Episode 9: Pilgrimage

Welcome to Mental hygiene, a space to care for the mind like we care for the body, daily, gently and with love. Posted by Yogi Chiru and Susan Huu, this podcast brings ancient Yogi wisdom into modern life, offering practical tools to cleanse the mental clutter, restore inner stillness, and reconnect with your true self. Take a breath, you're exactly where you need to be. Welcome to Mental hygiene. Hello, welcome everyone. This is Mental hygiene. I am Susan and I'm here with my teacher and great friend Yogi Chiru. Today we're going to talk about a topic that's so close to everyone's heart, vacation, but in a way that helps to support our mental hygiene. Thank you all for being here. I am Chiru. We're going to explore how the wishes or Yogi's gone pilgrimage for their vacation. That's amazing. I was having a conversation with a friend lately and we spoke about how we're all traveling so much for vacation, but sometimes people go on vacation to just escape life, we're consuming more, we come back needing another vacation just for the vacation and it sort of feels like it's not really the purpose of going away to take some time for ourselves. And Yogi Chiru, what's your take on from a Yogi's perspective in a way that supports our mental health, supports our spiritual evolution? What is really a pilgrimage or a Yogi Ruchi? So in the Rishi culture, we understand three things are important for our mental calmness, mental peace. One is association of like-minded people. So if you associate with people who are striving to perform spiritual practices, that's a good one to have your association. Another is your habitat, the environment affects us. Yes. A place of pilgrimage is a place where we visit that allows us to raise our vibration. But you can get the association of like-minded people and you can be in a holy place, a pilgrimage site, but still you haven't tapped into it. You feel stressed, you feel drained, why? There's a certain, the third, most important, you're moved, your intention of when you are visiting those places or getting the association of like-minded people. So three things, if you're going to a place of pilgrimage, you want to go there to get association of people who live there and you want to go with the right attitude, the right mood. So if you have these aligned, then you can have a beautiful experience, right? Because a place of pilgrimage in the Rishi culture is in a part of the planet where previous teachers or previous practitioners, they perform their practice. So they did their satanah there, whether they meditated there, whether they prayed there, whether they worshipped there, whether one of the avatars incarnation lived there, did some pastime there. When you visit those places, those places are filled with spiritual energy around it. So when you go there, it affects our consciousness. So we might have, you know, you're living your day, life, your dragon fruit, a lot of ups and downs and emotions and your vibration is a little low. When you go to a high spiritual vibration place like that, it raises your vibration and how you feel inspired, you feel refreshed, depending on the who you meet there in that whole place and the mood of how you enter that place. And people all around the world of different religious, different spiritual backgrounds, we all go on pilgrimage. And the pilgrimage is really so much more than just going to India, just going to a certain parts of the world. But like you say, to be sure to on this entire planet everywhere, it's sacred if it's a place of practice, if it's a place where people get together for their own evolution. Because growing up as a Christian, you always hear of Jerusalem, Bethlehem, right? You want to make a pilgrimage to their wants? Three of the world's major religion comes out of Israel, right? You have Islam, Christianity and Judaism. So if you're following any one of those spiritual paths, there's a little inclination. Someone who's subconscious man, I'd love to go to a pilgrimage to that part of the planet. And then if you go to a little further east, I think there's about maybe four of the world's major religion come out of that, you know, out of the intersection, right? In the Himalayas you have Hinduism, Judaism, Sikhism, right? Four major, so if you're a Sikh, if you're a Hindu, if you're a Buddhist, if you're a Jane, you want to visit those places where the spiritual practices started, so which inspired. But then as I evolved, and over time I was living in India and all the whole places in the yoga culture, I was like, wait, I got the realization, this whole planet is sacred. It's not that one part is sacred and that part is not. This whole planet is sacred. All places of pilgrimage then is those places that have a little more spiritual vibration because the avatars or people did their practices in those locations. But we can connect to divinity all over the planet, but when we take birth on this planet, there are some places we call them portals, right? Where there was the highest spiritual practice been doing going on again and again, people meditating in those places, praying in those places. So they become a place of pilgrimage that helps us, so, reserve vibration. But at the same time, you can find a place out of the 9 to 5, right? And we're on the planet and raise the vibration. It's a little more hard work because you have to break through the modes of nature, but you can do it as well in other places. But if there are places that are already there, we take advantage of them. But we shouldn't just think, oh, these are the only holy places and the rest of the planet, let's drop a bomb there. Oh, the whole planet is