My Indian Travels - Rishikesh
A soft landing in Delhi to the heartwarming embrace of Rishikesh
After a soft reunion with India last weekend in Delhi, arriving in Rishikesh on Monday was a full heartwarming embrace. Sari’s displaying a full spectrum of colour, the pungent smell of Indian streets mixed with wafting incense from the shops and the enticing smell of masala chai from the street stalls. A big breath, a sign and the feeling of arriving “home”.
The feeling of “home” when I come to India is the experience of coming home to myself, an opportunity to be fully immersed in the wisdom of this incredible culture. It’s humbling and there is a tangible sense of truth that pervades everything here. There is no other place on earth quite like it for me.
After a pleasant ride through the streets of Deriwar and through the jungle we arrive at our ashram, Parmarth Niketan on the banks of the River Ganga, a truly divine and auspicious landing for two weeks with my group at The London Meditation Centre. My teacher has been coming to this ashram for over 15 years and is a well respected guest by the spiritual head of the ashram Swami Chidanand Saraswati, known fondly in the ashram as Swamiji. There is a lot of excited at the ashram that we are here.
Our first outing was to go shopping and buy traditional clothing to wear during our stay. My teacher has being centre doing this for years, shopping in friends shops, supporting local trade and ultimately to show respect to our hosts and acceptant of the culture we are here to embrace. The locals reaction to us is so welcoming, they are really proud that we are embracing their culture.
As guests of Swamiji we all attended the evening Aarti ceremony in our best dress, an auspicious fire ceremony in celebration of the mother Ganga and Shiva on the shore of the Ganga river. The sun went down to everyone chanting and music playing. Once the sky was dark, girls twirled and performed beautiful traditional dances, displaying not only their talents but the prosthetic limbs they had received as part of a project the ashram supports. It was incredible to witness. The sacred fire celebration concluded the ceremony, with hundreds of people offering fire and chanting.
Rituals and wisdom are so deeply engrained in Indian culture, one of the evening ceremonies called Satsang is an opportunity for everyone to gather and ask the teacher any questions we have about life. Satsang usually held in the presence of an enlightened teacher, in this instance Pujya Sadhvi Bhagawati Sarasvati. These have turned out to be one of my favourite parts of the day, the questions are simple and the advice so practical to apply in everyday life. It’s an opportunity to overcome daily problems and challenges through he wisdom of an enlightened person. I will definitely be joining online when I’m home, anyone can. Here is the link if you are interested.
It’s been a colourful week settling in, this is only the first few days in the ashram, there is so much more to come.
Namaste.
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