants to help support the cause!

My parents came and picked me up around lunch time, and we went spent the afternoon together with the family. I went back to do some more work at the sausage sizzle in the evening, but we were still not the most successful. Then we went out for dinner with the family again, this time to Golden Age. We arrived a bit late, but that was alright. Because I ate a lot of sausages during the day, I wasn't so hungry. I just picked a bit here and there off everyone else's plate, had some pan fried dumplings, and ate some deepfried vegan ice cream, which was AWESOME!!!

We then took a trip to the Sky Tower, which was pretty cool late at night. When we arrived up the tower everyone was totally quiet up there, kinda like they were in awe or something, or else they were on romantic dates or something. My family just got up there and did what we always do, make fun of each other, and do silly things. We timed how long it took us to walk about the circumference of the thing. My mom freaked out whenever anyone walked over the glass floor section. We all used the toilet, just because of the novelty of using a toilet so high up in the building. We are a weird family for sure.

Today was my birthday. I'm old now. My parents came around a bit after ten, then we wasted a few hours at my brothers place. I was trying to install ubuntu on to my new computer, but failing. During the process I managed to pick up a virus on my computer, and also infect my little brother's. In the end though, we got rid of the virus, and late this evening I installed Ubuntu, which is cool.

Eventually we got ourselves together and went to Motat where we continued our family tradition of wandering around, making fun of each other and goofing off in a serious setting. The mirror maze was awesome. My dad freaked out in the space ship simulator ride, and stopped it after the first 30 seconds. Over all it was a successful visit. Then we went out to Wagamamas for lunch, after our other choices turned out to be failures. The Thai place I had hoped to go to was closed when we arrived, as was the other Japanese place. After lunch we went to the supermarket and bought a whole bunch of stuff. I got some chocolate, like heaps, as well as some basic supplies for the week so that I can actually eat food properly for once.

Then I arrived back home, tired, but pre-occupied with my computer. I've got it slowly setup how I want it, and I'm pretty much going to go to bed happy as a result.

The things I realised this weekend are that I'm really happy at the moment because of the awesome people I have around me, and because I am feeling at the moment that I can really be myself without worrying about anything. I am a very social person, even though I'm not a party character so much, and I'm really glad I have lots of people I can chat with and hang out with when I need to.

Anyway, I promise for reals this time that I will do a proper update tomorrow!

Sick and broken

We arrived back from Wellington in time to get some final things prepared for the December book distribution marathon, which was a yearly event. This year was a slightly different marathon, primarily because of the fact that our most enthusiastic, or at least our most productive, book distributors had been shipped off to Sydney to start up a new monastery there. That left us with a smaller team of less productive book distributors to work the streets of New Zealand.

Also, at this time our sustainability efforts were being more recognised for their success, and we were being encouraged more actively to try and find a site to set up a community garden in the city. Two of us spent a fair bit of December dealing with that, forming relationships with the city council, looking here and there for possible community garden sites.

During the marathon, for almost the whole month, everyone was out traveling the country selling books, aside from myself and one other monk. The other monk was putting the final touches on a masters thesis he had written for a masters degree in accounting. He spent most of December in front of his laptop, and reading books, getting everything all together. I spent most of December riding my bike around the city, attending meetings, and networking with different groups. I was slowly getting an increased taste for the freedom this schedule has provided me with. With everyone out of the monastery we both started sleeping in a bit later, getting up and chanting more around 6:30 than my usual program of 3 am or 4 am rises. I still felt like I was recovering from my crazy schedule I had kept up for the previous two years. I felt like I was slowing down a lot. I no longer had the motivation to just rush around like a mad man everyday of the week. Summer time was my holiday time, and since I had already felt the stings of an impending burn-out earlier in the year, I was trying to balance things out a bit.

