My Reflections on the Pilgrimage to Northeast India

In March of 2024, a group of sixty-five of us completed our pilgrimage to Northeast India. The special part of this pilgrimage was that all of us shared a fully matured collective consciousness that embodied the spirit of maitri (friendship), karuna (compassion), mudita (happiness), and upeksha (non-judgment)—the spirit of Yoga Sutra 1:33. It was a great joy to be part of such a collective consciousness.

The Impetus Behind This Pilgrimage

For the last several years, this part of India had been calling to me. For the first few years, I thought that this calling was in response to my sweet memories of the Northeast, which I had gathered forty-eight years ago when I first traversed this vast, pure, pristine, and beautiful land. It is only last year, when the idea of organizing a Maha Sri Yaga at the Khajuraho Sri Vidya shrine emerged, that I realized the response to my memory was only a secondary reason for feeling an urgency to go on this pilgrimage. The magnanimity of Maha Sri Yaga, both in terms of its size and its far-reaching spiritual goal, is the true impetus behind this pilgrimage. This yaga—a rare group practice revered by the sages—has been used since ancient times to restore the vibrancy of the human spirit and the natural world. 

Divine Providence has her own way of connecting the strands of cause and effect. How mysteriously, for example, Divine Providence inspired me to visit our ancestral cave at Mount Kailash in the sacred land of Tibet, and how beautifully that visit led to establishing the Institute’s campus at the bank of the Ganga in Allahabad. It happened just twenty-five years ago. Then, eight years later, the pilgrimage to Kamakhya blessed us with the wisdom and resources for establishing the Sri Vidya shrine in Khajuraho, central India. And a three-year-long meditation in Khajuraho gave us the shakti for establishing the Sri Vidya shrine here at the Institute in Honesdale. How many more miracles do we need to see before we conclude that it was the conception of Maha Sri Yaga that was prompting us to undertake this pilgrimage to the Northeast? Purity, simplicity, innocence, and love for nature define the spirituality of the Northeast. In a world of quantum entanglement, the Northeast called to us, as if it wanted to contribute its essence to the upcoming Maha Sri Yaga. Our pilgrimage to the Northeast was the result of this calling.

My First Visit to the Northeast

The context for this pilgrimage prompts me to share with you my memories of when I visited this part of the world for the first time. It happened in 1976. I had just joined my PhD program at the University of Allahabad. I was working on my doctoral dissertation entitled “The Philosophy of the Tripura Cult — A Study.” Right at the start, it became clear that Tripura, or Tripurasundari, is the heart of tantra sadhana. It is an esoteric subject and purely experiential. I knew that without direct experience, my bookish knowledge would remain blind and lame, and my academic work would be of limited value. Within a few months of being in the program, I felt an irresistible urge to visit Kamakhya in Northeast India to gather the tools and means to jump-start my sadhana. So that’s what I did. 

As soon as my glance fell upon the hill that houses Kamakhya and dozens of other shrines, the scholar in me melted away. Frolicking in the courtyard of Kamakhya, the creative matrix of divine will, and being embraced by yoginis who vividly and loudly announced their presence in the shrines scattered around the hill, made me oblivious of time. Days, weeks, and months vanished in the blink of an eye. Eventually, the master who had taken me under his wing asked me to return to my hometown and finish my degree. It was painful, and this pain intensified when I realized I would be leaving without paying back the money I had borrowed from the local priest who had been hosting me. But then I remembered that a branch of the royalty from north India, where my father had been raj guru, spiritual guide to the royal family, had settled in Dibrugarh, a town in the northeastern part of Assam. Age-old tradition affirmed my conviction that the family would be delighted to see me, and once they knew the intention behind my visit, the priest in Kamakhya would be generously remunerated. So, instead of taking a westward journey to my home, I set out in the opposite direction—eastward, to Dibrugarh.

