Auroville is a small town on the east coast of India. But this city is not a normal city! It was founded on February 28th, 1968. This city was born with a vision no smaller than to be the future of a new humanity, in which the inhabitants strive for higher consciousness and make human evolution visible by their own example.
How exciting is that?
A place where people are committed to the task of becoming the best version of themselves, evolving into more conscious beings and defining new forms of living together? Completely detached from all conventions? For more peace and continuous progress? OMG, I love this experiment!!
The big woman behind this great vision and founder of Auroville is "The Mother". Her core pillars are:
The Auroville Charter: A new vision of power and promise for people choosing another way of life
1. Auroville belongs to nobody in particular. Auroville belongs to humanity as a whole. But, to live in Auroville, one must be a willing servitor of the Divine Consciousness.
2. Auroville will be the place of an unending education, of constant progress, and a youth that never ages.
3. Auroville wants to be the bridge between the past and the future. Taking advantage of all discoveries from without and from within, Auroville will boldly spring towards future realisations.
4. Auroville will be a site of material and spiritual researches for a living embodiment of an actual human unity.
The Mother had the dream that somewhere on earth there should be a place that does not belong to anyone, where all people can be free, a place of peace, unity, harmony. A place where people proactively reflect and overcome the causes of their lacking consciousness and resulting pain and that are guided by only one authority: the Supreme Truth. And: She not only had a dream, but under her leadership this place was created in reality and you can visit it today and experience its peaceful atmosphere by yourself.
In this place, the Mother writes in 1954, children can grow and develop holistically without losing contact with their soul; education would not be granted to pass exams or to obtain certificates and positions, but to expand knowledge and existing scientific faculties. In this place, titles and positions would be replaced by possibilities [...]; everyone's physical needs would be met and money would no longer be the dominant means. The individual value of a person would be much more important than material wealth and social prestige. There, work would not be a way to make a living, but a way to express yourself and develop your individual skills and possibilities.
In short, "it would be a place where human relationships, which are normally based almost exclusively on competition and strife, would be replaced by relationships of emulation in doing well, of collaboration and real brotherhood."
(From: „A Dream, Envisioning an Ideal Society“ by The Mother. Link to the website)
Is this not simply AWESOME? Each one of those sentences touch my heart deeply and feel right. Today, almost 70 years later, we finally begin to collectively recognize the truth of this vision and to agree and to demand that our school system must be reformed, that we need co-creation instead of competition when we work together, that we must first work on ourselves, so that peace from the insinde can give rise to allow peace on the outside.
May this vision never die, but be the orientation through our joint efforts for the next centuries on this planet.
In August, I was guest for a week in Swami Bhoomananda's ashram in Thrissur in the southwest of India and discovered a great book in the library of the ashram which I would like to share with you:
"Insights into Bhagavad Gita" by Swami Bhoomananda Tirtha (ed. 2019).
The Bhagavad Gita is an important scripture in Hinduism, which comprises 700 verses and was written in the first or second century after Christ. It contains the well-known dialogue between prince Arjuna and Krishna in the roles of student and teacher exchanging important pearls of wisdom in the middle of a battlefield. Many people in India have studied these verses thoroughly and many Swamis have written books about it with comments on the verses.
Swami Bhoomananda is a now 90-year-old man with a razor-sharp mind, who wears a large round golden dot on his forehead, no longer hears so well and whose favorite color is orange (everything in the ashram is orange: the clothes of the Swamijis, the color of the house walls, the curtains, the chairs, the microphones, even the trash cans are orange...). He leads the Ashram together with his two companions and former students Swamini Ma Guruprija (the only female Swami I met in 5 months of India and who has an impressively matured (leadership) personality) and Swami Nirviseshananda Tirtha.
When I first meet Swami Bhoomananda, his eyes lit up when I ask him how he is doing (mostly he has to listen to others how they are doing). I am telling him that I find the big dot on his forehead very pretty and that orange is also my favorite color. Swami Bhoomananda enthusiastically tells me that orange is the color of purity and wants to explain more, but then we are interrupted by his employees because his global live broadcast for the Satsang is just about to start and his YouTube followers are waiting for him.
