✨🕉️Siddh Peeth Siddh Srot, Haridwar

 

   Om This is a picture of the Siddha at Siddh Peeth,
Siddh Srot, Haridwar in the very beginning days,
long long ago.

,

     The Asana and Samadhi of Siddh Peeth, Siddha Srot

✨🌹🦚🕊️🪷🕉️🌈🌺🧘🏼‍♀️🌺🌈🔯🪷🕊️🦚🌹✨

               Radheshwari and the powerful Shambhu

      A gracelful glance from the magnificent Shambhu

        This is Shree Suneet Joshiji, who sits 

        on the Asan of the Jagdhatri Ashram 

        at Shiv Nagar, Haridwar. And this is 

        Shree Ved Prakashji, who brought us 

        to this ancient Siddh Peeth, Siddh Srot.

✨🌹🕉️🌟🔯🌹🪷🧘🏼‍♀️🪷✨🌹🕉️🌟🔯🌹✨

                             

 Dear friends,

      First of all you will realise as you start on the way here that this is a truly an out of this world place. It is definitely unique and simply stunning because of so many things you will see, hear and feel just travelling this relatively short distance. And after riding over the bridge of the Ganga river from Haridwar you start by entering an unmarked country road with many twists turns, ups and downs, crossing small streams etc.. l do not want to say too much, the more I even think of it, the more I realise it is really beyond description! What will amazes you is where you have finally arrived, It is a place of perfect beauty, vibrating peaceful tranquility.

It must be that the great Siddha, Baba Sita Ram who lived his very long and sublime life in this charming place among the natural wild life of divine creatures and is still present here in his serine Samadhi.

As you can see this was only the beginning of a great experience that is virtually beyond words.

Let it just be said that the Siddha has called you specially here if you do read this message and do arrive. There are untold blessings for you indeed! Om Om Om!

✨💐🕊️🌈💫🕉️🧘🏼‍♀️🔯💫🌈🕊️💐✨

Beloveds Santji & Sripadji

 Baba Sripadji and I were always exchanging letters, poetry of our own, songs and drawings etc. I would tell him what my programmes were and he would reply with his own so that we would meet in various places. Always in some great sat-sang, or event. He would often send me a lettered invitation to join him at some Tirtha or other. In this case I had told him that Santji and I were going to stay some days as the guest of his great bhakta, Admiral Surg. Dr. M.S. Melhotra and his wife, Satyaji in Delhi Cantt.  So, one fine day Babaji just showed up there to everyone’s delight! It was Santji who wrapped this nice yellow shawl around Baba that December morning. He was very happy with Baba who had come out to meet Santji for the first time in Chandigarh a month or so earlier. Even then Babaij would stay a few days appearing for satsangs and spending some hours with us all, then suddenly disappearing at evenings. Sometimes I would discover him meditating in some lone corner of a veranda or in the garden and join him. Sometimes we would sit in this ecstatic meditation together ‘til the dawn. OM~

A Tribute to Sant Gulab Singhji

🌹Shri Radha Madhava🌹Vrindavan🌹

Divana Sahibji and Radheshwari in the Panjore Gardens 1975. The photographer was my mother.

 

ღ☆¸.•°*♥Shri Krishna of Swami Akhandananda Saraswatiji ♥*°•

      `°•○.*The Beloved Thakurji of Swami Akhandananda Saraswati Maharajji*.○•°`

   ღ☆¸.•°*Swami Akhandananda  Saraswati Maharaj *°•.¸☆ღ  ღ☆¸.•°* Rishikesh 

Maharajji holding hands with Swami Vimalanandaji on his right and Swami Prabodhanandaji on his left  after crossing the Gangaji by boat over to Swargashrama in Rishikesh where he gave his talks there on the Gopi's Love for Shri Krishna! ♥*°•.¸☆

(1970's)

Swami Mukund Hariji and Asim Krsna Das ~ Shyam Das with Maharaj Prathameshji

  

My favorite photo of Swami Mukund Hariji Maharaj

¸. *ღ☆¸.•°*♥ JAI SRI KRISHNA! ¸. *ღ☆¸.•°*♥

                   Dr. Asim Krsna Dasji  in Vrindavan     

     Dr. Asim Krishna Das was born as Alan A. Shapiro on a Thursday, July 6,1944 in New York City, of a very very Jewish family! He said he was still in collage when he got drafted, and dodged it by moving to Canada and even had a Canadian Pass Port!  Then he went for some time to Paris, learned fluent French (as he later did Hindi and Sanskrit). He travelled through Europe and I have written earlier in my blog about how he came into India in 1969, as a tourist and at an Ashram in Bhatinda, Punjab,was directed to go and meet Sri Krishna in Vrindavan by Sankirtana Samrat Swami Mukunda Hari!

