A Visit to Belvan

Some old friends from Poland, Rasikendra and his wife Padma, are visiting here in Vrindavana, and last night we decided to go to Belvan this morning. This village on the other side of the Yamuna River, is the place where Lakshmi (the wife of Vishnu) came to perform austerities so that she could take part in the Rasa Lila dance with Lord Krishna. Unfortunately for her, because she was too attached to her position (of being the Goddess of Fortune, and the high rank of being the wife of Vishnu) she was never actually allowed entry into this confidential pastime of Krishna...the Rasa Dance.

Our reason for going there is that next door to the Lakshmi temple is a Gosalla that some of our cows from "Care for Cows" have been shifted to (do to a lack of space at our other facility.) I called our friend Pawan, who lives at that gosalla and manages it, to arrange a bullock cart to meet us on the other side of the Yamuna. It's a long walk to get to the Village, and with Radhacharan (Rafael) on crutches, it would impossible for him to join us, so Pawan arranged everything for Radhacharan's sake.

After crossing the Yamuna by boat, we boarded the bullock cart, pulled by Tilak, one of our young bulls from Care for Cows. I had previously been on a cart pulled by Tilak, and I tried to explain to my husband and our friends that Tilak is actually still being trained...so sometimes he doesn't do things exactly right. For example, if he is passing by the house of the driver, Omi, he will try to go there (because that's where he gets to eat nice fresh grass) and will pull the cart off the road, much against the driver's desire. Within the first five minutes of the ride, Tilak had to pull the cart up a small incline. In protest Tilak sat down, much to the embarrassment of the driver, and to our great amusement.

When we arrived at the Belvan Gosalla we called over Prem Sagar, who is a famous bull from Care for Cows. Prem is famous for his unbridled affection for humans. He is a quite large bull, but if you approach him he will immediately start to lick your face, without fail. It's quite amusing for the villgers, because they never saw such an affectionate and unaggressive bull before. Because Prem grew up around very affectionate humans who constantly brushed and petted him, Prem is just a big old softee. Our friends were quite amused by him.

After meeting the cows, and feeding them some spinach that I brought for them, we took a short walk to sit under some big trees at the back of the Laksmi temple. It was so hot out, but underneath those trees it was so pleasant and cool. Pawan calls this his "A.C. room". Then we continued on to the Yamuna river (which is another part of it, higher up and very clean...before the sewage of Vrindavan is "deposited" in it). Radhacharan decided that he wanted to take a swim in the river, so he removed his pneumatic boot/cast and went inside. I have to admidt, it was the happiest that I have seen him since the accident. Although he goes out daily to Care for Cows, and sometimes into to town on his bicycle...this was the first serious outing he had been on, and he felt very free in the water.

Afterwards we returned to the Gosalla, and sat in Pawan's sparse little room and ate some grapes and apples together that I brought. A little girl from the village, Puja , came into Pawan's room. Often the village kids come to visit him because he sometimes gives them candies or cookies. This is something that is totally unavailable there...so they have developed a real affection for him! We gave her some grapes to eat, and she was very shy in front of us. First of all, I am 100% sure that it was the first time she ever saw white people up close in her life, and secondly another 100% that it was her first time ever eating grapes.

On the way over to Belvan, Radhacharan had gotten into his head that he would like to eat Brijbasi Rotis. Brijbasis are the village people who were born in the area of Braj Mandal, or the Place where Krishna used to live. Rotis, or Chapatis, are a flat bread cooked on a griddle, and then placed in a fire to puff up. Pawan at this time asked this little girl (in the yellow dress) if she would make us some rotis, and she agreed and took us to her house.

