Shivratri-Haridwar- Maha Kumbh-2010

Wah! A cool and refreshing breeze started to blow in my heart at 3 am on 10th feb 2010 when I looked at the water flowing in Gangaji.I actually love Gangaji very much......every time when I enter Haridwar,I get mesmerised by magic of Ganga river.What a cool feeling comes in my heart then!

So this time we had satsang on 10th,11th and 12th feb morning in haridwar. It was Mahashivraatri on 12th feb.We were 6 people.2 Aunties,Kiran didi, Mummy, Bhaiya and me.but this time I had no companion of my age group.So, no friends...no masti.

We reached a dharamshala/small hotel in Haridwar at 3:30 am on 10th feb.We took rest and got up late to go to visit'Har ki Pauri'to take holy dip in pure Ganga-water..........Due to Mahakumbh arrangements by State government this year, whole Haridwar was looking neat and clean. As Mahakumbh is a special occasion, which comes after every 12 years on the same place, many visitors/ tourists visit from across the country and abroad to take punya/benefits of the holy dip in Gangaji. Hence, many newly made ghats built of white marbles, chips,red cement peices, etc and newly formed bridges were visible. Earlier, whenever, I had come to haridwar, it was in Summers..but now as winters were still there (February), we were scared of cool water of Gangaji.But once we entered in gangaji, we felt like taking dip again and again. Actually when I was coming back after taking 2 dips in Ganga-water, an unknown aunty  who was already in water caught me and said '' beta chal ab main nehlati hoon tujhe, dar mat, maine tera haath pakad liya hai ab gehre pani me ja.'' so then I went into deep water and enjoyed the cool water.

After taking holy dip, we went to our ashram by auto. We could take only the evening session of satsang as we were late that day. Sureshanand ji(pat-shishya of bapuji) was telling that it is more important to change our position than to change our place.(''sthan parivartan se jyada sthiti parivartan ka mahatva hai.'').He said''many people think that they will become happy if they  reach at some particular place and even reaching there, they again want to go somewhere else, but a man who can't become happy at the place where he is right now,cant become happy anywhere else. So most important thing is to change the internal position i.e.we should be happy and satisfied in our heart, then wherever we live it doesn't matter that much.....Then bapuji came and all the crowd became overwhelmed to see him .Actually newton's Third law of motion is applied everywhere in our life i.e. every action has an equal and opposite reaction. In the same way, if you love somebody,the other person will love you in the same amount....similarly if somebody loves you very much, ultimatelly you will also start loving him. Bapuji loves us all very much. That's why all of us love him too. He said in Satsang that "in this world, the most important thing is to do selfless service (paropkar or niswartha sewa).He continued, the one who has money should do sewa of poor and disable people by his money, the one who has power should do sewa of disabled people by his power and if you don't have anything, you must be compassionate for all i.e. to be happy in others' happiness and to feel the pain in others' misery .After satsang got over, we had dinner , and went to our room. I was missing my cousin sipi a lot as she used to be with me in every satsang when we were kids........and we used to do sewa in rishi-prasad stall. We used to convince people to take dharmik books like Rishi Prasad. we enjoyed so much in every satsang since I had taken deeksha in 1999.

Next day, on 11th bapuji told us the importance of doing vrata(fast) of 'shivaratri' .he also told that one should touch peepal tree on  Saturdays and should chant 'aum namah shivaya' mantra 108 times so as to get rid of unwanted sudden deaths ............In the evening, we went to ashram after having dinner at satsang place. Many people with their problems were going towards bapuji.........I also met my guruji that day for the first time. I felt internal satisfaction by meeting him though I was thinking that I should try my best to become a good shishya of bapuji i.e. to follow the path shown by bapuji.In every satsang, he says that we should think ourselves different from this body. we are components of that supreme power GOD.So everybody has internal power to do good.How much weak a man may seem but once he realizes the internal power of himself.........he can get success in every thing.We could reach late our room that day(at about 11:30pm) as we could not get any auto or any other vehicle at night.

