New Guy on the Blog

Hello, new readers! My name is Clayton, and because it is so rare, I like to think of myself as a one-name person like Cher and Madonna--there are probably 6 persons in the world with Clayton as their first name, and none of them are like me--I think of mysrlf as defining the word--like, "a ton of clay". I live in North Oakland, and Oakland, I believe, is fourth in the nation in murders--but it is mostly young blacks killing other young blacks, and being an old white man I dont thnk I am much of a target! But when the bullets arent flying, its a very nice place--unlike San Francisco, everyplace you want to go isnt on top of a hill, and there are cafes and Italian delis, and Yuppie mexican restaurants, and an outstanding museum, and everyting that makes living in a city worthwhile, includings lots of sports teams--the Giants, the A's, the Raiders, the 49rs, the Sharks, the Warriors (I typed Worrriers), Cal and Stanford, and I believe e still have a pro soccer team, also. We have the Alameda County Sheriffs ( cops, not a sports team) famously known as the Blue Meanies since the time of People's Park's founding, and Jack London Square, where you can go look at the Bay. And there is Lake Merritt, a beautiful man-made lake a short walk from the center of town, which features the "garland of lights" when it gets dark. I have long wanted Oakland to adopt the slogan "The City of Night"--Paris, France is the City of Light.

Anyhow, I am a Hare Krishna, and I am generally known as the "bipolar Hare Krsna in the blogosphere".I think we are losing our reputation as a brainwashing cult--a news article once described us as 'going mainstream". Certainly, monastic life of any kind is definable as "brainwashing"--Hare Krishna, Catholic, Buddhist--all much the same thing, but it is no more brainwashing than military boot camp, which in many ways it resembles. And as they say about the US Marines, after basic training, they often develop into very very interesting characters, and wwe Hare Krishnas also tend to become very independent thinkers once we are fixed up, as we say, in the philosophy.

Devotional service means to have a great Ideal over your head, and to be on the Path to ealizing that ideal. Srila Sridhar Dev says that this is the greatest wealth in life. Certainly, I am not going to get any other type of wealth, so its like the two Zen monks: One says, "OK, what happens next?"and the other replies, "Nothing--this is it".Somehow, that seems very true and funny to me!

Well, I did not write down any addresses for this blog, and lithium does a number on your memory, so I want to find out how I can get back to it, and maybe this is my first and last post! So later, as the beatniks said!