Sunday, January 28, 2018

Mayapura, West Bengal

Miracle Oil

Bengalis love their mustard seed oil.  It has a pungent scent but when you investigate its phenomenally great benefits, it compensates for the strength of the smell. Locals put it in their hair. Apparently hair loves it. It’s also beneficial for the skin. Bengalis also cook with it. It’s recommended for internal consumption. Not much, but some.

Mosquitoes don’t like it so that’s a plus. Another advantage to its usage is that when a small amount is applied to the skin in the sun, it protects the skin leaving it healthy. I’ll have to remember that the next time I walk through Nevada.

Our guru, who is from Bengal, prescribed a tooth paste of primarily calcium carbonate, sea salt and mustard seed oil. I recall making a large batch for the ashram the year I joined (’73). The stuff is great for the teeth even as it whitens.

The massage man who came to oil me up yesterday and today, used the mustard seed extract. I got warmed up immediately. My knees, which have some poor blood circulation as of late, felt a relief. It’s true. It also acts positively on arthritis.

Let’s go down the list a bit further. It boosts your appetite. (I’ve tossed wild mustard leaves in my salad when going across Canada. Just plucked them out of the ditch.) Mustard oil fights bacterial infections, as well as fungal infections. It prevents phlegm, contains Vitamin E, and helps to treat colds, which there are a lot of in Mayapura right now. It’s a miracle oil!

May the Source be with you!

5 km

Saturday, January 27, 2018

Mayapura, India

Pouring In

It is the weekend and pilgrims are pouring in. There are folks coming from neighbouring villages and towns. I ask people, through the course of the day, about their place of origin or where their journey to Mayapura started from.

“Jaipur,” said one man. That’s a city in another state.

Mayapura draws people from all around and they come at different times of the year. My godbrother, Kala, from Canada, who lives here part-time said, “They come at Christmas.”

I’m in Mayapura to stay for three solid weeks. So far, weather is on the cool, damp side. Eating is good. Worship is good, although limited. We rehearse six hours a day, which cuts into standard morning temple activities. https://instagram.com/p/BebyKX9FB2i/

At 7:00 a.m., I can get my actors, who are largely students. Our opening warm-up session is actually a guru puja—a song in praise of guru—to Srila Prabhupada.  https://instagram.com/p/BeZMS0lFAax/

Walking is also going on but I have to be cautious. “Circulation in the knees is challenging,” said the massage therapist who worked well on my joints this afternoon. I never had a massage done by someone who sings his way through it. He actually has a good voice, and he calmed me with his lucid rendition of bhajans by great devout teachers. This was not the ordinary.

The standard Bengal mustard oil is giving relief to my knees which got mildly agitated while in the cold of the New Year’s Eve chant at Toronto City Hall.

May the Source be with you!

5 km

Friday, January 26, 2018

Mayapura, India

With the Fords

“You’re going to live for 200 years, “ said Ambarish as we were lunching in the dining lounge. “It’s because of all the walking!”

“I wish. I would love to live to see the world spiritually develop. I look forward to the progress that will be unstoppable in Mayapura.” I was referring to Ambarish’s great contribution to the Temple of the Vedic Planetarium construction.

Ambarish’s elegant wife, Bengali born Svaha, said of her husband’s great-grandfather, Henry Ford, that he was a serious man. He was vegetarian, didn’t gamble, drink or have promiscuous sex. She referred to him as Bhakta Henry, meaning Henry, who had devotion.

Ambarish then mentioned that Bhakta Henry would give literature to his friends on the topic of reincarnation. My appreciation for the great Henry Ford increased.

I also reminded Ambarish that my father used to do maintenance work on the Ford family’s hunting lodge. The family owned a property in southern Ontario’s fertile Thames River area. It was there that Ambarish used to hang out on a motor boat with a friend in their teenage years.

I would also be at the lodge with Dad but never when the Fords were around and thus I never met Ambarish, then Alfred, at the lodge.

We were having lunch and Dustin, the opera singer, popped by. He responded to my request for him to sing a song, on the plea of helping digestion, by saying, “I’m everyone’s jukebox.”

“I’m just joking, Dustin. Save your voice for another day.”

May the Source be with you!

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