Brahma Vidya Mandir Ashram

What can I say about these wonderful women! The ashram is so peaceful, the buildings and accommodation are so nice and the sadhakas are delightful.

We get up at 4.30 for 30 minutes of Sanskrit chants. At 6am we spend 30 minutes in the kitchen cutting vegetables and the like. After breakfast at 7am it's 30 mins sweeping (we weed) and then another 30mins or so working in the garden. !0.30am chanting again and then lunch at 11. After then we have free time until 4pm when Kasey, the other visitor and myself spend time with one of the sisters until dinner at 5pm.

The sisters have a wealth of spiritual knowledge. All knew Vinoba, and as most are elderly, they spent time working in Gandhian ashrams and projects. I will stay a little while in this wonderful place.

Bhopal and Sambhavna

On Sunday, four volunteers, including me, and one of the Sambhavna staff, hired a car to go to Bhimbetka, which has ancient 10,000 year-old cave paintings spread over an area that reminded me of the Ubirr site in Kakadu. I really am enjoying the time I spend working and relaxing with Sambhavna people. Next weekend Andrea and I will be going to Sanchi which is a famous Buddhist site.

After leaving Bhimbetka we went to the Narmada River ghat a few kilometres further on. The river is a pilgrim site, worshipped as the daughter of Shiva, so there were a number of linga and nandi statues on the steps beside the river and we namasted with women pilgrims bathing at the ghat. The following is a précis of a passage in Gita Mehta’s book, A river sutra.

‘It is said that Shiva was in an ascetic trance so strenuous that rivulets of perspiration began flowing from his body down the hills. The stream took the form of a beautiful young woman innocently tempting even to ascetics. Her variations from dancing girl to romantic dreamer to seductress so amused Shiva that he named her Narmada, the Delightful One, and gave her in marriage to the ocean, Lord of the Rivers.’ Can you imagine Guruji now saying, “This way happen have”?

All the staff and a couple of volunteers have gone on a ‘picnic’ to Chittrakut, a 10 hour journey, for the Indian national day weekend. Most of the volunteers and interns have stayed to complete project work as the majority of the group of 8 currently here, are due to finish up soon.

I cannot begin to describe just how lovely this group of people is. We spend a lot of time together – after hours last week we went to a couple of classical Indian music concerts at the cultural centre by the lake, by day we roamed the chouk together.

Emily, Darmesh and Prabjit on the terrace. Union Carbide is 400 mtrs in the direction directly behind them.

Nicole, Sambhavna library

I have really enjoyed my time here – and the work in the library has been very rewarding. A Local call number system has been created and the collection has been reorganised and classified. The knowledge I picked up regarding Ayurvedic resources from the librarian at Swami Ram Dev's Ashram has been very useful.

There are some really interesting items in this collection, particularly on ayurveda, yoga and pranayama, covering everything from women and spirituality to satsang! I even discovered a couple of Sanskrit books. Mataji would enjoy browsing here.

Shahnaz has quite a work program mapped out for the 18 months ahead before I expect to be back here, cataloguing and indexing the collection. Hopefully we’ll then be able to switch to an internet-based catalogue. KOHA??

So as my work here comes to an end, I’ll be leaving mid-next week for Sevagram, Ghandi’s model ‘village of service’. Well, I’m actually going to the ashram 3 kms away set up in 1938 by his disciple Vinoba Bhave who started the ‘land gift’ campaign to persuade farmers to give farmland to the poor. The sadhakas at the ashram are all female and the ashram is self-sufficient, so gardening and weaving will have a high priority there.

Today Andrea and I are heading off to Udaigiri where in the C10 AD, temples and shrines were carved into rock caves. It is about 2 hours from here, and then we'll go on to overnight at Sanchi, a World Heritage Buddhist site of stupas and temples built by the emperor Ashoka in C2 BC.

..next day…Just got back from Udaigiri caves. Most are devoted to Shiva – we really enjoyed our visit.

We then caught a share taxi 10 kms to Sanchi -

there we all are to the left - 20 sitting on benches,

3 on the floor and countless hanging out the back!

and enjoyed a very restful stay in the rest house and lots of cups of tea in the delightful garden with a great view of the stupa site, which is of course, fabulous! -

a living museum was Andrea's description.

The inscriptions on the main stupa contain warnings from Asoka to monks and nuns not to create a split within Buddhism.

Bhopal

Arrived in Bhopal on Friday from Orrcha which is an abandoned C17 town. These photos are of some of the ruins of Orrcha.

This photo was taken from the hotel terrace. The wall and ceiling paintings in the temple were really special and probably the best from the entire site which is spread over a large area.

And then on to Bhopal where I will be working as a volunteer until the end of January ..

Sambhavna is an oasis in this part of town. It's about 400 mtrs from the Union Carbide plant. The staff and volunteers are all just really great people. Shahnaz who is in charge of the library, is lovely and really enjoying our work together. Please have a look at http://www.bhopal.org/ to get an update on the tragedy of Bhopal and on the work of Sambhavna.