Upon hearing about my plan, a group of wandering sadhus, who were temporarily staying at Kamakhya, told me that they were on their way to Nagaland. They assured me that while traveling with them I would reach my destination, so I readily joined them. Most of the time, we traveled on foot. Only intermittently did we take buses or horse-drawn buggies. Traveling with these sadhus was an experience impossible to replicate. They were carefree and had no agenda whatsoever. Whenever the sun was about to set, they stopped. At sunrise, they hit the road again. Whenever they felt hungry, they searched for food. They filled their water pots from nearby streams. They avoided traveling through towns except on the few occasions when they rode buses. They knew all the nooks and crannies of the vast land that stretched between Kamakhya, in Guwahati, and Dibrugarh. They could communicate in Hindi, Bengali, Assamese, and a dozen other languages and dialects used by different tribes and communities in this region. They knew the sacred streams, hilltops, and spots in the jungles that the locals revered and used as centers for their ritual practices. 

In this land, Hindu, Muslim, Christian, or any other known practices in any organized religion, did not exist. I did not encounter a single shrine except Tripurasundari in Tripura that carried any association with an anthropomorphic form of divinity. Even though I have no recollection of the specific characteristics or appearances of the places I traversed, the sense of sanctity associated with the flora and fauna, and the natural formation of hills and valleys, made an indelible impression on my mind. Simplicity and innocence pervaded and permeated the whole land and its people. Shame and gender-related complexes were unseen and unheard of. Unlike the rest of India, here a matrilineal culture afforded women great respect. The dominance of men over women and the social norms that accompany this dominance were nowhere in sight. Both men and women wore minimal clothing, made of leaves, bark, and natural fibers. All of this allowed the tender feelings of their hearts to play their roles in the larger web of life without much fuss about being right or wrong, good or bad. Today, I sit back and reflect on how seamlessly their lives were integrated with nature, and how this integration protected them from losing the foundational qualities of spirituality which we, the people of the modern world, are trying to reclaim and once again imbibe.

The sadhus I was traveling with were walking libraries of the sociocultural, political, philosophical, religious, and spiritual history of India, particularly the Northeast. They had no affinity to a political entity called India. They lived in a time zone that predates the birth of Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Christianity, or any “ism” known to the human race. None of them seemed to have gone to school, and yet they talked about the birth of the people who populated this land as though they had seen it through their own eyes. They talked about the Khasi, Naga, and Jaintia tribes. They talked about the Mizo, Kuki, and Meitei tribes and their association with the Chin tribes. They talked about the Ahoms and their association with the Shan tribes of Myanmar. They talked about the tribes in what today is known as Arunachal Pradesh and their connection with eastern Tibet all the way to the Yunnan province of China. They spoke of ancient sages—Kashyapa, Parashurama, Sanat Kumara, and a long line of siddhas—who once made the Northeast their base and from there spread the seeds of inner wisdom which, in different places, grew and bore fruits of different shapes, sizes, tastes, and colors. 

I have no account of how many weeks or months I traveled with this group. I had no paper, no pen, no watch, and of course, no camera. However, everything they said was like a direct transmission from their mind to mine. What I recall very well is that I had started seeing things through their eyes and knowing things through their minds. This is how the Northeast settled in my heart. Finally, one day they pointed me to a road leading to a bazaar from where I could get a bus to Dibrugarh. They gave me some money and bade goodbye. I never saw them again.

Spring 2024—Pilgrimage to the Northeast: Land of Shakti Sadhana

Forty-eight years later, I returned to this emotionally charged land. In a sense, it is my spiritual home. Love and the natural feeling of belonging are good enough reasons to visit home. Yet this time, I had an even more compelling reason to return to this part of the world—to gather the resources needed to complete the Maha Sri Yaga successfully. More about this later, but for now, let us reflect on our journey through the vibrant land of the Northeast.

Tripura

Our pilgrimage started from Agartala, the capital city of the state of Tripura. From time immemorial, this part of the world has been a stronghold of tantra sadhana, particularly shakti sadhana. The entire range of shakti-centric sadhana has traditionally been divided into ten categories, known as ten Mahavidyas. Tripura, or Tripurasundari, is one of those ten Mahavidyas. The popular term for Tripurasundari is Sri Vidya. Until a century or so ago, the philosophy and the practice associated with this form of tantra influenced the life of the people here so deeply that the entire region came to be known as Tripura. While in Tripura, we made Hotel Polo Towers, a five-star hotel in Agartala, our base. 

