Pilgrimage to the Heart - Part 1

A "yatra" is a spiritual pilgrimage.  In many spiritual traditions, visiting sacred places or holy beings is an important spiritual practice.  I've written about my 1986 trip to India in an earlier blog article.  In 1986 I visited some important pilgrimage places, like the town of Haridwar in North India on the Ganges River and the Grishneshwar temple in Maharashtra.  

I started planning my 2015 yatra on November 27, 2014. I was already in bed when I checked my email on my phone one last time and saw I had received an email from Namarupa Magazine describing a yatra to North India in October, 2015. Two things caught my attention: the first was that the yatra included a week-long Ashtanga retreat with Sharath in the famous pilgrimage town of Uttarkashi and the second was that the yatra included a visit to the Kedarnath temple.  I jumped out of bed to read the full email on my computer. I recalled that when Sharath visited Louisville in 2003, a student asked him if he had been to the Himalayas, and Sharath answered, "No, if I go there, I'm not coming back."  I understood why Sharath said that.  The Himalayan region is the birthplace of yoga. Many great yogis, yoginis, rishis and siddhas have lived and practiced in the Himalayas and experienced revelations there which form the teachings of the yoga tradition.  The thought of visiting these sacred regions was as alluring to me as it was to Sharath.  I had read about many of the temples and sacred places and I saw that the Namarupa yatra included several temples that were on my bucket list of places I wanted to visit. The temple at the top of the list was Kedarnath!  I immediately paid the deposit to reserve a place.

Kedarnath is one of the twelve jyotirlinga temples in India. Grishneshwar, which I had visited in 1986, is one of them and it had a big impact on my life.  I feel that my brief visit to this temple changed the course of my life.  The lingam is the main form of the deity in most Shiva temples. It represents the formless, transcendent aspect of the Divine as Supreme Consciousness. Sometimes mistaken for a phallic image, it depicts the Divine form of Shiva as an infinite column of light.  These temples to Shiva in the form of divine light are ancient, sacred places of worship and have attracted many millions of worshipers over the millenia. Kedarnath is the most remote jyotirlinga temple. 14 km from the nearest road, it can be reached on foot or by pony. Helicopter service is also now available from nearby towns.  Kedarnath sits in the lap of the Kedar peak, in a remote location. 11,755 feet high, closed by snowfall from November through the end of April, it is still visited by thousands of pilgrims every year. 557,923 pilgrims visited Kerdarnath in 2007. 

That so many people go there is all the more amazing considering that Kedarnath suffered a terrible disaster in 2013, the worst to hit India since the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004.  On June 16, 2013, an unusual weather pattern combined with spring snow melt and monsoon rain. A heavy rain fell for twenty-four hours on the mountains above the town. The Mandakini River runs from Kedarnath peak and is a tributary of  the Ganga. Just after nightfall on June 16, the river flooded the town.  People fled to the temple, which is on higher ground, to take refuge.  Unfortunately not all could fit inside the temple or on the raised platform on which the temple sits.  During the night several buildings and an unknown number of people were washed away.  Survivors described their terror, listening the river raging on both sides of the town.  A few hours later just before dawn, survivors described hearing an even louder sound, the loudest sound they had ever heard.  The embankment of a lake on the mountain above the town collapsed and a wall of water hit the temple and remaining buildings of the town, causing further devastation and loss of life.  The official death toll was 5700, but the exact numbers are unknown due to large numbers of pilgrims being present. Over 100,000 pilgrims were stranded in the area. Footpaths, roads and modern steel and concrete bridges had been washed away.  It took several days for the Indian army to helicopter thousands of people to safety. Amazingly, the temple survived the flooding with relatively little damage.

At first the state government of Uttarakhand announced that the pilgrimage route to Kedarnath would not re-open for four years due to the damage to the route.  There were even proposals that the temple should be moved because the ground was so contaminated with the dead.  But the temple re-opened the very next year, 2014, but the area is not back to normal.  When our Ashtanga Sadhana Retreat took place with 150 participants, the local people told us that this was the largest group to visit the Uttarkashi region since the flood.  Those of us who took the ponies or walked the pilgrimage route in 2015 saw lots of construction and repair going on, but the destruction that remains is a very sobering sight.

