Into The Heart of the Himalayas - Jono Lineen

When Jono Lineen's brother died in tragic circumstances, he walked across Himalayas for over eight years, starting from the confluence of the Indus and Astore rivers in the Northern Areas of Pakistan administred Kashmir. A tumultuous landscape, where three of the worlds greates mountain ranges - the Himalayas, the Karakoram and the Hindu Kush - collide. The result is labyrinth of peaks and valleys, a terrain wrenched by earthquakes, glaciers, and ceaseless erosion. The book traces his solo trekking odyssey of 2,700 kilometres and is divided into three parts called - Muslim Himalayas, Buddhist Himalayas and Hindu Himalayas. 

For him walking was a mindful meditation and coming to terms with his profound loss.  This is the potent narrative about the search for self and spirituality; dated like a diary with thoughts and travels back in time included.  

Walking: The wanderings of the prophets have inspired a lineage of disciples: Sufi travellers, the dervishes who used walking, Siyahat, to detach themselves from the world and lose themselves in Allah; the ancient Christian chruch's ambulare pro Deo, 'wanderers for God', roaming mendicants imitating the trials of Christ in the desert; and the Hindu sadus, travelling ceaselessly over a landscape imbued with their faith. The last words the Buddha uttered to his closest disciples were, 'Walk on!'

When you are on a solo trip you need to proceed cautiously, moving with awareness, one foot in front of the other, gently, carefully, feeling the pack evenly balanced on the curve of spine. Aware of own mortality, because,  if you fall there is no one here to pick up, no one but goats would know you had fallen. Each step a meditation, a focused connection between body and the stone. All else peripheral. Walk when you walk. Sleep when you sleep. 

Kapalu in Pakistan to Kargil in India is less than 60 kms; but is a no man's land impossible to cross. so had to take a round about route. making it a distance of more than 3,000 kms and over a week. 

Whether : For the changing whether one need to be rightly clothed, and not be overconfident. At times and places it would be too hot, while at others it would be too cold. 

Water: soothing, moving, giving, all-encompassing, without ego, an altruistic medium. We are fifty to sixty percent water and without ingesting three litres a day we will slowly die. We can't live without it. But water at two degrees celsius is deadly because immersed in it for anything more than a few minutes the body becomes hypothermic and then hypothermia, finally a mind without body.

There are streams, hot springs, rivers and lakes. 

The river swept by, gently, smoothly, the water turquoise and turbid, swirling with muddy debris. The sun caught the surface obliquely and glinted metallic. The Shyok is a river that cuts its way aggressively through the deep valleys of Baltistan until it meets the Indus east of Skardu. The Indus flows west for 250 Kilometres then turns south and wanders through the heartland of Pakistan to the Arabian Sea. It is the economic engine of the country. The Indus is also one of the seven sacred rivers of Hinduism and through the Harappan culture that flourished along its banks from 3300 to 1700 B.C.E, one of the cradles of human civilization. 

At Sumdo, the Spiti river makes a dramatic niney-degree turn to the south. Sumdo is the border between Lahaul and Spiti district and Kinnaur district. Kinnaur is a Tibetan influenced region withing India. It has its own dialect and most of the population are Tibetan Buddhists. At the village of Khabo the Spiti River meres and is absorbed by the Sutlej River. The Sutlej is the farthest east and at 1,500 kilometres, the longest of the Indus River's tributaries. It originates from Rakas Lake near the base of Mount Kailash in the southwestern Tibet. From there it flows west and crosses the Shpki-la into India. Through Kinnaur the river quickly loses altitude and it is through this section that the Sutlej stakes its claim as the fastest river in the Himalayas. At khabo it is a swirling, whitewater mass of curls and eddies, thick and grey with the earth of Tibet, completely untamed, violent in its rush to get to the Indus and the Arabian Sea. 

The river's source is northeast cross the Greater Himalayas near Mount Kailash, the holiest mountain in Buddhism and Hinduism, and the Kailash area is the source of a matrix of rivers that spread across the entire subcontinent. From its southern slopes the Indus winds west and south; the Tsangpo River pushes east through Tibet, then as it turns south it becomes the Brahmaputra and carves a path through India and Bangladesh, the Ganges and Yamuna rivers press south and then east from (near) Kailash (though the book says Kailash, it is not for Kailash?); the Sutlej River, the fastest running in the Himalayas, drives wet then drops off the Tibetan plateau to flow south; and the Mahakali, parallels the Sutlej's course through the highest mountains in the world. 