Let's talk about a taboo topic: DEATH
This much in advance: I do not want to start a big discussion about death and certainly do not want to advise anything or, even worse, teach what attitude and perspective one should have in relation to death. This is a deeply subjective topic where everyone must find their own truth. I can say this because I lost my father and mother as a young woman and therefore know from experience what loss feels like. I know what horrible pain you go through when the person dies who is most important to you on earth. I have already thought a lot about death in my life. But just as Buddhism also recommends, everyone should form their own opinion which feels coherent and then deal with the consequences of this attitude. In this opinion-forming process, however, it is valuable to get to know different perspectives.
When leafing through the book "Insights into Bhagavad Gita", I discovered on page 64 a comment by Swami Bhoomananda on the subject of death which I find very beautiful. He offers an alternative concept to the widespread dogma "Death-is-the-end-and-then-comes-nothing-anymore":
He is writing that death is not a final stop, but a transition. As an example, he cites that our body is also exposed to lifelong transitions. In the course of our lives, our body visibly changes, as we first are born as a small baby with maybe 50cm and then grow up to a person of 170cm height by average within a decade and a half. This means that our body size quadruples over the course of our lives. With every breath we take we change, with every breath we take we get a fraction older. We are never static beings, neither in biological terms, nor in psychological terms, nor in any other way. The steady flow of energy is a natural state.
Death is not a final stop, but a transition
You can also observe it well with a tree because its growth cycle is visible to the naked eye. Every day the tree looks a little different, first there are buds on its branches, then a few days later flowers, then they become small green apples and at some point we walk past the tree and the apples are red. But here, too, the cycle does not stop, because the apples shrink, they fall off, the branch loses its leaves and appears bald and dead at the beginning of winter. But hidden from our eye are the inner forces of the tree, which it preserves and uses deep in its trunk to produce new forms of magnificent flowers in spring. Would we ever say that the tree stands still, or is dead, even if it looks bald in winter?
A dead tree as metaphor...
And when the tree gets very old, its branches break one day and it collapses into dust and decays: Would the fungus, which now grows happily on the broken tree bark, say that the tree is dead and no longer gives energy? Would the flowers that bloom in the humus of the fallen tree say that the tree is dead and no longer gives them energy? Would the small tree that slumbers in the ground as a seed from the old tree say that the tree is dead and no longer gives it energy, even though it has already taken root and a small green germ is sprouting out of it?
The verse of the Bhagavad Gita on page 73 says impressively: "As clothes that are put on the body are discarded and new ones worn instead, so the indwelling spirit leaves aging bodies, and takes up new ones." Change is everlasting and there is never an end to change, even death is not an end, but a transition to something new. We humans are beings that are constantly changing and our energy is never lost. The Indians say "Prana", the cosmic primal energy or life energy that is inherent in every living being and exists for all time. Basic physics also confirms that energy can never be lost, it only changes its form. The exciting conclusion from this realisation:
“No one will ever die […] The wise people do not grieve over death. […] Think beyond what the eyes show.”
(Insights into Bhagavad Gita, Swami Bhoomananda Tirtha, page 64)
Hidden at this point is our opportunity for growth and knowledge as humanity, exactly here we have a blind spot in my opinion, because we often only believe what we see with the naked eye or can prove with the currently available scientific methods. I wonder when did we collectively decided as society to move away from a spiritual way of life and eradicate all that is hidden from the eye only relying only on our sensory capacity for perception? When exactly did we lose the spiritual roots of our Celtic and Germanic forefathers and mothers, who partly were so much broader in their consciousness than we are today? How about taking note that energy is never lost, not even the energy that is inherent in the bodies of our loved ones because it finds another form of existence after the biological death?
How about thinking about this thought and finding out that death cannot be a final stop, but rather a new beginning?
