Guiding Light of The Month

O Lord, how ardently do I call and implore Thy love! Grant that my aspiration may be intense enough to awaken the same aspiration everywhere: oh, may good- ness, justice and peace reign as supreme masters, may ignorant egoism be overcome, darkness be suddenly illu- minated by Thy pure Light; may the blind see, the deaf hear, may Thy law be proclaimed in every place and, in a constantly progressive union, in an ever more perfect harmony, may all, like one single being, stretch out their arms towards Thee to identify themselves with Thee and manifest Thee upon earth. - The Mother

Along the Way… October 2015 Morning Walk – A Review

That was the morning of 4th of October 2015. We were awaiting to join the monthly walk. In the uncertain weather during hazy days, how did we feel that it was certain that we could carry on with the morning walk?

The Grace of Mother is always with us.  The haze which had reached a hazardous level of 190, the day before had reduced quite substantially.  Hence we could enjoy the morning walk mingling with Mother Nature and having conversations with our dear ones.

The walk was arranged at gardens By the Bay. We all gathered dot on time and with no surprise to all of us, Kashyap uncle was there at sharp 8 AM as usual. The commencement of the walk was thus by walk the talk.

The weather was pleasant, just bringing the right mood for a good morning walk on a leisurely Sunday.
As we started off, I saw a board describing about the 12 characters of the Chinese Zodiac. It was actually a race that was arranged by the Jade emperor. The rat came first after deceiving everybody and pig was the last. Was it just indicative about the rat race that we all humans have to undergo? There are always lessons learnt during the walk, direct or indirect. There is much to be taken during the walk.

The garden being adjacent to the Marina reservoir, we set off for the walk with the Super trees by the side and the sky walk above. Walking along the waterfront promenade we could see the Marina Bay financial district skyline. This month walk at the Gardens was through different shades of nature, with us enjoying the quaint stroll walking by the shrubs, palm trees, admiring flowers and the beautiful water promenade.

Different shades of nature, different people, different discussions, but all leading to the same ultimate goal. Mr Krishnamurthy was discussing about the 15th chapter of Shrimad Bhagavad-Gita and we enjoyed the walk, listening to him. I had another opportunity with Jared, discussing about how to understand Savitri that has immense meaning in it. It was really encouraging to listen form him how to uncover the hidden beauty of the meaning in Savitri.

We walked through the Heritage Garden. It is a collection of four themed gardens that reveals the history and culture of Singapore’s ethnic groups. Wondering the fantastic architecture of the two domes, viz. the Flower dome and the Cloud Forest, we also realised that exhibition of Chrysanthemum was going on in the flower dome. A wonderful thing about the Chrysanthemum is that, it is MOTHER’s flower. The word mum in Chrysanthemum stands for the flower of the mother and in some western countries, it is given to mother on Mother’s Day. How symbolic of the flower and our walk in this month! It would be quite unimaginable, but some of us just took the opportunity to peep into the flower dome and had a quick tour of the Chrysanthemum flower exhibition, which would normally take more than an hour. Everything is possible, if there is a strong will and all of us followed the time line strictly. This is the wonderful thing about the walk that I personally like.

After the walk, we had a warm welcome at Kashyap uncle’s house. A very distinctive thing about the walk, hosted by Kashyap uncle is the beautiful singing of Bhajans by the entire Kashyap family. This experience was enhanced by Kashyap uncle’s grandson, Amit who did a great job with his beat box. That was amazing. Another noticeable thing was the bhajan by Anand, who sang the bhajan despite him having to join for his concert at Esplanade the same evening. Kudos to Anand.
Afterwards we all joined---not for the brunch, but for a sumptuous lunch. A wonderful time was spent on a beautiful Sunday morning and we will all cherish the memories of those moments spent.


-          Kiran

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