Mumbai (Bombay) to Ganeshpuri

While writing this entry, we hear that Slumdog won eight Oscars! The movie is about Mumbai, otherwise known as Bombay, a city that 19 million people call home (almost 3 times the population of Arizona). We are no longer in the state of Rajasthan, we flew Jet Airways to Mumbai in the state of Maharastra (one of the 24 states of India).

You'll see in the short video below that there are a LOT of slums, sidled right up to the new construction of huge highrises. The insanity of Bollywood's home is profound - tens of thousands of stray dogs, beggars, cows, mothers and children all competing for food in the garbage dumps, which are everywhere and mostly consist of plastic bags. This is the other side of India: it's living close to the earth.

There is a huge, thick layer of dirt that has landed on the plastic bag roofs of these huts and hangs in the air from the burning of diesel fuel, and the soundtrack to this place is the constant, high-pitched horn beeping. Beeping isn't done to get someone out of the way, it's mandatory if one is passing another cow, dog, person, bicyclist, truck, bus, car, or tuk tuk (the three-wheeled rickshaw.)

As we began this 1.5 hour ride north from Mumbai to Ganeshpuri, a tiny village where Marty lived in 1977, we listened to our Om Mane Padme Hum CD from Nepal. Then, we suggested our driver, Ganesh, who spoke almost English, choose the music. Between the incessant beeping and the Ganesh's favorite Bollywood song, the trip seemed like its own movie.

Next Stop: Ganeshpuri

We arrived in Ganeshpuri, a small village that sprouted up around a guru named Nityananda (1897? - 1961). It was said that he went there because of his arthritis and there were mineral hot springs right next to the temple. If you've been to our home in Sedona, you might have seen a large bronze statue in Marty's office. That is one of Nityananda which Marty had made on his last trip to India. Nityanada is best known as the guru of Swami Muktananda. To get a real flavor of Nityananda and who he was, read about Muktananda's The Play of Consciousness.

The small village of Ganeshpuri is now a pilgrimage site and you'll see in this video the temple, his home, and the place where he took mahasamadhi (died) in 1961. That was the place we sat and meditated after putting in our feet in the hot springs.

It's said Nityananda's mother abandoned him and he was found/adopted by a woman who worked as a servant. Even as a child, stories report that Nityananda seemed to be in an unusually advanced spiritual state, which gave rise to the belief that he was born enlightened. As a young man, he became a wandering yogi, spending time on yogic studies and practices in the Himalayas and other places.

Nityananda gained a reputation for affecting miracles and wonderful cures. He said, "Everything that happens, happens automatically by the will of god." He built an ashram in Kerala, and then wandered through the Maharastra state. In 1936 he went to Ganeshpuri, a tiny village with hotsprings and a tiny Shiva Temple (5' x 5'). The family that looked after the temple built a hut for him, the recognized him as an advaduta, (a person absorbed in the transcendental state.)

Nityananda didn't teach verbally: he was mostly silent. Some believe that he transmitted spiritual energy (shaktipat) to people. He could also be extremely fiery and intimidating in his behaviour, even to the point of throwing rocks - his way of deterring people who were not serious in their spiritual aspirations, or who came to him with ulterior motives.