Hitch-Hiker’s Travel Blog of India

Yep, I arrived at Sri Lanka a few days ago. At first it felt a bit strange seeing my mom after such a long period of not seeing her - especially with the major changes deep within I’ve gone through during this year. After a while of strangeness we got along very well and it’s been nice staying at one of the Sri Lankan beach destinations, Hikkaduwa, with her.  She came to see some ‘adopted’ kids my parents have here - they pay for the kids’ education, toys and food and come to visit them every now and them.

Staying at Hikkaduwa has been a gradual change towards the western atmosphere, it’s much more western in here than in India. I’m happy to have such a gradual change instead of just crashing into the ice cold darkness of Europe right away. Also it’s been very nice to have some luxuries I didn’t have for ages - namely, a posh room at an apartment hotel, with my own kitchen! Finally I can prepare my own food to have food completely suitable for my sadhana - and not having to live on fruits and nuts only. Also it’s been sweet drinking as much fruit juice as I feel like on the beach restaurants, with my mom sponsoring it all. It’s relieving not having to make monetary considerations about everything.

I really love the place where we’re staying - Kailash. The owner is really sweet, a surfin’ yogi who holds yoga classes every other day and in generally is beaming with good vibes. If I’d imagine Kailashpati(aka. Bholenath or Shiva) with a surfboard, it’d be pretty much him :D. In general I feel that the consiciousness of the owner - or the collective consiciousness of the organisation owning - a place very much determines the atmosphere in there. That’s why I really love some ascetic ashrams and hate some luxurious hotels. It’s got nothing to do with the material side of things, it’s all about the vibes - the energy - the consiciousness at the place.

I made some beautiful videos here. Surfing seems like tons of fun, if I only had more time I’d want to learn. Now I’ve stuck with taking photos and videos of the surfers. It’s so much like living surrounded by the material but keeping your self in the spiritual - some times it works out and it’s super cool, then some times I fall in and then it’s time to swim :D.. And after every surf on a wave it’s yet another swim out to the ocean to catch another wave.

I’ll be going for another Vipassana retreat here in Lanka. Probably I won’t be updating for a while as I don’t want to waste too much of my energy on sitting in the ‘net cafe and typing. I already booked a ticket back to Europe, about one month from now. Now I have this one last month of my trip in these parts of the world and I really want to put all of my time on sadhana - not typing. Maybe I’ll write a bit about my insights after the meditation retreats, just before I fly.

The trip isn’t going to be over with the flight, there’ll still be something in Europe in the spring - so all of my long term readers (all the three of ‘em! :D), stay tuned and check back in mid-March.

I’ve now been at Kaniyakumari for a few days. After the first night I found a nice guesthouse, cheaper than most (there’s no backpacker tourist infrastructure here, the entire place is made for indian tourists/pilgrims preferring posh hotels over beach shacks) and with a nice view to the sea from the rooftop, facing east and the sunrise. I did a bit of scouting around after having an anticlimax with the southernmost tip beach (it’s full of people and noise). I found a sweet beach with some huge waves maybe 15 minutes away from my gueshouse. The first morning I went out for the sunrise on the beach but later I’ve just preferred to watch it from the guesthouse rooftop - an ideal place for a few asanas in the morning :).

India seems to be very small for spiritual people. Here I met a couple I previously saw in Vrindavan and we exchanged experiences and tips about different spiritual places and practices we’ve experienced. I also met one more person on the same wavelength as me and we did a bit of sharing as well - including some filesharing as he had a laptop with him.

Some time ago my mother emailed me, telling me she’ll be visiting Sri Lanka soon and inviting me to fly over to meet her. Actually my sudden turn for the south was mostly motivated by her invitation, as flying from the south makes much less flight kilometers and is cheaper than flying from Mumbai or Goa. I’ll be flying over from Trivandrum tomorrow.

I’m very much looking forward to what Sri Lanka has to offer, while at the same time being most content, happy and grateful with what India has given me during the past year. It’s all been a world-rocking experience, both materially and spiritually, an amazing journey of adventure and self-discovery. I truly love India, from the bottom of my heart. Now it’s time to move on, towards a new country with a new spiritual (and material) climate and new learning experiences.