On the first day, our pilgrimage began with a special puja. We had put aside the whole day for ritual and meditative practices at the shrine of Tripurasundari, just an hour and a half from our hotel. We got up early, had our breakfast, and by 8:15 a.m. were on our buses. It was a beautiful drive. As soon as we drove out of the city, we began to see the real Northeast. All along the road, we saw trees unique to the deciduous and tropical climates, predominantly mangoes, jackfruits, and palm trees of all kinds—coconuts, betel nuts, and a numberless variety of wild palm trees. The flat land between the hills was covered in rice paddies in various shades of green and gold. We passed through well-groomed rubber-tree and tea plantations. When we arrived at the Tripurasundari temple, we were warmly greeted by the temple authorities, who had reserved a large area of the temple compound for our group. 

In this reserved area of the temple, perhaps for the first time ever, they had arranged amenities befitting the stature of the Divine Mother Tripurasundari, Queen of the Three Worlds. Under the canopy of colorful tents, they had built an altar where we established the Sri Chakra, and with a formal consecration, began our puja. Our tent was situated just next to the temple, where a throng of devotees was queued for the darshan and puja of the Divine Mother, and yet, in and around the tent, there was pin-drop silence during our puja. The crowd surrounding us was made up of people from every strata of society—there were faithful pilgrims, casual visitors, awakened seekers, and blind followers; there were those who came to appease the Goddess with animal sacrifices; and others were there to appease her with offerings of coconuts, sweets, garlands, or just simple obeisance. An overwhelming quietude dawned when, as a concluding part of our puja, we as a group began to recite Sri Sukta. With the altar at its core, the collective consciousness was so pronounced, so strong, and so all-consuming that the entire crowd—those standing in queue to enter the temple, those milling around after exiting the temple, and those engaged in the normal activities of the temple and its related functions—turned toward us, became totally still and silent, and bent their heads in reverence. Deep in my heart, I felt the Divine Mother reminding us, “You do not need to demand respect and reverence. It comes to you when you have cultivated a mind worthy of respect and reverence.” I took this reminder as her blessing. 

Afterward, we too joined the queue to have a glance at the Goddess in the inner sanctum of the temple. Without speaking a word, the local pilgrims gestured for us to proceed ahead of them—a phenomenon rarely, if ever, seen in most of the temples in India. From here, we proceeded to lunch at a nearby hotel situated at the sacred water tank behind the temple. After lunch, everyone scattered, exploring the little town, the temple complex, and the area around the water tank. Once again, I tried to recollect what I had seen here forty-eight years ago and reflected on how the force of time paved the way to what exists here today. In my memory, the temple was a mile or so away from the town. It was surrounded by nature. The water tank behind the temple was bordered by coconut trees, betel nut trees, and a rich variety of other trees and shrubs of all sizes. Only a small part of the tank was connected to the temple by stone steps. Pilgrims came to the temple in large numbers only on special occasions; the rest of the time, the temple and its surrounding area were inhabited by solitude—a paradise for sadhus who periodically used this space as their home. 

The next day, our trip took us to Chabimura to enter the unchanged part of Tripura deeper in the jungles, where the Gomati River snakes her way into the southward flow of the Meghna River, which combines with the Ganga’s main channel in Bangladesh—Padma River. For those familiar with the rainforests of South America, Gomati River is like a tributary of the Amazon. The only difference is that in South America we may occasionally encounter the natives and their villages, whereas here, we encounter the ancient carvings of different forms of Divine Mother Durga on the cliffs bordering Gomati River. While boating on the river, we passed through endless stretches of bamboo forests so dense, so healthy, that anyone who had even a little bit of a samskara of the Shinto faith would unfailingly feel the presence of the millions of gods who preside over the millions of tendencies which stir our mind and senses. 

Another exciting part of our pilgrimage to Tripura was the visit to Kali Bari, the temple of Goddess Kali. This shrine is located deep in the interiors of Tripura, hardly 100 meters away from the border of Bangladesh. It is a purely tantric shrine. Even though the temple is open to anyone and everyone, it predominantly attracts the tribal people of the area. One-third of the population of the state of Tripura is tribal, and the area surrounding the shrine of Goddess Kali is their stronghold. Unlike the shrine of Tripurasundari, where the Bengali culture dominates, this shrine enjoys its age-old tribal culture that embodies what the Northeast is actually known for. Just as in any tribal culture, there is no wall between the sacred and the mundane at this shrine. Here, the Goddess avails herself to those who come to her with their mundane concerns with the same enthusiasm as she does to those coming with spiritual fervor. 

