Jul 2
Arosa Arrival
Arosa - Tram Train
We entered the lobby of the Kulm Hotel, and many, many friendly faces gave us welcoming smiles and yells of Jai Gurudev! and we felt we had come home. On the top of a mountain in the Swiss Alps, here was an oasis of Sattwa.
Satsang had just got over and Guruji had gone back to His room. We checked in and were shown to our beautiful, comfortable rooms. Dinesh and i were in the Kulm on the floor just below Guruji’s and Vishwas and Nikhil were just down the road in another Hotle called the Club Robinson. We freshened up a bit and went up to Guruji’s room to see Him.
I had not been in His physical presence for quite some time and even after being with Him for 19 years now, my heart was still racing as we stole into His room for our first darshan with Him in 3 months. Seeing Him smiling His twinkling smile of greeting made me feel so nice… He nodded us gently out of the room, saying go rest…
Went back to our room, and I had a bath, a long one, and went to bed.
The morning was fresh and cold. It had snowed a bit during the night and there was a delicate silence in the air.
Early Morning (see i do wake up early!) Fog
There was a perky fog, which was clearing up and after we finished our Sadhana had gone completely leaving a clear bright sky and mountainsides with patches of snow.
We had arrived a day before the scheduled arrival date and went around the hotel for a bit, getting to know what was where and who was in charge before eating a hearty breakfast. The whole day people trickled in and dinesh and i were quite busy helping people settle in, sneaking in a few walks and spending some time with Guruji who was absolutely resplendent… Lunch, dinner and Satsang came and went. Tomorrow the Advance course would begin with the Bhagavad Geeta discourses.
(Our) Room with a View
Arosa awaited us. And so did much Knowledge, laughter, Wisdom and deep meditation…
Jai Gurudeva!
love
bawa
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Jun 28
Silence
For 7 years, every week Guruji (Sri Sri Ravi Shankar) used to send out a page of Knowledge to be read out and discussed at the satsangs happening all over the world. He used to call it the Knowledge fax … This was before email became popular enough for everyone to use 
Every week we waited eagerly for what Guruji would say through these Knowledge Sheets, many times we would be with Him while He dictated them out and we compiled them. The atmosphere would always be full of wisdom coupled with big doses of mirth. And the Knowledge sheets themselves are always profound, sometimes quite funny…
Dinesh and i decided to do a commentary on them, reliving those precious moments spent with Guruji, reading them out for you and peppering them with stories and examples of how this Knowledge from Him has come alive for us in our lives.
Re reading them now, after so many years of Sadhana, Seva and Satsang has made us realise just how beautiful and precious these words from Him are … We are thoroughly enjoying ourselves making these videos, we know you will love watching them too.
Knowledge sheet no. 15
Jai Gurudeva!
love
bawa n dinesh
Jun 26
The Bernina Express – Getting to Arosa
After meeting wonderful people and doing some super hectic sightseeing in Vienna, Florence and Venice, we settled down for a day of travelling from Milan to Arosa…
Dinesh doing what he did very enthusiastically in every train in Europe
We (me, Dinesh, Vishwas and Nikhil) took the first available train out of Milan to Lugano. We could have gone to Chur the boring way, by going from Milan to Zurich and then taking another train from there to Chur and reached in about 3 to 4 hours… but we chose to take the scenic route with the Bernina Express which starts from Lugano and goes to Chur and takes a whole 8 hours to do so! This year is it’s centenary year, and it was nice to sit in a train that has been chugging along for a whole 100 years!
Other than forgetting one bag in the train as we scrambled to get off the train at Lugano, it was a fairly uneventful journey there from Milan.
You need to register a complaint in order to get your bag back. Whether they find it or not, they make you cough up 50 euros just to tell them to look for your lost bag. It’s quite expensive to be forgetful on trains in Europe
In any case after sorting out all that we stepped out into Lugano and were taken aback by the sheer beauty of that place!
