Om Namah Shivaya

Om Namah Shivaya

I'll be grateful if you...

Oct 26, 2010

Welcome to the 11th Edition of "Shadow Dancing with Mind"


Contents of 11th Edition
This edition contains the following section and hope you will visit few of them and get back to me with your views on the same.

DESIGN STREET: A Note on Good Design Part II
Part two from the book on Design by Stephen Bayley and Terence Conran. Here are some excerpts from their book, as they trace the history of designs and present most valuable design ideas from the centuries. In this second part, we trace the history of design from start of the century to present of their thoughts, ideas and views on the development and history of design through the century.


UP, CLOSE & PERSONAL: From A Software Professional To A Swami
This is an interesting story of my long time friend, Swami Yatidharmanand. His journey from being a Software Professional to become a Swami, is a story of life in its complex turns as well as a well ingrained desire to serve. Check the path Swami Ji followed ...


THE READER: The Art of Start by Guy Kawasaki
Guy Kawasaki, who has never taken a computer class in his life, was in jewelry business when Apple recruited him as a software evangelist in 1983-87 and as chief evangelist in 1995 -97 in Macintosh division. In this great presentation, Guy Kawasaki talks about his book “The Art of the Start” giving his point of view for the entrepreneur and startups in top ten points. I think for any one, thinking of new business, or taking his established business to the next level, this presentation and reading the book will be great source of inspiration as well as starting point.

I thank Guy Kawasaki for supporting me on this write up.


STILL LIFE: Some fountains of Spiritual Energy from North India Part I
During my various travels and professional trips, I move to many places in India and abroad. Whenever I could find opportunity, I enjoy travelling to spiritual places near by, in my own small experiments with spirituality. I have posted images of some of the most powerful place of spiritual energy I have come across during my travels…


WHISPERS: The poetry section has been divided into four sections this time… Please click on the below links to read them...

River and the Tree… Submitted for Monday Morning Potluck
Loss, longing; Life as it is… Submitted for One Shot Wednesday

Hope you will enjoy this edition and I will be obliged if you leave a comment and join in to follow me for the further notifications on the postings here...


ॐ नमः शिवाय
Om Namah Shivaya



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Oct 25, 2010

DESIGN STREET: A Note on Good Design Part II

George Nelson's Marshmallow chair
For Herman Miller 1956
Part two from the book on Design by Stephen Bayley and Terence Conran. Here are some exerpts from their book, as they trace the history of designs and present most valueable design ideas from the centuries. In this second part of the we trace the history of design from start of the century to present of their thoughts, ideas and views on the development and history of design through the century.

5 – THE CASH VALUE OF ART
AMERICA

The concept of design in the USA has always been somewhat different to that held in Europe. Edgar Allan Poe outlined the American attitude in an essay,” The Philosophy of Furniture’: We have no aristocracy of blood, and having therefore as a natural, and indeed as an inevitable thing, fashioned for ourselves an aristocracy of Dollars, the display of wealth has… to take the place and perform the office of heraldic display in monarchical countries.

Around the time of First World War, what professional design there had been in consumer products was directed at, declared as “Women’s Tastes’ which was assumed to be wantonly eclectic, decorative and superficial.

By 1928, John Cotton Dana of New Jersey’s Newark Museum, a colleague of Bach (Curator of New York Metropolitan Museum, whose imagination factories were to become provinces of art and imagination) has also sensed the spirit of the age and in an emotional appeal, published in Forbes magazine, spoke of the importance of design to a lively economy and coined the memorable phrase “the cash value of art”
Henry Dreyfuss Bell 300 Telephone of 1937
Became universal symbol of American
competence - Classic Industrial design

In the great depression, as the prices stabilized, manufacturers could now only compete on appearances alone and hence the concept of design was introduced. Design here meant determining the appearance of a product not only along aesthetic lines but with a view to stimulating sales – A characteristically American compromise between idealism and profiteering. Famously Henry Dreyfuss who designed the Bell Desk Telephone (which remained the standard American Phone for next 40 years) said, ‘Design was the silent salesman” Just to note, unlike his pioneering contemporaries like Raymond Lowey and Walter Dorwin Teague, Dreyfuss was never completely seduced by streamlining, which developed into a popular automobile aesthetic and also penetrated the world domestic appliances, becoming the most familiar product style of the mid century.

