On my arrival in Stuttgart airport on the 13th of April I met up with 19-year-old Nadia Mani from Kiev. She had expressed a desire to accompany me on my travels, so I had invited her to join me on my trip around Germany.
Our first destination was Tuebingen, where my mother lives. Her 88th birthday was coming up after a few days, and it had been a long-standing tradition that I would visit her on this occasion.
Before we took the bus to the nearby village where she lives, I showed Nadia Mani the beautiful old part of Tuebingen with its historic buildings, little cobble-stoned lanes, market place and castle on the hill - all very nicely restored and maintained. With some little imagination one could visualize how life would have been in the early days - one hundred years ago or more, with horse carts going through town, and people living at a slower pace, centered around God consciousness.....
Before we took the bus to the nearby village where she lives, I showed Nadia Mani the beautiful old part of Tuebingen with its historic buildings, little cobble-stoned lanes, market place and castle on the hill - all very nicely restored and maintained. With some little imagination one could visualize how life would have been in the early days - one hundred years ago or more, with horse carts going through town, and people living at a slower pace, centered around God consciousness.....
I also showed Nadia Mani where I had received my first Bhagavad Gita in my youth. It must have been around 1972, when I was around 13 years old. I had walked up a little lane with shops in the middle of the old part of town - on my way home from school - when I saw from a distance a harinam party of saffron dressed brahmacaris chanting and dancing. I was excited and full of wonder, what this was all about, but as I came closer the kirtan came to an end. I was very disappointed, because I felt so curious and attracted to it. Then one young brahmacari approached me and put a soft-cover BG into my hands, saying: "Here, this is for you!" I accepted it and was looking at the cover, when he asked me for a donation. But I was just a young school girl and did not have any money with me, so he simply let me keep it! I was even more puzzled about this unusual exchange, and sitting on the bus going home, I looked at all the pictures. I distinctly remember how the pictures stimulated a special feeling in my heart, and I was fascinated. When I came home I immediately showed it to my mother, and the BG ended up in our big book shelf in the living room. I was asking my mother, why on earth these people are giving books away for free in the street, and she simply said: "They must be trying to propagate something - who knows....!"
Nobody ever read the BG, but it was sitting for all those years in the book shelf. Then, around 13 years later, when I met the devotees outside of Sydney on our ISKCON farm, I immediately remembered this exchange with this saffron dressed boy, who looked just like the fellows on the Sydney farm....
Nobody ever read the BG, but it was sitting for all those years in the book shelf. Then, around 13 years later, when I met the devotees outside of Sydney on our ISKCON farm, I immediately remembered this exchange with this saffron dressed boy, who looked just like the fellows on the Sydney farm....
Around a week later, when I had moved from the guest room to the brahmacarini ashram, I sent a letter to my mother asking whether she still had this BG. Around two weeks prior she had cleaned out the book shelf with a friend of the family, and they had decided that they would not need this BG any longer, and had put it in a box and had given it to a second-hand book shop.....
I was of course initially disappointed to hear this - I would have liked to have this BG, but then I realized that it had fulfilled its mission since I had found the devotees, and thus it had moved on to another home. These books certainly have their own life....!
We spent harmonious days at my mother's place, and on her birthday many of her neighbors and intellectual friends dropped in to visit her. I had some little preaching opportunities here and there - whenever people were asking me some questions. Sometimes my mother was almost a little proud to introduce her exotic daughter to her friends, who has such interesting life of visiting so many places of the world....! She had insisted that she wanted a copy of my book, which was of course also a sensational theme for discussion for her birthday party. After all, not everybody publishes a book....!
