A few weeks back, while looking through some old files at the Hare Krishna temple in Brooklyn, I came upon a copy of a newsletter I had edited in 1985 while traveling throughout India with a party of pilgrims. The newsletter included an article I had written, but the newsletter, and therefore the article, had long been lost. I was pleased to rediscover it.
Padayātrā Newsletter
Number 13, October 1985
Not Quite Back to Godhead
The second and third articles I wrote for the Padayātrā “On Pilgrimage” series have now appeared in Back to Godhead. I found out some weeks ago that the BTG editors chose not to print the first article, written last April. Much (or, from another viewpoint, not much) has happened since then. But if you’d still like to read the article, here it is.
On Pilgrimage
Why go?
One may go on pilgrimage out of dissatisfaction or disgust. Lord Balarāma, the celebrated divine brother of Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa, once undertook a pilgrimage for this reason. When we find ourselves amidst falsity, hypocrisy, or injustice and feel too small and powerless to make it stop, this is one alternative: go on pilgrimage and wait for destiny to change its course.
The pilgrimage of the saint Vidura began with an insult. Vidura was brother, friend, and advisor to Dhṛtarāṣṭra, king of the Kuru dynasty. But when Vidura’s thoughtful and righteous advice cut at a nephew’s evil schemes, the nephew, the king’s pet son, bitterly insulted him and called for him to be beaten and thrown from the court. Vidura, the family’s lifelong well-wisher, pierced to the heart by his nephew’s words, simply walked out, turned his back on the palace and its politics, and set out on pilgrimage.
Years later, after fate had proven Vidura right, Vidura visited the palace again; and King Dhṛtarāṣṭra himself, this time accepting Vidura’s advice, turned pilgrim just before his death.
Death also inspired the small child who would later become the great sage Nārada. Orphaned when his mother was bitten by a snake, the child set off as a pilgrim. The teacher Śaṅkara also turned pilgrim as a child, at the age of eight.
Although one may set out on pilgrimage at any time in one’s life, the traditional Vedic culture especially advises that one take to the road after twenty-five years of marriage. Because the Vedic culture has no place for illicit sex, it encourages everyone to marry. Yet in married life illusions cover us like moss. When a man and woman “get physical,” spirit gets lost in the raptures of matter. Soon one finds oneself locked in embrace with children, in-laws, home, prestige, bills, work, taxes, responsibilities. As soul yields to the needs of the body, fresh hope turns to routine anxiety.
But the Vedic culture provides a way out, called the vānaprastha order. After twenty-five years of married life, the Vedic householder entrusts his family affairs to his grown children, leaves his entanglements behind, and sets off for a freer, happier life as a pilgrim.
India especially, the traditional home of Vedic culture, has hundreds, perhaps thousands, of holy places of pilgrimage, like Badrinath and Rishikesh in the Himalayas, Kanya Kumari on the southernmost tip of the peninsula, Dvaraka on the Arabian Sea, and Puri on the Bay of Bengal. The followers of Vedic culture take advantage of these places even today.
Taking advantage of a holy place doesn’t just mean seeing the sights or splashing into the pious waters of the Ganges. If you go just for that, the Vedic scriptures say, you’re no smarter than a cow or an ass
The real purpose of pilgrimage is self-purification. The pure mind is the mind filled with thoughts of Kṛṣṇa, the pure heart is the heart filled with love for Kṛṣṇa, and the pure life is the life fully dedicated to Kṛṣṇa’s devotional service. When we forget Kṛṣṇa, our minds fill with anxiety and mental noise, our hearts clog with falsities, and our inner life begins to grow dead. By going on pilgrimage we can pacify the mind, cleanse the heart, and revive our vitality in Kṛṣṇa consciousness.
This purification calls for more than just guided tours, holy waters, and picture postcards. A holy place becomes holy because of a holy person. Our pilgrimage becomes perfect, therefore, if we can associate with a holy person, a pure devotee of the Supreme Lord.
