The Flame Goddess

Pilgrimage to Jwalaji

Go seek the blessings of your Kula Devi she said, throwing her head wildly from side to side in her trance. I had gone to visit Mataji, she's an old lady who lives near Kalkaji and during navratras it is said that the Devi speaks through her. Many people come to her with their problems and hope to get guidance and relief.

Jwala ji is our Kula Devi or clan goddess and her abode is in Kangra district of Himachal Pradesh. Generations of our family had been going to seek the blessings of the goddess on auspicious occassions. It is customary in our clan of Bhardwaj brahmins to get the tonsure or mundan ceremony done at Jwala ji and offer the birth hair of male children to the godess for her blessings and protection.

The tonsure ceremony is performed in an odd numbered year in the child's life and is one of the important samskaras or religious rites of passage in a Hindu's life. I too had gone to Jwalaji as a child for my mundan and many years later took my son for the same, as my grandfather and his forefathers had done through the ages.

I decided to take the Volvo bus service to Dharamshala and get down on the way at the  town nearest to Jwalaji.

You know, I should have taken the Himachal Tourism bus from ISBT but there was no Volvo scheduled so I had to settle for a private bus starting from Majnu Ka Tila near the pontoon bridge.

Guys, take the Majnu Ka Tila option only if you must, there is no bus stop to speak of, there's only a filthy tea stall which hosts perennial conferences attended by flies from all over India or so it seems. This stall also sells fake soft drinks, yes no kidding, there is a fake Mountain Dew along with nakli potato chip brands.

The tea stall is the only place to sit otherwise you'll need to find your spot between the piles of debris lining the dusty road and wait for your bus. Our bus took its sweet time coming and my calls to the bus coordinator were met with the typical 'hardly five minutes and we'll be there'.

The crowd at the bus stop was a mix of foreign tourists and Indians and some Tibetan looking folks who were taking stuff to sell in Dharamshala or probably visiting home.

Dharamshala is also the abode of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibetans and is a place of pilgrimage for his followers across the world.

Finally our bus arrived and I'm pretty sure it was not a Volvo but a Volvo fake, just like the duplicate soft drinks and chips on sale at the tea stall. I thanked my stars that I was travelling alone and would be able to manage, during my youth I had often travelled on spur of the moment trips, without reservation on Indian Railways and often slept on the floor of the cabin with my backpack as a cushion.

The bus was full of passengers and the  bus coordinator was doing his version of revenue management, shifting passengers from one bus to another to ensure all seats had bums on them. I took the window seat and was joined soon by a hasseled foreign lady traveller, poor thing, she kept on trying to impress upon the bus coordinator that she had booked seat number 24 through her travel agent and not the seat at the back where he had seated her.

Bus coordinators in India are master psychologists and he just let the poor lady vent as much as she could. Finally she resigned herself to her fate and we got talking as travellers often do.

Charlotte, my co-passenger was travelling through India on a spiritual journey and spoke fondly of her time at Amma's Ashram, the hugging saint as she is known, embraces all who come to her and many just break into tears experiencing the waves of all encompassing love flowing from Amma.

She spoke animatedly of her fascinating experiences in India, our colorful ways, the spirituality that pervades all that we do. Sometimes it is nice to get a fresh perspective, it  was good to focus on something other than the scams, the skyrocketting cost of living and the corruption and filth that we seem to be drowning in.

We discussed approaches to the formless, nameless, supreme energy and she shared her sense of dejection at the western approach to religion. We both agreed that religion is a commercial venture to package and sell spirituality to the masses.

Charlotte asked so many questions on our way of living and beliefs that I felt embarrased at my little knowledge. We also talked about how yoga is being packaged into easy to digest capsules of weekend courses and is blended with other physical practices like pilates and even swimming, a bit like fusion cuisine :-)

It is unfortunate that the ancient wisdom is being McDonaldised by teachers with little knowledge. Reminded me about the time many years ago when I had gone to the US and the lady who came to pick us up at the airport started a conversation saying that she was learning Kundalini yoga. Oh meri maa , I thought to myself, are you really prepared for what happens when the coiled serpent rises!!

Interestingly both Charlotte and I seemed to  be anwering deep questions that troubled the other. As they say there are no coincidences, we were both destined to be there to get the answers to our queries, God does move and speak in strange and mysterious ways.

Charlotte was disturbed by the fact that she kept getting distracted whenever she sat down to meditate. Meditation does not have to be limited by a physical posture and repitition of a mantra or even focussing on the breath, the thought came to me that even doing the simplest tasks with full immersion is meditation. Just sitting by a stream and being in the moment completely is meditation too. She seemed to like the answer and smiled. In case you need any other answers Charlotte, please speak with my friend and guide Mallika. Mallika runs her own yoga studio in Delhi by the name Mrityunjaya and is my go to expert on the spiritual.

As we continued our conversation, I began thinking how we often mistake being learned for being spiritual. After all one can recite all four Vedas by heart and still not realise God. God is in simplicity, joy and beauty, satchittanada.

The fake Volvo shook me to sleep as the night approached, like a young mother angry and frustrated that her baby does not seem to go to sleep.

We stopped near midnight at a place before Dera for tea and freshening up. The freshening up meant finding an isolated spot in the dark open ground behind the tea stall to do one's thing and water the plants.

The driver told me that since the bus would not go to Jwalaji, he would drop me at Dera, which is like a crossroad and I could take some transportation from there. Overhearing our conversation, the tea stall wala warned me against going to Dera at this time of night. you won't find any transport he said , the place is like a jungle.

One part of me said, listen to the tea stall wala, the other part said, go on, if Jwala Maa has called you to her abode, she will provide the transport too, let her take care of it.

My advice is, go through Dera during the day. At four in the morning, the place was deserted, not even a stray dog in sight, I was so relieved to find two young Himachali boys who were warming their hands over the dying embers of an empty wooden crate. They were going to Jwalaji too and after about half an hour we were on a mini bus blaring latest punjabi pop driving up to Jwalaji for twenty rupees each.

At 4.30 in the morning the area around the temple was still quite dark, I had a quick cup of hot milky tea and started off for the temple compound.

There is a public washroom and a bath area where one can freshen up and have a shower, but be careful, the place is filthy, the bath cubicles don't have any shower arrangements or buckets or mugs. I realised that I can be quite creative and managed to bathe without the above mentioned luxuries.

The temple itself is ancient though modern lighting and tiles have been added as have additional shrines and houses over the years. The pahadi bhents or religious songs mention that the Pandavas also came and worshipped Jwala Maa and built her bhawan.

I realised that it was Baisakhi day, a very auspicious day to have darshan of Jwala Maa. With eyes brimming over with tears of joy I offered the flame godess her favorite bhog of pedas and asked for her blessings on me, my family and friends.

I sat for a while in the courtyard trying to meditate and felt myself swaying as I sat crosslegged in the lotus pose. Maybe it was just me getting swayed by the aura of the whole place and my journey to the worship place of my ancestors, perhaps I had visited the temple in earlier lives. Maybe it was the movement of the ticklysnake located at the base of my spine, uncoiling and then settling back coiled, as the time to rise had not come.