Yamunotri, starts at the head and flows south then east across the plains until it joins the Ganga at the great confluence of Prayag in the city of Allahabad. For Hindus this the meeting point, not just for these two great glows, but also for the ethereal Saraswati River, the river of wisdom. Therefore the Prayag has another name: Tridevi, the three Goddess. Here every 12 years, Kumbh Mela take place, largest human gathering on the planter. Yamunotri need a  tougher 5-km trekking effort. Yamunotri, on the west face of the magnificent Banderpoonch peak, gets the most snow, and the temple there has to be built every few years. There are hot springs around, small steel suspension bridges, nascent river and temple complex build by the Maharani Gularia of Jaipur in the 19th century.  When you return down the valley from Barkot and walk east towards the Rari Ghatti, it leads to Bhagirath Valley a long climb to Uttarkashi, the staging ground to Gangotri courtest the story of Bhagirath and Kapila. The Ganga-Mai temple is simply designed, a pale stone square with four corner turrets and  a central tower fitting unassumingly into its surroundings. The current structure was built by the Gurkha general Amar Singh Thapa in the early 17th century. Soon after Gangori the forest ended and the landscape opened out. A 20km walk up to the rivers glacial source at Gaumukh. The valley a symmetrical concave sweep that started with the river at its centre and rose outward and upwards like an elongated bell curve until the greennss of the valley gave way to the rock, scree and ice of the mountains that cradled its edges. Everything in the valley was directed higher. It was a terrain epitomizing the focus that the ascetic must have to achieve a higher state of consciousness. Gaumukh, the cow's mouth in Sanskrit, is the origin of the Ganges, and emanates from the base of the 30 km long Gangotri glacier. This is her point of physical manifestaton. However, legend has it that the divine source is hundreds of Km to the north east at Mount Kailash in tibet. From Mount Kailash's base water spread east, west and south, to encircle the subcontinent, the fluvial structure for the motherland. Kailash is the heart of a liquid mandala, but only Ganga originate from the peak, from a fountain spilling from the meditating Lord Shiva himself. 

Yapola also known as Wanla river, is a river in Ladakh in northern India. It flows in the Indus river near Lamayuru. It is located in the Khalsi tehsil. The region is also referred to as ‘Moon Land’, due to its terrains resemblance to the surface of the Moon.     

The start of the trail up the Yapola river was dotted with craters, the result of rain-loosened boulders toppling from the cliffs. The walls on either side of the river were unstable conglomerate stone, remnant of the 600-million-year-old Tethyan Sea floor which, over time, the earth's tectonic plates had pushed 5,000 metres towards the sky. Further on the canyon narrowed, and in the distance, through curls of mist, I saw boulders somersaulting over the trail. Strangely, the wallop of the careening rocks carried above the water's roar.  

Hem Kund, a small alpine lake, 10 kms east of Vishnu's shrine - Bhadrinath, sacred to the Sikh religion. 

War: Four times in the past fifty years there has been a war between Inda and Pakistan over the 'true' border. Consequently, the land between Kargil and Khapalu is 'hot zone', a territory of confused sovereignty criss-crossed with minefields, firing lines, bunkers and trenches. 

Way: Narrow paths, disintegrate. Loose stone on either side of the breach framed the river. The water below was dun colored and frantic. Decide, forward or retreat. There are Zanskara or Zanskari culture, who crossed their borders for the Government to take notice of them. 

Livestock: Instead of goats gazing, you find, Yak, and then realise, that are not actually yaks but a cross between yaks and cows called a dzo, bred for higher milk production and more manageable demeanour. 

Near Phenjilla village, halfway to Hanupatta, a drowned yak floated by, its dark coat glistening on a bloated corpse. Its stiff legs caught in the branches of a half-submerged tree. The right front hoof wagged in the current, a taut, controlled movement, like a queen waving from her golden coach. 

Overhead ravens soared, jet-black spirits, spiralling up and down on invisible drafts. Usually, they are raucous aerial gymnasts, but at times even they are silent. In Tibetan culture ravens are far-seeing clairvoyants, oracles with the ability to predict the future, and in every village there are men ad women skilled at interpreting the black bird's mystic utterings. 

