What is a pilgrimage?

    Contributor: Rachit Sharma

"I read somewhere even if there is no god it is important to invent one. I think I have invented mine" reflected my 20-year-old self. what seems to me, a long-serving truth for myself. A truth etched on my skin like a still mountain. There are days when mist covers it, days when its stillness is deafening. But it is there. And it is mine. 

An essential universe of conscious wisdom lies in each one of us, smothered by 'life', rests in peace. In the outside world, that is heavily run by vision, words, sounds, smell, taste and movement, everything that we are deeply drawn to is nothing but a key/tool to unlock that resting wisdom. And it is the process of unlocking, of freeing something that helps us experience an unrestrained burst of joy deep in our tissues. 

Imagine a man swimming in the middle of the ocean. Free and 'independent' with a shiny gadget on his arm to navigate his direction. Plenty of water all around to drink, plenty. The man is you and I. And the sea is the amount of information we are drowning (swimming) in. In times like ours, where our thirst of wisdom is fulfilled by the saline water of data embarking on a pilgrimage to find sweet water well becomes a mutinous crusade. 

What is a pilgrimage? A journey that one takes for oneself. To seek. One can neither design nor define it for others. A journey that contains labour and leisure, rigour and recess, reflection and abandonment, you and what you seek. All added to your taste. 

One such journey that embodies that very essence of a pilgrimage for me is Padh-yatra. A space to play with some basic yet most essentially human and tremendously endangered tools like - walking, silence, and reflection. Padh-yatra, for some, has been an annual retreat to respond to the deeply seated call to be one with nature. 

For the last four years, the Himalayas took care of our meanderings but this time the Sahyadri range extended its hand to celebrate Padh-yatra's coming of age moment. Sahyadri's silence had a distinct clang to it, I noticed. One may think it was the rising full-moon brushing against its silhouetted hills. But it was not. The moon that night was brutally bright and spoke only in light. 

We began our walk later at night. Our moving shadows fell against the luminous ground only to get consumed into the forest after a mile. The naked hills were calm and cold, breathing in our energy and breathing out gravels from every creek. The night painted our world hazy and dreams bright. The descend from the moon filtering through morning's pink hues was long and tough. At different points, each one of us took refuge in each other's unconditional care. 

By the Pravara river, right before taking his last dip the setting sun delivered me my share of light. A few days ago, I was told not asked that "You cannot live in a constant state of overwhelm and wonder - at everything you find beautiful." I think I can. Beauty lies in distinction, nuances and various subtleties of a subject - as far as I can recognize it I can live my life. Pilgrimage is not to reach somewhere but to arrive home, someone so rightly said.