Today I waked up at 8 after well spent night as a feeding body for hungry mosquitoes because of which I cannot say I slept very well. And also during the night I braked the screen of the iPhone by fighting with mosquitoes.:) it just swinged out of my hands and felt heavily on the stone floor - but it works!:) so I wrapped it in transparent tape. I think this will work fine until I'm done travelling.
During nights the scent of freshly baked dead human bodies who are later on floating in the same river I was swimming yesterday is coming everywhere in my room as the ashram is located very close to the Ganga.
I was not eating anything yesterday as when I got up breakfast at the temple was already finished and as I did not had the money and was spending all day outside of the temple - I had a food only at 8 PM - when I returned back. But I did not felt hunger. The city excited me so much! But today I went to the breakfast. It was at 9.
Yesterday after I got back to the ashram I got pressurized by local Hare Krishna book store manager who without empathy was reading some verses from Bhagavad Gita and tried me to explain something I could not understand. Even after I went to my room and took a book to read - he found me, took a book from my hands and was reading it like he had red it before loudly to me with his comments. Probably he had red that book before as it was a vedic book and I believe he knows a lot but I just needed my space to relax from all day noises and invitations to buy some stuff and take a rickshaws so even if I tried to listen what he is saying he was pissing me off badly and it was impossible to be alone. So I finished reading it only after midnight. Great book! Called "Tirikural" - The Great Book of Tiru-Valluvara. And today I started reading the book of Swami Ranganayhananda "Practical Vedanta and the Sciences of Values".
I spent morning in the ashram watching who is doing what and observing temple traditions as I was waiting for my new-found friend Avimash coming from Arha to Varanasi 200 km to show me the city. So I was waiting for him to arrive in the temple.
Breakfast was great. I stop counting how many dishes we had at 8 I guess. There where rice, rice with milk, potatoes with something, dhall, beans, banana and apple mix, chapatti and something else. To be honest - I like Hare Krishna temples and ashrams because of the food they make: it is always pure vegetarian, prepared in clean dishes where never ever since they have been produced was any kind of meat inside. So the food is clean physically. Also those who are preparing food before doing that always washes themselves, prays to God and offers the prepared food to God - so the food is called Prassad - meaning - offered food to God. The idea of prasad lies at Hindu Scriptures Bhagavad Gita where it is said that person who cooks only for himself without offering the food to one who have provided it is merely a thief.
Interesting thing about Hindu believe system is that it is not based on believes. It is based on scriptures called Vedas which has been written during a long time period by sages who have spent all life to realize the higher Truth - the rules of Universe and God. For Hindus the highest realization of Truth is to find that God is inside ourselves, that we are the God. And so these scriptures are not to believe in them but just as a guidance where to move in the process of self realization.
From here the vedatrac comes from. Veda Track was already taken domain name so I stopped at vedatrac.com and also I have bought a vedatour.com but for this experience travel seemed to be better word than tour...:) Veda - generally - means Knowledge. Knowledge gathered together by yogis, sages, rishis in realization of highest truth and written down in a manuscripts which ancient sage Vyasa gathered together and made four parts of it - rigveda, ayurveda, samaveda and arthaveda each of them making different realization for better life by explaining laws of life.
At around 11 AM Avinash arrived at the ashram and we took a rikshaw to drive around Varanasi for a small excursion. We went to Durga Temple, Sri Ram Temple decorated with Ramayana whole story from inside, Hanuman Temple - Manas temple or so called "Monkey Temple" with a security standards I had to leave my mobile in a locker outside and new Vishvanath Temple.
After we moved to Ganga and took a swim in there and had some laasi (yogurt drink mixed with fruit juice).
On our way we discussed some business. It was a good meeting after which both of us moved to their homes - he drived back with train to Arrha and I went back to Ashram.
