Hello from India!

Five Jaya Kula students and myself are having the quintessential India experience at the Kishanpur Anandamayi Ma Ashram – Dehradun. Our little group has been kindly  housed by the resident Swami in a rustic cottage nestled among hibiscus and mango trees. Three times a day, we are served homemade vegetarian food, and even chai at 4pm. We have all the time in the world to do japa, hatha yoga and meditate. During the day, we sit in the rooms where Anandamayi Ma walked, slept, taught and died. We gather in the early evenings to read from the diaries of Guru Priya Devi (Didi), Ma’s foremost female disciple.

At night, as we settle in to do our practice, the continual  chorus of barking dogs is interrupted only by massive explosions from the government munitions factory down the road. Raucous wedding parties beat drums, set off fireworks,  and blare Hindi through loudspeakers.  Someone nearby cranks up the stereo to neighborhood-wide volume. Children scream in delight, we hope, and the endless honking of passing cars, motorcycles, trucks, and rickshaws provides a soothing background.

Yes folks, it’s India! Drop your noise (and dirt) sensitivities at the door. This is the land of mantra and mayhem. If you can “do” both, you are on your way to enlightenment.

This week, we will be offering seva (service) at a slightly more rural Ma ashram – the first to be built – in Raipur. We’ll visit a palace where a King bowed at Ma’s feet, and a Shiva temple where she lived for a time during her two years of wandering in the Himalayan foothills.

If you would like to read more about our yatra “In the Footsteps of Ma,” and see many photos, too, please check out the blogs of two of our pilgrims:

Karunajyoti’s yatra blog

Nandi’s blog

Jai Maa!

Love,

Shambhavi