Journey Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, Summary: Gangapur – Kadaganchi – Ladchincholi

From Kuruvapur, we continued our journey to Gangapur, the place where Narasimha Saraswati, the second incarnation of Dattatreya in Kali Yuga, the present dark age, had stayed for a number of years in the 15th century AD.
We stayed overnight in the Avadhoota Ashram, a beautiful and serene place on the banks of the Bhima river.

At the reception, a young man gave me a warm welcome: “Namaskarams Master, we have met at May Call 2022 in Bengaluru, with Master KPK.” Manu is living in Gangapur and doing volunteer service at the reception of the Ashram.

We had a hearty exchange and together with Karin and Katrin, we gathered in his Manu’s room for evening meditation.
Next morning, 24 December, we went to the Narasimha Theerta, at the confluence of the Bhima and Amaraja river, where Narasimha Saraswati had meditated for a longer time. He used to regularly walk along the Bhima river from Gangapur to this place and impregnated it with his energy.

Together with other pilgrims, we took a bath in the river greeting the morning sun. There is an old Audumbara tree, a sacred fig tree, which is a sprout of the tree under which Narasimha Saraswathi used to meditate. The pilgrims walk around the tree and chant mantrams – a mystical ambiance. We later returned to the Avadhoota Ashram.

Next to the ashram, there is a garden at the river with a greater number of pillars open towards the sky to receive energies. The pillars are arranged in a structure of the Sri Yantra, related to the divine Mother aspect and they are meant to receive the energies of the Mother.

Later, Manu guided me to a big hall, where a big box contained booklets full of hand-written mantrams of the Divine mother to anchor the energy. There were beautiful big stone statues of different forms of the Divine Mother and 10 metal statues of the Dasa Mahavidyas, 10 forms of the Divine Mother arranged in a semi-circle.

Manu explained that they are arranged as complementary energies. He much meditated on their symbolism and explained it to me showing parallels to the Mystic Mantrams of Master CVV. I felt a sublime divine presence.

Before leaving, I had a short talk with the head of the ashram, the son of the founder, a young man of vibrant energy.

We continued our journey and stopped in a small village, Kadganchi, with a special old Datta temple, Shree Sayandeo Datta Mandir. Inside, there were many people singing devotional hymns to Lord Dattatreya.

A man guided us into the basement of a house in the neighborhood with a cave-like room. There, a man, Sayandeo had received via intuitive impression the Guru Charitra, the biography of Narasimha Saraswathi about 100 years after the latter’s leaving Gangapur at the age of about 78.

The Guru Charitra contains a short story of the life of Sripada Srivallabha (1320 – 1353 AD) in the first 5 chapters, the only information about him for centuries, kept in the awareness of the people in central India, until in 2001, the biography of Sripada was published in Telugu and then many other languages.

We continued our journey and stopped in other village (Ladchincholi) , where from 1908 – 1973 lived Sridhara, a saint who was a reincarnation of the second eldest brother of Sripada, whose incarnation was already announced in the Sripada Srivallabha Charitamrutam, the biography of Sripada (chap. 9, 10, 41).

Ramaraja Sarma, second eldest brother of Sripada, born lame, was healed by Sripada; he became famous in his next incarnation as Avadhuta Sridhara, as a partial manifestation of Dattatreya (chap. 9, 11, 41). As said in the Sripada biography, a disciple of Sridhara, Sri Sajjanagada Ramaswamy, later founded the Mahasamsthan temple at the birthplace of Sripada in Pithapuram.

From there, we continued our journey to Akkalkot.

Journey Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 11, Summary: Mathangoud – Panchadev Pahad – Kuruvapur.

Next day, 22 Dec. towards noon, our friend Srinivas arrived at Divya Kalanjali together with his friend Santosh, to complete our travel group for the first part of the pilgrimage.

Srinivas is from New Jersey, USA, but is Indian by origin origin. He helped me much with the translation of the Sripada biography and also organised the first part of our pilgrimage tour. His friend Santosh comes from Hyderabad, and on the tour, we quickly also became good friends. Both are deeply linked to Lord Dattatreya and provided very good background information of the “how to” of the journey. Srinivas is a good driver and had rent the car. He drove good, as fast as the road allowed.