Dear reader, today we are embarking on a trip into the world of Ayurveda! Let's get acquainted with ancient Indian knowledge about health, learn new English vocabulary and listen to the golden rules for a healthy, long life! This is definitely life-changing stuff - let's go!
Some information in advance: The word "Ayurveda" is Sanskrit and is composed of the words "ayur" (life) and "veda" (knowledge. Therefore, we are dealing with nothing less than the "knowledge of life". The roots of this science goes back to the Vedic high culture of the old Indian times, where people have documented their findings about medicine and health through thousands and thousands of years of medical practice and research. Archaeologists from the University of Missouri-Columbia have proven that ancient Indians were able to treat toothache as early as 7000 BC, because small holes were found in teeth from this time, which were probably filled with herbal healing pastes. At that time, Indian doctors were already able to precisely describe human anatomy and the digestive system and blood circulation. It is amazing how oftentimes we ignorantly look at the supposedly primitive life forms of our forefathers and mothers (I am totally including myself right now) - but when you get to know Ayurveda, you realize that with our current medical knowledge we stand on the shoulders of giants... the giants and giants of past millennia.
The essence of Ayurveda
The special thing about Ayurvedic Health Science is its holistic view and its constant focus on the central question: "What is the cause of the disease and how can healing take place sustainably?" Superficial symptom treatments are not found in Ayurveda. Human beings are taken as the multi-layered beings that they are, as a unity of body, mind and soul. I personally think that's really great! According to the Ayurvedic view, the linchpin of health is digestion, because we consist of the substances we absorb - and either they built us up ... or drain us. For this reason, I have done a 21-day retreat at the Ayurvedic Treatment Center of the Madukkakuzhy family in Kerala, which is lead in 9th Generation by Ayurveda doctors. All herbal medicines are produced in the in-house pharmacy and all guests receive individually cooked food every day. During my heavenly stay there, I heard these words over and over again which are now firmly integrated into my English vocabulary:
Bowel Movement – Constipation – Bowel Cleansing
The Ayurveda doctor Dr. Robin Maddukakuzhy asks me every morning during the consultation if I had a "bowel movement" and this means as much as whether I excreted the food eaten properly in the morning in the optimal consistency (soft) on the toilet. If you say "no" it promptly triggers worry lines on Dr. Robin's forehead and the conclusion is clear that I suffer from "constipation". If the digestion does not run optimally, toxins accumulate in the body and there is only one solution for this problem: Bowel Cleansing. The conversations in the Ayurveda Retreat generally revolves a lot around the topic of intestines and bowel movements and Dr. Jobin Maddukakuzhy, Medical Director of the Ayurveda Treatment Center and brother of Dr. Robin explains to me jokingly: "In Ayurveda medicine, no one asks you how was your food, only how was your shit." We both laugh and then he explains to me how the bowel cleansing will work for me. Gulp.
Jump into the future: 21 days later I leave the Ayurveda Retreat and have a wide smile on my face, a radiantly clean skin (THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU), a purring digestion, 1.3 kilos of toxins and body sloof less, a clear mind, a high energy level and a lot of knowledge on how I can maintain this health peak of my life in the long term. I'll tell you guys, with this knowledge I'll easily be 100 years old!