That December, as I think we did the previous year, a number of us took a trip up to Whangarei to visit my parents. In particular myself and my thesis writing friend spent what I think was about a week there with my family. We stayed there pretty much right up to Christmas Eve, and then drove down to Wellington for our yearly end of year festival. While in Whangarei I think I pretty much just chanted, ate food, rode my bike and hung out with my brothers. It was the only time of the year that we were all at home with my family. Most days I borrowed my mothers car and took my bike down to the skate park so that I could get the kids down there to teach me how to ride it better, and get more skills in handling it. At first they made fun of me, for being this weird old guy on a small bike, but in the end they just helped me out, and taught me a whole lot. I do like the idea of working with youth some day, mainly because I think I still have a lot more in common with teenagers than I do with people who are actually grown up. Plus, I know that those years are incredibly formative in people's lives.

I can't remember exactly what day it was, I think it was something like the 24th of December, my little brothers drove me back to Auckland. The other monks had left my parents place a few days earlier. Some were in Auckland still, others were a bit further down the line. The next day we were to start driving down to Otaki for our yearly end of year festival. On the drive to Auckland with my brothers they had their ipod playing the whole time, mostly punk, hardcore and emo bands that I used to like. I really relished the chance to listen to some of these songs again, and they each of the old songs I used to listen to reminded me of another time in my life, some good times, some rather bad.

Back in Auckland I put some finishing touches on some book sales spreadsheets that I needed to bring down to the festival with us, which meant a had a bit of a late night before the trip down to Otaki. We rose as early as we could the next day, and the few of us who were there drove about two hours to meet the others. There had been a definite communication breakdown in our organisation of that trip, which left me a little grumpy. I was expecting that we would meet up, and make our way down straight away to our final destination. I hated dragging out trips like this. However, once we arrived and met up with our colleagues we discovered that they had just started making waffles as a Christmas gift for their family, who they were staying with, and that we had to wait a good long while before they were even ready to start packing. I was not happy at all, so I just sat in the van and chanted my rounds, to get them finished before we started the long haul down to Otaki. When I was grumpy I always aired what had frustrated me, not in an incredibly angry way, but I didn't keep it hidden.

The festival that year was primarily one of illness. I had to cook lunch on the first day after our arrival, and then breakfast the next day. While cooking breakfast I starting experiences symptoms of a cold or flu. By the time I had finished cooking I pretty much just had to go to sleep. I ended up sick with a series of illnesses over those 9 days, each worse than the previous. First was a debilitating fever which wiped all my energy for at least two days. Then, I woke up one evening with an incredible stomach pain, which seemed to draw all my energy to my stomach. I got out of bed, sweating, and lay down on the bench outside of the toilet. I tell now lie when I say I actually thought I was going to do, simple because it just felt like every ounce of energy had drained from my body as I lay there, then my stomach grumbled and I quickly ran as fast as I could to vomit. That night continued in a multitude of exciting bodily reactions to something in my stomach. The next day I hardly moved a muscle. After that I ended up with a head cold. It was all very exciting. I pretty much required a week after the festival just to recover from my illnesses!

In mid January my Guru asked me to catch a bus down to Otaki again to spend a few days with him at the centre they had recently purchased there, and then drive him back up to Auckland, with an overnight stop-over in Hamilton. I thoroughly enjoyed this trip, it was like another break from all the madness I dealt with in my personal schedule and the monastery. He made a few comments about how it seemed like I had taking a break from thinking while staying with him in Otaki, and to be honest I think I did. He was understanding, I think he gave me this opportunity just as another chance to take a breather away from my responsibilities and schedule. I also had, for the first time in years, the opportunity to work side by side with my old friend from the animal rights scene. It was a rare occasion for me, and I was very happy that we had the chance to do some services together for once. Mostly during that trip she would cook for our Guru, and I would serve him his meals. She would normally make extra so that we could also have something to eat.

Then we drove up to Hamilton. He had asked me to take a different route than usual, and I should have checked the maps the night before to make sure I understood the whole route. But I was confident I could find my way, I guess that is something that people would say is a stereotypical male approach, but I really am good with my directions! Unfortunately he wasn't so impressed with my lack of preparation and made fun of me again for turning off my brain while in Otaki, which was also true so we both laughed about it. In the end we found our way without problems. About an hour or two from our destination he started talking to me about my programs and how I was finding things. We talked about the sustainability projects we were running, the relationship in the monastery, my own stress levels. He acknowledged that I was struggling, and said that we're just trying to keep my nose above water, which I think was an accurate description of how I was doing at the time.

