WALKING with total awareness of the mind and a chant in the lips is a form of meditation. It is usually an individual process where people walk long distances on a pilgrimage or even trek up mountains. A 'Pada Yatra' or a pilgrimage on foot, when done as a collective exercise has also the benefits of a collective energy and awareness for a cause.
There were two yatras in Chennai in the second week of January. One was the Sri Jagannath Rath Yathra by ISKCON, the International Society for Krishna Consciousness. This began at the Kapaleeshwarar Temple in Mylapore and ended at Chetpet. Thousands of people participated by pulling the chariot.
Another procession around the same time was at Nanganallur, where women walked with lamps, celebrating the oneness of religions at the Hanumath Jayanthi procession led by Vikraman Swamiji. Explaining the idea behind walking together as a group with lamps, Vikraman Swamiji says, “God is light. When people walk with lamps in their hands with a feeling of devotion and reverence, forgetting all their worries, there is a feeling of being in Vaikuntam (heaven),” he says.
In this procession happening for the 21st year in succession, it was not just the participating devotees but people from the Municipality, Police and Electricity Departments were involved, he says. The idea of the Pada Yatra is to show that Unity is God, Love is God and Sincerity is God, which is his credo. Moving on for over three kilometres, this procession was a divine experience for many of the participants who had to walk with total awareness owing to the lamps in the hand through the narrow roads of Tillai Ganga Nagar.
It would have been difficult to catch Prabhu Vaiyasakhi Das who was taking turns chanting and singing Bhajans during the ISKCON Rath Yatra when traffic was diverted along Radhakrishnan Salai around 6.30 pm, as he procession crossed Anna Salai near Gemini Flyover. Thankfully for me, I happened to meet this person from the United Kingdom, who has made India his home since 1975. It was at the end of an evening’s Bhajan session before the Yatra. Getting everybody to chant 'Hare Krishna', he spoke to me on the meaning of the tradition of pulling the chariot.
“At the outer level, it is an effort together to pull a big chariot. But the deeper meaning is that we are pulling the Lord back to Brindavan into our own hearts,” says Prabhu Vaiyasakhi Das.
Bina Aditya who participated in the Yatra from its start to finish has this to say: It was so much fun and merriment walking that I didn’t even know how the time passed by. Bhanu Swami who was also travelling on the chariot was distributing prasad and sweets to all passers by. Some commuters in MTC buses travelling alongside the Yatra were also given sweet sand bananas.
Dr. Basanthi Devi, a co-ordinator of the Yatra provides an interesting insight. “We always go to the temple and worship the Lord. The Lord loves to come among the public once a year to greet people who were not able to visit him. Devotees who participate in pulling the Rath do so with the belief that their past sins are washed away. Just as one would greet a very important guest, the devotees greet the deity who comes on the procession with lamps, flowers and bursting of crackers along the way.
As for myself, walking as part of such lamp and candle light processions has had a very deep experience. While walking with thousands of people, there is a collective energy and a single purpose - whether it is world peace or unity or an experience of divine consciousness. While the usual tendency is to see people chatting away about their favourite film stars or on what they may be probably missing at the television serial that night, processions such as these can be a great opportunity to meditate, breathe deep and stay united and in total awareness within.
It can be a procession to celebrate a victory, to demand something from the Government or fighting against a cause such as terrorism or environmental pollution, or a walk for peace - processions are a great way to make a point externally and to dive deep within oneself amid a crowd, internally.