An Authentic Life v 1.2 - Universalist Radha-Krishnaism

they stay for a week reenacting the meeting of
Krishna with Radha, the lover of his youth, when he
was an older king at Kurushetra, and their return to
Vrindaban.
Our procession began on Haight Street and continued
to the ocean along the south side of Golden
Gate Park. The three Jagannath deities Shyamasundar
carved out of big blocks of wood were placed on a
canopied flatbed truck he drove. A group of devotees
sat with the deities chanting and playing instruments
over an amplifier.
I danced wildly the whole time in front of the
truck slowly making its way down Haight Street
while a motorcycle cop told the driver to hurry it up. I
remembered how Chaitanya danced in front of the
Rathayatra cart in ecstasy five hundred years earlier
as Bhaktivedanta described it from the Chaitanya
Charitamrita.
The crowds in the streets loved the festival. At the
beach, devotees passed out food we prepared and offered
to the deities. Some of us also unwittingly ate
LSD spiked food hippies gave us.
Then, about thirty devotees got on the flatbed
truck and drove through Muir Woods to Swamiji's
house at Stinson beach for a feast and a talk about the
significance of the festival. The drive and devotees
carrying the deities down the beach on a canopied
platform reminded me of something out of a Fellini
film. It was surreal--the deities seemed to float down
the beach in slow motion on the devotees' shoulders
48