Post-Rishikesh

I breathed a huge sigh of relief upon leaving Rishikesh since I got out alive. The four people I spent the most time with while I was there literally couldn't leave. They kept changing their travel plans because the magnetic forces were too strong.

My first stop after Rishikesh was Haridwar, where a friend from my Great Freedom course had spent over a year. There was an ashram with a university, which was absolutely amazing. The ashram was founded by a guy named Gurudev (one of many men that go by that name) who believed in completely transforming the world, beginning with India. He didn't believe in dowries, which promotes practices like female infanticide because families just can't afford to give the husbands families so many gifts. So every day at the ashram there are over 20 "propper weddings" as they call it, as an alternative, where couples get married without a dowry and the ashram actually gives the man's family a contribution themselves.

The ashram is very scientific and gives alternative medical treatment for free for both mental and physical disorders. There are "laboratories" that hook people's brains up to wires to see if the manditory meditation each day and herbal remedies are making the person calmer and healthier. That part freaked me out. (http://www.awgp.org/, http://www.dsvv.org/)

There is also a university that is joined to the ashram where spiritual music plays twice a day and all the students gather outside in the gorgeous campus for meditation. There is a master's degree in journalism being offered there for $700 a year!!!! I met up with friends of a friend who conduct fire ceremonies at the university with cow maneur and cow ghee that is supposed to heal. Later, when applying the ash from the ancient ceremony to my stomach since I was feeling ill, I realized how out there I have truely become. (Don't worry I have extra cow dung ash if any of you are interested.)

From Haridwar, I've been traveling way too much...to Delhi, Cochin, Kumily where my bus broke down on a highway and I was the only foreigner/woman/one carrying a shit load of conspicuous backpacks in the middle of the night. Luckily I always meet people to help me. A man carried my bag for me and accompanied me on my journey, warding off many stares of "who the hell is this chick?" It was great to have someone else claim the heavy load instead of heaving it myself. In Kumily I arrived to a luxorious room, thankful to be alive with my belongings. Now I'm in a mountainous community in India called Kodaikanal. It's frigging awesome. I just had homemade chocolate for like 30 cents. Tomorrow, meeting my old friends from the ashram in time for the "feast" to celebrate the graduation of some yoga teachers who just finished my training. And I'm wondering, if I continue to write in this blog from the states, do I need to change the title? Best wishes, Julie