Archives: India, Kalachakra

January 2006

Nancy made a personal pilgrimage to India to receive the teachings of the Kalachakra in order to strengthen her own teaching of the Mandala Hologram Project. Because of her connection to sacred sites it was important to Nancy to experience the teachings in the area in southern India where they were originally shared.

The town, Aramavati, has been settled by humans for thousands of years and has a crystal rock foundation that results in quartz, rose quartz and obsidian being found in the area. There is also an ancient stupa there that drew many centuries of devotion by pilgrims. Under the Full Moon and the prayer lights of thousands of people, the white structure glowed in reflected light. Many Kalachakra pilgrims were chanting, prostrating, circumnavigating the stupa daily and nightly during the gathering and their devotions sent their prayers to the skies above Aramavati.

Nancy had already toured the Tibetan community of New Delhi and been to the cultural museum when she arrived to see “little Tibet” in the midst of comparatively rural India. Thousands of monks and ten thousand Tibetans had been allowed to leave their country and to gather under the newly finished figure of the seated Buddha in the area where the teachings took place.

The town had been prepared for pilgrims with electrification, water, and a museum opened for the event. The Dalai Lama gave prayers for the wild dogs that had to be put down in order for people to meet under canvas in the prepared tent space.

Beggars, merchants, travellers, students, and all the cast of a traditional large pilgrimage were filling the streets of the town, testing the limits of the facilities and abilities of organizers. to contain the crowds.

Nancy got to leave the crowds for a shady tent every day thanks to her accommodations contract with a tour company and she was able to meditate in relative peace with the voices of Taiwanese, Americans and Italians in the background.

There were only about 40 Canadians attending the initiations and about 15 of those were from an Albertan sangha studying the Kalachakra together. An audience with His Holiness was organized by country and North Americans got a little closer to the presence of the Dalai Lama who, Nancy felt, created himself in the moment from the vastness of space. That feeling of spaciousness awakened that quality for her in a very subtle way.

Nancy felt that she met so many angels in Mother India that it would be difficult to thank them all but that she was assisted constantly and in so many ways when lost or confused, tired or hungry.

The intensity of India has been written about because it is unforgettable; and adding to it the energy initiations of the Kalachakra, the devotion of the pilgrims, and the heat and light of the south, Nancy came away with a heart filled to overflowing with gratitude and abundance. The pilgrim’s path has become Nancy’s education and her doctorate research her practice in many places.