Beautiful Lugano
A deep blue lake on one side flanked by tall majestic mountains, the tallest of which were snow capped, giving us our first glimpse of snow on our trip here. Some low clouds added mystery to the already enchanting scenery. A pretty, vibrant town, compact and full of life is Lugano. But we were only there to catch our bus which would take us to Tirano from where we would take a heritage train to Chur. This bus-train combo is called the Bernina Express.
The bus set off through beautiful picture post card perfect countryside which would alternate between a the happy abandon of Italy and the paragon in neatness of Switzerland as the road wove in and out of Switzerland and Italy along the border of the two countries.
Lakes, mountains, quaint little churches, undulating roads, fields of flowers, vineyards, lovely houses, waterfalls all whizzed by as the bus made it’s way over 3 hours to Tirano. The only thing I missed was not being able to open the bus windows and feel the wind on my face.
Soon we were at Tirano and quite hungry. We had a superb meal of pizzas, pasta and salad, all lovingly cooked and totally vegetarian at a small restaurant near the station, while Dinesh sat in the lovely little train guarding our luggage. We got lots of food for Dinesh and when he didn’t finish all of it, ate some more in the train. Then with a shrug and a shudder the train started pulling out of the station.
me and dinesh with the Bernina Express
We were the only people in our compartment and soon took over all available seats to get the best possible views. The windows were tall and went almost all the way up to the top of the coaches so gave us a beautiful panoramic view of the splendour of the swiss alps in all their grandeur.
As the Bernina Express write up on the website says:
“It is called the most beautiful link between the cool North and the warm South. This view was shared by UNESCO in 2008, when it designated the Bernina-Express between Thusis and Tirano as a World Heritage Site – the third train route in the world to receive this honor.
Greens of the Plains where summer had already come...
The Bernina-Express passes through 55 tunnels, crosses 196 bridges and overcomes gradients of up to 70 pro mille without cogwheel drive. The train carries travelers from Chur, Switzerland’s oldest city, into the stark mountain world above the fog line and past the Morteratsch Glacier. It then travels southward, right into the charming ambience of Veltin.”
Of course we went the other way round, from Tirano to Chur. The train climbed steadily higher. We would pass by the banks of a lake and then suddenly recognize it in a valley.
A lake we passed earlier in a valley
Gradually the gentle green vegetation of the plains gave way to the rugged hardy trees of the mountains and soon, we began to see patches of snow which had still not melted.
Rugged Mountainsides
The train stopped at many quaint little stations of towns whose population could have been the population of one building in Bombay, anything between 50-500 people…
As we climbed higher still, a strange quietness descended and suddenly we were going through snow. It was snowing. For Vishwas, nihkhil and dinesh it was the first time that they saw snow and at the next station, we had our first snow fight.
Snow!
Me Vishwas and Nikihil at Alp Grum, one of the Highest stations on the route
Then the train went into the glacier proper and for almost 45 minutes there was only white, white and more white. We saw a house where the snow had piled up till the roof and a lake that had completely frozen over. It was winter at its best, Santa could easily set up shop here!
Dinesh in the snow at Alp Grum
Climbing higher and higher up into the Mountains
All too soon, we were descending down to Chur from the winter wonderland of the glaciers and as the vegetation turned green all over again, we napped for a bit.
Check out the house almost buried in the snow... Wonder what those fence type thingies are for
Soon we were in Chur and the train to Arosa was in an hour. Only it was not a train, it was more like a tram. We met a native german guy, blonde hair, blue eyes type who took one look at our very Indian clothes (kurta pyjama) and came over and talked very pleasantly with us in absolutely fluent hindi… he then tried to convert us to the “one true religion” Islam.
Thankfully, the tram for Arosa was scheduled to leave in just a few minutes and we extricated ourselves from him and piled into the bus where another, this time pleasant surprise awaited us… Naushad joined us!
He was free and on a whim called up Guruji and asked if he could come to Arosa, and Guruji said yes ok come, we need someone to translate to hindi! … and so there he was on the tram. It was really nice to see him.
The tram started moving and as a slow night was falling, went through gorgeous chasms and valleys and in about an hour or so got us to Arosa.
