Pilgrimage to Varanasi

One day of the year, on Guru Purnima, Lahiri Mahasaya’s home in Varanasi is open for devotees to have darshan. To be in his home, for even this brief darshan, is a unique blessing.

Varanasi, the oldest-surviving city in the world, radiates timeless wisdom. Great saints like Adi Shankaracharya, Gautama Buddha, and Mahavatar Babaji lived here. It was in Varanasi that Paramhansa Yoganandaji first met Swami Sri Yukteswar.

Here lived the now famous but ever humble Yogavatar, Lahiri Mahasaya, who, with the blessing of Mahavatar Babaji, resurrected Kriya Yoga and began a quiet revolution that has spread around the world.

The home where Lahiri Mahasaya lived, meditated, and taught his disciples is preserved as it was when he was there, more than 100 years ago. It is available for darshan only on this one day of the year.

In the same neighborhood is Satyalok, an ashram that has been passed down in Lahiri’s family. We’ll meditate there, near Lahiri’s samadhi, which contains a portion of hithate.

We’ll visit Varanasi’s famous Kashi Vishwanath temple and Dashashwamedh Ghat, where Babaji and his sister Mataji appeared before Ram Gopal Muzumdar. Another destination is the temple of Trailanga Swami, Lahiri Mahasaya’s 300-year-old friend, with whom he would meditate.

Our hotel is less than a 10-minute walk to Kashi Vishwanath Temple, Manikarnika burning ghat, and Dashashwamedh Ghat, where at sunset we plan to attend the Ganga arati.

This pilgrimage will be led by Hari and other teachers from Ananda Sangha Delhi.

Ananda Pilgrimages are not so much about sightseeing and doing as about being—being in a place of high spiritual vibration and learning to relax and open your heart to receive blessings. Meditating as a group in these holy spots reinforces their power. On pilgrimage, we meditate together in the mornings, and at each place, we visit. The flavour of the pilgrimage is inward—one of communion and meditation.