I’m also very happy to be seeing my mother and having a chance to talk to her without any distractions - most times I visit my parents they’re too busy with their job for any serious discussion. Now I’ll have a few weeks with her in a more relaxed setting.

As the year changed, many things changed with it. So did my plans for the rest of my trip. At Goa I met someone and recieved an invitation to France. A bit later I got an email from my mom thelling me she’ll be coming to Sri Lanka and inviting me to meet her there.

As of right now I’m on a train to Kaniyakumari, the southern tip of India. After the meditation retreat I spent some time in Mumbai and then decided to head south for crossing to Lanka. The last place I want to see in India is the south tip, a spiritual place associated with Swami Vivekananda, the most prominent disciple of Ramakrishna. The place is named after one of the forms of Goddess, a girl who did tapasya(=austerities, yoga, meditation, etc) in order to have Shiva as her husband - and in the process she killed a bunch of demons, who could only be slain by a virgin.

At first I left Bombay hitchhiking, but after around 800km and 2 days on the road I felt like having a different mode of transport for the rest, about 1000kms to go. I’m presently having the common class experience on an indian train - something to definately try out once while you’re in India. The general class is the third class on the trains, the cheapest way to go on trains and therefore always super crowded - with no seat reservations of course. Travelling on the common class teaches one to sleep in the smallest spaces and strangest positions :D.

After Goa I headed to Igatpuri, to the international Vipassana academy, for a 10-day course of Vipassana. Vipassana is a form of silent meditation with it’s roots in the buddhist tradition of Burma. When I went to the center, I was looking forward to adding one more tool to my set of means to subdue my mind.

I definately got more than I bargained for. Already on the first three days I would observe an increase in my abilites to control my mind - eating pure food (especially the delicious Iskcon prasad) moderately had long been a challenge for me as I had been totally conditioned by the Iskcon style “it’s all prasad, eat all you can!”-thinking. At Igatpuri - and ever since after it - it was a breeze to refreain from stuffing myself even if the food tasted great and was up to the strictest standards of sattvic food. The real content of the course was still to come later.

Most of the realisations I had on this meditation retreat can’t be put into words - and trying to do so would only degrade them and cause inflation to their value. In short I could say before the retreat I “had it all figured out”, I had a certain kind of construction, a house of cards, built up in my mind and that’s what I called reality. What happened was that the retreat just pulled one of the bottom cards off and the entire thing came down crashing - and leaving me yet again wondering about the true nature of reality and the “ultimate truth”. Actually, similar things had happened to me several times before, but I just wasn’t aware of it happening - for example beginning with Krishna consiciousness devastated my previous house of cards.

In the end it all boils down to experience. Srila Prabhupad said Krishna consiciousness is a scientific method; make an experiment (surrender, do the sadhana, follow the rules and regulations for some time), observe the result, make a conclusion based on the result. The same applies for Vipassana (take 10-day course and follow the instructions) - and drawing conclusions from both experiments and their results, I will make my view of the world - not a house of cards this time, not assuming too much, but just sticking to the experiential facts. I recommend every one of you do the same. Keep an open mind and an open heart, you’ll be sure to hear the message God has for you. Both Krishna consiciousness and Vipassana - and I’m sure every other form of spirituality in this world just as well - are valid and functional methods, just try and find out what suits you, what is your path.

All in all my experiences with different forms of spirituality in India and elsewhere have profoundly, completely changed my life - several times over even. Every time it’s been for the better. Go and find your own path.

This might well be the last post concerning spirituality, as I don’t want to push my views on others, that would be degrading to my realisations. There’s many places to read of spirituality, many of the ones I’ve found helpful have been listed in the Links post.

Peace & Love,

-The hitchhiker on the path of Dharma

I got exactly what I came for at Goa - and so much more also! I went for Arambol as I had heard good things of it - and some people I met in Vrindavan were also heading there. It was great, relaxed hippie backpackers, a couple of goatrance parties and making friends with wonderful lovely like-minded people. I also ended up taking a break from my sadhana for a while - something that happens easily with so many chillums going around :D.

