I do not think there was one day that I felt comfortable. In every day there was something that would challenge me. The sights of tremendous poverty in central Delhi, the thick and unfamiliar smells, the noise all in a melting pot of diversity and extreme contrast surrounding you.
India is life. India is alive. India is spirit. India is soul.
India will rock you. India will stretch you. India will get in your face. India will offend you. But eventually India will crack open your heart and awaken your spirit.
Early morning just before the crack of dawn, the city of Varanasi, India's spiritual centre, is wide awake. The hustle of getting to the Ganges river for the morning wash is a sacred ritual believed to clear away one's sins. Hindu pilgrims come onto the ghats and prayers from the locals are vast and many.
Sailing down the Ganges river at early hours in the morning is an experience like no other. There is a stillness, a silence experienced within that is deep. Although the surrounding activities are many - with pilgrims and locals bathing, prayers and cremated bodies being sent down the river - the experience within is one of stillness.
It is an experience that causes a shift. A deep shift and a deeper, unexplainable understanding truth that lies within us all. It is an awakening of spirit. It connects you to a deeper appreciation of this thing called life, and a much deeper appreciation of yourself and your own life. It feels like your personal connection to the divine is palpable, you can almost touch it.
Varanasi, like many parts of India is a city with so much movement, noise, traffic, yet this experience of being on the Ganges brings you to a deep inner stillness - a true epiphany of who you are. In this stillness, there is an awakening.
It feels like you have stretched yourself and come to a deeper understanding of true peace, of death and somehow, in an unexplainable way, you become alive. You feel the life force move through you and it feels like an awakening.
I remember watching the many deep and ancient rituals of this sacred place with a sense of an inexplicable inner peace and wonder. All of the conflicts we face within ourselves felt like they are brushed away and the only thing left is this peace, a deep inner awareness. A deeper respect for life emerges - your own life and the life of all other living beings, human, animal, plants.
It was on my final evening in Delhi before I was to head back to the comforts of my home that the discomfort had finally started to ease. It was replaced by a deep love and appreciation for what India had taught me. I was heading back home a different person, one who had truly expanded in every way possible, one who was deeply connected to spirit, and one that had a deep inner knowing and inner peace like never before.
India reminded be that for every great triumph, every great and worthwhile venture, there is discomfort in the middle. Every worthwhile goal will challenge you, it will stretch you. This discomfort is necessary for the deeper awakening and the gift to emerge. The foundations and strength is built during the challenge. Yet the gift is bigger than you could ever imagine. But it is only for the brave.
India is for the brave - and with the discomfort, she will teach you more about yourself and what it means to be alive than you can ever imagine. Once you overcome the discomfort, you open up to the gift that she brings you - a gift that will be inside you forever.
Suzana Mihajlovic, Founder - Your2Minds Pty Ltd www.your2minds.com
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