this world-walker finds hospitality and devotion in india

At sunset, we came to Soukhara wobbly.
A villager raised his chin on the dim Road.
Go on, he said.
So are the neighbors.
Locals insist there is no suitable place for walkers. This is odd.
After walking through India\'s 1,000-mile countryside, I began to rely on the convention of a place: Hospitality is guaranteed in this country because people never walk alone.
In the villages of the Great Plains, in the country\'s vast, poor and conservative northern cow belts, even the smallest roads are surrounded by rich and poor people, made up of separate beggars and crowds dancing behind the truck that plays pious songs.
These are Hindu pilgrims.
They travel to countless holy places on the endless calendar of religious festivals. Such old-
In modern India, the old-fashioned spiritual traffic is becoming less and less obvious.
But courtesy to God
Thirsty pedestrians still endure: benches on the side of the road can rest, drink water with hand pumps, and even some crumbling but mostly free hotels, called dharamshalas, to sleep.
India is the dream of Welsh people. (
Follow Paul Salopek on a walking tour of northern India under bandit rule. )
I told the farmer: I\'m just another avid Pilgrim.
They nodded and made it easy for me to fit into their world.
The door is open. I am welcomed.
But not in Hamlet in Sukara.
The Maoists have caused bloodshed in the surrounding areas.
Maybe that\'s why the village ignored us.
Until Manaki Devi took us by the hand.
We have two: the young reporter Bhavita Bhatia and I.
Manaki warned us that I don\'t have any comfort to give you.
She was an old woman who met by chance.
She took us from the village to the dark, along a rocky path to the top of the mountain. âx80x9cCome, come.
God is happy and kind.
\"Manaki is sadhvi, a Hindu holy daughter.
How old is the tradition of Indian guru? It is very old.
It may have started 3,000 years ago.
Most of them are ascetics walking in the countryside, explaining the book of Oyi, which is a philosophical text that forms the foundation of Hindu thought.
They preach compassion and selflessness. They meditated.
Few women.
Even today, most Hindu sages are male.
Their classification has become complex.
They include a billionaire yogis, who has a bearded face used to sell household products on billboards across India, to Khareshwaris in thousands of corners, or(
Learn why not everyone is happy that one of India\'s most sacred cities is reborn. )
Perhaps the most famous female exception is a sadhvi named Mata Amritanandamayi Devi, the so-called
Known as the holy embrace.
Amritanandamayi Devi shares her spiritual energy with followers by embracing.
She claims to have embraced about 37 million people so far, including lepers and celebrity sting.
She runs one.
Located in Akry Ashram, south of Kerala, private universities, hospitals, and restaurants with cappuccino coffee machines are available.
Manaki Devi, our rescuers, is more modest in seclusion.
Manaki Devi spent three years meditating on a remote mountain outside the village of Soukhara, and then decided to build her sanctuary there. She hand-
She avoided worldly distractions by dragging small stones, stones and picked-up bricks to the top of the mountain.
She said disdainfully that the man was just a beard and sat there praying.
We women have real power!
She told her story. Age: about 60. Married at 10.
Mother of four children
Husband coming and going.
A lot of waking up for women in the usual province-to-
Sleep at home.
And the voice of God.
He kept telling me to go and wash myself, and she said that Lord Krishna had visited her stubbornly in her dream.
\"But I don\'t want to live in the jungle! \" I told him ! \"!
She did it one day.
She abandoned her family in the town of sasalan.
She has been wandering around India with a bowl for three years.
She stopped on a remote mountain outside Soukhara.
Before deciding to build her home there, she thought for three years under the open sky.
She has been sitting there praying for about ten years.
Her drinking water came from a nearby pond.
She lives on donated food and a small vegetable garden.
Nearby villagers, like monkeys, are female monkeys: blinded by busyness, greed and suspicion, she said.
But they are making progress.
Theft, robbery and murder have stopped.
She preached to them with a battery every sunrise-
Power loudspeaker.
God gave me these two travellers, Manaki announced at dawn via plastic speakers.
They came on foot.
God ordered me to serve them.
Learn from them!
Learn something even if you drive!
She warned the world to have a clean mind.
Use clean words. (
Think about whether a woman can travel around the world today. )
Paul Salopek, a reporter and National Geographic researcher, is tracing the way humans migrate from the original ethelbia to South America.
Like early humans, he has completed this epic journey on foot.
We had a glass of tea for breakfast.
We left our backpacks on our shoulders.
We thank Manaki.
I watched my walking partner, battia, bow and ask for a blessing.
Earlier in the evening, between mosquito bites, I woke up from a dream: I was dancing with a woman in a burning village.
It\'s not a dance at all except it.
I am preventing the woman from throwing herself into the flame where her body is. A war dream.
Walking always takes away the feeling, I know.
I wait for the first light.
It\'s not sacrifice not to sit still for years.
\"You have been given human life,\" Manaki said as he bowed his head in battia . \".
This is very lucky and rare.
Do your best. âx80x9dWe walk on. I glance back.
The old woman waved from the top of the mountain, where she was waiting happily for death and would never be reborn.