"Hari Om!" (Rishikesh), 11th Mar 2006

Geography lesson before we start: A step away from the “Golden Triangle” of tourism that is Delhi-Agra-Jaipur, Rishikesh is about as far North of Delhi as Agra is Southeast or Jaipur is Southwest. 226 Kilometers, to be exact, and the ride is about 6 hours on Indian roads, which get worse the further you go towards Rishikesh and the Himalayas. Rishikesh is at the foothills of the Himalayas, where the lower-lands receive the sacred river Ganges (more properly: “the sacred river Ganga”) from its mouth high in the Himalayas, 250 kilometers North. Rishikesh is in the state Uttaranchal, which was cut off from neighboring Uttar Pradesh because the two states, when united, were simply too big. North of Uttaranchal is China, Westward lies the Punjab and the other Himalayan states of India, Eastward lies Nepal. Rishikesh is a home base (so says Rough Guide to India) for pilgrimages into the sacred mountains above, which leads me to:

Religious/Cultural lesson before we start: The Ganges is said to be the body of a goddess who was trapped in Shiva’s dreadlocks. There’s a great quote in EM Forrester’s Passage to India (though I’m directly referring to the movie, not the book): “If, at any point, a man should so much as picture the River Ganges in his mind, he will attain liberation.” (Paraphrased by memory, of course) So, anyway, the Ganges is the holiest river of India, though the Yamuna and the Krishna are “trying their best”—actually, when visiting the Taj Mahal, I was as much enthralled by my first site of the Yamuna River as I was by chasing down the details of the architecture. Dunking in the Ganges is said to purify the soul in much the same way that pilgrims come for “baptism” in the River Jordan.

After the wonderful party of Mahashivaratri, I head on a bus up to Rishikesh. Enclosed is a great photo I got from a restaurant that gave me a mean case of Delhi Belly. Actually, since arriving in Rishikesh, about ten or eleven days now, I’ve had Delhi Belly (food poisoning from water, unclean or uncooked food) twice! After we arrived in Rishikesh (in the middle of the night due to the bus breaking down) and were rushed across the bridge; during our little microcosm of housing and registration and confusion, nausea set in and I proceeded to be lazy and a little cranky. For the next twenty four hours, I had the amazing gas pains that I knew were Delhi Belly from my experiences on my first trip to Bangalore a few years ago, so I knew to take care of myself right away (Oh yeah, don’t eat the Pizza Hut in Bangalore :) ) Anyway, the culprit was, I think, some undercooked vegetables at the rest stop our bus to Rishikesh took.

I was really excited to be in Rishikesh, having heard so much about Maharishi’s work with Transcendental Meditation here, hearing stories of Sri Sri taking dunks in the Ganges with devotees and, of course, because the Beatles came here and wrote a lot of the White Album in Rishikesh. :) “Dear Prudence, won’t you come out to play? Dear Prudence, it’s a brand new day—Look around!”

My first impressions were that Rishikesh was what I had first come to India looking for—holy men commonly on the streets, temples and sacred sights everywhere, spiritual shops that play mantras and devotional chants on the streets until late night. Despite by bellyache, an enthusiastic buzz set in very quickly. To my delight, rumors materialized that the meditation course we came to Rishikesh for really was to be the “Blessings Course”—an Art of Living course that was designed to prepare participants to be initiated into a healing technique. The Blessings Course was first given to the most senior teachers in Art of Living and Guruji’s Swamis after the tsunami because Guruji noticed that people were too traumatized to be able to release their stress through meditation and their were too many people traumatized for Guruji to give one on one darshan (blessing) to. So, the first healers were made, and since then, the Blessings course has happened many times around the world, making more and more people conduits of that level of grace, yet, I was always busy with volunteer work or taking other courses when the Blessings Course was held in the US or Canada, so I just had the experience of seeing how bright and blissful course participants looked as they went through the processes.

The fact that I got to take the course was amazing for me, and the processes themselves were beyond this world. I had many experiences of my heart opening up, stress disappearing, and really seeing how much we are all extensions of one energy, one love.

(Lots of Pictures attached:)

After the second meditation, Guruji came to our hall and we got to walk out to the Ganges with Him. Guruji sat on the steps of the ghat and talked with a Swamiji I hadn’t noticed before. I eventually decided it was worthwhile to give up my seat on the steps behind Guruji and walk through the sidewaters of the Ganges and get some good photos of Guruji from the front. Walking down there in front of Guruji, when most people had long been settled into their spots, I felt so shy, but also very ecstatic to be with the Guru at the banks of the Ganges. I took a few snaps of Him talking and sat down on a rock that some of my friends were sitting on. He looked my way lovingly, and I burst into a bashful smile. Guruji started to meditate after He had finished speaking with the Swami. Eventually He opened His eyes and started to walk into the Ganges. I did my best to quickly skip across the river stones to follow him and get some more good snaps, but walking on the slippery moss-covered stones, all at random angles, was a little challenging. I sure enough was in a great spot to take some pictures as Guruji started splashing everyone with the holy waters.

One brave Asian woman came up to Guruji, though she was complaining of the cold of the water, she faithfully dunked herself in the Ganges and Guruji looked to her so lovingly, definitely passing her a hefty blessing. Lots of people started preparing to do the same, and I thought about how wonderful it would be to have my first dunks in the Ganges be with Guruji sharing the waters with me. I luckily found someone who would hold my camera and I quickly maneuvered my way to near the front of the Guru and downstream from Him and joined the myriad of people who were now anxiously dunking themselves in the river. Each time I came up I looked to Guruji, who was looking at everyone, so happy, so in love with us all. Right after my third dunk (three is one of the traditional number of dunks for washing away your sins in the Ganges) everyone started trying to convince Guruji to dunk. We were all told to spread out, and I, being directly downstream was asked to move far back so that Guruji could swim downstream. All of us went down together with the Guru, (the Guru’s grace is said to flow through any waters you are sharing with the Guru) and He came up just a few inches away from me—all of us laughing and hollering. He quickly went for a second dunk and I floated downstream as we all dunked and He swam forward staying constantly just a few inches from me. We came again, still laughing all the more and completely ecstatic and blissful and pure and innocent. It was probably the closest I have ever felt to Him, so much in love, and so much simplicity—no roles of student and teacher or any sort of identities of separation.