Arriving in Hamilton we were greeted by a nice devotee couple who run a restaurant there. Our Guru sat down with them for his lunch while I went into the 'spare' room to chant my rounds. I was trying to focus on my meditations and chanting, but my mind was so grasped by the conversation in the other room. Our Guru was asking this couple, who had been married well before becoming Hare Krishnas, about how they met, and how the husband managed to convince his future wife to consider dating him. The exchange was a caring one, full of laughter and jokes, and encouragement. I laughed as well hearing the story, because to be honest it was a rather comical one.

After that I got to have a bit to eat, having skipped breakfast that morning. My tummy is rather sensitive, and I normally don't like eating while I travel, just in case. Meals out of the way, we had to start cooking for the evening program that was taking place that night. Various guests had been invited to the house there to hear our Guru give a presentation of the philosophy, and they would be served a nice vegan meal afterwards. We cooked and joked and talked about different things. The program went well for the most part, though I spent almost all of it in the kitchen.

That evening I shared the spare room with the husband. The house emptied at around 11 pm I think, after we had washed he dishes and cleaned up as much as we could. It was a late night for us. But once we got into the room to crash out, and we got into our separate sleeping bags, we started chatting, and ended up talking almost the entire night. We talked about a lot of things, including our different struggles, and issues we were having or had with other people in the movement. And we also talked about things we were enjoying about our lives, and the people we were getting strengths from. I think it would have been around 3 am by the time we got to sleep. I slept till 7 or 8 that day, and my roommate slept only till 4 am! He was up bright and early, doing all the chores he had to do that day.

I was tired when we drove back up to Auckland. We had some more chats about life and my projects on the ride back up. Once in Auckland my Guru decided that he wanted to get his new watch properly fitted for his wrist, so we took a trip to Sylvia Park. I waited while we went to a shop in there to get it set properly. When he returned he took his old watch out of his pocket and gave it to me. He said that his old watch gained 5 minutes every few days, and since he was always traveling around the world, from time zone to time zone, he found it a rather confusing thing. He would always turn up early to his speeches, wondering why everyone else was late. I still wear that watch, it's a nice watch, runs on kinetic energy. And when people ask me what time it is, I can only give vague answers, because I always forget to re-set it every few days. Sometimes it ends up as much as 30 minutes out!

The rest of my January was much like my December. Most of the devotees were out of the monastery until March actually. It was mostly just a few of us there. One evening I took the car and my bike out on an errand. I ended up locking the keys in the car while I was riding my bike from place to place. In a bit of frustration I started riding my bike with a bit of anger. Unfortunately that meant that I also rode it in an unsafe manner and ended up falling. Since I had a lot of speed when the accident happened I ended up quite hurt. I bruised my ribs, broke my glasses, grazed my chin and hurt my wrist rather badly. I ended up getting a ride home by a nice guy I met, and we picked up the keys of the car so that I could go back and unlock it, and drive it home. That night I woke up in a whole lot of pain. I could hardly even breath because of the bruised ribs. I thought perhaps I had cracked or broken one. I had to get up and ask one of the monks to take me to the hospital.

(This is potentially my favourite photo of me ever. In a cast, broken glasses, grazed chin, looking tuff)

After spending a few hours in the waiting room and ER, I got the verdict that my ribs weren't broken, only really badly bruised, which apparently doesn't feel any different, and it still took me over a month to recover. They said that I MAY have fractured some bone in my thumb, so I had a cast on for a few weeks. And I ended up taping my glasses back together until I could get new ones. So, for the rest of February I was pretty much out of action.

When March came it was back into my busy schedule again, but this whole year just felt different for me. I felt like I had a total shift of values and desires and aspirations. And the whole year I started thinking about leaving the Krishnas all together.

