The last destination on my journey was Varanasi formerly known as the holy city of Baneres. Many gurus , swamis, and prophets achieved enlightenment here. Also, just outside of the city in a small place called Sarnath, Buddha himself- Siddhartha Gutama- gave his first sermon after he came down from the mountain. Buddhism officially began here. It's the most intense, eye opening, and life changing place of my pilgrimage.
But before we get there I must close out Osho. On one of the last days I had a very bizarre encounter with one of the teachers there. This was my warning sign to proceed with caution when diving into these meditations like this, because you are literally playing with fire- the fire of your own sanity. It's a very real thing to not be able to handle this new source of energy and evolution and to actually go crazy because of it. The world as you now know it becomes too much to handle. Kundalini yoga has the same dangers if not practiced right. Luckily I've always been reminded or kept in check so to speak. Before I even began kundalini yoga I had a dream where Buddha, the Dali Lama, and Krishna appeared to me in my mirror in my room (intense, I know). Now at this point I had absolutely no idea what Kundalini was and had only heard it once from a teacher who said something about it being the energy at the base of your spine, but I didn't even know a yoga practice existed for it. In my dream they were telling me all sorts of things about something called "the awakening of the kundalini". When I woke up all I could remember was the three powerhouses whom appeared before me and Krishna saying this thing about the awakening of the kundalini. I got out of my bed and googled that exact phrase and the first thing that came up was a book on Amazon called: The Awakening of the Kundalini by a guy known as Gopi Krishna! I thought that was pretty specific in connection with my dream and ordered it right away. When it came, it was a very small book I finished in two days, and the entire thing was basically a big warning sign. It spoke all about the cases in India of people losing it amongst many other things but that's mainly what I took away from it. However at that point the message was very random because I had no idea why I needed the warning or what it was for. Then a week later my friend, Aimee invited me to my first kundalini yoga class and it all made sense.
The warning at Osho came in the form of an actual person. After Dynamic one morning I was sitting at a table by myself, enjoying my breakfast, when I saw this wild looking woman speaking to herself. She was in the Osho teacher outfit which is an all black robe with a white belt, and I could feel she was going to come talk to me. Shit, it is way to early for this. Sure enough she asks me if she can sit down even though every other table is open in the whole area! She sits down and feels chaotic as she feverishly peels her orange, rubbing each slice on her lips before quickly devouring it. Uncomfortably weird. As I'm looking at her I know there's a message in all this and I start to realize she looks exactly like me! She's like an older, say about 65, version of myself. As I'm thinking this she meets my eyes and says: "oh you're wild too, I can feel it. Yep (pointing her finger at me) you're wild alright. It's our red hair. That red hair. That red hair!" Then she spits out some gibberish and darts her eyes around. I am literally terrified of everything- how she looks like me, what she's saying, and the mere presence of her separate of myself. She's Dutch and tells me she comes here 7 months a year and just loves the gibberish meditations as she awkwardly spits out some more non sense. I am so creeped out I can't even stand it when suddenly a guy walks over and thanks her for the amazing meditation she held the other day and how it was so powerful and beautiful and really helped him a lot!! Ok, now I'm in a sheer state of flabbergasted confusion. I mean, this woman has clearly lost her mind yet still effective for others?? Then just as quickly as she came, she just fluttered away, leaving me deep in thought. Whether it was a warning or not, I chose to take it as such and decided to take a break from meditation that afternoon, taking only a Bollywood dance class, and didn't do dynamic the next day either.
When it was time to leave, I was ready to go. I hit the airport to begin yet another strenuous excursion of tuk-tuk to plane to cab to train to tuk-tuk. I left Pune at 9am and didn't arrive in Varanasi until 11am the next day. I met my friend Anjay in Delhi. He gave me a lot of gear before I left for India as he has made a documentary about his journey to find his family here a couple of years ago. It was amazing, halfway through my trip he just decided he had to join me and booked a ticket on a whim to come help me film in Varanasi! Awesome, right? What's even more amazing is the fact that he and I went to the same high school and college together yet didn't meet until LA. We've pretty much been on the same path since we were 14 but didn't meet until about 28. He's four years older than me so I couldn't help but laugh at say the senior passing the freshman in the halls of Fenwick and saying, yep one day we're gonna travel to India together! Or the frat boy behind the bar serving the underaged sorority girl a beer not knowing one day they'll be meditating in a Shiva temple together. Funny how life unfolds like that and eventually brings people to a meeting point.
