The mysterious, mystical and magical Mother Ganga

One may ask, "What's so special about the Ganga?".  Isn't it like any other river in the world? I wouldn't have known the answer to that, if I hadn't visited the Ganges river myself.

Like almost all our other trips, this trip to Rishikesh was something that cropped up at the last hour. We bought the air tickets with no clue whatsoever about this town called Rishikesh. The thought of Google search didn't even cross our minds... its quite an irony for my husband, given him being an IT geek who'll google everything! 

Our only assurance was a piece of paper printed with the email from the General Secretary of Divine Life Society saying, "Blessed Divinity, You along with two others are welcome to the Ashram of Gurudev Swami Sivanandaji Maharaj as desired."  

Our sole aim to Rishikesh was to experience Swami Sivananda's abode. 

And for us, the Ganges proved to be the heart of the experience. 

It was love at first sight. The moment we saw Her, we immediately wanted to feel Her. We removed our sandals and very carefully stepped into the icy cold Ganga. Aaw! So cold She is, but we never felt the urge to pull our feet out. Slowly we became accustomed to Her temperature and started enjoying Her. 

For the next 2 weeks, our lives revolved around the Ganges. We'll take a daily morning walk by Her banks, watching all the activities that would be taking place by Her side. The locals wash their laundries here, the priest takes the water for his prayers from here, the children feed the fishes here, the dead is sunk in here, the young go rafting here, and everybody bathes in Her. Despite all the activities buzzing around Her, Ganga remained serene and untouched! 

"The waters of Ganga is extremely pure. Absolutely no germs can flourish

 in Her". When we first heard about this fact, we still had our doubts, how can She have no germs with all the activities that were taking place in Her? So we did our own experiment, we filled up our mineral water bottle with Ganga water. Like magic, the greenish murky water flowing in the river turned crystal clear in our bottle!

Here is what one scientist from the west has to say about Ganga:

A peculiar fact which has never been satisfactorily explained is the quick death, in three or five hours, of the cholera vibrio in the waters of Ganga. When one remembers sewage by numerous corpses of natives, often cholera casualties, and by the bathing of thousands of natives, it seem remarkable that the belief of the Hindus, that the water of this river is pure and cannot be defiled and that they can safely drink it and bathe in it should be confirmed by means of modern bacteriological research." - Dr. F.C. Harrison of McGill University, Canada.

Totally convinced by her divinity, we too took our dips in Her every evening before the Ganga prayers. We had to time our bath very accurately so that we don't clash with the monkeys' swimming hour at the Ganges. They get really upset, if we do! As much as they scared us, they tickled us with their stunts in the river too :) .

At the Ganges, whether you are bathing or meditating a sense of supreme joy will just fill your heart and take over your entire being. We celebrated Ganga in every way we knew, we attended bhajans by the Ganges, we waved arati to Mother Ganga, we lighted oiled wicks in small boats handmade by the local children and floated them on Her waters. We watched the sunrise, the sunset, and on some evenings we enjoyed the rays of sunset as we did Yoga asanas by the Ganges.

Pictures paint a thousand words, I'll let the pictures from my album do the rest of the talking... hope you enjoy it!

Monk of Swami Order

First thing one would notice upon stepping foot at Divine Life Society Ashram at Rishikesh, is that every one, from the receptionist to the chef is a Swamiji. 

Aren't Swamiji suppose to only be teachers? Aren't they suppose to be giving lectures and discourses on the Bagavad Gita, Vedas or the Patanjali's Yoga Sutras? Seems not!

Swamiji consist of two words:"Swami" which mean the title for everyone who took the life of a renunciate. And "Ji" is a respectful term to address a person, similar to "MR" in English or "san" in Japanese. If we know their name then we can address them by adding the "Ji" behind their name, for instance Swami Karunianantha will be addressed as Swami KaruniananthaJi.  And the 3 Malaysians, were also very respectfully addressed as KavithaJi, DineshJi and ShantiJi by the Swamiji(s). Pretty cool!

Upon becoming a renunciate, a Swami vows to take the Lord as his only beloved and to see his beloved in every living species in the universe. To fulfill his own unique mission on Earth as the Lord's servant, some Swamiji become great teachers of the world, some live to serve their masters, and some live to serve the ashram (monastery) of their master.  Whatever their work maybe, their mission is one: to love, serve, purify, and meditate not just for God realization but also for world peace.

