“I want world sympathy in this battle of might against right.”

Gandhi

10/24 We went to the city art museum which had some of the best explanations and maps of Buddhism and religious history through art and sculpture I’d ever seen. Nepal basically blended Chinese/Buddhist and Hindu religions. We had lunch at Cream, giant pooris – then quickly visited Mahatma Gandhi’s house, which had amazing dioramas and a letter that Gandhi had written to Hitler, as well as to Roosevelt. I was surprised to learn that Martin Luther King, Jr. was so inspired by Gandhi, that he asked to sleep in Gandhi’s room after he his death to experience Gandhi’s energy and insight.

After this we visited a vipassana acharya teacher who just completed a 45 day course. I was so very lucky to arrive both on Diwali and be able to meet this teacher, who was able to understand and answer my questions.

Diwali Explained, Celebrating the Victory of Light over Darkness

Diwali celebrates Lord Rama’s victory over darkness. In the Hindu pantheon, Rama is God as a king. Krishna is God at play. All are the same, one God with different faces and manifestations. In this story, Lord Rama is incarnated as a human son of a King with special strengths. His gift is that he can see beyond the veil of illusion. Rama is unfairly banished to the forest with his wife Sita and brother, where they encounter shapeshifting and cunning demons. It is not that demons are bad, but that the balance between good and evil had tipped. Eventually, Rama battles the demon king, who had lost sight of balance. With the help of Hanuman the monkey god, Rama is welcomed home by his people with thousands of candlelights as the rightful King.

Listen to the Ramayana story in full splendor at Mythology on Spotify:

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Map: Gandhi’s Home and Global Vipassana Pagoda

Scroll to Zoom out to see where these places are in reference to your home and other landmarks.

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Glossary

Puja: to worship with garlands, icons or money

Darshan: to see and be seen by the gods

Kirtan: devotional song, often in call and response, “wake up the sleeping soul”

Polymorphic Monotheism: various deities represent multiple faces of universal God

• Each deity is an energy
• Creator, Preserver, Destroyer
• God is the divine being, goddess is divine power (energy)
• Krishna is god at play, Vishnu is god at work

Trip Information

The trip was run and organized by Gopi Kinnicutt, owner of Bhakti Yoga DC. The trip was managed by Prema Nanda and Radha Sheran. Skillful driving through the mountains was by Nassim. Himalayan trek guides (Jaman Singh, WhatsApp +91-89790-49706) and many porters carried our camp 9km to set up tents and kitchen for hot food. Many people were involved in arranging our transportation and lodging. Photos used were taken by everybody in the group, especially Prema, Alex, Lauren, Ande, Shannon and Johanna. Thank you!

Related Trip Journals

“Barefoot pilgrimage around giriraj, 6am to 4pm. Very long. Barefoot through the cities. Samadhi saints in salt. Radhakund – holy water. Radhe and Krishna – holy lovers. Krishna and his 108 Gopis.”

Olivia Jeffers, Journal Entry 10/20/2022

In the streets, people greet you with “Radhe Radhe!” It is an expression of love for Krishna’s counterpart. In Vrindavan, the ponds and mountains are the gods themselves. People will bathe in the Radhekund, offering milk and flowers into the water, become a melange of swirls and petals. Women dance at the temple as his Gopi’s, Krishna’s 108 lovers. Devotees make pilgrimage to Govardan Hill, the great mountain cursed to sink that is Krishna himself – here they will walk over 20km around the mountain, through a maze of city and temples and holy ponds. At this mountain, the monkeys are his friends, and the cows are holy.

Journal Entry: 10/21, Last Day at Vrindavan

We started today with yoga in a circle, fruit breakfast due to fasting ceremony (no grains or beans) – then closing transition ceremony with the rocks at Giriraj – the monk visited as well. A dog also completed our circle.

People shared that they want to take away back home… prayers, curiosity, loving devotion.

“Return only as a servant, no duality here between material this and spiritual that.”

Our Monk Friend

We went to the lion temple and got to see full Darshan – to see and be seen by the gods. A woman came in like a storm with so much fervor for singing and Kirtan, prema got a drum and we all sang, the priest said that Narsingha is awake and revealed the full statue and oiled it, showing the lion god ripping out the insides of a child abuser demon. We wrote and put in prayers for the lion god, for protection. Lunch was tapioca.

Dancing Kirtan with Alison at the ISKCon temple with Russian girls leading. Dinner at MVT guest house. Taj Mahal in 5 hours.

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Map: ISKCon Temple at Vrindavan

Scroll to Zoom out to see where these places are in reference to your home and other landmarks.

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Glossary

Puja: to worship with garlands, icons or money

Darshan: to see and be seen by the gods

Kirtan: devotional song, often in call and response, “wake up the sleeping soul”

Polymorphic Monotheism: various deities represent multiple faces of universal God

• Each deity is an energy
• Creator, Preserver, Destroyer
• God is the divine being, goddess is divine power (energy)
• Krishna is god at play, Vishnu is god at work

Trip Information

The trip was run and organized by Gopi Kinnicutt, owner of Bhakti Yoga DC. The trip was managed by Prema Nanda and Radha Sheran. Skillful driving through the mountains was by Nassim. Himalayan trek guides (Jaman Singh, WhatsApp +91-89790-49706) and many porters carried our camp 9km to set up tents and kitchen for hot food. Many people were involved in arranging our transportation and lodging. Photos used were taken by everybody in the group, especially Prema, Alex, Lauren, Ande, Shannon and Johanna. Thank you!

