JOIN USAs a never-ending cascade of humanity flows outside, spilling into an ocean of pilgrims at the ongoing Maha Kumbh in Allahabad, in one of the akharas (camps of the sadhus) at ground zero, an elderly American woman sits like a disciplined student in a school classroom.
As she speaks softly sharing her tryst with Indian culture, Hinduism and the Maha Kumbh for the second time, the furrowed face betrays no trace of Americanism.
There was complete submission in the kind eyes of Michelle, who has an abounding family of two sons and four grandchildren back in the US.
The woman from New Mexico, however, finds solace in the maddening piety-hunting crowd of Hindu pilgrims, who converged in millions for the holy dip to wash away their sins at the confluence of Ganga, Yamuna and the mythical Saraswati that we call ‘Triveni Sangam’ at Allahabad.
At the akhara, Michelle speaks about her pursuit of Kriya Yoga. “I was only 14 when I chanced upon Paramahansa Yogananda’s book, Autobiography of a Yogi. Since then, I knew I had to visit this country. My family is Christian, but I was drawn to Hindu culture and philosophy,” she says.
Paramahansa Yogananda (January 5, 1893 to March 7, 1952), was an Indian yogi, who taught many westerners the power of meditation and initiated them into the teachings of Kriya Yoga.
Spiritual search
From 1924 to 1935, Yogananda travelled and lectured across America. According to his organisation, Self-Realisation Fellowship (SRF), that was set up in 1920, Yogananda, who is considered as the father of yoga in the West, lectured in venues that ranged from New York’s Carnegie Hall to the Los Angeles Philharmonic Auditorium.
At the time, The Los Angeles Times had reported about the huge response: “The Philharmonic Auditorium presents the extraordinary spectacle of thousands being turned away an hour before the advertised opening of a lecture with the 3,000-seat-hall filled to its utmost capacity.”
Today, as Michelle moves around Maha Kumbh with her benign grace and love for Indian spirituality, she says she learns just more and more from her visits. “I have done my duty to my family. I have two sons and four grandchildren, and I did all I could for them. I first came to India 12 years ago, arriving in Kolkata from Thailand, and then after visiting the Kali Temple, I came to Kumbh. Now I have returned after 12 years, and it is faith that has brought me here,” she says.
While Michelle got initiated to yoga early in life, Paris-based psychiatrist Jean Claude Bossard, who was spending some quiet moments at the same akhara, has come all the way to discover his connection with Hinduism, its message of tolerance and spiritualism.
“What draws me to India is meditation, meditation and meditation,” says Bossard, who is married to a Muslim woman from Indonesia. “I was a Catholic by birth and my wife is a Muslim, and so I know both religions. I did not find any comfort in either, and so I came here to find some comfort and understanding,” says the French man.
Although the maddening crowd at Kumbh is not his idea of seeking spirituality, Bossard feels the pulse of India at the venue. “I feel more connected to Hinduism here because it teaches tolerance,” says the doctor, who feels there are lots of takeaways from Maha Kumbh and the Indian experience since medicines alone cannot cure a person suffering from a mental ailment.
Mystical East
Indian spirituality has drawn some of the biggest names from the Western world at various times. The visit of the Beatles to Rishikesh in 1968 was the talk of world forums back then. The iconic band had come to attend an advanced transcendental meditation training session at Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s ashram.
The foreigners, who come to Kumbh Mela, are also drawn by the fact that it is the biggest show of humans on earth. The religious congregation at Allahabad beckons millions of people from India and distant shores. Of the various auspicious bathing days during the 55-day-long mela, the holiest day is Mauni Amavasya. This year, nearly 30.5 million people took the holy dip along with several holy men at Sangam on that day on February 10.
Called the Shahi Snan (royal bathing), the holy dip started at 4 am and a surge of humanity that perhaps no administrative mechanism has the resources to count, took the bath following the ostentatious and delirious cavalcades of the sadhus, including the Nagas or the naked monks, who hollered ‘Har Har Mahadev’, danced wildly, and flexed their religiosity, as they moved along the path cleared for them.
Among the millions who took the holy dip was Italian woman Valeria Feroli, who has made five trips to India, but got her first experience at Maha Kumbh this year. “I run a business of herbal medicines and so I am obviously drawn to this part of the world. But the holy dips really gave me something inexplicable.
I bathed twice and felt blessed,” says Valeria, a resident of Rome. “I had come for purification. What I got is something much more, and the experience was so overwhelming,” she says.