Leaving India today and on my way to Toronto, with a short stop in New Jersey. I had a wonderful time in Mysore this last week. It was great to see some old friends and reconnect. The last time I was here was in 2009. So many things are the same. Lots of familiar faces and familiar places. And lots of changes too.
Thank you to Anu and Ganesh for helping to organize my trip. It was so nice to eat at Anu’s Cafe again. Such good food! Gokulam is bigger now and has grown quite a lot. More buildings, more houses, more shops, more restaurants, more people, more cars, more noise. Prasad, who used to work at Santosha is now the owner. The “chocolate guy”, who we used to buy homemade chocolate from, now has a chocolate shop. The new Shala has become the old Shala. There’s more yogis now. More people in general. Some things have gotten much more expensive but some things are almost the exact same price they were 11 yrs ago. I even ran into some of my Chinese students too. There’s a lot of Chinese yoga students coming to Mysore now.
Yesterday, I got to spend the afternoon with Tracy and meet the kids at Operation Shanti. Some of you will remember the events I produced years ago and which some of you may have attended to raise money for Operation Shanti and the kids the orphanage supports. I intended to come and see the kids a long time ago. I didn’t think it would be 11 yrs! We raised almost $80,000 a few years ago for the orphanage, with 6 yoga events that I produced, and a whole bunch of people helped volunteer at and helped to organize. A lot of great teachers taught for free and I’m grateful to everyone who participated and helped contribute. And it was so great to see how much that money has supported the kids and to see the orphanage. $80,000 still goes a long way in India! There’s about 50 kids at the orphanage now. They all looked healthy and happy and seem to be thriving. They still need ongoing support too. So, if you want to make a contribution you can go to: operationshanti.org to make a donation. You can also volunteer at the orphanage if you are practicing in Mysore regularly.
