It is one year ago this weekend, whilst in the cave on a full moon night, Jamanagiri, my friend the Swami on the Hill, let go of his ageing body. In the Hindu tradition, there are 4 stages of life. There is the period from birth to twenty when you’re a student, when you’re learning. Then there is the time from twenty to forty, when you’re a householder; you make the money that supports the whole system. Next is the stage from forty to sixty, when you do your religious studies

Every Saturday morning, I would kick start my Hero Honda from where I was living in the town of Mysore and weave my way around sleepy cows and open-air buses to the base of Chamundi Hill, stopping along the way to have a hot chai and purchase 2 meters of freshly threaded marigold garlands for the Swami who lived in the cave halfway up the hill. Chamundi Hill stands alone over the flat plains of South India, and for thousands of years, has been a popular pilgrim site for Hindu

Spring is truly upon us, and it’s always at this time of year that I look forward to my annual 10-day juice cleanse. I was once told by American alternative health food advocate Paul Bragg that for optimum health, one should do a 1-day fast once a week, a 3-day fast once a month, and a 10-day fast once a year. That has always stayed with me. My first Introduction to fasting was during one of my early trips to India. I asked my teacher ‘should I fast?’. ‘Yes’, he said. ‘For ho

“May your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears.” Nelson Mandela Our morning sessions at the Simla Ashram began at 6am sharp with daily chanting, sending out peace vibrations to all the troubled places in the world. Ironically, at this time the Indian army was sent in to flush out Sikh extremists from the Golden Temple complex in Amritsar. Across India all foreign tourists where requested to report to the nearest police station and conduct a clearance check. My partner a