The Kulm Hotel - Arosa
Arosa is breathtakingly beautiful. A gorgeous lake greets you as you step off the tram/train station. Surrounded by huge mountains, it’s a valley up in the mountains. There was still snow all over the place in patches and it was deliciously cold. The entire town was deserted, their winter season was over and the summer season was yet to start. But one hotel was all lit up, and vibrant and cheerful… The Hotel Kulm!
Jai Gurudeva!
love
bawa
ps sorry for not posting this on Thursday, but things have been a bit of super hectic during our Summer Magic program here at the Ashram… They are all in silence now and i have some time
Jun 21
Be a Gopal
For 7 years, every week Guruji (Sri Sri Ravi Shankar) used to send out a page of Knowledge to be read out and discussed at the satsangs happening all over the world. He used to call it the Knowledge fax … This was before email became popular enough for everyone to use
Every week we waited eagerly for what Guruji would say through these Knowledge Sheets, many times we would be with Him while He dictated them out and we compiled them. The atmosphere would always be full of wisdom coupled with big doses of mirth. And the Knowledge sheets themselves are always profound, sometimes quite funny…
Dinesh and i decided to do a commentary on them, reliving those precious moments spent with Guruji, reading them out for you and peppering them with stories and examples of how this Knowledge from Him has come alive for us in our lives.
Re reading them now, after so many years of Sadhana, Seva and Satsang has made us realise just how beautiful and precious these words from Him are … We are thoroughly enjoying ourselves making these videos, we know you will love watching them too.
Knowledge sheet no. 14
Jai Gurudeva!
love
bawa n dinesh
Jun 17
Ashtavakra Geeta talks with Guruji at Bangalore has been a phenomenal time for me. Especially since i took up the task of tweeting live from the Yagyashala every evening. Twitter kind of didn’t work so a few days ago i started using facebook for it and that has suited me perfectly
Summer Magic work is in full swing. The people coming for the course are in for a treat…
I got published in the Speaking Tree of the Times of India today. Click to read the article. and then remember to leave some comments there too
Have been cooking and taking photos for my cookbook… Hopefully should be done by December
Just finished a Sahaj course in Bangalore city.
We are having the second Bhakti Concert in Bangalore on July 1st at the Chowdiah memorial hall…
And then mid July Dinesh and i will be going off to Bombay and Surat for a series of courses there, before we return to Bangalore Ashram mid august…
Exact Schedules will be up soon…
Jai Gurudeva!
love
bawa
Jun 17
Venice
We had visited Vienna and Florence before coming to Venice…
We had only 3 hours in Venice. It’s an utterly enchanting city. As soon as you step off the railway station, there is water. The public transport is boats. There are floating boat stops instead of bus stops. We decided to go to the Piazza de San Marco (named after Marco Polo). On the way we saw many types of boats plying on the waters of Venice. Police boats, a ferry boat onto which people had driven their vehicles, a small boat with 2 luxurious sofas on it, private little jet boats, a gondola, yachts, a huge ocean liner…
First view of Venice. Other cities have Bus stops, Venice has Boat Stops, you can see one on the right.
As we went to San Marco, we saw houses built right onto the water, with garages for their boats, even a petrol station to fill gas for your boat. In the distance there were even electricity towers and wires strung across them in the middle of the sea!
Power cables across the water
Venice has a beach called the Lido, but we had no time to go there, we walked around the Piazza de San Marco, a huge square flanked on one side by a beautiful old church (it had closed by the time we got there, so couldn’t go in), a tall tower and many shops and restaurants along the other borders. Venice is the city of gold and they are doing major restoration work on her monuments, maybe next year would be a great time to come here and see everything sparkling and new again.
Buildings right on the Water
It was drizzling a fine mist now and then, once it even became a quick concentrated shower, put soon passed and the sun shone brightly just a few moments after. We spent a few hours walking around the square, there was a restaurant called Florin’s which was established in 1720. So people like Mozart or Michelangelo could have eaten there. Everything was of course over priced. I am pretty sure Mozart and Michelangelo must have cribbed about their prices too
Too quickly it was time to leave, as our bus boat made its way back to the railway station, great grey clouds gathered over the city. On the horizon lightning flashed and snaked through the sky, and soon we could hear the majestic boom of thunder.