Wellington and bikes

Throughout 2008 I was attending Critical Mass, and providing some snacks and refreshments at the end. I started thinking more about riding a bike more often, and after receiving some extra income during the year I asked the leadership team at the monastery if it would be okay if I purchased a bicycle for myself. They gave the thumbs up so I started looking on TradeMe for some cheap deals. I wasn't entirely certain what to look for at the time, I didn't have the intention of going long distances, I figured that I wanted something I could take on the train, something that I would destroy jumping off curbs and something that would help me feel like I was reliving my youth! So after checking out a few things I decided to purchase, with a little help from my parents, a nice little BMX. This bike reignited my love for cycling, and soon took over my life!

I had always liked riding bikes as a kid, at least in the summer time. Actually, we did try riding our bikes on the snow and ice roads in Canada during the winters of my childhood. And in 2003, while living in Wellington, I lived on my bike. It got me everywhere.

Upon getting this new bike in 2008 it reminded me of that sense of freedom I had as a child riding a bike. It was the first opportunity for independent transportation, independent from my parents at least. And this new bike gave me that same sense. Suddenly I was much more mobile to get around the city on my own, without worrying about having the share cars, or pay for petrol. I also started liking just messing around on my bike for fun. On my first week of riding the bike I did a bit of a jump, landed on some grass, spun out and smacked my head against the ground as I fell backwards. It was awesome! Riding also improved my health dramatically, even in those first few weeks.

In November, after the festival in New Plymouth, myself and another monk traveled down to Wellington to spend the month there helping out at the men's asrama down there. It was a very timely visit. Before heading down I was feeling near the end of my wits. I was struggling with one relationship with one of the monks so badly, yet we had to work together in close quarters on an almost daily basis. I needed a break. I also needed a chance to recover from my insane weekly schedule. As with my trip to Hamilton, this trip saw my body just collapse in exhaustion, being free again from my sources of stress at the monastery. This trip also saw me riding my bike more and more.

We drove down to Wellington in one of the monastery cars, and for pretty much the entire ride down I answered questions and talked about Vedic cosmology, and how I had tried to reconcile it with modern views of cosmology. It was pretty fun, a rare opportunity for me to talk about those kinds of intellectual aspects of the Bhagavatam. My partner for the trip admitted he didn't understand any of it, but still continued to ask questions about it all.

Part of our mission down to Wellington was to set a good example of book distribution, which was near impossible for me at that point. I don't think I sold a single book the whole time, I seldom actually went out at all. Mostly I would sit in the car and read, or drop off some of the devotees, then go ride my bike to a park and read. I also got some modifications done on my bike, to make it more rider friendly, and cool. I even took it to a skate park a couple times to get used to handling and riding again. I definitely didn't fit in at the skate park. I was an old dude on a lame BMX who could hardly ride it at all. But it definitely was an awesome work out, my health really did start improving when I started riding my bike more.

Still, aside from when I was riding my bike, I felt exhausted while in Wellington. I think while staying in Auckland I was being held together by adrenaline, and while in Wellington I just fell apart physically. I had a sore throat and runny nose most of my time there.

One thing I noticed that was unique during this stay was that I was not at all mistreating any of the younger devotees. There was no hints of bullying on my part when dealing with them at all, despite the fact that they made so many mistakes. I was just able to laugh WITH them about it, and be understanding. Even the one ex-monk who moved back to Wellington to prepare for married life, our relationship during that trip was the nicest it had ever been.

Two other friends who were in Wellington at the time seemed to be going through some tough times. One was an ex-monk who had recently taken off from the monastery unexpectedly, I talked about him previously, and the other was a friend who had stayed in the asrama down in Wellington for a good number of years. He was coming and going at the time.

I think I mentioned this before, but generally the monks hated spending time in Wellington. One of the reasons was that we had to spend time living closely with younger devotees, or people who were just finding their feet in the community. It was kinda tough to deal with sometimes, especially when you just wanted to focus on your own problems and things. The other reason we didn't much like Wellington was because the ladies were mostly in charge there, and they had a totally different approach to everything than the monks did. It was really almost like a different world all together down there.

There was one guy I met at the yoga centre who wanted to take me out and teach me some things on my bike. So we met up one Saturday and rode our bikes at a skate park. We talked about Krishna consciousness, while he taught me a few bike skills. I didn't know much about his background, but he seemed interested in the Krishna community and practices. Unfortunately, some of the people at the yoga centre didn't like him for some reason, and he ended up being banned that weekend. I never really found out why.