sacred. So when we go to those places of pilgrimage, it's really a place for us to get away from our daily lives so that we are able to like go off the distraction of our mundane life, so to speak. So we can focus on our spiritual practice. And if it's a place where we can, with jarra senses in, we can meditate. We can like go off our habits that we have attached to so much back home and to be able to form some sort of new habits and with a right association, with a right vibration. Hopefully we can evolve from those short periods of pilgrimage and bring it back into our lives. Yeah, that's what it is, right? We at least once a year. This one said, you should take a week or two weeks if possible and go to a place of pilgrimage of your spiritual culture. And in the Rishi culture, we are visiting holy places in Himalayas, holy places in India, in that region. And what it does for you is it allows you to go into full deep absorption of spiritual practices because when you go to those places, right, it pulls you out of fear 9 to 5. So because when you are in those pilgrimage places, you get up early one for a class of 30. And then you have ample amount of time to pray, ample amount of time to meditate, ample amount of time to study the texts. And then in those holy places you go to sleep early, no distraction, no internet, no computers, no TV, no everyone goes to sleep by like 9 o'clock, right, people are, you get up early, go to sleep early. So you're, in other words, you're coming back to the natural, circadian rhythms, right, living with people. And what can tell with nature? As you rise at the sun, sleep when the sun sets. So you become more natural. And then you do that, right? And then you, in no time, like I like to tell you, when I went on pilgrimage for the first time, I didn't have a mobile phone. I'm here. These days I feel it for people who, because people can't live without the phones, right? So I like to tell people, okay, if you bring the phone, put it on, what, airplane mobile. So you can get your photos, you can do, but don't, don't let it pull you back into your work or pull it back into, you know, for one week airplane mode. Not with your abs, or, and I say, practicality, you have kids. Okay, you pull it off the airplane mode, you make that phone call, you know, once a day, or your family, keep in touch. And then when you're finished, back into the mode. And that's the way it doesn't pull you otherwise. People, like I said, people go on vacation and they want a vacation after the vacation. Why? But it's in the vacation place. But the phone and the gadget can't bring them back to where they were living. And they didn't really pull away. Yeah. And if we're doing everything just the same as we're doing at home, going to a different place, it's not going to change our consciousness out of state of mind. And in a way, going on pilgrimage, it's, it's an austerity. It's something that will challenge us to really take us out of the comfort zone, not just your nine to five job, but also the comfort zone of your own bed, the familiar environment. Your might the physical environment might be very challenging. We might have to deal with the situation that we don't encounter at home. But how can we use those times to really focus on what's important inside and work through those times when we're able to tolerate when we are out of power, when we are having to deal with a lot of mosquitoes. And then it becomes truly a spiritual experience rather than just a vacation where we're doing the same thing that we do at home, but at a different place. Amazing. When I was 25, I was living in Hong Kong and I'm taking a group of students on pilgrimage to Malayas. That trip was to the Himalayas. Amazing. One, one doctor in my life were considering it. And the wife asked me, "Yogi, true? Is there five star hotels in the Himalayas?" I said, "Dr. Chan, there's not even one star in the Himalayas." So as to say, they didn't come on the trip, right? You have a pilgrimage means you step out of your comfort zone. I must admit, from when I used to go in the Shelley to now, a lot of the pilgrimage places in India, they have improved so much in terms of accommodations and facilities. But I remember when I went there, my first pilgrimage, right? You brought your sleeping bag, you brought your little mat, and that's how you move. Move it, move it, move it, move it, and you sleep in tents. But now they still do pilgrimage like that, but then they have options. You don't have to sleep outside in the nature, in the camps. You can go back to the hotels and sleep in the hotels and then come back in the morning time. So there's a little more options. But when I went back, then there was a small option, but no one cares for it. Everyone wanted to just live outside in nature, and that was my teenage life. But no one understands, it's nice to have a little more. But then like you say, it's not just that you have a confront meeting new people of different mental frequencies than you. I have to go on pilgrimage with these people for the next five days or so and this. So it's a lot of purification, right? Some people, you and they will be good friends. They're going there, there to perform. You know, teach, learn to teach you patience, tolerance, humility. On pilgrimage, you grow so fast because you're out of the comfort zone. So yeah, these are the evolutions we go through when we go on pilgrimage. It's not always sweet. I mean, whichever culture you're from, you're used to us in type of food when you go on pilgrimage. Oh, vegetarian food, yeah, because the places we go are holy places. These holy places, they're on a served vegetarian food. So everyone wants to