KKS- Radhadesh 2007…by now, Hare Krsna is sort of accepted. You know, when I use to live in the 70’s in the temple, and I was in Amsterdam, people would…especially the Amsterdam construction workers would go, “Hey, *young Jourig! Hey, Young Jourig!” I can’t translate that very well! But if you missed out on it, it’s a typical Amsterdam way of saying, ‘a guy in a dress.’ I mean, the things I went through over the years, you know…I’ve had a man come up to me and said, “Hi, I love the colour of your dress!”
I mean, I have a staff also, so you can’t have a staff, so you can’t imagine what it’s like walking around in Holland with a staff on the 5th of December! Or I came to Australia and they say, “Hey, fishing, fishing! Did you catch something?”
So, sometimes I just say, yes! And they go, “Oh, ye, I love fishing, I caught this big…!” Oh my God!
But over the years, I must say, we got a little more acceptance and by now, a lot of people begin to appreciate that maybe we’re not just some strange guys but that possibly, we have something to offer, because they realise it’s not just some idiots who put on the ‘bed sheets’, or not just some extra-terrestrials who have just landed from another planet, or not some sought of absolute strange cult of religious fanatics, ‘Hare Krsna Hare Krsna…’- constantly repeat this mantra; but that actually they are people who have a way of life, who seem to have many good sides to it actually: we don’t drink and we don’t need it. I don’t drink and I don’t go nuts, I don’t smoke and I feel okay, I don’t need any drugs and I’m quite happy, I’m even not addicted to sex this way or that way, and it makes life pretty cheap and simple. And I’m still okay. I’m not ready for any mental hospital or anything like that, I’m totally peaceful. In other words, there must be something, some secret to life that can be found.