As we know thought travels and has have got tremendous power, it fills all space just like ether and travels far. These Swamiji(s) at Divine Life Society and many others around the world have devoted themselves to learning the art & science of thought control (through meditation and yogic breath), so that their powerfully purified thoughts can reach out far. Far enough... vibrating every particle of the universe, to enable normal human beings like us living miles and miles across the sea from them, to pick up this purified thought waves for our own peace of mind.  Now, you can imagine how much peace and calmness we were embraced by, by just being so close to them!

From my previous travel experience, I found the beggars in India to be very aggressive, but at the town of Rishikesh, even the beggars are surrounded by a sense of calmness! They do not harass you for money, they do not call out to you rudely, they sit calmly accepting what is given, and other beggars do not rush out to you when you are donating to one beggar. My husband & I, immediately noticed this difference, and were very surprised.  

I believe other than the pure thought waves, the fact that Rishikesh being a purely dry and  vegetarian town (where you'll never find any form of liquor, eggs, poultry or meat sold at the restaurants or even at the wet markets), plays a major part in setting the peaceful and calm vibration of the place. Not forgetting the role of the ganges river that makes the town complete with her serenity.  To speak about ganges alone will take another few hours. I'll save that for the next post :) 

In the meanwhile, if you are interested to learn more details on how the lineage of Swami in India came about, you can read chapther 24 of the "Autobiography of a Yogi" by Paramahamsa Yogananda.  Believe it or not, this chapter was waiting for me to get to Rishikesh to read it, the timing couldn't have been perfect! I've been sitting on this book for sometime now, so I brought this book along with me on this trip and Chapter 24 was exactly where my bookmark was! Have I read it before, I couldn't have remembered every detail in that chapter as I can now. 

The Secret to a Great Holiday: Great Traveling Companions

When 3 foreign language speaking, Indian looking people walked into Santosh's shop at Rishikesh, he curiously asked, "Where are you from?".

When they answered Malaysia, he says, "Aahh, Truly Asia". 

The Malaysians had the same conversation with 4 other shopkeepers, 2 while at Rishikesh, 1 at Puttaparthi, Andra Pradesh and 1 at Bangalore. The Malaysians understood that "Visit Malaysia" promotion must be paying for a lot of air time on Indian TV!

The 3 Malaysians are non other than my husband, my sister and myself.  This was the first time the 3 of us travelled together, and I must say, I felt so thankful for such great company throughout the whole 4 weeks. (So, this explains our long absence from the blog)

My closest friends will always say, "If you really want to know if he is the right man for you, go traveling with him!". Traveling companions can make all the difference between a great trip and a lousy trip. I never went traveling with my husband before our wedding, guess I just got lucky! And my sister Shanti, she made the trip all the more livelier and entertaining with her high spirit and spontaneity.

The first 2 weeks, was spent at Rishikesh, experiencing the lovely Ganges river, the magnificent Himalaya, and all the wonderful Swamiji at Divine Life Society. The next 2 weeks we were at Prashanti Nilayam, Puttaparthi experiencing Sri Satya Sai Baba's loving darshans.

We had our own unique ways to explore and discover the place, the people and most importantly the lessons that lead us to our own self discovery. My traveling companions were certainly  instrumental in providing me the support, care and guidance that I needed along the way. 

I'll be sharing my experiences from the recent trip in the next few posts. Stay tuned!

"Sometimes we travel to see great places, and sometimes these great places makes you see greatness is right there with you all the time!"

Strangers that you wish to know

Ever wished to meet or know someone with a certain qualities? The thought never really crossed my mind till yesterday. Usually I will just be floating away with desire to meet the greatest yogi on earth, and that's all it is - a desire! (We all know its equivalent to asking to meet god, when in fact god presents himself to you in subtle forms everyday!)

Yesterday, during one of my yoga classes, a student mentioned that her son told her not to talk bad about others because we only see our own reflection in them.  Apparently the boy's teacher told him that. I'm not sure if the mother was surprised, but to me it was a delightful surprise! 

Never would I have expected a national primary school teacher to be educating human values to their student. This one teacher changed the my perception to the whole national education system. This one teacher not only instilled the value in the boy, but in his parents and people this boy and his parents come in contact with. 

My kudos to this teacher for an invaluable lesson. I wish I can tell the teacher this in person one day!

Teaching Yoga

One common question I always get from family and friends is, "Don't you ever get bored teaching the same thing over and over again?".  I never once thought I would be a teacher of any kind! But the thing with Yoga is that every class is a different experience, it never once felt the same to me.

