The joys of India

The last few days have been very fun-filled and very very hot. I have left Dehra Dun Dun but not before I attended an hour and a half medication and chanting session of joy!! It was really very interesting. There were about 15 people and there were pictures of their Guru in front of the room decorated with flowers and beads. The chanting was led by some community women on a microphone. Of course the tunes were in Hindi but the medication was in English and I took advantage of the experience by going into a very deep meditative state also known as sleep.

So, now I am in Rishikesh which is a very holy town (not meat, eggs of alcohol in the town). I got here on Saturday morning and met up with the rest of the large group to go white water rafting down the Ganges River. The rafting was really fun and the rapids were about class 2 which means that we were not going to tip and for that I was thankful. I also did cliff diving which was quite scary and very reminiscent of jumping of the high diving board at the Newbridge pool in Bellmore. That night we shopped around and had dinner. The food here is good there are Pizza and pancakes as well as Chinese food and Israeli!!! We also went to an aaarti which is a spiritual gathering on the shore of the Ganges. Basically people sit around and chant to a hug floating statue of Krishna. The next morning we got up at 4 am to watch the sunrise atop a mountain and take a hike. The hike was really nice. We walked through beautiful green mountains and got to see local farmers and families and streams running down the mountain. There was also a water fall and watering hole where we were able to cool off fro the extreme heat. The whole hike was down hill and I am super sore today. Everything was great about the hike except that many people did not have any water with them because we left so early in the morning. Basically we had to rashion of the water or risk death in the 115 degree heat during a 7 hour hike. That after noon was spent napping and swimming in the Ganges. Although the Ganges gets a bad rap it’s quite cool and aside from the clothing that we found laying on the bottom and the matchsticks and cucumbers floating it is a nice retreat from the heat.

This morning we moved to our new ashram called Parmath Niketan and had our 1st naturopathy class. I will give you more scoop on the classes and ashram experience but for now it is a time for an ice-cream brake.