Gods and Goddesses of Nainital

The Nainital Lake side road witha view of Naini Lake May Naini Mata the goddess of Nainital bless you. May the blessings of the goddesses Nanda and Sunanda fill your journey through life with peace and happiness. May the guidance of Babaji ease your journey.

Every now and then I visit the various websites where my book – The Babaj Affair – has been listed by Amazon. Today when I looked up the amazon division in India I was delighted to find a lovely and brief review of the book from a reviewer by the name of RannBanka Rathod http://www.amazon.in/The-Babaji-Affair-Ashok-Malhotra/dp/149232955X That review is reproduced here: “The book by Ashok Malhotra has been quite refreshing among the many spiritual books out today. I was expecting a biography however got glued on to the book after I started reading it. It has a kind of optimism and spirituality coupled with a message as to how one should approach life. A must read for people who enjoy reading books about spirituality.” I would like to thank Mr. RannBanka Rathod for the review using his online name since I do not know his real one. A surprising coincidence was that the price of the book was set at 1008 rupees   by Amazon and the number 1008 is closely and intim...

Babaji Baba Hairdakhan, Babaji loved to care for and plant trees. He encouraged others to do the same. Himalayan mystics explain that human birth is precious. It is attained after millions of years of evolution when a soul evolves slowly from bacteria, animal and eventually to human form and beyond. As a human, the capabilities are far more than that of any other animal on planet earth. With this form, the human soul also had certain responsibilities that come with any advantages. It is the duty of humans to help the less evolved that include plants, animals and even other humans. It is an expression of  love for mother earth. Of the three virtues required for evolution – love, truth and simplicity, love is the foremost. If a human does not continue to evolve to still higher life forms, godly by our reckoning, there is danger of it slipping back into lower ones. At the present time, when human population has increased to an extent that plant life is sufferin...

Boat Club Nainital The Boat club is one of the central hubs of activity in Nainital. It features prominently in my book - The Babaji Affair. Here is a picture of it. It houses a dining hall and dance floor, a spacious patio by the lake, cards roon, wash rooms, another spacious bar where many key personalities of Nainital drop in from time to time for a chat and drink with others. One has to be properly dressed before one can enter the club. This includes a tie for men.You can easily spot tiny sail boats parked by the club with their colorful striped sails. As a child it was a hobby of mine to gaze at this lake and the sail boats from the living room window of our home on one of the lush green hills that surround this lake. For a panoramic view of the same picture and more on Nainital check out https://www.facebook.com/Nainital

  From breath to Breath From life to death Life is a room with six doors A life where the choice is yours Doors to doom and danger Lust, greed and anger Bright are the other three Love, truth and simplicity From the author of - The Babaji Affair

A view of Nainital and Naini Lake ( Photo by Jasdeep Sethi)    While everyone agrees that Nainital has become over congested and there is a need not just to stop new development but also relocate some of the existing one that is choking the hill sides, no concrete proposals are even being studied for it. Some promising areas for relocation are on the road to Bhowali or around Hanuman Garhi. However another very promising area is the location around Khurpa Tal. Geographically it is a very close to Nainital.  However, the existing road to it through the hills increases the distance considerably. What would be required is to connect both localities by the construction of a new road to it  involving a tunnel of about a quarter of kilometer length through the hill. The other side of the hill towards Khurpa Tal would then be a walking distance from the flats, the central location of Nainital. Presently much of the area around Khurpa Tal is used as farmlands. ...

