TO BE A PILGRIM

Give me my scallop-shell of quiet,
My staff of faith to walk upon,
My scrip of joy, immortal diet,
My bottle of salvation,
My gown of glory, hope's true gage,
And thus I'll take my pilgrimage.

Sir Walter Raleigh, The Passionate Man's Pilgrimage

It's a pleasure and a privilege to be talking with you. I have been following your work through Resurgence since the early days. You have gone on pilgrimage many times. Recently I too became a pilgrim, and I found out how difficult it is. To be a pilgrim is to walk the talk. When you're a pilgrim, it's not the physical difficulties you face when you're walking – it's the mental difficulties that arise within you that are so challenging. So the first thing that I'd like to discuss with you is this: what is the difference between ordinary everyday life, and being on a pilgrimage?

For me, there is no difference; life itself is a pilgrimage. To be a pilgrim is to be on the move, physically, mentally and metaphorically. Life is a pilgrimage because life is not static. Life has no ultimate objective. Life is to be lived in every moment. The meaning of life is in the living. As a pilgrim I discover the mystery, the magic, the meaning, the magnificence of life in every step I take, in every sound I hear, in every sight I see.

To be a pilgrim is to experience life as an endless and eternal process of being. Life is not a product, but an ever unfolding process. The moment I think of the word 'pilgrim' I imagine 'movement', 'process', 'unfolding', 'flying' and 'flowing'. To be a pilgrim is just the opposite of being a tourist! As a pilgrim I care less for road-maps and more for the map of the mind. A tourist is travelling to arrive at a place, whereas a pilgrim finds fulfilment in the journey. A pilgrim embraces the unpredictable, the unplanned, the temporary, the ambiguous and the provisional. A pilgrim is an eternal guest.

Guests do not bind themselves to a place, however joyful, comfortable and nice that place may be. The nature of guests is to love and leave. As William Blake said,

He who binds himself a joy
Does the winged life destroy;
But he who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in eternity's sunrise.

How old were you when you became a pilgrim?

I was four years old.

You started pilgrimages at the age of four?

Yes, because my mother was a pilgrim. She used to take me to her farm, and she would always walk to the farm. She said that "walking to the farm is a pilgrimage," and she said "if we go on horseback or in a camel cart, then we are just interested in getting to the farm. But when we are walking, every step we take is a step of completion, a step of fulfilment, a step towards self-realisation."

You really had a wonderful mother.

Absolutely! She was a truly spiritual being. My mother would say that when you touch the Earth, you are touching a sacred space – a divine space – and god is present in the Earth. And everything upon this Earth is a manifestation of the divine spirit in physical form. Every physical form has an invisible dimension. And that invisib