At the request of the Maddukakuzhys and because I found my time there so enriching, I made a video testimonial, which can be found on Instagram and YouTube:
Finally, I'd like to give you a few golden rules for a healthy, long life. These are universal principles with which you can do yourself a lot of good:
In the morning after getting up, drink 1-2 glasses of warm water to boost the digestive fire. Gladly also with lemon or ginger slices, which has an additional laxative effect
Eat warm food for breakfast, because it is much easier to digest for the still sensitive and cold stomach in the early morning (e.g. porridge with steamed fruit). Attention: fresh fruit and cold milk breakfast is twice problematic: the fresh fruit contains acid, which is difficult to digest for the morning stomach. Therefore, it is better to eat fruit steamed or in the afternoon when the digestive fire is at its peak. And acid combined with milk coagulated in the stomach and this is a digestive nightmare and not recommended
At noon should be the main meal of the day, because the digestive fire burns the strongest here
In the evening until 7:30 p.m. at the latest, take the last and lightest meal of the day, e.g. vegetable soup, so that our body can use its energy for healing processes overnight and does not have to work hard
The periods of meals should be about the same every day, so that the stomach can adjust to them and this saves energy
No more snacks after eating, which stresses the stomach, as it is constantly digesting and has to process differently displaced food porridge in parallel
Do not combine hot food with cold drinks or cold dishes (e.g. no cold fruits, raw vegetables or cold salads for lunch) - this freezes the digestive fire. Room-warm drinks or salads are better
Drink warm water in individual sips with each meal so that the liquid does not dilute the stomach acid too much and does not hinder the digestive process
The combination of milk and fish, fish and meat and different types of meat at the same time are not recommended for consumption, as they are also incompatible in their properties and difficult to digest for the stomach
Here we now end our little trip into the world of Ayurveda - I recommend everyone to do an Ayurveda retreat sometime in the course of your live and to give your body this gift of ultimate health self-care. If you want to learn more about Ayurveda, the Maddukakuzhy family and their work:
On Wednesday, July 19th 2023, on my third day in the Isha Yoga Center of Sadhguru, something special has happened. In this place in the southwest of India, near the city of Coimbature in the middle of the tropical rainforest, Sadhguru has created a place to which thousands of Indians and just as many foreigners flock every day. Most people know Sadhguru from social media; his face and his inspirational quotes are omnipresent and he is currently probably the most popular Indian spiritual teacher who enjoys worldwide recognition. With the founding of the Isha Foundation, a spiritual non-profit organization as well as with the launch of the seminar "The Inner Engineering" he has reached an audience of millions, within and outside of India. You could say that Sadhguru is the popstar amongst the living Indian gurus and his ashram looks a little bit like a spiritual Disneyland. Opinions on Sadhguru differ, especially from the Indians you can hear critical voices.
The Dhyanalingha Temple is a special place
In the middle of the Ashram campus there is the Dhyanalingha Temple, where meditations can get a trance-like depth within seconds, according to the loudspeaker announcement. When you enter the temple complex, you can feel how gravity pulls you down towards the ground with all its might, and the heaviness of the air causes you to automatically turn into silence. Thoughts that were buzzing in the mind like annoying flies quickly sink to the ground like heavy boulders in the water and reveal the view on the clear deep ground. The head becomes free and a great force connects you to the earth on which you sit, covered by a cathedral made of thousands and thousands of reddish bricks. The stone dome forms an architectural masterpiece that has been built for the next 5000 years. In the middle of the cathedral stands the Dhyanalingha, a pitch-black round column with a rounded tip. It is at least 2 meters high. Sadhguru says about the Dhyanalingha:
“Dhyanalinga is a living being because it has come with all the seven chakras. It is just that there is no physical body. Dhyanalinga is like the energy body of the highest kind of being possible, like a yogi sitting there. Or to put it in traditional terms, we created Shiva himself. The idea is that people have a live guru forever.”
In the course of my one-week stay in the ashram, I noticed that visiting the Dhyanalingha temple can actually be a little addictive. Being in the cathedral is a particularly attractive feeling. This is not only the case for me, but also for other guests with whom I talk to during my stay there.
When I enter the cathedral on the third day in the ashram to settle down in a cozy side niche to meditate, my head is crammed with swirling thoughts. I am very much annoyed, angry and extremely tense. The last few hours were extremely nerve-wracking, as I had just prevented my expulsion from the ashram with all my might.
The crucial question was whether I could extend my accomodation or not and this supposedly simple question was managed by the ashram office in a highly arbitrary and unlogicical process. On the last day of my booking, I was informed that my request for extension was denied and that I had to sppontaneously vacate my room. The ashram is located in the middle of the jungle, 30km away from the nearest city.
