Nirmala writes:

We arrived in Delhi from America last Sunday, and have been doing the usual jetlag routine of having breakfast at 3am, going for a walk at 4am, and getting to meditation at 6:30am feeling as though it is mid-day!

While still in the thick of it, we flew to Bengaluru/Bangalore on Friday morning to do a couple of programs on Saturday. It was my first time to Bangalore, though Dharmadas has given programs there several times.

I’ve met some of the core Bangalore Ananda devotees when they have come to Gurgaon, so it was fun to see them again, and meet many more of the people. We stayed with Neelam and Ajit, who are very sweet and gracious hosts, so we were well taken care of.

We flew into the new airport, and drove to the Leela Palace, which is close to Neelam and Ajit’s home. We had a lovely lunch there, toured the grounds, and saw all the favorite places where our Ananda friends come and set up their laptops! Pilgrimage places, indeed!

That evening we had a nice time with Neelam and Ajit, and then got to bed early. Being in jetlag, though, I was awake at 1am, writing, meditating, and enjoying the quiet of their beautiful home. There are local birds there with exotic songs I’ve never heard before. They sing even during the night; very beautiful.

Saturday morning we left for the hall early and got to see the Ananda Bangalore group in action: manning the book table, setting up the altar, greeting people and taking registrations. It felt like home!

We had 80 or 90 people for the program, which was titled, “Accelerating your spiritual growth through Kriya Yoga.” They were a very receptive audience, and when we practiced meditation together it was the most still group of meditators I’ve ever had in a class.

Afterwards, some of the core members of Ananda Bangalore came up to the microphone and introduced themselves; they were so joyful! What a blessing this path is!

During their talks, and also when Neelam and Manju had introduced the program, there was a lot of joy at seeing Dharmadas again. Many remembered his very first program which had been the start of Ananda’s energy in Bangalore: he had 225 people! The turn out for that class was so large that they couldn't fit into the room, so Dharmadas gave TWO classes in one day: 10 to 2 and then 3 to 7. So he did eight hours of lecturing in one day! Definitely a feat to go down in legend and song... We have come a LONG way in Bangalore…

After the class we drove to Kamini’s home for lunch and a satsang. We had a very sweet time chanting and meditating with everyone, and enjoying Manju’s chocolate cake! Superb!

As we drove back after the satsang, we noticed that some of the traffic lights are amazingly long… At that point I had been up for nearly 20 hours straight, and was dozing off and on in the car. I realized that while we were stopped at one traffic light, I had had a significant nap, and had
awoken, all while we were still at the same light!

I’m happy to announce that we slept through the night without our usual 3am breakfast call; even the birds couldn’t keep us awake. I guess that is the remedy for jetlag: stay up for 20 hours straight!

We had a lovely breakfast of some of the sweetest papaya I’ve ever had. I guess this is a definition of the south of India: sweet fruit and sweet people.

We’ll be home in Delhi this coming weekend for Guru Purnima on Friday night, and we’ll do this Saturday’s satsang. Then the next weekend we’ll go to Pune to see the group there and do an introduction to meditation program.

What a blessing to be sharing the liberating teachings of Master and Swamiji here in India!

 
Ananda events in Bangalore

Ananda Sangha India  B–10/8, DLF Phase I Gurgaon (Haryana), India 122 002 Directions

Phone: 98990 14209; 98992 67698; (0124) 405-9550 Fax: (0124) 410-3386 E-mail: ananda@anandaindia.org

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