My Pilgrimage Through India

When I arrived in India alone, he met me in a very crowded airport.

Madan was quite a man.

He held up a sign with "JAI" on it and a smile.

Nothing screams safety in India, so his friendship and guidance while there was priceless.

Madan was in his early 70's and had never made a pilgrimage across India before so he jumped at the chance to do it with me. He wasn't physically well and he knew a final adventure fit right into his schedule.

We got on the first train and didn't stop going until we entered every temple, mosque and holy place we could find in the south.

We approached every guru and holy man that was approachable and snuck into the presence of the ones that wanted nothing to do with us.

We acted like little kids with each other, trying to always one up the other by being "more" enlightened.

He would lie to me and say that the holy guy we were speaking with whispered to him that he was more enlightened than me. I would fall into a deep pretend meditation when he wanted to discuss something and make him wait. We had, 'who is the bigger swami contests' to see who got the best bunk on the next train.

We loved each other.

It sounds like we were making fun of our experiences, but on the contrary, we were on a very serious journey of self-inquiry.

Being present with ourselves was our cliché goal.

We succeeded.