An advertisement picture for Knoll's Tulip Chair
By Eero Saarinen 1957
Whatever conservative feelings Europeans had about styling, America’s contribution to the 20th Century design was the crucial one of allowing the professional designer to develop as an integral part of the process of making mass produced consumer goods. After Second World War, men such as Eero Saarinen and Charles Eames began designing furniture eventually put into production by Herman Miller and Knoll. There was an element of commercial realism to design that was always missing in Britain, and irrelevant to the more severe concerns of Germans. American’s consumerized Europe’s intellectualized and politicized design and turned it into democratic luxury goods. At one extreme this attitude into the crass commercialization of planned obsolescence. There were two views about it, one – a spring of wealth and stimulus to design, and as Brooks Steven said, “ Our whole economy is based on planned obsolescence”; two – for consumer activists like Vance Packard obsolescence was social evil, providing the opportunity for manipulations as soon as production began to outstrip demand.

Mies Barcelona chair was designed for
King of Spain visiting German Pavilion
Barcelona Exhibition 1929
It became a status object in
Corporate America
Whatever the criticism of American Consumerism, it has enabled the designer to become a serious professional. Knoll was the first furniture manufacturer to sell its wares under designer’s name, (‘the Mies chair and ‘the Breuer chair’). When the cult of ‘the designer’ appeared in the 70’s as an important marketing tool, it was the Americans who led the field.

6 - LA RICOSTRUZIONE
ITALY SINCE THE FIFTIES
If Britain had her industrial revolution in the middle of 18th Century, and gave the world an example for imitation, then Italy had its industrial revolution two centuries later and gave the world something different to imitate: the first coherent design style for consumers – a culture of design so complete in its embrace of fashion, products, cars and business equipment that Lombardy and Piedmont produced what amounted to a modern renaissance

In terms of international market, Italian design only emerged after 1945, durin
Piaggio Vespa 1946
Influenced by aircraft monocoque structure
and the needs of priest and women
to step on board retaining modesty
g the period of industrial and social renovation (known as La ricostruzione) that was spiritual and practical rejection of the pompous absurditities of Fascism. The great thing about Italy is that they have never successfully distinguished between life and art. Alberto Rosselli said in typifying the aims of new generation in a Stile Industria editorial: Industrial design in USA represents one of the fruits of a free competition system in which economic and production conditions have led to a continuous market expansion…. In Italy, by contrast, the true nature of design… results from a harmonic relationship between production and culture.

By the late forties, Italy had developed a design style which was characterized by an elegant modification of American streamlining, found in a range of product from Nizzoli’s ‘Lexicon 80’ typewriter to Piaggio’s Vespa motor scooter.

Certain designer became associated with specific manufacturers, producing a fertile marriage of art and industry.  The prestige of Italian design was further enhanced by the success of new generation car-body studios, in particular Giorgetto Giugiaro’s ItalDesign which was responsible for such important products as Volkswagen’s golf, which has ever since retained by manufacturers from Korea, Japan, Sweden and the United states.

7 - UGLY, INEFFICIENT, DEPRESSING CHAOS
SYMBOLISM AND CONSUMER PSHYCHOLOGY

In 200 or so years since ‘design’ emerged from the crafts of the pre-industrial world to its present position as a major force in all mature economies, one central phenomenon is very apparent: Sir Joshua Reynolds’ certainty about standards of taste has in recent times disappeared altogether.