Since I knew that there were a lot of empty beds in the cottages, and that there was no follow-up booking for my own room, the decision came unexpected and I lodged objection; the result was that I had to negotiate my request with the Senior Cottage Manager and the conversation was absurd and annoying until the very last second of consent was that I could stay. I argued in the conversation that the second bed in the cottage of my neighbour Meda is empty and therefore I don't see the need to leave due to the lack of sleeping places... the end of the story was that I was allowed to stay, but only under the condition that I withdraw my application for booking extension and instead move into the cottage with Meda. I did't get an explanation to the question why I can't stay in my own room right away, that's another unwritten law. In any case, the whole incident was extremely absurd and had absolutely nothing to do with logic and I can't stand something like that!
Totally pissed off, I enter the temple...
In this emotional state I enter the Dhyanalinga temple and look for a place where I can have my peace. My thoughts are shooting through my head like shrapnels. I am sitting down in a side niche which is bigger than expected and has a beautiful white marble floor. Surrounded by the intense energy of the room, the swirl of thoughts in my head quickly settles to the ground and a pleasant heaviness finds its way into my head.
Suddenly a question shoots into my head:
"What is really relevant?"
I am amazed by this sudden question and find it smart and interesting. I come to the conclusion that it is a relevant question to ask yourself what is relevant and decide to dedicate my meditation on it.
I wonder which thoughts, which circumstances in life are actually relevant. Is it relevant that I continue to be upset, is it relevant that I am emotionally attached to topics that I can't change, is it relevant to linger on the surface of the mind and feel every current of the waves and let yourself be carried away and get lost in it? These questions are valuable... what is really, really relevant? Is it my professional achievements? Is it relevant to gain deeper insights into what prevents me from developing my full potential ... or on the contrary contributes to develop it ... or is it the realization that everything I need is already within me ... what exactly should I prioritize in life and which of it is really relevant? And is it really necessary that something has to be relevant at all and if so, why is it relevant and what does relevance actually mean as a word? (Note: Relevance (lat: re-levare) means to raise [the balance beam or one thing] up again and is a term for significance and thus secondarily also a situation-related importance that someone attaches to something in a certain context).
Well, here I sit and reflect on this question in silence and ask for an answer posing this question over and over again to myself...
"What is really relevant?"
... ten times... twenty times... a hundred times I ask myself this question internally "What is actually relevant?" At some point, after the third or fourth ring of the bell (after 15 minutes the bell always rings so that people in the cathedral can rise and leave if they are ready, so that the next people can come in) suddenly this thought shoots through my head: Even with the best intentions, the universe cannot possibly give me an answer with all the inner chatter! I wouldn't hear an answer anyways! I don't even understand myself when I constantly talk inside like a waterfall! If I want an answer, I have to shut up and listen. Also internally. This thought makes sense to me and I abruptly interrupt myself in the middle of the sentence. That was a very good idea, as you now will see.
I just get to ask myself: "What is..?" as I interrupt myself inwardly. Now I have half of the question in my head and immediately feel a CLICK in my stomach that I just have discovered something really great! The question "What is?" is a much more essential question, it is like the concentrate of the original question. The essence of the original question "What is relevant?" is the question: "What is?" I hope you can still follow me. The relevant question is not what is relevant or what is important or what is good or what is bad or whatever adjective we want to use, the essence of it is simply the core question: "What is?" in the sense of "What is (right now)?" The adjectives are interchangeable, but the verb is the core. I have always liked the verb "to be" because it describes the most basic state of existence of everything. Being is the most basic form of existence of all life. It's not about doing something or performing (!) or being in a specific way, it rather about just to be. After all, we are humans beings and not human doings.
The core question is "What is?"
I recognize that the more central question is what is (now), and I ask myself: "Good question, what exactly is right now?" What is there, what can I perceive with my human senses in this very moment? I find the condensing of the question into the essence exciting and put into practice right away what I just realized. So what is right now? What can I perceive right now? I check in with my body as I typically can feel it very well... I can feel my back and the unpleasant pulling in the left lumbar region due to sitting upright, I can feel a pulling in the right chest and I can hear the man next to me coughing and making a sound that echoes throughout the whole cathedral. All this "is" right now and I can grasp all of this with my senses. So, here I sit with my sharpened consciousness in the side niche of the cathedral and create a report of what is right now as if I would be a reporter making a scientific inventory of the current situation with all my senses.
