Kumbha Mela 2025 – Part I, Excitement & Patience

By Teresa Guerra

‘Kumbha Mela! Teresa, you can go for that.’ One evening at the dining table, Swami Yogatmananda-ji uttered these words… My eyes lit up, heart raced, mind filled with hundreds of happy pictures of India… and my pilgrimage to Kumbha already began! I had heard millions of people go to this event. Little did I know what ‘millions of people’ look like, feel like, and function as devotees. I was in for a grand adventure.

Kumbha Mela ('festival of the Sacred Pitcher') occurs every 3-4 years and rotates between four holy cities in India. In 2025, the site was Prayagraj, the confluence of Ganga-Yamuna, from Jan 13 to Feb 26. I was assigned a 5-day slot, Jan 26-31.

I applied for leave, got in touch with the Ramakrishna Mission (RKM) Kumbha Mela Camp organizers, and Swamis from other RKM centers that I planned to visit after Kumbha. Itinerary was arranged, tickets bought, and several hectic weeks with interludes of joy, gave way to Jan 24, the day I started from Providence for Prayagraj.

The Holiest of Unions

By Dawn Raffel

For the upcoming symposium on Sri Ramakrishna’s birthday, in which I am a designated speaker, I have been studying his divine relationship with Holy Mother. I decided to first distill my thoughts into a blog post. Therefore, I will do my best to etch some words about this vast subject onto the head of a pin, with apologies for my shortfalls.

Among avatars, Ramakrishna’s marriage is unique. Rather than decline to marry or renounce an existing marriage, he created a profound spiritual union with Sarada Devi, whom he identified as his bride when she was five years old.

Among the many momentous incidents in their marriage, one might argue that the most significant occurred on June 5, 1872, the night of the Kali Puja at Dakshineswar. Sarada, then 18, had joined her husband after years of separation, and they had established a non-carnal marriage. On that night, he worshipped her in a special puja as Shodashi, the third of ten forms of Kali. He went into samadhi and she lost consciousness. The impact of this worship would ripple through continents and centuries, helping to define the Vedanta movement as it spread across the globe.

Virtual Reality and Mummies

By Dawn

My husband and I recently went to a virtual reality show called “Horizon of Khufu,” which allows visitors to “explore the Giza Plateau and the Great Pyramid of Giza as if you were really there.” Upon entering the exhibition space, we stood in line to receive our v.r. goggles and instructions: “Remove the goggles if you feel dizzy” and “if you see a chair, don't sit try to on it because it isn't there.”

With goggles on, we embarked on a walking tour of ancient Egyptian pyramids and tombs, complete with a virtual human guide. Stepping along what appeared to be a narrow, jagged precipice, I felt a frisson of fear, yet quickly remembered that the precipice wasn't real; I was in fact walking on a flat floor. 

After passing through ornate rooms and stunning scenery, we were transported on a boat through time and entered the space where the mummification process was underway. As part of the ritual, we were told, all of the organs were removed except for the heart, believed to be the home of the soul and needed for entry to the afterlife. The body, in this case Pharaoh Khufu’s, was then meticulously wrapped to last. 

Interacting with REAL Elephants

By Dawn

In September, I volunteered with The Great Elephant Migration, a traveling exhibition of 100 life-size elephant sculptures made in Southern India. The elephants were crafted from Lantana, an invasive shrub that looks similar to bamboo, and the exhibition’s purpose was threefold: to promote the ideal of human/wildlife coexistence, to provide work for the artists, and to remove Lantana.

I knew that “the herd” had first spent two months in Newport, Rhode Island, on and around the grounds of Salve Regina University. By luck, I had the chance to chat about the exhibit with Dr. Linda Forsberg, the university’s Assistant Director of Retreats and Discernment, on Universal Brotherhood Day at Vedanta Society of Providence. 

