The Magic of India

India has always had a special place in my heart. I remember landing in Mumbai in my early twenties and driving through the dark chaotic city and immediately feeling at home. Since then and for the past 16 years, India has consistently called me back, in a way that no other country can do. 

I started practising Yoga around 15 years old and around the same time, I read a free book that came with a teen magazine, about a girl who spent time in an ashram in India (think Eat, Pray, love….), and from there, the first seed was planted. Many years later, another seed was finding a Yoga teacher in Glasgow that I really connected with and I overhead her say at the end of class that she had trained in India. Despite all this, on my first long haul backpacker trip, I still didn’t feel brave enough or ready for India so I went to Thailand instead. 

Back to my early twenties, after years of pushing myself beyond my limitations, I eventually suffered a mental breakdown. Feeling worn down by life and just a few weeks before the 2008 recession hit, I sold my apartment in Glasgow and I left for India. Many of my friends were concerned about my mental health and well-being but I just knew in my heart that India was where I needed to be. It felt like I had lost everything and despite the hardship, at the bottom of the pit, the path was clear to me.

It was a huge turning point in my life and looking back, the beginning of one of the most pivotal journeys that I would ever embark on. The pathway towards who I was always meant to become. I was to begin my first ever Yoga Teacher Training in Goa, not with the intention to become a Yoga teacher, I merely wanted a month of dedicated practice. 

I spent a few weeks touring Delhi, Rishikesh and Rajasthan and I already felt the healing powers of India and I was starting to feel like myself again. Every trip that I have had to India has become part of my healing journey and I will always feel deep gratitude for Maha (mother) India that brought me back to life. 

India over the past 16 years has changed so much, I have watched this intense, incredible country shift and move into a slightly easier place to travel, people don’t stare as much and I see couples that quite obviously not married, holding hands in the park. But India is still an assault on all of the senses but thats what I love about it. Your senses have never been so stimulated from witnessing shocking things on a daily basis, to the incredible colours of India. 

The Indian people have shown me so much kindness along this journey, from sharing food on the trains with the local families, to young boys running after me after I had left a bag behind, there has so many special moments. And the most incredible food, it never fails to surprise me that every restaurant has in-depth 6 page menu and everything tastes sublime. 

Being someone who is high sensitised to energy, I have always said that every country has an energy. India for me, has an indescribable, omnipresent energy, buried deep in the soil. I have never seen spiritual devotion anywhere else to the extent of India. It’s the home of Yoga and you feel the constant vibration of mantra, ritual, kirtan and the power of the deities everywhere from tuk-tuks to inside homes, to the street festivals and in the Hindu temples. Devotion is everywhere and the devotees welcome you in with open arms and into their culture thats has been weaved into Yoga Philosophy for thousands of years.

Someone once told me:

Don’t tell anyone…but you really do find yourself in India.

Its cheesy but it’s true.