Break from HDF

[Eastern Mind]

Vannakkam: My wife and I have been living on the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius since December 1. It has been a retreat. The first month was getting accustomed, the second month was intense religious stuff, and now we're more or less on holidays, relaxing, having fun, so I decided I'd start posting again. Mentally, we're back home already, as its just over a week until we go home to Canada.

Mauritius is an amazing place for Hindus. Only 1.3 million people, but the majority is Hindu. Tons of bhakti, lots of temples, (The Tamil Temple Federation has 160 member temples, and Tamils are outnumbered by North Indian style Hindus about 3 to 1.) friendly people, great weather, beautiful beaches. On Shivaratri, the sacred lake in the middle of the island draws around 400 000 people, almost a third of the island. So for someone in the west looking for a retreat place, I would highly recommend it. It's the fastest growing economy in Africa, so unlike India, its got lots of western style stuff like malls and Walmart like stores - a mix of east and west.

More later.

Aum namasivaya

[truth_seeker]

Well, I'm glad you enjoyed living on my native island. The lake you refer to is Grand Bassin, alias Ganga Talab, or Talao - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ganga_Talao.

The Wiki entry does no justice to the magnificence of the sacred spot, and that's a gross understatement, but it does convey some vague idea about it to people who know nothing about the place. It's actually geographically located in south central Mauritius, not quite near the centre of the country, as you mention. There are about 4 times as many north Indian Hindus than there are Tamils in Mauritius, with, additionally, small but still demographically significant Telugu and Marathi minorities. There are also Gujaratis and Punjabis, in yet smaller numbers.

As for the 'northerners,' they do not constitute a monolithic bloc either, since their forebears hailed from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Bengal, and to a nigh-negligible extent, even Odisha. I myself am of mixed UPite, Bihari and Bengali heritage.

On the whole, Mauritius is substantially more Westernised and liberal than most parts of India, and there are indeed shopping malls and supermarkets galore, but that's not too much at variance with the situation in the large Indian cities. Modern shopping centres (often considerably larger than the ones in Mauritius) are aplenty in the Indian metropolises, and in several Tier-II and Tier-III cities as well.

Anyway, I fully concur that the island is pretty convenient if you're Hindu. The comparatively high sanitary and low pollution levels (not that Mauritius doesn't have areas that could certainly do with better environmental controls, then again, it reputedly has the best air quality in all of Africa) and pleasantly temperate climate also render visits to temples and other types of shrines less physically challenging than it sometimes can be in the subcontinent.

[Viraja]

Welcome back EMji! :)

I have watched in Indian TV, a show on Hinduism in Mauritius and how they celebrate Shivaratri around the lake considered to be Ganga. So many people participate! I watched a lot of people pulling what seemed like chariots having idol of Shiva in them and walk a very long distance from their homes to the lake. Very grand indeed! Glad to hear you had a wonderful time there.

[Eastern Mind]

Welcome back EMji! :)

I have watched in Indian TV, a show on Hinduism in Mauritius and how they celebrate Shivaratri around the lake considered to be Ganga. So many people participate! I watched a lot of people pulling what seemed like chariots having idol of Shiva in them and walk a very long distance from their homes to the lake. Very grand indeed! Glad to hear you had a wonderful time there.

Vannakkam: I know very little really. You don't learn that much in 3 months. But yes, I've been to the lake and heard that many devotees carry kanwars from great distances, just to get a bit of water, and return home with it. Sivaratri is probably a 3 day festival over time. Thai Pusam is a 10 day festival. So there is a lot of devotion in the people, from at least the little bit I've seen, as an 'outsider'.

Aum Namasivaya

[Believer]

Namaste EM,

Welcome back to the forum.

Your post should have ended with, 'Live from Mauritius, this is EM reporting'! :)

Pranam.

[philosoraptor]

sounds like an interesting place to consider retiring in.

I would retire in India, but the government is just too anti-Hindu.... :-)

[Eastern Mind]

Namaste EM,

Welcome back to the forum.

Your post should have ended with, 'Live from Mauritius, this is EM reporting'! :)

Pranam.


Vannakkam ... exactly 12 hour time difference from here to there on the west coast of US. But not many people get here. It's well, kinda out of the way. Our flight home will take 30 hours, of which 23 are airborne.

Aum Namasivaya

[Believer]

Namaste,

I would retire in India, but the government is just too anti-Hindu.... :-)
The pro-Xitian Govt. in the US is better than the 'just too anti-Hindu' Govt. in India? ;)


Our flight home will take 30 hours.

30 is your lucky number.

After the 30 hour flight you will have to dig through 30 feet deep snow on your 30 feet long driveway to get to the front entrance of your house in -30 deg weather. :) And it will take you exactly 30 days to get over the fatigue from all this activity!

