The Kailash Tax: Shedding My Avatar Before the Climb

In the thirty-five years of my life, I have been broken many times. Externally, what you might read next, might not look like the most catastrophic situation out there. If you look at it from the outside, it’s just a series of small, annoying inconveniences. But internally? This has been the most soul-crushing, exhausting five days of my life.

Yatras are notoriously designed to break you down, but this is the first time I’ve realized what it truly means to have to leave so many things behind before the journey even begins. Deep down in the core of my heart, I feel like I am making this trek to have a darshan of my Guru. And precisely because it is more than just a trip, the sheer volume of what I’ve been shedding, both internally and externally, in the last few weeks is just insane.

Sadhguru describes Kailash as the ultimate library of cosmic knowledge, an immense repository where Shiva deposited all his knowing, realization, and ecstasy. It isn't just a mountain of stone and snow; it is a living, roaring source of ultimate possibility. To even prepare to stand before it requires a different kind of preparation. And I have been preparing for a decade!

Lately, it feels like I have already energetically tuned into that massive, overwhelming frequency. The world around me has begun to blur, and now, I only see Kailash everywhere I look. Every thought, every breath, and every mundane task has been swallowed by this pilgrimage. I have Shambho on my lips constantly, like a steady drumbeat running in the background of my mind, anchoring me while everything else descends into absolute chaos.

Every single day feels like a brutal new hurdle, and the cosmic timing of it is almost comedic.

The Comedy of Errors (And My Own Rage)

First, the money. I needed to withdraw funds for the yatra, somehow completely goofed it up, and accidentally locked my own account. I spent days pacing back and forth between banks, scraping together whatever remained, and getting it exchanged. Honestly, at this point, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry about the sheer amount of time I have wasted traveling back and forth, standing in lines, being put on hold, and being aggressively cornered by bank agents convincing me that I absolutely must buy life insurance right now.

And then, as if the financial and bureaucratic stress wasn't enough, the physical toll started.

Yesterday, I managed to drop a massive, heavy canvas directly onto my right foot (was completely unnecessary for me to have unpacked it). That was the absolute breaking point!

I completely lost it. I hadn't been that angry at myself in the longest time. I was furious, sad, and disappointed, completely breaking down into tears, thinking about how much more of this I have to go through. It was a harsh, glaring reminder that despite all the sadhana, I still have so much inner baggage to work through.

My foot immediately turned purple. It felt like a literal, aggressive warning from the universe to slow down. I spent the entire day wrapping it in bandages, slathering it in oils, and keeping it compressed. I even slept last night with my leg awkwardly hoisted up on a massive tower of stacked pillows.

Which gave me a lot of time to look in the mirror and obsess over my short hair. I absolutely DID NOT love it. :( I kept looking at old pictures of myself with my long locks, wondering if this was really necessary and why I did this to myself.

Anyway, in this moment right now, the anger has completely shifted into laughter.

I woke up this morning, braced myself to limp, and put my foot on the ground. It was completely, absolutely fine. All that intense panic, the heavy bandaging, the compression, and the awkward night of sleep was for absolutely nothing. There is barely any pain today, just a tiny, funny patch of purple skin.

The universe quite literally trolled me?

I have never really had to face severe financial or physical constraints like this before; whenever things got tight, they always got sorted out. Now, here I am, preparing for the most expensive journey of my life, laughing at a bruised foot, and questioning my own haircut.

But you know...I don’t need to be "fixed" before I leave. I am going into this yatra with nothing to come back to. And perhaps that’s the entire point.

The Currency of Grace

Yet, funnily right alongside this brutal breaking is an overwhelming amount of grace.

The irony is that a major part of this journey is being sponsored by my dad’s brother, a deeply gracious man. There was absolutely no logical reason for him to offer this half a year ago, but he saw my commitment to sadhana and decided to make it happen for me!

The way the universe aligned this back in January still blows my mind. I was sitting at the dining table with my parents, and my mom casually asked me, "How come you’ve never been to Kailash?" I gave the standard, slightly lofty answer, "You need a calling to go there. It’s not that it hasn't crossed my mind, but I just haven't been called yet."

Funnily enough, that entire week, my parents and I were listening on loop to Sandeep Narayan’s song about Kailash. I vividly remember telling myself that whenever I finally get to go to Kailash, I am going to sing this song there.

A week later, I met a friend for lunch. Out of nowhere, they asked the exact same thing: "How come you've never been to Kailash?"

The very next day, my mother’s brother called me out of the blue. He asked if I’d be interested in going to Kailash in a few months because a group he knew was planning a trek. Believe me when I say this: it was an absolutely random call.

I said yes immediately and called my dad’s brother, the one who had been asking me how to go to Kailash for two years (though it never materialized). He agreed instantly and insisted on sponsoring my entire journey, telling me he had actually decided to do this long ago (Whaaat!?)

It reminded me of a friend of mine two years ago. He desperately longed to travel to Kailash but didn’t have a penny to his name. Out of the blue, he got a call from Isha Foundation, where he volunteers, asking if he could volunteer for the yatra. His entire trip was covered! I remember thinking to myself back then how blessed a person must be for the universe to conspire like that.

Now, it’s happening to me.

Anyway, uncle was originally planning to join us, but soon had to step back after remembering some prior commitments. Even so, the grace didn't shift...my other uncle is still by my side for this journey.

Becoming the Empty Vessel

And it’s not just me. My uncle and my two other friends who are on this trip with me have all had their own share of difficult, exhausting stories just trying to make this happen, especially in the last few days. On the surface, these things look like small, isolated incidents. But it's the relentless accumulation of the small things that crushes you.

Case in point: we just got a message from our group leader saying our entire schedule has been suddenly advanced by a day. The Tibet border is randomly shutting down for four days on the exact day we were initially supposed to cross it, so, ready or not, we have to move sooner than we originally planned.

Maybe all these hurdles, the locked bank accounts, the life insurance pitches, the phantom foot injury, the haircut regret, and the shifting schedules, are just the tax you pay at the gate.

Or perhaps, this is the journey.

Before you even step foot on the mountain, you are forced to set yourself aside, shatter your plans, and become an entirely empty vessel. Because you can’t carry your baggage up Kailash. You have to empty the cup completely so that when you finally stand before the peak, there is nothing left inside you but room for grace to carry you. :)

I am bruised, I am really exhausted, and the schedule just went into overdrive. But the vessel is empty, and the mountain is calling.

Shambho. Let's go.

See you in Nepal!