By: Bruce Walton
Youngstown, OH
Sitting underneath a tree by the main library near the corner of Wick and Rayen avenues, a man known simply as “The Walking Monk” enjoyed a quiet Friday afternoon arriving for the first time in the city in his pilgrimage we across the U.S.
His only supplies: a cell phone he rarely uses, prayer beads, a watch, some business cards and the bright orange robes and sandals he wears while he traverses the land.
Bhaktimarga Swami, 63 is a Hare Krishna monk who started his pilgrimage just three days ago when he began in Butler, PA. HE plans to walk entirely on foot to San Francisco, walking 20 miles a day. He left no timetable for his arrival on the West Coast.
The monk arrived in Youngstown on Thursday night and had the opinion that people are easy to talk to in the city, finding them vocal and approachable.
“I’m here to encourage people more toward introspective walking,” he said. “Just get out of the car, give it a break, and experience more of a car free care free lifestyle. Take a little down time for yourself and make a prayer for it.”
The walk is to celebrate Bhaktimarga Swami’s guru, or teacher, Abhay Charanaravinda Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, a spiritual teacher and the founder of ISKCON in 1965 New York as well as a new form of yoga known as Bhakti Yoga.
According to religionfacts.com, Hare Krishna is the popular name for the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, or the aforementioned ISKCON; a religion based in Hinduism.
The Hare Krishna’s worship the Hindu god Krishna as the one Supreme God. Their goal is “Krishna consciousness,” (sic) and their central practice is chanting the Hare Krishna mantra for which they are named.
Growing up Catholic in Ontario, Canada, Bhaktimarga Swami said “He became interested in older civilizations and cultures, he found his teacher Prabupada through meeting monks in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
“When I was Christian, I used to wonder, ‘what does it mean: “Our father which art in heaven hollowed be they name?” So what is the name?” he said. “And when I became a Krishna monk I said, ‘oh, there’s the name, Hare Krishna.”
He’s been a monk for more than 30 years, travelling and spreading the message of inner peace, spirituality and the teachings he learned from his guru.
As he makes his way across the country, Bhaktimarga Swami said he survives on the kindness of strangers for food, shelter and hospitality.
In the 20 years he has performed his pilgrimages, he said he’s rarely met dangerous people, but he does recall some close encounters with bears.
The nomadic monk also is accompanied by his assistant, Gopala Keller, 32, a follower of Hare Krishna from New Vrindaban, WV who travels ahead of Bhaktimarga Swami to ensure he’s appropriately accommodated and protected, while making preparations for his arrival into towns and cities.
After Youngstown, the monk plans to go in the direction of Cleveland, OH and further west afterward.
Walton, Bruce. “‘The Walking Monk’ Makes a Stop in City.” The Vindicator [Youngstown] 14 May 2016