God was still just as present in this place full of so-called ‘vices’ as everywhere. I ended up staying right next to a Narayan temple, with a nicely tended Tulsi at my doorstep (everyone at Goa is consicious about showing their particular brand of spirituality, be it Christian, Muslim, Hindu or any other - every Hindu household has a Tulsi growing outside). I also greatly enjoyed the sunset bhajans sessions on the beach, something a bit more relaxed and out-of-the-box than the usual Iskcon thing, with a bunch of freestyle-devotees and hippies bringing their drums, guitars and other instruments for a chilled out session of dancing and singing in praise of God.

I met some interesting characters at Goa. Igor, a russian owner of one of the beach restaurants at Arambol was one of then. He had a video projector and a screen at his place and got excited as I told him I used to have the same and use it for VJing (playing and mixing videos at psytrance parties) in Finland. He told me of his friend, a DJ, and invited me for electronic audio-visual jam sessions every night after the sunset - I would play the videos and Dima, the DJ, would play some nice Drum’n'Bass beats or psychedelic chillout.

One of the nights we had an amazing party at Igor’s restaurant, with some more of his friends coming over and doing fire juggling show with poi and sticks - of course, with music and visuals too. I took a trip from this party throughout to night into the jungle next day. In the evening and night we had the party, after wich we moved to the beach for some more beautiful fire show. As others went to take rest, I stayed on the beach in meditation for a couple of hours, until the sunrise. The sunrise was beautiful beyond any description by words. After the sunrise I took a walk to the other side of Arambol, as I wanted to have my trip in the jungle as well and I had found out of a trail going into the jungle on the other side of the beach a few days before. The trip to the jungle was exciting - and a great learning experience. Among the few things I learned were to be aware of every step, every decision and every choice I make - and to always keep the balance of my mind. I learned this in a rather practical way as I lost my shoes in the jungle and had to be very aware not to get my feet hurt :D! I also realised that not only the form of Krishna, but every form, is a form of God. As it says in the Gita, ‘Vasudevah sarvam iti’, all this is God. Little did I know there was much more to come in the way of learning experiences..

After being through so many holy places, meeting loads of more-or-less holy sadhus, swamis, babas and whatevers, spending months on sadhana of various kinds and to top it all off, having stayed in Vrindavan continuously for two months, I’m totally up tu my neck (and above!) full of holy. Now I want to have a break of all this holiness and just enjoy life as it is. Luckily India offers great oppoturnities for that as well. My pick this time would be Goa, or possibly Gokarna. Now I’m in a truck on my way from Vrindavan to Goa. So far this is the third day and I’m now about 400km from Mumbai. The first day was a bit slow, I spent hours to get through Agra and another few hours trying to find a place to sleep at another town. Yesterday was very smooth, got a long long ride early in the morning and spent all day in one and same truck. What made this ride truly exceptional was that the driver would stop only twice during the entire day - usually the trucks in India tend to stop constantly for some chai :D. I also slept in the truck and went on with it in the morning. Today we had some technical problems (it’s a petrol or diesel tanker, the tank was leaking!) and I ended up leaving the truck for another ride.

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um. sorry for the inconsistencies in the story and in the timeline. I didn’t keep writing all this stuf constantly and some of it is written way later - so some parts have a lot of small details and then I might sweep through weeks with a few words. The following is written a month later:

Back to where I stopped; I hitched for a total of 4 days, spending two nights on the move as well. By then I was at Ratnagiri in Maharastra, after passing through some hills before Mumbai and a most beautiful stretch of road through the jungle after Mumbai, heading for Goa. I felt totally exhausted after the long stretch on the road and decided to take a break for a day in Ratnagiri. It isn’t much of a tourist place, I only saw some indian holidaymakers in the town. I ended up staying in a typical indian hotel instead of a backpacker guesthouse. I had the most surreal experience at the hotel; the TV. I haven’t owned a TV since I moved out of my parents’ place, and haven’t really watched one either. Then, just out of curiosity, I switched on the TV and surfed through the channels - the whole 100 of them, as the hotel had some cable or satellite system. I spent about an hour for this out-of-the-world trip and as I switched the thing off, I felt completely intoxicated. My mind was strongly (luckily not permanently!) altered by this amazing machine and I could then well understand why TV watching people are so totally out of what I would call reality. They have a reality of their own, almost completely disconnected from “my reality”!