Pranam.

[satay]

now now...if you keep this anti india talk going here some heads will roll...
BTW there is so much snow around my house that I have no place to put it anymore can I send to Edmonton?

[Believer]

Namaste,

there is so much snow around my house that I have no place to put it anymore
If I were you, I would double up the size of my house (for the winter months), by making some extra bedrooms with the snow. :)

Pranam.

[Eastern Mind]

sounds like an interesting place to consider retiring in.

I would retire in India, but the government is just too anti-Hindu.... :-)

Vannakkam: Indeed Mauritius is, and people do it. It's very French, and there are a lot of elderly French here, in certain towns, built for tourism. The government is pro-Hindu. There fund arts like carnatic singing, use the little army to help reconstruct temples, (and other religions buildings, too, too) move stone deities, and more.

I'm not really sure of the moving laws. The visa limit is 6 months, but I'm quite sure you can apply to move as well. I'd consider it if it wasn't for family back home.

Aum Namasivaya

[Eastern Mind]

30 is your lucky number.

After the 30 hour flight you will have to dig through 30 feet deep snow on your 30 feet long driveway to get to the front entrance of your house in -30 deg weather. :) And it will take you exactly 30 days to get over the fatigue from all this activity!

Pranam.

Vannakkam: Thanks for cheering me up. It's +30 here today, I can live on 30 bucks a day, I feel like a 30 year old compared to the old French tourists, I got a haircut for 30 rupees, I've been to 30 temples, etc.

Aum Namasivaya

[Eastern Mind]

Well, I'm glad you enjoyed living on my native island. The lake you refer to is Grand Bassin, alias Ganga Talab, or Talao - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ganga_Talao.

The Wiki entry does no justice to the magnificence of the sacred spot, and that's a gross understatement, but it does convey some vague idea about it to people who know nothing about the place. It's actually geographically located in south central Mauritius, not quite near the centre of the country, as you mention. There are about 4 times as many north Indian Hindus than there are Tamils in Mauritius, with, additionally, small but still demographically significant Telugu and Marathi minorities. There are also Gujaratis and Punjabis, in yet smaller numbers.

As for the 'northerners,' they do not constitute a monolithic bloc either, since their forebears hailed from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Bengal, and to a nigh-negligible extent, even Odisha. I myself am of mixed UPite, Bihari and Bengali heritage.

On the whole, Mauritius is substantially more Westernised and liberal than most parts of India, and there are indeed shopping malls and supermarkets galore, but that's not too much at variance with the situation in the large Indian cities. Modern shopping centres (often considerably larger than the ones in Mauritius) are aplenty in the Indian metropolises, and in several Tier-II and Tier-III cities as well.

Anyway, I fully concur that the island is pretty convenient if you're Hindu. The comparatively high sanitary and low pollution levels (not that Mauritius doesn't have areas that could certainly do with better environmental controls, then again, it reputedly has the best air quality in all of Africa) and pleasantly temperate climate also render visits to temples and other types of shrines less physically challenging than it sometimes can be in the subcontinent.

Vannakkam: Glad to see a Mauritian on here, even if you're an expatriate. Obviously, you will know 100 times more than me about the place. Three months is nothing compared to a lifetime. :) My 'centre' here was the Spiritual Park at Pointe de Lascar. The monthly homa on the first of the month draws around 10 000 people, but on other days its very quiet. Great place to meditate.

Aum Namasivaya

[truth_seeker]

Vannakkam: Glad to see a Mauritian on here, even if you're an expatriate. Obviously, you will know 100 times more than me about the place. Three months is nothing compared to a lifetime. :) My 'centre' here was the Spiritual Park at Pointe de Lascar. The monthly homa on the first of the month draws around 10 000 people, but on other days its very quiet. Great place to meditate.

Aum Namasivaya

Namaste Eastern Mind, I'm no expat, but very much in Mauritius. I've been to the Pointe des Lascars spiritual park - wonderful place indeed. Come to think of it, I ought to pay another visit there sometime soon. There's also a retreat in Beau Climat, not that far from Ganga Talao in fact, that is run mainly by Telugu-speaking Mauritian Hindus. The main deity there is Rajarajeshvari, although there are also charming murtis of Sri Venkateshvara, Hanuman, Veda-mata Gayatri, Ganesh, etc, with a Nava-graha mandala being also present. Moreover, the retreat boasts the largest Shiva-linga on the island; it's right next to a stream that runs through the compound, and you also have a Ganga-devi representation that's on a concrete platform in the stream itself. I don't know if you've been there, but it's well worth the while.