Because it is harvest time for Wheat and Barley, all the men in the village were out in the fields, and only women and children were around. When we arrived at Puja's house, flanked by all the children in the entire neighborhood, the ladies at the house were quite surprised to see 4 white people visiting. They asked if we would like some water (which is a polite thing to ask guests in India...even if a person is poor, they can at offer water to a guest), but Pawan said to the ladies that his friends would like to eat some rotis. (I must add here, that in the village, this is not really rude. In older days of India...which still holds true in the village to this day, it is considered that the arrival of an unexpected guest is like Vishnu himself has come. Therefore it is with great happiness that a household serves a guest, and actually desires to feed them and take care of their needs.) The ladies of the house were so surprised and flustered at the arrival of their "foreigner" guests however that they just kept looking at us, and trying to decide which of the two of us ladies was married to which man, and none of them made a move to the kitchen. After watching the local kids showing off for us for quite some time, we decided to go next door to Omi, the driver's house. When we went there, Omi was quite proud to have us as guests, and started to make some lassi, which is a cooling drink made with yogurt and sugar. After a few minutes Puja came over and said that our rotis were ready, so we returned to her house, with Omi and the pitcher of lassi he made for us.

We were fed some puris (fried breads), potato stuffed puris, and a spicy dhal (bean soup) with potatoes. While we started on this (which was previously cooked) the ladies made fresh hot rotis for us. A brijbasi roti is totally different from the type of roti that is served in restaurants and houses all over India. It is much thicker, and more substantial. I have eaten tons of rotis before, and I have to say without a doubt these were the best I have ever had in my life. There is something quite different in taste and texture of a roti cooked in a regular kitchen on a gas stove, then to a village roti cooked over an open fire (fueled by wood or gobar patty). The natural fuel adds immensely to the taste of the food.

After eating (and drinking the lassi provided by the very pleased Omi), I took some pictures of the children, and the woman making the rotis. Then we left with Pawan and returned home by bullock cart.

All in all it was a really wonderful day. The hospitality of these "poor" villagers is much more cultured and kind then from the richest of city people. In cities, everyone wants something from you. Even here in Vrindavana it's a little crazy how people treat us (white people) as if we are walking wallets. Once I went to a little shop to buy some sugar and the owner of the shop (whom I had never met before) asked me to bring him a wrist watch then next time I went to "my country". I told him to get lost. But in the village, those people didn't want anything from us, they were really happy to serve us. It was without motivation. The next day, Pawan told us that all of the ladies in the village separately approached him and asked that he bring his "friends" to THEIR house next time!

All glories to Village culture!

So, please excuse my super belated entry!

On Feb 11th, while in Shanghai China, Rafael was hit by a car and had his ankle severely broken. He was due to fly to Bangkok the next day and stay for 8 days. The hospital in Shanghai wanted to perform immediate emergency surgery, but as the cost was estimated at $10,000 USD he decided to return to India for the operation. The doctor in Shanghai put a temporary cast on him and he returned to his Hotel around 11pm.

He somehow made it to the airport early the next morning and Thai airways immediately rescheduled his second leg of the flight so that he would fly from Bangkok to Delhi the same day. He arrived in Delhi on the 12th night, and on the 13th we checked into a very good hospital, Max Hospital in Noida, a suburb of Delhi. Actually the Indian Surgeon, Dr. Sanjay Sarup, said that the cast put on by the Chinese doctor was done so poorly that it made Rafael's foot swell up like a blown up rubber glove! It was at this point that we realized that it was a damn good thing that he didn't have the surgery done there! As the foot was too swollen at that point for surgery, we returned to Vrindavan on the 15th to wait for the swelling to go down. We returned on the 19th evening, and on the 20th morning his surgery was performed. The procedure took around 3 hours, and in order to "piece" his ankle back together the surgeon placed 8 screws, a metal plate, and a piece of bone from his hip into the ankle fractures.

When I was called into see him in the recovery room, even though he was totally out of it he showed his true form. He opened his eyes and looked at me and said "Excuse me Ma'am do I know you?" and then he proceeded to tell me that he was hungry and was lamenting that they wanted to keep him on a liquid diet for the rest of the day. When the anesthesia wore off, he was in serious pain even though he had a painkiller drip administered. He told me later that it was the worst day of his life. The day after the surgery the pain was greatly reduced, and I began to see the effects of the semi-narcotic painkiller manifesting in amusing anecdotes. Because the hospital allows an "attendant" (family member) to stay with the patient in the room I was with him the entire time and would sleep on the provided couch at night. After 4 days we returned home to Vrindaban.