Since Anjay is male, 6'2" and Indian I suggested we take an overnight sleeper train from Delhi to Varanasi for the experience of it. And it was great! I loved every minute of it. We had second class which means we shared bunk beds with two other people. We arrived and found our travel buddies to be this old Indian couple. Anjay and I had the top bunks which was perfect for me but ridiculous for him because he's so tall. Haha. Next to us was another Indian man and a solo female traveler from Indiana. I've met so many remarkable women traveling alone in India and it makes me proud to now be apart of this tribe as it's something I have always, always wanted to do. We bunked up for 17hours and I actually had a pretty comfortable night's sleep. However Anjay was pretty restless and told me later the Indian man below me was just ripping ass the whole night, he said it was so loud it was unbelievable. Ah hahaha. I totally did not hear this bc I slept with my music in the whole time.
As we're getting off the train the next morning we find out it's Shivarati! This is one of the biggest festivals in all of India and the fact that we happen to be in Varanasi for it is the equivalent of say, being in Bethlehem for Christmas. It's huge and this was totally unplanned! I've actually celebrated Shivarati the last two years in the states and suddenly here I am in the center of the motherland for the festival?! Incredible. The festival is three days long. The first day is a wild all night celebration- the point is to not sleep and to keep your energy high, bathing in the potency of Shiva. We made our way down to the Ganges river for the night's puja. It was this beautiful ceremony of about eight guys dressed in stunning clothes doing this fire and smoke dance in honor of Shiva. The place was packed with thousands of people. Our tuk-tuk driver told us over a million people will migrate to Varanasi for Shivarati. Anjay and I got to work immediately capturing everything with our cameras and it was all very powerful to be apart of. Afterwords everyone gives an offering of flowers and a lit candle to the river, releasing their intention for Shiva. It was here we realized this is definitely an intense city where the westerner will be shaked down for every possible rupee. I honestly have not had a problem my entire trip until Varanasi where the concept of fixed pay doesn't exist. Basically they start off by saying: pay as you like and look all spiritual and kind. Then you go to pay as you like and they immediately get angry and demand 1000 rupees which is preposterous! This woman straight up got into a fight with us demanding we pay her for the flower she insisted we send down the river and then refused to accept our 300 rupees because it wasn't 1000. It was mad! 1000 rupees is a lot and is definitely not the standard price for pretty much anything in India.
After the puja is the insane block party. The streets are packed with people all night long. From infants to seniors to Saddus everyone is celebrating and most people are high on bhang lassi! It's a type of weed yogurt shake! Marijuana is illegal in India except for this one day out of the year where it is accepted as a part of the ritual. It is believed that by ingesting or smoking it on Shivarati it is known to connect you with the infinite source of the supreme as Shiva himself is connected to the powerful healing plant. Very, very tempting to try, but I did not. However you certainly didn't need to be high to feel this intensity. There was a massive parade down the main street with elephants, camels, horses, bands, massive statues of several gods being charioted through the city. Music everywhere. Think St. Paddy's day in Chicago meets Cinco de Mayo in Mexico City and that's Shivarati in Varanasi! It was nuts. At one point I was stuck in what literally felt like a corral with all these people pushing their way through ( there is absolutely no concept of "personal space" here) when a massive cow appears in front of me. He's just in the line, slowly walking as he's a loud to do because the cows are definitely kings here, and I have to try and get past him somehow. If I don't the flow of traffic will push me right into his ass which could result in a swift hoof to the shin. There's no time to panic only to move as the shoving becomes more aggressive. I have no idea how I'm going to get past this thing, he's gi-normous! Finally I make an attempt to slip past him like the others and he turns to try and shove me with his horns!! I almost had a heart attack as I dodge them at the last second while screaming like an idiot. Meanwhile, Anjay got the whole cow face off on film. Haha. As the night went on a massive rainstorm broke out which you know is a gift from Shiva... And, as you also could imagine,
us westerners without our umbrellas and proper rain gear simply had to call it quits. We grabbed a tuk-tuk which was almost impossible as every other westerner there was also fleeing the scene and ended up gratefully sharing one with a guy from Australia. As we drove back to the British Cantonment area, where we all comfortably stay away from the madness, we left the Indians to their fanatical rain dance that gives the other people we once so ignorantly called Indians, the Native Americans, quite a run for their money! Om Nameh Shivaya.
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