Her neighbors have a big garden with a nice pond, where they keep some koi fish - a special kind of exotic carp, which can have all kinds of bright colors and is very expensive. The lady told the funny story, how one of her koi fish had a sun burn on his back last year during summer, when the temperature went up to around 35 degrees every day. There was not much shade around the pond, and the sun had been shining onto the water all day, so the fish got a sun burn. And what did she do? She took a net and caught the fish, put him in a big plastic tub with water and took him to the veterinary doctor. And the doctor prescribed her a cream, which she had to rub on the fish's back three times a day! I thought it was hilarious! I can't wait to tell this story in a public program in Bangladesh - just to illustrate Western life style: full of nonsensical activities! People waste their human form of life with so many distractions, which entangle them more and more in material activities and anxieties......
I was of course initially disappointed to hear this - I would have liked to have this BG, but then I realized that it had fulfilled its mission since I had found the devotees, and thus it had moved on to another home. These books certainly have their own life....!
We spent harmonious days at my mother's place, and on her birthday many of her neighbors and intellectual friends dropped in to visit her. I had some little preaching opportunities here and there - whenever people were asking me some questions. Sometimes my mother was almost a little proud to introduce her exotic daughter to her friends, who has such interesting life of visiting so many places of the world....! She had insisted that she wanted a copy of my book, which was of course also a sensational theme for discussion for her birthday party. After all, not everybody publishes a book....!
Her neighbors have a big garden with a nice pond, where they keep some koi fish - a special kind of exotic carp, which can have all kinds of bright colors and is very expensive. The lady told the funny story, how one of her koi fish had a sun burn on his back last year during summer, when the temperature went up to around 35 degrees every day. There was not much shade around the pond, and the sun had been shining onto the water all day, so the fish got a sun burn. And what did she do? She took a net and caught the fish, put him in a big plastic tub with water and took him to the veterinary doctor. And the doctor prescribed her a cream, which she had to rub on the fish's back three times a day! I thought it was hilarious! I can't wait to tell this story in a public program in Bangladesh - just to illustrate Western life style: full of nonsensical activities! People waste their human form of life with so many distractions, which entangle them more and more in material activities and anxieties......
Whenever I visit my mother I usually go with her to a church service. This time I suggested to attend a catholic service, hoping that there might be some rituals with incence and bells ringing. She chose a nice catholic monastry half an hour drive away, where we all went on a Monday evening. The church was very beautiful with its opulent interior of paintings and golf-leafings. I was a little disappointed that there was no incence and bells, and also no organ playing - the person who had that service was sick.
The amusing part was, that the catholic priest performing the service was Indian! Needless to say, he was entirely speechless to see me and Nadia Mani in a sari. He couldn't believe his eyes - two Western women in a sari, and him being Indian in a catholic monk's robe! After the service he waited for us outside the church - it was obvious that he was very intrigued to find out who we were. So we exchanged some words, and I shared some little informations about ISKCON. He was from near Kerala/South India, had grown up in a catholic family and had entered a monastry in his youth. Now here in Germany he had three more collegues from India, who were living with him together in the monastry. It almost seemed that the catholic church likes to "import" young Indian priests, since they have a problem recruting the young generation here in Germany. It would be a pretty attractive idea for Indian priests to go to Germany......
On the 18th of April Nadia Mani and I took the train along the beautiful Rhine valley with its castles and old townships to Cologne.....
Your servant, Devaki dd
The amusing part was, that the catholic priest performing the service was Indian! Needless to say, he was entirely speechless to see me and Nadia Mani in a sari. He couldn't believe his eyes - two Western women in a sari, and him being Indian in a catholic monk's robe! After the service he waited for us outside the church - it was obvious that he was very intrigued to find out who we were. So we exchanged some words, and I shared some little informations about ISKCON. He was from near Kerala/South India, had grown up in a catholic family and had entered a monastry in his youth. Now here in Germany he had three more collegues from India, who were living with him together in the monastry. It almost seemed that the catholic church likes to "import" young Indian priests, since they have a problem recruting the young generation here in Germany. It would be a pretty attractive idea for Indian priests to go to Germany......
On the 18th of April Nadia Mani and I took the train along the beautiful Rhine valley with its castles and old townships to Cologne.....
Your servant, Devaki dd
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