Originally uploaded by syamagopaladas.

In between the lectures about Ramanda Roy and the temple building, we had some down time. So we decided to go to the state park which is at the bottom of the hill. From left to right, you see Gurunistha (living here as a monk, originally from Finland), Nitai who came a few weeks ago and is trying out the monastic lifestyle, Nama Srestham the always jolly oldtimer (I hope he’s not reading this) and Ian who also came to try out monasticism, from Canada. We had quite an international gathering in the woods where we sat down with some lemonade and muffins to read Tattva-Sandarbha. Swami had given us homework in the morning which was due in the evening. What a better excuse to go on an outing together. Nitai read the text outloud after which I jumped up to play the quizmaster. Nitai showed us his photographic memory by almost remembering every detail he had just read. At one point though the answer to every question seemed to be “antah krishna bahir gaurah”. Which means Sri Krishna on the inside and Sri Gaura on the outside.
On the way back , we still had one muffin left. So Gurunistha set up a bonus question: “Name a famous verse describing Gaura”. We were puzzled by what he meant. Until he gave away the first to letters “an.” It took us a few seconds before Ian shouted “antah krishna bahir gaurah”. Leaving Nitai with a baffled look, not because he didn’t get the muffin but because he had been calling that verse the whole time.

For more pictures of the trip (have another look at the amazing big redwood trees that weren’t mysteriously logged), see my flickr page.

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