Over the weekend we hosted another successful retreat at Hare Krishna Valley with world famous vegetarian chef Kurma dasa. Fifteen people attended and enjoyed the cooking lessons, yoga, meditative chanting and bush walking, not to mention the feasting. Below is a letter we received from one of our guests.

Cooking with Kurma Retreat

Hello Veda,

I tried to find you to say thankyou again personally for such a wonderful experience, before departure but it wasn’t meant to be this time.

So I’ll thankyou now!

Sharing a few days with Kurma & your small Hari Krishna family was quite a beautiful time for myself & my friend Julie.

I especially enjoyed (along with the warmth & hospitality) the openess & sharing about your beliefs, Krishna & being invited to join the singing.

The retreat exceeded my expectations (I simply was looking forward to learning to use spices to prepare more nutritious food). I learnt to think about how nutrition really nourishes us deeply & in sharing it our soul.

I loved learning in your kitchen with a delightful bunch of others.

A special thankyou to Muni for my diesel & advising about the flatish tyre.
I am home safely.

My feedback form didn’t offer great insight into what may support a wonderful experience in the future. Driving home my friend remarked that although we did eat generous amounts of food, a bit beyond our normal consumption (because it’s new, novel, flavorsome & we helped cook it). It was a good thing to not come away from the retreat thinking eating vegetarian leaves you hungry (a common misconception amongst meat eaters justifying their reliance on animal products).

I know there is a playful exchange between yourself & Kurma about quantity.
We also reflected on this on our drive home. It would have been very diasappointing to be the last with a smaller portion size of Halva… but it was quite a delight to go home with a sample of the left over food. A real boon for the hungry family at home, keen to see what we’ve been learning.

From a woman who lives a very hurried, highly scheduled rush & hurry life in the city. I offer you my heartfelt appreciation for some time to retreat & relax into feeling more human. Some time for sharing. Some time for singing.
A smile for sharing.

Namaste
Milica