Life Circle Productions

The Ashram at the water’s edge

lifecirc — Thu, 11 Dec 2014 07:06:02 +0000

Arriving in the middle of the night anywhere inevitably presents difficulties. So when the 11 devotees from Australia and New Zealand knocked on the front gate of the Yogoda Satsanga Society Ashram in Dakshineswar, Kolkata at 12:10am, the security guards, although expecting us, were sleepy eyed and slow moving.

They very politely played concierge, showing us to the spartan rooms and ensuring we understood to only drink water from the main filtered system. Helen and I checked out our share accommodation with despair, as our room had two single mattresses on wooden slates, with little else, and did not suggest comfort. Yet sleep came easily; it had been a long long plane ride and an even crazier ride through the streets of Kolkata to find the ashram.

I was up with first light, eager to walk around the grounds of this famous place. I saw it almost immediately. Steady, calmly,it flowed, under a haze so thick you could taste it, was the Ganges. I was indeed in India walking on the very ground that many saints had walked, including my beloved guru, Paramanhansa Yogananda. I went eagerly to the first meditation session.

After breakfast I did a little exploring with Helen and a woman who joined our group, named Barbara. We did a quick walk to the Kali temple, through the hot, steamy, smoggy streets of Dakshineswar.

I had to take off my shoes – and walk barefoot though the temple and surrounds. This was a challenge for me but oh what a visit.
We located the spot that Master describes in Autobiography of a Yogi, where he sat in this very temple and saw Kali come alive.
This was only the beginning of this trip……I kept reminding myself to be present in every moment, no matter how crowded, how mundane the actions seemed. This is India. This is the sacred ground on which Master walked.

End to the search for perfection

lifecirc — Wed, 22 Oct 2014 04:47:08 +0000

…..And there I was in a place on the earth that most people call heavenly; the northern west coast of Bali. Here in a small resort in Amed with black sands at my feet and fishing vessels bouncing along the shore a the end of the day, I was replete. Never far away from my experience with this perfect setting was the restlessness of my mind. My walking eased the restlessness and as I absorbed the beauty of the sunset it and practiced paying attention to the breath, it came to me that we seek perfection in a most imperfect world. And it is the seeking of something else, something more that makes us restless and unhappy.

So I paid close attention to feeling of the black sands squishing through my toes, the sound of the gentle breeze blowing in from the Bali Sea and the imposing back drop of sacred Gunung Batur; the most spectacular eye candy in the natural world. I breathed, I watched and I loved the perfection of the world around me, through my imperfect vision. I was a part of this moment, in this place, right now; my energy completing the experience.

Ah Bali! Here is where the search for perfection ends and living begins.

Heavenly Gate

lifecirc — Wed, 15 Oct 2014 18:00:48 +0000

It was in a suburb of Ubud that I had the idea. It was a blue sky warm and humid day in Bali, and I had taken a cab to an suburb of Ubud to find Yayasson Bumi Sehat (Healthy Mother Earth Foundation) and its founder Robin Lim. Mahala, a young German woman who was a midwife I had met staying at the same guest house was keen to meet Robin, who began her free birthing and prenatal clinic in 2003.
Although I felt like a tag along, I was keen to see this clinic as Robin Lim had been awarded CNN 2011 Hero of the Year.

As I was waiting for Mahala to locate the clinic I admired the gate next to which I was standing.

I mused that the entrance to this birthing centre looked mystical – all at once earth bound yet vaguely as if it may be a doorway to heavenly realms. Very much like the birth canal which is a doorway to earth from heaven…..

Oh boy, Bali did get me thinking deeply about the world and my seemingly very tiny contribution to it.