What an Year it was 💕😇

I surpassed myself in my travels in 2019 😇

5 Continents

4 New Countries : Guatemala, Nepal, Canada and Turkey. All were so awesome and worth visiting again.

Such beautiful places, even more beautiful friends and so much of love from all around. Can’t thank God enough for all His grace 💕🙏💕

Wherever I find love that is my home 💕💕

LOS ANGELES: Peace Love Nature – December 2018 and January 2019

Ten days in LA were spent in the SRF Mother Center and three days at SRF retreat, Lake Shrine👇

18 Joyous days in the Country of Eternal Spring- Guatemala 💕💕👇

And my trip around the world was rounded up beautifully with 8 days in end January in Brisbane with my dear niece, Uma 💕🤗💕👇

After visiting North America, Central America and Australia in the beginning of the year; April found me in me beautiful neighbouring country – Nepal; with my beautiful niece, Sabrina and her loving family. Whole of Nepal is so scenic💕💕👇

And then back home on the beaches of Goa with my niece, Kankana and her son 💕🤗👇

The end of the year found me back again in North America, but this time on the East Coast. It has been a dream to watch the fall colours and I got so much more 💕💕👇

The last country to visit was Turkey. Visiting Istanbul had been in my wish list for almost 50 years 😊👇

Alien in the Web

I had visited Brisbane earlier this year. Everyday Uma, my niece, and I used to walk to the nearby Metro Station. One day we saw a passion fruit tree in the kitchen garden of a house on our way. It was such fun to be able to see the bud, the flower and the fruit on the same tree!! There is no end to the beauty and the wonders of nature! Another day we saw a small mango tree with rather big mangoes for its size!!

But the best experience was watching a spider web just outside our house. Both of us were admiring the spider and realized we were not looking at the same spider!! There was one at the top of the web and it was beautiful! Nothing like the spiders I have seen in India! But most amazing was the one, almost at the bottom of the web. It was a small thing (I still refuse to call it a spider!); not more than 1 cm tall! It had 4 limbs and a face and eyes!! I asked Uma couldn’t it be an alien? Some life form from some other dimension, from the outer space? She laughed it out 😂 Naturally 😇 But I still wonder?? I tried my best to take pictures of the web with the alien and the beautiful spider but couldn’t succeed. Was it due to insufficient light and limitation of my mobile camera or the alien web of secrecy?

Passion fruit pics on my iPhone

4 Months 4 Continents 💕

I have always been traveling a lot, but last year I had promised myself to travel to at least one new country and one new location in India every year. We are less than 4 months into the year and I have already been to 2 new countries and 4 continents 😊❤️🙏

Around the World with Love

Guatemala in Central America seems to be a little stronger economy than India but just like India in many ways. Beautiful. More of a developing country.

Los Angeles in North America – a dream city, very modern and well developed and affluent.

Brisbane, Australia- a beautiful and good paced city. Modern and affluent. Very livable.

Nepal in Asia – a beautiful country, lesser developed than India.

On the look of it there doesn’t seem any common ground in these 4 places around the world. Different levels of standards of living; different languages- English, Spanish and Nepalese; different food, different looks 😂😇

But as I wrote in one of my earlier blogs – people are essentially same all over the world. I had the good fortune to meet and live with amazing and loving people every where ❤️🙏❤️ and I loved all the countries. And though every country was so different Nature was beautiful everywhere. Different but divine ❤️

Love in Nepal😊❤️

NEPAL 🇳🇵

More of Love 💕 Brisbane 1

BRISBANE- AUSTRALIA 🇦🇺

Love in Los Angeles ❤️

LOS ANGELES- USA 🇺🇸

Love in Guatemala ❤️ – 1

GUATEMALA 🇬🇹

Another Divine ending – Brisbane 3❤️🙏

Like my Guatemala trip ended with a group meditation in the SRF center there, Brisbane trip too ended with an uplifting Sunday morning meditation at SRF Brookfield center. Love and Good Bye – Guatemala 14❤️An Indian family, Preeti Kotecha, have given part of their beautiful property to SRF, and that is where Uma and I landed up in the morning. The place is a little away from the Citi center and we took a cab to the place.

Am so glad we could make it to this beautiful center and meet some beautiful people. Guruji has indeed given us such a big, beautiful and loving family.

