Swami Tripurari was recently invited to Bhaktivana, a small farm outside of Lawrence, Kansas, to share his insights with local devotees as well as yoga students attending a teacher training course. Bhaktivana is located on forty acres of land purchased fifteen years ago by two families who have been farming, maintaining cows, and doing some outreach with the help of others. One of the original residents, Gopimata, is a yoga teacher and hosted a teacher training workshop that Swami spoke at over the weekend of July 14th and 15th.
Upon arrival at Bhaktivana, Swami was greeted by three devotees from Rupanuga Vedic College in Kansas City. Swami was happy to meet with them and gave an informal discourse on the fortune of devotee association and the value of the serving tendency. Swami then toured the land, meeting the devotees who live on the farm and the four beautiful cows. The three Brown Swiss cows of Bhaktivana are the polar opposite in size of what Swami is used to with his herd of miniature Zebu cows in Northern California. The two oxen stand about six feet tall and have beautiful long horns. Swami toured the barn, the gardens, the beehives, the yoga studio, and the residences, and then enjoyed kirtan and prasad with the devotees.
Swami gave two classes at Bhaktivana, clarifying the understanding of anadi-karma in reference to the ongoing discussions of the subject on harmonist.us. The yoga immersion weekend started Saturday morning with asanas taught by Gopimata and then a class by Swami on “Journey to the Inner Self.” The yoga students received Swami’s message very well and participated by asking questions. After a vegetarian potluck, the day continued with a kirtan workshop by Madan Gopal and an asana class by Hari-bhakti. Swami spoke again in the evening in a question and answer format. Sunday followed a similar schedule and the weekend intensive ended with happy participants. Kirtans led by Agnideva preceded each class and nicely rounded out the presentation of bhakti in the yoga environment. The weekend events were attended by a flow of thirty to forty people and many of the teachers in training purchased Swami’s books for further study in the bhakti tradition. Keep an eye out for the classes from Kansas in the audio section of this site.
Swami returned to Audarya for a few short days and then departed for an annual “Saragrahi festival” in Poland.
