Under normal circumstances, we have a cook at our ashram. When the lockdown in India started in March, from one day to another, our staff was not allowed to come including our cook. My worst nightmare came true. I had to cook local Kerala food which involves cooking from a scratch, cooking on fire and […]
For many, mantra sounds like a hex from Harry Potter. However, mantra is a scientific tool to literally cleanse our mind. How and from what? The Sanskrit word Mantra मन्त्र is a composition of two words: manas (mind) and trai (cleanse, liberate). Therefore, mantra is a tool to calm down the thoughts in our mind. […]
For years now, I have been moving between and living with two completely different cultures such as the traditional Indian and the modern Western. This made me think and rethink my own values, education and upbringing from many different perspectives. It becomes clearer to me, that the modern way of education and way of thinking […]
One of the reason, why the minds of Indians haven’t been much inflicted by the corona crisis, apart from their immense capacity of acceptance, is direct access to clean food – food being one of the basic human commodities, apart from shelter, medical care and education. Let me give you an example… When was the […]
The other day, when I visited my husband’s ancestral home, I forgot my mobile at home. Luckily! Instead of checking emails and scrolling on Facebook, I helped my 86 year old mother-in-law (Amma as everybody calls her meaning mother in Malayalam) to hang up her washed saris on the laundry line. Meanwhile we could engage […]
Today morning, after a few days of heavy rainfall due to the cyclone on the other coast of India, I ventured out to the beach in front of our house for a walk. After a short walk and some free movement on the beach I sat down to attempt meditation. 🙂 With deep conscious breathing my thoughts […]
One local artist from Chennai spreads awareness through his “corona art”. This proves again that India stands for “Unity in Diversity”. In crisis, religion or caste step aside for the sake of joint effort, whereas Europe mostly worries about losing personal freedom.
For many years, my husband was talking about extroverted vs. introverted people. For many years, my understanding of his talk was a complete opposite of what he meant… Have I understood it now? Probably not completely, but some improvement is detectable. 🙂
WARNING: This article is long, even I needed the patience to write down my whole experience, but there is an urge inside of me to process these events of the last days now from the comfort of my seafront garden. April 5 – day 1 This day we set off on our long-awaited journey to […]
The word Guru doesn’t exactly mean “just” a teacher as it is often translated. It comes from the Sanskrit: गुरु, where gu means darkness and ru means dispeller. Guru is the one who removes darkness of ignorance and lights up wisdom. A guru is the one who is knowledgeable, wise and authentic and guides others through his wisdom. In […]