Hi Folks,

After Ahmedabad our next journey was to Dwaraka. By hearing the name, by thinking of going to Dwaraka was an exciting experience to me because I love Lord Krishna and Dwaraka is linked with Lord Krishna. From Ahmedabad to Dwarka it was over night journey by train. We had reached Dwarka early morning of 26th July 2003. As soon as I had stepped down from the train I was over whelmed with happiness thinking I am on the land of Lord Krishna! It was wonderful!

We had checked in a hotel. I was in a hurry to visit Dwarka dheesh! So I went to have a bath & was ready to go to the temple. My husband was faster! He left me in the room & on the pretext of getting orientation of the town he went to find out the where about s of the temple.

Any way the moment had came for me to have a darshan of Dwarka dheesh! Luckily when we had entered the temple there was no rush at all. Seeing Lord Krishna my eyes filled with tears of Joy! It was wonderful moment for me. The decoration was very beautiful; I do not have any words to express! I felt as if he was laughing at me for a moment. And in the next moment as if he was looking at me the way my daughter used to look at mewhen she was young & when I told her to remove the finger from her mouth. And in the next moment Lord Krishna was looking at me like when Ravi (my son) was young, came home from school & was excitedly telling me that he came first in running race. So many expressions, so many feelings, I was spell bound by my own emotions & joy! It was fantastic! I felt the presence of Lord Krishna. It was wonderful! I did not want to come away from the Lord. But Alas! My husband had become very much restless because there were so many things to see yet.

Luckily we met a Panda who was very well mannered. He had taken us through the temple & explained every inch of the temple. He had taken us where Satyabhama, w/o Lord Krishna did Tulabharam of Sri Krishna. There we can give Sampurna tulabharam by weighing our selves, with food grains, & those grains will be used for anna danam(poor feeding). I wanted to do it.

So a Brahmin did puja to Lord Krishna, & to the weighing machine. Then praying God I sat in the Thulabharam. A little more than to my weight they had put wheat, & Jaggeray, oil, ghee, mirchi, and pulses each one weighing three kg, along with a coconut & tulasi leaf. Then they asked me to pray! They had given us the receipt too.

Then we had gone to see where Gomati meets the see. We had spent some time at the banks of river Gomati and came back to our hotel. In the after noon we went to see all the small temples at Dwarka & again in the night we went to the main temple for Harati. What I had observed in the temple was whatever we offer to god, was not reaching God at all. I mean when we offer tulasimala etc; I expected the pujari to put the mala in the neck of the Lord. But what they were doing was they were throwing our offerings at the entrance. I was unhappy because I had purchased a Vaijayanti mala for Sri Krishna by way of gift at Ahmedabad and I wanted to see the lord wearing it.

On second day I was in dilemma whether to take the Vaijayanti mala to temple for offering it to the Lord or not. I had decided to take it to the temple. I took it to the Temple and offered it to the God. The pujari who was present there asked me what was it? I told him it was Vaijayanti mala, Lord Krishna used to wear it. The priest was aware of the sanctity of the Vaijayanti Mala and the importance of my gift. The priest offered it to Lord by decorating the mala in the neck of Sri Krishna. I felt as if the Lord Krishna accepted my prayers & I was very happy.

Second day after darshan at main temple we went on Dwarka tour. It includes a visit to Nageswara mahadeve temple, one of 12 jyotirlingas then a visit to Gopi talav. The story of Nageswara Jyotirling was before constructing Dwarka, Lord Krishna prayed Shiva here. The story of Gopi Talav was like this. Lord Krishna invited Gopikalu to Dwarka. They had come from Mathura to visit Lord Krishna. Udhav, the dearest friend of Lord Krishna who brought them made them wait there while he went to inform Lord Krishna about the arrival of gopikalu. Gopikalu while waiting for Krishna took a bath in that

Lake. And that lake is called Gopitalav.

Then we went to Bet dwarka which was the original dwarka, found in the see by archeological department. There was a temple of Lord Krishna . As it was in the sea, we had to go by motorboat into the see to visit this dwarka.

Dwarka in fact was so full of wealth it was called the golden city. And Lord Krishna after completing his avatar instead of giving all his wealth to his kith & kin, he wanted the city to be submerge in the sea! Only god can do that!

Then we went to beautiful Rukmini mata mandir. The whole tour of these four places took us half a day . Then again in the evening we spent some time at the main temple.

On third day we took a bath at Gomati-Sea sangamam. The belief was that after taking a dip at sea where the river Gomati meets the sea, a visit to sangam narayan temple makes us to be qualified for moksham. So we took a dip there, & my husband did tarpanams, we had visited the temple. To have a bath at the sea was fun & wonderful experience.

They had constructed steps into the sea. There were very strong ropes too to hold while taking the bath. So you sit on those steps while holding on to the rope, the sea comes & baths you! It was great fun.

On the second day I had asked the temple people why they were not offering fresh Prasadam to lord Krishna. Because whenever we were purchasing the Prasadam we are getting, stale, and stiff sweet like things. They had told me that only early morning they offer fresh butter to Lord. And at 12 noon they offer maha nivedan but that was not available to public. So third day we had gone to the temple early to take that fresh butter prasadam.

The stay at Dwarka was very much satisfying. It was wonderful to stay with Lord Krishna. I had spent as much time as possible in the temple. Three days& three nights at Dwarka was a great gift to us by the God!