Grey-Bruce, Canada. Devotees from around Grey-Bruce welcomed their Hare Krishna movement’s spiritual leader in Canada to a public vegetarian feast and celebration Saturday.

Owen Sound organizer Rajesh Kalavadia said the first-time event at Kelso Beach featured three elements: vegetarian food, spiritual activities like chanting and meditation, and entertainment including music, freestyle dance and a secular drama about loneliness.

Lonely People was co-written by its principal actress Nitai Pryia and BhaktiMarga Swami, who is the Canadian leader of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, representing this country as part of the movement’s governing body commission.

Known also as The Walking Monk, BhaktiMarga Swami had been through Owen Sound twice before. He stopped here during two of the three trips he has made across Canada on foot.

The event at Kelso Beach was a festival and celebration much like those in India in the spring; a gathering and sharing of food, friendship, community and culture, he said.

“It’s a unique outdoor event that has all the right components, music, drama, some dance and food as part of a spring festival,” BhaktiMarga Swami said.

Raised in Chatham, he said he joined in 1973 the Krishna Consciousness movement, founded in 1967 by Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. At its core is mantra chanting and meditation as a means of reaching a higher consciousness.

The highly visible populist spiritual movement flourished in North America, while also being the frequent target of pop humourists, especially during the early 1970s, he said.

“In the early days there was a lot of interest among people on a genuine spiritual quest, looking to find themselves,” BhaktiMarga Swami said. “Krishna Consciousness seemed to answer it for a lot of people.”

The movement struggled in the late 1970s after the leader’s death. In Toronto, with its growing East Indian population, many of the immigrants joined the ISKCON Toronto Temple, BhaktiMarga Swami said Saturday, helping stabilize and solidify the Hare Krishna community in that city, BhaktiMarga Swami said.

“They felt very much at home with us and have become a very intricate part of our community.”

While Krishna Consciousness devotees are scarce in rural areas, reaching such small communities is also part of his role, he said.

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