Amritsar

Punjab, India

Sitting silently in the temple I am lifted to a higher consciousness, floating somewhere above western state of mind. Yellow light shimmers hypnotically off the black still water of the holy pool where the leper was healed 1000 years before. Echoes of soft Punjabi scripture and the soothing hum of pilgrim's mantras lift me away from myself into a religious fog. The warm Indian night wraps me in a silky cocoon absolving all thought and anxiety from my mind. Peace and bliss resonate.

Me, and a cramped busload of Indian pilgrims, had endured sixty hot, stinking hours on a dilapidated bus to get here. My ass and legs and back were dead, my brain numb. We arrived to streets of chaos. Beggars, pilgrims, seers, police, wanders, hawkers and holy men swarmed outside the high, porcelain walls of the Golden Temple. Noise, dirt and destitution abounded. But everything had ceased when I stepped inside. I reached the first stage of meditation by just entering this temple complex. Now inside, staring at the huge illuminated Gold Dome resting at the center of the holy pool, I am nowhere, transcended to a dimensional state absent of time and place. I shuffle clockwise around the temple with the hundreds of other turbaned faithful, every person here wanting to be here. The marble floor, the golden dome, still water, murmuring prayer and open sky magnifying their belief. I have entered a dream and am wading into nothingness. This Golden Temple is a portal for peace and love and enlightenment. They know it. I can feel it.

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