Where the Journey Begins
“Baba, yogi, guru, sadhu, whatever,” Bharat shrugged as we sat overlooking India’s holy Lake Pushkar. “It’s not about how many beads you wear or how much time you spend praying and meditating. It’s in the little practices, praying to the sun, thanking God for food, and helping strangers.”
Bharat managed a family café in Pushkar, a small Rajasthani village where his ancestors had lived for hundreds of years. Pushkar has long been a place of pilgrimage for all kinds of seekers, from the babas and sadhus of the world to the lost Westerners searching for deeper meaning and and for a way of finding yourself in India. I suppose I was one of them.
I’d just asked Bharat what he thought about people coming to “find themselves” in India and adopt its spiritual rituals. Ironically, the wisdom in his answer contradicted his point. I understood that deeper meaning doesn’t hide in faraway places but in how you show up for each moment. Still, I couldn’t help thinking—only somewhere as spiritual as Pushkar could have offered such a profound answer.
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The Search for Something Missing
Growing up in the English suburbs, I was taught the importance of education and financial security. Noble lessons, yes, but somewhere along the way, we forgot the value of peace and presence. Like many millennials who slipped through the cracks of late-stage capitalism and burned out before we even began, I started questioning everything – including whether finding yourself in India was more than just a romantic idea whispered by weary souls like mine.
Something was missing. A part of my humanity. A connection to myself and to the Earth I walk on every day. The question was; how could I find it, and where? The notion of finding yourself in India lingered in my mind, offering a quiet kind of hope.
Of course, I’m not the first generation to ask. Westerners have been resisting the status quo and seeking connection since the 1950s, when they began traveling to spiritual centers like India, where the mind-body connection isn’t a modern trend but an ancient way of life. As the birthplace of yoga, meditation, and Ayurveda, India has been labeled the ultimate destination for self-discovery for more than half a century. I wanted to know if the rumors were true and whether finding yourself in India could help me reclaim the parts of myself I had long misplaced.
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Trusting the Journey
“Okay, so I’ve booked a one-month trip to India — tell me where I should go!” I squealed to my friend Caroline, who has spent two decades living part-time and working for NGOs there.
“You don’t need to plan anything,” she said. “India has its plan for you.”
Her words lingered. “It’s part of the spiritual experience — trusting the universe, yourself, and the journey. You can’t find meaning without trust.”
Although she hadn’t answered my question, she had answered the bigger one: could India help me find what I was looking for? I took her advice, booking only my first night’s stay in Jaipur, Rajasthan, and decided to let the rest unfold.
The Detour to Rishikesh
I thought I’d spend a few days in Jaipur, then move on to other Rajasthani cities like Udaipur and Jodhpur. Instead, I followed instinct over itinerary and ended up spending an entire week in the Pink City.
There, fellow travelers spoke passionately about Rishikesh—a small town along the Ganges River known as a global center for yoga, meditation, and spiritual study. The Beatles famously wrote their White Album at a Rishikesh ashram in 1968 after studying transcendental meditation. I hadn’t planned to visit, yet soon I found myself on an eight-hour night bus from Agra, chasing the pull of something unseen. One of those unexpected moments that remind you how finding yourself in India doesn’t always follow a plan.
Once there, I threw myself into the Rishikesh rhythm, meditating at sound baths, attending breathwork sessions, and chanting mantras with strangers at evening kirtans. I’ve always approached spirituality with curiosity but also skepticism. Yet here, something felt different. Through the singing, stretching, and breathing, I touched a sense of joy and reconnection I hadn’t felt in years. It was as if finding yourself in India wasn’t just an idea—it was a quiet truth unfolding with every experience. Was it India’s magic, or simply my willingness to open again?
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The Space Between
Despite those breakthroughs, the days in between felt painfully empty. I was lonely in Rishikesh. I hadn’t met anyone, had been sick twice in two weeks, and couldn’t shake the feeling that the universe had forgotten me. I had visions of Eat, Pray, Love enlightenment, of meeting a guru with all the answers, but reality was quieter, emptier – and nothing like the romantic idea of finding yourself in India I had carried with me.