The stories and history of the temple are unique. It is said to have been founded by the Pandava brothers, the heroes of the Mahabharata War (8th-9th centuries BCE). The Pandava bothers wanted to atone for the crimes they committed during the war and sought out Lord Shiva to obtain His forgiveness.  Unwilling to give them forgiveness so easily, the Lord eluded them in the mountains.  As they chased him, He took the form of a bull.  Diving into the ground at Kedarnath, he left a lingam there in the form of the bull's hump, his heart and arms at Tungnath, his hair at Kalpeshwar, his face at Rudranath, and his navel at Madhyamaheshwar. Pleased, the Pandavas built temples at these places.  Adi Shankaracharya, the great teacher of Vedanta venerated by Shri K. Pattabjhi Jois, renovated Kedarnath temple in the 8th century CE and disappeared from this spot into the high mountains.

Here is a description by Swami Akhandananda, on his pilgrimage there in the late 1880's. 

Kedarnath, October 21, 2015, early morning

When I first saw the entirely snow clad, huge and bright peak on which the temple of Kedarnath is situated, I was stupefied. ...The temple of Kedarnath was on the lap of a huge peak and the entire peak was now revealing itself before me. It was as bright as the glowing morning sun. Thousands of soft rays were emerging from the peak and they were all enveloping and overwhelming me. I thought to myself that I had come to this place of eternal light leaving the eternal darkness permanently behind. I could not look at the snow-white peak for long. My eyes became indrawn and the huge peak of the mountain appeared before me as an eternal uncreated symbol of Siva. This was no imagination. It was a divine experience. Nowhere else in the entire Himalayas you can see such a resplendent form of Siva.... To have such a vision is a great event in one's life. (Swami Akhandanada, In the Lap of the Himalayas, Sri Ramakrishna Math: 1980 103-104).

Before we got to Kedarnath, we stopped at Varanasi, Vrindavan, Haridwar, Rishikesh and Uttarkashi. These are holy cities with important Shiva temples. In Varanasi, we visited the Kashi Vishwanath Temple, one of the twelve jyotilinga temples.  You can read more about this temple on Wikipedia. We had to wait for quite some time to get into this temple. Over 3,000 people visit this temple everyday. On special holidays like Mahashivaratri, over 1,000,000 people visit in one day.  I felt happy about my visit here because, as I was waiting in line, someone pressed a cup of milk and flowers into my hand, and several hours later I was able to actually see the lingam and pour the milk on it before I was shoved out the door.

Even though we had to wait in line a long time, it was very interesting to see and interact with other devotees and the shopkeepers that line the narrow alleys. My thoughts are always, "Here I am standing in line waiting to see God, and all I can think is, "I hope I don't have to pee." It's the human condition. I know God understands.

Varanasi - the temple is unseen, beyond the ghat.

At Vrindavan, which is a town sacred to Vishnu in the form of Lord Krishna, we visited the Gopeshwara Temple. According to legend, Lord Kishna lived here and his most exalted devotees were gopis, the humble milkmaids who would leave their homes and families at night to dance with Krishna in the moonlight beside the Yamuna River.  Lord Shiva wanted to experience this for Himself, but only women were allowed to be present. Parvati, Shiva's consort, was accepted, but Lord Shiva was turned away.  He bathed in the river and assumed female form and dressed as a gopi. When he began to dance, however, he gave Himself away, for Shiva is Nataraj, the King of the Dancers. Krishna recognized Shiva and embraced Him. Shiva remained in Vrindavan as Gopeshwara "The Gopi Lord" and is the protector of this sacred realm. When entering Vrindavan, it is customary to visit Gopeshwara first to destroy your egotism and purify yourself.

Vrindavan, where the gopis danced.

Next we visited Haridwar, one of the sacred cities of India and a location of the Kumbh Mela, a huge religious festival that marks the places where the gods and demons fought and spilled the nectar of immortality. I had visited Haridwar in 1986, and it didn't seem that different to me in 2015. We had a great time here at the Ganga Arati and bathing in the river. I have posted videos of the arati celebration on my Facebook page.

A crowd begins to gather for the evening arati celebrations.