We arrived at the temple hall. The priests greeted us and facilitated our puja. We made our offerings and then walked around the temple, where we spotted a space to do our recitation of Sri Sukta without inconveniencing other pilgrims. Meanwhile, a bride and bridegroom, who had come to get married in the presence of the Divinity at the shrine, arrived. Upon seeing strangers who looked so completely different from them, they quietly sat down and participated in our prayers. This couple was from a jungle-dwelling tribe. They knew nothing of our values, customs, and traditions, and yet, they put our needs above their own. After we finished our recitation, the priest performed their wedding ceremony, which lasted only a few minutes. The couple was overjoyed when we expressed our pleasure to be present at their wedding. This is the spirit of spirituality perhaps all of us are trying to acquire and embody. 

We concluded our pilgrimage to the state of Tripura with a few cultural experiences and moved on to the next exciting portion of our pilgrimage—Meghalaya!

Meghalaya: Jayanti Shrine

Meghalaya, literally “home of the clouds,” is known for its rainfall—the heaviest in the world. To reach here, we took a flight from Agartala to Guwahati, the capital city of Assam. Following an overnight stay in Guwahati, we embarked on our bus journey to Meghalaya. Within an hour or so, we crossed the plains of Assam and entered the hilly region of Meghalaya. What a contrast! The hustle and bustle of Guwahati was behind us. No more noise, and no more pollution. No more litter, no more honking and wild drivers, and no more devastated landscapes. Once in Meghalaya, we were surrounded by the breathtaking beauty of the hills and valleys and the flora and fauna covering them. By noon, we reached the Jayanti shrine, the only temple in the entire state. 

For those of us belonging to the Sri Vidya tradition of tantra sadhana, this shrine is very significant. In the secret practice of tantra, especially the one based on the Durga Saptashati, a cluster of mantras known as the Argala Stotram plays an important role. Protection, stability, and focus are the primary functions of the Argala Stotram. Jayanti is the leading shakti of this practice. Before reaching this shrine, I did not know what to expect. From my wanderings forty-eight years earlier, all I remembered was that there was a shrine. How it looked, what were the prevailing rituals, and how frequently devotees and adepts visited could not capture my imagination. The seeker of Sri Vidya in me, however, wished that someone or something at the temple would give me a clue and confirm my conviction that Jayanti is the presiding deity of the power of protection, stability, and concentration. The seeker in me also wished that the unique nature of rituals or some artifacts at this shrine would confirm my belief that the practice associated with Jayanti was deeply esoteric and largely forbidden—and furthermore, that the deity at the shrine was simply representative of the most dynamic force of the natural world, and the anthropomorphic form of it was just a veil hiding her essence. The prospect of my wish coming true became apparent as soon as my eyes fell on the description of the temple at the entrance, which, in effect, read: “Here Goddess Jayanti/Durga is accompanied by Bhairava, known as Kramadhishwara.” I was elated, for it said everything I needed to hear. 

Jayanti is the daughter of Indra, the king of the heavens and the lord of rain and lightning. She is the force of victory and accomplishment; hence, the nomenclature Jayanti. Riding the chariot of clouds, she arrests enemies with the deafening sound of her thunderbolt, and at the same time, drenches seekers of her mercy with dharma megha, the virtuous rain of spiritual empowerment. She herself is anchored in Kramadhishwara, the lord of linearity. The world of ours is encased by time and space and is ruled by the law of cause and effect. The functionality of time, space, and the law of cause and effect is dependent on the phenomenon of krama, linearity. Kramadhishwara, the lord of linearity, is Jayanti’s eternal consort. She is vested with the power to breathe life into the linearity of time and space or render them inert through her sheer will. Who else other than Jayanti can rearrange the sequence of cause and effect in the realm of time and space, and thus free us from the endless entanglement of our karmic ropes? There we stood at her doorstep and recited our favorite prayer: “Jayanti, Mangala, Kali….” 