    Once in Sri Vrindavan he took as his Guru Swami Bon Maharaj, Bhakti Hridaya Bon Tridandi Swami, Gaudiya Math, founder of the Institute of Oriental Philosophy, Vrindavana. He also translated into English the work of Rupa Goswami's Sanskrit classic, Bhakti-Rasamrit-Sindhu.

    The very 1st day I came into Vrindavan in 1971, I passed by and saw Asim, shaved head, smiling and wearing a doti and Tulsi mala etc., so he had already been initiated by then. I only later met him in the company of Sripad Babaji, that same year.  By that time he was a serious student of Sanskrit, but there was always much tapsya whenever in the company of Baba Sripadji!  He was in this state of Bhakti-tapsya, or Prem inspired Vairagya,  full of bhava and moving with Babaji in all of Vraj Bhoomi, mostly in Sri Vrindavan for years. One of his greatest friends, whom he shared much in common with was Shyam Das, and they were sometimes together in the company of the great Lineage Holder of the  Pushti Marg, Prathameshji Maharaj. Here with Asim and Radha Dasi is where I first met Shyam Dasji and had a very wonderful darshan of Maharajji. I remember that Asim and Shyam Das would suddenly start speaking with each other in French!! It was the chaurasi kos somewhere in Govardhan in tents!!
    When President Carter, promised to give entrance to all draft dodgers,  Asim's parents prevailed on him to came back to the USA to complete his undergraduate degree at the City College of New York. 

Radha Dasi and I saw him off at the Delhi Airport wearing his doti as usual!

   While studying he also drove a taxi in Manhattan during the night with Sri Bankey Bihari's photo up in front of him. After graduating to get entrance back into India and his beloved Vrindavan, he entered Columbia Univ. and started his Doctorate. Subject: Shalagram! He said he chose this subject because all the other Vaishnava subjects for dissertation had already been done at Columbia!! 

   Once back in Vrindavan I met him among all his books and he laughed and said I used to be a poor 

Bhakta here, and now that I have this scholarship they pay me to live here! He often visited Nepal for his research on Shalagrams.  It was a fascinating subject as he spoke of it, and would show shaligrams and explain the intricate beauty and details of each one. 

    So, around 1992 Asim Krishna Das received his PhD in Sanskrit at Columbia University. In Vrindavan he was Assistant Director of the Research Center at Sri Chaitanya Sampraday.  

     Here he supervised the creation of a bibliograph of sources on the history of Vraj, the poet saints of Vraj, for the Indira Gandhi National Centre of Arts, New Delhi. He said it was amazing, that 

the more they searched throughout Vraj villages, the more old manuscripts and paintings were discovered! He also worked with the Vijayanagara Research Project for 5 yrs. translating the Pampamahatmya. This, too he totally enjoyed. Dr.Asim Krishna Das and Sri Shyam Das remained best friends all their life of Supreme Bhakti Bhava. 

   Sri Sri Prathameshji Maharaj and Sri Shyam Dasji¸. 
               
        *ღ☆¸.•°*♥ JAI SRI KRISHNA! ¸. *ღ☆¸.•°*♥

"I have learned so much" ~*~Hafiz~*~

    "I have learned so much from God 
that I can no longer call myself a Christian, 
a Hindu, a Muslim, a Buddhist, or a Jew.
     The truth has shared so much of  Itself with me
that I can no longer call myself a man, a woman, 
an Angel, or even a pure Soul.
      Love has befriended Hafiz so completely 
It has turned to ash and freed me of every concept and image my mind has ever known! ~*~

  The ecstasy of the Unseen in the visible world is the splendour of the Divine in the form of the River Gangaji at Rishikesh, at the base of the Himalayas!

"Wanting what is outside is a bait that will trap you.
Step out onto sky through the round threshold.
Be alone in your search for absolute aloneness.

Be a bowl thrown out on the ocean,
not a bowl held out for more going from kitchen to kitchen.
Time is bright, then dark, warm and cold by turns.
Live at the springhead where the flowing begins."*

Om! Om! Om!

*Rumi  ~The Big Red Book~ Coleman Barks

🌹The Song of the Reed🌹

"Harken to this Reed forlorn
Breathing, even since 'twas torn
From it's rushy bed, a strain
Of impassioned Love and Pain.

The secret of my song, though near
None can see and none an hear.
Oh, for a friend to know the sign
And mingle all his soul with mine.

