A PILGRIMAGE TO RISHIKESH
Maharaj-ji (Neem Karoli Baba)
Totally exhausted after the plane journey and the terrifying, long bus journey we stopped just outside Rishikesh at a temple. This place had been a magnet for hippies in the 1960/70’s for it was the abode of the guru Neem Karoli Baba, or as he is better known in  the West, Maharaj-ji. This guru was visited by Richard Alpert, a Harvard professor who together with his college Dr Timothy Leary conducted the first experiments on the effects of the hallucinogenic drug psilocybin on human subjects. Alpert and Leary were dismissed from the university in 1963 - Leary for his conduct in general, and Alpert for illicitly giving psilocybin to undergraduates. Together they became the ‘gurus’ of the psychedelic era and continued their experiments with LSD from a private mansion in Millbrook, New York. Millbrook became the locum of the hippy movement attracting intellectuals from across America and the world including people such as Allen Ginsberg, the Grateful Dead, and Ken Kesey.
But there was a problem with these experiments with consciousness expanding drugs because the states of awareness could not be maintained. Dr Richard Alpert was beginning to get depressed “I realized that no matter how ingenious my experimental designs were, and how high I got, I came down,” said Alpert. “At one point I took five people and we locked ourselves in a building for three weeks and we took 400 micrograms of LSD every four hours…. What happened in those three weeks in that house, no one would ever believe, including us. And at the end of the three weeks, we walked out of the house and within a few days, we came down!”
Richard Alpert toured India in the hope that he could find an Indian holy person who could explain LSD. He eventually met Maharaj-ji who gulped down a load of LSD – 915 micrograms - enough to send a small army into orbit. And nothing happened. Maharaj-ji just continued as normal as if nothing was different. He explained to Alpert that LSD gave you siddhis (power) but that if a person attained the states of consciousness that meditation and yoga brought then even a powerful drug like LSD had no effect on the yogi’s awareness. Alpert became a devotee of Maharaj-ji and took the spiritual name Ram Dass, which means "servant of Rama" (God).
As I looked around the small temple to Maharaj-ji I thought to my self how I’d have loved to have met this guru. I then ‘heard’ a voice: “You just have!” I looked around but I was alone. My group were far from me and out of earshot. I had heard an absolutely clear objective voice, not an inner impression of a voice that comes through clairaudience but an audible voice ‘out there’. In some of the other temples we were to visit later there was a sense of the energy of the person but here I felt the actual spirit of the guru who greets and helps those who come with good intent. |
RISHIKESH (Hrishikesh)
Apart from the spider as big as my hand that crawled from under my bed, Rishikesh is a comparatively safe place. This is a holy city stuffed with saffron clad holymen and sadhus. Many are just beggars dressed up, looking for an easy living but others are doing genuine sadhana (spiritual work) such as our local resident sadhu who lived in the woodlands to the side of our ashram and blew his conch every morning at five.
Rishikesh is the first big town on the Ganges so here the water is clean and safe to bath in – which was one of our first acts. It is believed that bathing in the Ganges washes away your sins so Steve grabbed me from my paddling and doing his John the Baptist made sure I was completely submersed.
The Ganges (Ganga) is an incredibly beautiful river and from our ashram, which was right on the bank, we could watch the colours change throughout the day. At dawn and in the morning when we did our yoga from the veranda, it foams white and we could just hear the surge of river in the distance as it tumbles down cold from the Himalayas. The sound is gradually lost as India wakes up. As the day progresses the river changes to a pastel blue/green reminding me of the coral seas I seen in Thailand and by the late evening the river turns indigo blue.
Throughout our trip there was always the feeling of the sacred river in the background like a holy thread that wove its way through our lives. Close to the river and sometimes on its sandy banks we would do our yoga.
At night on the opposite bank of the river would be lit by the occasional floating light and would echo to the rhythms of the bhajans and mantras coming from the ghats. The most interesting of these is the Triveni Ghat with it’s giant archway depicting the chariot of Krishna and its giant white statue of Shiva in the river. Some evenings we joined the hundreds of pilgrims who attend the Ganga Arti. At this Ghat the air is electric with chanting from the orange clad devotees and filled with the smell on incense. We joined the ceremonies and released into the river flower-filled leaf boats carrying tiny candle lamps. This is a ceremony of worship, remembrance and hope. My candle went out – the next day I called Jane in England and was given the bad news that my stepson’s wife had lost her baby.
Continue the Pilgrimage...
Next: SIVANANDA SARASWATI |
