It is believed that bathing in the Ganges River, the Ganga, during Kumbha Mela cures the bather of all sins and evils and grants the bather salvation. Sweet deal, right?
In 2012, I attended the second royal bathing day of the Kumbha Mela in Haridwar, India. It is unknown exactly how many people attend this auspicious event, but this year’s estimate was upward of ten million. According to astrologers, the ‘Kumbh Fair’ takes place when the planet Jupiter enters Aquarius and the Sun enters Aries. To date, it is the largest gathering in the world of people coming together for a religious purpose.
Let me give you a quick visual of Kumbha Mela: Imagine twenty miles of tents set up by different organizations, swamis or spiritual communities. Each camp simultaneously hosts religious events, ceremonies, lectures, chanting and eating – rocking 24/7. It’s basically like Bhaktifest times one million on acid (of course there is no actual psychedelic drug use, but being there certainly feels like being in an alternate reality). It is absolutely beautiful and the beauty lies in the love and devotion radiating from every person you meet, all spiritual seekers.
Top Ten Kumbha Mela Moments (In no particular order):
The ride in the motorized rickshaw from Rishikesh to Haridwar… Almost as bad as the 405 during rush hour on Friday – almost
Meeting Saul David Raye and crew at “10: A.M.” at the Anandamayi Ma Ashram. Saul and I forgot to sync our iPhones to Divine Indian Time. It is slightly off by about 4 ½ hours, wherever you are. There totally must be an app for that!? And if it is possible, Saul shines even brighter in India!
Singing The Hanuman Chalisa (a forty-verse Sanskrit prayer to Hanuman): I had a plastic Hanuman attached to my backpack and a beautiful older woman saw it and shouted “JAI HANUMAN!” She then started to sing the Hanuman Chalisa and to her surprise I sat down and began singing with her. Within two minutes, seventy-five people had gathered singing the Chalisa with me! These were some serious monkey lovers!
Love Greetings: Everyone greets you with phrases that we are familiar with in kirtan gatherings, “Hari Om”, “Jai Shree Krishna”, “Hari Bol”, “Jai Sita Ram”…and so on. This is basically like saying “Love, joy, praise, victory, GOD GOD GOD” to everyone you meet. In America we hardly look each other in the eyes. It’s amazing that in the United States religion often separates us, and worldwide it is the center of wars, but at the Kumbha Mela it unites. We were surrounded by literally MILLIONS of people praying and chanting.
Finding a Specific Camp: My friends and I had been staying at the Parmarth Niketan Ashram in Rishikesh for a few weeks before we went to Kumbha Mela. I was “told” that there would be a camp set up by the Ashram at Kumbha Mela where we could sleep. I generally rely on Grace rather than planning, so I didn’t look for any details or further confirmation of this. The result? Ten hours of walking aimlessly, asking for directions to the Parmarth camp. “Oh, it’s just a two minute walk that way? Sector 5? Awesome! Hari Bol!”
Finally Finding a Map at Midnight: This was exciting for exactly three seconds until we realized the map was in Hindi and we hadn’t encountered an English speaker in about eight hours.
Sleeping/Freezing in the Sri Sri Ravi Shankar Tent: By 1:00 A.M., my confidence had gotten us nowhere but lost. We decided to sleep in the Sri Sri Ravi Shankar/Art of Living tent. Imagine a large green mat in a tent with about 600 people sleeping on the mat. We found a nice spot and tried to go to sleep. Unfortunately, it was so cold that sleep was not an option. I engaged in rounds of squats and jumping every twenty minutes or so to keep warm. Everyone else in the tent sat with their blankets and laughed at my late night heat-building exercises.
Teaching an Indian man how to play eleven-card gin: Between squats, we played cards. Without a common language, we taught a man how to play gin. He looked like he had never seen a deck of cards before and by round two he creamed us. I wonder if winning in cards at a spiritual event helps your karma…
The Dip: By 4:00 A.M., people began leaving the tent to start the ritual dip in the Ganges River. As the sun came up, millions of people lined the banks of the beautiful GANGA. This display of devotion filled me with an overwhelming amount of beauty and gratitude, like nothing I had ever experienced.
Swami Parade: This was better than the Disney Christmas Parade! The morning of the bathing date, a four-hour Swami Parade began. Millions of people waited for the swami floats to drive by and give what seemed like an endless procession of darshan. If you had been slacking on your blessing intake, this was definitely a good place to catch up.