Sunday the clinic is closed so a few of we volunteers visited the Museum of Man which really is a fantastic setting recreating the history of tribes in India.

Nicole, another Australian volunteer, and I returned the next evening for an evening of Punjabi folk dancing, music and art and craft which was part of the Lohri festival.

There is a large eunuch population here in Bhopal and this troupe led the early dancing and music.

For my librarian friends

Visited some great libraries on this this journey.

One of the best was in Shimla at a former palace where the Declaration of Independence was discussed prior to signing in 1947, and now an Advanced Institute for Asian social and political studies. Visiting researchers stay at the Institute and the library is located over about a third of the ground floor covering the former ballroom and dining room.

Being a librarian got me entry to what is usually off limits to tourists. The collection was great and the location of course, very special and well taken care of.

Another really interesting library was at Swami Ram Dev Ashram outside Haridwar. This is a very modern library but the librarian showed me some very old editions of the RgVeda, Upanishads and translations by H H Wilson. Interestingly because the collection has a major ayurvedic focus, they have had to create Local Call Numbers based on Dewey, such as 61A to cover their titles adequately.

Gotta go, train's coming...

Guru Jyoti dancing Shivo Ham in Rishikesh

After writing my previous post, I walked through Vrindavan market to the Yamuna river ghat and then back to the temple where I'd earlier seen a notice to join the "Mataji's daily afternoon" seva.

I sat and watched them threading flower garlands while the 'orchestra' played close by - Hare Krishna Hare Rama

Arrived in Gwalior on Sunday and as the guide book said - all hotels are pricey but with TV - so I thought well I'm just going to enjoy this - hmmm very difficult to leave and not just because of the extra 200 Rs of luxury. People are very friendly and the palaces (my next favourite thing!) are great.

The Vikram Mahal is on the left and behind the wall on the right is the Jauhar Tank where the 8 Rajput queens committed jauhar (self-immolation) in C13 as the Mughals advanced; and in the far background another palace the British turned into a water factory!

Tina Brandi will be thrilled to know that I finally gave in and had my hair hennaed. This was after an old one-armed beggar called me "mother" for the third day in a row; I thought, right I've had that! - bit bright I think, but no doubt it will fade! Rupa, the hairdresser down the lane who I went to, kept hugging and kissing me and feeding me and then only charged me Rs100! It's the ease of Rishikesh.

On my last day in Rishikesh I went to a charity concert of Odissi dance- the dancer, Guru Jyoti Rout, was fabulous and danced Shivo Ham; I have a photo of that and will put it up soon. The star attraction was Krishna Das who first went to India in the late 60's - the kirtan was a bit light and centred around Hare Krishna Hare Rama, which naturally I enjoyed; a short version of Shiva Bole and a Christian gospel song before going back to Hare Krishna. The dancer won hands down to my mind!

I added some flexibility to the yatra and am now in Vrindavan but I'm not comfortable in Krishna world. However, I love to sing Hare Krishna so as I'm staying at ISKCON guest house I took part in morning aarti and sang it a lot - (although not as much as at the Krishna Das concert)! Then followed a teaching from the Bhagavad Gita, but it was far too cold in the temple for me to concentrate. And of course, the gender segregation is still too much for me. But every one and I mean everyone, in the street, in dabars, in markets, in taxis says Hare Krishna to you as soon as you come near. I like that.

Had to go to the doctor on New Year's Day with an infected nose (how come all India picks their noses constantly and I get the infection!) Doctor prescribed a saline spray and when I opened the packet last night here in ISKCON land a cockroach came out! Oh India! Mataji will love that but I had to chuck it out - what I think is that it's probably been in there since Haridwar. The bonus is one less thing to carry.

So off to Gwalior tomorrow (a short tourist deviation) then Bhopal.

I seem to find the arrival in a new place hard going, dealing with ricksha and other touts. Must admit I'm feeling better today as the sun comes out and I find my way around. Went to the museum in Mathura (10kms away) which was really my main objective in coming to this area to see the great archaeology that I first came across in Shimla, but it's closed today and tomorrow. So I went to the station and bought a train ticket for tomorrow!

Went to my last set of lectures at Sivananda Ashram yesterday. Really enjoyed them as they reinforced some of the knowledge passed on by Guruji and Mataji in satsang and for me this was very timely. I feel 'directed' again.

After the lectures, I visited with some former Hare Krishna devotees who now have an Ayurvedic centre here in Rishikesh. Purnamasi is going to Vrindavan tonight so it was a very timely meeting as she had all the info on a sleeper bus(!) - I had been told there was no bus only a 6am train from Haridwar.

Later on, Kumiko and I walked along the opposite bank of the Ganges where it is very quiet and peaceful.

Came across a small beach.

And further on as we climbed back up the bank, a sadhu's cave with built-in door!