On the last day that we were down there the yoga centre there held a big festival, with a hill made of sweets. My partner and I had the service of spending the afternoon handing out flyers to people on Cuba Mall. It just so happened that the Santa parade was also being held that day. It's weird, because normally I am an outgoing person, but when I had to approach people on the street for things, I just couldn't do it, even if it was just handing out flyers. Instead, I got caught up watching the parade, which was rather impressive.

I am such a critical person, and I was so especially as a Hare Krishna. That evening I criticized every aspect of the festival in my mind. Well, at least aside from the awesome cow shaped white chocolate covered apricots. Those were beyond even my criticism. I think I was just always feeling super-sensitive to the mood in which devotees would carry out their outreach etc. Or maybe I just thought I could do better. Actually, I know it was because I always think I can do better. But usually people who think they can do better never really do. Or maybe it's because sometimes I flip between being totally outgoing to being totally self-conscious in a matter of seconds, and that makes me feel over-sensitive to peoples moods in outreach etc. I still do it now, when watching people preach veganism.

After the festival came to a close, my friend and I raided the rest of the hill that was covered in sweets. We had a few boxes that we filled up with whatever we could grab. But our motives were not selfish, they were gifts we were bringing up to drop off to friends and family in Hamilton on our way home the next day. Monday morning we woke up, chanted, ate, and packed up for the long drive back to Auckland.

After arriving back I felt that a few of my relationships at home were recovering. And, pretty much during my absence our monastery leader had been sent to Australia for some time. It felt like a new era in the monastery was about to begin. I think in one sense that was the case. But, that era was my final era in the monastery. For the next year I felt myself slowly drift away from everything to do with that monastery and community in general. For starters, the management at the yoga centre was about to change, and I never really gelled with the new management. I didn't feel that they appreciated my skills or services as much as the previous management there. That made me feel less and less inclined to take part in that aspect of the community.

I guess I did have myself to blame for that. During 2008 I made some minor complaints to our higher authorities about the mood of one of the regular devotees doing outreach at the yoga centre. We never really got along he and I. After my complaint reached him, things went down hill between us. And also between myself and the new management committee. It was a major stress for me for well over a month. I had to deal with long phone calls, and in the end a decision that I could not accept. I was asked to apologise for the complaint I had made. That seemed ridiculous to me, especially as I hadn't considered my complaints any big issue, it was more some small concerns I felt about the way certain things were being conducted. But it was treated like I was being completely insubordinate. I was unable to meaningfully say sorry for what had happened, because I was not sorry, I felt like I had done nothing wrong. I was sorry that it became a big issue, I was sorry that people reacted badly, but I don't think I had done anything wrong in what I did when making my concerns known.

I lost faith in them, and I was never really given the same respect at the yoga centre again. SO I just did my own activities mostly from that point on. I kinda felt cut off from the yoga centre after that point. I think that was a big blow for me, one I don't think I really recovered from.

I like to talk

In October of 2008 we had a short festival with our little community in New Plymouth. There were about 100 devotees there, or something like that. It was in part to celebrate the birthday of the Guru that many of us shared. It is traditional for disciples to celebrate the date of their Guru's birth with some celebrations, as a form of gratitude.

A few of the monks in the monastery were of the opinion that I was given special attention by our Guru. The leader of our monastery sometimes mentioned this in a rather sour tone. I don't know if it is entirely accurate, but I do know that I was treated differently, I think in part because of the responsibility I held in my position as manager and organiser.

In the lead up to this festival my Guru called me and asked me to meet him at the airport in New Plymouth, a day or so before the festival was to start. He told me to catch a bus to a stop near the airport, and then make my way to the airport however I saw fit. I hitchhiked the rest of the way, which he approved of on several occasions. We spent the night together in a little bed and breakfast in New Plymouth, in a building that used to be a residence for Catholic Nuns. We sang some songs together, and had discussed practical matters about the running of the monastery. I always felt like there was a caring friendship there.

