'Padh-Yatra to me is an act of love'

Contributor: Shashank Kalra

I have been touched, healed and enriched with what happened with all of us in the last three days. Thank you to each one of you for taking the risk and trusting each other on this pilgrimage. 

Padh-Yatra to me is an act of love where we attempted to listen to each other with curiosity, we accepted one another, we heard our own truths, we were present to what is emerging, we expressed ourselves without fear of being judged, we learnt and evolved in our human spirit. 

In all this, nature and wilderness held space for us. It created the soil for the seeds of trust, community, kindness and love to nurture themselves in us. It felt like home. We acknowledged it too. I was reminded of this film I saw sometime ago. A line that moved deepest strings from this film in me is: "Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken and over-civilised people are beginning to find out that coming to the mountains is coming home." 

A Love Letter to the Wilderness

I was really moved by some things-

The labour of love that each one of us did to create this community. It was labour of love when Suraj decided to be with Shraddha throughout to support her and find his own joy in it; it was labour of love when Tek Chand Ji and Vikas Ji cooked us our first meal in the mountains; it was labour of love how Sandhya Didi, Sarit Ji, Ram Sing Ji and his wife hosted us at Aavishkaar; it was labour of love when some of us fetched dry wood twigs for fire; it was labour of love when we individually adapted our pace to harmonise with the group's pace; it was labour of love when Vikas, Ritu, Suraj washed utensils for all of us, at other points some filled water for all of us; it was labour of love when Heena and Ambika served us food in the bus; it was labour of love when Abhimanyu, Divya, Avinash and me sat at the back seat of the bus; And so many other small instances all of us exhibited that kindness that enriched the whole space. 

While we decided to walk silently yesterday, I was curious to see if walking silently makes us be with our individual selves only and reduce our awareness of the whole group. I was amazingly surprised to find the forward yatris stop in silence for all of us to regroup and walk again. All this happened with minimum talking and negligible organising. Wow! 

Three times we had sharing circles, each of the time I was struck deeply by the uniqueness of each human being in the circle and the richness of human life. When Raju Bhaiya shared why he wished to be with good people, when Rachit shared his experience of silence as the language of god, when Ashita Di experienced the tenderness of a rock, when Prakhar Bhaiya shared that he could feel the refreshing vibes of Aavishkaar, when Ambesh shared that he just feels light, I resonated and did a merry dance within me.

Lastly, the conversations we had during the yatra. They were debates, discussions and dialogues. It is healing for me when I don't enter into a conversation to give advice or speak my mind; but to quieten my mind and just be and listen with my whole consciousness.

To me the journey seemed like a manifestation of us saying to each other 'I love you', where 'I' is dissolved as there is no ego and 'you' too is vanished as there is no other but one. In that kind of one-ness, in that kind of love, there is liberation. I experienced and witnessed it in a lot of conversations and moments, I hope you did too.

Feeling deeply grateful to so many known and unknown forces that brought us all together :)