At first I had wishes and plans to attend an Iskcon -organised 5-day japa retreat featuring Sacinandana Swami. It just wasn’t meant to be as I found out I was going to make a booking for it. What stopped me was the price - over 100 euros for 5 days in India! For that money (around 7000 INR) I could eat and stay in Vrindavan for a month!

There was better things in store for me, way better than I could’ve thought of. At an internet cafe I met some german devotees, friends of a german baba I had met at the Rainbow Gathering. It turned out they’re going to do a yoga retreat - not for a week but for a month! And they were merciful to invite me to participate as well, provided I do my share of household chores and share the food costs.

This was a most welcome turn in my stay in Vrindavan. The retreat was held in Raman Puri, a small village couple of kilometers away from the bustling Iskcon center.

I’m writing this a month [typing up several months!] later - after the yoga retreat. I decided to minimise my involvement with the Internet during the retreat and therefore haven’t updated the blog until now. During the retreat we also made a couple of field trips, one to to Radha-Kund and Govardhan, another one making the parikrama around Vrindavan and yet another one to an authentic vedic marriage party of a popular Brijwasi couple (the owners of the Wholesome restaurant - wich, by the way, is definately worth a visit if you go to Vrindavan!).

All in all I really loved the retreat, the great food we cooked together, the bhajans in the evenings, the yoga excercises at sunrise and sunset, all of it. One of the german devotees had a certification from Sivananda as a yoga teacher. Gopal, if you happen to end up reading this, thank you for everything. I love you.

I wanted to do some proper sadhan on this ekadasi so I resolved to go for the Iskcon-organised all-night kirtan at Vrinda Kund. The ride for Vrinda Kund wouldn’t go until late afternoon so I had plenty of time to do stuff in Vrindavan also. The night before ekadasi must’ve been some special night also as the ashram next to mine, equipped with big loudspeakers, had an all-night session of reciting something in Sanskrit. I fell asleep (with some difficulty) hearing it and woke up hearing the same. I did some sadhana at my ashram and went for a parikrama. The parikrama marg on ekadasi was a bit of a shock for me as I had opened my mind to the silence and peace at my ashram and was confronted by huge crowds of pilgrims going for the parikrama as well. I’m so glad I had my sunglasses on to take the edge off this sensory assault - too bad I didn’t think of taking my mp3 player as well, it would’ve made for an interesting flow experience going through the crowd hearing only bhajans as I did the parikrama.

In the evening I went for the Iskcon bus to Vrinda Kund and enjoyed the all-night kirtan there. Unfortunately I didn’t make more specific notes about the trip there and back then and now it all seems a bit irrelevant to me :). I do remember the trip back though - I left before the Iskcon bus came to pick people up and ended up hitching a ride with a super luxurious tourist vehicle - instead of sitting stuffed into a bus with a bunch of other devotees.

I didn’t feel like going for the Iskcon organised parikramas much, but this day Iskcon was organising some program here in Vrindavan. It was the disappearance day of the founder-acarya A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. The main parts of the program were memorial speeches made by Prabhupadas’ disciplise about their spiritual master. Most of the speeches I skipped, coming in just for the few of the last ones (guided by my lower instincts, being aware of the soon-to-come maha-feast ;). Even the last ones I found to be boring, up until the very last one, made by maybe the most famous kirtan leadder in the world, Aindra Prabhu. Aindra’s speech gave me first a wave of shock, then awe and admiration. He was being very straightforward in criticising the “yes-men” phenomenon in Iskcon, of Bhagavatam classes attended only out of duty, of preaching just for the sake of preaching without any content to it - all of the things I’ve found to be stupid in Iskcon. His concluding point brought tears to my eyes - all this amounts to nothing if you don’t have Krishna Prema (Love of God).