On our way up into the mountains we stopped at Rishikesh briefly to visit the samadhi shrine of Swami Sivananda. 

Samadhi Shrine of Swami Sivananda

This is where the remains of Swami Sivananda are entombed. Swami Sivananda was the founder of Sivananda Yoga, the first form of yoga that I learned.  Back in those days, 1967-1990, there were no classes that I could find and I could only practice it from a book which was written by one of his disciples, Swami Vishnudevananda.  One of our tour leaders, Robert Moses, had been a student of Swami Vishnudevananda. When we were still in new Delhi at the beginning of our trip, I had the good fortune of attending a class taught by Robert at the New Delhi Sivananda Center.  I enjoyed the class very much and was relieved to learn that I had practiced it correctly all those years.  I might still be practicing Sivananda Yoga except for moving to Louisville and meeting Maja Trigg, founder of Yoga East. Maja introduced me to Iyengar Yoga and when she retired I met David Swenson and began practicing Ashtanga Yoga.

I owe a debt to Swami Sivananda for giving me a wonderful start on the path of yoga. I certainly feel blessed to have found his teachings. I never thought I'd be able to go to his samadhi shrine, but there I was. 

Deodar forest on the approach to Uttarkashi.

At Rishikesh, the roads started to get pretty scary. A lot of the time they were barely one-lane, gravel, no shoulder, no safety barriers, sometimes partly washed away, and with drop-offs of a thousand feet or more. Plus, we were in tour buses. My heart was in my throat most of the time as we got higher and higher and the roads were more and more hair-raising. Finally we arrived at the town of Uttarkashi, the location of Swami Tapovanananda Ashram, where the Ashtanga Yoga Sadhana Rtreat with Sharath and Saraswathi would take place.  Uttarkashi also has a temple to Shiva called Kashi Vishwanath, like the one in Varanasi, and it was too remote to have been attacked by the Muslim emperors. While we were there, they were renovating part of the temple. However, my favorite place here was by the river, where it is called Bhagirathi. It doesn't become the Ganga until it joins the Alakhananda River at Devprayag.  

River bank at Uttarkashi.

A devotee serving lunch.

Gail Minotti, Karen Cairns and I shared a room. Karen and I joked that our family and friends back home probably visualized us sunning ourselves on the sandy banks of the Ganga, being served frosty glasses of bhang with trident stirrers by handsome young sadhus wearing loincloths.  No! The ashram was quite spartan. Frequently the power was out, and there was only hot water for a couple of hours in the early morning. The beds had mattresses like plywood boards, the hardest beds I've ever slept on. The food was very good ashram food, but simple - dal, rice, a vegetable, chapatis and tea.  There was no internet connection.  

It was difficult to get to the river because of the rocks and debris left from the flood.  One had to clamber over rocks.  I don't have many photos of the river because it was treacherous to get there. I didn't want to break or lose my cell phone. Once you got to the river it was cool and clear. One time I slipped and fell into an open sewer, but luckily I was able to wash myself off in the river.  

Saraswathi and Sharath arrived and they taught a led Ashtanga Primary Series class every morning in the meditation hall. Here is a photo of Saraswathi wearing the Kentucky Oaks T-shirt we gave her. (She is so cool!)  Behind us is a photograph of Swami Chinmayananda, a disciple of Swami Tapovanananda, and the guru of Swami Dayananda, with whom many of us studied at Arsha Vidya Gurukulum in Pennsylvania. 

View from kutir of Swami Tapovanananda

I purchased some books at their bookstore, and Gail and Karen and I spent time meditating in the kutir (hut) of Swami Tapovanananda.

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Conference with Sharath by the river.

Sharath gave conference on the river and spoke to us of the importance of yoga practice, made all the more clear because across the river from us a funeral was in progress. As one of my teachers once said, we practice yoga not so much to have a good life, but to have a good death.  The lesson took on further meaning a few moments later when a member of our party slipped and fell on the rocks and broke her leg. Luckily, one of our yatris was an orthopedic surgeon and knew what to do.  She was flown back to New Delhi on a helicopter to the hospital, returned to the US and has recovered. She handled it all very gracefully - like a true yogini. 

Tungnath Temple - Guptakashi

To be continued....