GOING HOME:
GAINING ENTRANCE

VISA, DOCUMENTS

• Please allow us the excitement of looking forward to seeing you—get in touch with us if you wish to visit.

• You must have a two-way (round trip) ticket. This is a government requirement.

• Unless you are from Bhutan, Maldives or Nepal, you need a valid visa for the entire duration of your stay (including the departure date—leaving with an expired visa can lead to you never being able to come to the country again).
Important! In 2017 Indian government extended the duration of e-visa to India. Now citizens of many countries can apply for an electronic visa online for the duration of up to 60 days. You can find the detail and the list of eligible countries at their official website (please read the instructions/terms given there carefully).

• If you do not qualify for the e-visa or your intended stay is longer than 60 days, the other most hassle-free way to get the visa is to apply through a travel agent. In other cases, you can apply directly at the visa department of the Indian embassy in your country. You can easily find the list of requirements for your country online.

• Some countries require an invitation letter or hotel booking to get a tourist visa. If your travel agent insists on the invitation letter and cannot work around it, write to us to get one. Check if the embassy requires an original letter or can accept a photocopy (sending an invitation letter by post can take up to 6 weeks!). Please note that the e-visa does not require an invitation letter.

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Some food for thought:

"You have got the passport (liberation), but you cannot come to Goloka Vrindavan with a passport only, just as you cannot come to India with only a passport—you have to get a visa from India. So, to enter Goloka Vrindavan, you have to enter a service planet—you have to take a visa from that planet."

"In Bhagavad-gita (15.6) Krishna says, 'One who reaches My abode never returns to this material world. The dissolution will go on in the plane of the material world, but if you can secure a visa for that land, if you can enter into that soil, you will never be mishandled. When the sun, moon, and stars are all dissolved, your eternal self, your devotional ego, will be quite safe in My plane.'"

"...If we realize that we are members of that plane, then the question becomes what to do? How to approach the higher realm? That will be our problem. We cannot force our entry there; we must be granted a visa. We cannot master that finer realm, we must allow ourselves to be utilized by it. In other words we must come to the position of slavery. We shall have to realize that mastership here in the mortal world is a curse, and the slavery in that higher world is a boon."

GOING HOME:

• Introduction
• Visa, documents
• Packing
• Travelling to:
  ◊ Kolkata
  ◊ Nabadwip