After recovering from the wave of emotions set forth by his speech and by finding a kindred spirit, a person truly devoted to the Lord, I watched the abishek (ceremonial bathing) of Srila Prabhupada and headed out to Fogal Ashram for the feast. At the Indian style queue-up for the prasadam I had a deep lesson about humility and selflesness, given to me by some Iskcon brahmacaris. All my best wishes and thanks to them.

Later during the feast I met a senior devotee who gave me a tip wich in retrospect was one of the major turning points of my trip. We discussed spirituality and different techniques and ways of it at length - something usually impossible with the narrower Iskcon devotees. I told him of my interest in silent meditation and he recommended I go for Vipassana meditation course, sharing his positive experiences of Vipassana.

Sorry for not updating for a while. It’s all been too intense to have time to type up all the stuff I’ve written on my notebook - and I don’t want to waste my time sitting here at the netcafe too much. So here’s the updates, coming from WAY back.

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I’ve already seen quite a few different religious festivals in India - Holi, Gaura-Purnima, Bhole Bom, birthdays of Gouranga, Balaram, Krishna and Radha and most recently the Durga Puja and Diwali. In addition the entire Kartik month is very auspicious time for Vaisnavas. Still, ever since I started this trip, I wanted to see one of the Ratha-Yatras, a cart-pulling street festival celebrating Lord Jagannath and his associates Baladev and Subhadra.

The Ratha-Yatra originates from Puri, the holy city of Lord Jagannath. Iskcon becan to organise Ratha-Yatra in other places also and now it’s being organised pretty much in every city where there’s an active Iskcon temple. I first saw the festival last summer in Helsinki, Finland, but it’s rather small in Finland comparing to how it is in places where Iskcon is bigger. The biggest (and original) Ratha-Yatra is still organised in Puri, but the festival has gotten quite big in other places in India also, especially the major cities.

I didnt have the oppoturnity of seeing the Ratha-Yatra in Puri, but the other Ratha-Yatras of Iskcon are spread out through the year to enable devotees to participate in theem and still make it for the big one in Puri. By the mercy of the Lord the Ratha-Yatra in Delhi was happening now, during Kartik with a bus transport organised by Iskcon from Vrindavan to the festival and back and several buses full of devotees from Vrindavan participating in the festival. I also took advantage of the oppoturnity and hopped on the bus.

The Ratha-Yatra was long, we got on the bus very early in the morning and returned only way after midnight. At first we arrived at huge festival grounds built for the occasion, had darshan of Lord Jagannath and were offered a nice feast of breakfast prasadam prepared and distributed to the festival crowd by Iskcon Delhi. After the prasadam there was some kirttan and proggram mostly in hindi, waiting for the festival crowd to gather.

We started moving from the festival grounds near the red fort at around noon. The cart of Lord Jagannath was huge, made of a truck converted into a gigantic altar on wheels.  Lord Jagannath doesn’t move by a motor though, but instea by being pulled by devotees - hundreds of them, actually! As we started moving I found out the Ratha-Yatra in Delhi has grown into a major street festival of thousands of people, with several religious organisations and charities participating in organising it. Every organisation would have their own vehicles at the street procession, with Lord Jagannath’s cart built by Iskcon being the biggest and the only one being pulled by devotees and moving as the last part of the procession. In front of Lord Jagannath there were long ropes attached to the cart, being pulled by devotees, accompanied with two vehicles with sound systems playing bhajans. In front of these there were some vehicles distributing drinking water and Jagannath mahaprasad fruits to everyone and in front of these the carts and vehicles of other organisations. There was a feeling of ‘Indian Love Parade’ to this festival also as most carts had sound systems playing indian bhajans on them.

I walked through half of the Ratha-Yatra, taking some Jagannath maha-prasad wich was distributed to the crowd not only from the vehicles but many stands put up along the route for the purpose. Eventually I got tired of walking and together with one indian guy we climbed on top of a bus and rode on top of it for the rest of the journey. The bus top was the ideal place to experience the festival as we had a good view of the dancing crowd and we were moving right behind a bhajans ‘disco’ vehicle, a truck set up with wild disco lights and a band of Iskcon vaisnava youth playing bhajans with various non-traditional instruments, including an electric guitar :D.