Bewitching Venice
Just as we were walking into the station, the heavens opened and a veritable downpour began. I think Guruji was holding it back just for us, our train left for Milan while torrential rain was lashing the bewitching city of Venice.
We reached Milan at 10:30 in the night, got into a taxi and went to max’s house. We had a train in the morning out of Milan at 7:10 am, so after a nice hot herbal tea and a bit of chit chat with max, went to bed… early the next day, we made it to the station on time and got into our train and settled for a day of traveling.
Jun 14
A Liar is Innocent
For 7 years, every week Guruji (Sri Sri Ravi Shankar) used to send out a page of Knowledge to be read out and discussed at the satsangs happening all over the world. He used to call it the Knowledge fax … This was before email became popular enough for everyone to use
Every week we waited eagerly for what Guruji would say through these Knowledge Sheets, many times we would be with Him while He dictated them out and we compiled them. The atmosphere would always be full of wisdom coupled with big doses of mirth. And the Knowledge sheets themselves are always profound, sometimes quite funny…
Dinesh and i decided to do a commentary on them, reliving those precious moments spent with Guruji, reading them out for you and peppering them with stories and examples of how this Knowledge from Him has come alive for us in our lives.
Re reading them now, after so many years of Sadhana, Seva and Satsang has made us realise just how beautiful and precious these words from Him are … We are throughly enjoying ourselves making these videos, we know you will love watching them too.
Knowledge sheet no. 13
Jai Gurudeva!
love
bawa n dinesh
Jun 10
So, we cancelled our tickets from Innsbruck and re booked ourselves on a train that left for Florence from Vienna itself.
The whole exercise left us almost 60 Euros poorer.
Madan was with us, and helped us board the train to Florence on time. The compartments are cramped but comfortable, much like the third ac compartments of Indian trains, only instead of curtains, the six beds are in small, fairly cramped coupes. Somehow we managed to squeeze our luggage into the tiny places provided for stashing it.
Very cool to look at from outside - Don't do overnight journeys in these!
We are sharing the same coupe with an Italian couple who don’t speak any of the languages we do. Dinesh is already asleep while I am typing this, the sun has set, so not much to see outside the window either…
Soon the Italian lady decided she wanted to sleep, and once she went to bed, I did too and it was only 9:30 in the evening.
I had written the above paragraphs before actually trying to sleep on my couchette. I felt completely boxed in, and had a faint feeling of claustrophobia because the ceiling of the train was so close. Somehow I slept.
I enjoy sleeping in trains, the shake and surge of the train coupled with the rhythmic sounds of the wheels on the tracks usually lulls and rocks me into deep slumber. On this train it was too cramped, made even worse, when in the middle of the night two more ladies entered the coupe with their luggage and found no place at all to keep it. They just bunged it in and went to sleep, and started to snore in a few minutes. It’s quite amazing how people who snore always fall fast asleep before people who don’t… Those ladies were also using up air in the coupe and I started to feel faintly suffocated too… to complete my woes, one person had put some horrible strong perfume.
Accept stuff as it is, and many Om Namah Shivayas later we arrived in Florence, or as the Italians call it Firenze. Dario one of our teachers picked us up at the station and took us to his beautiful little home. We got the room in the cozy attic. It was raining a bit and nice and cold. Our beds were made. I snuggled in and woke up at 11:00 am. We had only a day to go around Firenze.
View from Dario's home
One of the first things you should know about Italy is that C on a tap in the bathroom means Hot water, the F on the tap stands for cold… otherwise you could get nastily burned or horribly shocked first thing in the morning.
We gobbled some breakfast and drove through some of the most charming roads I have been on. Narrow, with greenery spilling onto the roads over walls of beautiful villas and offering tantalizing views of the city through sudden gaps, these roads wound their ways to the Piazza de Michelangelo and lovely big square with superb panoramic views of the city.
