Ashadhi Ekadashi
This is a collection of articles archived for the excellence of their content. |
The Pandharpur Wari pilgrimage
Harsh Kabra, July 5, 2025: The Times of India
Each year, as monsoon clouds gather over Maharashtra, a river of humanity flows across the state, taunting ashen skies with bright saffron flags and drowning thunderclaps in chants of ‘Vitthal, Vitthal’. With over a million hearts beating as one, the Pandharpur Wari, a nearly 800-year-old pilgrimage rooted in Maharashtra’s Bhakti tradition, is an extraordinary spectacle of faith in motion. Ashadhi Ekadashi (July 6) marks the culmination of legendary Wari, when lakhs of Warkaris, devotees, arrive in Pandharpur on foot to seek blessings of Vitthal, a form of Vishnu, and his consort Rukmini. In the three weeks leading up to Ashadhi Ekadashi , they walk more than 250 kilometres from towns such as Alandi and Dehu, singing, dancing and chanting alongside palkhis, palanquins, bearing padukas, sandals, of revered saint-poets, notably Sant Dnyaneshwar and Sant Tukaram.
Over the years, the Wari has grown in scale, now drawing an estimated 10-12L participants, not just humble villagers – original torchbearers of the tradition – but also a new wave of pilgrims – urban, global and curious. That’s because the Wari, more than just a physical march, is a pilgrimage of the soul, representing a timeless model of integrated transformation.
An important act in Bhakti Sadhana, practice of devotion, is Abhigaman: Fully immersing oneself in the Divine by aligning the body, mind and soul; setting aside worldly distractions; walking towards the object of one’s devotion with intention, reverence and humility. As warkaris walk in step, chant in unison, sing in chorus, and participate in communal rituals, they enter an altered state of consciousness where personal anxieties and boundaries dissipate to make way for heightened calm, mindfulness and togetherness.
By braving odds such as vagaries of weather, aching muscles, blistered feet, irregular meals and inadequate sleep, they build resilience and gratitude. This makes every step deeply therapeutic, turning shared hardship into shared solace. In this collective meditation, each warkari becomes a seeker as well as a sanctuary, deriving inner strength from outer journey. Focused on the present moment, they heal through community immersion and collective transcendence.
The Wari is also a marvel of grassroots mutual aid and welfare, thriving year after year on an extensive, decentralised network of support where villagers and townsfolk along the Wari’s route welcome strangers as kin. Homes morph into free accommodations, temples into community kitchens, and schools into clinics. In a temporary yet earnest welfare ecosystem, functioning without heavy institutional apparatus and powered by human generosity and compassion, farmers offer their harvest, doctors provide free consultations, shopkeepers distribute supplies without payment, even damp clothing or shoes are exchanged for dry ones – a throwback to simpler times of empathy, mutual care and shared responsibility.
The collective spirit of the Wari reflects ideal democratic values in action, where everyone is equal regardless of caste, class, gender or status, and the guiding force is humanity, not hierarchy or power. This embodies anthropologist Victor Turner’s concept of ‘communitas’ – powerful community spirit and solidarity during liminal experiences that temporarily suspend social structures and reinvigorate participants emotionally and spiritually.
Ashadhi Ekadashi and Sant Dnyaneshwar
Deepak Ranade, June 29, 2023: The Times of India
A shadhi Ekadashi marks the culmination of the ‘pilgrims’ progress’ that carries the palkis of Sant Dnyaneshwar and Sant Tukaram, from Alandi and Dehu, respectively, to the temple town of Pandharpur in Solapur district, Maharashtra.
This ocean of devotees, one of the largest gatherings of pilgrims in the world, exults in ecstasy on reaching Pandharpur and meeting their beloved Lord Vithoba.
The Warkaris, as these pilgrims are called, hail from all walks of life to participate in this annual walk of over 250 km, spread over 21 days. The atmosphere is charged with bhakti and devotees are oblivious to any physical discomfort or exertion. They address one another as Mauli, mother, nickname for Sant Dnyaneshwar. This nickname stems from a matriarchal bond the Warkaris share with Dnyaneshwar, a bond that is an alchemy of faith, love, trust, respect, devotion, adulation, and abject surrender.
Dnyaneshwar was truly a saint ahead of his times. In his brief earthly sojourn, he compiled three spiritual texts: the Gnaneshwari, Anubhavamrut, and Changdev Pasashtee. The last one is a discourse of 65 verses addressed to a yogi named Changdev. These verses attempt to elucidate the ultimate truth of the very nature of existence. He explains that the tattva, essence, emerges as a ‘Will’ by manifesting as an intensification of consciousness – the Self, drishta, seer, and a rarefaction that becomes drishya, seen, the material world, which are connected by the process of darshan. This trinity emerges simultaneously. And after the ‘Will’ is fulfilled, this trinity merges as a wave of knowledge in the very essence from which it emerged. He says that consciousness, in order to remain conscious, must constantly go on becoming self-conscious.
In one of the verses, Sant Dnyaneshwar says: ‘The being of consciousness to becoming of consciousness is a holomovement that is in a perpetual continuum. ” This observer-centric approach is what contemporary Quantum Physics now confirms. For any event to have occurred, it has to be observed by an intelligent observer, for the collapse of the superposition states. Quantum Physics has broken the shackles of determinism that bound Classical Physics.
Phenomenon like Quantum Entanglement underline the need to review our understanding and obsession with the cause-effect paradigm. Winners of the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics have unequivocally settled the debate as to whether reality at its fundamental level conforms to the tenets of local realism. The conclusions of their research indicate the Universe to be illusory. Non-locality, Einstein’s ‘Spooky Action at a Distance’, has been proven to be spooky.
Reductionism has led scientific endeavour down the garden path that gets murkier with every step. The search for answers in the tangible domain leads only to intangible conclusions. Consciousness can never study itself. It can at best experience itself. Dnyaneshwar refers to this as Swasamvedya. Intelligence that sublimates to become selfaware. Dnyaneshwar very unambiguously elucidates on the ultimate truth. The entire universe is a cosmic dance of differential frequencies. It is a manifestation of intelligence consciousness. We need to urgently realise this truth to foster harmony and ensure our salvation.
The march of pilgrims is a reminder for us to embark on a journey of consciousness from becoming to being.
The writer is a consultant neurosurgeon and honorary faculty member at MIT-WPU School of Consciousness Studies, Pune
