Our Home
An expanse of 110 acres of hily land bordering the Thally reserve forest, 50 km south of Bangalore along the TN-Karnataka border, provides a serene and inspiring setting for pursuing the aims of the Trust. Thirty-five acres were bought with Trust funds and the remaining by individuals who share the Trust's vision and aims.
Directions & Map
Directions and a map to Navadarshanam may be found on the contact page.
Arrangements for visitors
Up to 30 people can be accommodated in Navadarshanam’s seven eco-friendly homes, each with a different design and ambience. Food, bedding, blankets etc.are provided to visitors. Food is based on our health principles, yet quite tasty. Weather is fairly cool all through the year (somewhat like Bangalore, but a little cooler because of the natural surroundings). Visitors need to bring only their clothing, a torch, and umbrellas during the rainy season.
No, we don’t have internships. Visitors may watch the work going on and help in small ways if they wish to, but it is not practical to involve them in a big way in our ongoing programs.
We don’t have any fixed charges for visitors, but as Navadarshanam does not take any funding from any source, contributions from visitors are a major source of its quest for self-sufficiency. Rather than specify any fixed amount, we leave it to the pocket and inclination of those who stay to contribute as they deem fit. We do not take anything from villagers, students etc., so our hope is that those coming from affluent backgrounds will contribute sufficiently to subsidize the stay of villagers, students etc.
Languages
Even though Navadarshanam falls in Tamilnadu, the region around it is Kannada-Telugu speaking. Within Navadarshanam itself, all languages are welcome. All the Trustees here know English and Hindi well, and most of the workers have picked up enough Hindi and English to be able to manage with visitors who don’t know the local languages. As we have discovered through experience, the language of love and fellow-feeling transcends all linguistic boundaries.
Advance Notice Regarding Visits
We love to share whatever food we make with all our visitors. In fact, food is an integral and important part of the Nd experience - how to make and eat food that is healthy, tasty as well as inexpensive. However, now with thousands of visitors dropping in every year, planning how much to cook is proving a difficult task. Therefore, we need to know in advance who and how many are coming. Please do phone Nagarajan on 92430-49163 and co-ordinate your plans with him, so that the kitchen is not overburdened. Please do not arrive in Nd unannounced.
Because of the sharp increase in the number of visitors, we need to set aside a few days of the week for the work of the Trust without having to play host to the visitors. Therefore, we are currently requesting visitors to confine their visits to Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday. This will leave us free to do our internal work rest of the week.
Policies for Visitors
No meat, fish, eggs, or alcoholic drinks are allowed within the Navadarshanam campus. No littering of plastics, either. Nobody is allowed to tip any worker individually – all contributions are pooled and distributed among the workers according to an agreed formula. Everyone is enjoined upon to conserve water and electricity, not to pluck any fruit or flower, not to damage the environment in any way. No electrical gadgets other than those for recharging of batteries may be used by visitors.