Next day i.e on shivratri, we all got up at 4 o'clock or may be before that to go to Har ki Pauri on time. We knew that there might be so much crowd on roads......but oh my god! every where there was police to control the crowd.They were hampering our way everywhere,some of them were saying us that they have to follow the orders so they had to hamper the way in most of the routes.At last after so much of struggle we reached har ki pauri and took bath but even there I saw a police man was scolding people not to take dips in gangaji for too long.Then we took the auto and went to 'satsang place'. It was the morning session of satsang today and as bapuji came out in the shivji's outfits and a trishul, we became stunned by his holy charm as if lord shiva was right in front of us . We became overwhelmingly happy.On the day of shivratri, we were supposed to say bam-bam-bam-bam whole of the day as it is good for our health. Bapuji told that 'bam' is the beej-mantra for shivji and has positive effects on our body, for especially those, who have problem in their joints(knees, ankles) due to 'vaat-dosh'. So, after attending satsang we started saying bam-bam-bam-bam. We wanted to take auto for our dharamshala, but autos were not allowed for long routes due to security reasons. So we decided to go on foot. In the way, we saw many teerth-yaatrees.they were from different states, from different countries. Actually this maha kubh comes after every 12 years, when sun transits on 'mesh rashi' and jupiter transits on 'kumbh-rashi'.On mahashivratri many saadhoos of different 'akhaaraas' come to har ki pauri to take 'shahi- snaan' with dhol-nagadas' playing at that moment of shahi snaan. Haridwar was dacorated like a bride on this occassion.

We first went to 'shanti-kunj' which was on the way... there were beautiful gardens everywhere. Trees of different varieties had been planted there systematically with their name plates on the trees......I found peace in that ashram's atmosphere.This shanti kunj is late aacharya Shri Ram Sharma ji's ashram. It was so beautiful and peaceful that I want to go there again......even all temples and ashrams of haridwar are appreciable........but we couldn't go every where due to lack of time and energy(we had fast and autos were not available because of tight arrangements of police department)...............but if I had my own vehicle I would have certainly gone to most of the temples and ashrams in haridwar..any ways.....

 then we went to a shiv mandir where there were 'Paarad shivling and 'sphatik-shivling'. We did pooja in the peaceful atmosphere of that temple and meditated too. After that, we returned to our room.

  Our train timing was 12:30 at night.So we left dharamshala at 10pm. Oh my god!! I was really shocked to see the lonely roads............It was looking like a curfew in city. We all were now 9 people including Mummy Papa. We stopped near a roundabout to take an auto but no auto was stopping as policemen were standing there. So, we walked and after waiting for 15 minutes we got two autos. On the way, auto-driver was abusing police men. He said ''arey ye kumbh aam admi ke liye thodi hai, ye to bas baba logo ke liye hai. Aam aadmi ke liye to bas pareshani hi pareshani hai''. I was thinking that the arrangement should not be in such a way so as to give trouble to common man.I thought that to control crowd and traffice, flyovers and bypass roads must be there in Haridwar. Other times also, whenever I had visited Haridwar, I had seen very much crowd on roads and traffic jams is a very commen thing for people residing in Haridwar. Certainly, Uttarakhad Govt. gets good revenue by tourism in haridwar, so I think, more routes and flyovers should be constructed there. Anyways..

We took train at 12:45 am of 13th February. Leaving Gangaji is not a good experience to share......I don't feel good while leaving Haridwar. We reached Haldwani at 6am. Old news-papers had been thrown by hawker since we were out of station. We read in news papers that some convicts with 'gola- baarood' had been caught by police. Police had expressed doubt that there might be a plan for a bomb blast in "Kumbh-Haridwar"......Only then I came to know the reason of checking and restrictions at every route of Haridwar.I reminded of the words of a police-man, "This is for your own safety sir, So please don't mind." Let us not think about the problems and let's remember the happy moments. Memories of Gangaji always give that cool feeling at heart, which I can't describe in words and the memories of bapuji give us internal power.