I walked across India barefoot on impossible roads; I lived in an ashram as though it had always been my home; I meditated, for hours, inside the Temple of Peace on Earth in the presence of the largest mercury Shiva Lingam in India, in the shade of mango trees, sitting before my master’s mandir; I met people from all over the world and shared everything with them for days and days; I found peace, inner peace, the real kind — and now I know what it tastes like.
In that patch of land immersed in the forest, in the company of monkeys and peacocks, where time seems to stretch and bend under the effect of distortion; where a superhuman harmony reigns, never known before; where everything flows as it must flow, where the energy is so powerful that at certain moments it hits you completely.
Never, not ever, on that 4th of September a year ago while talking with my friend Alessandro, could I have imagined that all of this would happen to me, that life would change me so profoundly, and that I would find myself now here speaking of India, of my master, and of that spiritual — and surreal — utterly unexpected journey.
India: that absurd country for which you will never be prepared enough. That country that welcomes you with its deafening colours, the scent of incense, the smell of burning plastic along the roadsides, the reek of piss, street food, the pungent smell of coriander, the orange flowers used as temple offerings, stray dogs, children running naked and barefoot beneath bridges under construction, women dressed in their magnificent saris, rickshaws that hurtle at you from every direction. And because of which you risk your life every other moment.
That country which I so many times failed to describe as I wanted to, as I still want to. A country that sweeps you away, for better or worse. Because India has no middle ground: you either love it or you hate it.
And now that it is night, I find myself once again thinking, reading, searching, planning my return to India. This time for longer, this time with my gaze also turning north, towards the Himalayas. 40 days; in India. Between February and March, next year.
I will try to recount during my journey what I see, the emotions I feel, the culture of India — not the tourist version, but the one you experience by living in an ashram isolated in the middle of the forest near Pune; by walking through the sacred sites of the yogis in the Himalayas.
I do not know whether I will manage, because India always puts you to the test; but at least I will try.