It has its own joy, its own energy, it throws me exciting challenges, and more than what it brings me, its all about the experience it brings the students. Yesterday by chance I met some of my children Yoga class students. They range from the age of 9 to 15. Being children, they were so excited to tell me all about how they have been spending their school holidays and how they were making good use of it. 

While chatting with them, I notice that the tallest boy in the group who used to have a very bad hunched back, was standing much taller now. I commented on his improved posture, and he at once happily  acknowledged me and was determined that his back will be all straight within the next couple of months. And then he called his younger brother (who also used to have a hunched back problem) to show me his almost straight spine structure now! What I saw beyond the improved spine structure was improved self confidence in the boys.

How can teaching Yoga ever get boring?! 

Till a few weeks ago, I only could teach Yoga during my weekends as I used to have a demanding full time job. I just made a bold move and left my job 3 weeks ago *yay!*. 

I can already feel that this is the right move, but I don't know where this is taking me or what I want to do next.  All I want to do now is to learn to love, love & love everything, everybody, every time and everywhere! And spread this love at every opportunity I get.

And its through Paramahansa Yogananda that I learn, that we don't really need to be in contact with another person to spread this love:

"It is by the power of love, for God and for one another, that we are able to rise above fear and pessimism, and to unite our hearts and minds with the boundless force for good that is unobtrusively working to evolve this world into a higher state. Your daily attitudes, actions, and prayers have a deeper influence than you may realize. Individual effort can be even more important than mass karma. One who in every way tries to uplift himself, harmonizing body, mind, and soul with the Divine, creates positive karma not only in his own life, but in his family, neighborhood, country, and world....The goodness of one soul may effectively neutralize the mass karma of millions." - Paramahansa Yogananda

My Sane Lane List

I was chatting with a friend on facebook recently, and she was telling me stories about her life - and it seemed to me that she was living out of a movie script. Not a love story, not a comedy - it was more like a "whatever-can-go-wrong-is-going-wrong" kind of movie.


Anyway, my advice to her was to start writing down a "THINGS I NEED TO DO TO GET MY LIFE BACK IN THE SANE LANE" list. I told her that once she's got a couple of things written down, she should stick it up somewhere where she won't miss it. And each time she gets something done, she should cross it off the list - using a bold marker.

Today, I decided that I myself need to get a list done. So here's mine. (trying hard to keep it under ten!). It's in no particular order, by the way.

1. Start doing yoga every morning
2. Get into a weekly exercise routine
3. Quit eating salty junk food
4. Concentrate on work during office hours
   
5. Get into a house cleaning routine that both my wife and I can get used to
6. Cook a meal, at least three times a week
   
7. Write out a weekly grocery shopping plan, and do the grocery shopping with my wife weekly
8. Learn how to communicate more easily with my loved ones.

Wish me luck.


(Image source: Doctor-a http://www.sxc.hu/profile/doctor-a)

How to live in your rented house

My husband and I have been busy shifting houses in the past couple of weeks. We used to live in a place that was, very far away from everything that was, close to our hearts. Far away from our parents' places, our yoga classes, our spiritual and karma yoga centers, and our friends. We had to drive at least 50 minutes (on a good traffic day) to reach our destination. Still, we couldn't help ourselves from traveling to where our hearts wanted to be. It was a real test of how sincere we were in our life's pursuit.

Now, we are living in a place where, within 20 minutes of drive, we get to everywhere we want to be! :) A real bliss!

We are really enjoying our new home and hope to be duly "paying our rent to the Master". If you are wondering what I am talking about read these wise words from Satya Sai Baba:

The human body is spoken of as a temple where the individual soul is installed. I would prefer to describe it as a house taken on rent by you. God is the Master, the owner. The jeevi (tenant) has taken it on rent and is occupying it. The rent has to be paid in the form of good deeds, good thoughts, good speech and good conduct. But, the tenant ignores the owner and does not pay the rent. So, the Master has to compel the man to vacate. He sends 'notices' reminding him of the need to vacate, unless he pays the rent. Grey hairs are the first intimation; the tenant dyes his hair and pays no heed to the warning. The teeth fall out; that is the second warning. The tenant gets a denture fixed and ignores this reminder too. Cataract in the eye is the next warning of the need to leave the house; an operation helps him to pass it by. Glasses restore his sight. The skin becomes loose, wrinkled. This warning too is unheeded; the man hides the signal with the help of cosmetics. So, the owner has to send his emissaries - a few fatal illnesses - and force him to clear out of the house. Why stick on, for years, like crows? Far better to live happily like a royal swan, albeit for a short span. Live ideal lives through controlled minds. - Divine Discourse, February 5, 1981.