Radhanath Swami · 2008 · pilgrimage

Richard Slavin leaves Chicago at nineteen and hitchhikes from London to the Himalayas - Greece, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, six months, almost no money and one ambush - looking for something he cannot name, and finding it in a forest town on the Yamuna.

1. 1
   Chicago

   A Jewish boy from the suburbs, nineteen, active in the civil rights movement and increasingly certain that changing the world means changing yourself first - which is the thought that gets him on a plane.

2. 2
   London

   Summer 1970, and the start of the overland road with a rucksack, a blues harmonica and almost no money - sleeping in churches and concert fields, and selling blood when the money runs out entirely.

3. 3
   Athens

   Greece, and the parting that decides everything: his friend Gary turns for Israel, and Richard hears something telling him to keep going east. From here he is alone.

4. 4
   Istanbul

   Turkey, and the last city that feels like anywhere he has been - after which the road runs through country where nobody speaks his language and nobody is expecting him.

5. 5
   Tehran

   Iran, and months rather than weeks: a journey planned as a few days' backpacking that has become something he no longer controls and no longer wants to.

6. 6
   Kandahar

   Afghanistan, and an ambush - kneeling in the dirt while shots go over him, and the realisation he describes as something dying in him to make room for what came next.

7. 7
   Lahore

   Pakistan, ill and nearly out of everything, three months into a crossing that has cost him more than he had to give - and then the border, and India.

8. 8
   Rishikesh

   The Ganges at the foot of the Himalayas, and a month of fasting and meditating on the bank - where he says he first heard mantras coming off the surface of the river.

9. 9
   The Himalayas

   Caves and forests above the treeline, living as a sadhu with nothing - and the long procession of teachers: Sivananda, Swami Rama, Ananda Mayi Ma, Neem Karoli Baba, the Dalai Lama.

10. 10
    Vrindavan

    The forest town on the Yamuna where he stopped looking. Homeless, sleeping under the trees, and at home for the first time - and in February 1971 in Bombay he finds the teacher he had crossed a continent for.