The Seed of Women empowerment has been a long-standing work that we had been hatching onto and have been taking up small infant steps.
The wonderful beginning to a bigger leap of the journey across our Bharat was on the 28th of March 2024 during a talk with Mrs Maninder Kaur Bedi , Chair Person , Stri Shakti
Myself Gahanika (Veni Balan) and my Guru and mentor Sri Ramesh Babu started the mission. The journey of 8 days from 3rd to 10th had been amazing.
We traveled from Bangalore to Shirdi by flight. Landed to be welcomed by the Stri Shakti team lead by Mrs Reini Gangkok, and her team Ms Trupti Kedari and Ms Sayali .
We moved on through Samruddhi Expressway and reached Jawahar where we had the wonderful mother Mrs Maninder ji whom we call Ma welcome us and be our host.
A beautiful landscape of a small vegetation having organically grown vegetables fruits medicinal plants goshala that produced such wonderful dairy from the best quality cattle.
The seeds were collected from various places where the best of them were collected and grown. It was like Noah creating the ark to save the best. This was heaven on earth. The yields from the land were used for cooking for many of the kitchens from where quality food reaches several children across the state. The fruits and vegetables takes up various forms like sesame, sunflower, castor cold-pressed oil, dried fruits that can be stored for they year, and so on.
We all had delicious food cooked by Ms Sheetal under Ma's love and care.
We explored the 5 acres of vegetation and the cottages surrounding it. We had Mr Jagjit Singh join us in the evening with whom we had tea and snacks and later continued to Igatpuri.
There we met our Papaji with whom we spent a good amount of time and had a family dinner blended with tasty food and lots of love and ended the day.
The next day our journey started from Igatpuri to Jawahar. A place that was a grand kitchen that could cook for a lakh people at ease. This was a central kitchen serving around 317 schools all more than 75000 tribal children with breakfast lunch and snacks all through the school academic year.
It was a very touching memorable moment when we were welcomed by the people with great pomp and show, they played the Tarpa and danced in joy a beautiful tribal dance, and offered flowers. We had a detailed tour of the kitchen, the people there, and the process. We had the opportunity to have a small session there and prepare the base for the next thing that Ma was going to bring in for them with Varmam Academy.
The overwhelmed crowd filled our hearts with their blessings and wishes and our stomachs with sumptuous varieties of food as if we were attending a grand wedding.
From there we moved on to Mumbai and then again to Delhi and settled down for the day.
The next day we had a new chapter open up. When you knock on one door sometimes they say two doors open up. Something magical happened here too. Let me tell you about it later.
We started off early again and visited two canteens one at the Police Headquarters and in Central Delhi and another one at the Delhi Secretariat. Both places had a grand welcome again and had lots of people to meet and were fed with so much food. It was like all the varieties of food that could be made were given to us.
Here came the new dimension of travel that joined our Women empowerment, we visited the Bungalow Sahib Gurudwara, which added additional insight that was always blending with every journey. This we thought was a journey of empowerment and training but revealed how can something happen without realizing the truth. And it was there here too. We could experience this here again as food that is dropped into the palms of a hungry person. This was adding up to our practices of Saram and Vaasi the spiritual pillar of Varmam. Ramesh sir expressed his interest of reading the sacred text Guru Granth Sahib one day if it were available in other languages like English or Hindi. Ma immediately said there is an app that had the verses mentioned in Gurbani (language) and in English and Hindi also. This kindled the urge to read it very soon.
We reached the Sarvoday Kitchen in Delhi where we could meet the entire family of Stri Shakti. We had again another wonderful session for the women there and a great time with the family again exploring the kitchen and the food.
Ended the day with satisfaction and a wait for the next day.
The day began to Dehradun we had our food packed and we were moving ahead. The journey of 5 hours slipped like the wink of the eye. Who knew that someday would be this day? Ramesh sir initiated reading the Granth the same day and from then on, every moment of the drive was about reading and interpreting the Granth. I and Ma saw the Guru himself coming and explaining the verses through Sir.
