Year 7 students had a very educational and enjoyable trip to this spiritual sanctuary in Hertfordshire.
We started by visiting The Mandir, which is where Hindus worship Gods. There were big statues of Gods like Krishna, Radha Gokulananda, Rama and Sita. Bhaktas were chanting Hare Krishna as it helps bring us out of the cycle of birth and death and closer to the ultimate goal of self-realisation and achieving Moksha. They were chanting it to awaken the Gods.
After that, we visited the Gokal Farm. They had roughly a couple of Oxen, eight bulls and ninety cows. In the farm they have a cow protection centre, meaning they don’t harm any cows and they don’t use machinery for milking them. The cows supply milk which can then be churned into butter and cream and so on. In the book of Bhagavad Gita 10.28, “Of weapons, I am the thunderbolt; among cows, I am Surabhi, the provider of plentiful milk.” This is one of the reasons why Hindus don’t eat meat, as Krishna said that the cows provide milk.
Soon after, we went to the George Harrison Memorial Garden. It is in honour of George Harrison, a former Beatles member, who started to believe in Hinduism. He wrote songs with devotional lyrics which were inspired by the teachings and philosophy of the Hare Krishna movement; later, he bought the Manor. When he died, they made a memorial garden with many of his and the Beatles songs engraved on trees and on specific ornaments.
We then moved to the Haveli to watch a presentation about the soul, The Trimurti and the Cycle of Samsara. We learnt that: The Trimurti is Brahma and he is the creator, Vishnu is the preserver, and Shiva is the destroyer. A conk was used by Vishnu; he would blow it at the end of worshipping. Brahma uses a fan made from Peacock feather; he used it to represent the air he gives us. They also told us the soul is eternal, so when a Hindu moved up the scale of Samsara by doing lots of good Karma, they can reach Moksha, being one with Brahman.
We finished the trip with a delicious paneer curry, rice, puffed crackers and colourful poppadoms. I would definitely recommend coming to the Temple as it is an opportunity to learn about a different culture and religion.
