6 people attended this week??(TM)s Vedicsoc session. Two new people came because of seeing a poster (probably just to disprove my statement about posters not working from last week).
One of the newcomers (obviously dragged along by her friend) was quite bored throughout the session. Chanting the Maha-Mantra she seemed completely uninterested and lack-luster. The other guest was more enthusiastic about trying this "meditation stuff", smiling ear to ear.
Then however, when it came time for the discussion, things changed somewhat. I spoke about desire. Or, that is to say, I asked the audience questions and let them speak about desire injecting to occasional comment, clarifying the occasional statement and giving hints like: "you know, in Bhagavad-Gita it says this ??¦"
Both new guests were cynical of anything that smelled ever so slightly of the most evil eight-letter word: religion. Not being as expert as my spiritual master I failed to effectively counter some of the folk notions they were expressing. For example:
What??(TM)s wrong with desire? Sure, there are some bad desires, but most of our desires are for good stuff like relationships and success. Why would you want to control them?
(please: if any of the more expert readers of this blog like to comment?)
I made some Tahini Oat cookies for the session (hint: they come out a lot better looking with a nice smoothly textured surface if one forms them into balls with wet hands instead of simply dropping spoonfuls of the batter onto baking sheet).
A large amount of cookies were left over and this remainder was literarily devoured by my office colleagues when I offered it to them on the next day. It seems the combination of golden syrup, cinnamon, tahini and sesame seeds tastes a bit like pork (I didn??(TM)t try them because of my health, so I would not know). My peers kept asking me: "Did you put pork in these cookies?" while reaching for a new cookie every few minutes. "They taste great, but really, no pork?!"
They proceeded to joke about perhaps becoming pigs in their next lives. Mikel admitted to already having a pig-like consciousness and loving it.
Ah, prasadam working its magic ??" though perhaps in a slightly unconventional way.