In the morning I helped him with his breakfast, and with his Chinese herbs he was taking. Then, we packed our things back up and made our way to the retreat centre that would be the site of our weekend festival. He had a separate accommodation set up for himself, in a small little house right beside the retreat centre. There was no cell phone reception here, and no internet. I took it as a chance to focus without the distractions that the internet brought. After unloading his belongings into the house, he talked about where his assistant would stay during the weekend. He asked me what I thought about his assistant sleeping under the stars on the deck. I laughed and asked if he was referring to ME sleeping under the stars. As it turned out, he was, though he must have noticed that I wasn't so keen on the idea. In the end he arranged for a vehicle for me to use for the weekend, to run back and forth from the retreat centre and his house, and that was spacious enough for me to put the seats down and sleep in. I think I ended up with the most comfortable bed out of anyone at the festival that weekend.

During the days of the festival I pretty much exclusively sat in my Guru's house, reading, or chanting or chatting with him. Or overhearing his conversations with others. I didn't get to really hang out with any of my friends there that weekend, but I didn't really mind. It was nice to have a break from the monastery life, to not have to worry about responsibility so much. Just to have some peace and quiet.

Sometimes, during other visits, my Guru would invite me over and let me sit in and listen to conversations he was having with other people. I think the main reason he did this was so that I could learn something from the conversations, including how to deal with problems and issues that arose. I often felt that he had big plans for me, sometimes he would hint that that was the case. During this festival I overheard a lot of interesting conversations, there were two things I overheard in particular, I think during one conversation, which really stood out to me.

The first had to do with how to reconcile contradictions between scripture and science. This had always been something I struggled with personally, especially given some ideas that most Hare Krishnas held dear. In my first year as a Hare Krishna I remember having a discussion with a friend about how he wanted to start doing outreach work at the university in Wellington by focusing on controversy, and he wanted to start by publicly opposing evolution. I responded by saying that I don't think that evolution runs counter to the principles of the religion we were following. I was happy to see, over the past year or so, some Hare Krishnas tackling this issue publicly. I don't see how evolution can be taken as a challenge to theism. There are also some interesting, yet incredibly confusing descriptions in the Vedic scriptures regarding the structure of the universe. It's not at all simple stuff to understand, and often devotees would get misunderstand aspects of it, but cling tightly to their misunderstandings. One such misunderstanding if the widely held belief that the scriptures say that the moon is further from the earth than the sun is, which, strictly speaking, is not a concept mentioned in the scriptures it is said to come from. I had many arguments with devotees about this over the years.

In the conversation I overheard during this festival, I heard my Guru make the comment that the best approach to take is the humble approach. If we admit that, actually I don't really know what the scriptures are describing, but I also don't know how to understand or comprehend what the scientists are describing, or how they came to their conclusions, but I accept that the scripture is correct, I just don't know HOW it is correct. In one sense, I guess that is an honest approach, but personally I didn't find it a very satisfying one. I was getting tired of having to reach around my head to touch my nose in order to explain these aspects of the scriptures which didn't at all correlate with the seen world around us.

At the time, the same friend who had previously made the comment about publicly opposing evolution was doing an about-face in terms of how he approached science and the scripture. We had a few chats, though I was still attempting to reconcile science and scripture, he was taking a more radical approach. He made the point that aspects of the philosophy were amazing as standalone philosophies, like the suffering in the world because it's temporary nature, the concepts of Vedic theology, which were very beautiful, the nature of the self etc. But then there were aspects which just seemed beyond belief, and fantastical. He was at a point where he seemed to be approaching the fantastic with caution, but embracing the parts he appreciated. This pick and choose approach wasn't very much appreciated by the wider community.

So, overhearing this conversation left me wondering how to reconcile it all. It felt anti-intellectual to say that the best approach is an "I don't know but scripture must be right", I didn't feel like I could take that on. I think it was from that point on that I started becoming a little more firm in my approach to these aspects of the philosophy and religion. I couldn't be against science so much, though I don't think I would ever say that science or technology is flawless, or even benevolent in many ways. But I couldn't deny it's validity, which was such a common stance in our monastery. It just made me feel uncomfortable to hear anti-science statements sometimes, often with little knowledge behind them.