Related Trip Journals

“I think maybe that’s the dark energy I’ve been “battling” my whole life – the dark energy of wellness. A self obsession with perfection.”

Olivia Jeffers Journal, 10/17 in Rishikesh

Journal Entry, 10/17: Beatles Ashram at Rishikesh

10/17 stayed in Rishikesh. Visited the Beatles ashram then shopping, massage and an artika ceremony by the Ganga which turned political. The Beatles ashram was very interesting – Radha Sheran hated it (our guide) and felt the energy was bad and the good energy had expired. It was ruin, no one is here – “if it had good energy people would be there”. It was the birthplace of transcendental meditation, which I’ve always had a bad feeling about.

We went into the house, and both Alison and I saw a basement entrance that we both felt had very very dark energy, and avoided. I felt a bit drawn, but also very scared. It felt black, like the watery hole in the cave, a calling – but in a lethal way. Calling you to your death. I felt like I might pick up a spirit if I opened my mind too much there. Was glad to be with a group moving quickly. I think maybe that’s the dark energy I’ve been “battling” my whole life – the dark energy of wellness. A self obsession with perfection. The stupas, the dome things, were actually built in the 1970s after the Beatles visited – and were made of Ganga river stones to collect cosmic energy. Each stupa was like a one bedroom apartment with a bathroom and shower.

I was trying to understand the collective consciousness at the time the Beatles visited. They were a big force in popularizing eastern spirituality. Alison and I talked about how the Beatles would have been born during or after World War II – where London and Hiroshima were bombed, where their parents probably had ptsd – as teenagers there would have been constant anxiety over nuclear war – and then as adults, they would have been drafted into the Vietnam war… it would have seemed crazy. All this war. Insanity. I can see how “love is the answer” would have been a desperate plea – a younger generation to the older to PLEASE stop fighting, stop the wars. Please.

“I think maybe that’s the dark energy I’ve been “battling” my whole life – the dark energy of wellness. A self obsession with perfection.”– Olivia Jeffers, Journal Entry 10/17/2022

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And of course… that energy in such a young generation inevitably leads to lots of sex and drugs. Grandiose pursuit of power. Getting lost in the darker side of eastern spirituality with no guides. I can feel now for a generation I had felt frustrated by. From my perspective, the pitfalls they stumbled into seemed so obvious and preventable – from their perspective, what they did was risky and revolutionary with no guidance.

Journal Entry, 10/17-18: Artika and Rally at Rishikesh, to Vrindavan

After we went shopping, I got 2 pairs of yoga pants with full range of motion – and then one korta outfit for 3000 rupees. After we got massage, I wore the korta to the artika and it was fun to blend in.

The whole day was a day of extremes all at once. The Beatles ashram was a dead ruin, we went for lovely massages while a cow bandaged with sores waited to die outside, we saw a beautiful sunset as a cow shat-splattered diarrhea on the steps to the Ganga. We enjoyed a beautiful spiritual ceremony while a spiritual woman shamelessly promoted her book and a political rally was given.

10/18 on the road from Rishikesh to Vrindavan. Feeling much better. I officially have the “business class” seat on top of the luggage in the bag, where I get to be reclined or sitting and have windows on all three sides – but I have to arrange myself and the luggage to get comfy. It works perfectly for me because I like that and I don’t get motion sick this way.

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Map: Beatles Ashram in Rishikesh

Scroll to Zoom out to see where these places are in reference to your home and other landmarks.

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Glossary

Puja: to worship with garlands, icons or money

Darshan: to see and be seen by the gods

Kirtan: devotional song, often in call and response, “wake up the sleeping soul”

Polymorphic Monotheism: various deities represent multiple faces of universal God

• Each deity is an energy
• Creator, Preserver, Destroyer
• God is the divine being, goddess is divine power (energy)
• Krishna is god at play, Vishnu is god at work

Trip Information

The trip was run and organized by Gopi Kinnicutt, owner of Bhakti Yoga DC. The trip was managed by Prema Nanda and Radha Sheran. Skillful driving through the mountains was by Nassim. Himalayan trek guides (Jaman Singh, WhatsApp +91-89790-49706) and many porters carried our camp 9km to set up tents and kitchen for hot food. Many people were involved in arranging our transportation and lodging. Photos used were taken by everybody in the group, especially Prema, Alex, Lauren, Ande, Shannon and Johanna. Thank you!

Related Trip Journals

Glossary

Puja: to worship with garlands, icons or money

Darshan: to see and be seen by the gods

Kirtan: devotional song, often in call and response, “wake up the sleeping soul”

Polymorphic Monotheism: various deities represent multiple faces of universal God

• Each deity is an energy
• Creator, Preserver, Destroyer
• God is the divine being, goddess is divine power (energy)
• Krishna is god at play, Vishnu is god at work

Trip Information

The trip was run and organized by Gopi Kinnicutt, owner of Bhakti Yoga DC. The trip was managed by Prema Nanda and Radha Sheran. Skillful driving through the mountains was by Nassim. Himalayan trek guides (Jaman Singh, WhatsApp +91-89790-49706) and many porters carried our camp 9km to set up tents and kitchen for hot food. Many people were involved in arranging our transportation and lodging. Photos used were taken by everybody in the group, especially Prema, Alex, Lauren, Ande, Shannon and Johanna. Thank you!

Related Trip Journals