Places impact you for a variety of reasons. And the same place impacts different people in different ways. This is especially true when it comes to spiritual experiences, where every single person’s experience is unique. And personally, every spiritual experience is unique, the same person can have different deeply spiritual experiences at different places, at different times. This thought has emerged because of my own experiences over the years, but especially so this year, with different and unique experiences at various places I have visited recently. I began this year with a visit to Baroda (Vadodara) with friends. It was meant to be a relaxed trip, a touristy trip, with our sons. We enjoyed ourselves to the hilt, but the highlight of that trip was a visit to the Lakulisha temple at Pavagadh. It was the iconography of the temple that I connected with, and I spent a few hours simply lost in the details of the figures carved around the temple. There was an indefinable connect with
We were returning from school and stopped by our compound wall to look at snails (as usual), trying to see if all of them were still around, when we spotted what we first took to be a rope, and only later realised was a snake! Both of us looked on, fascinated by the slithering creature which wove its way in and out of the holes in the wall, looking for God alone knows what! I realised that I had left my camera at home, and rushed up to bring it, wondering if it would still be around when I returned! It seemed to be a patient creature, for it was still around, and I did manage to get a couple of snaps, though not too good ones..... but at least now I have evidence that I have actually seen a snake in my yard!!! It seems to be pure luck that I managed to get the entire snake in the frame for the very first pic.... Can you see its head and its tail?? and how it has managed to get in and out of the holes?? Here's a closer look at its head...... along with a lizard too... which hogs