Guruji started to move to the shore, everyone now in a strong mood of celebration. He changed into a dry dhoti and shawl as a few of the senior teacher held up a curtain for Him to change behind and hollered, “All ladies move on, He’s changing!”

We all collected our things from the banks of the river and skipped along to the Satsang hall, dripping all the way. One of the Westerners in Rishikesh who was a by-stander as all of the blissful (and cold and wet) Art of Living devotees passed saw a particularly “dunked” person who was walking just ahead of me and gave an approving “Alright!” And I was filled with a sense of a strange universality of the experience of falling in a senseless devotion to a Guru.

Arriving there, I wrapped up in a blanket from my kutir. Guruji burst into the knowledge right away, talking about the four things that keep us from experiencing the cosmic energies. The first was progeny—constantly worrying about one’s children and how they are doing. Next came wealth, spending one’s whole life worrying about money. Then was public opinion and respect, and finally worrying about “I, me.” Guruji said the one cure for all these four was to see that “I am dying right now,” every moment.

After he left, we had a beautiful satsang, everyone still so blissed out and joyous after our experience with the Guru in the Ganges. One teacher actually interrupted the Satsang to say that for her, it was a perfect reflection of the playful and undying love of Krishna and the Gopis, a thought that had crossed my mind too. I was touched when she said, “We were so blessed to just see that kind of love and playfulness, let alone those who were actually in the water with Him!” And I melted into the thought of being not only at a blessed occasion, but also in a blessed place in that occasion, just a few inches away from the embodiment of pure love, as we tumbled backwards in the Ganges. Satsang went on full swing.

That was all just my second day in Rishikesh. The rest of the course was also extremely powerful for me, and I feel I really brought a lot out of myself. One day Guruji had us all meet with a 102 year old Swami (picture attached) whose ashram was the host of our Blessings course. We also got to hear Guruji speak at an International Yoga Conference that was being held the same week down the street, which was a really great talk, and the next night, we got to watch Guruji participate in Ganga Aarti, the daily fire offering on the Ganges, hosted by the most prominent Swami of the Rishikesh area (who was actually one of the speakers at Silver Jubilee, also). My friend Spencer got some great shots of that Aarti ceremony, I’ll beg him to let me post some of them up on this blog…

I kind of jumped on the wagon for an “advance course” that immediately followed the Blessings course after asking Guruji if I could stay in Rishikesh until my sister comes to Delhi in early April (flying back down South to Bangalore seems impractical.) That Advance course was very hard for me. Counting the course in Bangalore, it was my third meditation course in a month, and my second silence course (one where all the participants take a limited vow of silence) in a row. It seemed like absolutely everything was aggravating me, and though the meditations were beautiful and I did learn a good bit, it seemed like torture (which, it is said in the Art of Living, is a good way to know you are stretching and growing, however uncomfortable that statement can be! :) ) However, I’m now free and will be looking to check into an ashram back on the other side of the river which seems more peaceful. The last day of the course (yesterday) was met with a strong downpour, a very auspicious sign in Indian culture. I really accepted it as being a blessing though. Rain is easily dismissed on the East Coast of the US, but this was the first good rain I’ve seen since coming to India, 7 weeks ago, and it made me so ecstatic that I could hardly sit still as I ate my lunch.

I’ve been staying at a Hare Krishna ashram, which is quite the experience. The ISKCON (International Society for Krishna Consciousness, or Hare Krishnas, as they are popularly known) is the most famously evangelistic Hindu sect. Popular press often labels them as a cult and relates their international sectors to mysterious crimes that have happened, however, most people will know them as the bald men in orange who “sing at the airports” and on street corners, proclaiming that chanting “Hare Krishna” is the only way to self-Realization and heaven. The energy here at the ashram is wonderful, but I’ve not been able to step past my reserves about the Hare Krishnas, luckily, the noise and the expense of living here is a good enough excuse to move back to the other side of the river. (They charge an “outrageous” Rs. 350 per night ($7- very high for Rishikesh ashrams and there is chanting going on from about 4 or 5 in the morning to midnight every day, not to mention the construction which starts, directly above my room, as early as 7:30.)

Rishikesh itself is really a great paradox. As always, cows are everywhere in the streets. Rishikesh seems to have a good bit more pigs than other towns I’ve seen. However, most noticeably, the line between beggars and saints here is more blurred than anywhere I’ve experienced. Seemingly every homeless person dawns saffron robes, though I’ve only seen a few of them meditate or do yoga. Many of the sadhus (spiritual aspirants) here are also infamously fond of one particular prasad (offering) of Lord Shiva- that of Bangh, marijuana. Walking by the ghats of the Ganges late at night, you can be inundated with the smell of potent weed. Walking down the streets the other night, I saw a sadhu on the other side of the road in full saffron roads and rucksack, he looked to me: “Hari om!” I returned the traditional local greeting with a pranam, hands folded lightly to my heart, “Hari om!” He smiled, “You like a marijuana?” Thickly accented, and drowned out by the evening traffic of Lakshmanjhula Road. I bashfully looked to the ground, a wide grin as I walked on to the ashram.