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Wednesday, the 3rd of April 2002, 3:20 PM

On The Way to Maribor

It's Wednesday, the 3rd of April 2002, 3:20 PM. My collapsible Palm keyboard is balanced on my lap as I bounce around in a 12 seat diesel van.

We're on our way to Maribor, the second largest city in Slovenia. There will be a Nama Hatta program, a kind of congregational gathering, and I'm supposed to be the guest speaker.

The weather so far has been ideal. Sometimes it has been a little cool, slightly chilly, but on the whole it's been sunny and warm, neither too hot nor too cold. The sun has been shining every day that I've been here, though I'm told that typically April will see a lot of rain here.

Yesterday I went with some devotes to climb another mountain near Ljubljana. The name of the mountain is Shmarno Gora. Gora means "mountain." Shmarna is 669 meters above sea-level, and our starting point was 320 meters, so we hiked up 349 meters. It was not as high as the one we climbed last week, but it was a much steeper climb. At times we were climbing at a 45 degree angle or steeper, often making our way over rocks and boulders. It was pretty exhausting, but I wanted to go because I don't get enough exercise. So although the overall vertical climb wasn't as much as the mountain we climbed last week, it was more strenuous.

At the top of Shmarno Gora are a beautiful church and painting gallery. After resting and doing a kirtan we descended and went back to the temple in time for prasadam. That evening I gave the Bhagavad-gita lecture in the temple on Chapter 18 text 8 in which Krishna describes that renunciation in the mode of passion does not lead to true renunciation.

There are some modern highways going in and out of Ljubljana. Out here, on the way to Maribor, we're on a two way road, following along side the construction of a major highway. It's really quite an engineering feat, this new highway that they are building. There are a lot of mountains all around us, and the highway is being burrowed through some major tunnels that not only go through one mountain, but in one mountain and out after two or three more mountains. The government is obviously spending a lot of money to develop that road.

Maribor is more towards the North East part of Slovenia. It's a two hour drive from Ljubljana. The road we are on is the main road from the Adriatic Sea to Vienna, so there is a lot of traffic on it.

We're passing through an area where they grow hops for making beer. Beer and wine drinking are major Slovenian pastimes, as I learn both from my brother John and from the local devotees. (Devotees of Krishna follow four regulative principles: No eating of animal flesh, no gambling, no illicit sex outside of marriage and no intoxication.)

Traveling is an interesting life, but I will be happy to stay a few weeks at the Manor. I return there on Friday.

I say a few weeks, because some other things have come up. On April 27 I will be flying to New York for two days, returning on April 30. Then again on May 9^th I will be flying to New Vrindavan for about five days to attend a GBC meeting and some seminars. The trip is being financed by my disciple Vrindavan Lila, who is living at New Vrindavan. So although I thought I would be staying in England until the end of May, in reality I'll be taking two trips to North America during that time. Each time I will return to England.

On the last day of May I will be flying again to New York and staying at the Brooklyn temple until the 17th of June when I will be going for a week to North Carolina before flying to Vancouver for the rest of the summer.

A devotee from Trinidad has written to say he is listening to my lectures on ChantAndBeHappy.com and would like me to visit there. I have never been to the Caribbean islands, so I will see if it is possible to go this year. I’ve been a sannyasa for more than 20 years now, but this is the first time I have ever traveled as extensively as I have this year.

The program in Maribor was a great success, by the way. We had the meeting in a school classroom. About 15 or 20 people attended. I lectured on the first point of our Krishna Conscious philosophy. Click here to see a transcript.