The first stop was Mathangoud, a very special and little known place where a miracle related to Sripada had happened during his incarnation in the 14th century. – Three robbers accompanied by a colleague beheaded a man at that place but when he remembered Sripada, the latter manifested, killed the robbers and put back the head of the man who came back to life. (See the Sripada biography, chap. 18, story of Vallabhesa).
A yogi later had traced inwardly this place in the 20th century and meditated there for long times in solitude, and then this little temple developed in the last decades. There is a group of huge rocks standing in the flat countryside surrounding a cave temple. And there was a very pure, serene ambiance, and the divine presence at this place touched us profoundly.

From there, we continued to Panchadev Pahad, the Sripada Chaya Ashrama, where we wanted to stay overnight.

Inside the ashram hall, there was continuous singing the name of Sripada and two priest conducting a fire ritual.

The sun was already slowly setting when we set over to the island of Kuruvapur in the Krishna river.

This time there were no more the coracles used for crossing like we had in 2017 but motorboats. In the river, I saw at some distance what I thought to be a branch of a tree. I only later came to know that there is a group of crocodiles near the island.

In the temple at the place where Sripada Srivallabha, the first avatar of Lord Dattatreya in Kali Yuga had lived and meditated for several years in the 14th century a group of about 50 people were chanting the name of Sripada. To enter the temple, the men had to put off shirts and shoes and put on Dhotis. Santosh gave me a dhoti and helped to put it on. Together with other pilgrims, we went into the innermost room of the temple while the priest was waving a camphor light giving us blessings. I again experienced the powerful divine presence which already had deeply touched me during my first visit in January 2017. We could not sit down but it was a trance-like experience in standing and with open eyes.

We stayed a while in the presence and then crossed again the river for spending the night in the ashram at Panchadev Pahad.

There was a beautiful sunrise in the morning when we again crossed over to the island. However, this morning there was no Sripada statue in the temple – preparations for some other ritual were going on. It was like experiencing the divine presence without a physical form. We stayed some time in the presence.

Several people came and wanted to take photos with me – Srinivas had informed them that I had translated the Sripada biography to German. In the book, 4th chapter, there is a story with a prophecy given by Sripada in the 14th century that in the future the book would be translated to German and to many other languages. So, people were interested in the fulfilment of this prophecy. For me, it was a strange feeling – the interest of the people in me was not me as a person but as a bridge to a miraculous prophecy of 700 years ago taking to manifestation now, as other prophecies in the Sripada biography had manifested in the past and are manifesting through his expression of divine Will.

Afterwards, we went to a nearby huge bayan tree and a small cave-house temple, where Vasudevanand Saraswati, (Tembe Swami) hat meditated a while my friends creeped in – I preferred to stay outside and absorb myself into the beauty and ambiance of the place and in observing the people around.

We then visited the Vittal Baba temple in Panchadev Pahad opposite of Kuruvapur at the Krishna river and then continued our journey, the next goal being Gangapur.

Journey Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, Summary

The last days before the start of the journey to India were very intense. I was happy to finally close down the computer and to finish last details of packing very early morning. It was 20 December, the day before winter equinox, and there had been ice rain in the night. Luckily, I had covered the car windows the evening before, so that the ice could easily be removed.
My wife took me to the nearby railway station and we said good-bye – I won’t be online the first 11 days of the journey. In the train, people were on their way to work, and I on the way to Zurich airport. After arrival, the luggage was quickly checked in. When I was on the way to passport control, I took a shortcut. A lady in the 30th smiled to me saying, “I also thought of taking this shortcut but then took the longer way.” We met again in the queue and later at the dock of the Etihad flight to Doha.

We quickly started conversation. She was a Kundalini yoga teacher from Zurich going to a seminar on an island in Thailand and I told her that I was going on a pilgrimage to places of Lord Dattatreya in central India and a seminar on wisdom teachings in Visakhapatnam on the Bay of Bengal. She was from Albanian background, Muslim by origin but felt drawn to yoga. Her family of origin had let her go where she felt drawn to, being the youngest of the children. I enjoyed hearing this – spirituality makes rigid mental / emotional concepts porous and opens inlets for the light of the soul and new ways of life.

