A time for spiritual renewal

The ‘Kumbh’ represents the urn from which the nectar of knowledge flows from the Supreme.

Many foreigners love India because of the way its spiritual traditions seek to maintain awareness of the essential oneness of humanity, in a world suffering so much selfishness and greed.
The millions who gather where three rivers meet at the Maha Kumbh Mela remind us, symbolically, that a time comes when our negative karmas can truly be cleansed, and a golden age restored.
As a science writer, when I first learned of this longing for purification, I saw it as an impossible dream. But I now know that spiritual study and the practice of right thought and action really do take us towards this goal.

Even some scientists are telling us that inner experience is at the centre of reality, and that if we let go of our attachment to the outer world of things, we can know ourselves as individuated parts of a greater whole, like waves in an ocean.

The lasting beauty of what I have learned through Rajyoga lies in the understanding that although each one of us is unique, and has a unique journey through time, every soul comes from the same source, a Supreme Soul, in whom qualities of love, wisdom, peace, and bliss are intrinsic and eternal. These qualities become renewed in us, as an inheritance from our spiritual Father, when we remember that One.

We have entered a time in Bharat’s history when the power of this renewal is not confined to individual yogis, ascetics, or saints, but becomes a collective means of allowing our selfish habits to fall away, and a new age to dawn.

In a development mirroring the Maha Kumbh Mela’s confluence of three rivers, a confluence between the old and new worlds is taking place in which divine knowledge courses through Bharat, and is spreading from there across the world.

In a development mirroring the Maha Kumbh Mela’s confluence of three rivers, a confluence between the old and new worlds is taking place.

The “Kumbh” represents the urn from which the nectar of knowledge flows from the Supreme, freeing us from illusions that cloud our understanding of who we are. It contains the secrets of our immortality. It tells of how we gradually lost sight of the truth of the inner being, and falsely identified with our bodies, so that fear, greed, and other vices took a grip on our consciousness, causing us to act in ways that progressively diminished our humanity.

The nectar lightens our darkness, and relieves us from our suffering. It reminds us that our true identity is spiritual, not physical. It tells us that the body is a wonderful instrument through which we live and learn, but the ultimate Maha Kumbh Mela is the return of all souls to our spiritual home, beyond space and time. From there, we return to a refreshed and renewed world.
How wonderful that even from the comfort of our homes, we can support the sadhus who immerse themselves in the sacred waters by drinking from this ocean of knowledge.

Neville Hodgkinson is a UK-based author and journalist, and a long-time student of Rajyoga.