The Hospital was very small and modern. We were very pleased with the facilities and service there...and of course the price. There were only 6 rooms on his floor, and three nurses on shift. We took a double room to cut down on costs (the surgery is charged on a sliding scale according to the type of room you get...so to stay in a single room would've made the surgery much more expensive) but the other bed was empty 3 out of the four days we were there!

Now Rafael is doing quite well...his spirits are always up, and he is recovering nicely. He will have the staples from the surgery removed this upcoming week, and then we will get a report from the Doctor on how he is progressing. He is getting quite sick of laying in his bed however, and makes a daily journey to the Gosalla that we do service at "care for cows" which is five minutes down the street from our place. The workers bring him there and back on a flat bed riksaw, and he really looks forward to his time outside everyday, and the chance to be licked by small calves!

Actually this gosalla takes care of injured and abandoned street cows from Vrindavan, so there are many cow patients who are in a similar situation as Rafael, so he feels right at home. We have several cows who have also been hit by cars and sustained broken bones. Our Vetrinarian for the cows also had a look at Rafael when he arrived with the cast!

People ask me all the time...what in the world do you do there?! To be quite honest, sometimes I don't have enough time in the day to do what I want! Radha Charan and I get up around 4:30-5:00 am to chant Japa, which is chanting a mantra that consists of names of God on beads. We do this for aproximately for one hour, and then we get ready to go to the Gosalla (cow shelter) which is a 2 minute bicycle ride down the street. At the Gosalla we feed the two baby deer, Radhika and Janardan, milk by bottle. After this we continue to chant, but with some interruptions from different four legged friends who want to be petted, brushed, fed etc. I return home around 7:30 am, while Radha Charan makes some deliveries (by bicycle) of milk to some of the Gosalla donors who live in the neighborhood. After this I clean the house, and then do puja (worship) of our deities at home. This takes around an hour. Part of the morning worship is making a food offering, so including cooking, this can take up to 2 hours (depending on what I cook of course!) After this we do "mantra smaranam", which consists of silently chanting some mantras given by the Guru at the time of initiation. This takes approximately 40 minutes. On average we manage to eat our breakfast between 10-11am, and finish (after some talking) around noon. After this, Radha Charan works on the computer for a few hours. I clean up after breakfast and puja, read, chant, or do whatever else I need to (other fine wifely chores like laundry etc!) around 4 pm twice a week I have a bengali lady who comes to give me a massage. It is very helpful for my cervical spondylosis that causes pain in my neck. She's such a super skinny lady who is so damn strong it's amazing...and a bit of a nut too. She charges 50 rupees ($1.25) for an hour and a half massage...so I can somehow afford to get twice a week! At 5 pm we return to the Gosalla to feed the deer their evening milk, and sit for more chanting. We leave approximately around 6-6:30, make evening milk deliveries, and eat dinner. On some evenings we go into town to visit some of the old temples. If we have some friends visiting, we will go earlier into town to show them around, and then eat later after we return. Our evening worship of our deities is done between 9-10pm, and then we "put them to rest" for the evening. We manage ourselves to go to sleep around 10:30 pm.... That's our average day.

I suppose for some it's not so terribly exciting, but the majority of our activities are based more on internal meditation...rather than external activity...so I suppose you can't really understand the full intensity of our day without understanding the mental focus that we strive for each moment.

Radha Charan is going to China tomorrow morning, and I will be making a trip to the Nepal border...to get stamped out of India (I will spend the night in Nepal, and then return the next day), so I won't write for a week or so. Wish me luck!

Nityananda-trayodasi

Today is the Birthday of Nityananda Prabhu. Five hundred years ago, Caitanya Mahaprahu, a direct incarnation of Krishna was born in West Bengal. His brother Nityananda (literally means "eternal bliss"), is an incarnation of Krishna's brother Balaram....and today is his birthday. What? God has a brother? Actually Nityananda, or Balaram is an expansion of the Lord (which means that he is also God.) There is much philosophical reasoning as to why the Lord would expand himself into two...but to make it easy I will just say that he does it for fun.