Once inside the temple, we could clearly see that it was a tantric shrine. Next to the inner sanctum, where the Goddess resided, was the sacrificial altar. It was covered with colorful cloths and at the center there was the sacred flame. No one asked and no one told us, and yet all of us sensed that the rituals performed there were what distinguished that shrine from other shakti shrines. Besides animal sacrifices, the signs of human sacrifice were noticeable, although none of us could fathom when, how, and at what occasion it was done.

The region around the Jayanti shrine is the meeting ground of the prevailing Hindu culture of India and the tribal culture of the Northeast. Here the Divinity, which embodies the natural world, is conceived as Jayanti and has some identifiable anthropomorphic traits. But beyond this region, all those traits disappear. The sacred is no longer confined to manmade structures, nor are methods of worship regulated by the injunctions issued by established religions, despite the introduction of Hinduism, Islam, and Christianity into this land. Not only is nature her abode, but she is nature and nature is her. Every tribe has its gods and goddesses, and every tribe traces its origin in its gods and goddesses. But an overarching belief remains the same among all the tribes: “Gods live in heaven; the natural world is heaven; our ancestors descended from heaven, and after passing this heaven on to us, they were reabsorbed into the natural world. Just like gods, our ancestors are immortal. They live in us and we live in them. Everything and everyone, from the gods in heaven all the way to every living creature on earth, is an integral part of the spectrum of the life force.” This philosophy shapes the plethora of beliefs that prevail in this land. 

Interiors of Meghalaya

We paid our final obeisance to Jayanti, had our lunch, and after an overnight stay in Shillong, we moved on to the interiors of Meghalaya. Saimika Resort was our destination. On our way to Saimika, we stopped at the famous Mawphlang Sacred Forest. This forest is the living temple of the people of the Khasi tribe. Traditionally, whenever there was a change of power, the new king was coronated here. In times of famine or social turbulence, they came here to pray and receive guidance. Even in modern times, when there is so much population pressure, the Khasi have put aside this forest and revere it just as their ancestors did. 

Saimika is located in the valley and is surrounded by hills. It is a beautiful spot. It was the month of March, and at Saimika and throughout Meghalaya, it was springtime. Warm and sunny days and sweetly cold nights were just perfect for pilgrims with a wide range of temperaments and tolerance to the elements. Keeping Saimika as our base, a group of us explored areas unique to this place—a long chain of caves, pristine streams, waterfalls, swimming holes—while some of our more supercharged pilgrims descended over two thousand steps into the valley and back to see the living root bridges (with a few having to be carried back out by porters). All of this added a special flavor to our spiritual pilgrimage. Embraced by the collective consciousness of the group, it was sheer joy. 

From here we moved on to our final destination in Meghalaya—Mawlynnong. To reach there, we passed through endless hills and valleys. Development projects were greatly in progress—roadside villages were on their way to turning into bazaars, bazaars into towns, and towns into cities. Earth-moving machines mercilessly tore apart mountains, giving way to the construction of roads and bridges. We drove along the heavy-duty barbed wire separating India from Bangladesh. Some of our kindhearted yogi friends expressed their dismay by gently asking, “Whose barbed wire is this?” It was an amazing landscape. We were traveling through the edge of mountains that belonged to India, and just below that were the low-lying lands of Bangladesh. This scene made my pilgrim heart wonder at how strong are the political and religious forces that can draw an unnatural line to split the world of nature. Before reaching Mawlynnong, we passed through a dying mountain range—its rocks were being mined for export to Bangladesh, leaving clouds of dust lingering in the air until the time rain would come and wash them into the plains of Bangladesh, and eventually into the Bay of Bengal. We had to be careful not to let the clouds of mining dust settle in our lungs. With this short-lived, unpilgrim-like experience, we reached our destination. 

