Well today is my birthday. 72 years ago on this day I was in a small baby’s body, but today I am in an old man’s body. But I’m still the same person, although it seems like I have lived many different lives, as a child, as a student, as a devotee, as a husband and father, grandfather, and retired woodworker. Lived and traveled to so many places, had so many different life experiences, and so it seems, I have lived many lives.
I am reminded of some of the famous important verses from the Bhagavad-gita:
As the embodied soul continually passes, in this body, from boyhood to youth to old age, the soul similarly passes into another body at death. The self-realized soul is not bewildered by such a change. (Bg 2.13)
For the soul there is never birth nor death. Nor, having once been, does he ever cease to be. He is unborn, eternal, ever-existing, undying and primeval. He is not slain when the body is slain. (Bg 2.20)
Full texts and purports will follow at end of post, but I wanted to mention some well known persons who I share a birthday with.
On this day in 1978, Dhani Harrison appeared, who we all know as the son of George and Olivia Harrison, turns 50 today.
And one of my favorite musicians Jerry Garcia was born on August 1, 1942, in San Francisco, California. He was the co-founder, lead guitarist, and vocalist of the Grateful Dead.
Jerry Garcia and Srila Prabhupada intersected through 1960’s counterculture, notably via the Grateful Dead playing at the 1967 Mantra-Rock concert. The Grateful Dead performed alongside Big Brother and the Holding Company and Allen Ginsberg at the historic San Francisco Avalon Ballroom benefit concert, which helped introduce A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami and the Hare Krishna Movement to the West coast.
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The Hare Krishna Movement 