BRUCE FEILER: I'm at the Ganges River at the largest gathering of humanity on the planet.

Every 12 years, tens of millions of people gather over 50 days to bathe in these waters, a reminder that faith can still move the world.

FEILER: This year, among the 100 million expected at Kumbh Mela are American pilgrims on a journey of discovery.

SUE: It doesn't matter that the crowd is one million or 50 million, it's the undercurrent of devotion.

FEILER: They come to experience but also to question.

It's an atmosphere so saturated with reverence and gratitude.

FEILER: Can they draw closer to their God?

JUDY: My aim is to understand God.

FEILER: Today, organized religion is more threatened than ever, yet pilgrimage is more popular than ever.

I'm Bruce Feiler.

In this epic series, I travel with American pilgrims on six historic pilgrimages.

I bathe in the rivers of India, dance in the heart of Africa, cleanse in the waters of Lourdes, trek through the temples of Japan, and walk in the footsteps of prophets in Mecca and Jerusalem.

I attend some of the most spectacular and moving human gatherings on earth.

And I ask, what can these journeys tell us about the future of faith?

FEILER: At a Hindu temple in Los Angeles, Shambhu Misra and his wife Peggy are preparing to make the epic trek to Kumbh Mela.

The two have been on a lifelong search for meaning.

(chanting) FEILER: Shambhu was born a Hindu in India.

Peggy, a Christian in the United States.

But as an adult, she grew attracted to Indian religion.

For both, the Kumbh Mela is a way to deepen their faith and bring to light the questions they've been asking since they were first married.

PEGGY: I was brought up Catholic.

I knew from early childhood that that wasn't the right religion for me.

I didn't understand it.

There were so many rules.

And I remember hoping that somebody would explain it to me, but they didn't answer the questions.

SHAMBHU: I was raised a Hindu.

For me the dogma part, the ritual part, was not as appealing as the spiritual side of the Hinduism, which really, one should be capturing and trying to practice, you know.

FEILER: They will be joined on their journey by other pilgrims from across the United States.

PEGGY: To do a spiritual journey I think is an amazing opportunity to deepen your spiritual practice.

You know, it's going to be great being in the middle of millions of people all trying to bring in their convictions and their spirituality.

FEILER: In Miami, another group of pilgrims is also preparing to go to the largest gathering on earth.

Karmen Plasencia is a yoga instructor.

The Kumbh Mela festival is where all the saints and the gurus and the holy men, and women, gather.

SADHU: One of the main factors of being at the Kumbh Mela is the bathing days, and we happen to be timing our trip that we're there on one of the main bathing days, which is the new moon.

And that means there's going to be upwards to 14 million people going through that location in one day.

FEILER: Sadhu Singh, also a yoga teacher, has been to the Kumbh Mela before, but for Karmen and the rest of the group, this is their first time.

KARMEN: The experience of being able to take a group to India, most of us our first time, is just a dream.

FEILER: The pilgrims come from all walks of life.

Among them is 23-year-old medical student Jamie Zimmerman.

JAMIE: The idea of being around all of that spiritual energy and doing so with millions of other people is such a powerful sacred journey and I can't imagine anything more magical than that.

It's very exciting.

FEILER: The Kumbh Mela festival takes place every 12 years in the city of Allahabad in North India.

The location is the confluence of two sacred rivers, the Yamuna and the Ganges.

I'm meeting Shambhu, Peggy and their group 75 miles downstream at the site of India's holiest city, Varanasi.

Hindus are called to visit Varanasi at least once in their lives to bathe in its sacred waters.

It's also considered the holiest place on earth for Hindu cremation because the body's ashes can be sprinkled into the sacred river.

Like many holy cities, religion is not an afterthought here.

It's front and center, with funeral processions, images of ancient gods and goddesses.

To come here is to consider your place in the world.

To understand the role of religion in modern India, I'm meeting American historian Michael Dodson.

This is where people come at the start of the journey.

This is where people come to start a journey.

FEILER: The first thing he does is take me to one of the city's hundreds of temples, carrying an offering of flowers and fruit.

