Tapavan

Ramram

Apologies for not updating the blog in a while. I'm sure you understand.

Yesterday I returned to Rishikesh from the most beautiful and meaningful part of my journey yet. Since I was in Varanasi, I have wanted to make a pilgramage to the head of the ganga, high in the himalaya, to understand how she is born and where she gets her personality from. My guru in Varanasi, Shukla-ji, had urged me to do it, and his spirit was with me in this journey where he has been absent from the rest of my independant travel.

So five days ago I took a miserable twelve hour bus ride from Rishikesh to Gangotri, through Uttarkashi. The roads were twisty, mountainous, and terribly repared, and typical of Indian busses, it was way overfull. I was fortiunate, though, to be at the front of the bus, so I was able to survive it. Crammed in the back of the bus was an isreali guy, who also somehow survived the busride, and we shared a hotel room in Gangotri that night. Early in the morning, after doing Pooja and Aarti (worship and river worship) at the temble of Ganga Mata, we set out on the road. It was he who first told me of Tapavan, the real destination, the real end of my road, high above Gaumuk glacier--he had heard it was beautiful but difficult to reach, and was determined to get there. I said that I was along for the ride, although I thought that my destination was Gaumuk, and would be satisfied with it. On the road, we met up with a Swiss guy, a Sweedish girl and a middle aged russian lady, and thus we formed a small herd of white people. This was to be the beginning of a much larger group. I had thought I was going to make the pilgramage alone and meditative, but it turned out well to have company, even if it did cheapen the experience in some ways. It made it feel a bit more like an organized school trip, but it was much safer and cheaper, and everyone was good people. We walked all morning to Bujbassa, and arrived at the ashram there at 12:00 noon, then just meditated the rest of the day away, I took my first freezing cold dip in the ganga there. At that point, the Ganga is a roaring mountain river, churning itself endlessly, and it can be dangerous. But this is part of her secret--as she churns herself, she purifies herself and mixes with the benevolent mountain herbs that grow along her banks. That night in Bujbassa we had a fantastic dinner, sitting on the floor with hundreds of hungry mountain Babas, chanting Jai Ram, Sri Ram, Jai Jai Ram from the bottom of our hearts, eating honest Dal Chowel--rice and lentils.

The five of us decided to all go in on a guide to Tapavan together, which was a great decision--after Gaumuk, the going gets rough and you need someone who knows the way and can save your life. But the Russian lady and the baba who runs the ashram in Boujbassa convinced us that our plan to sleep in Tapavan was folly, that it was impossible, and so I left all my stuff and my sleeping bag in Boujbassa. This was the mistake which was to define the rest of my experience. We walked out of Boujbassa emptyhanded, which felt pure and natural, like a baba man. We got to the head of Gaumouk Glacier in two hours, and it really is a beautiful sight. The ganga simply appears out from under a giant cliff of ice there, comes rushing full strength out of the ground. It certainly looks like the head of the river, but she had more secrets in store for me. We hiked up on top of Gaumuk glacier and over it to the foot of an increadibly steep slope, rockslides and scree, down which a stream of the ganga endlessly fell. This is Amar Ganga, the Eternal Ganga, which I have decided is the stream which lends the Ganga the loving and benevolent side of her personality, whereas Gaumuk glacier gives her her wrath. Even though Amar Ganga means immortal ganga, it sounds to me like love. Anyway, the only way up this steep cliff is pretty much the same way that the ganga takes down it, so we slowly made our way up, immensely hard work, constantly crossing over the waterfall, fearful of being swept away. It was a long steep ganga bath--it was a short climb, but one of the hardest ones I've done. I was glad I was empty handed. At that point.

We reached the top and were greeted with the most gorgeous sight I have ever seen: tapavan, the paradise, a simple green field wedged in at the foot of the monumental Shivling peak, hemmed in by glacial rock feilds. Tapavan means the place to do Tapas, meditation on the gods, and holy men have been living there for thousands of years, isolated from society meditating on Shiva. Shivling peak is the most spactacular mountain I have ever seen--it really looks like a Lingum, it stands completely strong and alone, erupting out of Tapavan just like the religous shiva lingums thrust out of their base, a phallus erupting from a womb. Amar ganga pours down the peak and through Tapavan, exactly mirroring the sacred offerings that are religously poured over the lingums in temples, flowing through tapavan exactly the same way. It's indiscribably beautiful, I'll post pictures when I go home, you'll see what I mean. Tapavan is at 4,700 Meters, about the same height as the peaks of the tallest mountains at home. This is where I took the most symbolically important ganga bath of my trip, in the ice cold Amar Ganga, enough to purify me for a homecoming. I collected ganga water in my last shampoo bottle, and found a rock that was shaped like a lingum to bring home. It was a gorgeous sunny day--the last week, all the peaks had been completely clouded in, but for the two days we were there, it was clear and beautiful--I couldn't help but pridefully think that the gods were actively helping me.

