The past few days it has been pretty cold and from a material perspective living in a yurt with a small heater is considered backward. But this place, Audarya, knows no time and the service here heats us up. The world out there moves on while everything here is small scale. I once talked to someone who said he lived on a stamp. He wasn’t thinking big in other words, but was concerned with his direct surroundings and not what was bordering on that.
It is easy to think outside the box and forget what we have inside it. Isn’t this what we usually do? Yes when asked to fill out a survey we will mention we are all living today and appreciating what we got. But this should makes us wonder why we want to move to a bigger house, get a bigger paycheck or move on to a different girl- or boyfriend. If we are so appreciative, then why would we do this? Isn’t this a sign of our dissatisfaction?

I took the above picture yesterday around 6.30 in the morning. You can see some of the snow we had here. The day before yesterday I went to do some grocery shopping driving in a big truck like a Real American. But it really didn’t excite me in that I was leaving Audarya. The closest town is a 20 minute drive. It is just one road of gravel and some concrete leading to this town. There are about two exits, so it is hard to get lost. But out there it feels like you can get lost easily.

This weekend will be Vyasa-puja and Gaura Purnima. Vyasa-puja is the celebration of Swami’s birthday. As I wrote earlier I am his student and he is the abbot of Audarya. It is not his birthday by normal standards, but it is calculated according to the moon calender. On Saturday it will be Gaura-Purnima. Gaura Purnima translates as Golden Full moon. We celebrate the appearance of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu who entered this world about 500 years ago. He came to teach the yuga dharma, the advised method of serving Divine pleasure, which is singing the Lord’s Holy names. We worship Sri Caitanya’s deity here at Audarya together with Sri Nityananda who was a close associate of Caitanya Mahaprabhu.
There will be over 30 guest visiting. So we are busy with the preparation. The first guests will arrive tomorrow.

Btw. Gaura-Purnima means fasting all day until moonrise. At that time there is a great feast and once you have seen the small kitchen you know it is a miracle how they are able to cook such a feast for Gaura-Nitai, the deities (and the 30 guests).

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