Deeply affected by the death of his entire platoon in the Vietnam War, Lance Corporal Brian Tibbitts embarked upon the pursuit of the real meaning and purpose of life and found solace in the Bhagavad Gita. The American ex-Marine met Srila A C Bhaktivedanta Swami, founder of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) and, at the age of 21, became his disciple, entered the renounced order of life and became Indradyumna Swami. In his quest for the search of meaning, he embarked upon a five-decade long spiritual journey, leaving the US and travelling across the world, finding adventure and intrigue all over the globe. ‘From surviving attacks in post-war Sarajevo to being mistaken for a terror suspect in North America to losing his clothes and his way amid the 125 million pilgrims at the Kumbh Mela, his life has been one adventure after another. Inspirational and engrossing, Adventures of a Travelling Monk is a riveting account of the fifty years of Indradyumna Swami’s active service in the Hare Krishna movement,’ says the publisher’s note.
With the publisher’s permission, here is an excerpt from Adventures of a Travelling Monk
Boarding my flight to the US I felt exhaustion descend upon me, but I forced myself to stay awake as a flight attendant demonstrated the safety procedures. I had just completed a vigourous festival circuit in Australia and was about to embark upon another in the US. When the flight attendant had finished, I drifted off to sleep offering a prayer to my spiritual master: ‘Srila Prabhupada, please accept the results of our service. Our troupe of thirty devotees did forty-eight festivals, practically without a break. Twenty-seven thousand people came to the two-hour cultural programmes. We sold 3,500 books and 21,000 plates of prasad.’
Having arrived in Los Angeles fifteen hours later I gathered my hand baggage and walked towards passport control and customs. I handed my passport to the immigration officer. ‘Where are you coming from?’ he asked. I was groggy from the long flight and I had to think for a moment. ‘Oh … uh … Sydney,’ I said. He chuckled. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘Long-haul flights affect everyone.’ I slung my hand baggage over my shoulder and walked towards the luggage carousel. ‘This tour of the US will not be easy,’ I thought. ‘This year I’ll be doing it by myself without help. But not to complain: it’s the duty of a renunciate to travel alone and learn to depend on God.’
Three days later in San Diego, barely recovered from jet lag, I prepared to board a flight for Vancouver with a transit in Seattle. As always, I wore my sannyasi robes. I was going to attend the wedding of one of my students. Usually, sannyasis don’t go to weddings, since renunciates strive to focus upon the spiritual reality rather than family life, but I wanted to be there for my student to encourage her. Approaching the check-in counter, my mind went blank and I had to think hard to remember where I was going. No doubt it was due to my being tired. As I handed my ticket to the woman behind the counter, I asked her to check my bags through to Seattle; I was transiting through there to Vancouver, but would return there in the evening after the wedding.
‘I have a two-hour layover,’ I said. ‘I’ll give the bags to a friend. I’ll just be in Vancouver for the day and I’ll get a ride back to Seattle in the evening. I won’t need the bags in Vancouver.’ As her face darkened, I immediately realized I’d made a mistake. Some time back it was a terrorist tactic to have a bag of explosives off-loaded from a flight through one city while continuing to another. ‘Why is that?’ she asked. ‘Why only to Seattle?’ ‘Well, I was thinking to have my bags dropped off in Seattle, but now I realize—’ Before I could finish the sentence, she picked up the phone and called a security officer. A big man appeared out of nowhere and asked me to follow him. People stared at me as we walked away.
Soon I was seated in a room as he leafed through my passport. ‘You have a lot of visas for Muslim countries,’ he said. ‘Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Bahrain and Oman, to name a few. What business do you have in those countries, sir?’ I was starting to feel nervous. ‘I’m a missionary,’ I said. ‘I travel around the world.’ ‘What sort of missionary are you?’ he said. ‘I’m from the Hare Krishna movement,’ I replied. ‘That’s Hindu, isn’t it?’ ‘Well … yes.’ ‘I see,’ he said. ‘A Hindu missionary in Muslim countries.’ ‘I know it sounds odd …’ I started to say. He looked me straight in the eye. ‘If you’re on an international flight, why check your bags to a city you’re transiting through?’ ‘I’m only spending the day in Vancouver going to a wedding and won’t need the bags there,’ I explained. ‘That doesn’t sound quite right,’ he said.
Then a call came through. They had checked my bags and found no explosives. ‘You can go,’ he said coldly. I felt foolish and slightly shaken as I walked back to the counter and finished checking in. As the flight to Vancouver took off, I thought about the incident. ‘That was a stupid mistake,’ I said to myself. ‘Being exhausted doesn’t help anything.’ Because of the delay checking in, I’d been given a middle seat in a row of three between two men. They both looked surprised to see me in my saffron robes.
A few minutes into the flight the man on my left turned to me. ‘Isn’t it great how well America is doing in the Winter Olympics?’ he said. I knew the 2010 Games were taking place in Vancouver, but I knew nothing of the results. ‘America’s gonna kick butt up there in Vancouver. We’ll cream those commies from Russia.’ ‘What!’ I responded. ‘Commies? Russia’s been a democracy for years. Why do you call them communists?’ ‘Whatever they are, they ain’t Americans and we’ll pulverize ’em,’ he said. ‘Yeah,’ said the other man, ‘along with those Chinese wimps.’ ‘Wait a minute,’ I said. ‘That’s not the spirit of the Olympics. Tell me, do you guys travel much? I mean, have you ever been out of the United States?’ ‘Nope,’ said the man on my left. ‘This is my first trip.’ ‘Me too,’ said the other man. ‘I’m going to the Olympics.’ ‘Well,’ I said, ‘if you’d travelled more widely, you’d see that people are pretty much the same everywhere. We’re all spirit souls struggling in this material world.’ They looked at me blankly and fell silent. I settled back in my seat.
‘As difficult as it is to be a travelling monk,’ I thought, ‘it has its advantages, one of which is seeing the spiritual equality of all living beings.’ Before I drifted off to sleep, I remembered the words of the writer Mark Twain: ‘Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrowmindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.’
Adventures of a Travelling Monk
Author: Indradyumna Swami
Publisher: HarperCollins India
Format: Paperback / Kindle
Number of pages: 300 / 325
Price: Rs 319 / Rs 223
Available on Amazon
Adventures of a Travelling Monk: An Excerpt
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