Tuesday 3 December 2019

Krishna in St Petersburg

I was in St Petersburg in late 2016 when walking along a canal towards the local tourist market and my friend and I stumbled upon a satsang in the snow.

Yes it was quite unexpected, some Hari Krishna devotees in a bliss filled chant dancing and singing outside a big hall.



Sometimes the most unexpected events stumble across you when your on the road. As you can see in the video these devotees were in ecstatic joy.

This was the true spirit of satsang. To achieve such joy of spirit one must let go of the ego and embrace the feelings of joy that flow within as the chant envelopes your consciousness.

We in the west are sometimes not ready due to self consciousness to do this.




Thursday 17 October 2019

Lao Thai Peace Bridge Nong Khai




Peace Bridge


I crossed the bridge in July 2019 One of the shortest international crossings in my life.

It was maybe 10min at most but nice crossing the Mekong that way.

On the Lao side in typical Lao fashion there was no customs officials in the offices at work, no transport to Vientiane, so a local customs official took me by motorcycle back to the road bridge customs point  at the end of the bridge to pass through customs.

There one can take a local bus to Vientiane for next to nothing.

Copyright
wildlotus Arts
Bee Pollen Production





Railway
A metre-gauge rail track from Nong Khai station runs along the centre of the bridge. Road traffic is stopped when a train is crossing.

On March 20, 2004, an agreement between the Thai and Lao governments was signed to extend the railway to Thanaleng Railway Station in Laos, about 3.5 km (2.2 mi) from the bridge. This will be the first railway link to Laos (but not the first railway, as a short portage line once existed). The Thai government agreed to finance the line through a combination of grant and loan.[3] Construction formally began on January 19, 2007.[4] Test trains began running on July 4, 2008.[3] Formal inauguration occurred on March 5, 2009.[5]
Reference Wikipedia

Saturday 14 September 2019

Golteik Bridge Lassio Train line Myanmar





Built in the 1800's the Golteik Bridge is a majestic engineering feat of brilliance.

Bombed by the Japanese in WW2 it was repaired and is up and working to this day.


The train leaves from Mandalay before dawn (4am)goes through Pye O Lwin, Hsiepaw, to Lassio

See the man in seat 61 for the full timetable: man in seat 61


Sunday 21 July 2019

A Sufi shrine with a message of love



Every Saint speaks with  the one voice. 

Wednesday 29 May 2019

A Chinese Journey ; Lao Tsu Museum and chinese medicine



Here are some thoughts on Chinese medicine from an interview on radio.

Then some pictures from my trips in China along the Yangtse and in Anhwei province Guoyang museum,Suzhou historic merchant city.

Monday 6 May 2019

Music for charity walk

Sunday 5 May was the Kew walk on want charity walk. Simon Margaret and I played some music during the morning.

The setting was etherial by the gumtree studded kew sports ovals, and walking paths.  The people connected to the event were really friendly and the walkers warm and welcoming. Simon got some nice feedback for his songs.




Music feeds the spirit. "Jai Sarasvati" Goddess of Music




Saturday 6 April 2019

Nityananda Swami





In 1991 I made a visit to Ganeshpuri to study Siddha yoga with Gurumayi via Bombay and the Mahabharati sangeet tabla music school with teacher Nayan Ghosh son of the famous Nikil Ghosh.

I was given the job of teaching tabla at the ashram to kirtan musicians by the day.

It was an odd situation that I found myself in as on the first day of my arrival Gurumayi was at darshan where devotees hear a talk, and various matters are discussed to name a few possibilities when she became irate at the head organizers for not procuring a tabla teacher at the ashram and threatened to fire them if they did not come upon one forthright.

Henceforth I stepped forth and bingo !!!!! I had a job. A job far more interesting than doing dishes or sweeping floors or cleaning toilets.  I must say non or the latter are beyond sadhana and are infinitely 
useful of course for liberation from the ego, nonetheless I began teaching.

As it turned out I began playing music with a shakuhachi player from Japan some evenings who liked to improvise but only got once to play in the main bajaan room because of the stiff competition for the music roles. And I mean fierce. There was a nice African American drummer who played pakawaj a 2 sided long drum from Nth India and he was not about to leave his station in a hurry.


After some weeks of meditation and teaching I began to walk outside the ashrm during the day and visit the local eateries near the ashram. There was a western restaurant for cashed up Americans  and an Indian basics kitchen on the ashram to cater for the locals. The latter was not flash but fed / kept the blood circulating. 

There were local cafes just outside the main gate and down the road and as I was used to local Indian food in all my years of travel I did not have the fear of death by eating like the fly in fly out westerners.  They were given horror stories by other sannyasins about India and most of them never left the ashram for Bombay or anywhere in India. They literally flew in from the airport and to Ganeshpuri.

See Nityanandas mandir shrine
https://goo.gl/maps/Ek8vnfwoyYF2                       https://goo.gl/maps/dFoTj5UqtY52


During the afternoons I would walk to the Ganeshpuri village and then to the mandir of Nityananda.
It had a huge drum in the corner and was filled by a sublime atmosphere.  Just to go there and sit was uplifting.  One could feel the subtle vibration of the gurus bhakti there palpably.  It was sad that the students were put off from discovering Nityananda's village and local India, the real India. 

Having tasted the beautiful aura of this guru I was touched by a majestic presence.  Whenever I see his image I feel the magnitude of his grace.

Not long afterwards a friend visited the ashram and told me of Baba Virsah Singh and within a week I was in Delhi and sitting in front of my teacher and in the midst of profound change in my life. I am forever grateful.












                                   






Classical singing of India

When I have gone to India I oftentimes have the opportunity to see a classical music concert.  When I was in Adelaide I got interested in classical singing as I accompanied Manik Panvelliwallah a classical singer in many concerts in the community there.

Singing is a meditative tradition as music and ragas in Indian music are connected to the Gods and devotion.

Here is a link which will illustrate the basics of this ancient tradition.



https://medicinepathpodcast.com/podcast/01-ramakantgundecha

Ramakant Gundecha is one half of the Gundecha Brothers, the foremost practitioners of dhrupad, an ancient form of Indian vocal music. After I attended a weeklong workshop with the brothers, Ramakant was kind enough to sit down with me for a short conversation about the origins of dhrupad, their lineage, singing as meditation, how Westerners and non-musicians can benefit from practicing dhrupad, and the mystical meaning of the syllable AH.


A few of my all time favourites are Pandit Jasraj, Mallikarjun Mansur, Bhimsen Joshi, Koishori Amonkar, Bade Gulam Ali Khan,




Thursday 7 February 2019

Spiritual songs under the oak tree Fryers Forest community 2.2.19


Sunday 2 Febuary the Fryerstown community had a spiritual music acapella meet under an oak tree by the dam.  Kavisha Mazzella, Nick  Lyon and I played to the sounds of the bush in the background. 

Sometimes little events just seem like well,  this is heaven,  here and now.  Thanks to Kavisha P Mazella and Nicholas Lyon.  






The local Fryerstown community were enthusiastic singers, some very new to this style but one would never have known by their passion. The energy was satvic in flavour, that is full of love and devotion. 
(in Sankhya and Vedantic philosophy) one of the three qualities of prakriti, or nature, which are 
passion (rajas) dullnessor inertia (tamas) and goodness or purity (sattva) .1




                                             Notes
1.https://www.dictionary.com/browse/sattva