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We had a great day in Haridwar and Rishikesh. You
get many impressions on such a day. We went in a
cable car up the hill and down again, took pictures
on the hill and in Haridwar of the big Shiva statue.
We then went to Rishikesh where we spent the rest of
the day. It is anyway a wonderful, powerful place
and with the river Ganges flowing right through it
is just amazing but here, too, I have to realize how
it changed with the time. It is much more commercial
now and I had the impression somehow that it is like
a yoga mall, an enourmous shopping center, where you
can get yoga in different forms at each corner.
There is a lot of 'show business' going
on if you see how many gurus live and teach in this
city. We also saw some foreigners walking around
with a card hanging around their necks which read 'I am in silence'. Okay, first of all
it seemed a bit funny to me, as I never had any sign
like this in my times of silence. When someone asks
you a question and you do not answer it, they will
know that you are in silence. There is no need to
show this with a card. However what made this even
more funny was the fact that some of them were
chitchatting all the time! It is like spirituality
combined with showing off. And I believe this is the
influence of their gurus who are in the mentioned 'show business'. I felt very good and
was happy that I could walk around in the city
without any show, propaganda or anything that
belongs to the guru life that I have left many years
ago. When we were walking towards Lakshman Jhula,
one of the bridges across the Ganges somebody came
close to me and greeted me. I recognized him as the
Yogi whom I had met two years ago in the Zurich
airport in the transit lounge. If he had not asked
me maybe I wouldn't have recognized him but
when he greeted me I remembered him. He was flying
to Canada on that day and my flight was in direction
Germany. His name is Yogi Vishvketu and he brought
us to his ashram for dinner. He is a lovely man who
spends half of the year in Canada and half of the
year in India, teaching yoga. It was very nice
meeting him there especially as it was not planned.
Tomorrow we will start early to see a waterfall and
natural caves nearby and then we will go back home
to Vrindavan.
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