Monsoon season! A huge storm knocked out our electricity two days ago and we’re still not back up on power. The administration will turn on the generator a few times a day for everyone to have a few hours of electricity and to get the water pumps pumping water up to the dorms and volunteer quarters.

Maura and I have been slowed down a lot the last few days because our computers will only stay charged for a certain number of hours. So we decided to take a rickshaw into Hosur, the nearest town that would have an internet café. It’s always nice to get off the Shanti Bhavan campus and out into the “real” India, but this trip was especially fun because we decided to step into the temple that’s across the street from the internet café just to check it out. It was a Hare Krishna temple. We were blessed by the priest and given Jasmine flowers to put at the base of one of the statues. Then we went into the main meditation room at the temple, and much to our surprise, we were visiting during one of their holy days. Not 10 minutes into going into that room, 5-10 other priests came in, got out their drums and symbols and started to sing the Hare Krishna chant. The main priest opened a curtain at the front of the room, behind which were several Krishna statues decorated with jasmine flowers and other colorful trinkets. As soon as the curtain opened, everyone fell to the ground and prostrated themselves completely and said a certain mantra. Then they all stood up and started singing again. During the music, the main priest took several items and waved them in a ceremonial way around the statues. First he took incense, then a candle-lit lamp, then jasmine flowers, then he sprinkled everything with water. The lamp was then taken out to the people in the room, and each person waved their hands around the flame and touched their foreheads. Then the jasmine flowers were taken and everyone breathed in their fragrance. It was pretty cool to take part in the ceremony. After the ceremony finished, we all went up to the priest and he put some water in our hands twice –the first time you drink it, the second time you put it on your face. Then the priests laid out mats on the floor and we all sat down. They came around with big banana leafs for us to use as a “plate” of sorts for what’s called “Prasad” which is when they serve food that is prepared at the temple (considered holy). It’s so holy, that they don’t think of themselves as “eating” the food, but rather “honoring” it. So they came around and put rice, daal, naan, some potato dish, some vegetable dish, and then a gulab jamun for dessert (the most amazing Indian desert EVER – it tastes like a donut that’s been doused in sugary syrup.) We ate all of this with our hands and then took our banana leafs and put them in a pile outside the temple. Maura finished first because she had been really hungry, and then they came over and gave her more rice and some “buttermilk” concoction which was some sort of milky sour stuff. She was so awesome because she actually was able to force herself to finish it – because it’s sacrilegious to leave any Prasad uneaten. After the meal, we bought a “mala” which is a string of beads – basically like a rosary, or prayer beads – that have 108 beads for 108 mantras when you chant. The Hare Krishnas have their own mantras, but Maura has a good book of other mantas that are not from any specific sect. The book has mantras on everything from curing headaches to finding happiness. Should be pretty interesting to try them out . While Maura is not a Hindu, she is a very serious yoga student and identifies with a lot of Hinduism and meditates frequently. On the summer solstice (June 21) we went out to “the rocks” – these huge boulders at the edge of the Shanti Bhavan campus where if you climb up to the top of them you can see out over the rural fields and watch the sun set. We did a chakra alignment and then meditated for a bit. It was really nice to sit outside on a boulder in India and meditate.

Although the Hare Krishnas are known to be pretty cult-ish in the USA, they’re very common in India. Being in a very small town in the middle of rural India, we were able to set our judgments aside and feel the wonderful love and spirituality of the place. It was an authentic and vibrant afternoon, to say the least.