Sadhana retreat in a German forest

Diary of a spiritual journey 16
May 31, 2007

The art of transforming a german forest in to the spiritual world

We stayed in a sportcentre at the edge of a forest. The devotees transformed the place in to a temple and many of the grhasta devotees had brought their Deities along, so we had Jagannatha on the altar three layers deep and also Gaura Nitai were present several times, all together we had 17 Deities.

Transcendental Relaxation

It was nice long weekend with about forty devotees in the German forest near Leipzig. We walked up a steep hill- a little tapasya- and then on the top found a nice lake surrounded by rocky slopes. We had an outdoor guru puja for Srila Prabhupada there with long bhajans, then a swim in the bright blue lake, followed by prasadam which the devotees had brought there by van.

Krishna went to the Forest

Everyday Krsna goes to the forest and performs pastimes there with the cowherdboys. We went with all the 17 different Deities, the devotees build forest temples for them and swings and also performed a drama for Their pleasure. Devotees made flower or leave garlands others did an abhiseka, one devotee, who received the name Dvarkadisa dasa got initiation in the middle of all that. The play was all about cowherdboys playing with Krsna Balarama in the forest and finally Pralambasura joined them and eventually was killed by Balarama.

Krsna appeared to be enjoying the fun

And maybe the devotees even more. We lost all sense of time and before we knew it more than half the day was gone. We sang, we worshipped, we laughed at the play and had more prasadam in the forest.

Workshop

In the late afternoon we got together for a workshop, we divided up in groups. One group was supposed to build a house of spiritual life and then give a dramatic explanation of it. A second group focused on japa from the perspectives of what we want to-, what we must- and what we can do, again with a play. Meanwhile the brahmacaris had come together and prepared a message to the world. It was a powerful play about....M A Y A...! The we had a debate whether Krsna consciousness contains everything we need or that we can also benefit from and integrate many things from outside.

Early to bed, early to rise

Since especially the early mornings are the best for practicing sadhana, we didn't make the evening programs very late and most devotees were rising early. Everyone got up for Mangala Arati and some got up at 2 o'clock. Over a whole we really had a nice time.

Photoshop changed the name of the house from "Sportheim Rohdelbahn" to "ISKCON Rohdelbahn", it would have been nice to just keep the place and keep the devotees and just stay there in our little forest temple.