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Adventures in Russia and Ukraine:
VedaLife Festival

Last year my life was transformed when I re-united with my old friend Bhakti Sudhir Goswami and found a new friend in the mysterious Russian Swami, Avadhut Maharaja. It's a long story.



We had worked together long ago on publishing the teachings of our guru, B.R. Shridhar at Guardian of Devotion Press in San Jose, California. We had a good run as publishers, bringing out 5 important titles and a number of lesser ones. We published The Search for Sri Krsna, Sri Guru and His Grace, The Golden Volcano of Divine Love, The Loving Search for the Lost Servant, and Subjective Evolution of Consciousness, among others.

Our books were met with acclaim from academics and the general public. They were reprinted in Australia, India, England and Singapore and have since never been out of print. Our books were translated into Spanish, German, Hungarian, and Russian, and sparked religious movements in Russia, Ukraine, Mexico and other countries. They were translated from English into Bengali and Hindi and sold thousands of copies in India. Our book publishing venture never earned any real money, however, and Guardian of Devotion Press was forced by practical matters to close its doors in the early 90s.

We moved on. Fate would take me to Mexico, where my mother was living out her final days.

Bhakti Sudhir Goswami would eventually settle in Thailand, after traveling the world for 15 years in an tireless attempt to promote the books we had published and the  teachings of Shridhar Maharaja. In the course of his adventures, he formed an important friendship with Avadhut Maharaja, a mysterious Russian Swami. Together, they published the teachings of Shridhar Maharaja in Russia, Ukraine, Hungary and other Eastern bloc countries.


Over the past 20 years there has been a great transformation in Russia and Ukraine. The transition from the totalitarian society of the cold war, of Stalin and Brezhnev hasn't been easy.

1968 Prague Spring

But in the late 90s and the beginning of the new millenium, there was an opening, a cultural renaissance. Books that were unavailable suddenly found themselves in print. Censorship was lifted. The flood-gates were opened. The internet appeared. Suddenly people were inundated with information.

During the bad old days of the Soviet republics, the USSR was officially an atheist, communist state. Religious meetings were banned. Churches were used as museums, concert halls, or army barracks. The secret police investigated groups promoting yoga.

1970s Cold war machinery in Red Square

Back in the 1970s and 80s my friends would smuggle books like Bhagavad-gita into the Iron Curtain at the risk of their lives or prison. They would tell hair-raising stories of crashing check-points and avoiding border guards. They would circulate mimeographed copies of Vedic and Puranic texts where censorship would earn you a tour of Siberia.  That  began to change with Perestroika, Glasnost, and Gorbachov. And with the fall of the Soviet Union it began to be  possible to practice yoga openly. Suddenly our books were popular.

Back in Mexico, I had no idea that the books we had once published were now sweeping Ukraine and Russia. I took a teaching job at the local University and settled down with my Mexican wife, doing my best to take care of my mother's medical needs, writing an occasional article, learning Spanish and publishing a bit of poetry.

I'm a ukulele player and when I put a video on You-tube for laughs, I was shocked to see an e-mail from my old friend Goswami one day, inviting me to his yoga ashram in Thailand.

There I met with some of the Russian followers of Avadhuta Maharaja who assured me that he was interested in my work. He was busy in Russia, but flew to Thailand a few days later, where I met him at the Suvarnabhumi airport. We had a warm conversation and a good interchange of ideas.

I promised to help him with two projects: one, a documentary to be made about Angkor Wat. This would later build into a bigger project, a film on the life of Henri Mouhot, the 19th century explorer who discovered Angkor. Second, I would begin work on a re-telling of the Mahabharata, to be developed as a graphic novel, and possibly a film. I was eager to take on the work.

Upon my return to Mexico, I began in earnest on both projects, and soon received an invitation to attend the VedaLife Festival in Kiev and Moscow.

As fate would have it, I studied Russian in High School, and had always been interested in visiting the country of Pushkin and Dostoyevsky where dark-eyed women with dark souls suffered existentially and played dark songs on the balalaika.



And so, in late July of last year, I flew to Kiev, Ukraine to see how yoga had transformed the people behind the iron curtain. So to make a long story short, here are a few photos of the Veda Life festival in Kiev. Since then, I have been around the world twice, traveling to Russia, Ukraine, Thailand, and Cambodia, and back to Mexico. I haven't had the time to share the photos of Veda Life festival, so here goes.

Here's Swami Avadhuta, festival organizer, explaining the yoga techniques practiced at Veda Life. 

These are the high tech wizards, registering the attendance of conferees.

It was surprising to see the number of young people who were interested in yoga, meditation, and krishna-bhakti.

Unusual yoga practice was a common sight at the Veda Life festival in Kiev, Ukraine, August, 2014.

The Festival took place at an old Soviet style fairgrounds, where people picknicked on the grass in the warm summer afternoon.

There were antiquities and Krishna deities and lovely girls in summer saris...

Classes on flower decorations, and garland-making...

Twister dance yoga with a follow-the-naga hopscotch board....

As the Swami mingled with the local Kievan hoi poloi.

Bhakti Sudhir Goswami spoke on the ancient transcendental wisdom of the Vedas as seen in the teachings of Shridhar Maharaja.

As inquisitive truth-seekers listened for hours and sometimes clapped along with the music.

Madhusudana Maharaja arrived from India and Muralishwara translated his message of peace.

Young Ukrainians listened thoughtfully...

Picknicked on the lawn...

And enjoyed fine vegetarian cuisine.

They meditated and practiced yoga on the lawns...

Played with friends...

Discussed philosophy...

Dialogued about the meaning of life...

And expressed their creativity...

From educational games....

to mystical fashion statements...

Or impromptu jam sessionss....

From cooking a traditional Ukrainian vegetarian yoga-style borscht...

To just "hanging around,"

the VedaLife festival in Kiev was an astonishing, colorful reminder that the cold war days are over. In spite of all the propaganda you see on TV telling us that Russians and Ukrainians are cold people in a cold country having a cold war, what I saw was a refreshing reminder of the old Peace and Love days, I remember so well.

Tune in tomorrow for the continuation of Mahabharata: The story of Bhishma.