After spending a week in Vrindavan, I took a flight from Delhi to Dhaka on the 30th of November. I had not been able to visit Bangladesh during the pandemic, so it was exciting to finally meet the devotees again - after three years of separation...
After my mother's departure from this world I flew back to India on the 9th of November and was immediately engaged in conducting various preaching programs. After the intense experience of taking care of my mother during her last days and arranging her funeral celebration, it felt good to enter a different headspace and thus gain some distance to the past impressions.
Already a few days before my mother passed away, I meditated on arranging a special and unique funeral celebration in her honor - as an expression of my gratitude and love for her, and also for preaching purposes. Funerals are always excellent opportunities to preach; in this moment, people are more sober and a little introspective, sometimes contemplating life and its higher purpose, and what happens after death.
I was winding up my tour around Australia and New Zealand spending the last two weeks in Brisbane, offering a few more lively programs in devotees' homes and getting ready for yet a new chapter to unfold...
On the 12th of September I returned from Perth to Sydney to offer a Holy Name Retreat at New Gokula over the following weekend. Friday evening was the time of arrival, and Sunday after lunch devotees departed to their respective homes. Just over 50 devotees attended the event - a good turn-out, considering that Madhava Prabhu was in Sydney on that weekend, and it was also Bhakti Charu Maharaja's Vyasapuja which many devotees attended.
A 5-hour flight took me on the 2nd of September from Sydney to Perth - right across the whole continent of Australia...!
As soon as I had decided to spend some time in Australia and New Zealand, it was clear to me where I would celebrate Janmastami - at New Gokula, at Radha Gokulananda's lotus feet...
At the end of July/beginning of August I spent three weeks in the Sydney region - one weekend in the devotee community of Western Sydney, and two weeks at the main temple of North Sydney.
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Devaki Devi Dasi's Travel DiaryDevaki Devi Dasi is sharing her realizations and adventures in her Traveling Diary.Welcome to relish this nectar! Archives
August 2022
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