November 2016….Well, this is embarrassing! It has been mentioned to me that I should tell people a bit more about myself. So I’ll start with what I had written on the home page:
“My name is Chaitanya das, my other name is Charles Robinson. I’m a Vaishnava Hindu living in Australia, and a student of Jagad Guru Siddhaswarupananda.
I have been dealing with advanced prostate cancer for almost 20 years and started this blog to document my journey with that disease. I also talk about how understanding that I am not this physical body affects my outlook on life……and death.
I’m hoping some of the things I’ve learned along the way will help others. I’m always willing to learn more so I welcome comments and dialogue”.
Added November 2016.
I grew up in a medium sized country town on country New South Wales, Australia. Born in 1950 I am a post WW2 child, with 2 brothers and a sister. I talk a little about that town in this post. But generally it was a great childhood and lived in that town until I moved to Brisbane, Australia when I was 16 years old (I’m bored already with this!).
I finished my schooling in Brisbane and went to The University of Queensland studying architecture. Confession; I didn’t finish the final year, always an act with some regret. But in my defense during those last 2 years at university I had a partnership with 2 of my friends and we opened 3 shops (2 in the city and 1 in a large shopping Center in the suburbs).
It was the best of times and the best of times! (to misquote a Tale of two Cities). The end of the 1960’s and the beginning of the 1970’s was a great time to be young.
I met my spiritual teacher during this time and that is a pivotal point in my life. (insert link). Not long after this I married my wife Jane.
40 years later and here we are. Six children, eight grandchildren and some fish in a couple of outdoor pots with waterlilies. The fish far less work than the kids have been. Well not really, the kids are great! We were very fortunate with the kids….and still are.
During times in between then and now I worked as a company owner, jewelry manufacturer and wholesaler, newspaper reporter/editor/photographer/layout artist, traveling salesperson and a gift shop owner and retailer with my wife and daughters.
Looking back, my spiritual journey started in that country town going to a Methodist church (now called United Church) on Sundays. Including Sunday School and Bible Studies. It was Bible Studies that soured my taste for this form of ‘religion’. I was 14 or 15 years old and the others in that class could not consider that God and science could be compatible. That is that the world could follow laws of nature and science AND that could be under the hand of God. For them it was creationism or nothing.