Trimbakeshwar Mandir temple and Laxman Jhula bridge
It’s time to leave Rishikesh. For these last few weeks I have realised that the work I came here to do, in whatever capacity, is done. I have documented life here since my arrival at the beginning of April, and my sorrow at the inevitable progression of the global tourism culture in its diverse expressions from thrill seeking to spiritual adventuring. Ashrams fall only to have newer and bigger ones built in their place. Guest houses spring up in every free plot of land where once there were gardens where people grew flowers and vegetables and birds sang in the trees. The roads are one endless line of traffic bearing some visitors out and new visitors in. I see newly arrived western looking tourists wandering around looking, for the most part, bemused at the scene. For those returning after the pandemic shut down travel and evicted them from India, it must seem such a far cry from the Rishikesh they left, with its yoga schools and ashrams, its yogi and hippy communities. India has reclaimed its own, if only temporarily. I don’t necessarily regret this, as the modern yoga culture itself is, in part at least, largely an extension of the whole ‘wellness’ industry, heavily influenced by western (principally US) cultural drivers. But it does sadden me to see that the shallow, all consuming, materialistic secular global culture has so successfully overwritten the modern Indian soul, and a land that once almost palpably vibrated with an indescribable spiritual energy is now instead vibrating constantly to the sounds of thundering traffic, pneumatic construction machinery and people hell bent on having a good time.
Why single out Rishikesh for criticism when this is all simply part of the newly emergent global order and something you find everywhere in the world? Because it markets itself on its spirituality, laying a sort of privileged claim to some unique character. It hosts the International Yoga Conference every March, attracting the great and the good: principally high profile gurus of international reputation and the huge followings they attract. In a town where the teachings of the great spiritual masters of India and saints of old are still used as lures for seekers of enlightenment, I feel that Rishikesh has sold its soul. It has been taken over by the wealth making machinery of globalisation and become a sort of Disney World for the newly affluent city dwellers and the motley assortment of New Age and Wellness groupies from western cultures.
My original aim in returning here was to offer informal spiritual guidance and advice to the many genuine seekers of enlightenment who might be confused about the many different and often contradictory eastern theologies, spiritual traditions and schools and not exactly sure what they were looking for, or how to go about looking even, in a place where there are at least a hundred ashrams and no clear way of evaluating the quality of any of them. This website represented a response to seeing this from the days I spent here across the summer of 2020. But now I feel that somehow all this is oddly superfluous. A comment from someone on one of the Rishikesh yogi community groups on Facebook said that a spiritual elder had once told them that the quality of a seeker’s sincerity would be mirrored by the teacher they attract, in other words, actively seeking to guide or advise might be redundant anyway. Thinking this through I found myself in agreement, at least to some extent. And I feel that probably most people are actually getting what they are really looking for here anyway: entertainment, not enlightenment at all. Who am I then to tell them otherwise? We all have the power of choice if we have a clear idea of what we want, why, whether it’s actually good for us in the first place and how to go about finding it.
So how will I remember this town then? I will remember it for its fleeting one time peace and serenity, when everywhere closed during the early weeks of lockdown and the river was quite deserted. I will remember the monkey invasions, the cattle (and their by products) everywhere, the surrounding green forested hillsides echoing to the call of peacocks at dawn, improbable juxtapositions of urban and wild. I’ll remember the sounds of the nearby temple on the hill playing drums and cymbals every morning and evening; latterly we have the chanting of mantras throughout the day, most every day, but at least this feels authentic. I’ll remember the clip clop of hooves along the road and the jingling of bells announcing the passing of another mule train.
I recall the ordinary village folk going about their lives in the town in the way they might have before global culture claimed it. I recall from my first days here, the many colourfully dressed traditional people from the outlying regions and further afield near the Tibetan border, coming to make their pujas in the different temples here. To them Rishikesh was still a sacred pilgrimage destination of ancient repute. Then the many sadhus, some covered in fine white ash, in white or orange loin cloths and long ropes of matted dreadlocks piled high upon their heads, wrapped up in colourful cloth, their foreheads with the characteristic three white horizontal lines denoting devotees of Lord Shiva. The swamis, some leaders of the different yoga schools and ashrams zooming around on motor scooters as the modern world has clearly upgraded their operating systems. In short, an eclectic mix of all sorts of people from western New Age hippies, yoga devotees, pilgrims, tourists both domestic and foreign, and even once a monkey man on Laxman Jhula bridge, shortly before the lockdown closed it to traffic.
Shiva, Mahadev (Almighty God) as he is known, the focus of worship at many of the temples hereabouts, now fronts many a small business enterprise, from catering to real estate.
As you walk up behind the main district of Tapovan, along the small streets that lead up into the hills, the yoga schools and ashrams still dominate, mixed in with residential dwellings and small retail outlets. You come across areas where favelas still house the urban poor in conditions far removed from the smart hotels and ashrams this area is now better known for.
Sadly I must say that what I will largely recall of life here is the endless surround sound of ongoing construction, all day everyday. It was what struck me when I first ever came here back in 2019. That, and now, the endless noise of traffic down in the street with blaring horns day and night.
But concealed in these sorry truths is nevertheless a striking irony. For all its failings, it is nevertheless still the context for all that critical ‘deep’ work which, in the end, delivered my own enlightenment (1), in providing an important tension or counterpoint that encouraged to me challenge many of my views, attitudes and conditionings, as well as study the different eastern theologies more fully. No thanks to yoga schools, ashrams, international conferences or satsangs by famous gurus. In many ways it was like holding a perpetual satsang with my deeper self anyway (2), although some of the key and sublime moments of revelation were actually experienced in places like Gangotri, Kedarnath and, strangely, even in York. I have described it thus:
“I knew then what the experience of moksha – liberation – felt like, or rather recognised it as a place; a place that, importantly, as I understood later, is also itself the Self. This, of course, is that desert place spoken of by Jalāl ad-Dīn Mohammad Rūmī (quoted here in ‘My Parting Word’)”(3, 4).
So perhaps I was drawn here for this purpose after all.
1. I explain the concept of ‘enlightenment’, oft referenced here, more fully in: https://elizabethcurrie.info/2021/10/14/the-road-to-salvation-ascent/
The ‘deep work’ of true yoga is discussed in several of the different pages of information in this website. It is what is sometimes called in eastern theological parlance: jnana yoga.
2. ‘Satsang is an audience with a satguru for religious instruction. The name satsang is a Sanskrit word that means “gathering together for the truth” or, more simply, “being with the truth.” Truth is what is real, what exists’. Excerpted from: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satguru
3. See ‘My Parting Word’: https://elizabethcurrie.info/my-parting-word/
and:
4. ‘Postscript. Final thoughts from Rishikesh’: https://elizabethcurrie.info/postscript-thoughts-from-rishikesh/