While coming back Uma suggested we take a bus, though Preeti had very graciously offered to drive us back. It being a Sunday there were very few bus services available. We had such a pleasant surprise when a lady stopped by to give us lift ❤️🙏 In fact she had slowed down and come towards the bus stop and then driven away. After five minutes she came back, thinking we might be stuck here for a long time ❤️❤️

Rest of my last day in Brisbane: a good lunch at a French Café; a movie and a just right cup of tea😊

Whole of my trip was so beautiful and enriching. And it was smooth and hassle free. I am so convinced that when we have God in our hearts and He is the first priority, everything else falls in place. All my cab rides, check in, security, flights …all were so smooth 🙏🙏

“Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things will be added unto thee”

Peace ❤️ Love 💕— SRF Lake Shrine Retreat💕🙏

Around the World with Love

Looking forward now to my next trip 😊

More of Love 💕 Brisbane 1

Guatemala and Brisbane are poles apart – culturally, way of life, lifestyle and what not 😎 But as I wrote in one of my earlier blogs Around the World with Love people, at their core are same all over❤️ If we have love in our hearts and expect nothing — the whole world is ours 💕

Had great time in this very liveable city of Australia. Thank you so much dear Uma, for all your love and just being what you are. It was such fun, sharing 8 days with you🤗 It wasn’t very easy for me, this long flight to Brisbane and going around the world 😝 but am so happy I did it.

All around the city and outside the city too – walking, buses, trains, trams and Uber😊, all kind of food — fast, Indian, Mexican, Japanese, continental, Thai, ice creams and pastries and Boost fresh juices 🥤😊

And beaches and hill tops and malls; just walking around the streets, the fireworks and the movies. Fun and love packed days. Admiring the sky and the gardens and the beautiful spider webs and passion fruit and mango trees. As good as it gets😊🙏

One big surprise was the completely different contours in the moon from what we see in the northern hemisphere and the sky appeared so close 😇

Every morning I used to get up and hear the chirping of the birds from the garden next to my window❤️

Shorncliff Pier ❤️

Pancake Café💕😋

God is Love

“Wherever we have friends that’s your country, and wherever you receive love is your home”. Dalai Lama

 

It is so true.

Had realised it and lived it for years. But my recent trip to LA, Guatemala and Brisbane was so divine and so filled with love and care from everyone that this truth has now been irrevocably embedded in my heart.

 

God is Love

and

Love is all there is

❤️❤️❤️❤️

 

Around the World with Love 💕

It all started on that beautiful Sunday morning, the 14th of January 2018. Looking back, our meeting was divinely ordained.
I shouldn’t have been in Mumbai that day. And if yes, certainly not in Gordon House Hotel in South Mumbai.
And Clau and Blanca told me, when I met them in Guatemala a year later, that they too had made the change of the hotel at the last moment.
And again it was a coincidence, that we were at the same long table at the same time for our breakfast.

Clau is a shy young lady, not like the extrovert Blanca! And when we met, a year after our first contact in that boutique hotel in Mumbai, Clau told me that she had heard a voice in her head telling her to talk to me!! She had said hello and told me that I had very peaceful aura about me! And then she asked me what do I do? And I told her about our YSS (Yogoda Satsanga Society of India) cruise the previous evening, my Guru – Paramahansa Yogananda, and the Autobiography of a Yogi. And that was the beginning of a beautiful and loving friendship, which eventually led to my visiting Guatemala a year later.

First and last I had heard of Guatemala, before this, was in my childhood when I used to collect stamps, about 55 years ago!! I love traveling but visiting this country wasn’t even at the bottom of my wish list. It just wasn’t there! But it happened. And I am so glad that it did.

It was such a beautiful and enriching trip around the world. Pune->Mumbai->Los Angeles->Guatemala->Los Angeles-Brisbane->Mumbai->Pune. Three very long flights and a very long stop over in Auckland. Every place I visited and every person I met was so different from the other. Australia and Guatemala are poles apart! 180 degrees!! And Los Angeles another story of divine love and friendship altogether!! But this trip strengthened the world view I have had for many years now. And that is:

People, at the core of their hearts, are same all over the world. Everyone wants some love, some respect, some appreciation…..every one wants to be happy …..they have similar fears, worries and insecurities…… However different people may look and whatever language they may speak; and whatever may be their food habits and lifestyles; essentially they are all same.