How fun is it to create a really groovy looking place, with all kinds of creatures and interesting places, and have to enjoy it alone? Lord Caitanya had many normal "human" associates, but none understood him in the same way that Nityananda did.

To celebrate Nityananda's birthday today I cooked a big feast for him. Here is a picture of our altar with the feast being offered. I am only sorry that Radha Charan cut off some of the preparations on the photo so you can't see them all!

I made 9 subjis (vegetable preperations): peas,eggplant, milk curd in tomato sauce; Dudh lau (Indian squash cooked in milk); aloo postho (potatoes with a white poppy seed sauce); Palak paneer (spinach with milk curd); Cauliflower, potato, pumpkin, tomatoes and milk curd; barbari postho (beans in white poppy seed sauce); palak bora (spinach with fried mung bean fritters); chana tamatar (chickpea and tomatoes with ginger); methi aloo (fenugreek leaves with potato)
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pea kachoris (indian savory pastry) and dhaniya (fresh coriander) chutney
Rice
Buckwheat
Kheer (sweet rice pudding)
Gur Sandesh (a sweet made from milk curds and date sugar)
Chocolate cake (what's a birthday party without a cake?)

Today we fasted until noon (which wasn't a problem for me since I was busy in the kitchen untill 1pm!). Today we will not eat any grains (in honor of the holiday), and will consume the feast tomorrow.

It took five hours of cooking to produce this feast...wish you were here to try some of it!

Some old friends from Poland are in town, and in the evening we went together to Nityananda Vat, an old temple near the Yamuna river to have darshan (which literally means to "see with respect") the deities of Gaura Nitai (Lord Caitanya and Lord Nityananda) there. This is the place where Nityananda sat under a banyan tree when he visited Vrindavan around 500 years ago. There was a group of bengali Vaisnavas singing beautiful bengali songs about Lord Nityananda, and we were invited for a big Harinam (singing party) that will go through the old town of Vrindavan tomorrow, and then return to the temple for a feast. I love those big Harinams with Bengalis...it is always so wonderful to see so many Vaisnavas together who, using singing as their medium, dive so deeply into the worship of God with such love and emotion.

What is Vrindaban?

Vrindaban. This is considered to be one of the holiest places in India. Braj Mandala is the place where Lord Krishna performed his pastimes five thousand years ago. Braj Mandala covers an area of 1453 square miles surrounding Vrindaban and Mathura. The circular shaped area of Braja is made up of twelve vanas or forests, one of which is Vrindaban. Vrindaban is particularly important because it is the place where Krishna enjoyed most of his pastimes. Vrindaban is 80 miles south of Delhi, 30 miles north of Agra, has an approximate population of 70,000 people and over 5,000 temples.

Great saints have described that Vrindaban is a totally spiritual realm which is covered by a thin veneer of the material world. For those that are qualified, or on the highest platform of spiritual realization, the transcendental realm of Vrindaban is revealed to them, and they can directly see and serve Radha and Krishna. For most of us however, we can only perceive the material covering of this most sacred place.

Vrindaban and most of Braj Mandala remained a remote forested area until around 400 years ago when six saints: Rupa Goswami; Sanatana Goswami; Raghunatha Dasa Goswami; Raghunatha Bhatta Goswami; Gopal Bhatta Goswami; and Jiva Goswami, better known as the Choi (six) Goswamis of Vrindaban, rediscovered her lost holy places. Deeply realized, in some cases they had dreams or visions of some of the places where Krishna performed specific pastimes. Other times a small beautiful boy dressed as a young cow herder pointed out different sites, The Goswamis realizing later that that boy was indeed Krishna Himself. They recovered many of the deities of Krishna that were carved and installed by Vrajanabha, Krishna’s own great-grandson almost 4,000 years prior. They themselves lived so austerely that they slept under different trees each night, and some consumed only a small cup of buttermilk daily. Due to their great spiritual realization, many rich and powerful people became their disciples, and the Goswamis engaged them accordingly in building rich opulent temples for Krishna, while they themselves slept outside on the bare ground.

