The End-ia

It has been over a week now since the India experience officially ended, but I am still having a difficult time finding the words to express what feelings those final days inspired within me.

This has been one of the hardest blogs to get started on to date, partly because it feels like now that I am in Thailand, I am looking back on a wholly unfamiliar world. Things in Thailand feel much more akin to the familiarity of the western world than anywhere I visited in India.

There are still a lot of people in the places I am visiting, but nowhere near the sheer volume of people as India; poverty is much less rampant; traffic flows in an orderly direction; there are no cows, chickens, monkeys or random livestock roaming around the cities in Thailand; rubbish is deposited properly in waste or recycling bins.

But on the flip side, there are lots of temples and Buddhist monks in orange robes here, but the common folk seem to lack the spiritual faith of the typical Indian; the scores of western tourists and expatriates know little to nothing about yoga or eastern philosophical traditions; vegetarianism is almost as atypical as it is in America. In general, life seems orderly but mundane.

As difficult as it seems at this point, I am going to try to recap those final days in India.

The Swami’s Legacy

Immediately after leaving the Shivasoorya Healing Ashram, I took a train south to the city of Kanyakumari, which is on the southernmost cape of the the Indian subcontinent.

I knew little about the place other than that it was the furthest point south in India and the place where the Indian Ocean, the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea come together.

Back when this trip began, my first Indian friend, Vipin Metheny, indicated it was a tourist destination with a memorial to the Indian national saint, Swami Vivekananda. I had read one of Vivekenanda’s books before my trip to India and was familiar with the fact that this yogi is largely credited with introducing the ideas of yoga and vedanta philosophy to America during the 1893 Parliament of the World's Religions in Chicago, where he represented all the people of the Hindu faith. I also knew that he had died young, just shy of his 40th birthday.

It was from one of Vivekenanda’s books that baba Divya Prakash read to me in Hindi along the banks of the Ganga north of Haridwar as a group of social media influencers approached us about an interview – an interview that garnered nearly 8 million views on Facebook.

Even though he died over a century ago, Vivekenanda’s spirit is still very much alive in India and probably no place moreso than Kanyakumari.

Prior to his trip to America, Vivekanda was a sannyasi, or a wandering monk. His journeys took him from the Bengali ashram where he studied under the late guru Ramanakrishna into the northernmost reaches of India and eventually down along the western coast of southern India – much the same path as this past nine-month journey led me.

When he reached Kanyakumari on Dec. 24, 1892, the swami, swam out across the turbulent sea to reach the rock, where he would spend three days in deep meditation. This experience is likened in Vivekanda’s life to Siddhartha Gautama’s enlightenment experience under the bodhi tree in Bodh Gaya.

It was during this experience the swami learned his purpose in life should be to uplift the Indian nation by not only sowing the seeds of its mighty philosophical tradition in the west, but also by instilling a sense of nationalism in the people of India that laid aside caste discrimination and other divisive social policies.

Sunrise over the Sea

One of the cool things about Kanyakumari is that visitors can watch the sun rise over the Bay of Bengal and see it set into the Arabian Sea just a few kilometers away.

So the two mornings I had there, I would get up and walk out to the bay to do the Art of Living-inspired morning Sudarshan Kriya practice just before sunrise. On that first morning, I wandered north to find somewhere to do some yoga and stumbled across a place called the Swami Vivekenanda Kendra.

In addition to building the memorial out on the rocky island in 1970, Vivekananda’s followers, especially a man named Eknath Ranade, established a community devoted to building up India according to Vivekananda’s vision. The goal of this community is to have more than 100,000 people throughout India who have devoted their lives to seva – or selfless public service – in betterment of the nation. This campus that borders the Bay of Bengal is the place that happens.

And there, overlooking the sea, very near the memorial dedicated to Vivekananda and Eknath-ji, are two circular concrete slabs dedicated to doing sun salutations. These spots provided the perfect location to pay homage to the sun, the saint and the western spread of the rich yoga tradition that paved the way for this journey well over a century before its inception.

It was really a powerful way to spend the start of those final few days in India.

The Sights, Sounds and Smells of India

In addition to the uniquely Indian cultural experience this site offered, it also tasted of that raw India flavor that beach towns in Goa or Kerala and and even places like Rishikesh or Mysore lack.

Much like the Buddhist pilgrimage path along the northern border of India and Nepal, there were lots of tourists but very few westerners. Other than the guy that stares back from the mirror, I saw only one young western woman perched on a wall overlooking the place where the three seas meet.

The streets were abuzz with vendors selling various wares – everything from seashells and coconuts carved to look like monkeys to the pashmina and silk scarves. A ton of tattoo artists were out laying ink in entirely unsanitary conditions. South Indian dosa corners, northern style restaurants and Punjabi dhabas lined the streets in a medley of India’s culinary tastes. Beggars and scam artists worked their hardest to separate tourists from their money on the grounds of sympathy or trickery. The one beach overlooking the island monument and the sunrise piers were swarming with sightseers with their cell phone cameras.

And no extrapolation of India’s unique qualities would be complete without a commentary on the scent of the place. Everywhere in India has its onslaught of odors. Whether it is the pleasant memories of sandalwood and incense shops, the spicy aroma of street foods being served up at night markets or the pungent odor of urine in train stations or cow dung in the streets of Rishikesh, the olfactory impressions of India are very strong. The smell of that final stop was that uniquely fishy smell of the Indian seaside city, tinged with the palpable saltiness of the air itself.

It was all just so very India, I can’t really explain it. And it was a perfect bookend for the trip.

The Last Hurrah

While Kanyakumari was the bookend, the final two days were spent back in Kovalam Beach in Kerala.

That last night in India, Tyler, the Minnesotan with whom I shared the floor at Sivasoorya Ashram, had just left the ashram and was planning a night out on the town with the massage therapists who took care of us during our stay. Aneesh, Jack and Altaph, along with their friends Sajee and Hari, met up with us at Kovalam and we loaded up into Hari’s van and headed north to the beach town of Varkala to a restaurant where a DJ would be performing.

We drove through sunset into the darkening night – one last crazy foray in Indian traffic – to reach the spot, which was nearly 50 kilometers – or about an houra and a half drive. Lena from the ashram was already staying in Varkala and met up with us with her friend Lina. The nine of us had a big last meal together and danced into the wee hours of the morning.

It reminded me much of the night in Goa when Ganga, Steve, Maria, Meri, Sadie and I all loaded up on scooters and headed to an ecstatic dance in Arambol. There is nothing quite like celebrating the unity of this mystical tribe we are all a part of as dancing wildly out in nature.

Hari got us all back to Kovalam safely and, fortunately, my flight out of Trivandrum Airport was not until late in the day. I had plenty of time to do some rooftop yoga and take a final dip in the Arabian Sea before Jack drove me to the airport. Of course, that final trip in a tuk-tuk would not be complete without the vehicle running out of gas and me sitting along the highway while Jack went for a liter of fuel.

But so is India.

As full of imperfections as this great land is, her majesty and mystery is unfathomable. For as chaotic as it all can seem, there is an undercurrent of karma as strong as the flow of the mighty Ganga guiding its people and its visitors to an inexpressible greatness.

For this experience of swimming in those magnificent waters, I will be forever grateful.