At the moment in Vrindavan and in Haridwar the Kumbh Mela is going on. This is the biggest and most crowded spiritual fair on earth. It is a fair which takes place each three years in one of four Indian cities. And when it takes place in Haridwar, they also come here to Vrindavan.

A big crowd of pilgrims always gathers for this occasion and of course a lot of ceremonies and spiritual discourses take place. Many Sadhus join the festivities, too. I have explained the concept of Sadhus already on another day in my diary. The original idea is that they are fully detached from any worldly things be it money, clothes or even relations to others. And they usually live from what people donate to them.

Unfortunately nowadays in this field, too, people are getting lazy and in a way cheat and disrespect this old concept. It is very common on the Kumbh Mela that there are some so-called Sadhus who do future predictions. And not only some vague prediction about the client’s future, no, people come to them to get to know the numbers of the lottery! This lottery is actually even illegal here in India.

I said that people are getting lazy and it is like this: those who predict the lottery numbers get money for it so they don’t need to think anymore about their spiritual practice or the whole concept of being a Sadhu. And those who come to get the numbers want to be rich and that very quickly without making an effort.

Unfortunately this is going on and additionally some people enjoy taking drugs to reach their idea of a spiritual experience. I don’t really have any interest in going to this fair, I am happy to just be here at the Ashram, enjoy the nice weather, doing my work and being with my family.