In December 2003 I started my big journey to a place of the world that I had not seen before. My flight was from Delhi to Bangkok, then from Bangkok to Sydney and then from Sydney to Auckland. Having arrived in New Zealand, I was still not at my final destination.
At the Auckland airport I met the man who had come to the Ashram and who had invited me to their home, too. I had told him that I would have some hours of stopover and so he had come to meet me at the airport before my connecting flight to Blenheim.
We spent two or three hours of nice time together and then said goodbye to each other. I told him that I would come to them when I had free time and I would call them before. I then moved on to the domestic airport and took my flight to Blenheim, the final flight on that day. Blenheim is on the South Island of New Zealand while Auckland is on the North Island. This one was a short flight and at the airport I was picked up by the woman whom I had got to know over chat.
I had no idea how she looked like but she obviously recognized me and approached me to say hello. From the airport we went to her home and I finally arrived after this enourmously long journey. We had some dinner and then I went to bed. I was terribly tired from the four flights and I had jetlag and so I slept very deep and very long – I woke up about 18 hours later, on the next midday. I was just amazed. It was and is still the longest sleep I ever had in my life.
The woman had arranged some lectures for me and had also informed the local media. The newspaper came for an interview and thus there were quite a lot of people whom I met in the next days, giving lectures and also individual healing sessions.
Of course there was also a bit time free and one day we were walking in town when a man approached us. He was Indian and he came close with a smile on his face and bent down in front of me to touch my feet, the Indian way of greeting a person you respect. He was just very happy to meet me there. He said ‘Oh, it is so great to see you here! I never thought that any Indian would come to this town and now you, a Swami came here!’
He had a company that had vineyards, he told me, and he and his family lived there. He invited me to his home and I agreed. It was a meeting in one of the next days and I went, met his family and had a meal there. He also gave a donation for my Ashram and we both enjoyed the time together and he felt very good about having had me in his home.
I had made this kind of experiences with Indian people before, too, and I knew about the hospitality of Indians as well as about their spirituality and happiness to see another person who is obviously spiritual. My host however was very amazed about the openness and friendliness of this man. ‘He does not even know you and has never met you! He invites you just like that to his home! That is incredible!’ It is true however that you can find Indian people all over the world and for me it was nearly always a nice experience to meet them – they were happy to meet me, too!
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Isn’t it wonderful that where ever people go they don’t forget their home, culture and people. Just like this man was excited to see you, when I was in Malaysia, British people or even European people were too excited to see me and would come and speak to me. Such is the love we have for our native land that extends to our people.