‘Good taste’ and ‘bad taste’ are relatively modern terms. They emerged because a plurality of values has made it necessary to distinguish what constitutes ‘good’ in design. The modern concept of taste seems to have originated in France; and was first taken up in England by 18th centaury men of letters, who no longer used it only to mean sensation in the mouth but as a metaphor for judgment. In the 19th century many efforts were made to understand and control taste. Henry Cole was the first man brave enough to teach about ‘bad’ design.

The most stimulating achievement of Post Modernism is that it has forced a revival of interest in symbolism, an element of western culture which the modernist overlooked (although not LeCorbusier)  in their enthusiasm to prove their point. Symbolism underwrites the majority of our attitudes to material culture: the Vitruvian tradition in architecture, for example, is based on a language of forms which identifies the Doric order with manly beauty and the Ionic with feminine charm. Even Eliot Noyes, the man who created the corporate identity for IBM, and who inherited the ethic of the Bauhas from his teacher Walter Groupius and Marcel Breuer, actually told the company that its buildings lacked symbolic value. Without betraying any of his principles, he then went about – in Ursula McHugh’s memorable expression – applying the Bauhas to big business and turned the German Modern Movement into the style of corporate America.
Sony's Walkman
Design as important aspect in Marketing
26th Oct 2010 production stopped in Japan

It was reductive fanaticism that led the Modern Movement to see machines as ends in themselves. Now we can see that the most successful manufacturers of consumer products have adapted their design policies to allow for symbolism. The degree to which manufacturers such as Porsche, Sony, Braun, Audi and Ford understand consumer psychology and use design as an important aspect of their marketing (as well as their production) processes is shown by the elements of metaphor in the design of their products. IN producing one of the world’s most desirable sports cars, Porsche is justly proud of the company’s unimpeachable engineering credentials. But none of the elements in Porsche’s designs are dictated by functional considerations alone. Anatole Lapine, head of the studio, says that his assignment is to design a car that will still be visually interesting in 20 years time. Frank Llyod Wrght once said he did not care much about the essentials of life – provided that he had an adequate supply of its luxuries. In a sense, thoughtful design is a democratic luxury, but it is a luxury that no civilized person can afford to be without. It’s a form of communication that takes place without words.

Certainly, Design in the future will change in accordance with the technology and social conditions, but in important respects it also remains the same as it was in Hogarth’s day 200 years ago. Just as no form of communication has ever entirely replaced the one it succeeded (so that we have books and television), so whatever new machines will come along to pose design problems, the designer will still also have to think about things for people to sit on, eat with, drink from, and so on.

8 - ALL THAT SOLID MELTS INTO AIR
DESIGN SINCE EIGHTIES

Karl Marx memorable words provide a gloss for the status of industrial design I a world where the most important commodity, gigabyte of information, is invisible. Now the corporations are gone, markets are fragmented. We are dematerialized and the world is flat. Anything or any body can be anywhere else instantaneously. Centers of excellence are not Ulm, The Corso Vittorio Emmanuele or New Canaan, but Guangzhou. Taste is directed not by Domus or The Architectural Review, still less the sclerotic Design Council, but by what comes through the broadband connection: unmediated, unedited, populist not elitist. The forces directing consumer culture have changed from push to pull, notably described in James Surowiecki’s ‘The Wisdom of Crowds (2006). The most powerful forces in the world are the organize electrons of modern communications. And they are invisible. Every one knows that 60 GB is important, but no one has a clue what they look like. And designer, in search of meaning and justification, have turned themselves into commodities and then into brands, aping the process once applied to products, but applied now to personalities.
And the great business model that the 20th century design established is no longer relevant. Pioneer industrial designers argue forcefully that there was a ‘cash value of art’ that artful transformation of banal objects could win sales and make beautiful profits. Nowadays, there are very few ugly products left to transform. A single rule-proving exception is Jonathan Ive’s iPod.

Design is maddening to define as it is pleasing to enjoy. F H Gombrich once said there is no such thing as art, only artists. May be you could apply that to design and designers.




