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- Thursday
3rd January, 2002; Bangalore to Ooti
- We set off early on
the morning we left for the long journey to Ooti.
By 5.15am we had reached a magnificent Hari
Krishna temple on the outskirts of Bangalore.
Here we stayed to take in the early morning
ritual of the Hari Krishna men in the temple
which perched high on a hill. This was rather
engaging although one younger member of our group
thought it a little reminiscent of Indiana Jone's
'Temple of Doom' - interesting how easily we
stereotype things - particularly if they are
outside our usual range of familiarity!
- The ritual itself
was compelling as some of the men paced round and
round the temple floor in apparently random
patterns, chanting the Hari Krishna mantra, while
others, apparently in a trance, sat on the floor
in various parts of the temple, chanting. We were
told that the women attend later when it is
lighters, for safety reasons.
- Most of those
participating engage in these activities for up
to and beyond four hours, for the benefits of its
spiritual cleansing. as it had been as we
ascended earlier, the return walk downhill was
equally confusing and we had to wait sometime
before everybody returned to the bus, as we made
our way to Mysore.
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