Cairo, the 12th April, 2010

Haridwar, Rishikesh...the land of Gurus! - India PART VI


Famous hindu peregrination of Kumb Melah, thousands of followers seeking the rare opportunity to be purified by the river Ganga waters (so close from the miraculous Himalays) and reborn.
These were my number 1 highest points of the treap, even if I was not searching for anything. I was simply needing to find myself, heal my wounds and be reborn not as a hindu or as a christian but simply as a HUMAN BEING with a heart able to trust and love again. This was no easy task but, what can I say, the waters of the Ganga river are MAGICAL and here I am to confirm the veracity of this fact.

Haridwar and Rishikesh (made famous after The Beatles found their guru there in the 60s) are considered holy places and the proximity with the Himalayas gives them that purity and peaceful allure you may dream of when you're searching for your own soul.

Kumb Melah peregrination happens every 12 years and I would like to think that it wasn't a coincidence that I went on this treap exactly at this time.
I became a bit hindu, as I often become a bit of everything good, and bathed in the Ganga, talked with Saddus and sat with them while being totally undisturbed by their nakedness.
Saddus renunciate material life in all its forms and live in eternal peregrination, walking from place to place totally naked and covered in ashes from the dead.
It may seem strange to a westerner to observe these men but I could easily understand their way of living.


As with everything in India, there was a crazy mix in the subject:
1. Part of it had a Spiritual component of true renunciation to material goods and mundane subjects.

2. Part of it was pure evasion and need to run away from life's worries, responsabilites and headaches. All possessions bring pleasure and headaches. Some people decide the price to pay for material possessions is not that worth...

3. Part of it was a trip into the world of drugs and the illusion that chemicals can alter your reality perception in such a manner that they take you closer to God.Pure illusion and sickness.
Hindus believe that human beings have different phases in their lives and none of these phases should be dismissed.

They have childhood, then they grow and get educated, they work and build a career, a home, all the worldly assets and the pleasure of the senses they discover when they get married and have children.
After they lived a full life of career, home and family making, they are ready to renunciate to all of it and this is the stage the Saddus represent.



KUMB MELAH, Haridwar:


I suggest you research about this hindu feast because it's a world of information that opens doors in your mind and spirit.
I gathered with the crowds offering flowers, incense and fire to the Ganga River.
I bathed in the river and felt like a new person after that.
I've chanted along with some buddhist kids in Rishikesh, also by the river and I saw all those commercial adds promoting Ashrams where you could buy your own LIGHT (so it seemed!) and Gurus with whom it also seems you see the Light!
Spirituality may be for sale in these two places but there's also something deeper, stronger, more present than that available to everyone who can SEE with the HEART.
If you can grasp the feeling of PEACE and TRANSCENDENCE residing in these two places, I guess you understand India.