Lectures in Delhi

This weekend there is another lecture series in Delhi. Friday evening is the open-to-public discourse on meditation and Kriya Yoga. Saturday and Sunday are two four-hour classes on beginning and intermediate meditation.

Friday morning I went to Swami's house again to meet with Lakshman. We installed the Vonage unit back into the network and made a few test calls. It all seems to work ok so far. Lakshman will try to test it as much as possible while I am still in Gurgaon. He also has an interesting setup for Swami where a cordless bluetooth-capable phone attaches to the phone switch in the house and via a special extension can get a dial tone in Nevada City through the Vonage unit. The bluetooth-capable phone links to Swamiji's hearing aid (which is also bluetooth capable) via another device called SmartLink which provides a bridge between the phone and the hearing aid and it also provides a microphone to speak into. This is quite an ingenious link of devices for Swami to be able to make and receive phone calls to/from America with highest possible quality and lowest possible cost, giving him the freedom to roam around the house with a cordless handset in his pocket (or on his desk) while talking on the phone.

Friday afternoon we hopped onto a Toyota SUV taxi with all the supplies needed for the weekend and headed over to the auditorium of the Delhi railroad museum where the Friday evening's discourse was going to be held. The location and facility was excellent especially compared to the facilities we had in Kolkata. We had many volunteers that made the preparations go very smoothly. Jaya, Dharmadas, Nirmala and Haridas were the acharyas present for the evening. My favorite part is the end of the talk where the audience is allowed to ask questions. Some ask the usual practical question such as "how long should I meditate?" and "what do I do with the noise?" etc, but you also hear much deeper and blunt questions such as "Can I experience the presence of God during meditation?" and "Do you feel the Kundalini rising during Kriya Yoga?", questions that we are not that used to hear in the U.S.