Mawlynnong is notable for being the cleanest and most beautiful village in Asia. It consists of over one hundred families. The community is predominantly Christian, but their primary identity is that of being Khasi. Simplicity, honesty, openness, and love for nature are their defining characteristics. People from all over India and abroad visit this village, and the villagers proudly and happily greet them. There are no hotels; homestays are the norm. While in Mawlynnong, our group stayed in many homes. Even though, as a common practice, our hosts made their kitchens available to us, we had our meals as a group at the village square. The local church kindly opened its doors for our formal get-together and satsanga. The takeaway from Mawlynnong is that, through our effort, we too can create a clean, peaceful, harmonious society and do anything we want to accomplish. Effort requires will. Civil societies, humanitarian organizations, governmental agencies, and noble activism can help us stand, but ultimately, it is self-effort that helps us move forward. We found Mawlynnong a living example of this truth. After staying here for two days, we bade farewell to this beautiful village and its people and moved on to our next destination—Kamakhya, in the state of Assam, where, spiritually speaking, forty-eight years ago my life began. 

Kamakhya

Kamakhya is the capital of tantra sadhana. Regarding tantra vidya, there is a saying: “What is found in Kamakhya may be found elsewhere, but what is not found here cannot be found anywhere.” Here Divine Mother Sri resides as Kamakhya. Kamakhya literally means “the one who is known by her intrinsic quality of fulfilling our desires.” Unconditional love and responsiveness are her defining attributes. Our merits and demerits make no difference to her love for us. She is pleased just because we are there with her and around her. It is with this conviction that thousands in the past, including myself forty-eight years ago, and today, sixty-five of us, have come to her courtyard. 

Today Kamakhya is a thriving little town. The forces of time have brought forward a level of reality which is in part similar to what existed fifty years ago and in part is totally new. It was at once thrilling and bewildering. In the olden days, while at Kamakhya, pilgrims spent their nights in humble dwellings hours away. Now there is a score of hotels of all grades and sizes. While staying at the five-star Radisson Blu, I reflected on the forces of time—just five decades ago, I lived in a small room of a mud house next to Mother Kamakhya, and today, I’m here at a luxury hotel. During my first visit, I walked for hours from the bus stand to reach Kamakhya, and now, in a matter of ten minutes, I’m there at the parking lot just next to Mother Kamakhya’s temple. Earlier, most of the time, her courtyard greeted just a handful of devotees. Now it busies itself with a throng of people from sunrise to sunset. In the past, we spent hours collecting puja ingredients; now everything is available in the busy marketplace around her courtyard. My reflections made me stand at the crossroads of past and present and told me clearly—learn to appreciate and enjoy the gifts brought by the forces of time. 

After alighting from our cars, we proceeded to the temple in a time-honored manner. Before entering the gate, we took off our shoes. From there, we walked to Saubhagya Kunda, the sacred water tank. There, by sprinkling the sacred water on ourselves, we completed the ritual of purification. Knowing how jam-packed the temple and the space around it were, we decided to do our puja while there at the water tank. Thereafter, we joined the throng. We slowly proceeded to the temple hall, did darshan of some of the deities residing there, and particularly enjoyed the pandits engaged in the recitation of the Durga Saptashati. Some of us ventured to witness the rituals of sacrifice unique to this shrine. Finally, as a group, we circumambulated the temple and then dispersed to explore the remaining shrines located on the Kamakhya hill. 

The scores of shrines located in different parts of the hill share a common characteristic—they are nestled in nature, and the presiding forces of these shrines are not represented by any personified form. A visual aid such as a painting or a statue of a particular goddess at any of these shrines, if there, is a very new introduction, and such emblems have no spiritual significance. Almost all the shrines are in underground caves, and it has been only in the last few hundred years that people have built structures to cover the openings. The largest among all these structures is the one that covers the shrine of Goddess Kamakhya. The garbha griha, the inner sanctum, is represented by a triangular-shaped bed of rock. Life-giving fluid—sacred water—emerges from this rock, and that is the epicenter of the shakti sages call Kamakhya. 

Among learned tantric adepts, Kamakhya is identical to the Divine Mother Tripurasundari or Sri Vidya. Her consort, Tripurasundara, here known as Kameshwara, resides in a similar cave just a few yards from the cave of Kamakhya. The shrines of many other manifestations of the Divine Mother, such as Kali, Chinnamasta, Bagalamukhi, Tripurabhairavi, Tara, Matangi, Chamunda, Dhumavati, Kamala, and Bhuvaneshwari are within walking distance of each other. What is intriguing to me is that all of these shrines are in caves, a particular sacred rock signifies their presence, and there is a triangular-, square-, or rectangular-shaped pit in the floor of each cave, where the center of that shape, with or without a stream, embodies the Divinity. 