We spoke about this special combination in her spiritual background. She shared more about her search and how she had traveled with her husband in an old camping bus to Turkey and Syria, originally planning to go to Afghanistan a few years ago, dreaming that a day might come again to travel to India via land like it was possible some decades ago… Then, we exchanged the addresses of our websites, and our paths took again different directions in Doha.

The plane to Hyderabad was a little late, but this way, Karin and Katrin, my two travel companions from Germany, whose plane from Frankfurt was late, arrived in time. On the plane, we sat in different corners. I took a cinema journey to a distant future in another galaxy – diving into “Dune, part 2“. On my last journey to India a year ago, I had seen part 1. I only watch and enjoy movies while traveling.
We arrived early morning in Hyderabad. There was a long queue at immigration. Later, money change and taking a taxi. Vasishta from Divya Kalanjali, a WTT group of Hyderabad, gave directions to the taxi driver via phone.

We arrived at the WTT center during morning prayer / meditation, hearing “Namaskarams Master CVV” and were happy to sit down. Later, after breakfast, when I unpacked, I couldn’t find my spectacles. We searched everywhere, recapitulated every step, from the money change to the room – but we could not trace where the glasses had left nor the taxi driver find anything…. Luckily, a group member helped out with reading glasses from her late mom which worked fine for me…

We relaxed the rest of the day and met different families in Divya Kalanjali. They gave us a very warm welcome. It was like coming home, a soft landing in India.

Coming from Cordoba with Ursula and Jesus, we had an overnight stay at their home in Murcia. Next morning, we drove along the coast to Denia north of Alicante, where we met the travel group with Guru Prasad and the members of Denia group for lunch at a Greek restaurant in the old town. The group has a beautiful meeting space two floors above the restaurant.

While the others were taking a nap in the early afternoon, I wanted to go back to our car to fetch my camera and to cover the windows – we had quickly left the car on a big parking at some distance and it was very hot. I did not have a mobile but thought I would find the parking. There were many little streets and somehow I took a wrong direction and lost the way. For quite some time, I searched in a large area and then decided to go back but didn’t find that way either. A young man with a mobile showed me the way back to the restaurant. When arriving, I felt dizzy from the heat. A doctor and other group members took care of me, and I spend the afternoon and evening prayer lying down. My friends went to the parking with the mobile. Then we went to the home of Alejandro and Alba from Denia group, where we spent the night and enjoyed their hospitality and some nice talks.

I slept in the room of their youngest son Tiziano, 16. I had already talked with him in Cordoba, since he was much interested in my paintings and in the subtle world. And now in his room, I met again the gnome with the baby which I had taken a photo of in Cordoba, not knowing how this gnome had come to the May Call 🙂

The next day we continued our northward journey to Blanes, a town at the Mediterranean between Barcelona and Girona. We stayed in the house of Isabel. She is offering her home to WTT group activities. 11 years ago, I had met her when I visited the Minakshi project in the Girona area; it had to close. The new house in Blanes started on 7 November 23, the birthday of Master KPK; it is in a way a continuation and a very beautiful place. We received a warm reception by Isabel, her partner and a friend, and we communicated with an automatic voice translation app German-Spanish.

In the evening, Isabel and Domenec gave us a foot reflex zones and polarity massage, and I went to bed in a state of very profound relaxation. Next morning after breakfast, we started the journey back. When we approached the border between Spain and France, we saw helicopters “standing” over the highway area and wondered why. As we came nearer, we saw many police cars.

The motorway was closed. All cars and lorries were diverted onto an ordinary road. I tried to get back to the highway at the next access – also closed. As we crossed the pass in the Pyrenees via the side road, we saw many tractors in a row on a motorway bridge. Obviously, farmers were blocking the highway and a demonstration was going on, just before the European elections. We made slow progress. It was only after crossing Perpignan and with a delay of 3 hours that we got back on the motorway and headed fast towards north.

The next day, together with part of the group, we moved to the Castillo de Maimón at the outskirts of Cordoba, the site where the May Call Day celebration was going to take place.

The name of the castle refers to Maimonides, a medieval Jewish rabbi, philosopher, astronomer and also physician of great renown, who was born and lived over years in Cordoba but later had to flee. We had seen his statue in the old Jewish quarter of Cordoba.

