On Saturn Day, the Salt Lake City Krishna Temple hosted the Festival of Colors USA. Although I've known about and even dabbled in Krishna consciousness for more than forty years, this was the first Festival of Colors I have attended. I was astonished at the turn out and found it to be a very positive experience with good food, great music and lots of friendly people enjoying a jubilant celebration. It was impressive to me that no one was smoking, drinking or doing drugs and everyone was positive, friendly and pitched in to clean up afterward. As usual, I seemed to be the eldest person in attendance... something I'm getting used to.
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I discovered Krishna Consciousness when I was still in grade school. My elder brother of eleven years, taught me some basic meditation and introduced me to Eastern philosophy. I became familiar with Eastern thought and had read the I Ching, Upanishads* and Bhagavad Gita before graduating from grade school. At the age of eleven, I had the opportunity to see a performance** of sitar master, Ravi Shankar, along with his family and friends, at the Salt Palace in Salt Lake City. I was the youngest person there. In those days, none of my peers listened to ragas and most of them had limited exposure to meditation and Eastern religion. I've always lived way beyond the trend curve*** and was so pleased to discover that so many people now have interest in Krishna Consciousness. Tens of thousands attended the event on Saturn Day.
Jai Krishna and the Ananda Groove played an inspiringly hip and rockin' set.
MC Yogi had the opportunity to improvise thanks to technical difficulties.
* In ninth grade, I did a book report on the Upanishads. Another student did his report on the Book of Mormon. The other pupils giggled and thought that was weird, (and probably thought my report was even weirder), but I was pleased that he did it with no regard for peer approval or affirmation.
** Former Beatle, George Harrison, was the headliner that night, but I enjoyed the Shankar set as much if not more than the popular songs of the quiet one. I had the opportunity to see Ravi Shankar perform three times before he died.
*** I've never been a joiner and never really felt a need to fit in. Even in my punk rock days, I wore my hair long whilst the "scene" was wearing it shaven or short. Eventually, the trendees wanted to be like me and began wearing their hair long too. That's when I cut mine off and proclaimed that PUNK IS DEAD.
Heil Krishna
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