There were lizards on the wall. There were loose rock walls built at strange angles around the clearing, remnants of shepherd's camps. Sheep and goats had sheared the grass to stubble. Neighbours to the tent were a family of mouse hares, chubby, guinea pig-like animals with long, spiky ears and wide observing eyes. They monitored internally from twenty metres away, their long ears turning, listening for danger, their noses twitching, trying to catch the smell of rice and dal dinner. 

Worship: Islam arrived in the 15th century with the Iranian Sufi saint Amir Kabir Syed Ali Hamadani. Other Sufi Saints followed, including Shah Syed Muhammad Noorbakhsh and soon the entire area had converted to the Noorbahshi order of Sufism. Sufism is Islam's more esoteric school. The aim of sufism is to let go of all notions of duality, including the idea of self or God, and realize a divine unity. Sufism is still a controversial subject within Islam. However, during the nineteenth century the majority of the local population converted again, this time to the Sunni and Shia schools. Now the Baltis are Shia dominated with smaller minorities of Sufi and Sunni followers who diligently follow their prayer and rosary. 

Yet to this day, Northern Pakistan is a treasure house of early Buddhist art. 

Stupas were architectural manifestations of the Buddha. The square base stepping upwards like a mind logically moving through levels of realization towards a state of enlightenment; the spherical core, both expansive and receptive, the knowledge of the Buddha; and atop the dome a spire, a needle of fierce mind reaching for the highest state of consciousness. By the roadside and scattered around the stupas were boulders, rocks and pebbles each chiselled with the ubiquitous Tibetan manta, 'Om Mani Padme Hum'. Om - the jewel inside the lotus flower - Hum. Second most powerful in Buddhists, Guru Rinpoche, was born in Swat valley now in Northwestern Pakistan, who meditated at Urgyen Dzong cave near Phokar River, finally landed in Lhasa on an invitation from Tibetan King, Trisong Detsen (742-797). Prayer flags - red, green, yellow, blue and white - snapped in the breeze, tinting the light that filtered into the depths. Customary triumvirate of Tibetan Buddhist images: the historical Buddha Shakyamuni; Avalokiteshvara, the many armed representation of compassion. Maitreya, like the belief in Christianity of the second coming of Jesus, is the Buddha who will appear when he is needed most. 

Tibetan Buddhism is split into four main schools of thought, the largest and arguably the most influential being the Geluk-pa tradition of which the Dalai Lama is the head. It was founded in the 14th century by the philosopher Je Tsongkhapa. The second largest school is the Kagyu who trace their lineage to Tilopa (the teacher of Naropa) in the eleventh century. The Sakya tradition was founded by Khon Konchog Gyalpo in the 11th century and the Nyingma, which literally means the 'ancient ones', is the orginal school of Tibetan Buddhism created in the 18th century by Padmasambhva. 

Lingshed Gompa belongs to the Geluk-pa school of Tibetan Buddhism. The monastery's central purpose is the same as that of all Buddhism - the elimination of suffering for all sentient beings. To achieve this the community must produce enlightened teachers or bodhisattvas who will guide the population to a higher state of consciousness through the teachings of the Buddha. Everyone in Lingshed gompa, from the cooks to the Abbott, to artists and farmers, is engaged directly or indirectly in this goal. 

Bardun Gompa, ten kilometres sout of the Tsarap River, is renouned for its prayer wheel, the largest in the region. The verticle wooden drum is over five metres tall and encased in brass and silver. Inside are 108,000 handwrittn prayers. 108 is the most auspicious number in Buddhism as it is the number of impediments in the wayof individuals reaching the highest state. There is something satisfying about walking in circles while pressed against 108,000 mantras. Tibetans believe that with each rotation every individual prayer is sent off on the wind to help whoever is in need of them. 

The zanskaris venerate Dagom Rinpoche, not so much for what he is as for what he embodies. The rinpoche represents one of Tibetan Buddhism's key concepts, that of the reincarnate master. He is the latest in a line of teachers who trace their lineage back to the eighteenth century. Rinpoche literally means 'precious one' and to Tibetans that is what their teachers are: jewels of knowledge capable of lightening the lives of of all who come in contact with them. Rinpoches are the repository of the Buddha's wisdom and living examples of the Dharma. 

