The next part of the journey began with a surprise: Friday morning, when we arrived at the highway at Girona, I could not speed up the car – the motor was not fully working. I immediately turned to the Girona exit and drove to the nearby petrol station. We invoked Ganesha and whoever might help… And it worked.
A man at the petrol station told us with hands (we don’t speak neither Spanish nor Catalan as it is spoken there) that just around the corner there was a garage – a big one. After short waiting, probably the head of the garage, who spoke a little English, had a look at our car and the spiral alarm light. He then electronically tested the system, did a test ride and gave a little all-clear: The problem had to do with the diesel turbo injection which might return during the journey but we might just restart the car after a small pause. Everything went well with the car during the entire journey – and we gave a big thank-you to Ganesha
The rain from Girona ended while we drove southwards and it became much warmer. We arrived in Onda in the afternoon. Teresa and Manuel gave us a warm welcome. It is the home of the Muditha group of WTT, and I had visited them already in 2012. (You find more about this group and the others in the Annual Report of WTT-Global, PDF.) In the 1990s, Sri Kumar had installed a Krishna statue in their garden. Two of their sons joined for a group photo with Sri Krishna. We spread some rice grains around as a blessing for the birds – next morning, it was all gone, and some more rice was spread.
Manuel is responsible for the book publications of Ediciones Dhanishtha, the publishing house of WTT-Spain, and they have published plenty of books, also a few new ones this year. I smiled when I saw the Spanish Sripada biography published last year on a shelf in their home. (You find much more about adventures around Sripada and his biography in this blog.)
They have a beautiful meditation room …
… but we sat downstairs for joining the zoom evening meditation of WTT-Global followed by a special prayer of the Great Eagle Garuda, related to reviving the spiritual impulse of Spain.
A hearty evening dinner and talk…
…a morning walk with their beautiful meditative dog through the nearby forest area (while all the dogs of the neighbourhood were wildly barking, he kept quiet, and also during meditation) …
… and then we had to leave for the next stage of the journey. But we met them later in Cordoba again.