Expectations on India Journeys - 11 Dec 09

11 Dec 2009  Vrindavan, India

Category: Travelling

Food for a day

Food for a day

Today we were walking in the garden and when I saw the nice flowers I remembered how my friend Govind came into the Ashram one day and said how beautiful the garden was, like an oasis and you just feel home.

Many people feel when they come to India that it is like coming home. They feel like this is a place that they have roots at or where they can feel free to be themselves. They see how happy people are even though many are poor and they feel the happiness of the heart, the love which is there. But not everybody feels this way.

Some people seem to have strange expectations when they come here. Once a woman came to the Ashram and on the day she arrived she said that she was so surprised that there is so much dust here in Vrindavan. I don’t know what information she had about India but it is not only in Vrindavan that you find sand and dust.

India is a crowded, sandy and dusty country. You actually cannot say it that much in general because India is such a huge country with all kinds of different climates but I can guarantee you that the usual traveler coming here does not expect it to be as clean as Switzerland. If this is the expectation then you will have a real shock once you arrive at any airport.

We also had this case that someone arrived in India and after two hours took a flight back home. But still most of the people come and love it. Maybe it is one of the cases where you can either love it or hate it but nothing in between?

Click here to see more pictures of the children at lunch

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Tags:: Ashram, Expectations, Happiness, Love, Travelling, Vrindavan, Heart, Poor, Govind

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Posted By Swami Balendu

Swami Balendu

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Comments are moderated and will be allowed if they are about the topic and not abusive.

Comments

India is so different! there are mountains and snow, all the way down to Jungle and monkeys.

Reply By Greg on January 22, 2011 01:06


No one who was truly "born again" turns away. False conversion.

Reply By Cee N Cee on July 21, 2010 03:32


John I like your goal, mine too. I also loved India. I was there for 4 months and it changed my life. So vibrant, rich in spirit showed how you don't need to be rich materially. I didn't have the feeling I had come home though. But when I first set foot in Egypt 9 years ago, I felt I had come home. Every time I touched the ground in Egypt I had ... See Morethis feeling. I went 'home' to Egypt in 2007 until recently. Returning to a place I don't think of as home out of necessity. But my heart is there and I will return when the time is right.

Reply By Davina Severgnini on July 21, 2010 03:30


When I joined a Hindu Temple to learn how to meditate, I immediately sense that something was "right" about this - not a right in the sense that it was opposite from wrong, a right that my soul knew everything really is in Perfect Order...and this is coming from a white guy who used to be a "Born Again" Christian...one day I will get to India...but I will not pre-occupy my mind with future goals, when my only goal now is to be at peace...

Reply By John P. Morgan on July 21, 2010 03:29


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