An Awesome month with THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM in Los Angeles area🔗

THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM landed in Los Angeles in the end of July 2005. All ashramites came to Los Angeles a couple of days before THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM landed. We really did not have a clue where the ashram would be and how we would get started. Once thing was clear – we were all really excited to be together in LA, and looking forward to be with our Master. We rented 5 or 6 rooms at the Days Inn in Duarte, California. All our Los Angeles area devotees were very happy that THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM came to LA and that they would see a lot more of THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM in their city. We spent a spectacular month with THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM in Los Angeles.

All of us would wake up every morning at 5 am, take our showers and assembled near THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM's room. We played suprabhatham to wake up THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM. All of us huddled around his bed in his hotel room. THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM brought Anandeshwara (Shiva) utsava murthi (a smaller version of the main deity used for performing daily rituals). We started the day with guru pooja and offered our gratitude to the Master. Believe me most of us were corporate types who did not know Sanskrit chanting. THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM had to unfortunately put up with our mistakes in chanting the guru pooja mantra. After guru pooja, we would all proceed in 2 or 3 cars to a nearby park and lake. It was called Santa Fe dam. Every morning we would go for a walk at the Santa Fe dam. Then we would assemble near the park benches where we would sit around THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM and wait for him to deliver His Pearls of Wisdom. A lot of time was spent without saying a word. But this was the time the actual work of the master was getting done. Sometimes THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM would deliver completely fresh perspectives and new insights into a topic which we never imagined could be expressed with such clarity. We would spend 2-3 hours with THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM in this park every morning. We would then go back to the Days Inn Hotel around 11 am where we would get back into our routines. Some of us would be engaged in looking at lands and real estate for the first Ashram. Others worked on various mission coordination activities.

As the hunt for the ashram lands was going on we came across a beautiful piece of property being developed by one of our close devotees in Los Angeles, This seemed to be ideally suited for the ashramites that came together to form the mission. There were 12 apartments, a home (which could serve as the reception area) and frontage consisting of retail stores which could be converted into a meditation hall. We approached the devotee with the possibility of using this facility as the temporary ashram to start the mission in earnest. She was quite happy that we could use this place as the ashram and felt that it was a blessing to have THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM set His foot into this property. The place was in the center of the city of Duarte, near Pasadena with one acre of land. Duarte ashram fit our needs like a glove, with a lot of privacy for and infrastructure that was just what Swmaiji needed to start the mission. The apartment complex was almost ready by the time we approached the devotee. The scheduled time for completion was end of August. It was just the right size, the costs were manageable for us and it also had facilities in the property to be able to provide some basic services for visitors.