Letter from India: October 10, 2015

Dear Friends,

Time, we are told, is not a fixed reality, but relative, and in India it’s a little more relative than in other places. More than three weeks have slipped by since we arrived, and the days have been so filled with vivid experiences that we haven’t found time (there’s that slippery creature again) to write you about what’s been happening.

Welcome tea at Gurgaon Ashram

We arrived in Delhi on Sept. 17 and settled into our comfortable apartment in Guru Prem, the Gurgaon Ashram. We feel quite at home here, and enjoy the daily satsang with our gurubhais who live at the ashram: Dhyana, Devarshi, Amit, and Devendra. On Sunday, Sept. 20, we were “officially” welcomed to India with a beautiful tea in the front garden of Guru Prem attended by over 100 of the core members of all the groups and centers in the NCR (National Capital Region). It was very heartwarming to see so many old friends that we’ve met over the years here.

On Monday, Sept. 21, we flew down to Pune to visit our dear friends Tushti and Surendra Conti. As you may know, Tushti has been diagnosed with cancer and is receiving excellent medical care and treatment at a fine hospital in Pune. Both Tushti and Surendra shine with the spirit of true devotees, filled with peace and joy in the midst of challenging circumstances.

We had a beautiful visit with them and were happy that we could see for ourselves how well they are doing. If things go smoothly with her chemotherapy, they hope to return to their apartment in Laurelwood, Oregon in late November to finish off the rest of the treatments there.

We returned to Gurgaon the next day for an all-India online satsang Tuesday night to greet everyone here and share the plans for our activities. The online classes in meditation, yoga, the Bhagavad Gita, and general inspiration are a growing part of the work in India, since traffic congestion makes driving increasingly difficult and time-consuming for everyone.

On Sunday, Sept. 27, we drove to the ashram in Delhi, or more accurately, Panchsheel Park, for a celebration for Lahiri Mahasaya. Keshava and Daya have been leading the center in Delhi for several years and have brought it forward from a small house to a large and beautiful ashram. Shurjo and Narayani joined them about six months ago, and have been a big help in building the magnetism there.

Lahiri Mahasaya celebration at Panchsheel Park

Behind the ashram they’ve created a beautiful meditation garden with large murtis of all our gurus. Last spring when we were here, the garden was still a work in progress, so this was the first time we had the opportunity to see the finished product, as well as the pathway of all religions leading to it. The pathway runs around the side of the house, and is landscaped so that it looks as if you are walking along a forest trail, but with carved images and sayings from a dozen world religions along the way. We’d never seen anything with quite the impact that the garden and pathway have.

The program for Lahiri Mahasaya was an inspiring event with several hundred people coming to offer flowers to the murtis, and staying afterwards for lunch and informal satsang. (Watch the video from this talk.)

On Tuesday, Sept. 22, we left early to drive to Vrindavan to see the work of the Paramhansa Yogananda Charitable Trust there. It will be hard to do justice to what we experienced there. The town of Vrindavan itself is filled with more devotion than any place we’ve ever been. The common greeting here isn’t “Hello” or “Ciao,” but “Radhe, Radhe,” and nearly everyone we met radiated a sweetness and devotion that were inspiring.

Vrindavan – Paramhansa Yogananda Charitable Trust

The Charitable Trust was started by Ananda members about one year ago, and we began working with another well-established and respected charitable hospital there: the Ramakrishna Mission Sevashrama. Vrindavan is a place where abandoned, homeless widows have long come to beg and survive as best they could, so there are many thousands of them living here.

The Paramhansa Yogananda Trust initially contributed funds to the Ramakrishna Mission so that medical help and basic food and clothing supplies could be provided to more of those in need. But now, through a series of miracles, we’ve been able to establish a strong team, led by a longtime Ananda member, Manjunath Kini, and to purchase a piece of property, Gaushala, on which to build our headquarters and housing for some of the widows.

The property is in direct sight of the temple that Master visited and described in Autobiography of a Yogi. We will continue to support the Ramakrishna Mission, but expand into other areas as well.

At Gaushala we met the project team, a devoted group of about ten men and women dedicated to serving the “widow mothers,” held a ceremony to dedicate the grounds, and also met Swami Suprakashananda, the head of the Ramakrishna Mission. After a lunch served to all present, we went to see the Mission Charitable Hospital. It has been operating for 108 years to serve the medical needs of the poor. We could go on at length to describe the work that they are doing there with volunteer doctors coming from all over India to help, but suffice it to say that it is remarkable.

Then we visited two separate homes that the Paramhansa Yogananda Trust has recently rented—Gaura Nagar and Panighat Community Care Homes—to provide permanent housing and food for up to 40 widows. These are all run by members of the project team, some of whom seem like truly saintly people. The widows living in the homes shared with us their stories, and we were deeply moved by the dignity and strength they showed in the face of terrible suffering. We will tell you more about the visit and bring back mementos to share at World Brotherhood Day at Ananda Village.

By this time it was late into the evening, but we still visited two holy Vrindavan temples, and stood on the same steps where Master had stood at the Maa Katyayani Temple when he visited in 1935. We returned late that night, but the total impact of the visit was tremendous. The work of Paramhansa Yogananda Charitable Trust will greatly enhance everything else we are doing in India.

Guru Seva tea at Manjeri and Mickey’s home

On Saturday, Oct. 3, we visited the family estate outside of Gurgaon of two longtime Ananda members, Manjeri and Mickey, and had a lovely tea and satsang for about 50 of the NCR volunteers. Swamiji had visited here on one of his last stays in India, and everyone remembered with great joy his P.G. Wodehouse reading there.

Another very significant event for the work in India took place on Oct. 6. We launched the first all-India Meditation Teachers Training, attended by about 70 people in person, online, and through recorded video. There have been Meditation Training courses offered in the past, but this is the first coordinated effort to work together with all those who are already teaching or planning to teach.

Part I of the course will have classes by Jaya, Devarshi, Dhyana, and Jyotish and Devi. Part II will be led in person by all the local center leaders working with their new teachers. It’s the beginning of building a large team of Indian teachers who can take Master’s teachings out both in English and in other languages.

Tomorrow, Oct. 11, we will travel again to Panchsheel Park to do an all-NCR Kriya Initiation with Devarshi and Dhyana, and on Oct. 18 we’ll have a big public discourse in a large hall in Noida. After that we’ll begin more travel throughout India, with two pilgrimages to Babaji’s cave, a stay during the intervening week at the nearby Abbot Mount Retreat in Ranikhet, and then ten days in Pune. We’ll tell you more about that later.

This letter has taken more time to write than we expected, but then it’s all relative.

With love in God and Guru,

Jyotish and Devi

More photos on Facebook.