[Eastern Mind]

Namaste Eastern Mind, I'm no expat, but very much in Mauritius. I've been to the Pointe des Lascars spiritual park - wonderful place indeed. Come to think of it, I ought to pay another visit there sometime soon. There's also a retreat in Beau Climat, not that far from Ganga Talao in fact, that is run mainly by Telugu-speaking Mauritian Hindus. The main deity there is Rajarajeshvari, although there are also charming murtis of Sri Venkateshvara, Hanuman, Veda-mata Gayatri, Ganesh, etc, with a Nava-graha mandala being also present. Moreover, the retreat boasts the largest Shiva-linga on the island; it's right next to a stream that runs through the compound, and you also have a Ganga-devi representation that's on a concrete platform in the stream itself. I don't know if you've been there, but it's well worth the while.

Vannakkam: I rent a car about once a week, but up there in the central plateau, I tend to drive in circles, curves, and into dead-ends, at least until I can tell the direction by the sun going down. My subconscious is used to 56 degrees north, not 20 S. It's very confusing (for me). It's the opposite side of the road than I'm used to. I'm okay in the north as we stayed in Pereybere, and usually bussed across to Pointe de Lascar, so you get used to the roads that way. Several friends have taken us on tours, so we've seen most of it, but not the place you just talked about. Probably not now either, as we're pretty busy. But if there ever is a next time... we tried to live like the locals, but Pereybere was a great choice.

Regarding Hinduism, Mauritius is very unique, nowhere else quite like it that's for sure.

Five national holidays based on Hinduism, for example, but festivals like Govinden, Shivaratri, and Thai Pusam that just aren't celebrated elsewhere like they are here. But the people all seem to have a lot of mutual respect for each other, and basically live in harmony, at least from the limited bit I've seen. You're a lucky man. Whenever anyone I meet asks about moving to Canada, I just say, "No, No." :) But there is always the curiousity factor.

Aum Namasivaya

[truth_seeker]

Vannakkam: I rent a car about once a week, but up there in the central plateau, I tend to drive in circles, curves, and into dead-ends, at least until I can tell the direction by the sun going down. My subconscious is used to 56 degrees north, not 20 S. It's very confusing (for me). It's the opposite side of the road than I'm used to. I'm okay in the north as we stayed in Pereybere, and usually bussed across to Pointe de Lascar, so you get used to the roads that way. Several friends have taken us on tours, so we've seen most of it, but not the place you just talked about. Probably not now either, as we're pretty busy. But if there ever is a next time... we tried to live like the locals, but Pereybere was a great choice.

Regarding Hinduism, Mauritius is very unique, nowhere else quite like it that's for sure.

Five national holidays based on Hinduism, for example, but festivals like Govinden, Shivaratri, and Thai Pusam that just aren't celebrated elsewhere like they are here. But the people all seem to have a lot of mutual respect for each other, and basically live in harmony, at least from the limited bit I've seen. You're a lucky man. Whenever anyone I meet asks about moving to Canada, I just say, "No, No." :) But there is always the curiousity factor.

Aum Namasivaya

Well, make the most of the rest of your stay, and if there's anything specific you'd like to know about, please do not hesitate to buzz me.

Aum Namah Sivaya

[Believer]

Namaste Satay,

BTW there is so much snow around my house that I have no place to put it anymore can I send to Edmonton?

Here is your motivation for using all the snow around your house.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzCd4pmIDGI

Pranam.

[Amrut]

Hello EM, Nice to see you back in action :)

I hope now you must have settled down and like your new home.

Vannakkam

Indiaspirituality

[devotee]

Namaste EM,


Vannakkam: My wife and I have been living on the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius since December 1. It has been a retreat. The first month was getting accustomed, the second month was intense religious stuff, and now we're more or less on holidays, relaxing, having fun, so I decided I'd start posting again. Mentally, we're back home already, as its just over a week until we go home to Canada.

Mauritius is an amazing place for Hindus. Only 1.3 million people, but the majority is Hindu. Tons of bhakti, lots of temples, (The Tamil Temple Federation has 160 member temples, and Tamils are outnumbered by North Indian style Hindus about 3 to 1.) friendly people, great weather, beautiful beaches. On Shivaratri, the sacred lake in the middle of the island draws around 400 000 people, almost a third of the island. So for someone in the west looking for a retreat place, I would highly recommend it. It's the fastest growing economy in Africa, so unlike India, its got lots of western style stuff like malls and Walmart like stores - a mix of east and west.


It is nice to hear from you your Mauritius visit. It must have been spiritually uplifting and refreshing.

OM

[Eastern Mind]

Namaste EM,

It is nice to hear from you your Mauritius visit. It must have been spiritually uplifting and refreshing.