The reading, began with the morning prayer, Hukam, and Shabad, This reading continued and revealed several truths that were sometimes hidden with so much depth. This happened from here on in the every drive time that need not require to be moving. Every shortest period was engaged in this.
En route, listening to the Granth interpretation by Sir, we crossed Haridwar, Rishikesh, and stopped at the river banks of the Ganges. We had Juhi and Prashanth join us here and had lunch followed by a blessed move on the boat in the lap of mother Ganges. We experienced the Ganges and spent some time just sitting there. We visualized the widespread river with Lakshman, Ram, and Janaki Jhoola across.
From there we moved to Papajis brother's house where we had the entire family greeted us and had a great time. Food is key. There was no limit to the variety of foods that we had.
We reached Dehradun at night and saw a beautiful place filled with lights here and there and we had to settle after dinner here. It was a serene place filled with cool breeze at night and we felt it serene. We did not realize the surprise that we are going to have the next day.
Dawn began with the chirping of birds and from the glass doors of my room i could see thin rays of light coming in. I came out and to my delight, i saw the thin stream of water moving and first reflection of the red sun on it. Round across the place it was so serene and beautiful filled with nature. I took a walk and relished the beauty of the place.
Post sunrise we all decided to assemble for a small session of kriya and it put us back to charge even after the continuous journey. We visited the entire place, where there was again a nice kitchen that could cook for 100s of people. This was the place used by Taj to cook for the International Summit where food was cooked for our Pm Modi ji.
There were several plantation, flowers, fruits, cottages that could accommodate more than 50 people, goshala, a dining place watching the river across, a walking lane, and a pool. Who would imaging this would become the place where Varmam Academy will have as the first training center for North India? I think the blessings of Lord Siva and the Guru himself were leading all here.
The next day, we had Vaasi Yogam session and Deeksha for our small team. Divine blessings of Siva, merged with 18 Siddhars and Balambiga at Prajuri River Acres. The incense of Truth had began to spread here and the entire place was filled with its flavor. We started back to Ahmedabad and reached at night.
The next day we started traveling to Ahmedabad canteen where we met Dolly ji and had our breakfast there and continued our journey to Bhavnagar. We met our Kishore Bhat ji, the person behind the Rishi Krishi group creating a revolution across the country for all farmers. We got to spend some valuable time on what he was doing and also about how Varmam Journey can be extended to other people across the country. Then we started back to Ahmedabad,
The next day we went to Ahmedabad and we had a beautiful "Gudi" tied up, the tradition of Maharashtrans on the auspicious day of Gudi Padwa (Ugadi here in South), and began the year beautifully. This place was serving more than a lakh children daily with food under the various govt mid day meal schemes.
We had yet another session for our team here and winded up our journey with lunch and back to the airport.
We were returning with loads of love, memories, and truth which will pave the path for the next step.
We had outlined in brief our next steps. As we had this surprise, pop up, our journeys will continue both of which come out as schedules and sessions on our website. Our next training sessions for our women's team is scheduled here and you can follow our blogs and announcements to catch up for the same.
NOTE:
Ma as I mentioned is the mother of everyone we met. There are no words to express the hospitality that she provided. I could see the same emotion she carried for every soul that was there in these 8 days. The people in her team had the same divine connection with her is what I realized there.
Let me start with a fact that I want you to know even before the journey begins. I never knew who she was till I went there and lived (traveled) with her. I had asked her when she started all these activities after I saw the first plantation and she said it was just now during Covid. I did not understand that she was mentioning about the organic farming that she had added now recently . How naive (not good for what I'm doing but still that is me) I was. I had also mentioned once during our conversation that if you had started earlier what massive explosion this would have been. I walked down the explosion that she had already created.
I never looked at her website and never saw what is Stri Shakti I just went with the flow and engaged in other things rather than finding out who she was.
Every day was revealing what a powerful Ma she is. Thank you for this wonderful experience. Sir, I thank you for making me a part of this journey.
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