Visiting Haridwar, Rishikesh and Patanjali Yogpith

sangesh

16 years ago

Yogi Patanjali

I have always dreamed of going to some Hindu holy places like Vanaras, Haridwar and many popular destinations among Hindu. This time since I am spending couple of months in Delhi, finally I got opportunity to visit Haridwar 200 Km away from Delhi. We really had a memorable travel to Haridwar and had some exciting experience. We return at night where heavy fog was disturbing our driver to drive. We had our eyes wide open at night if he is driving safe. Thank god he was an experience driver and brought us back to Delhi safe. Anyway, let’s talk about our first stop, Patanjali yogpith. Hope many of my friends know about it, and for those who don’t know, I want to tell you that it is a hospital and asharam of our yog guru Baba Ramdev. We spend a night at his hospital and were surprised to see the facility it was providing to its patients and the visitors. One of our Friend Mr. Santosh Gautam went to see an eye specialist at there and he was satisfied with the treatment. It is facilitated with all the modern medical equipment. It has a big garden for relaxation; they have a very good canteen which provide healthy food directed by Baba Ramdev. It has a hall where visitors can have a free yoga class and it is compulsory for all of them to attend it at the morning. I got an SMS from my father at the early in the morning. He asked me to visit yogptih of Baba Ramdev at Haridwar, but to his surprise I told him that I spend a night at his ashram. Our next destination was Rishikesh few kilometers away from main Haridwar. We visited Rishikesh first because we wanted to see the aarati at Haridwar. We heard a lot about the aarati from people in Delhi, they all requested us to not to miss the aarati. In Rishikesh we saw many things, for the first time in life; I felt the Ganga River and played with the water of that river. There were many ashram where old people were living happily. Our guide said that the Pandavs came here for tapasya after the war Mahabharata. We saw more then 1000 yrs old pipal tree (our guide said so) saw the kalpa briskhya (tree). I came to know that kapla brishya dose not have fruits and it evolve at sagar manthan. Since there were prohibition on taking pictures at ashram and temples I could not capture them. Our next destination was 2 km away, Laxman Jhoola; it is a place were Laxman came for tapasya. It is a historic place where Laxman created abridge (Jhoola) but I felt like we were cheated at this point and we got disappointed. There was no any mark of history. What we saw was a modern suspension bridge there which is called Laxman Jhoola. We got dispointed here, we felt like Indian really hype the things. They even said there is a statue of Laxman and it is the only place where you can see Laxman single; else in every where Laxman is always with Ram and Sita. We thought it must be an ancient temple where statue of Laxman is placed, but to our surprise there is nothing as such, just a modern statue of Laxman at the crossroads. Finally after Rishikesh we came back to Haridwar. It was already late for us to go to Chandi Temple at the top of the hill but we did not want to miss anything beside that temple in this holy place. We were fortunate that we did not miss the aarati. Old people kids and youth all were taking a dip (bath) on Ganga River with great enthusiasm; I just washed my face and offered pooja. It was really a special moment for me, I really enjoyed the time at Haridwar. Seeing the calm Ganga really gave me some peace in my mind. At 6 pm they started the aarati and every one were singing bhajans at that time and the place really sound so good that you would love to hear it again and again. I have some picture, enjoy the picture and make a plan to visit this holy place Haridwar and go to Patanjali yogpith to learn yoga.