After the Kirtan festival ended I got to stay an extra day at Ananda ashram. I grabbed the opportunity for some extra lake time. To sit, to chant, to think, to play violin, to sail across - there's nothing like a good lake!

Every time I come to one, all my lake memories float up - fishing for tadpoles after school at Bhaktivedanta Manor; skimming flat stones across Bala Lake in north Wales as bats screeched overhead; swimming in lily filled Canadian ones on the Krishna youth summer tour; early morning talks with dear friends before the water, blanketed with summer mist in upstate NY.

The one here took me back to Vrindavan - to Govinda Kund, the sacred lake where Sri Gopal would visit Madhavendra Puri, a great saint. Acting like a normal village boy, he would bring him nourishing pots of milk, saying 'No one goes hungry in my village!' It's a story I have always loved - so sweetly illustrating Krishna's loving kindness and totally personal care.

I experience that care every day. Somehow no matter how confused I get about whether I'm doing the right thing in the right way, I continue to learn and be blessed. I spoke to a new friend about this today who shared with me that she has learned to appreciate those blessings especially which come in the form of the hardest life lessons - those which strip you from your husk and mash you, because as she put it - 'You are worthy - you are meant for something great so your struggles must be great. Krishna only sends you what he knows you can handle.' Knowing the life she's had, it was humbling to hear and I can only hope that I can reach a similar point of gravity and gratitude as I traverse my own path.

This is my new lake meditation.