Two days later, my first shift began in New York. The herd had arrived via flatbed truck, leaving those hallowed grounds for a densely populated part of Manhattan known as the meatpacking district. (No meatpacking occurs there anymore; the neighborhood is congested with high-end retail.) After being issued a green vest and a nametag identifying me as an “Elephant Guardian,” I was sent to interact with some of the hundreds of people milling around. Many had planned their visit; others had stumbled, delighted, onto to the sight of elephants dominating the plaza, peeking out from behind urban planters, merrily tearing the fabric of expectation. The atmosphere was giddy. There were babies in strollers and old people in walkers, people of all races, in every manner of dress, plus a couple of unimpressed dogs. For hours, I answered questions, snapped group photos, listened and observed.

A Sacred Surprise

By Dawn

While in Kenya for a teaching job, I took a brief side trip to the town of Naivasha. The area is known for wildlife, and it is very beautiful--but after a day or two, I was feeling directionless. When I am focused on work, I’m not especially bothered if, for example, the power goes out for the third time, but without that intense concentration, minor inconveniences start to frustrate me.  

One day I decided to walk a mile or so to the central business district in search of the grocery store. Ostensibly, I was looking to buy snacks, but really I was giving myself the comfort of a familiar task. As I walked, I passed weather-beaten storefronts, outdoor stalls in the alleyways, and tables piled high with whatever new or used items someone had found to sell. Across the street from a Christian graveyard, several coffin-sellers had set up shop, along with a eulogy writer. A shop labeled “book store” was selling shirts.

Turning a corner, I saw a large, nondescript building. It didn’t look like a grocery store, but in this place, who knew? I walked closer and saw a handwritten sign taped to the fence: “No parking in front of the Hindu temple.” Hindu temple? Now that I looked, I saw that, yes, this was a temple. I tried the door, expecting it to be locked. Instead, it opened directly into a Hanuman shrine room. No one was there, but a guest book made it seem that visitors were welcome, so I left my shoes by the door and tentatively sat before the shrine. From another part of the building, I heard children’s voices, and presently, a man peeked in and indicated that it was okay for me to stay.

A Balance of Ideals

By Charles Feldman (Prana) 

There are many opinions in the world.

In politics, there are debates between those who favor liberty (in which the rich get richer and the poor get poorer); equality (in which the government jails and kills real and perceived opponents, and solidarity (in which minority groups get persecuted due to their religion and/or nationality, and eventually, everyone gets persecuted). The three groups are the libertarians, communists, and reactionaries (fascists and fundamentalists). All societies are an embrace of one or more of these values. Anarchists want 100% liberty, 100% equality, and 100% solidarity all at once. The problem is that we would all have to be saints for this to work.

As far as religious beliefs, there are those who think that disobedience causes the world's problems (fundamentalists), there are those who think that obedience causes the world's problems (atheists), and there are those who think that desire causes the world's problems (mystics).

In politics, we need a balance between liberty, equality, and solidarity. Anarchists want no authority, either government or corporations. Reactionaries want government and corporate authorities, with no opposition allowed to either. Libertarians want political opposition to be allowed, but no opposition to the corporations. Communists want opposition to the corporations, but not to the government.

Whose Karma - Mine or Donkey's?

By Dawn

This past July, I spent a few weeks leading a writers’ workshop on the island of Lamu, Kenya. With no paved roads and no cars, the narrow, twisting streets are filled with donkeys. Most buildings, including the hotel where we met, are made of dead coral, and since there is no window glass, you hear everything going on outside, from the early morning call of the muezzin to late-night street fights.  

One particular noise was inescapable. It came from the yard next door, where we could see a lone donkey kept in a tiny cage day and night, braying piteously. On Lamu, the donkeys are work animals, carrying heavy loads during the day and allowed to roam free at night, except for this one isolated creature. As the days went by, the plight of this donkey began  to weigh on me. Tony, my teaching colleague who lives in Nairobi, told me not to let it get to me, but I could see that it was starting to get to him too.

Finally, Tony decided to walk over and find the donkey’s owner. From the hotel, we could all hear the ensuing, increasingly heated argument in Swahili. Tony returned and said angrily, That guy is barely even feeding the donkey. He doesn’t care if it’s suffering, he just wants to sell it and be rid of it.