Today is my last day in California. Over all it was a nice trip, but I am happy to be going back to the temple again and continue on with my spiritual life.
This trip had made me think of the many realizations I've had throughout the three weeks. Some of my family members were inquisitive about Krishna Conciousness, others rejected it which is to be expected. Srila Prabhupada said that family members will reject Krishna Conciousness and a devotee must accept the rejections and humility. by doing that it makes the devotee more determined to serve Krishna and to spiritually advance. When I met Nirantara das Prabhu and listened to his class he made a very good point. When a devotee wants to talk about God, there are some people that don't want to talk about God and are not very encouraging, and all they want to talk about is sex and their problems in life which is true. What I've learned is that many people are very touchy about the topic of religion and will freak out if a religion is different from theirs and don't know anything about it's philosophy. My grandmother on my mom's side said that people should try to learn something new everyday so that they are comfortable with it and not fear it. She's one person i can talk to about Krishna Conciousness without someone giving me a hard time about it.
Even on T.V you don't hear any encouraging words about how to love God and others...the T.V just wants you to satisify your sense gratification. I never liked watching T.V that much anyway. To me it's boring lol.
Other realizations is this too, is that I do miss being around my devotee friends. They have shown me a lot of kindness to me and I still email many of them. I've had more friends now than I used to when I was in school. I never had any friends in school because the kids always bullied me and I was always different from them. If you didn't act like their friends or like themselves in school, you were considered a geek, or just plain weird. I was always the one that got easily picked on because I was an easy target. but no more of that. Krishna had made me stronger and taught me how I can stand up and fight, and not let maya or anything else try to attack me with their mundane words. I cannot wait to go back to Toronto and see my friends there again.
And also lastly being on this trip forced met to think of Krishna more. There were times I had come close to tears because I missed being in the temple and doing service there. It was a strong feeling of separation. I had almost anxiously waited for this trip to be over but Krishna still fullfilled my desires while I was out here. He knew I wanted to go to the temples to see Him. So I went to the Los Angeles temple twice and the San Diego temple once. Little by little Krishna is revealing Himself. This is probably why Krishna sent me on this trip to think of Him more which I pretty much did the whole time. I did my best to stay Krishna Conciousness as much as possible.
Now tomorrow I head back to New Vrndavan. I have some new faces there to meet and things to take care of within the four days I am staying there before I head back to Toronto April 8th. It'll be good to be back in the temple again where I am happiest.
