What Is A Pilgrimage?
What is a pilgrimage? And who is a pilgrim?
Life itself is a pilgrimage. The whole lifetime is the time for undertaking a pilgrimage. A willingness to live, a willingness to look at Life when it manifests before us in innumerable aspects and forms is required. Sometimes it appears as pleasure and sometimes as pain; sometimes as honour and sometimes as humiliation; sometimes as joining together and sometimes it divides us in an irreversible separation.
Manifestations of Life have been innumerable and perhaps shall ever be innumerable, inconceivable by the human brain. That is the beauty of Life. That is the essence of the Infinite or Eternity of Life. Are we willing to look upon our whole life time as a time for undertaking a pilgrimage? Is it not a movement or a journey towards a place which you regard as holy or sacred?
A pilgrim is a person who undertakes a journey willingly, not under pressure. A pressurised journey cannot be a pilgrimage. If there is a reluctance to live, if there is a resistance to various aspects and manifestations of Life, it will not be a pilgrimage. It will not have that perfume of sacredness or holiness.
Life itself is the Divinity, the Wholeness. The homogeneity of Life is something sacred and perhaps we are going to undertake a journey from fragmentation to homogeneity, from partialness to Wholeness, from the movement of knowing to the action of understanding, from the slumber of knowledge and experience to the state of being Awake, to Awareness – that could be perhaps the implication of our pilgrimage.
When you undertake a journey, say to the Himalayas, or to Mecca or Medina, or to Jerusalem and so on, soon you are open, you are receptive, you are eager to learn to see for yourself. To discover every step that you take, is as important to you if not more, than the pre-determined destination.
SEED QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION: What do you make of the notion that life itself is a pilgrimage, requiring a willingness to embrace both pleasure and pain as sacred manifestations? Can you share a personal story that reflects a journey from resistance and fragmentation to a place of receptivity and wholeness in your life? What helps you cultivate a habit of openness and eagerness to discover each step of your journey as sacred, rather than merely focusing on the destination?
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9 Past Reflections
On Nov 7, 2025 Tatvi Shah wrote :
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On Nov 5, 2025 David Doane wrote :
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On Nov 4, 2025 stream wrote :
i have been with a dear friend lately and i guess desired deeper connection which i was not experiencing , empathy for my grief, and she was needing respect and awareness of her sensitivities that she was not getting and we both felt hurt and angry even.
then we sat and connected our hearts and are back on our pilgrimage to safety, friendship, growth, support.
there does not seem to be a destination when our hearts melt i am just here.
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On Nov 4, 2025 Ruth wrote :
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On Nov 4, 2025 BarbaraS. wrote :
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On Nov 4, 2025 James wrote :
Today I wrote this piece in response a recent commitment to celibacy to deepen a inward journey to liberate the unification of disparate energies intellectual pychological sexual spiritual.
They Read Books for God Sake!
naked as miners underneath
feral sheets bead sweating
anvil beating beasts rearing
nostril flaring blind battlefield
victorious slaying wisdom
consort consummation
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On Nov 4, 2025 James wrote :
Today I wrote this piece in response a recent commitment to celibacy to deepen a inward journey to liberate the unification of disparate energies intellectual pychological sexual spiritual.
They Read Books for God Sake!
naked as miners underneath
feral sheets bead sweating
anvil beating beasts rearing
nostril flaring blind battlefield
victorious slaying wisdom
consort consummation
Post Your Reply