After a padapuja at the Satish family home in Syracuse, New York, Satguru Bodhinatha Veylanswami met and talked with their extended family. Our travelers also visited the family's two rudraksha trees grown from our monastery seeds. They are about 8 feet tall and happy to be in springtime. About 60 people joined the satsang. The Iraivan video was shown to the group, and then Satguru gave a talk on the many multifaceted aspects of Hinduism. Many of those present followed with great questions.

Next, Satguru and our swamis drive up to Montreal.

Siddhanathaswami writes us from the road:

Yesterday we drove up to Taos, New Mexico. Stunning views along the way of canyons and rivers and mesas. We visited the Neem Karoli Baba ashram there. We have an HHE endowment that helps with the upkeep of the large hanuman there. After a short meditation in the powerful hanuman shrine, we presented the first HHE grant. Currently nine people live there full time with more in the summer months for seva. The property is ten acres with lots of garden and farm space. In the summer months, they grow a huge amount of vegetables to feed all the devotees once or twice a week.

Hindus and devotees come from all over to worship Hanuman. They get around 200 people coming on weekends and over 800 on their two festival days. The whole ashram was guru centric which was wonderful to see.

On our way back we stopped at Bandelier National Monument at had a beautiful, long walk along an ancient Native American village. They have found evidence of people living there going back 11,000 years. Many homes were built into the sandstone walls. Some were remade so that people could climb in.

I'll send some more photos later, but there is no wifi at the hotel since in the most recent storm, lightning struck twice on the hotel grounds and fried two routers! Glad we missed that!

Next we are heading to Syracuse, New York.