Given below are some of the very best of them…


BMW's Logo was inspired by an aircraft propeller
Aero-engines were the source of the company's fortune


Henry Ford said he had to invent the 'Gasoline Buggy"
to escape the mind-numbing boredom of life on the far
This picture was taken in 1896
Walt Disney and Mickey Mouse, circa 1928
Max Friz established an architecture for BMW Motorbike
that lasted 80 years
The sculptor Harry Bertoia worked with Charles Eames before designing
his chair in steel wire for KNOLL in 1952.
It became a contemporary classic

Gatti, Paolini and Teodoro formed their design group
in Turin in 1965.
They became famous for Socco Chair of 1969
Produced by Zanotta

Milton Glaser is the most celebrated American Graphic
Designer. He designed the influential
New York magazine

The model Lisa Fonssagrives forming the initial 'V',
On a Vogue Cover, 1940

George Nelson designed 'Storage Wall' system and also designed
Action Office System for Herman Miller in 1965
Probably the first complete Modular Office Furniture

Le Jardin Des Modes, a part of Conde Nast's
Consumerist Dream World

Hammond Chair, 1965
Kjaereholm achieved an astonishing spareness with templered steel
Nepta Concept Car 2006
Designed by Patrick Le Quernent of Renault

UP, CLOSE & PERSONAL : From A Software Professional To A Swami


Swami Yatidharmanand
UPDATE: This interview of Swami Yatidharmananda was posted almost two years back and here is the latest news about his leaving the Sivanada Ashram and going, on his own journey, a different spiritual path.... as said below in his own words...

"Given the circumstances in the physical absence of Guru Maharaj the mandate of Swamiji given to me cannot be fulfilled. I tried my best in all these years but the existing governing body is not keen in doing it. Hence, I am stepping out of the ashram premises to fulfil the task which is the mission of my life on my own. Those of you who wish to help me in digitizing and keeping the images of Guru Maharaj alive are most welcome for all support.

That there should be no illusion about the fact that henceforth I have nothing to do with Divine Life Society
." -Swami Yatidharmananda


If you would like to connect with him, please click here and leave a comment on his post announcing the same...

Now back to the interview...
___________________
A son of a business man as well as a popular Magician; Software professional, working in Hong Kong, who enjoyed Horse races and many times won small jack pots; Ambition to have large house, servants, large tract of land and nice cars…. Well that is all that it takes to make a Swami.


Well almost! Just add a burning desire to seek and serve one’s Guru – the spiritual master.

This is the unbelievable story of my long time friend, Swami Yatidharmanand of one of the most beautiful, revered and oldest ashram “Shivanand Ashram”, on the foot hills of mighty Himalayas, on the banks of Holy River Ganges in the small beautiful spiritual town Rishikesh – the spiritual capital of the world as some believes it to be.

Rishikesh and Holy River Ganges
from Sivananda Ashram
I met Swami Yatidharmanand in connection with some of the Multimedia graphic designs which Swami Ji was working with a friend of mine from a local TV channel. The project was to save the original videos of Guru Ji – Swami Chidananda Ji, the head of Shivanand Ashram at that time. Later on, when I went on my own to visit to Rishikesh to see his work on restoration of Old audio and video documents, I was pleasantly surprised to find a top of the line recording studio set up in the ashram. Swami Ji had taken up the task of saving thousands of old videos, audios. He was converting manuscripts to electronic documents of various spiritual heads. During the last decade he has done invaluable service of saving thousands of documents, audio’s and videos, taking time out of his spiritual practices, and continues the work passionately in his unique unassuming way. When asked, he says that this is his way of doing service to his Guru Ji.

