On the 8th of August a comfortable train ride took us from Goloka Dham to Koeln - along the beautiful Rhine valley with its castles and old settlements....

Yes, Germany is indeed a very beautiful place - beautiful to the sense perception of our eyes.
Once we look a little deeper we discover that underneath the pleasant and attractive surface it is all rotting away....

People are depressed, frustrated and empty within their hearts - all the comfort, beauty and sense enjoyment is simply not satisfying to the soul....
People cannot find a higher purpose in life.
Without Krsna it is all zero.
If we could only add Krsna, then it would be indeed like a heavenly
planet - the one in front of the many zeros makes it a million....

Margarita and myself arrived in Goloka Dham/Germany on the 31st of July. The local devotees happily greeted us with a little kirtan party, and everybody was excited and joyfully receiving us with big smiles.....
Here Sri Sri Radha Madana Mohan are the Lords of the establishment - very beautiful Deities Who are nicely taken care of by Their personal servants.

I had come to launch the second and main part of our course "Exploring The Roots Of Spiritual Culture" - for the very first time in Germany. We had  sceduled it for the 3rd/4th/5th/6th of August.

I was curious to see how it would be received in a country which had a strong history of spiritual culture many years ago, but is now strongly influenced by materialistic culture.
And furthermore, since I have not spent much time in Germany I am not so well established as a preacher here - another reason which made me wonder how everyone will accept my presentations....

Around forty matajis arrived from all around Germany, a couple even coming all the way from Sweden and Latvia. This was indeed a revolutionarily big crowd for this part of the world!
Some Russian and Ukrainian ladies who live in Germany also attended - they had heard about this course from their friends who had attended it in Kharkov/Ukraine and who had highly recommended it.

On the 18th of July I flew off to Stockholm, together with two brahmacarinis from Kharkov: Margarita and Natasha. I had invited them to come along - to assist me, and to take them for a little spiritual holiday and thus broaden their horizon of being a devotee in ISKCON. I have always considered visiting other countries and temples as an important part of training and education.

On our arrival in Almvik I immediately found myself very busily absorbed in the final preparations for our upcoming Bhakti Sangam festival.
It was sceduled for seven days - from the 22nd to the 28th of July, and we were expecting wonderful sadhus to bless us with their association:

HG Krsna Ksetra Prabhu who hadn't visited Almvik for many years, and who has been serving as initiating spiritual master for more than twenty years, HG Dina Bandhu Prabhu coming all the way from Vrindavan in order to turn our Almvik village into Vrindavan village, and who had never visited Almvik before, HG Dhananjaya Prabhu, who had so much wonderful association with Srila Prabhupada and who was full of Prabhupada nectar, and HG Narayani Mataji who was well known to one and all for her relevant classes and humble demeanor.

Another highlight of my visit to Kharkov/Ukraine was the two-week course
"Exploring The Roots Of Spiritual Culture" for Vaisnavis......

On the 30th of June we welcomed forty ladies coming to participate in this transformational journey - twenty coming from various parts of Russia, and twenty from different cities of Ukraine and Moldova.
I had limited the number of participants to forty ladies in order to create a personal atmosphere where I could give attention to each and every person, and allow everyone to ask questions and share realizations and comments.

We had rented rooms in several hostels of Colleges and Universities in order to accomodate everyone for these two weeks.
And as usual the entire event was conducted on donation basis - no fixed fees, since this is indeed such an important part of brahminical culture!
And this fact creates a wonderful mood of service: if the leaders are in a selfless mood of service, then this mood filters down through the entire program, and every participant wants to serve and give.

Spiritual culture is a culture of giving, where everybody is simply absorbed in wanting to serve and contribute. No need to charge, since there is a competition of service in selflessness.....!

On my arrival in Kharkov/Ukraine on the 11th of June the devotees gave me a sweet welcome: a little kirtan and a shower of flower petals, a garland, and happy and affectionate smiles and glances.....
It was exciting to once again visit my beloved Vaisnava family of the Kharkov yatra, and I was looking forward to be amongst them for more than one month.....

