Monks in Manhattan / Celibate in Chelsea

Monks in Manhattan is a love story set in a parallel world closely resembling ours, or mine, and maybe yours. It revolves around a three sided love affair, a man, Ram Das, a poor by choice monk struggling with celibacy and his desire to attain pure devotion, a woman Shannon, a billionairess tycoon materialist, and Krishna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead. They meet in an advertising agency, ADMen & ADWomen, Shannon has recently acquired though her corporation the Van Locke Group. She has decided to look in on it to assess valuable and valueless employees. She plans to spend a week assessing the performances and weeding out non-producers. Ram is employed as a creative director for strictly pro bono work at Shannon’s new agency. He appears in his devotional garb on Ekadasi, a special day according to the phases of the moon. They literally collide on the street and again in the office, and as Ram ‘preaches’ things get hot but Shannon is curious. An SNT (sorry, no timer) herself she has never been exposed to the spiritual conceptions that make up Ram’s world. Hiding her real identity, wealth and power as best she can, while Ram plows through everything she thought she never wanted to know about the Hare Krishnas the couple become ‘attached’ to each other. Shannon reveals to Gopal, Ram’s friend who she really is, materially, not spiritually. Spiritually she hasn’t got a clue. But Gopal warns her not to reveal this secret to Ram least he flee to India in pursuit of higher levels of renunciation. “Wait! No-No-No! Don’t, don’t tell him anything about your financial benefits…your well-off-ness, your richth...wealthches. Is it a word, no? Talk about Krishna. Let Krishna arrange a time for Ram’s enlightenment on your financial status . . . your money thing, I promise you, from the bottom of my heart, I know Ram, it’ll totally confuse him. Trust me. Even if he likes you, loves you, can’t live without you, he’ll run far away. Ram’s friend, the prostitute Lowetta, provides him with street wise smarts about ‘relationships’ when his and Shannon’s collapses in a slapping argument in the Metero-politician Mvsevm’s Ancient Asian Avatar Art Annual Advertised Affair Annex. All this transpires just before a traffic accident kills the Messenger, Ram’s previous life’s (Lotus’s) murderer. A transcendent miracle takes place as Ram and the Messenger recognize each other as who they were in their pervious lives. Fun and games evolve as Shannon seeks to reconcile with Ram. She meets Lowetta who she at first takes to be a girl friend of Ram consider in his Celibate in Chelsea act to be bogus. Lowetta sets her straight as to Ram’s genuine purity of heart, as does Gopal, too, when Shannon decides to pursue Krishna, as well as Ram, after a past life regression session during which she discovers she was Ram’s Guru, Master Lin, in Ram’s pervious life as Lotus. Sorting all this out leads to deeper levels of questioning into the highest forms of loving exchanges between the Divine coupe Radha Krishna all in accord with the philosophy of the Gaudya Vaisnaves coming from the teachings of the Goswamis. The foundation of the Krishna Movement. After steady attempts to remake her life with the potency of the chanting of Holy Names of God Shannon wins Ram’s heart. Despite his indecisive position on marriage, with the help of a prank marriage proposal produced by office characters, the 3-J’s, who were bent on dissolving the couples relationship for Shannon’s good, our couple decide to wed after outrageous situations. All that remains is to overcome Ram’s attachment to poverty when he is confronted with Shannon’s wealth. She cleverly overwhelms him with humility and tact and he resigns himself to being a rich woman poor husband. Thinking he would be cursed by all the gurus and God if he let the opportunity to help Shannon use her good karma fortune in krishna’s service They are married and the fun is in the details.