I spent few days in the ashram, meeting the other yogi’s, meditating in the various prayer halls, attending chanting, rituals and prayers. Almost half of the attendees, in these sessions, I noticed from European and western countries. Those few days were the most blissful time of my own experience and spiritual learning process. I was very fortunate to stay in the Guru Niwas on the bank of holy River Ganges – the place where Guru Chidananda Swami Ji used to stay and pray. This, in itself, was quite enchanting and profound experience for me. Early morning, one wakes up to the tolling bells, sounds of mantra chants and scents of burning incense, already attuned to receive the energy and the spiritual vibrations.

Myself at Guru Nivas at
Sivananda Ashram 2004
In this setting, as I spent most of my time with Swami Ji, I started thinking about what makes one leave one’s family life and discard all relationship, material possessions and devote himself to a concept, to an idea or to a religious philosophy. Soon, I was thinking of why and how Swami Yatidharmanand got on to this spiritual path. In trying to understand what made him to become a Swami… and why, I started asking him about his previous life and his family? Initially he was quite reluctant but slowly after many years persistent enquiry, I was able to piece together his past life and the path to the present life of an ordained Swami.

So here is the story of a young boy, son of a spice merchant and a popular magician; story of a Software professional working in Hong Kong, about his journey from a materialistic world towards fulfilling his own destiny.

At the age of 10-11, playing among the other kids on the banks of river in a small town Cuttack, Orissa, young Yatidharmanand had lot of questions, most of which were left unanswered for a long time. Even though his father, a famous magician as well as a dedicated devotee of Guru Ji (Swami Chidananda Ji from Shivanand Ashram) were all there to provide the answers, he did not get them. Probably the time was not ready for him to be on this spiritual path. He had a happy childhood among brothers, sisters and friends as his father was a prosperous, well respected Spice merchant and a popular magician. Most of his time away from school was spent in company of his father and his Guru Ji, on his lecture tours. His father used to perform magical feats of materializing spiritual books from thin air, bring out garlands from magic hats etc, to attract and retain the simple village folks, to propagate Hindu religious philosophy with Swami Ji’s spiritual discourse. Over the period of many years, his father had set up a good business for the family, with an idea to leave it all behind to take care of his family when his time is to retire. His father had made up his mind long time back to join on the footsteps of his guru and renounce all to become a Sadhu at the right time. That day arrived too soon for young Yati. The business was not yet fully established and as his father left, it slowly died a natural death leaving Yati with his mother, sister and brothers to care of.

After a protracted struggle, to survive in the poverty that followed, he one day decided to go to Rishikesh to confront Guru Ji and his father. The meeting with his father proved to be very impersonal as his father was well on his own spiritual journey. As his father rightfully believed that he had completed all his duties towards family, he was not interested in going back to take care of the family that he has had renounced long time back. So he gently guided his son to his Guru Ji to listen to him and seek advice.

Yati, next day, in his own young arrogance that comes from immaturity, asked Guru Ji, as he was sitting in the Samadhi hall with his set of devotees, what are use of such spirituality, service and God when one’s own family suffers due to one person’s personal bliss. Guru Ji softly told him that he does not have answer so why not ask Gurudev Swami Sivananda Ji and I am sure he will give all the answers. Being young and hot headed, Yati did not accept this answer as he was thinking, what stupidity is this, where is Swami Sivananda and how can I ask him a question as he had passed away even before I was born! Swami Yatidharmanand says that Guru Ji read his thoughts and told him very sternly and authoritatively “Look! Do not ever think that Swami Sivananda Ji is not here. He is very much present here.” 

This was a big jolt to the young man as he could not believe that Guru Ji would know what he was thinking. Although Yati at that time knew that this is just a ruse to calm him, he did not dare to disobey Guru Ji and walked into the Samadhi Shrine of Gurudev Swami Sivananda Ji. There he repeated the same questions to him, skeptically. Swami Yatidharmanand told me about that incident in his life that what happened there at that time is something that he himself was not able to comprehend. He came out of the temple dazed, in trance yet relaxed. Although it felt like few minutes in the temple, he later realised that it was almost an hour there with Guru Swami Sivananda Ji.