Kumari puja, the ritual worship of a girl or an unmarried young woman, occupies the most significant place in shakti sadhana in Kamakhya. During kumari puja, the unmarried young woman is perceived as the direct extension of the Divine Mother Kamakhya. She is treated as a living goddess and, as such, she is adorned with beautiful garments and ornaments, and adored as beauty par excellence. 

In Kamakhya, we explored the shrines on different parts of the hill individually or in small groups, except when we offered our puja at the main temple of Kamakhya collectively. Unlike in the past, this time I had come to Kamakhya with a specific intention—to gather the resources needed to complete the Maha Sri Yaga successfully. In compliance with the force of this intention, I paid a special visit to the Divine Mother in her forms as Bagalamukhi and Bhuvaneshwari. Bagalamukhi is the goddess of stability—a rock-solid force symbolized by a gigantic rock formation inside her cave shrine. It is one of the most esoteric among all the shrines in Kamakhya and is revered by well-informed tantric adepts. 

Bhuvaneshwari is the goddess of nourishment and sustainability. She is the pranic pulsation of the sun and everything that exists in the sun’s orbit. The Bhuvaneshwari shrine is located at the summit of the Kamakhya hill. There, in addition to gathering what I needed for the successful completion of the Maha Sri Yaga, I was forced to reflect on the state of the world. It began with my attempt to locate the pancha mundi pitha that once existed in the front yard on the right-hand side as you enter the Bhuvaneshwari temple. Upon inquiring, I was told that during the renovation and expansion of the shrine and the surrounding area, it had been relocated. The relocation of a shrine rooted in as impenetrable a mystery as this one is, spiritually speaking, a monumental and complex task. I mentally offered my love and respect to the tradition that embodies the esoteric sciences and walked deeper behind the temple. 

The backyard of the temple is beautiful and spacious. There is an indoor havan kunda, sacred fireplace, for practitioners to start or complete their practices. From there, I could see all the way to Umananda Island, now popularly known as Peacock Island. The panoramic view of the Brahmaputra River, and Umananda encircled by it, once again awakened the philosopher in me. In this spiritually charged space, I began to reflect on the state of the world. 

Where We Are Headed

The life-sustaining waters of the Brahmaputra River gave birth to diverse societies, cultures, and civilizations. A number of tribes—ethnic groups with a vast range of faiths and beliefs—in western, central, and eastern Tibet exist only because the Brahmaputra exists. On the Indian side, endless diversity thrives in the Northeast only because of the innate vigor and vibrancy of the Brahmaputra and its tributaries. The lives of millions in Bangladesh are totally dependent on the delicate balance of the health and well-being of the Brahmaputra, and it is on that Brahmaputra, just a few years ago, that China completed one of its super dams. The volume of water it contains and controls is beyond our imagination. Considering how serious and complex is the rivalry between India and China, this dam is frightening. It is a geopolitical bomb.

Northeast India is just one such example of geopolitical wars. Look at the South China Sea, the Indian Ocean, the Middle East, Ukraine, and the clever economic recolonization of Africa. O Bhuvaneshwari, Mother of the World Under the Sun, what is the true impetus for these geopolitical bombs? What is the true source of the unrest we see all around us? How powerful and self-perpetuating are our desires, and how dulling is their impact on our conscience. How deep and bottomless is the pit in our mind such that all inventions, industrial outputs, and corporate profits fail to fill it. Everyone seems to be caught in an aimless race, and everyone is seeking lasting fulfillment in short-lived achievements.

O Queen of the Inner Kingdom of Kamakhya, just as anyone else, once I was also restless. I was running amok too. I stood on the shaky ground of the present, with no vision of the future. Then, with a reason and the process known only to you, you transformed my life with your miraculous touch. The restlessness vanished. I found a purpose in living. The natural world began to emit the endless shades of your beauty. The idea to find freedom away from this world lost its charm. Today, while standing on this hill, I pray, “May people in the world understand the urgency of experiencing your presence within and without, and may they deploy their resources to refine this experience and pass it on to future generations.”