know, yeah, she just wanted a steak. Three days you can enjoy your steak because unfortunately, these holy places, they don't harm animals. They are nonviolent. That's why it's called places of pilgrimage, right? Oh, your, your chain, your taste, what gets challenged, your, your association gets challenged. But then you have to learn to, if we, when you do it, what happens is the first day to second day, little challenge. But if you learn, if you start to adopt, keep your yoga masters, if previous mistakes who attained some audit, they were just like me and you, they had challenges too. But then they were able to adopt and transcend. So we have to do the same thing. It wasn't easy for me when I did my first pilgrimage, but I'm so glad I was adopted and I lived through it and by the end, I'm always blissful about it. Yeah. So I think when we think about visiting holy places, the image is always like this is so beautiful, it's so uplifting, but we should also be prepared for the challenges that has to come first to be able to reach that state so that we can kind of literally expand our comfort zone and raise our vibration to a place where the mind can be peaceful. Even when the external situation, even when the people I'm around, might be a little bit challenging at times. Yeah, that happens. And yeah, remember, because it's a part of the Rishi culture. If you go to India, you can be in South India, you'll see everyone in South India, at least once in their life, they want to go to not to take bath in the Ganges River once or they want to go to bring daven once or they want to go to the chup down the four holy places and the Himalayas wants, or if they want to go to Shrinamaya, the birthplace of Larketanya, bring daven, the birthplace of Krishna, Kuruksetra, where Krishna spoke the Bhagavad-gita. So the place is where people want to go. It's a part of their culture. It's a part of their vacation. In the West, we have, like say, your born in America, we want to go to Grand Canyon. We want to go to the yellow, yellow, the yellow, the yellow stone, and go maybe Hawaii, because there's so many beautiful places. There are four texes. The only difference is in India, they go with a mood of prayer, a mood of not just enjoying it, but understand that God gifted it and let us be in a mood of appreciating God gifts to us. So all these places with that mood of begging for blessings, begging for purification. So again, when we go on pilgrimage, we go with the right association. We go to the places that are already charged with that spiritual energy, and then we go most importantly with our own right, mood, the right intention, the right, Sancaupa, to be able to evolve our consciousness. You know, each other, you mentioned historically in the Rishu culture, there's always this tradition of going to those holy places. Can you tell us a little bit about how some of our previous teachers like Shujentanya Mahaprabhu or Shilapapa went on their pilgrimage? So, largely, Tanya, the incarnation who brought Kirtan, the Nad Yoga, Yoga of sound to this dimension. He was born in West Bengal in a place called Mayapur, and I still happen to live there for about eight months when I was younger. And Mayapur is nine islands, Navadvi, nine islands, Dweep islands. And so when he grew up there, he did a lot of pastimes there with his associates, and they started Kirtan with the sacred sound and chanting and meditating and sound and purifying and developing love for God through the voice and through rhythm. So that's a holy place. So, that's so, I'm in our pilgrimage tour that we're doing in January to start off the new year, right? If you're a new year, let's pre-fire us and let's set a new intention for the year. We're going to go visit this place as well, Shidana Mahapur. This is where if you're in yoga of sound, if you're in to bhakti, if you're in to evolve philosophy, right? That's the place where a lot of advanced bhaktas, devotees, advanced yogis regularly would visit. So that same personality, Shri Caitanya, when he was on the planet, he went to pilgrimage to South India. He eventually landed where? In the place of Vrindavan. So most people want to visit Vrindavan, why? Because we get introduced to the yoga in the West through the Bhagavad-gita. So in the Bhagavad-gita, we learn about the wisdom of yoga, karma, yoga, hatha, yoga, dhan, yoga, bhakti, yoga. So in that conversation is between Krishna and Arjuna, Yaranabattal, Kurukshetra, but what did Krishna do before the battle started? Where did Krishna come from? How did he appear in this world? So that's the land of Vrindavan. What Krishna did as a child, as a teenager, growing up in Vrindavan with his entourage, with Radharani and his friends. So Vrindavan is a holy place because Krishna's footprints are there. The Jammuna river where he took his bath with his friends where he's still there. So Larchetanya went on pilgrimage there and he would go to this place, oh, and he would just be in ecstasy because Larchetanya is Krishna himself in the mood of a devotee. So he showed us how a devotee enters Vrindavan, how a devotee pray and chant in the mood. And so that's a whole, so Larchetanya himself, on pilgrimage. And then you mentioned Shila Prabhupada. Shila Prabhupada is born in Kolkata, brought up as a Faisana. And so he always had a attraction to Larchetanya and to Larchagana. So Shila Prabhupada would go to pilgrimage to Jagannapuri, right? That's the place where Larchetanya lived after he left Mahapur. And then he would go to Mahapur on holy pilgrimage as well to see the holy places where Larchetanya performed. And then he would visit Vrindavan. His Guru would be given lectures and discourses on