Sunday, July 17, 2011

Return to India - Part 2

In this Part 2 I will finish with a basic description of the journey itself - it's outer or objective parts before offering more personal thoughts and inspirations.

The trip was divided into two parts: the Himalaya, and Calcutta. The Himalaya segment occupied some 17 days and Calcutta, four days. Neither Gita nor I were familiar with the proposed itinerary which our guide, Mahavir Rawat proposed for the Himalayan segment. At the distance of six months from the trip I confess we didn't pay strict attention to the details.

What he proposed was for us to undertake the "Char Dham" or four-part pilgrimage ("yatra") to shrines near the headwaters of the Yamuna River and the Ganges including two of its tributaries. Traditionally pilgrims go from the western river (Yamuna) to the eastern most river (at Badrinath). The shrine near the headwaters of the Jamuna River is called Yamunotri and is dedicated to the goddess Yamuna. Heading east across the mountains that separate the Yamuna from the next river valley is Gangotri, once the physical source of the main branch of the Ganges (but due to global warming the glacier has receded some twelve miles up). The next shrine is at Kedernath, dedicated to Lord Shiva where the Pandavas (heroes of the epic, the Mahabharata) sought Shiva's blessings and where in later centuries the great reformer of Hinduism, Adi Swami Shankacharya, restored the shrine to its former glory. Badrinath is the final stop of the Char Dham and is dedicated to Lord Vishnu (the Preserver) and, like Kedernath, was restored by Adi Swami Shankacharya.

These are among the most visited and revered shrines in India, but there are countless other places made holy by tradition and by the vibrations of saints and sages over thousands of years. Badrinath includes the mountain village of Mana (the last Indian village before the Tibetan border) where the sage Byasa dictated the Mahabharata. We visited two sadhus: one in a cave outside Gangotri, and another, Tar Baba (wearer of only a burlap sack!), in Badrinath, in a tiny ashram dwelling. We entered three other caves, all unoccupied (more about that later), visited a famous shrine to the Pandavas called Lak Mandal, and a very sacred cave where Adi Swami Shankacharya lived and where a most ancient mulberry tree survives in mute testimony to his divine presence.

There is a deep yet not yet revealed connection between Paramhansa Yogananda and Adi Swami Shankacharya. In Yogananda's autobiography he went into ecstasy upon the mere sight of a temple in Kashmir dedicated to the great reformer. Even more importantly, Yogananda's life teachings take their lead from the one word description given to the world by Shankacharya centuries ago: "Satchidanandam." This is his description of God (and God-consciousness): ever-existing, ever-conscious, ever-new Bliss. The core thesis of Yogananda's teachings can be summarized in saying that what all beings are seeking is unending bliss. This defines our true nature and defines the goal of life!

Yogananda told his disciples that in a previous life he was Arjuna, the third of the Pandava brothers and the great warrior-king and chief disciple of Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita (a chapter of the epic story the Mahabharata). Thus the connection for us with the Pandavas and with Shankacharya.

Despite this grand and traditional pilgrimage I must state that the simple visit to Dronagiri Mountain and the cave of Babaji was perhaps the deepest and most touching of all of the Himalayan journey. Here we meditated near the spot where Lahiri Mahasaya met Mahavatar Babaji in 1861 (the deathless yogi of the Himalaya devoutly revered and spoken of by Hindus and yogis for centuries) and the nearby cave where Lahiri was initiated into Kriya Yoga and began the worldwide work of kriya in the modern age.

Calcutta is a story I will leave for another blog for the power of the simple abodes that I will describe is beyond imagination. Only in India can the contrast between the restless energy of a city such as Calcutta and the spiritual power of the divine manifestations of multiple avatars co-exist. As Jesus was born in a manger, the avatars of Dwapara Yuga congregated in the simple homes on the outskirts of one of the world's greatest and most vibrant cities. Calcutta was the intellectual, spiritual, and energetic heart and soul of the 20th century revolution that began the transformation of India from medieval times to the modern era.

Until we meet in the next blog,

Hriman

Saturday, July 16, 2011

Return to India - Part 1

My daughter Gita and I returned from India last Tuesday, July 12. The 3-week trip went well on every level, though it had its challenges on every level too. Tomorrow, Sunday, July 17, I will offer a slide show presentation of the trip but I thought to use this blog for more personal reflections than a slide show would allow.

Nowadays many people visit India and it becomes increasingly accessible and (relatively) comfortable each year as India continues its explosive entry into the 21st century. Even up and into the Himalayas the development is intense: the mountain-clinging dirt roads (still very dangerous) are being paved, bridges replaced or added, electricity goes practically to Mt. Everest along with the ubiquitous cell phone towers, and hotels and guest lodges multiply like spring wildflowers. I don't know how many pilgrims ascend to these mountain shrines during each season (May-October) but it's many, many thousands. We were never alone. (One is never alone in India, at least physically. Even the path up Mt. Everest is said to resemble a parking lot, at least during the limited climbing season.)

