Truth Seekers

As the sun moved lower on the horizon it was time for the Sunday afternoon program at the VedaLife center. 

Asutosh Krishna, Alakananda, and Vallabha

 Now that we had done our morning stroll around Kiev, it was time to meet the friends at the Veda Life center. The Veda Life center holds seminars, organizes conferences and houses yoga classes. I had been invited by Avadhuta Maharaja to talk to the truth-seekers there and answer whatever questions I could accompanied by my trusty translator Asutosh Krishna, pictured above.

Alakananda in the lobby of the Vedic Life center as we prepare to meet the friends.

A few posters for local color.

The visitors at VedaLife are mostly confirmed initiated disciples of Prabhupada, Shridhar Maharaja, Govinda Maharaja, Acharya Maharaja, Goswami Maharaja, Avadhuta Maharaja and others, combined with local Kievan intellectuals, artists, doctors, and various and sundry truth-seekers.

We took questions on a variety of topics. We started out talking about compassion. Some were interested in how to deal with War in the Ukraine. We counseled peace, an understanding of the nature of the eternal soul and God's plan, and promoted peace on the basis of compassion and Gandhian nonviolence. We spoke about the need for tolerance and moderation in our teachings to others, Proper attitudes in mantra meditation, Relative and absolute religious principles, society consciousness and god consciousness. We took questions on how to balance the chakras. We dialogued about creative differences between truth-seekers and how to achieve the joyous principle of Krishna prema.

The young and enthusiastic folks in Kiev asked some really good questions that made me think deeply. I did my best to be useful and give good answers, based on my studies, my training from my guru and the hard experience of 60 years of life.

Here is the link to the talk with Russian translation   https://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D0waHNmShTYM&h=TAQGkKu7E

Finally it was time for aroti, and a stately kirtan....

And we all sat down to a nice plate of prasadam. But as soon as we ate, it was back to work.

Lila Sundar and Akulananda burning up the silicon

After the aroti and feast, we had a brainstorming session on best online social media practices. The session was lead by young Lila Sundar, a deep thinker and online media genius.

Lila Sundar: a bright young man and Information Technology Specialist

In all we spoke for about 3 hours and talked to as many devotees and truth-seekers as we could while here in Kiev.

Giri Raja

And now it's time to pack my bags for Moscow. I'm leaving in 4 hours. See you there.