'Tis the Flame of Love that fired me!
'Tis the Wine of Love inspired me!
Would'st thou learn how Lovers bleed!
Harken, harken to the Reed!"🌙

~Maulana Jalalu-d'din Mohammad ~ Rumi ~
     The begining of 🌹Mathnavi🌹
*Translation by R.A. Nichelson

~*A Heaven on Earth*~ Just above the Dalai Lama's Headquarters,Upper Dharamkot, McLeod Ganj, Dharamsala ~*~

                                                                             
                                                                           

                                                                       ~*~ OM ~*~

Milan Goswami speaking at The Shyamdas Foundation Retreat

Young Mother Teresa and the signed photo ~*~

"People are often unreasonable and self-centered. 

Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of ulterior motives.

Be kind anyway.

If you are honest, people may cheat you.

      Be honest anyway. 

   If you find happiness, people may be jealous.

Be happy anyway.

The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow.

        Do good anyway. 

Give the world the best you have and it may never be enough.

Give your best anyway.

For you see, in the end, it is between you and God.

It was never between you and them anyway."

~ Mother Teresa

          

             ~*~               

Letters From Swami Jnanananda Giri

             

  "Sri Radhey  Radha~Aradhika" 

Beloved Lover Divine!

    Each line of your dear message bespeaks of the great inspiration ~ 

How His Presence encircles and overwhelms your heart!

    What can I offer to you that would match the poem of your soul?

Awe!  Those golden moments of thy ecstasy!

    Oft times you wonder where this search will lead you to! 

And oft times you hear His flute in the fancy land of your Divine Imagination

as it captures you in an endless joy, resounding, echoing through the vast hall 

of limitless space in an eternity of time ~ from deep within your being.

    That being which is so very much my own, once lost to my sight since ages,

concealed awhile, yet seems to me revealed in the sunshine of my Divine Friend's

sweetest smile!

     As I breathe in the fragrant air of Brij, this land of Sri Vrindavan ~ makes me

remember His meeting. These eyes silently spy across the fields to yonder 

Nandagaon, Barsana, Govardhan, and once again I am lost in the reverie of feeling melancholy as I contemplate the ages old longing of each human heart! 

 ~ Just now the sun was sinking and the last hue of it's golden splendour still lingers on in my closed eyes.

    And the moving wheels roll on and on into the night ~

 Radha Aradhika  Radha Aradhika  

   Radha Aradhika  Radha Aradhika

Dear Soul,

  While in the train nearing Mathura I am having the inspiration to write to Radha.

This is a copy ~ for you too are the very Heart of Radha.

     Bless your heart.

                 OM  RADHEY  RADHEY

With my love and humble pranams to dear Santji, Ajitji, and devotees.

                                                                                 Jnanananda

                                                                               _____!!_____

(Mathura 29.10.1971}

Yogiraj Swami Jnanananda Giri

 Yogiraj Swami Jnanananda Giri
~* 27.11.1929 to 06.11.2015*~

Dharamkot, Dharamsala ...poster

In Himalayas, Dharamkot, Dharamsala this Summer up to the Monsoons. Magical!

*ღ☆¸.•°*Sharir Maharaj*ღ☆¸.•°*

 Meher Baba’s Meeting with Sharir Baba

On November 16th, Baba left Satara for Meherazad. The next day, he left on a mast tour to Uttar Pradesh, accompanied by Eruch, Pendu, Nilu and Baidul. Eruch was driving the car. There were unusually late rains, and at one place, the car had to be ferried from one bank of a stream to the other. The journey continued night and day. At one spot, they learned of a very high Hindu mast named Sharir Baba, who was staying at the residence of the Maharajah of Chhatarpur. The mast, however, was to leave the place at 3:00 P.M. that day and it was already 1:00 P.M.
Baba was very anxious to contact this mast, as he had never worked with him before. They drove at breakneck speed on the rough roads through towns and villages, covering 128 miles in two hours – and reached Chhatarpur exactly at 3:00 P.M. The mast was very old and would drink his own urine. Boxes of rotting sweetmeats and other such things were strewn in his room. A strong stench hung in the air, but the old mast would not allow anyone to clean the place.
Baba was delighted with the contact and remarked, "Our journey of hundreds of miles has been worth it!" Baba was to have been gone for two weeks. But on November 21st, because the men mandali and he were both exhausted, he canceled the rest of the tour to Uttar Pradesh and returned to Meherazad, where he intended to rest for a few days.

(Source: Bhau Kalchuri, Last Mast Journey,  Lord Meher, Vol. 15, p. 5126)


It is fascinating for me to come across this story of  Meher Babaji meeting Sharir Maharaj.
I have only heard Baba Shripadji mention him with greatest reverence, love and awe!
As well as Swami Jnanananda Giri, who spoke of Maharaj ji in great detail in his own autobiography:
Transcendent Journey. So much so that hearing the above description and the name of Chhatarpur I am sure  it is this same amazing Sharir Maharaj ji in both cases. Perhaps in the future we may write more regarding this marvelous and uniquely highly realized saint of Chhatarpur, Sharir Maharaj ji

                                                        *ღ☆¸.•°**ღ☆¸.•°*\
          .