As usual I stayed in my little bhajan kutir at the old temple, which has now become the home of several grhastha families.
I happily settled into my regular program of going every morning to the new temple - a peaceful ten minute walk through a quiet suburban part of Kharkov. Big fruit and nut trees are flanking the road, and wildflowers are decorating the way - I am always reminded of Vrindavan, especially  when hearing the dogs barking in the early morning.....

On the 6th of June the devotees from Chisinau drove me to Odessa - a three hours' drive accross the border to Ukraine.

The Odessa temple is situated in a rural area outside the city. The disadvantage is that it is more difficult for the congregation to attend temple programs. However, the advantage is that the atmosphere is peaceful and provides more shelter to the brahmacaris and bhaktas. As a result there are quite a number of serious and also senior boys living in the temple - around ten or twelve, which is rather substantial for this part of the world.

The highlight of my visit to Chisinau/Moldova was our Holy Name Retreat, which we had sceduled from the 31st of May to the 3rd of June.

Just like in previous years the devotees had once again decided to close the temple for this weekend and not have a Sunday program, but rather encourage all the practicing devotees to go into seclusion for four days in order to deepen their relationship with the holy name. It had already become an established 'must', and devotees could not imagine their life without this recharging and nourishing annual event.

This year more devotees from other yatras also felt inspired to come and join the sanga - gradually the news are spreading that these Holy Name Retreats are a deep and transformational experience.

Once again we rented the same holiday camp surrounded by forests and nature, around 45 km's outside the capital city of Chisinau.

With every year the organisation of our retreat becomes easier and more and more smooth. Everybody knows what needs to be arranged, and devotees eagerly join the various service departments and offer their help.
Devotees know already what to expect and thus are mentally prepared to embark on an internal journey in introspection. And undergoing such internal work in the association of our fellow devotees from our own yatra is very uniting and creates strong bonds: not only are we deepening our relationship with the holy name, but also with each other.....!

This year we announced not to buy the flowers for the vases decorating the altar, but rather to pick them from our own gardens or from nature.
This is indeed one of my favorite services: picking wildflowers from the forests and meadows and arranging them nicely for the Lord's pleasure....

I arrived in Munich/Germany on the 21st of May.
It was cold and raining - unusually cold for this time of the year. It felt like the spring hadn't even come yet.....

Two matajis from the Munich temple met me at the airport and drove me to the temple. The devotees are renting a private house in one of the suburbs of Munich. The facilities are very nice and comfortable, nevertheless only very few devotees are living here.

Not easy to preach in these countries where the standard of life is so high....! One easily gets the impression here that life in this material world is not so bad after all.....!
Danakeli Mataji is serving as the temple president - an energetic and resolute lady in her fifties. She confessed that it is not easy for her to make ends meet....

On my arrival in Stockholm/Sweden on the 6th of May I could strongly notice that I had flown around a thousand kilometers North.
Here the spring had not arrived yet - it was only a few degrees above zero, and there was not a single green leaf in the trees. It felt like six weeks' difference in comparison to my mother's village in the South of Germany, where the forests and gardens were already green and in full blossom.
Yet, the days were much longer here in the Nordic Scandinavia, and it became dark only around 10 pm.

Every country on this planet has it's specific conditions of life, with various kinds of enjoyment and austerity. Sometimes the conditions are so different, and even the bodies people have been awarded are so different, that we almost feel like we have arrived on another planet and meet a different species of life....
According to our desires, activities and tastes we take birth here or there, and we can try our good luck to be happy in forgetfulness of Krsna....

On my arrival in Germany on the 22nd of April I was facing some little inconveniences: exactly on this very day the ground staff of the Airport in Stuttgart was on strike, and thus no planes were able to land - something rather unusual for Germany!

In Delhi they had changed my booking for the following day, which I did not accept since I had no valid visa for India and did not like the idea of spending another 24 hours in transit at the Delhi Airport. It was enough tapasya to be there for 14 hours, which was according to my flight connection.