Hi, If you are just now joining my journey, take some time and read the previous 8 blogs in this series from my third trip to India.  I hope you will enjoy and share them with your friends, and thanks for reading.

It was 4AM when my roommate woke up and got ready to leave for meditation. I was still trying to go to sleep for the first time that night.  At 5:30, after hearing the chai call, I gave up my idea of sleep and walked to the main building for a cup of chai. I had not slept the entire night. This went on for a couple of days.  I felt half asleep, or maybe half awake, but it was easy to see how this place, and I really had no agenda of expectations when I came here, could and would change you. It was something in the air, something in the land, everyone else seemed to feel it too.

By the third morning, I was finally catching an hour or two of sleep, but still hearing my roommate get up at 4:30AM. I decided if you can’t beat them, join them, the ranks of the early risers and get up.  I grabbed my notebook of prayers, a pen and my camera and went to the roof of the guest house. From there I could see the Shrine in the distance.

You could see the main building and the blue lights coming from the kitchen. Still not sure why sometimes they looked blue. The cooks were in preparing the chai, but I passed on it this morning. Sitting up on the roof I felt as if I was sneaking a peek at the world waking up and it was marvelous!

It was so quiet, so still. There was so much peace I almost felt guilty that I was getting to experience this wonder.

At 6AM I heard Panditji leading morning prayers. It sounded like the hills were chanting back to him, then I realized hisvoice was echoing off of them. It was so beautiful. The prayers lasted about 10 minutes. I picked up my pen and notebook, found a clean sheet and wrote this:

Magical Khajuraho

Where mountains sing mantras and prayers

Where all paths lead to Mother Divine

Where people seem to float instead of walk

Where nature is

Where birds sing endlessly, and stars illuminate

Where the trees and insects and lizards seem to be fully grateful to be part of this magic.

And magic it is

Pilgrims first met seem like old friends

And pilgrims well-known are family

All things on their own personal journey

Where time takes its time

The sun rises without hurry as if to give you one more moment to live in this morning

Where you can say “Hello” to God and feel her presence

I am grateful for this moment

A content state like nothing I have felt

No distraction to a journey within and without

What lies beyond the trees

What can be seen by the hills

Are the birds so happy they know nothing but to sing

On this roof I sit

Almost unable to write

Do I know words to describe

Do I understand these feelings

Absorb, absorb, absorb

The next morning, as if expecting a repeat performance to yesterday’s morning, I returned to the roof. After listening to prayers, I continued to sit, just taking it all in. Then in the far distance I began to hear voices.  I just sat there are listened. Again my hand took my pen and I opened my notebook. This is what came from that.

And The Little Girls Sing

I hear voices in the distance

The hills are singing again this morning

Not so tuned, not so together

Girls, I think, are playing around

But soon mantra arises from their voices

That sing song meter that Ishan speaks of

I hear voices in the distance

On a road do they walk?

These girls of the valley, futures unknown

Girls, I think, have come together

Maybe a school or a family it doesn’t matter

The songs that they sing, is my gift from The Mother

I hear voices in the distance

Echoing off the tree-laced hills

Now so tuned-in like perfect amrit

Girls of the valley, Mother Divine has delivered

Sweet, joyous voices so clearly directed

And these little girls sing and open the morning.

As the sun continued to come up. I kept writing. As if my hand was moving but not by me.

I wrote many poems that morning and the mornings that followed. And I wondered what this was? I have never written poems before, and granted they won’t win any awards, but that was not the point, something in me was changing, something in me had found its way out and onto that paper. Now I believed what Panditji said when he said when you come to Khajuraho, you will be changed. And I knew that I would always remember these mornings, full of grace, defining grace.

Absorb, Absorb, Absorb