Florence from Michelangelo Plaza
Here the great dome of the church of Florence, there the Ponte Vecchio, down below the river Arno, more bridges across the river, the tower of the palace de Medicci rising grandly into the sky, the green dome of the synagogue shy, but holding its own, and the many, many other buildings all framed by mountains with mist rising through them made an entrancing picture. A bronze replica of the very famous statue of David dominates the piazza, and an ancient graceful church rises above it at the back.
We went to the church and meditated there for a few minutes, enjoying the silence and the darkness. As we walked down a lovely gravel path to the piazza, Rosalinda, another of our teachers in Firenze, joined us and we made our way from there to the city proper.
Me and Dinesh in Florence
Then we walked. We walked everywhere. To the great church, but we didn’t go in, too long a line to get inside, then to various other smaller churches, a big square, and many other lovely spots. Some ostentatious, others unassuming and elegant.
Across the river there are many bridges, the most memorable of them is the Pont Vecchio, meaning the Old Bridge. It has shops that sell gold and jewelry literally growing out of it and has an old world italian charm to it quite unlike anywhere else. For the record, the stuff sold in those shops, no Indian would touch with a barge pole.
Me n Dinesh with the Pont Vecchio in the background
The ice cream place of Firenze is Grom’s. Dario and Rosalinda swore by it. This was not gelato that’s all the craze everywhere now, this was proper full cream eiscream! Unlike Tichy’s in Vienna this was not crowded, and we could get a taste of many flavours of their delicious ice cream before we ordered our ices. They were really, really nice. They give you a choice of 2 flavours together in one cup and I had a Sicilian cassata coupled with some biscuit and praline type thingie. It was brilliant. But I will have to admit that Tichy’s was just a shade better.
Grom - The Ice Cream place of Florence
I insisted that we wanted to see David, the icon of Firenze. He is kept in the Museum de l’aacademie. We stood in a pretty long line to get in, but it was worth it. The museum has a room full of beautiful old musical instruments. Lovely old Stradivarius violins, old old horns, bugles, trumpets and flutes. There was even a dulcimer dating back to the 1300s. And the oldest surviving upright piano in the world. A nice little exhibit that showed the difference between the mechanisms of a harpsichord and a piano. When you strike a key on the harpsichord, it doesn’t matter how hard or how lightly you strike it, you will always get only one sound, no variation in tone or volume. On a piano, the mechanism is such that depending on how you strike a key, there will be a huge difference in the quality and volume of the sound produced. It was nice to see in that room how the piano of today evolved from the dulcimer. Unfortunately, we couldn’t play any of the instruments, but you could see and hear a video of them being played.
We wandered into a few more rooms that had plaster works of the masterpieces which dot Firenze itself as well as many other cities in Europe. This particular museum seemed to be obsessed with the passion of Christ in its frescoes and had many, many paintings about His crucifixion and the miracles immediately after. Some were truly beautiful, others I couldn’t appreciate, and could only categorize under old.
Then at last we entered the grand hall, which houses amongst its many treasures David. He is an awe inspiring sight. He takes your breath away. He is beautiful, graceful… His eyes have a far away look to them, making me wonder what he was looking at, what he was thinking… Every aspect of his body is lovingly, painstakingly sculpted. It is incredible how cold hard marble can be made to look so fresh and alive. All he needs is some God to breathe life into him…
David
We gazed and gazed at him from many directions, until finally it was time to leave. I was quite hungry too and Dario had to leave for some yoga class he was teaching and Rosalinda who had left earlier came over to babysit us. She took us to Leo Gusto a trattoria which served among other things, pizza of course.
I had my first taste of real Italian Pizza and it was good, as good as the pizza we get back at home in India, say in Flaours in Delhi. I had not missed much. The grilled vegetable salad was strictly so-so.
We walked back to Rosalinda’s car, where we were joined by Julia, a bright, vivacious young girl and then went to her house. A pretty little place surrounded by trees and parkland begging to be explored (no time to do that), to check some details of tickets for our onward journey from Florence.