The other thing I overheard during that weekend was a conversation about some devotees who had rebellious, or anti-authoritarian stances. It was suggested that some of these persons were suffering because of feelings of anger towards their fathers who had cheated on their mothers. I thought that was an interesting suggestion. Coming from a family in which my parents had an incredibly tight relationship, I couldn't entirely relate to it, but I thought it was an interesting social observation. I'm not willing to say it is accurate, I just think it's interesting, and the sense that I wonder what the thought process would look like to reach that analysis.

On the Sunday of the festival we had a special birthday party for our Guru. As part of this celebration some of the devotees present had the opportunity to read out homages that they had written. Because there were around a hundred or so Hare Krishnas there for the festival, there was a short list made of the persons who would be allowed to read out their homages. The first list was made by one of the organisers of the festival. She had made the list based on how long persons had been involved with the Krishnas for. However, our Guru wasn't so keen on that system. He said that the list also needed to take into consideration date of initiation, whether someone had received second initiation, and also whether the person was taking on extra responsibility, as that extra responsibility was an extra credit to getting these kinds of special privileges. He turned to me and smiled when he said that I would get to read out my homage as well, as a recognition of the responsibility I was taking on my shoulders. It was a nice exchange and gesture.

I have always felt comfortable with public speaking, almost scarily so. But there are some occasions where I just feel completely shy doing it. Last month I had to give an impromptu talk at an animal rights conference, and I've never felt so embarrassed when speaking in front of others in my whole life. This day was another time that I felt embarrassed. It was difficult to read out my homage. There were a lot of thoughts going through my mind while I did so. One such thought was that I realised that I wasn't certain if I actually did feel all the words that I had written. Saying them out loud made me doubt my statements more. I also realised that the main reason I liked reading these homages out in front of others was because I hoped others would recognise my literary skills.

After the celebration came the feasting time. This was another awkward situation. As I was assisting my Guru during this event, it was my job to look after his meal until he was satisfied. That meant that I couldn't sit and eat with my friends until he was done his meal. My two favourites things, eating and talking, and I had to suppress those desires until he had decided he no longer needed my services. It was a tough task, though in a comical way. I am comfortable laughing at myself about things like that, and there were more opportunities to laugh later on.

When he finally decided he didn't need me, he said I could go and eat with my friends, and then we would return back to his house after that. I filled up a big plate and sat down with some people I knew. And I started eating and talking. Actually, mostly talking. To much talking that I actually did very little eating, or at least not quick eating. By the time I had just about moved onto dessert I felt a hand on my shoulder. I looked up to see my Guru staring down at me with a bit of a friendly frown on his face. He said "Are you eating, or talking?", to which I had to reply honestly and say "Talking mostly." He laughed at me, then said "If I knew you were going to take this long I would have just told you to bring it back to the house to eat!"

When we returned to the house he was staying at I apologised for getting side-tracked during my meal. I said "Sorry, but I have a real big mouth sometimes, and I just have to talk." He looked out the window and said "So, you're a big talker huh? Well, that's okay, but from now on just talk about Krishna."

I still like talking non-stop, given the opportunity, I guess this blog is an extension of that. But in some settings I will just be the quiet person, almost like I have two complete extremes of socialising. My mother is a big talker, my dad is a quiet one. I guess I have both qualities at certain times.

If I analyse my relationship with my Guru I have to accept that there was a bit of a paradox to it. There was the one side that I felt he cared about me, and treated me like I had a lot of potential. I did like talking with him about things when given the opportunity. But, if I am honest, and I know this blog is about honesty, I also struggled sometimes watching the way he related to other people. A lot of my friends and family had met him over the years, and although they never said anything at the time, they now admit freely that they felt a little uncomfortable around him, and during his classes at the yoga centre. At times it was like a relationship where you care for someone, but you also worry when introducing them to new people, because you know that they have a personality type that a lot of people won't gel with.

