Inspiration to Join Krsna Consciousness
BY: BHAKTA CHARLIE
May 09, 2012 — ALACHUA, FLORIDA, USA (SUN) — Thank you for this VERY nice article, Ratha Yatra in San Francisco.
There were really two things that led to me joining the Hare Krishna movement around 1970 -- one was George Harrison's "All Things Must Pass" album, featuring the "My Sweet Lord" track. I remember the first time I heard that track on FM radio VERY early in the morning, it was earth-shaking to me. Most of us had felt the Beatles were the leading edge, and we were all constantly wondering what was coming next, so some of us assumed that George was spot on with this track, that the future WAS Krishna Consciousness.
Who knows to what extent in George's mind it was just grinding out another track versus him really hungering after "My Sweet Lord". Certainly for some of us, the latter was our all-in-all at the time, it was our very life-line when some of us were in existential crises. I do think George was hungry for it, as Srila Prabhupada called him "Hari - son"...
The other, for me, was a photo that came to my attention when my brother returned from Laguna Beach (to Connecticut) after spending the summer with cousins out there. I had spent that summer as an exchange student in Guatemala. The photo that the article has captioned "Ratha Yatra, Golden Gate Park, July 24, 1969", is the same one that was in the BTG my brother brought from Laguna Beach. I felt when I saw that BTG, that the devotee on the right who has his hand cupped to his ear, looked TO ME, like a probable alien listening to some cosmic radio signal (but maybe it was just a baseball game on a transistor radio). Anyway, that photo was HUGE in my mind, and led me to joining up with the Boston (Alston) temple, later in '70.
Anyway, great article, thank you very much. It's my feeling that there's a much greater need for articles like this.