And then, all of a sudden, just before the bell rings another time, something incredible happens and I dive deeper another level of consciousness.
The question "What is relevant?" becomes the answer "What is."
My question "What is?" transforms into a new structure in my mind and I am given the answer to my question. The question mark at the end of my question suddenly lights up brightly and enlarges in front of my inner eye and then transforms into a full stop. My question, which ended with a question mark, transforms into a statement and now suddenly ends with a period. I recognize: The answer to the question "What is?" is "What is." The question becomes the certainty that the relevant things in life are always what is (right now). I'm excited because the answer to my question was in the question itself since the beginning and I just didn't recognize it until now. I feel like I've just discovered a pirate treasure in a secret cave after correctly interpreting the treasure map. So the question becomes the answer and I am pleased in light of this ingenious realization.
I have understood that the most relevant person is always the one facing you at the moment, the most relevant sensation is always the one you are currently feeling, the most relevant moment is always the one you are experiencing right now and the most relevant task is always the one that is in front of you in this second. In the presence with everything that is lies the key to happiness. The more present we are, the more conscious we are, and the more conscious we are, the happier we are.
Relevant is what is.
I am very satisfied with this realization and enjoy it's simple intelligence and the perfect way the answer was embedded into the question from the beginning. Genius thoughts are often simple thoughts I find it quite genious to find the answer in the question itself. I thank the Dhyanalinga and leave my meditation niche in anticipation of all the new experiences that I will now have with this new knowledge.
The great thing about traveling is that you meet completely unknown people, often even for just one day, but you sometimes create shared memories that will last forever.
Such a day I experienced in Mysuru, the capital of the former kingdom of Mysore (1399-1947), capital of culture of the state of Karnataka and residence of the royal family of Mysore to date (Wodeyar dynasty). Here I met Prashanth, a dynamic Indian man who agreed to do his friends a favour and show his hometown to a foreign European woman (Thank you Ramya and Kaushik for enabling this for me! You guys are great :-). Prashant is a self-employed entrepreneur, passionate reporter, fan of his hometown Mysuru which he even has dedicated a website to:
On a hot Thursday afternoon, Prashanth picks me up from my guesthouse with his car and an adventure begins to unfold. Thanks to his press card, we are on the guest list for a privately guided tour through the city's landmark: The Royal Palace. Together with 2 Japanese, a nimble museum guide leads us through the corridors of the palace, which is the most magnificent treasure chamber that I have ever seen in my life. Opulent porticos with turquoise ceiling paintings, gold-plated ornaments, meter-high hinged doors made of pure silver and giantic elephant heads staring at you from the wall, tiles with wonderful floral patterns as far as the eye can see. The generosity and richness of this building can be seen in every single detail.
The secret room in the palace
At the end of a side corridor, the museum guide leads us towards a slightly hidden door and tells us to go inside: Away from all tourists, we stand in a darkened room that is filled over and over with ancient sabers, robes of warriors and ... stuffed animals. The museum guide emphasises that taking pictures and making videos is strictly prohibited here. Huge tigers snarl at us silently, gigantic buffaloes stand row in row and crocodiles at the size of minibuses are lying on the ground. I shudder at the thought of all the hunts that must have taken place to equip this space... I stand in the middle of a room that belongs to a long-gone era and I am reverent of the ages people and animals have gone through in this country. What fights they have fought, what pain they have suffered, what obstacles they have overcome, what splendor they have created.
The miracle at Chamundi Hills ...
