Patch Adams and Community

Dear Readers;

We had quite the busy but profitable weekend selling our soap at a Craft Fair.  The space is only 8'x8' so if your neighbours are unpleasant then the fun quotient tends to slip. Fortunately we had a couple who made the best rootbeer on the planet on one side and on the other a cheesecake baker! Fun...fun.

 On the second morning of the Fair...poor Gaura Nitai was cleaning his glasses and they snapped right now the middle of the nose bridge.( G was one of those cute babies with glasses so without glasses he is legally blind). Fortunately one of the sellers suggested he go to the Hobby store and buy some airplane model glue. He did and with a blast of accelerant his glasses were good to go.You see the big problem is if I would of had to drive the stick shift car home. My daughter Sita taught me how to drive while on the Island in Panama but I never had to shift to 5th gear because the roads were so terribly pot holey that to go over the 3rd gear was just nuts. I'm also deathly afraid of having to stop on a hill because the last time I did I ended up sounding like a squealing race car driver as I left a strip of smoking rubber on the road.

Basically we are just getting our lives back in order. Damaghosa Das sent us this video of Patch Adams and I wanted to share it. I read Patchs' book some years back and I find him a great inspiration but what I really get from him is the importance of creating community. Not just any community but a community based on love, compassion,kindness, acceptance and being nonjudgmental. We are all wanting to find a Shangrila where we will fit in but first we have to possess those qualities ourselves before we can recognize them in others.I try to be those things but I'm not. To remedy my low character I'm getting out of my ivory tower and associating with people who have those qualities. Right now I'm surrounded by Buddhist monks, Chinese and Taiwanese helpers. I'm finding many to be practicing these good qualities. Anyways here is the video. I hope that it inspires you as it did me.

Hare Krsna,
Kokum Lal