Reincarnation is a bedrock concept of Buddhism. For Buddhists, the inevitability of life after death eliminates the fear of an end to life, and in the openness of that individuals are free to concentrate on living the best they can. It is the accumulation of good deeds based around wisdom and compassion that leads Buddhists higher and higher up the ladder of rebirth until eventually, after many lives of struggle, they are reborn in a state of higher consciousness: Nirvana. 

The circumambulation of any shrine is considered auspicious. Tibetans call this a kora. To round a religious object, and the sacred entity could as easily be a mountain or lake as a stature or temple, to view it from every angle and sense your relationship to it, and ultimately to absorb some of the power the object possesses, this is the essence of these pilgrimage in miniature. 

Lumbini,in Nepal, the,birth place of Sidhartha, later to become Budha, the enlightened. In Lumbini no trace of Sidhartha who is said to have lived in seclusion for 29 years. His mother Maya is still held in high esteem. In Lumbini it is Budha every where, but this unusual baby form attracted me.

Lamayuru monastery, or gompa in Tibetan, is one of the most impressive, olderst and largest in Ladak, Himalayas. It sits tottering on an aggregate stone bluff fifty metres above the village on the Srinagar, Leh highway, east of the Fotu La (mountain pass in the Zanskar Range); other is the Namika La. 

Sikhism is a religion that developed in the Punjab under the direction of its founder, Guru Nanak, during the fifteenth century as a bridge between Hinduism and Islam. Being a Sikh was  about being honest, hardworking person. 

Hinduism: It is Adi Shankaracharya, the 8th century philosopher monk, who is credited with infusing the region with the legends it is so deeply associated with. In the time of Shankaracharya, Hinduism had been in decline for nearly a thousand years. In the second century B.C.E, King Ashoka had militarily brought most of the Indian subcontinent under his rule. In the midst of his empire building he converted to Buddhism and under Ashoka's patronage India slowly became a Buddhist country. 

Shankaracharya used landscape as much as philosophy and story telling to connect the people with the religion. He identified not only the Char Dham both chota meaning small in the Himalayas and the bigger one spread across India, but also the Panch Prayag, the five confluences of the Ganges; the Panch Kedar, the five shrines of Shiva and the Panch Badri, the five temples of Vishnu. By creating holy sites in the local landscape Shankaracharya intertwined communities with the religion. 

Why same God in many paces? "When you are as omnipotent as the Lord you can manifest in infinite forms and infinite locations simultaneously. What is the difference between Kedarnath and Budh Kedar?"

There are four paths or yoga to God - Bhakti - through love essence held in three word Sanskrit mantra Tvat Tam Asi - Thou Art That. Raja Yoga - The royal road to god. A simple life of duty and devotion, this is the essence of Karma Yoga, the 'way to God through work.' - loving service beyond the self - mothers. 

On the the Mandakini Valley was Trijuginaryan the capital of King Himvat, the lord of the snow, and is revered as the site of Lord Shiva's marriage to King's daughter Parvati. There is a small temple there an in the middle of the courtyard before a fire burns. Pilgrims to the temple bring wood to feed the fire and those ashes are purported to insure a happy marriage. Fire and water are the purest elements in Hinduism. According to Rig Veda, the earliest and most important of the Hindu sacred writings, Agni, the sacred flame, arises from the water. Even today the most important part of a Hindu wedding are the four circumambulations the bride and bridegroom make around sacred fire while reciting mantras and making offerings. Agni is the most auspicious witness to any of life's great ceremonies. Trijuginarayan is felt to be at the centre of Hindusim's five elements - earth, wind, fire, water and with the place's overwhelming sense of myth and mystery, ether. 

The Mahabharata, one of the major Sanskrit epic poems, is a discussion of Hinduism's four human goals - wealth, pleasure, duty and liberation. After the Kurukshetra war, when Pandavs felt guilty and went in search of Lord Shiva to seek redemption, Lord Shiva eluded them and took refuge in Kedarnath in the form of bull, and on being found, dived into the ground, leaving only his hump on the surface. His remaining parts appeared at four different locations in the area: his arms at Tungnath, face at Rudranath, belly at Madhmeshwar and hair at Kalpeshwar. These four shrines along with Kedarnath are the Panch Kedars, the five places of Shiva. Tungnath temple is built into a natural amphitheatre. It is a smaller version of the Kedarnath temple, a spartan, uninhabitated, three-story tower of rock and slate. It fit well with the stony cliff to its right, the lines of the tower gathered into the contours of the earth. On the outer edge of the amphitheatre the land climbed  little further and then dropped away in a sheer cliff. 

