Kailash, Journey Of A Lifetime

Kailash, Journey Of A Lifetime

The idea of going on a trek or mountaineering always portends a sense of achievement ­ to feel bigger than who you are. But the idea of a pilgrimage is to subdue yourself. It is to become nothing in the process of just walking, climbing and subjecting yourself to arduous processes of nature. Pilgrimage destinations in ancient times were always located in such places, to reach which a person had to go through considerable physical and mental hardship, and in the process, he becomes less than who he thinks he is. Today , things have been made much more comfortable. People are flying up, walking a bit, and then driving down.

The Kailash Yatra is probably the greatest pilgrimage that one can make. Kailash is a tremendous spiritual library, and it has been so for long years. In the Hindu way of life, people say that Kailash is the abode of Shiva. But that does not mean that he is still sitting up there, or dancing, or hiding in the snow. What it means is that when a person realises and his perception goes far beyond what is normal, what he has perceived cannot always be transmitted to people around him; only a small part of it can be transmitted. It is rare for any master to find people he can transmit all of himself to. So where do you leave all this?

For thousands of years, realised beings always travelled to Kailash and deposited their knowledge in a certain way , in a certain energy form. They used the mountain as a scaffold to create this. This is why Buddhists say that three of their main Buddhas ­ Manjushree, Avalokiteshwara and Vajrapani ­ all live there in the mountain.

Jains say Rishabh, the first tirthankara, lives there; Hindus say Shiva lives there, and south Indian mystics say their greatest yogi, Agastya Muni, doyen of south Indian mysticism and one of the seven direct disciples of Shiva, lives in the southern face of Kailash. It does not mean that they are all actually living there. It means that they deposited their work in Kailash because they could not transmit it all to people. A variety of social situations did not permit one to do that. All 63 Nayanmars, saints from south India, also went to Kailash because they too never had the opportunity to transmit their perception to the people around them. So Kailash is a treasure house of knowledge.

In terms of inner dimensions, nothing you ever want to know is in Kailash. If you know how to perceive and decipher it, every thing about your own creation, about your making and existence, and about your liberation, is all there. If you are willing to raise your perception to sufficient clarity , it is distinctly visible and available.

Above all, the journey itself is simply fantastic. Tibet as a land is so amazing and unique in terms of its natural beauty .Every land has its own beauty , but this is something different from what you normally see­ very different. During the journey , you can stand on a grassy plain, you can see sand dunes like a desert, you can see green hills and you can see snow-clad peaks, everything in one place. The variety of terrain is quite incredible.

Om Namah Shivay