There are some who believe that there is a mystic Babaji who is deathless and roams about in the Kumaon Himalayas hopping from hill to hill. Some even thought that Baba Haidakhan about whom there are several posts in this blog (see links to the left) is that deathless Baba. As regards that it is only the soul that is deathless, all physical bodies are transient, they are born and they die. Even the planets and the universe are transient. May I quote from another blogpost on this, "It is really very surprising how humans in this age of science and logic can believe, without the slightest shred of evidence, that there is a young Babaji who roams and hops about in the Kumaon hills and never dies! or for that matter a Lochness Monster or a Himalayan Yeti" http://ashokmalhotra.wordpress.com/2013/09/09/truth-about-yoga/

What Babaji of Nainital said. T he Himalayas have been a source of spiritual knowledge since ancient times. It has been the abode and/or origin of numerous saints, mystics, including the Great Buddha; and according to Hindu and Buddhist Mythology also of gods, goddesses and Bodhisattvas. Certainly if a location has to be chosen for that in the world it has to be The Himalayas as the Highest mountain chain of the world and also the most conducive to life and beauty. In 1970, a youthful saint of around twenty, called Baba Haidakhan or Babaji lovingly by his disciples appeared in the Nainital District of Himalayas. He died in 1984, even as he had said while he lived that the body is meaningless and transient but the soul lives on. While he lived, he lovingly and joyously demolished certain fallacies and myths about yoga that were spreading in the world. It was a time when there was a great interest in yoga in the west. Certain popular sects were propagating myths about yog...

 The Babaji Affair Hi, my new book - The Babaji Affair - has just been released by Amazon.com. Persons who find eastern mysticism and spirituality interesting are sure to love this book. The cover image is of me sitting in a boat in the middle of Naini Lake of Nainital. www.amazon.com/Babaji-Affair-Dr-Ashok-Malhotra/dp/149232955X/

Until a century ago, cannabis and its products were a legally and freely available in India. Presently it is an Illegal substance. This plant is indigenous to Himalayan region and its consumption has been common amongst hermits and mystics of the region since ancient times. Although it has been made illegal in many countries over the past century, it appears that it is less addictive than tobacco or alcohol and less likely to produce harm through improper use than alcohol. On the other hand when appropriate varieties of it are used properly this plant also has great medical benefits as well as meditative ones. Mystics have found it to be an aid in their meditative and spiritual pursuits. With the declaring of this plant as illegal, it lost its respectability around the world and was looked down at as a harmful drug. However, a recent documentary on CNN and the findings of Dr. Sanjay Gupta has gone a long way in restoring the respectability of Cannabis. It has either been leg...

There is much more on the Mother goddess in other posts of this blog for example here http://nainitalgoddess.blogspot.in/2012/11/sunanda-goddess.html The post contains a comprehensive view of the Mother Goddess as known in Asia, influenced by the spirituality of the Himalayas, the highest mountains in the world.

Badge of the House of Windsor Listen Hear ye Angels Sing A new Prince born today Blessed by the Himalayan peaks Nanda and Sunanda The Baby shall have a bonny weight Changa hoga Munda Of our dearest William and Kate Special births between July 20 and July 25 have a special significance to Himalayan districts blessed by the Himalayan peaks of Nanda and Sunanda as well as regions far away spiiritully connected to these districts.. UPDATE JULY 23: 2013  Just caught on the news that the prince with a bonny weight (eight and a half pounds) arrived to the world yesterday at 4.24  p. m.. Some may wonder why this blog announced the arrival of a Prince before the fact was known. It could have been a princess too but then an element of prophecy and revelation has always followed spirituality  like a shadow follows a man, and although some of this blog's content is not spiritual some is. May the New Prince be blessed.   Image courtsey: Wiki...

A view of Nainital A great Himalayan tragedy took place in the Uttarakhand Himalayas of India this summer when record rains and landslides caused widespread damage and deaths. Some environmentalists predict that due to man made climate change and exploitation of nature more such tragedies; more frequently are likely to take place in future. This is definitely time for all thinkers, scientists, environmentalists, administrators and politicians to sit back and reflect on the future of the Himalayas and come up with new plans and strategies to meet the challenges ahead. Towards this end this note is a humble contribution of the author a scientist and technologist himself with deep links to the Uttarakhand Himalayas to throw up some ideas for further debate and discussion, as included in this note: The Stream of Tourists : A major source of pressure to the Uttarakhand Himalayas is the ever increasing stream of tourists and pilgrims to the region. In the coming years,...