After visiting the palace, Prashanth and I decide that there is still time for a second adventure. We head for the sacred hill of the city, from which you can look over the entire valley plain: The Chamundi Hills. There on the rock of the hill, Sadhguru, who later became worldwide famous as a spiritual teacher, had his first moment of enlightenment at a young age. At the top of the hill is the Chamundeshwari Temple and people flock daily from near and far to pray there.
But, we have a problem: It is 5:50 p.m. and in 10 minutes the temple doors will close! There are still over a hundred people in front of the entrance, the temple is extremely popular due to its powerful energy and location. It is impossible to get inside the temple and my departure was already booked for the next day. And at this moment, a remarkable characteristic of Prashanth becomes evident, which is his great strength: excellent networking capabilities. Three phone calls later, we rush past the long queue, get steered through side doors by temple employees like VIPs and shortly before 18:00, we stand in the blessed Sacrament of the Temple to pay our tribute to the goddess Chamundeshwari. I can't believe it, we made it!
When I later ask Prashanth how he managed to get us into the interior of the temple against all the rules, he says these words that have been imprinted on me: "It is not helpful to call the highest representative of this temple; the cleaning staff and door porters are the ones that rule the place. I cherish the relationship with them and we help each other.”
A wonderful day is coming to an end...
In the evening, I am falling into my bed with the happy feeling that this day was one of those days that stand out like diamonds on my trip through India and that I still will remember at the age of 84. Today, I was allowed to visit secret rooms in the royal palace of Mysuru, I have experience a miracle at Chamundi Hills and enjoyed the generosity and smartness of a young Indian man whom I now can call a friend.
An Instagram reel was created from this adventurous day in Mysuru, which I am happy to share with you:
Eleven days I have spent in the ashram of Swami Sri Kaleshwar, which is located in the small village of Penukonda near Bangalore, Southern India. I visited Guru Purnima there, a festival week that takes place every year at the time of the most important Indian full moon in June/July. Guru Purnima is celebrated euphorically by the entire Indian population, the ear-deafening music from the nearby Hindu temple could not be overheard in the ashram for 3 days. By the way, an ashram is a place of spiritual teaching and the place of living of a Swami (spiritual teacher); you can imagine it like a monastery where one can attend further education courses lead by an inspiring person.
In Penukonda, the earth is magnetic...
...so the statement of Sri Kaleshwar, the Swami and miracle healer, who founded the Ashram in 1997 and went to Samadhi in 2012 (i.e. left his earthly body which means he died). Kaleshwar has been present as spiritual teacher all over the world (especially in the US, Germany and Japan) and is surprisingly little known in India. According to Sri Kaleshwar, the energetic vibrations in Penukonda are as high as only in a total of three selected places on planet Earth. 500 years ago, the great king and Saint Krishnadevaraya lived in Penukonda, who was the richest man in the world at this time and invited thousands of other saints from all over the world to Penukonda to perform spiritual rituals. Penukonda is also considered the birthplace of the goddess Kanaka Durga, she is the Divine Mother in Hinduism and stands for the quality of unconditional love. In Penukonda, it is said, she has appeared on earth for the first time in a concrete form. Kaleshwar's words about why Penukonda is the ideal place for spiritual practices and an excellent place for meditation:
"If you want to hunt a tiger, you have to go to a tiger reserve. There you will find tigers. First and foremost, it was a great number of amazing and divine spirits and divine souls who came to Penukonda who practiced their spiritual rituals here. There are many Samadhis (burial sites) of supernatural saints here. Of course, you can draw the energy to you wherever you meditate in the cosmic energy, but it will be a little more difficult. Here in Penukonda, the vibrations are very powerful. Here the magnetic earth, the magnetic force is very present. The Shiva energy and the energy of the divine mother are extremely strong."
As crazy as it sounds, I can confirm this statement
In the sacred halls of the temple complex you get goosebumps although it is oppressively hot inside, your bio-organism is working as if you were digesting things that do not consist of food and your mind is so clear and deep as if you were taking a journey with psychedelic substances in your brain. I have meditated in many places in my life, in my apartment, in yoga studios, in meditation retreats in Austria and Southern Germany, in my sister's basement, but I never have had such profound meditation experiences like in Penukonda. After the time in Penukonda, I can confirm that it does play a role WHERE you meditate and that your meditative receptiveness is much higher on the top of a mountain than at home next to the buzzing refrigerator. However, Penukonda will be remembered by me forever especially for the fact that I was experiencing there how a number of complex wishes of mine have come true all while Guru Purnima.