He says, from then on, Guru Ji took charge of his life in his own hands. He sent him to Delhi to do technical studies. So young Yati was packed off to Delhi, to get enrolled in NIIT, learning computers and studying software programming for many years.

Yati’s professional career started with NIIT and he moved on working as a software professional in various small companies and from there he migrated to Hong Kong, to work for a International Garment house, as a Computer Programmer. As in retaliation to this forced studies and family life, Yati went all out to earn as much money as possible and as early as possible so that he can full fill his own commitments towards his family, that he had left behind in India. Swami Yatidharmanand softly smiled when he recollected that he never had any other focus in his life but only to make money in order to get back to his old rich spoiled lifestyle. He remembers that as he used to go to his office in Hong Kong, through 3 shopping malls, he always aspired to own things on the shop fronts and as he was not able to afford then at that time, he would bend his head down to avoid looking and then desiring them all. Now he says that the God is so great, Guru Ji is so loving that whatever I have desired at that time, I would  get it some way by the grace of Guru Ji even at that time.

In 1995, miraculously the family money problem was solved. His brother found a job for himself and informed Young Yati that he need not worry about the family now as he himself can take care of the family.
Swami Yatidharmanand with Guru Ji
As his basic drive to work, disappeared, Yati lost all his interest in earning money. He left the job and came back to India and stayed for few weeks in Mumbai with a friend. At that point of time, Swami Ji told me that he was very confused as to what to do with his life. After long search within himself, he realised his desire to serve Guru Ji and finally after long deliberation, requested Guru Ji’s permission for the same. After initial tough resistance as well as many tries to discourage him for this ascetic life, (Swami Ji remembers that Guru Ji even made me take permission from all family members as well as my mother) finally took him under his wings.

When I asked him about his spiritual practices, he simply says, “From the beginning, I never understood spirituality, but somehow I was always happy serving. I just wanted to serve”. And when he was asked, where is he now on his spiritual growth, He says, “I am still serving and will continue to serve as long as I can” He says, its very nice to get away from all this materialistic world and be alone within your thoughts and devotion, but then some one has to serve, so that the society is more frictionless and peaceful, may be that is where I am now, serving.

And what a great service he is doing, in his own small way, for almost a decade now. To save thousands and thousands of audio, video clips, manuscripts of the ashram, which are on the verge of getting destroyed, by working day and night alone in the studio, fighting against time to save all that he can…

____________
 नमः शिवाय
Om Namah Shivaya 

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THE READER: The Art Of Start - Guy Kawasaki

Guy Kawasaki, who has never taken a computer class in his life, was in jewelry business when Apple recruited him as a software evangelist in 1983-87 and as chief evangelist in 1995 -97 in Macintosh division, which he in his own inimical style calls the largest collection of egomaniacs in the history of Silicon Valley

Guy Kawasaki now is a managing director of Garage Technology Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm and a columnist for Entrepreneur Magazine. Guy is the author of nine books including Reality Check, The Art of the Start, Rules for Revolutionaries, How to Drive Your Competition Crazy, Selling the Dream, andThe Macintosh Way. He has a BA from Stanford University and an MBA from UCLA as well as an honorary doctorate from Babson College.

In this great presentation, click here to view, he talks about his book “the art of the start” giving his point of view for the entrepreneur and startups in top ten points. I think for any one thinking of new business, or planning on taking his established business to the next level, this presentation and reading of the book will be great source of inspiration as well as starting point. Here is gist of the presentation and please don’t forget to view the video as it’s a great presentation, presented in perfect and most charming way by Guy Kawasaki.