Kedarnath Temple E very year some damage takes place to the road and communication network in the Himalayas due to monsoon rains because of the nature of roads and infrastructure created on steep hillsides. The population of the area is used to it and geared for repairing the damage speedily. However, this year  rains have brought havoc and that too in June, around a month earlier than usual. The intense rains are something of a hundred year record. Numerous roads have been destroyed by landslides in the Himalayan province of Uttarakhand. The numerous streams and rivers that feed rivers that flow into plains of north India have overflowed, destroying bridges and washing riverside buildings into water. It appears that hundred of tourists, perhaps even thousands, locals and pilgrims, may have died (the count is not yet in).  Thousands are trapped at various locations without food or adequate shelter. This time the damage will not be repaired in days or weeks but t...

Currently it seems that a debate is on in USA if yoga is something religious or not. May I contribute my two cents to the debate seeing that there are articles by me on the net on yoga and for yoga teachers e.g. what is yoga, Entropy yoga and in this blog on Kriya Yoga? The simple and clear answer is that there are many different types of yoga. Some are religious and some are not. The one being advocated in the USA presently and by the Lady Obama and President Obama is not religious. It is a yoga that involves primarily physical exercises and/or breathing exercises and such yogas that may go by the name of hatha yoga, pranayama as well as numerous modern names are not religious. However a yoga that involves physical exercises that includes a posture called Surya Namaskar involves worshipping the sun and it is a religious yoga. The kriya yoga described in another post in this blog is a religious yoga but it is ecumenical and universal and does not belong to any specifi...

Ashok  Malhotra on a Boat in Nainital I changed my blogger profile image today to this one. It is me on a boat on Nainital Lake. What a wonderful place ( except in the midst of winter). The central cover image of this blog shows a much larger view of the lake snapped from top of a mountain that I reached by a rope way from near this lake.The boats show as tiny dots in that photo. I used to climb up this hill by foot even at the age of four as my mother used to say, our home was half way up, but now past sixty I run out of breath in doing that. I came down the hill on foot so as to enjoy the beautiful hill side full of pine and oak but even that was not fully comfortable because although one does not run out of breath down a hill the legs, lower calf muscles,  got jittery. On the way down a much- much older person was merrily walking down with the help of a stick . I guess he was in practice whereas I am not - spent far too long on the plains I am afraid, far more than nece...

Secret Nainital -The Jewel of Jewels in the Crown The author standing in front of Raj Bhavan, Nainital Here is a piece of the secret history of Nainital that is known only to a few Nainital insiders and is probably not published elsewhere ( except some of it in my novel - Nude besides the Lake ). During the British Colonial period, as the British Empire grew and expanded across the world, other European powers, especially Germany looked on with Jealousy at the increasing clout and prosperity of Great Britain and Ireland. Germany could never hope to duplicate the performance but there was something else it could do. It could win a war with Great Britain in Europe and thereby also become the ruler of the vast British Empire spread across the world. They felt they had a special right to it, especially since the British Royal family was of German origin beginning with Queen Victoria. Thus began secret plans and preparations in Germany for such a takeover but as with many...

    Simplicity Babaji, the famous mystical appearance of Nainital who spoke very little did speak of simplicity. This picture attempts to explain simplicity

Gifts of Love

I t was early eighties. I was then an Assistant Professor in Mechanical Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) at Delhi. I had rented an apartment a few kilometers away from IIT, at a place known as Masjid Moth (DDA Flats). There was accommodation on campus but with two infant daughters and a live in full time Nanny to boot, available accommodation on campus was a bit too compact for our needs. I lived in this apartment from approximately the middle of 1981 to the middle of 1984.  During this period I had an unusual spiritual encounter. I do not recall the exact date when the encounter took place but the incident itself is crystal clear in my mind. Babaji: Message from the Himalayas , by  Maria Gabriele Wosien , G. Reichel Verlag ( 1990), https://www.amazon.com/Babaji-Himalayas-Maria-Gabriele-Wosien/dp/3926388145/ At the time my wife with nanny and children were away. I was alone at home. It was morning, some time after breakfast ...