We woke up at 6am for a hike to a temple high up in the mountain , the temple is a small building devoted to Brahama’s first wife,her name starts with Giva…all the names of the deities in INdia are long and hard to pronounce.
As we started the walk, the street are dark, few cows roaming arounnd.We arrive to the top of a steep hill and the sun was rising.
The temple opened , there are three status inside the wife and her daughter and son, the story goes that when Brahama who is the father god asked for her to come she refused and it took her long time to come , by that time Braham found another wife and when the first arrived he banished her and she disappeared however she got upset and cursed him that he will not have a temple , there is only one temple for him in all of India and it is in Pushkar . We went to it later in the day, everyone must have a pilgrimige once in his lifetime..Hindu religion there is Father Brahama then shiva and vishnu then shiva has Ram and Krishna..then there are many other deities which are reincarnation of God all this to help people understand the concept of God, how interesting.
In Pushkar there is a lake where one supposed to wash everyday , at sundown there is a ceremony with lights and a bell ringing that forbids getting into the lake after. There are also pools where one can go bath, it’s all holy so you have to take your shoes 30 feet before.
So far what I see is worshiping all around, there are many temples, the gods are painted in colors and sometimes gold or silver leaf but the temples are badly maintained, paint pilling, broken stone , half build. It feels dirty.
To no surprise we found a chabad house and hebrew signs, the shopkeeper know little hebrew and try to guess where we are from by saying shalom etc to try to get us to come shop.It reminds me of the shuk in the old city right after the six day war.
We had a mindfulness session and yoga on the roof. To end Shabbath we had Havdala and went shopping.
The food is vegetarian, tonight we had okra, puneer, rice, sou. I have never eaten so much indian food, I have to take it easy, I felt a bit sick so
I had an Ayurvedic massage in the afternoon, it was fantastic, rejuvinating.