In these eleven days, I made three great wishes during the ceremonies and temple rituals, which were performed in honor of the Divine Mother, in honor of Shirdi Sai Baba (another saint known and revered throughout India and Kaleshwa's teacher) and in honor of Sri Kaleshwar himself. The crazy thing: All three wishes have come true! My first and most complex wish was that I wanted to have a fundamentally deep and existentially formative experience of self-love. When we have experiences, the findings are engraved in the body and available forever, when you have a really profound experience, then it is forever an inner resource and reference point. If you have felt your own love for yourself at least once deep inside, you can remember it again and again and reconnect to this feeling. That’s exactly what I wanted.
So what happened?
On July 4th 2023, on the American Independence Day, on the last day of Guru Purnima and at Scarlett's birthday (an inspiring woman from Singapore who was also in the ashram), I was given a moment of enlightenment that I had been yearning for so long. In a ceremony lasting several hours in honour of Kanaka Durga, the priests prepared a wonderful Absishek (cleansing ceremony) for the statue with several CumCum washings under continuous chanting of mantras to increase the vibration in the room. Then, the Ashram visitors were allowed in groups of three to go into the sacred interior of the temple and briefly stay in this extremely pure energy. The ritual prescribed that when entering, you have to bow in front of the statue, touch the feet of the Holy Mother and then get up again, circle the statue three times and directly leave the temple room.
When I enter the room, the air is hot and heavy of wonderful jasmine scent and the smoke of the blazing oil flames. When it is my turn, I kneel down in front of Kanak Durga and touch her feet to express my wish, which I had memorized very well to not forget in the decisive moment: "Please give me the ability to experience deep self-love for myself."
And now hold on tight!
In the fraction of a second, which seems like an entire era to me, a whole series of realizations happen in my head. Even before I am able to get back up, inside of me it goes like CLICK, CLICK, CLICK and finally in my mind it makes "AHA!" As I kneel in front of the statue, suddenly an amused voice speaks in my head. The first comment of this voice is that my wish is STUPID. I am surprised. A feeling spreads within me that I somehow have made a fool of myself. The voice tells me that it's not about training a skill, as if you wanted to acquire a new competency or strengthen a muscle so that you can win the self-love championship one day. The voice assures me that every person has the ability to love themselves since birth anyways.
The voice continues and says that it is more about lifting all veils that have obscured the view of one's own natural beauty and the value of one's own being. It is about taking off the filters through which we often perceive ourselves so unlovingly and thus also reject the divine in us. The divine is inherent in all living beings all the time and therefore we devalue it in an unbearably condescending way and pull it into the dirt. The voice makes it clear to me that I am part of her creation and that there is no question whether or not or how much I am valuable and lovable. Everything in her creation is valuable and endearing, every flower, every animal, every plant, every person and of course also me. And exactly in that second that I stand upright again in front of the statue, there they were, these words, crystal clear in my head, an answer, a mantra, an impressively simple essence:
«STOP BEING BLIND!»
The voice in my head speaks clearly and tells me a little strict in a commanding tone:
«STOP BEING BLIND!»
Instead of practicing something new, she gives me the instruction to not be blind and ignorant of my own value.
«STOP BEING BLIND!»
Yes, damn, that's the key.
This experience has left a lasting impression on me. I experienced it in a fraction of a second and at the same time in epic width inside of me. No one can take this experience away from me anymore. Not even myself. Read these words carefully, because they come from an energetic channel through which I received a message that does not come from me. This wisdom applies not only to me, it applies to all of us. Let us all stop being blind to our own beauty, because we are part of this creation, and creation is perfect, and so are we.
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