The Lord himself is the most holy person, and equally holy are the devotees who give themselves fully to the service of the Lord. A place originally becomes holy, therefore, by the presence of the Lord and the Lord’s devotees.
Unfortunately, holy places tend to clutter with unholy people. We live in a world of cheaters and cheated, and a holy place makes a good marketplace for deceit. For example, some low-class women in India think they’ll win pious merit if a sannyāsī, a celibate monk, blesses then with a child. So they go to a holy place to seduce a sannyāsī. To complete the picture, some equally low-class men go to holy places, pose as sannyāsīs, and wait for the pleasures of being seduced. For those who prefer their seduction less literal, holy places have no shortage of svāmīs, ṛṣis, yogīs, avatāras, bābājīs, mystics, and saints ready to prostitute the Vedic teachings.
Pure devotees of the Lord therefore travel to holy places to reclaim them as places of Vedic knowledge and reinfuse them with spiritual life. A pure devotee always keeps the Lord within his heart and serves the Lord with unalloyed devotion. So he makes every place holy wherever he goes.
Nearly five hundred years ago, Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu therefore traveled to holy places throughout India as a pilgrim. Lord Caitanya was Kṛṣṇa Himself, descended in the role of a devotee to taste love for Kṛṣṇa and distribute that love freely as the essence of all Vedic teachings, the essence of life itself. He did this through saṅkīrtana, the ecstatic congregational chanting of Lord Kṛṣṇa’s holy names.
There is no difference between Lord Kṛṣṇa’s holy names and Lord Kṛṣṇa himself. While chanting Kṛṣṇa’s name, one comes in touch with Kṛṣṇa in person. So wherever Lord Caitanya went He spread the chanting of Kṛṣṇa’s names, especially as found in the mahā-mantra: Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare / Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare. This chanting of Lord Kṛṣṇa’s holy name is the most sublime benediction in all Vedic literature, and it was Lord Caitanya’s purpose to spread this chanting not only in holy places but to every town and village of the world.
Lord Caitanya inundated India with a wave of love for Kṛṣṇa. And by Lord Caitanya’s desire, in 1965 this wave overflowed from India to the world when His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda began the international Hare Kṛṣṇa movement.
Now, to celebrate the five-hundredth anniversary of Lord Caitanya’s appearance, devotees Śrīla Prabhupāda inspired with Lord Caitanya’s teachings have joined together from around the world to travel in India on pilgrimage.
Their pilgrimage is a padayātrā, a journey by foot. Their route takes them to the same places Lord Caitanya visited nearly five hundred years ago. It covers six thousand kilometres and will take eighteen months to complete.
The padayātrā forms a joyful procession, with 150 people, five bullocks, a camel, and a decorated elephant. The bullocks pull an open trailer with sculptured dancing forms of Lord Caitanya and His eternal companion Lord Nityānanda, and seated at Their feet the form of Their emissary par excellence, His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda.
As the pilgrims pass along the road, they follow in Lord Caitanya’s footsteps, not only by visiting the same places He did but by chanting the mahā-mantra: Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare / Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare. And every evening, whether in a big city or small village, they stop and hold a festival. They chant and dance and pass out prasādam, food blessed by Lord Caitanya. They hold discourses and distribute books about Lord Caitanya’s philosophy. And they show films that share with people the worldwide Hare Kṛṣṇa movement.
The padayātrā, in its course, will pass through 120 cities and 2300 villages and towns. It will reach its final destination—Śrīdhām Māyāpur, West Bengal, Lord Caitanya’s birthplace—by 26 March, the anniversary of His birth. There the pilgrims will join literally hundred and thousands of Lord Caitanya’s devotees who will gather to celebrate Lord Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu, the incarnation of Kṛṣṇa who taught love of Kṛṣṇa to the world.
I have decided to go on pilgrimage with Lord Caitanya’s padayātrā.
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