When we got there, we met the babas who lived there, one who runs a humble ashram and one who lives in a flimsy tent. They convinced us to stay there for the night, and it was truly the right decision--it seemed silly to work so hard to attain such a beautiful place, and then leave it in an hour. We had to stay the night. But I had only thin clothes and no sleeping bag. This was such a significant lesson to me; I have been carting around way way too much crap all around india for four months now, and the only night when i would have needed any of it, I fucked it up. This is exactly the story of my relationship with material objects--I'm just not good at managing them. But it was exactly as it should have been, because I felt more light and pure, I went to tapavan like I came into this world, naked. Not quite naked, but as close as is reasonable.

In the ashram, we met up with many more westerners who had been staying there a few days, including one American who had graduated from the University of Colorado. We spent the night all huddled around a small wood stove, with the baba who runs the ashram. I respect him for living in tapavan, but he wasn't exactly the most religous of babas. His meditation consisted of smoking a lot of Charras (hashish) and every twenty minutes he would belt out at the top of his voice "Jai Ram! Seeta Ram!" sometimes he would go outside and shout it off the cliff. Sometimes it would come out in belch form. The other baba, who was staying in a tent, was more spiritual, and spoke to us in good english about conciousness and god, inside and outside. But of course he directed most of his attention at the beautiful women in our group, it must get lonely up there in Tapavan. Ten years ago, Shukla-ji came up to Tapavan in search of a pure, divine Saddhu or Baba, a truly religous man. He spent a month searching the area with a german man who was writing his thesis on the topic. They couldn't find a single one that met their standards, after endless combing of that corner of the Himalaya. It's because we are now in the age of Kaliyug, the last age in the mythological history of man, when we are most impure and selfish and greedy. This is the beginning of the end, Hindus beleive, when we can't even rely on our holy men to be selfless and good. Not to say these babas weren't great people--they were--and they are certainly better than the ones that live off of tourists in Rishikesh.

So after the requisite hour of mediation, we all went to sleep in the same room. Those of us without sleeping bags huddled together under blankets, as close to each other as we could get. I spent the night spooning with a crazy Czech named Vladimir. It was a cold and uncomfortable night, I can't lie. But when I went outside to piss, I saw the most increadible night sky of my life--in the cold two minutes it took for my urine to unfreeze and leave my bladder, I counted five shooting stars. Incredible. I survived it happily, and in the morning there was a beautiful sunrise and delicious porridge, chai lovingly made slowly by one of the Isrealis, and a slow departure from Tapavan. Most of the people there left in one big group that day, and so the group I was travelling with swelled to maybe ten people. But they were all great people, and it was a good walk all the way back to Gangotri. On the way back, I bathed in the ganga at Gaumuk amongst the ice flows, and it was cold and I was reminded of my mortality. A swiss girl died two weeks ago when she got too close to the glacier. We slept in Gangotri, and in the morning, took shared jeeps back to rishikesh, much more comfortable and quicker than the bus, and not much more expensive.

So here I am now, in Rishikesh. That was the final and ultimate destination of my trip, now I'm just waiting to get home. My flight is June 2, and I think I'm not going to be able to move it sooner. So I'll slowly work my way back to delhi this week, maybe go to Haridwar on monday or tuesday, spend a night there, then go to Delhi and stay somewhere other than PharGanj, see the art museum there, try to get better feelings about delhi which I now hate, and then fly home. If by any maricle you are reading this from LA, and will be there on June 3, shoot me an email, yeah?

Ram Ram Seeta Ram, Jai Jai Ram, Jai Ganga Mai, Om Nama Shivaya, Hari Om, etc. These things have comprised half of my vocabulary over the last few days.

Hari Om
Jed