OM

Vannakkam Devotee: Well, Hinduism is Hinduism, wherever you go, at least in the philosophical sense. Cultural Hinduism, OTOH, varies widely. Here culture is influenced widely by the French. So everyone eats French bread. French bread with curry inside, like a curry sandwich. The greeting is French as well, a bit too close for my personal comfort. The everyday language is unique Creole, Mauritian Creole, a mix of French and mostly native tongues form Madagascar I think. So its been a nice retreat, yes. Lots of time for reflective practises, as well as satsangs, and temple visits. I already knew a lot of people from here because my first visit was in 1986.

Aum Namasivaya

[Eastern Mind]

Hello EM, Nice to see you back in action :)

I hope now you must have settled down and like your new home.

Vannakkam

Indiaspirituality

Vannakkam: Three months is an odd amount of time. Just when you do start feeling at home, you have to pack your bags and go back. :)

Aum Namasivaya

[ShivaFan]

Namaste Eastern Mind

Mauritius sounds so exciting as a destination! My sister-in-law has been there, I will have to ask her for more information since my wife is now interested in visiting. I like what I read in this posting, what a wonderful place for a Hindu to go on a vacation (except for the Walmart – just joking, maybe).

I started searching for images on the internet for Mauritius, and I found a lot of images of wonderful temples. And I found this interesting image of Muruga. What a fantastic Murti! – see:

http://cuddapahswami.org/images/photos_2009/mauritius-dharmashala02.jpg

My wife was telling me about the beautiful temples and beaches as well that her sister has talked about in Mauritius. I would really love to go! Your post is inspiring. I will guess, that there are lots of interesting foods such as an array of fruits and fruit drinks, and all sorts of options for Indian foods (obviously). As far as the temples, I wonder if “Western Hindus” are excluded from entry from some, if one cannot flash the “paper work” (viz proving Hindu)?

You are very blessed, always visiting and becoming totally “one” with so many Hindu destinations!

Om Namah Sivaya

[Eastern Mind]

Vannakkam ShivaFan: I wish I could post pictures, but there is either a glich in my computer, or a glich in my head. That murthi is the Shanmuka (six-faced) Muruga at the Spiritual Park I go to. I've spent a lot of time siting with Him. But by far the best (largest) 'murthy' is the one of Siva at Grand Bassin. It's very tall, like the Muruga at Batu caves, towering over the landscape. Will try to find a link. http://images.search.yahoo.com/images/view;_ylt=A0PDoYAUJihReDMAgquJzbkF;_ylu=X3oDMTBlMTQ4cGxyBHNlYwNzcgRzbGsDaW1n?back=http%3A%2F%2Fimage s.search.yahoo.com%2Fsearch%2Fimages%3Fp%3DGrand%2BBassin%2BShiva%2Bstatue%26fr%3Dmoz35%26fr2%3Dpiv-web%26tab%3Dorganic%26ri%3D83&w=1024&h=768&imgurl=www.holidaycheck.com%2Fdata%2Furlaubsbilder%2Fimages%2F20%2F1158093584.jpg&rurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.holidaycheck.com%2Ffullscreen-Hindu%2BTemples%2BGrand%2BBassin%2BShiva%2BStatue-ch_ub-id_1158093584.html&size=284.7+KB&name=...+temples%2C+etc.%29+%3A%3A+Picture+of+Mauritius+-+photo+Charly+-+%3Cb%3EShiva%3C%2Fb%3E-%3Cb%3EStatue%3C%2Fb%3E&p=Grand+Bassin+Shiva+statue&oid=f66a16f7c004a0f84257a94fb55a3ace&fr2=piv-web&fr=moz35&tt=...%2Btemples%252C%2Betc.%2529%2B%253A%253A%2BPicture%2Bof%2BMauritius%2B-%2Bphoto%2BCharly%2B-%2B%253Cb%253EShiva%253C%252Fb%253E-%253Cb%253EStatue%253C%252Fb%253E&b=61&ni=96&no=83&ts=&tab=organic&sigr=137lc4o6n&sigb=13f5nvnbu&sigi=120j0k5ki&.crumb=DAC1jYo8Lwu

But if you ever get serious, PM me and I can provide contacts, and make a few suggestions about accommodation, etc. Mauritius has luxury tourism, and some hotels can run you $1200 US a night.

Aum Namasivaya

[Eastern Mind]

Vannakkam: We went here ... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwSD_Tcqyxo once or twice a week. Nothing much like this in North America.

And went to this temple a lot .. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nEFc6udFYk (This is a beautiful video of kavadi in Mauritius ... brings back memories.)

Aum Namasivaya