After a hot cup of very nice herbal tea and interminable surfing on the net, and no real decision about what we were going to do next, we drove to the brand new Art of Living Center in Florence. Vishwas and Nikhil who had arrived the day before to Rome, trained up to Florence and we picked them up on the way to the center.
Our Center in Firenze is a beautiful place. The space is divided into a nice big hall for Kriya, a spacious office and few smaller rooms for ayurveda treatment and consulting. Sparkling clean, white wooden floors, laid by Dario himself and cool green doors and paneling give it a feel of quiet calm which seems to be hiding a bit of whacky impishness. We recorded a Knowledge Sheet here, eventually it will be put up on the blog.
Pizza!!
We had another round of pizza at a place called Pizzaman. This stuff was a completely different quality. It was melt in your mouth goodness. Only a few places in the world could compete with this gastronomical delight. Throughly enjoyed our meal and then went home to dario’s to sleep.
We had planned to go to Pisa the next day, but instead dinesh took all our dirty clothes to the Laundromat while I preferred to do a nice long round of Sadhana.
It cost 11 Euros to wash our clothes!!
I absolutely adored Florence and would have loved to stay longer in this entrancing little city… maybe some other time…
Soon we piled up in Dario’s car. It’s a nice car, tall enough inside that you can comfortably do bhastrika. Next stop was Venice…
Jai Gurudeva!
love
bawa
Jun 7
Anger of the Enlightened
For 7 years, every week Guruji (Sri Sri Ravi Shankar) used to send out a page of Knowledge to be read out and discussed at the satsangs happening all over the world. He used to call it the Knowledge fax … This was before email became popular enough for everyone to use
Every week we waited eagerly for what Guruji would say through these Knowledge Sheets, many times we would be with Him while He dictated them out and we compiled them. The atmosphere would always be full of wisdom coupled with big doses of mirth. And the Knowledge sheets themselves are always profound, sometimes quite funny…
Dinesh and i decided to do a commentary on them, reliving those precious moments spent with Guruji, reading them out for you and peppering them with stories and examples of how this Knowledge from Him has come alive for us in our lives.
Re reading them now, after so many years of Sadhana, Seva and Satsang has made us realise just how beautiful and precious these words from Him are … We are throughly enjoying ourselves making these videos, we know you will love watching them too.
Knowledge sheet no. 12
Jai Gurudeva!
love
bawa n dinesh
Jun 4
Summer Magic 2010
The Winter Break courses have been tremendous hits. Young people from all over the world have come to Bangalore Ashram and experienced hours and hours of Meditation, Seva and Satsang along with talks on topics ranging from Indian Classical Dance, Ancient Indian Culture and to Entrepreneurship and Finance all wrapped up in huge doses of mirth.
The Summer Magic program promises to be all this and more… Watch the video that Abhiram and Gowri have made…
Here are the dates:
June 21st: Reporting
June 22nd-24th: Various activities (no am not going to tell, come and find out)
June 25th, early morning – 29th afternoon: The Advance course
As with the Winter Break, Guruji will be physically present in the ashram for a few days of the course.
Bring along a water bottle and a yoga mat. Do bring your umbrellas too, it has already started raining here on the ashram. The weather is pleasant but can get hot in the afternoons. Don’t bring any expensive stuff to the ashram. The Advance course will be a very intense one, so please start doing your Sadhana very regularly (if you have not been doing it) till you come to Ashram.
A few people have exams and so wished to come later than the 21st of June, they are welcome, but they need to report latest by June 24th 11:00 pm. They will be missing out on a lot of activities we have planned and may not get to see Guruji. They will be expected to pay the full amount for the Summer Magic.
There are a few scholarships available. Please talk to your YES!+ teacher for details.
Dinesh, me and the entire Ashram team look forward to welcoming you here later this month
Meanwhile, All the Best for your exams (and the results)
Jai Gurudeva!
love
bawa n dinesh
