"No Destination", de Satish Kumar

"Gandhi was saying that is not religion if it does not help to solve the problems of this world, here and now. If religion takes a person away from this life and this society, then it is escapism. The search for truth is a continuous daily experience. There is absolute or ultimate truth and the search for truth never ends. Every person's life is a kind of laboratory and every person should make experiments with truth."

"As we sailed the stormy Atlantic, Menon and I had plenty of time for talking and reflection. Going into the unknown world and confronting it without a penny in our pockets had meant that differences between rich and poor, educated and illiterate, all vanished; and beneath all these divisions, a common humanity emerged. Wether we slept incomfortable beds or on the floor of a barn or under a tree, it was all a gift. As wanderers we were free of shadows from the past. The experience of a beautiful emptiness within myself, with neither materal nor spiritual possessions, unlocked my soul. It was a journey without destination; journey and destination became one, thought and action became one. I felt myself moving like a river. A river and its flow are not separate things, I and my movement were not separate. The journey was me. It was as much as inner journey as an outward one. It was a journey into detachment. The contradiction between movement and stillness ceased. I was on the move in stillness. I was a wanderer, wandering through life. Living from day to day, from inspiration to inspiration.

In wandering I felt a sense of uinon with the whole sky, the infinite earth and sea. I felt myself a part of the cosmic existence. It was as if by walking I was making love to the earth itself. Wandering was my path, my true self, my true being. It released my soul-force, it brought me in a relation to everything else. I stood like I stand in front of the mirror. People, nature, everything became like a mirror and I could see myself in them, what I was. I was born in a dream of wandering, a seed conceived in my mother. My dreams are of wandering. From birth I was wandering - as a monk, with Vinoba, and on the walk - whatever I learnt came through wandering.

My two legs were the most creative parts of my body and the most creative expression of my energy."

"Our bodies were unwiling to part, our lips were refusing to separate, our arms had forgotten how to release each others' bodies. We were in love; in love with each other, in love with the universe, in love with Shiva, in love with shakti, in love. Full stop. I knew what happiness meant, I knew what my body was capable of, I knew what it means to be searching and what it means to be arriving. Just for once, I knew my destination. It was Marie Clay."

"You are a guest in the home of the gods. They have provided you with abundance. You are invited to make yourself at home, and to take what you really need but not to waste or squander anything; to consume with consideration for the other guests of this great house and also remember the generations of guests who will come after you."

"I reflected on my relationship with Peggy Hemming. I had been upset and unsettled by her decision to disband our community in Wales but as I looked back I realized that she had been a blessing in disguise. She had been an instrument of change in my life and I was grateful. Without her, would I have moved out of London? Difficult to imagine. She came into my life for such a short spell, but changed it fundamentally. She made me stand on my own feet and find my own solutions. It was not so much a case of forgiveness but of understanding her actions and being thankful."

"We should be aware that we will be coming back to this world and therefore we should not poison or pollute it so that when we return to this world in our next life, we find it as habitable and beautiful as when we left it."

"Walking was not solely a mean to get somewhere. Walking in itself was an end, a form of meditation, a way of being. The journey was as important as the arrival."

"Sometimes I came across a tree which seemed like a Buddha or a Jesus: loving, compassionate, still, unambitious, enlightened, in eternal meditation, giving pleasure to a pilgrim, shade to a cow, berries to a bird, beauty to its surroundings, health to its neighbours, branches for the fire, leaves to the soil, asking nothing in return, in total harmony with the wind and the rain. How much I can learn from a tree! The tree is my church, the tree is my temple, the tree is my mantra, the tree is my poem and my prayer."