indiadivine

Two sadhus meeting at Chakratirtha in Salandi Reserve Forest. On the left is 101 year old sadhu Brahma Chaitanya Das. I am not sure who the sadhu on the right is, as I had seen him for the first time.

Sadhu Mrityunjaya Baba leading Hare Krishna kirtan during the Akshaya Tritiya festival at Chakratirtha. He is the mahanta of saint Ram Baba's samadhi peetha in Jharkhand. Every year on Akshaya Tritiya the varshika utsava is held to commemorate the installation of Lord Shiva at this place. For seven days they do nonstop 24 hours Hare Krishna mahamantra kirtan and devotees from far away come to worship.

Shambhu the bull is still coming two or three times each day for food. You can hardly notice the scar on his back now.

A short clip of feeding spinach and vegetables to the ashram cows. If you would like to help feed the ashram cows, please call us or whatsapp to 8300181008. Thank you. https://www.bvashram.org

Dayalu Baba Carrying a Devi Shila from the Salandi River. Earlier this week I had posted about a Devi Shila that Dayalu Baba was going to collect from the Salandi River. One of his devotees sent me some small video clips of them bringing the shila back to the ashram. The video clips are low quality, but its still nice to see. For those who didn't read about the post, this is what I wrote last week: On March 31st Dayalu Baba took a group of devotees to the Salandi river to locate and bring back a shila. In this sacred river there are living stones called shivashakti that contain divine presence, much like the shalagramas of the Gandaki river or the banalingas of the Narmada river. After locating and worshiping the shila they returned to their ashram and made plans how to extract it. Yesterday they returned to the Salandi river with a group of devotees to carry the shila back to the ashram. They will stay the night on the river bed and perform a yagya in the night, and then in the morning, using long bamboos and ropes, they will carry the giant shila with the help of 30 devotees back to the ashram. https://www.bvashram.org

Dayalu Baba preparing parboiled rice. After boiling the rice paddy it is dried in the sun and then taken to a mill to remove the husk. The mill takes around 10% of your rice as milling charge. The exact charge is a bit peculiar. It's 20 rs. to process an old oil can filled of paddy (maybe its about a 15 litres oil can). Roughly it ends up coming to 10% of your total crop, which is a lot for just removing the husk. The entire agricultural system is designed to keep the farmers in poverty and push people to the city where the system can control them. Considering that the rice they grow and eat is only 20 rs. a kilo, the charge for milling is quite steep. They are taking 1 kg for every 10 kgs processed, and thats just for removing the husk. There are so many other stages of labor in growing and harvesting rice, but just for this one stage they take 10% of your crop. Parboiled rice is supposed to be more resistant to weevil infestation. Personally I don't like the taste and I only eat what they call "raw rice", which is not parboiled. Villagers tend to eat what we would consider the lowest grade rice. Very thick, dense and chewy rice. I guess the yield is higher for that than for basmati rice. Villagers always say they cant digest basmati rice, and most dont like the taste. This thick rice sells for around 20 rs. a kilo. Basmati is two or three times the cost, but the yield is less, and the processing more difficult. https://www.bvashram.org

Cows Grazing on Grass at Dayalu Baba's Ashram https://www.bvashram.org

Dayalu Baba shows me one of the pumpkins (boitalu) he grew.

Dayalu Baba's Cows Relax in a Pile of Straw https://www.bvashram.org

Dayalu Baba Takes His Cows Out to Graze https://www.bvashram.org

Placing Mystic Siddhar Vadalur Baba into Samadhi You can read about him at the following link: https://www.bvashram.org/vadalur-baba-entered-samadhi-on-amalaki-ekadashi/

Someone has sent me a short video of Vadalur Baba from the day he entered samadhi, just a few hours before leaving. Here he is sitting next to the room where his guru Vallalar dissolved his body into light. He never went outside of his sitting area under the shamee vriksha tree, and he never allowed anyone to come within 20 feet of him. This is the first time I am seeing him sitting close to other people. When they know they are leaving, they become more compassionate to people. Seeing him not react to someone touching him is shocking. He would never even let you hand an object to him directly. He would tell you to put it on the ground and with a long stick he would pick it up, after telling you to back away. Prior to leaving he informed people he was going to leave and gave instructions for how to make his samadhi. You can read about him here: https://www.bvashram.org/vadalur-baba-entered-samadhi-on-amalaki-ekadashi/

Dayalu Baba making tea for visitors to the ashram. He cooks on a mud stove using wood fire. Gas cylinders have not yet come to these areas. Other than red tea, milk and sugar he also puts cardamom and cloves. Tea is seen as a cheap and quick food, especially among sadhus who don't have much money. Often they don't have milk so they drink red tea with salt and ginger, instead of the usual milk and sugar tea. The Britannia Marie Gold biscuit, or a cheaper local version, is often combined with the tea and makes up the breakfast or dinner. These are people who more or less eat one proper meal a day at noon (usually rice, dahl and chutney). For breakfast and dinner they try to make do with things like tea, which are mostly water. They fill their stomach with water, and wait for actual food at noon. They also work physically a lot more than city people like myself. They are always digging in the garden, climbing mountains and trees, and doing all sorts of physical labor which I could never do. There is no money in the villages. They eat the rice they grow themselves. Mostly they can't just buy vegetables at will, because it costs a lot of money. They have to be very frugal with what they buy and what they eat. They have to trade their rice paddy if they want to buy something, and you don't get a very good deal when you sell your rice paddy. So their eating of tea isn't for intoxication or sense enjoyment. It's simply part of the hard struggle of life to maintain their bodies with little money.

Dayalu Baba collecting milk for the abhisheka of Lord Shiva on shivaratri. https://www.bvashram.org

A mysterious ancient footprint in the stone mountain at Siddha Gumpha in Odisha.

Dayalu Baba Climbs Tree to Pick Bilva Leaves for Lord Shiva

Last month a street bull wandered into our ashram. He had just been attacked by someone with a machete and had a very deep wound on his back. We called a doctor and he said it would not heal unless we kept him restrained for a month and did proper treatment, so we brought him inside and took care of him for a month. This video shows his progress throughout the month until we could finally release him. We gave him the name Shambhu. https://www.bvashram.org

Baby Cobra (Naga) at Chennai

A snake at the ashram during makara sankranti festival. I believe this is a non-venomous olive keelback watersnake (sabuja dhanda saapa).

Delivering eye glasses for Sadhus. Full story here: https://www.bvashram.org/eye-glasses-for-sadhus-and-the-mystical-deity-of-lord-shiva-who-cures-eyesight/

Sri Jagannatha Darshana at Bhadrak, Odisha (Nov. 16, 2021) https://www.bvashram.org

Sri Jagannatha Darshana at Bhadrak, Odisha (Nov. 12, 2021) https://www.bvashram.org

Two Newborn Calves at Dayalu Baba Ashram https://www.bvashram.org

Sri Jagannatha Darshana at Bhadrak, Odisha (Nov. 19, 2021) https://www.bvashram.org

Sri Jagannatha Darshana on Kartika Purnima at Bhadrak, Odisha (Nov. 19, 2021) https://www.bvashram.org