Jagat

I wrote about Vachananand Swami about nine years ago on my rather inactive Jagat Jindagi blog. He is stationed in Bangalore, where he has been doing rather well in teaching yoga in the Baba Ramdev style. He has a popular television show on yoga in Kannada and puts on public yoga performances and camps. Swamiji had been asking me to come to Bangalore to visit for some time and this year he asked me to come for the Yoga Ratna award ceremonies that he has been organizing for a couple of years on International Yoga Day, June 21. I was to receive a "Yoga Sammana" award. Shwaas Guru (Vachanananda Swami) with me at SRSG in 2015. I was very impressed by Swami Vachanananda's aplomb and natural talent in public, his way of dealing respectfully and warmly with all his guests, his savoir-faire in organizing and managing this large event, and many other good qualities I observed in him. In my short acceptance speech, I stated my appreciation for him. I said he may call ...

I have been in Birnagar since the beginning of the month. I was hoping to give a regular Bhakti Sandarbha class, but that has not materialized and perhaps will not. I was cleaning the room where I am staying and found these two photos from 1980 that seem to have been lost. They were ravaged by humidity and have been restored by a friend. The restoration could perhaps be done better for the second picture, but it was more damaged than the other, so the task was difficult. I first met Sri Lalita Prasad Thakur in 1975, met him again in early 1978 and then several times in 1979 and 1980, staying for several weeks at a time. Then not long before Prabhu left the world, I went to Vrindavan, so I was actually in Govardhan when he ended his worldly pastime. Harigopal Dasji was reminiscing yesterday in the car as we drove to an engagement in Dhatri Gram. Doctors wanted to give him cataract removal surgery when he was 94, and he refused because he did not want to take any injections. He...