1st – Make Meaning
            Increase the quality of life
            Right a wrong
            Prevent the end of something good
He says there nothing worse than MBA’s and consultants for startups
2nd – Make mantra – Mission statements in simple words for employees not great essays
3rd – Get going
            Think Different
            Polarize people
            Find a few soul mates
4th – Define a business model
            Be Specific
            Keep it simple
            Ask women
5th – Weave a MAT (Milestones, assumptions, tasks)
            Milestone           “Finish Design”
            Assumptions       “Sales Calls / Day”
            Task                 “Rent an office”
6th – Niche Thyself
7th – Follow the 10/20/30 rule
            10 slides
            20 minutes
            30 Font size
8th – Hire infected people
            Ignore the irrelevant
            Hire better than yourself
            Apply the shopping center test
9th – Lower barriers to adoption
            Flatten the learning curve
            Don’t ask people to do something that you would not
            Embrace your evangelist
10th – Seed the cloud
            Let a hundred flowers bloom
            Enable test drive
            Find the influencers
11th – Don’t let the Bozos tie you down
            “I think there is a world market for maybe five computers” Thomas Watson, Chairman IBM 1943
“This telephone has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us” Western Union Internal Memo (1876)
There is no reason why anyone would want a computer in their home.” Ken Olsen, Founder, Digital Equipment Corp. 1977
“It’s too far to drive, and I don’t see how it can be a business” Guy Kawasaki when offered a job of CEO of Yahoo.
____________________
I thank Guy Kawasaki for his support for this post.


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Gita - From Mind to Super Mind       Autobiography of Yogi

STILL LIFE: Some Fountains of Spiritual energy from North India Part I

During my various travels and professional trips, I move to many places in India and abroad. Whenever I could find opportunity, I enjoy travelling to spiritual places near by, in my own small experiments with spirituality and below are some of the most powerful place of spiritual energy I have come across. Hope you will enjoy this journey with me in this edition of STILL LIFE. 
This is going to be three part series as India abounds with powerful place all over.... its length and breadth.

One of the most powerful temples of Lord Shiva in Himalaya - Kedarnath

Durga Ji at Vaisnov Devi in Jammu

Lord Krishana's Holy place - Jaganath Puri. World Famous
for it Chariot Journey

Kalika Devi - At Delhi
From Childhood found a source of
Strength with her all the time

Thakur Ji (Lord Krishna) on the way to Puri
Most revered by Drivers on the way

Parinirvana Temple of Lord Buddha at Kushi Nagar
Lord Buddha's final resting place

World Headquarters of ISKCON at Mayapur

Chaitanya Mahaprabhu - He started Bhakti Yoga Movement
in India i.e devotional worship of Lord Krishna.
He used to pray In this temple at Navadweep, in Mayapur
Well now I am starting a journey from this image onwards, along the most holy River in India. Ganges. The river has been source of prosperity as well as source of spiritual upliftment too since ages. Slowly along this river's bank many of the powerful centers of energy evolved in terms of temples, ashrams and places. I am putting up the images of some of them, where I have been and found source of strength. The journey below starts from Himalaya's and ends at Ganga Sagar where the Holy River meets the Sea in the Bay of Bengal.

Badrinath - A Powerful center of Lord Shiva high in Himalayas
This is my friend Swami Yatidharmananda
I have talked about in "Making of Swami" in the post abov
e

The confluence of Bhagirathi and Alakananda
From here onwards the holy River is called Ganges

Pristine Waters of River Ganges at Rishikesh
Meditation here is a profound experience

Haridwar - The place of this years Maha Kumbha Mela

Kashi / Varanasi
Place of freedom from Karmic Cycle for many

Saccha Baba Ashram in Varanasi

Dakshineswar Temple of Durga Ji at Kolkata
Place of Sh. Ramakrishna Paramanamsa

Holy River Ganges at Dakshineshwar Temple

Kapil Muni Ashram at Ganga Sagar
The place where Holy River Ganges joins Sea

Our ancestral temple in village of Durga Ji
Neelkanth Mahadev Temple near Rishikesh

Shore temple Mamalla Puram
Taken on 25th Oct,10
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