Girish's Blog

Sunday, January 18, 2015   This year was the second year the Samarpan Family was taking part in the Marathon. Pujya Swamiji had given His approval and blessings in July 2013 saying, “Do something different, go ahead, but take contributions from non-sadhaks,” This was a master-stroke as propagation of Samarpan movement and fund collection could take place simultaneously. Yoga Prabha Bharati Seva Sanstha Trust (YPBSST) got itself registered with United Way of Mumbai, the charity partner for the movement for the second year running, and this time we were given 45 charity bibs based on last year’s collections. We had actually got the third highest average collection per bib hence the extra bibs this time. Three educational institutions managed by the Sadhana Education Trust ran in our support along with an educational institute from Vasai in the Student’s Challenge section. We also had made a team under the able guidance of our corporate acharyaa and Shri Malav Doshi to participat...

Sometime in August this year I had gone online to book flight tickets from Mumbai to Bhuj for the 6th of November, 3-4 other fellow sadhaks and friends were also simultaneously booking their flight tickets. I tried for almost 2.5 to 3 hours to complete the booking. Each time I used to get to the payment gateway and then get stuck. By the time I got through the cost of the return ticket had gone up from Rs. 6900 to Rs. 14000. In the meanwhile I learnt that all my friends had completed their bookings at Rs. 6900. I assumed that Swamiji did not want me to fly and that I should drive down with sadhaks who had not got their tickets like I had done last year. After that I was comfortable knowing that I just had to have the car in good condition for the drive, so what was in my control I planned to do. But as fate would have it on 10th October my mother fell down while coming out of the bath at around 4.30 in the evening. The next morning she was admitted to Sushrusha Hospital, Dadar, w...

SINDAVADAR ASHRAM, MORBI, GUJARAT 11-13 JULY Jai Baba Swami This time we decided to fly down to Rajkot rather than drive down. We reached the Ashram early morning at 8.30pm. The registration for the event was in the region of 9100-200, and if you take a 10% dropout average from past experience we still had 8300-400 sadhaks for the event. Lots of sadhaks had already reached the Ashram and had selected their bedding slots in the available residential zones. Due to a heavy downpour a couple of days earlier some of the arrangements made had got washed out, hence under emergency mode alternative arrangements had to be made. So the eating area was converted into living quarters so that the sadhaks could be accommodated. Also the exhibition had been cancelled and this area had been converted into Sahitya, donation counter, etc. Due to this situation the beds could not be numbered and hence it was a first come first served kind of a situation. We (Anant Khamankar, Ramnath Kamath...