The wise man of Dharamsala and ‘Transcendental Meditation’ in Rishishek

The past week has seen us visit two towns/areas; Dharamsala and Richishek.  

The first stop (Dharamsala) took us back to an altitude of 1,800 meters into the foothills of the Himalayas, which we reached following a 5 hour taxi ride covering 235 km. The hotel base for us had outstanding views (although as almost everywhere in India, it was a little run down), but it did have the added bonus of being visited by monkeys – even though we were on level 5 (top floor). We did a number of short treks up some fairly steep inclines along ravines to Bhagsu Waterfall and temple, this helps us keep our fitness up for a big trek in Nepal in just over 2 months.

Of course the key reason for visiting Dharamsala is that it’s the home to the 14th Dali Lama.  The current Dali Lama is 88 years, and is the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism and the Tibetan people. He was exiled from Tibet in 1959 after a failed Tibetan uprising against the Chinese occupation. The Indian Government provided a location in the Himalayas for his new base, where he created the ‘Government of Tibet in Exile’.  So, off we went to his temple to try and find him, unfortunately on Day 1 we were not lucky enough to see/meet him. However, when we called in the next day the monks were all in the temple and both Helena and I were lucky enough to see him teaching/talking to a small group of 10/12 Tibetan monks.

To get to our second stop, the taxi picked us up for our 98 km ride to Pathankot where we boarded our first ‘Indian’ overnight ride.  We were booked in 2nd Class a/c and wow, we had a bunk each in a cubicle with a curtain . We arrived in our destination of Rishishek. This town is known for meditation and relaxation (not sure how) and famously it is the location of the Beatles Ashram. The Beatles Ashram is known as Chaurasi Kutia and lies on the eastern bank in the foothills of the Himalayas. During the 1960s and 1970s, as the International Academy of Meditation and was the training centre for students of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi who devised the Transcendental Meditation Techniques and following the Beatles visits to India they released their most iconic White Album.. It was great to visit the Ashram (Indians charges 50 Rupees – Foreigners 600 Rupees), but as with so much in India the building are being left to rack and ruin.

The town is also one of the location that Indians visit to take a dip in the holy Ganga (or Ganges). Hindu’s believe that bathing in the river on certain occasions causes the forgiveness of transgressions and helps attain salvation. However, many people believe that this will come from bathing in Ganga at any time. Unfortunately, one of the attractions we wanted to visit, Neer Gahr Waterfall was closed due to a major slip – we only found out about this after hiking 2.5 kms up to the turn-of, before being turned back – Helena was less than happy.

We now move onto Agra, for the ‘must do’ Taj Mahal.