In the 8th century, Adi Shankaracharya came to the area and claimed the headwaters of the Mandakini River as the earthly location of the legend and there he built the present-day temple.  

Traditionally devotees follow the four stages of Brahmacarya, the period  of education and discipline; Grihastha, the time of family and work; Vanasprasthya a period of retreat to bring oneself closer to the spiritual life and finally Sanyasa, the time of the ascetic. 

While Shiva represents the power of destruction and Brahma encompasses the power of creation, Vishnu embodies the continuation of life - with different incarnations. Next after Kedarnath is Bhadrinath. 

Joshimath's importance to Hinduism can be again traced to Adi Sankara. It was there that he founded the most northerly of his monasteries or maths. He established four monasteries, one in each of the cardinal directions within India, at Sringeri in the south, Dwarka in the west, Puri in the east adn Joshimath to the north. The math was established to insure the transmission of Adi Shankaracharya's Advaita Vedanta philosophy. This is the master's great contribution to Hindu thought; it is a summation of the doctrine of Advaita or non-dualistic reality, the idea that there is no differentiation between the individual, the world and God. The saint possibly surmised his philosophy best in a line from his Viveka Chudamani treatise, saying, 'Brahman (God) is the only truth, the world is illusion, and there is ultimately no difference between Brahman and individual self.'

Also explained is the difference between Sadhu and Saint, and the concept of Ego that can be hurt without being touched. It is not a core element of the self. It is the part of a human being that feels a need to fight for its place in the world, but it has no understanding of a deeper, more universal being that Adi Shankaracharya claimed is connected in a non-dual way with God and the universe. 

Having a superficial understanding of Buddhist and Hindu concepts has helped to move through life with less baggage, less resentment, less regrets. 

Both the Nandakine and the Pindar rivers are key routes of the Nand Raj Jat. The 280 kms pilgrimage takes place over eighteen stages ranging in altitude from 900 metres to 5.337 metres. For the orthodox it is a journey that should be undertaken barefoot. It is the largest religious undertaking in the Hindu Himalayas and must rank amongst the most arduous mass pilgrimages in the world. It occurs on average every dozen years and has no regular date. It is the ultimate form of devotion to the regions patron Goddess, Nanda Devi - meaning Goddess of Bliss, surrounded by a circle of peaks more than 6,000 metres tat are integrated into her mythology: Nanda Ghunti  (veil); Nanda Kot (fortress) and Nanda Khat (bed). She is a manifestation of Parvati  believed to be residing on the peak of he mountain - a life saving force. 

Like the Noha's Arc, when flood once covered entire world, Manu was guided by Vishnu as fish to the summit of this mountain, when water receded they descended the slopes and repopulated the earth, as so the people of the area see themselves as the first people. :-)

From Almora to Artola the road interconnects and traverses a long series of ridges through southern Kumaon. From Artola there is a branch road to north towards Jageshwar, one of the most sacred Shaivite temple in the region. Then on to Pithoragarh and Julaghat on the Mahakali River.

Apocalyptic future of the Indian Himalayas were quite evident. The rocky slopes were dotted with scattered low-lying brush. The forest had disappeared long ago. There is nothing to hold it back, so the monsoon slides off the hills as fast as it falls and in the process takes with it what little topsoil is left. The land's thin veneer of fertility is stripped away. Even in December the sun routed the land; the heat felt like an oppressive weight. Route and roads are travesty of engineering. Washouts emerge every kilometre or so, great chunks of its surface slipped away. Boulders, gravel and flattened lumps of ashphalt was sitting in village gardens. Road was another example of entropy; everything constructed and left to its own accord will deconstruct. 

Mountains with their sloughing, disintegrating, re-creating impermanence; falling down, getting up, growing up old, being new - is very much like us with their changeability, their death and rebirth. The mountains had always been something too solid, almost untouchable in their steadfastness. 

In the Upanishads, the Hindu scriptures written almost three thousand years ago, there is a line that talks about the power of the Himalayas: "One glimpse is enough to grant freedom."

Every Good thought is a prayer. With Gratitude, Jono Lineen concludes the book taking a dip at the Mahakali River.