It is only due to the efforts of the Six Goswamis that the glories of Vrindaban are known today. It is considered a major place of pilgrimage for Indians, and there is a constant flux of people coming to see those places of Krishna’s pastimes.

After the time of the Six Goswamis the fame of Vrindaban spread. People, eager to witness those sacred places of Krishna’s pastimes, traveled for months on foot to arrive at this most holy spot. Many moved permanently to Vrindaban, and gradually what was known as the forest of Vrinda all but disappeared as houses and villages sprouted up. Today, Vrindaban is a sprawling city full of homes, shops, and over 5,000 temples. It can be seen that practically every alleyway you look down, and that inside every other doorway is a temple dedicated Radha and Krishna; some simple and unobtrusive, others more ostentatious.

It is said that the residents of Vrindaban, more specifically those that were born in this holy city are not ordinary people. They must have performed intense spiritual practice in previous lives to have been born in Vrindaban. Their devotion to Krishna is so natural and spontaneous. He is the center of their lives since their birth. It is also said that even the animals that are born and live in Vrindaban are no ordinary souls. They too were saints in previous lives.

It is with this knowledge that the people of Vrindaban live alongside a myriad of creatures. Cows, monkeys, pigs, dogs, and birds have adapted themselves to a unique way of city life. Cows, revered for their position as a mother figure in Hinduism, walk freely through the streets. In some places there are feeders and water holes built for them only. Some people as a part of their daily practice donate grains, and grass to feed the “street cows”. Although they are revered, they can also be a constant source of nuisance to many. The vegetable venders here must keep big sticks to scare the cows away from their produce. Although slow in movement, many cows have somehow resorted to becoming thieves, and manage to get away with stealing from these merchants. Another face the cow takes on here is that of a beggar. While some have learned to beg chapattis from street restaurants, others take to knocking directly on the doors houses, or going straight into a family’s courtyard to receive their alms. It certainly is a curious thing for a westerner to see a cow begging door to door.

Welcome to Vrindaban!

I was born and raised in Toledo, Ohio. Just after high school I found myself developing a keen interest in pursuing the religious path of the Gaudiya Vaisnavas (known in the west as "Hare Krishna"). After finishing a bachelor of Fine Arts degree (how are you going to make a living with that?) around 1994, I moved to Columbus, Ohio with the band I sang for at the time, Pretty Mighty Mighty. After 6 months I moved into the all-girls ISKCON temple (International Society for Krishna Consciousness) in Columbus, where I served as Temple Commander, Temple treasurer (not for me!), and Kirtan/Harinam leader (leading singing in the temple and outside). I later was invited to join the traveling festival of Indradyumna Swami on the Baltic sea coast of Poland as a lighting technician, and Theater director. I joined the band on the tour, a very cheesy reggae band called "Village of Peace", as the back-up singer. With several different back-up singing partners (one time a Spanish girl, another time a Scottish lad, and a third one...a cheery and rotund Russian) I enjoyed singing in front of thousands of people every night, as well as in front of 200,000 people several times on the main stage of the annual Polish Woodstock festival. While in the band I met my husband, Radhacharan (Rafael) who was the conga player (isn't that a cliche? Back-up singer marries the Conga player?). We began traveling to India together in 1998, and would stay for 6-7 months each year before we eventually settled in Vrindaban, U.P. around three years back. Two and a half years ago I made a decision to leave ISKCON, due to some personal disagreements with my former teacher, and my husband and I took initiation from a more traditional Gaudiya Vaisnava Guru, Srila Ananta Das Babaji. We do some service daily at the "Care for Cows Gosalla" which is a shelter that takes care of abandoned and injured street cows in Vrindaban. Enough said...welcome to the blog!