Inside the Castillo, there was a beautiful hall with a little fountain in the centre, where we met for some rituals.

The general group meetings, however, were in a smaller hall where the Cordoba group had arranged a beautiful altar and decorations. The group opened the May Call celebration by singing some songs with the fiery temperament of Southern Spain.

Spontaneous musical contributions were going on outside and in the evening, also with dancing. The enthusiasm caught the entire group.

There were inspiring talks by Guru Prasad and other group members, which were simultaneously translated into 3 other languages and broadcasted via Zoom. And there was also a video talk Master Kumar had given at the same place in Cordoba in 2015 – it was like seeing him live again.

The May Call Day celebration was indeed a day for reception and distribution of the Energy of Synthesis, the day of group initiation started by Master CVV in 1910 and celebrated since then.

For the fire ritual on May Call Day and the water ritual on 30 May, we gathered in the big hall. It was an intense experience of group consciousness and togetherness.

Besides the general group meetings, there were exchanges in small groups, like coordination of audiobook publishing or preparing the next year’s European May Call celebration. Above all, there were plenty of exchanges with old and friends – days of great intensity.

When we left the place in the morning of May 31st, full of joy, we suddenly saw in front of us a Jaguar having a number plate with KPK – the initials of Master KPK. We smiled about this greeting from the subtle planes.

Sunday, 26 May. The highway took us from Murcia through rugged and arid regions and slowly climbed higher and higher. We passed Granada and went over a mountain range up to 1400 meters. It was hot, but there were patches of snow on the mountains.

On the route to Cordoba, pink oleander bushes bloomed for long stretches on both sides of the road – it looked a bit like “Barbieland“. The temperature rose and the countryside looked desert-like; as we approached Cordoba, it was 35°C. It got even warmer over the next few days.

We arrived in the afternoon and stayed at the Hotel Delicias for the first two days. Late in the evening, part of the group members from Germany arrived and also the tour group with Guru Prasad, the son of Master Kumar. For Monday, the Spanish members had organised a guided tour to the old town of Cordoba and the Mosque-Cathedral for our group.

It was a very interesting 3.5 hs tour through the old Jewish quarter and the “Mezquita-Catedral” and the tour guide gave many interesting and humorous insights.

After the tour, the group met for lunch in a restaurant. In the afternoon, members of Cordoba group offered us a ride to the group centre some kilometres outside the city. A surprise:

Through an avenue of palm trees we came to a beautifully arranged building surrounded by plants and flowers and a little fountain at the entrance.

It felt like being in an ashram. Inside, there were numerous objects of spiritual symbols and mandalas an artist-group member had created. The name of the group is Karuna_a – Karuna is a Sanskrit word for love and compassion. And the _a stands for anahata, the heart centre.

The group gave us a warm welcome, sang some songs with vibrant dynamism and offered some sweets. You could feel a great commitment. Outside, the temperature had come up to 38 °C, but the many plants around the house created a cooler and serene ambiance.

Later, group members drove us back to the hotel – the impressions of the visit continued to resonate inside.

From Onda, we went further south and arrived in the afternoon at Murcia, reaching finally the place where I wanted to bring my paintings. As we drove around the city on the motorway and approached the area of the farm of Jesus and Ursula, we suddenly saw a huge statue of Christ on a mountain reminding of the Christ on Corcovado mountain in Rio de Janeiro and like blessing the surrounding.

We drove through some small streets and then saw the farmhouse of Ursula and Jesus.

They gave us a warm welcome. There were also a brother of Ursula and a Dutch friend from the office of Jesus.

We parked the car in front of the house and started unpacking.

I felt very happy to see the beautiful space very well suited for the paintings. Jesus showed me the house and the room where the images are now stored. Then we had some hearty talks.

After evening meditation and dinner, Jesus and Ursula showed us the area. There was a great sunrise behind the mount with the statue of the Christ – a sublime moment.

Early next morning, after morning meditation and breakfast, we started towards Cordoba together with Ursula and Jesus.

The next part of the journey began with a surprise: Friday morning, when we arrived at the highway at Girona, I could not speed up the car – the motor was not fully working. I immediately turned to the Girona exit and drove to the nearby petrol station. We invoked Ganesha and whoever might help… And it worked.