the Bhagavatam and the Gita in Vrindavan and Prabhupada would leave wherever he was working to visit those places to listen to his Guru teach in Vrindavan. So it's so Prabhupada's perform pilgrimage. He would get the right association. Like Mood, he said it for us. Larchetanya did pilgrimage, got the right association with the right mood when you enter the places. So it's a tradition in our culture. So I remember when I got into, I introduced to the Gita sauce. Wow, oh Krishna live with where? And I read the Krishna book. And I fell in love with Rindavan. Wow, I want to visit Rindavan. And then I read the Caitanya Chartarita. And I was like, wow, I want to visit my four or two. So then, you know, right? And I had a travel all over India, from South India, Kanyakumari all the way up to the Himalayas, like Favall East, the West India. So I went on pilgrimage and most of the place, holy places are around India. And in January, we're going to two of the holy places. Rindavan, the birthplace of Lord Krishna, where Larchetanya went, where she loved Ralph Ardewet. And then we're going to go pilgrimage today, the roots of Kirtan were starting, the place where Larchetanya started with his entourage. And that's freed out my rapport. And when you visit these places, your devotion grows, your mood grows because Larchetanya's most profound quality he said, we should always have when we enter the spiritual dimension is humility. So when you're in these places, you get humbled because you see so many people around you who are praying. They're seekers, yeah. Like, wow, you get inspired by them. And how incredible, how fortunate that we are able to physically visit those sacred places where Krishna himself was born, who were incredible teachers, avatars, they practiced, they taught us how to practice those techniques. And now we still get to visit in this day and age. Yeah, and that's a beautiful thing, right? So far, I mean, the politics of the planet hasn't really disturbed our visit to India here in the yoga. Not yet. Yeah, in the red door, right? So it's still available. Who knows? I heard like last, right, to get an Indian visa of a pay, some kind of visa, $100,000. Indian's to get come here, some B1 visa. I mean, politics, right? It can get more complicated, but up to now, you can still get a visa. There might be a little bit of back and forth with your own visa. So take off light to India. There's no like war, is there? So we can still take advantage of it, but who, how long will that last? We don't know. So we want to take advantage of it, yes. Yeah, and like you said, you're saying it's so special to also do a little bit of beginning of a new year, where we get to reset, where we get to form new sets of habits of how we live our day to day life to really train the mind in the way to see this life through a more spiritual kind of perspective. And when we're able to go on those pilgrimage, hopefully not only do we evolve during those days where we're immersed in those environment, that sacred, but we can also bring some of that back with us into the rest of our year. So we continue to grow, continue to evolve. Yes, that's the goal of doing a pilgrimage, right? All these years, I mean, I mean, my current decade, right, I was practicing yoga. And I would go to India at least once a year, once I had the capabilities. So I've been taking students for over 20 years now on pilgrimage. And what everyone always say is they get so absorbed, they get so taught, so transformed. And they know when they go back to their regular life, they cannot live the way of pilgrimage. They'll get up little later, they'll sleep little later. But then they'll keep some of the purified habits with them. What will take them at least maybe two, three months? A little better than New Year's resolution. Sometimes people do New Year's resolution, I mean, the first video, like I'll shoot a window. But when you go in a spiritual environment, it keeps, it stays in your mind and heart. And you keep those for the rest of your life, basically. They stay with you and you can reflect on those moments of evolution and you're not. Well, carry them with you. And when you come back, right, you have to learn the art of practicality. I'm not an pilgrimage anymore. I have to work after, but then how can I implement little drops, bring some little drops with you? And then every time you go once a year, once a year, once a little bit more, a little bit more, a little bit more. And then before you know it, you're able to live through your whole year in a more balanced way, working with your spiritual practice, working, be responsible to your duties. And at the same time, do your spiritual practices as well. And that's why that's the goal. Like Shura Pao always say, that's the two, two track of our training, right? We need our spiritual track, we need our material life as well. How do we fund that balance and gracefully live our life? And that's the purpose of living this human life, which is so precious. So yeah, if you have the opportunity, if you have the ability, please join us, right? We are. So it's going to be two weeks. January 5th, January 18th, and you know, we get to evolve together, grow together. And I guarantee you it's life transforming. Mm-hmm. By place, the people you're going to be able to, and then my duty as the guy, I help people with the mood to get into these places, right? And you, we grow together. And it's one of the biggest, nicest treats you can give yourself. Spiritual pilgrimage vacation, right? So it's because you're involved with, you're surrounded by spiritual vibration constantly. It's a nice. That's a vacation that you won't need a vacation afterwards