My pilgrimage to Kamakhya, India

From my recent trip to India:(1) Havan, fire ceremony, (2) best saree at Kamakhya, (3) Panditji’s lecture at the Allahabad Campus, (4) Kumari Puja, traditional of Kamakhya, (5) The Ganga in Allahabad, (6) Koti Lingam cave where Parashurama did his practice, (7) Kamakhya main temple, (8) Ganga seen from Allahabad Campus, (9) Eco-cottages at the Allahabad Campus.

View my photo album here

I am just back from India.

I've joined a group of 100 people on a 3-week trip to India. It was a pilgrimage to the shrine of Kamakhya, combined with a week long study of Sri Vidya with Panditji Rajmani Tigunait. Kamakhya is the wish-fulfilling goddess and Her shrine is the most active and esoteric seat of the Divine Mother, Sri Vidya. Panditji is the guru of my teacher Rod Stryker, the successor of Swami Rama and the head of the Himalayan Institute. He's a sage glowing with charisma, wisdom and unbeatable pragmatism.

It's my second time in India and I really think that it's not worth to go to India if you are only planning to go once. Your first time is completely dedicated to being overwhelmed, surviving the excessive noise and stimulation, learning how to ask and receive help without being explored, and accepting the almost absolute absence of conventional structure in the traffic, communications, etc. Your second time, you don't stop your conversation just because your driver is speeding on the wrong side of the road and there's a car coming in the opposite direction. You don't suffer because you really must go to the temple bathroom barefoot. You learn how to order food. You enjoy shopping whether you bargain or not. You make peace with being uneasy when approached by beggars. In summary, you can choose which parts of the experience you will save, and which parts you will let go, either because you can't understand them, or because they cause inner conflict.

I though I was a hard-core backpacker who would never fit into organized trips. Because of the purpose around which this trip was organized and who was organizing it, I decided to give it a try. I don't think I am ever going to India by myself again. The India of the Yogis is not easy to experience on your own, you need a guide. Not a touristic guide, but one that knows where the treasure is hidden, and how to reveal it. Any dedicated traveller can visit Kamakhya, not everyone will gain the experience that it's known for. Panditji and the Institute organized the trip in such a way that we were gradually prepared to understand what we were about to see, to absorb as much of the energy of the place and to integrate it, gradually and skillfully.

I look forward to sharing more about this enchanting and profound experience. Knowing that it can be a while till I actually do that, I will leave you in the meantime with Sandy Anderson's blog , a senior teacher at the Institute and a dedicated blogger.

Namaste, Clara