Kumbh Mela: 'Baap of All Melas'

Indic culture is the most complex and colourful culture on the planet. You will see, the way people look, their language, food, way of dressing, music and dance, everything is different every 50 or 100 km in the country. To experience the complexity of this culture in one place, you must go to the Kumbh Mela. You don’t have to bathe in the river – just look at the variety of people. 
    
In 2001, during the Mahakumbh, 75 million people gathered in Allahabad. I have never had a longing to go to such places, but there was so much talk happening, so to see a grand event of unimaginable scale, i decided to drive from Coimbatore to Allahabad. 

It was one of the most incredible sights in the world. I went there at around 2 am and people from different parts of the country and from across the world were there. Many had no place to sleep, so they had little fires going with their own song and dance, culture and language. The worst and the best of humanity landed up there – if there were crooks, there were also many yogis of great accomplishment. 
    
Diverse people have been meeting like this for thousands of years. It is a tradition and a culture that has remained alive over time. Apart from having its social relevance, the Kumbh gathering has a certain spiritual strength. The earth and moon journey in cycles, and so too is your life, cyclical. These cycles can remain as cycles of bondage or they can become a means of transcendence – from one cycle of life to another. 
    
One who is longing for liberation is constantly seeking how to become free from the cycles one has created. There are various kinds of cycles, the longest being 144 years; once in 144 years, distinctive occurrences happen in the solar system and these are observed during the Mahakumbh Melas. 

Kumbh Melas are held at specific spots in the country around which a whole energy system was created. Because the earth is spinning, it creates a centrifugal force. From 0 to 33 degrees latitude, this force is largely working in a vertical manner in your system, and particularly at 11 degrees, the energies are shooting straight up. So, the ancients calculated and marked out points on the planet where there is a supportive influence on people. Many points happen to be confluences of rivers and there is a benefit to bathing in those areas. If one is at that spot on a particular day, rare possibilities become available, so people moved there to benefit from this. Nowhere else on the planet does such a large number of people long for liberation with such intensity. 
    
Most Indians are unaware of the depth of mysticism and spiritual process that has happened and continues to happen in India. This land has always been known as the spiritual capital of the world, simply because no other culture has looked at the inner sciences with as much understanding. Here, liberation or mukti has been the highest goal, and even God is considered just a stepping-stone towards that. 
    
Despite several geographical, social and political disruptions over the years, the basic ethos of the spiritual process has survived. It is time that we reap the benefits of this profound tradition in its full glory.