My dear , our home base is here in Austin at the Austin Hare Krishna center. I remember back in 1971 when Vishnujana Swami first brought ISKCON to Austin. Austin was a small college town with only three tall buildings. There was nothing much happening here except for the University of Texas, the Texas state
capital, and the Hare Krishna center at 2906 Dancy Street, where we did a lot of dancing and chanting. There was such a friendly smal town atmosphere that the mayor of Austin, Mr. Roy Butler, attended my initiation ceremony on Dancy Street. 45th Street was north Austin, Now one has travel ten miles north from 45th Street to be in north Austin. Our ashram in north Austin is next to a forest. Now they are going to tear down the forest and put up an apartment building. Austin is
now blessed with hellish traffic jams and regular murders.
Sometimes I lament the changes between the old Austin and the new Austin. But then I remember that the old small town Austin and the new hellish city Austin are both within the material energy where people are forced to get sick, get old, and die. So the
difference between the old Austin and the new Austin is like the difference between wet stool and dry stool. Someone may think that dry stool is better than wet stool because it does not emit the foul odor that wet stool emits. But in either case, whether it is wet stool or dry stool, it is disgusting stool.
So in this way we have to philosophically detach ourselves from the so-called happiness and distress of this material world because both of them are stool.
Sankarshan Das Adhikari
P.S. Thank you for reading Thought for the Day. If you have not already done so, please make this your regular daily habit. You will derive great benefit by doing so.
