World Water Day

Today is World Water Day, a day when we acknowledge the importance of life’s most basic yet most valuable necessity – clean water! It is a great time to take stock of our own water usage patterns and create more efficient habits around using water. Our friends at Water Use It Wisely share some great conservation tips!

The Himalayan Institute’s Humanitarian Projects in Africa, Mexico and India, dig wells, build spring-feed catchments and install other water harvesting systems to supply water to the communities in which we work.

“We forget that the water cycle and the life cycle are one.” – Jacques Cousteau

Water Changes Everything

Inspecting a newly completed catchment in Cameroon

“Water management is often a challenge for our projects because of the harsh climatic conditions and poor infrastructure in our service areas.
It takes endurance and holistic solutions to deliver water to these communities, but once you successfully provide clean water… peoples lives truly change on every level!”

Jeff Abella, Humanitarian Projects Manager for the Himalayan Institute.

Water Project Spotlight

Today we’d like to highlight the rain water harvesting system that our team installed in Mexico to support the VIDA Project. It is located at our agricultural training center and makes use of the rain water which falls 9 months our of the year.

Click on the first image to begin the slide show. 

The roof of our training pavilion has special water collecting channels installed.

The water is channeled to a nearby water storage tank

Thin mesh screens are installed to protect against debris from entering the water tank.

From the tank, the water is piped to 6 different water taps located throughout our training campus.

Utilizing locally grown bamboo to build our water taps.

Inspecting the new “eco” water taps.

Our project leaders testing the new system.

In the dry season it crucial to have a controlled water source.

LETS DIG!

If you and your friends would like to sponsor a water project, let us know and we’ll get to work for you. The Himalayan Institute is a perfect implementation partner. Email us at humanitarian@himalayaninstitute.org to get started.

Beyond the Kumbha Mela

As yoga gains popularity in the West, Western yogis travel to India to learn more about the origins of these teachings or to participate in festivals like the Kumbha Mela. Khajuraho is an obvious place to visit since it is the home to a unique temple complex, built about 1,000 AD, and recognized as a World Heritage Site. The Indian Government has preserved the temple area (about 20 temples remain) and modern hotels are nearby to accommodate tourists and visitors.

The temple complex holds a special significance for HI students and readers of At the Eleventh Hour – as Pandit Rajmani Tigunait describes, this is the location of the Temple of the 64 Yoginis where Swami Rama (founder of the Himalayan Institute) had a glimpse of the Divine Mother.

The 25-acre HI Khajuraho Campus is located outside the town of Khajuraho, nestled between the foothills of the Vindhya Mountains and a national forest. It offers a very quiet, restful, retreat-like environment, ideal for practice and spiritual study. As millions continue to gather on the banks of the Ganges near Allahabad, our guests and pilgrims move on to this new campus, home to an exquisite shrine which we can introduce to you in this video.

Your donations help us continue to offer authentic spiritual teaching and to develop humanitarian projects that serve impoverished communities.

A $50 contribution sponsors one family  in the VIDA Project in rural Mexico.

Check out our new India head office in Allahabad

At our Allahabad campus in India, we have just completed a major campus development project: the construction of our new publications office, a warehousing facility, and staffing quarters. With final construction just winding down, this 500 square meter (5,381 square feet) building will be the new head quarters of the Himalayan Institue India’s book publications.

Preparing the leveled land for the foundation of the new brick building.

Midway through construction and we catch a glimpse of local scaffolding techniques.

Front view of the finished entry way.

Reception area.

The new waiting area, nicely displaying your favorite Himalayan Institute books.

Do you want to come to India with the Himalayan Institute? Join us in Khajuraho and Allahabad for the Kumbha Mela! Celebrated every 12 years, the Kumbha Mela is the largest spiritual gathering on the planet and has attracted hundreds of thousands of people to the banks of the Ganges River for over 5,000 years. We’ll be there between January 18th and March 7th 2013 and hope you join us for one of three tour options during those dates. Learn more and Register now.

Grafting Lemon Trees in Mexico (how to blog)

Amanda Masters writes…

My husband and I spent six months living and working at the Himalayan Institute center in Jonotla, Mexico before moving to Buffalo, NY to become the directors of the HI Buffalo Branch. I often think about our time at HI Mexico and everything we learned there. One of the wonderful things about the Institute’s approach to working with farmers there and at the other centers is the dynamic between continuously teaching and learning.

The following video was taken by Himalayan Institute Mexico General Manager Geovanni Beristain. In it, a local farmer explains how to graft lemon and other citrus trees, using a technique known as bud grafting. Grafting is a great technique because it allows a farmer to combine desirable features of a full grown tree (such as high fruit production and resistance to disease) with a strong and hardy rootstock that is adapted to growing in local conditions.

Video Recap

• A cut is made into the rootstock, which will be the lower half of the tree. A bud cut from a mature tree that you wish to replicate is inserted into the window cut out of the rootstock.
• The farmer then seals the bud onto the trunk with a strip of plastic, which will prevent rain from getting in and will allow the two pieces to grow together. The plastic will be left on for a number of weeks, until the bud is firmly grown into the rootstock.
• When the plastic is removed, the top of the rootstock is cut off, so all new growth will be from the grafted on bud. In this way, the farmer can control the features of the tree and speed up the growing process.

A similar grafting technique is also used to grow Pongamia trees in India, where the Himalayan Institute has worked with Tibetan farmers.

Your Ultimate Experience: Kumbha Mela 2013

For more than 35 years, spiritual seekers from around the world have traveled with the Himalayan Institute on their quest for personal enrichment. The upcoming 21-day pilgrimage to Kumbha Mela 2013 is an extraordinary opportunity to experience the magic of India’s greatest spiritual gathering on the bank of the holy river Ganga.

Wondering what others are saying? Take a look…

Read more reviews…

I wouldn’t trade my experience in India for anything!

~ Mary Lou W. (Madison, WI)

 

An extraordinary experience I will never forget.

~Marianne (Vina del Mar, Chile)

 

Thanks again for a wonderful trip.  It was so incredible and I cannot even imagine not going there without such a well-organized group. I feel very fortunate to have met such wonderful people! My experience was uplifting and spiritual and…will always have a special place in my heart.

~Nanette (Lyndhurst, New Jersey)

 

I really feel renewed in my body, emotions, and soul when I come back home. No other way to visit places in the world [then] the way you organize it! I always feel so happy, so safe, so deeply spiritual with you!

~Lucia P. (Colombia)

 

My visit to India has left me filled with total admiration and love for the country…In addition to the sights and lessons from Panditji, I met such awesome fellow travelers and learned many valuable lessons.

~Bob H. (Philadelphia, PA)

 

By simply being in a different culture, I was better able to understand my own culture and what has influenced who I am. The idea that certain places we visited felt very spiritually charged was also amazing.…I was reassured by the beauty that God was all around me…Thank you, thank you, thank you for such a wonderful opportunity.

~Jordan S. (Madison, WI)

 

Registration closes June 15, 2012. Register now!

Learn more www.KM2013.com