*Shri Mukundhari ji Maharaj ~ Sankirtana Samraat of India!

*This is Shri Mukundhari ji Maharaj,~Sankirtana Samraat of India~, and there are actually some CDs of his available!!
      He is peerless and unequaled in ecstatic Bhava!!There are some earlier posts here about this wonderful saint as I knew him.  And  some short videos were made of the one amazing Sankirtana that I had tapped years ago, of which the actual full complete one is over an hour long & also ecstatic! And one doesn't even need to know Hindi, Urdu or Panjabi to enjoy them and become swept away in the Love of God!!
     So it is so good to have received these CDs by mail, from a wonderfully inspired Bhakta.
These may be ordered online!!

All Gratitude, Bliss and Love at the holy feet of Shri Mukundhariji Maharaj!!

We will ever remember you through the Hari Bhava Ecstasy of your Sankirtana.

                      ~*~*~*~ Jai Jai Shri Radhey! ~*~*~*~

~*~OM BABAJI ~*~

       The wonderful Om Babaji lived to be 110 yrs.old, (d. 1959), Santji told me, and he never ate anything!! He stayed in a small room on the upper 3rd floor on Naya Sarak, Chandni Chowk, or "moonlit market", one of the oldest and busiest markets in India! Every evening he walked to the Yamuna River and sat in Samadhi there til sunrise! Whenever I had the chance I would ask about him to Santji, or one of the few devotees who knew Om Babaji. They said he lived with nothing but a wooden bed with a brick for a pillow. There was a Havan kund that always had live coals glowing that he would stir up and on that fire make a little tea for any guest for which there was also a chair.
      Surgeon Rear Admiral MS Melhotra had told me that several times that he and his wife Satyaji had offered Om Babaji shawls which he happily accepted but that after a few days they would visit and again there would be nothing there, but Om Babaji smiling as before.
      Mrs.Shakuntla Bindra, who was the daughter of a dear friend of Sant Gulab Singhji's was introduced to Om Babaji  by him. She told me how kind and gentle Om Babaji was and that he always made tea for her whenever she came and would drink along with her. She said one such day they heard heavy footsteps coming up the stairs. Immediately Om Babaji shouted loudly in Urdu saying, "How dare you come up these stairs here,  Haramzade! Go away!" Then they heard the footsteps going back down the stairway.  She said she started trembling when Om babaji turned to her and softly said, "Don't be afraid, my child, you have done nothing wrong! This was not meant for you.  Sanvalashah (Krishna) is very happy with you."
     Once she was bringing someone to meet him at her usual time and she could not find his flat, with the great big "AUM" on the wall. She said that they went up and down the street several times, again and again, but couldn't find his building!  Finally they had to give up and left.  Days later when she met Om Babaji he smiled and said, "Yes, I know, I had hidden the building!"
   In Santjio's last years he had given this photo of Om Babaji and had many tiny copies made. Whenever someone came to him with a problem or a great desire Santji would give  them this small picture of Om Babaji, tell them to put it inside a locket where it could be seen and wear it always.  He said to pray everyday to Om Babaji and that everything would be alright. Great souls are indeed able to help others to have great faith in Gods blessings and even in miracles. And for those years to come, again and again the devotees returned with bright faces and gifts, they had wonderful stories to tell about the miracles of beloved Om Babaji.

        "Ye Noor Uska, Ye Zahoor Uska.  Agar Tu Na Dekhe, To Kasoor Kiska?"

¸.•°*♥ Rangeeli Holi! ¸.•°*♥

      Be drenched in the indelible color of the Beloved Sri Radha Krishna!

 ¸.•*""*•.¸जय श्री राधे! ¸.•*""*•.¸जय श्री राधे!
ஜ۩۞۩ஜ▬▬▬ ஜ۩۞۩ஜ▬▬▬ ஜ۩۞۩ஜ
श्री कृष्ण गोविन्द हरे मुरारी!  हे नाथ नारायण वासुदेव!
राधे राधे! ..... कृष्णा कृष्णा! ..... जय श्री राधे कृष्णा!
ஜ۩۞۩ஜ▬▬▬ ஜ۩۞۩ஜ▬▬▬ ஜ۩۞۩ஜ
¸.•*""*•.¸जय श्री राधे! ¸.•*""*•.¸जय श्री राधे!

               ~ ღ☆¸.•°*♥ हरी ॐ *ღ☆¸.•°*♥

             ¸.•°*♥ Happy Days of Holi!¸.•°*♥