We went by car belonging to our guide Mahavir Singh Rawat and driven by his driver Sitendra (having a driver for one's car is very common in India). The higher one goes and the deeper into the Himalaya the more likely the road regresses to dirt and rock. This is true also when one leaves the main "highways." We saw young men, two astride a small 125cc motorcycle, blasting up the mountains from the hot Indian plains far below to some of the highest shrines, along dirt, rock and rutted roads oblivious to the simple fact that one badly placed stone could send them hurtling down the precipitous cliffs in a nanosecond! (Imagine young men in their twenties in America heading off on pilgrimage together to visit ancient shrines high in mountains, eyes bright with joy and devotion?)

Ours was not a trekking holiday, nor yet sightseeing in the usual way. My daughter Gita had returned a year and a half ago from an Ananda group pilgrimage to India but she did not have the time to accompany the group into the Himalayas. Mahavir, the guide, mentioned to her that he did guided tours for individuals and small groups, not just the larger official Ananda tours. So upon her return she asked me if I'd be interested in returning with her. As I had been to India three times including (35 years ago) an extensive visit (including to other parts of the Himalaya), she could be sure I would say YES! And, of course I did. But it took some planning for we needed to use up whatever airplane miles we could muster to afford the trip. So Padma, my wife and resident booking agent, handled the flights. Gita had or researched the contacts with the families in and around Calcutta who are related to Yogananda and his life there; and Mahavir outlined the traditional "Char Dham" yatra (pilgrimage) to the four very sacred Himalayan shrines.

I admit that some deity or another veiled from our minds the obvious intensity of that itinerary which in retrospect meant some some 15 or 16 very long days of driving on mostly dirt and rock roads on treacherous mountain passes and cliffs. It meant stopping before nightfall at whatever available pilgrim style lodgings were at hand, and and where showers, hot water, (Western) toilets, towels, soap, toilet paper and mattresses were scarce or nonexistent but flies, cockroaches, large flying beetles, and mosquitoes formed local welcoming committees. I've never had chapati and dal three times a day for several weeks. It can wear on you.

But none of these considerations were uppermost. This was an opportunity for Gita and I to spend quality time together in an energetic commitment to the quest for Self-realization. We meditated together each day; chanted together walking or in the car; were enraptured by the stunning and ever changing beauty of both the lower and higher Himalaya, and entered into the pilgrim's way of devotion through "puja" and "arati" (traditional and ancient Hindu rituals) at sites held sacred for millennia by the presence of great rishis down through the ages and the devotion of millions of pilgrims seeking divine consolation for their world-weary hearts.

Lastly, for me this "Return to India" completes a cycle of spiritual seeking that began in India for me in 1975 but which, at that time, could not be completed because I had not yet found my spiritual path and guru (Paramhansa Yogananda). So, in going back now, at age 60, I went seeking to contact the spiritual roots of both India's timeless tradition and the prior incarnations of Paramhansa Yogananda and the line of gurus who sent him to the West.

Mountains have kindled in human hearts a yearning for the heavenly realms (whether as a place or state of consciousness, or both) since time immemorial. In India, the bounty, beauty and grandeur of nature is not seen merely as the product of impersonal random geologic forces but as the obvious result of the interplay of Divine forces personified in the gods and goddesses in interaction with the rishis and avatars. An unusual rock formation, for example, comes quite naturally with its own story. Do we not teach (in metaphysics) that all matter is created, sustained, and dissolved by its most elemental substance: consciousness? Is it not more reasonable to assume that a "cathedral" like Yosemite Valley was formed by conscious Divine beings than to say it "just happened?"

This trip was a pilgrimage and a true pilgrimage is a journey within. Perhaps in the next blog or two, I can share with you at least some aspects of my inner journey and its evolving realizations.

Blessings, Hriman

Sunday, June 19, 2011

Off to India

I am leaving this afternoon for a 3-week trip to India. My daughter and I will have the blessing of Ananda's Himalyan tour guide, Mahavir, for a personal tour of four Himalayan sites sacred to Hindus for thousands of years. In addition, we will end our trip in Calcutta at the boyhood home of Paramhansa Yogananda, and a visit to other blessed sites associated with his life story there in and around Calcutta.

This trip is not for pleasure or for comfort but, with grace, we will be in the Himalaya where Spirit and Nature unit in a supreme union of outer grandeur and inner awakening. There rishis have lived and roamed since time immemorial. We hope to meditate in a cave blessed by Mahavatar Babaji whose deathless presence, to this day, permeates these sacred haunts.

So wish us "luck" that the mountains "come out" and that Babaji and the great ones bless us with their presence. Gita will be the photographer and I will do what I can to journal and bring back at least a "tithe" of the blessings we may enjoy.

This is, for me, a once-in-lifetime journey, though I have visited the Himalaya on a trek some 35 years ago. I think for me and for Gita it represents something beyond what we can know at this time.

See you when I return, July 12, by the grace of God and Gurus.

Joy, Nayaswami Hriman