On the week that I left the Krishna community, I talked to a friend who regularly visited the yoga centre. He asked if one of the reasons I left was because of the harsh statements made during the class by my Guru the previous Sunday. I hadn't thought about it at the time, because I had many reasons for leaving. But not long after a friend within the community e-mailed me, asking for my reasons for leaving, and then also asked what my relationship was like with my Guru before I left. It started me thinking about this point. I can completely understand why people don't like him, and I think that was always at the back of my mind. At the same time, I appreciated the care and attention I received over the years. As some of the monks said to me, sometimes I did feel like I was treated like a favourite son, and I think that helped me to overlook things that others complained about.

I don't want to analyse it all too much here. I think it's a very complicated issue. I don't think most people can relate to the dynamics of the relationship, nor to the social structure in which it occurred. Which I think may be telling in itself. I will say that when I first left the community I thought that the biggest emotion I would have to face upon leaving the community was the feeling of guilt for breaking my relationship with my Guru. I was both surprised and disappointed to discover that that wasn't the case at all. I was surprised that it didn't really occur on my mind at all. I was disappointed to discover that there were many more emotions that were much more difficult to deal with that arose after leaving.

To Vulnerability.

I've had a pretty busy last few days, and tonight, although I'm keen to write up a new update, I'm just too tired from the weekend to put the proper thought into it. I spent the weekend in Hamilton for Hamtown Smakdown, and had late nights both nights. Then yesterday I hitched back up to Auckland, got dropped off in Epsom and walked all the way to Kingsland, made it just in time to go to a meeting about the animal rights op-shop meeting, ate heaps of food, then pretty much went straight into town after that for the lantern festival. The lantern festival was awesome. I felt like a five y.o. kid for some reason, running around the crowds. I've never been to the festival before, and I was pretty impressed. The fireworks were pretty cool too. I ended up home late again. Today has been a tiring day also, full of cooking and walking and visiting the O Week at University of Auckland.

I had a few chats with people during the weekend about this blog. One thing that a lot of people liked about it was that I am willing to make myself vulnerable in this blog, by just being upfront and honest about things. And vulnerability encourages others to make themselves vulnerable. I think that is encouraging. I wish that everyone was willing to make themselves vulnerable, and that everyone had the maturity to respond properly to that vulnerability.

Coming home from Hamilton yesterday I got picked up by a lady probably in her late fifties. We chatted as she drove me up to Auckland. That's the nature of hitchhiking, no matter how tired you are, you are obliged to have a lively conversation with whoever has picked you up. It's like the fare for the ride. As we chatted we both became more honest and vulnerable with where we were coming from. I started to reveal a little more about myself, my life transitions at the moment, and my fears about life right now, things that aren't going as I had hoped they would, but also my hopes for the future, my dreams and goals, and my optimism that the journey would work out in the end.

She started talking about her recent divorce, and the feelings it brought up for her, her feelings of isolation from her family, because it is hard sometimes for family to understand divorce, and to re-design their view of a person separate from a long standing relationship. I was impressed by her honesty and willingness to become vulnerable to a complete stranger.

I think we all wish we could just open our hearts up to others, without fear of harsh judgments. I think we all wish we could share our hopes and dreams and fears and mistakes with everyone. When someone asks how I'm doing, I wish I could just tell them everything.

Friendships can be difficult at times. I talked about this with the woman who gave me a ride on Sunday. This was the main reason her relationship with her husband fell through. He wasn't willing to discuss how he felt about things, what was bothering him, and what his worries were. I don't think friendships can last without address these things when they are important. There is only so much that can be swept under the carpet before you start to lose your footing as you try to navigate you way through the room. Eventually things get so ingrained that dealing with them becomes to difficult, or unfamiliar, and it's easiest just to walk away.

I think I tried many times as a Hare Krishna to be vulnerable and honest like this. I just don't think it was reciprocated with. I think it was considered something uncomfortable, or something others couldn't deal with. So the lumps under the carpet just got too big to ignore any longer.

I don't want that to happen with my friendships now. But perhaps that is curse of human nature. 'Which is the most universal human characteristic? Fear or laziness?'

Hopefully tomorrow I'll have recovered enough from my weekend to continue on with the next parts of this story I've been telling. I've had the time to think about a few other events from 2008 which I think are worth talking about before moving on to 2009. I'm looking forward to more opportunities to make myself vulnerable. There seems to be little that is more rewarding.