6: Guhyeshwari Shakti Peeth: The Secret
Sep 29, 2023
Kathmandu, Nepal
Returning to Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal, for a week and being in one place is a much needed break from the road. Nepal’s history and beauty is a lot to absorb. There is a paradox hard to makes sense of. Just like Muktinath, there are several spiritual significant sites for both Buddhists and Sanatanis that I visit. The birthplace of the Buddha in Lumbini was a big highlight for me. It was rediscovered in 1895. Since then, it is slowly being excavated to reveal the many layers of this land’s ancient history across centuries. It is history that became hidden to us by Mother Nature’s elements but remains preserved deep in the earth. Then there are the vast national parks aside from the Himalayan range that are home to all kinds of wildlife and nature. These parks are not like the protected parks we take for granted in the West. People have been living in their villages within these wild spaces for centuries harmoniously. They lived...
5: Gandaki Shakti Peeth: Mystery
Sep 13, 2023
Muktinath, Nepal
Nestled before me in the Himalayas is Gandaki Shakti Peeth in Muktinath, Nepal. It is so close and without the wings of a bird, so far. The trip there will be a lot like the one that got me here. Long. It is time to say farewell to Tibet and take a 13 hour road trip from Darchen to Gyirong before crossing into Nepal at Rasuwagadhi. It is a 2000m descent. Scarcity of the desert terrain with its hints of greenery, dry air, tapestry of cotton candy like clouds woven into a hypnotic blue sky quickly disappears. The image of vastness that is the Tibetan plateau shifts dramatically as we drop into a valley carved out by the Trishuli river. I begin to comprehend the descent once the road no longer disappears into the horizon, but blindly ends into the curvy contours of this mountain. The sparseness is replaced with lush tropical greenery blanketing sheer stone cliffs. How life comes to exist through the unforgiving nature of rock is a great mystery to...
2: Hinduism, Sanatana Dharma & Truth
Jul 10, 2023
I grew up in a Hindu household in the United States. The first child to freshly minted immigrants from India. My father, in his own way, is a Bhakta. He has a devotional and ritualistic practice of prayer to God that is part of his everyday routine ever since I can remember. You will never catch him reading spiritual texts. My mother, on the other hand is a Jnani. She is all about obtaining knowledge and learning through texts. Idol worship is not her thing. They are both Hindus, practicing Hinduism. They agree that Hinduism is not a religion, but a way of life. Their personal practices could not be more different and they are like most Hindus I know. They tend to their spiritual needs in the way that best suits their nature (pakriti). No one is persecuted for this.
To this day, I find Hinduism incredibly confusing. It is not a philosophy of one person’s making. There is no one text to learn from. While its knowledge persists through time, time...
Author
Ruchi Puri, MD
Be•ology Founder
Ruchi is an Ob/Gyn specializing in Holistic Women's Health. She is currently traveling through South Asia on a pilgrimage to the 51 Shakti Peeths exploring the wisdom of the sacred feminine.
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Recent Posts
7: Katyayani Shakti Peeth: Receptivity
Oct 07, 2023
6: Guhyeshwari Shakti Peeth: The Secret
Sep 29, 2023
5: Gandaki Shakti Peeth: Mystery
Sep 13, 2023
