The 3 days and nights I spent at the Retreat were very enjoyable. The serene atmosphere is very conducive to reflecting on some of the finer aspects of life. I stayed at this cottage on the left, along the bank of the Ganges river.During part of this stay at the Rajghat, I also had the good fortune of the company of another Vedanta student, Sukanya, also from USA. Swamiji was gracious enough to conduct both of us to the trinity of important temples of Varanasi - Vishwanath, Vishalakshi and Annapoorna. Cameras were not allowed in these temple premises, and you can find others' example descriptions of these temples at this one web site. (I have no particular relationship with this web site).
One evening, Sukanya and I visited the city of Varanasi, with the help of Shiva, associated with the Rural Centre. We walked through a busy commercial district, and witnessed a rather spectacular display of praying to the Ganges, the Ganga Aarti, at the Dasaswamedha Ghat, shown on Google Maps, next to Dr. Rajendraprasad Ghat. While I wrote this blog post, I discovered a rather nice photo essay on the Ganga Aarti on the web. In fact, there are several YouTube postings of the aarti as well; here's an example.
For all of its past and present glory, Varanasi is quite a dirty city; I am sure efforts are being made to improve the situation, but you cannot avoid having to negotiate the relatively dirty parts of the city. Indeed, a visit to the Vishwanath temple has to consider walking barefoot, amid cow dung and other excrement, to reach the inner sanctorum.
We also had occasion to visit Sarnath, the holy place where Gautama Buddha, it is said, gave his first sermon. While walking along the streets of Sarnath, we walked by this parked fire engine, whose title, when literally translated, proclaims it to be fire's enemy.
An interesting activity that I was able to take part during my stay at the Rajghat is the Thursday weekly dialogue session. Following Krishnamurti, who reportedly refused to be treated as the giver of wisdom, the session was a dialogue where everyone participated in sharing their thoughts on various subjects. Here, I had occasion to meet Prof. Krishna, head of the Krishnamurti Study Centre. A particular subject of discussion at that night was what education should ideally be, particularly during the K-12 years. It is impractical to summarize the dialogue session here, but an underlying thought was that the spirit of Vedanta must be taught during the early years; I can say with confidence that, in my case, I didn't really get exposed to the essence of Vedanta until I had the opportunity to meet Swami Chinmayananda while I was a graduate student at the University of Southern California. (My grandfather always used to goad me into reading the Bhagavad Gita, though).
On the morning of the last day of my stay, Swamiji, Sukanya and I had occasion to take a boat ride on the Ganges, where Swamiji sprinkled the holy waters of the Ganges on Sukanya and me.
[You can see more of the pictures I took while I was in Varanasi at this Google Picasa album].
As I reflected after I boarded the plane back to Bangalore, via New Delhi, I hoped one day to be able to share my love and passion for Mathematics, with a blend of Vedanta thrown in where appropriate, to the young. It'd be particularly fitting if I can do so at the high schools where I studied:
- Corporation High School, Malleswaram, Bangalore
- Municipal High School, Holenarasipur
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