Desperate for change, I decided to leave. Still, before I caught my bus, I resolved to try one last thing: plunging into the holy Ganga River, believed in Hinduism to purify the soul.
As I waded into the icy current, a local yogi appeared—dreadlocked, muscled, tattooed with Shiva. He helped me take my dip without being swept away. Later, sitting on the riverbank, I confessed my disappointment, admitting that finding yourself in India didn’t feel as effortless or mystical as I had imagined.
“Maybe this is what you’re meant to feel,” he said gently. “Sometimes the most profound shifts come from disconnection.”
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I hated to admit it, but he was right. I realized I’d only trusted “India’s plan” when it worked in my favor. The moment it didn’t, I lost faith. That realization—acceptance, really—felt like the lesson I’d come all this way to learn.
Lessons in Trust and Connection
That evening, as I packed to leave, an Indian woman named Tulika entered my dorm. Within an hour, we’d decided to stay a few extra days together. We white-water rafted, listened to live music, got hand-poke tattoos, and stayed in an ashram. I left Rishikesh feeling full rather than empty, not because I’d found enlightenment, but because I’d found connection.
In Delhi, chaos swallowed me whole. The city pulsed with life ahead of Diwali, its streets jammed with people, rickshaws, and cows. Longing for peace, I followed a recommendation to visit Pushkar — one of India’s holiest towns, and once again, boarded a bus toward the unknown.
Pushkar’s Quiet Wisdom
Twenty minutes after arriving, I realized I’d left my wallet on the bus, my only credit card gone. My guesthouse host remained unbothered. “Don’t worry,” he said. “You’re in a holy place. Your wallet will return.”
Fifteen minutes later, I got a call. Someone had found it and was already bringing it back. I laughed in disbelief. Maybe my friend Caroline was right—India really does have its plan for you.
Pushkar turned out to be exactly what I needed: a slow-paced village wrapped in hills, still enough for reflection. This time, I let go of expectations. I didn’t force healing. I didn’t chase rituals. Instead, I wandered, smiled, and let myself notice things—cows blocking alleys, rickshaws weaving around them, the smell of ghee and firecrackers, the glorious chaos of it all.
Caroline had told me, “There’s no middle ground in India. You’re either really low or really high. Maybe that’s part of finding yourself in India, too.” She was right again. I’d been both. And now, finally, I was still.
The Real Meaning of Finding Yourself in India
Ironically, as soon as I stopped searching, India offered everything I thought I’d wanted — mountain meditations, chakra healings, musicians with past lives in Radiohead tours. But I declined them all.
After weeks of searching outward, I realized how easily spiritual practice becomes another form of escapism. True connection doesn’t come from chasing enlightenment. It comes from being fully present—from noticing the small, sacred moments that are always within reach.
Bharat, the café owner, had been right from the beginning. Finding yourself in India isn’t about grand gestures or distant rituals. It’s in the quiet daily acts — gratitude for food, kindness to strangers, acknowledging the light in each ordinary moment.
India didn’t hand me the answers. It taught me how to listen to them.
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Light Over Darkness
I spent my final days back in Jaipur for Diwali, walking through the glowing streets as fireworks cracked overhead. Every building was wrapped in strings of light, a symbol of brightness prevailing over darkness.
As I stood among the crowds, I felt it too—the balance, the peace, the connection I’d been chasing all along. Maybe that’s what it means to finding yourself in India. Not to arrive enlightened, but to return home illuminated.
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Emily Draper is an experienced travel and lifestyle writer and editor from the UK who has written for brands including Culture Trip, Hidden Compass, and tourism boards in Greenland, Luxembourg, and Copenhagen. She has travelled to over 70 countries across all seven continents, now calling Morocco her home.
