Musical Workshops during Christmas and New Years Celebrations

Today we had a program with the kids here in Shree Peetha Nilaya. Mira was taking the lead and she was preparing them to sing on Christmas day.

Even though they were of different nationalities - Russians, Spanish, Portuguese, French and Polish - and despite the fact that they were singing an English song, which none of them understood, still there was no problem in guiding them to sing in tune and in joy. The children easily understand the language of the heart irrespective of the language they speak.

Next Monday there will be another Manjira Workshop here in Shree Peetha Nilaya with Nikhilananda.

This workshop is very popular as within three hours the participants learn the basic beats and you can apply it immediately during our temple prayers and simple bhajans. People show very quick progress with this workshop. This photo was taken in one of the recent workshops.

The workshop will take place on Monday, December 29th from 10-13:00. Please register directly with Nikhilananda.

The reconstruction of the balconies...

... on the south side of the building is finished. 

Before the company removed the scaffolding, Jaitraya quickly painted the orange color on the front sides.

During summer we will paint also the sidewalls of the balconies.

The Star of Bethlehem

In the week before Babaji's birthday the idea came up to make a big star and hang it on one of our walls on the facade of the building.

So I spoke with Pramod about the idea and asked him if he can help with the construction of the star. 

He liked the idea and offered to go and buy some construction steal - and to weld it together. I should just have painted  the star, and that could have been done on the floor of the garage.

In only three hours the form of the star was made out of steel. 

I painted it in the color of the wall (first we wanted to hang it in front of the orange wall) and together with Vidya, a seva helper from Switzerland, we fixed the LED lights around the steel construction.

The day before the 1st Advent Pramod and some helpers from Czech went on the roof to hang it. 

So, sorry that I forgot to take some pictures from this moment - it was cold, rainy, windy and these three men on the roof waiting for the advise: 'higher', 'a bit more right', 'noo, more up'... 
By the way - does the moment of three men hanging the star remind you of three wise men following the star of Betlehem and coming to baby Jesus? :)

In the end the star looked beautiful and Swamiji likes it a lot!

Now we have a nice Star of Bethlehem which shows you all the way to the place where we will celebrate the birth of our Lord Jesus at Christmas.