LIBERATION WHILE ALIVE
INDIA YATRA PART 2 - THE STEPS OF GOINDWAL
The Yatra to India that I participated in in October, gave several opportunities for acceleration and advancements. A Yatra is not a vacation (although it can be very enjoyable too), but an opportunity to follow in the footsteps of enlightened masters and beings.
If you haven’t found your own road (and let’s be really honest here, how many have actually managed to do that without a teacher or guidance?) the best bet would be to follow the footsteps of others who have been going in the direction you want to travel in.
The opportunity is to greatly accelerate your life, and have it be of a better quality than it was before (I’ll leave you to judge what “quality” means to you).
Before I went to India, I remember my mother saying how she felt like a lot had happened in my life over the last years. I don’t know if I agree, I think my progress has been more internal than actual, but perhaps that’s what she recognized too? “Yes, I’m very intentional about that.” I told her. Progress is the only thing I’m really interested in. “Am I doing better than I was before?”, “Is my work better than it was before?”, “Am I making better choices that I was before?”, etc. If I can answer “yes” then there’s progress, and things are moving and changing. Doesn’t really matter how fast or if I’m living out my vision board yet, I know that I’m on the way. Now what I want to do is speed up the timeline to greater acceleration, or do a significant jump (perhaps to a better timeline?) Going on the Yatra, that was my intention.
HOW REAL CAN IT GET?
The point of practicing within a spiritual systems, is making you life more enjoyable. To help you experience life from a more conscious space, that then opens up to the flow of infinite intelligence, to come through and expressed itself through you. When we “check out”, either in our awareness or through other distractions like drugs and alcohol, it’s an escape from that intelligence, and not having to witness our life.
The spiritual practices and systems are designed to root us in the scene of life, being completely present to what is going on. How real can it get? And how conscious can I stay as the witness to the realness of my life? By going deeper into our reality it’s like knocking down the stage setting, and seeing what mechanisms lies behind. What controls the scene? Why is it playing out in this way? Who has influence over the narrative? Etc. That gives us a higher level of intelligence.
More intelligent awareness leads to being able to choose what’s right for us, in any instance and at any time. The dogmas of life falls away at this stage.
I think it’s impossible to confirm what is universally good for all people. The key lies not in finding that one thing that is right for everyone, but in leading people to a place where they can figure it out for themselves.
Simply knowing what is right for us isn’t the reality for most people though. To get there we have to be able to knock the illusory stage down, and get intuitively switched on. The needs we think we have will match our level of conscious awareness. Otherwise we might seek things that actually aren’t in our best interest. We will seek numbness to the extend that we are uncomfortable with staying present.
One of the ways in which a spiritual system, like Kundalini Yoga and following the guidance of a teacher, can be helpful is because it gives a map, or blueprint of how people who have found their way to more consciousness have done so.
LIBERATION WHILE ALIVE
The Steps of Goindwal have for hundreds of years been a place of pilgrimage, and an opportunity for anyone who is able to complete the steps in the following way, to liberate their soul. The 84 steps leads down to a water basin, and you chant Japji (also called The Song of the Soul) on each step, and dip in the pool after each completion. Reciting Japji, if you’re really fast, takes between 10 and 15 minutes, so it takes around 15-20 hours for most people to complete the steps. Quite the undertaking, and definitely a physical, mental and spiritual stretch.
The Steps of Goindwal is an opportunity to follow in the foot steps of other enlightened beings, and for me and others in the RA MA community it is also a way of following in the footsteps of the teacher. It is said to liberate you. Reaching liberation while alive, is the highest and most coveted incarnational achievements. It is said to be possible when completing these steps.
As I’ve already revealed in a previous post, I didn’t do the steps this time, as my doctor had advised me against it. However, I had several close friends who were all facing the steps, and it was important for me to go there, and to support the undertakers in which ever way I could. I went straight there in the afternoon after having taken Amrit at the Golden Temple, and what met me was an interesting mix of concentration, intensity, and also quite noticeable frustration. It was definitely getting real.
This is not a light challenge. Especially when you have to manage the logistics of 40+ people all doing the steps simultaneously. The Steps of Goindwal are also a destination for Sikhs and locals visiting the place for a dip in the pool, so the struggle and the logistics were a real challenge. Everyone did so well though.
My task was to help serve those on the steps, offering them water, caffeinated drinks if they wanted, snacks etc. And just being present and praying for and chanting for them for the completion of the steps, which is a blessing for the whole sangat (means conscious community).
My experience serving was one of the most profound in my life. Serving others who are on their path to liberation—not just liberating themselves but seven generation before and after them—is the greatest blessing, and I am immensely grateful for the opportunity and the experiences. I also experienced how the energy got transferred and I felt very “blissed out”, during the whole time that I was there.
My friends all completed what they had set out to do, and I am so proud of them. What an achievement! One day (soon) it will be my turn.
The Steps of Goindwal is one of those practices that has been laid out for us to attempt, leading us closer to where we need to go. I think liberation doesn’t necessarily look the way the majority think it does. Liberation doesn’t necessarily mean that all of the sudden the angels start to form in 3D. But if you ask each of the people completing the steps, I think they will give you some pretty good answers as to what has changed in their lives, how they have accelerated, or how things are (sometimes even just a little bit) better than before—from big to subtle changes.
Life is a continuous journey and as long as you’re here the road still lies ahead. Soul liberation might not be guaranteed for everyone but for those who feel the call, there are many opportunities to attempt.
You can go about it any way which calls you of course, but my advice is to find a guide who can help you navigate the landscape. It can take a long time otherwise to penetrate the initial layers, and it gets even harder once you start ascending to the peak. In India my faith in and my gratitude for my teachers greatly accelerated. These are seriously people worth paying attention to.