A man at the petrol station told us with hands (we don’t speak neither Spanish nor Catalan as it is spoken there) that just around the corner there was a garage – a big one. After short waiting, probably the head of the garage, who spoke a little English, had a look at our car and the spiral alarm light. He then electronically tested the system, did a test ride and gave a little all-clear: The problem had to do with the diesel turbo injection which might return during the journey but we might just restart the car after a small pause. Everything went well with the car during the entire journey – and we gave a big thank-you to Ganesha 🙂

The rain from Girona ended while we drove southwards and it became much warmer. We arrived in Onda in the afternoon. Teresa and Manuel gave us a warm welcome. It is the home of the Muditha group of WTT, and I had visited them already in 2012. (You find more about this group and the others in the Annual Report of WTT-Global, PDF.) In the 1990s, Sri Kumar had installed a Krishna statue in their garden. Two of their sons joined for a group photo with Sri Krishna. We spread some rice grains around as a blessing for the birds – next morning, it was all gone, and some more rice was spread.

Manuel is responsible for the book publications of Ediciones Dhanishtha, the publishing house of WTT-Spain, and they have published plenty of books, also a few new ones this year. I smiled when I saw the Spanish Sripada biography published last year on a shelf in their home. (You find much more about adventures around Sripada and his biography in this blog.)

They have a beautiful meditation room …

… but we sat downstairs for joining the zoom evening meditation of WTT-Global followed by a special prayer of the Great Eagle Garuda, related to reviving the spiritual impulse of Spain.

A hearty evening dinner and talk…

…a morning walk with their beautiful meditative dog through the nearby forest area (while all the dogs of the neighbourhood were wildly barking, he kept quiet, and also during meditation) …

… and then we had to leave for the next stage of the journey. But we met them later in Cordoba again.

Although the journey was long, it was a very precious time. Mathilda, a group member from Berne, accompanied me. She had the audiobook ‘Autobiography of a Yogi‘, and while driving to the south, our minds dwelled in the stories of the book. And often, associations to our lives brought up conversation excursions. I had prepared the different stages of the journey by contacting Spanish group members on the way. I had done a similar journey in August 2012, and we came now again to part of the places or the people.

The first stop was at the home of Mar, a dentist we had visited in 2012 in Girona. Now, she was living with her husband since a few years in Rupià, a little village in the province of Girona, in a beautiful old renovated house.

At the entry, there was a beautifully carved brass plate (you see handing at the wall in the picture above), like cosmic inter-relationships

In the meditation room, I met again the Krishna statue we had seen 12 years ago:

We had evening and morning meditations together and some intense talks. Then we had to bring the luggage back for the next stage of the journey.

In August 2023, there was an announcement that a European May Call celebration would be organised by WTT-Spain, and shortly afterwards, I heard that it would be in Córdoba, Southern Spain. At first, I thought, oh, that’s a long way. But then an idea developed: I was in contact with Jesus Rosauro from Murcia, Spain. I had met him and his mother Ursula at group lives in India. In a zoom call, Jesus showed me where he and his mother and grandmother were living – a huge farmhouse and a renovated barn house with long rooms which previously had served as a chicken hatchery. It now serves for meetings of groups of the catholic church – but they have no relation to it.

An idea came to me: Could this be a place for all the physical paintings which I had once produced for an exposition in Berlin 2015-16. Since then, the paintings had been ‘sleeping’ in our basement, together with some other artwork of earlier times. The idea was warmly received by Jesus and his mother Ursula. Plans developed for a car ride to Córdoba (about 2000 km each direction) with several stops on the way at homes of group members. Last January, the plans became concrete. I assigned all paintings and the related material to Jesus for 1 Euro to avoid custom and tax issues. Before starting the journey, I documented the material – the paintings, the books and the photo albums which I kept as scrap books

I felt very happy that I now could give all the work with “warm hands” to a place where the paintings are well received. I had waited since long for this moment. There was no interest in the work within my family. And time and again I noticed that for appreciating the paintings, people need to have an occult understanding and feeling for these “Images of Synthesis“, giving a visual expression to realities of the Wisdom Teachings. I also gave a stick with all digital high resolution material, presentations and videos about the paintings to Jesus and to Joan. A seed for the future.
On 23rd of May, the journey started.