I accidentally joined a pilgrimage in Haridwar, trekked with the thousands to the banks of the racing Ganges River whose current is colored by petals of pink and orange. The ghats are overflowing with people, people who have come to both bathe and worship. Naked Nagas (Hindu holy men) sit covered in ash, their followers surrounding them. The heavy afternoon breeze is warm, still holding the day’s heat as it streams southward with the water’s flow.
It is in the middle of the mixed chaos of people, water, and breeze that I stand. An intruder, an onlooker, a participant, just another face in the crowd.
Haridwar is spiritual. It is old. And in the pandemonium of a festival that happens here every 12 years, it is also peaceful.
So I stood on a bridge overlooking the ghats on either side, watching overturned offerings of incense and flowers rushing on river-top below me, and everything swirled. Thoughts of home blurred with my village surrounding, the voices of passer byers and of those whom I love.
Very little of my time here has been spiritual. It has been adventuresome, it has been challenging, it has been uplifting, and it has been at times lonely. My Bible remains unopened, my journal traces few thoughts on the here and the thereafter.
But there, on the banks of the Ganges, in the warmth of the wind, there was a peace that does not come from work or labor or contemplation. In the midst of my current chaotic belonging, despite the daunting unknown, there was calm.
And they say there is only one way to know God.
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