for. Wow, I don't want it to end. A vacation, you know, it's a, what does a day in the pilgrimage look like for this January trip at Seppere Colzee? But for the Colzee, we get up around 530. We do our meditation or prayers. We do about an hour of yoga. And we do about an hour of studying the books because they're studying the books so we can enter the mood. And then we'll go on pilgrimage to visit holy places for like two to three hours every day. Mm-hmm. And in the evening, then we have our evening, sadhana of, you know, yoga, nidra, the art of relaxation. And we do a little keratana session with everyone and a little study of the text again just so we can keep the mood of the holy place uplifted. Sounds amazing. We go to sleep by nine, nine o'clock, we're in bed, nine thirty. Same thing. And then we go to different places every day. So it's inspiring that way. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I am so looking forward to going with your yoga chair this January. So for our listeners, if you're looking for a New Year's reset, some sort of a spiritual recharge, please, please join us. I'm sure it's going to be such a transformative experience for the heart. Yes. And then, right? And then like I say, you know, you can go to retreats, wrong year, wrong year state, right? Pull yourself out if there is too far. Find a place, you know, there's retreats, but again, it plays the people. Association. Mm-hmm. Is that important? Amazing. Yogi Churu, can you guide us through a short meditation where we can go on a mental pilgrimage day? Sure. Excellent. So let's come into a nice comfortable seated pose, bring the palms and the knees. That's the tip of the thumbs, tip of the index fingers, close the eyes softly. And connect your mind to the breath at the entrance of the nostrils. As you watch your breath, you are taking a vacation from the past and the future. Identify the slight temperature change. Bring the common breath slightly cooler and the alcohol in breath with your body's heat is slightly warmer. Bring your gaze in the center of the eyebrows and use your concentration power and imagine the entire globe of the earth. The seven continents with the oceans and recognize this entire globe is divinely created. This entire planet is sacred. And then we know the three modes of nature, of goodness, passion and ignorance are competing to dominate every part of this earth. So there are some parts of this earth that is very radiosic or we say very passionate. Those are normally big cities. So look for those cities that are very on the go, on the go. Be the mind flickering, doing this, doing that. And then there are parts of this planet, beautiful planet where the mode of tamas are ignorance governs where people harm each other, where there's wars, people exploit other people. You can see those places. And then on the same amazing thing, there are places in this planet that are very in the mode of goodness, Satvaguna. Very peaceful, very calm. A lot of nice lakes, a lot of parks, a lot of forests, mountain tops, oceans. And then on this amazing planet, within that mode of goodness, there are some parts of the planet where previous humans did a lot of meditation, a lot of prayer. Not the prayer word to try and evolve that they are superior to another race or an, an an appear that allows them to go into universal love. There are places like that on the planet. There are places where incarnations came on this planet and they were past times. Spurutrale, the force around that, the vortex, the energy is pure love. A place where there is no harm, nonviolence, love, care, compassion, empathy. Those places exist. These are the places of pilgrimage. They allow you to control your mind, allow you to control your senses, allow you to use your senses and moderation. Because the people who live there live in moderation, live in mood of service, live in the mood of devotion to God, empathy. We are grateful for our amazing planet that we are living on, grateful for our amazing body, grateful for our breath. And again, as you witness the breath, know that you are on a beautiful vacation from the past or the future. This is how the yogis leave a place of pilgrimage and keep that place of pilgrimage with them through the breath. Take a deep inhalation, sail slowly, breath to normal, arms to the heart, lower the brain to skull towards your higher self, towards the lower than the heart. Namaste. Lift the head. Take that calmness with you for the rest of the day. Thank you. Thank you so much, yogis, Haru. And I had such a beautiful meditation. I hope anyone who is listening, if you ever just need a moment to reset, to go on a mental pilgrimage, you can go back to this recording, give yourself a little bit of a treat and tap into that higher vibration. And again, if you can join us on this physical pilgrimage where we physically visit in those holy places in January 2026. Thank you for all the details on my website yogicaru.com. We'll see our breakdown of the places we'll visit, and our times and so forth. Look forward to getting your association. Thank you all so much. Thank you, Vinda. Thank you, yogic, Haru, for the beautiful pilgrimage. Thank you for our listeners. We'll see you next time. Thank you for joining us with Mental Liger. Our ancient wisdom meets modern life, one breath and a tongue. If this episode brought you peace, insight or inspiration, we invite you to subscribe, leave a review, and share with someone you love. To go deeper, connect with yogicaru and Susan Hube. Follow the journey on Instagram @mentalhygienepodcast. Until next time, keep your mind clear, your heart open, and your spirit grounded. Be well. Be still. [Music]