It's a ritual many travelers perform at the start of a sacred journey, beginning their travels with blessings of safe passage.

DODSON: It's about opening yourself up for what you're about to do and ensuring that you make the right start and to ask permission and to get the blessings of Shiva.

FEILER: Shiva is one of millions of gods in Hinduism, each represented by multiple forms.

But behind these many deities, there is an overarching one God.

Hinduism is a monotheistic religion, by and large.

There is one god, you know.

But the way we approach that one god is multiple.

So God can be as individual as people.

What I find so interesting is, when the British came here, I think they found this a little bit alien.

But if you then cut to today, hundreds of years later, there's something about this system that seems incredibly contemporary, right?

When we live in this age where everybody is, in a sense, making their own way in religion, Hinduism seems the perfect paradigm for that because it invites you to make your own way, find your own representations and make your own individual relationship with the Divine.

It seems incredibly contemporary.

DODSON: I think that's a really good way to think about it.

It's both a community, right?

It's a social system.

But it's also highly individual in some ways.

FEILER: This openness of Hinduism to interpretation is one reason for its appeal... and its mystery.

CHAKRAVARTHI RAM-PRASAD: Hinduism is difficult to define because it does not have a single founder, a different set of texts, or a single set of beliefs.

We can look back and say Hinduism is that dynamic interconnected set of traditions and have loosely overlapping sets of beliefs, practices, texts, cultural values, norms and aesthetic history.

FEILER: A key part of that faith is that life is a cycle of living, dying and reincarnation.

Each rebirth is dependent on how the previous life was lived.

Pilgrimages bring you into contact with that cycle.

And in Varanasi, to their ultimate symbol, human ash.

FEILER: Tell me about these marks.

There's ash, what's that about?

DODSON: The ash is cremation ash.

And the paints...

So this is someone's dead body on my forehead?

Well... it's likely the wood from a cremation.

Partly that's a symbol of the circularity of life.

RAM-PRASAD: Ash has got a very particular significance.

Wearing it and smearing it on yourself means that you've become born again.

FEILER: Because each soul can go on for aeons, the purpose of human life is to get closer to God.

To build up good karma for the soul until it can be released from the cycle of human suffering and death and achieve unity with the divine.

SONDRA HAUSNER: We are here in these bodies this time around.

Our inner essence-- our soul, if you like-- will come back around again and again and again, in another form and another form and another form.

It's a cyclical view of time.

FEILER: For believers, a pilgrimage to the Kumbh Mela is a way to increase your spiritual awareness-- to strengthen your karma and move toward a higher and higher state of being.

Like all sacred journeys, a visit to this holy place is a chance to step out of your everyday and inch yourself closer to the transcendent reunion with God.

FEILER: Shambhu, Peggy and their group arrive in Varanasi and immediately make their way through the chilly dawn air for their first glimpse of India's sacred river.

It's part of their preparation for the journey.

LOCAL GUIDE: Before going for any pilgrimage, we have the cup of tea and then we go.

Take bath in Ganga and come back again.

Again, have a cup of tea.

PEGGY: This is the most holy city on the planet right now.

So this is where all the saints and all the sages come.

You know, so we're honored to be here.

Very honored to be here.

And it's the land of spirituality, so we're all hoping to capture some of that.

FEILER: Sacred clothing is part of many pilgrimages.

Here it's Hindu prayer shawls printed with sacred texts.

LOCAL GUIDE: Taking bath in Ganga is a kind of religious bath.

Once we will go near the river, you will realize how important that bath is to all those people.

Okay.

Okay, please.

FEILER: While taking a ritual bath at the Kumbh Mela is the peak of the pilgrimage, first there is a course of readying yourself for the experience.

We're hoping to deepen our spiritual progress as we are at Kumbh.

I think most of us are doing the same thing here, too, yeah.

FEILER: For Shambhu, a businessman, the process is gradual.

Sue Kenney is an ecologist from Colorado.

SUE: It feels so ancient, you know, and so... there's a lot of deep, deep spirituality here and that's what I'm trying to tune into.

FEILER: For Judy Szamos, a former nurse and health executive from California, the challenge is to prepare for a new stage of life.

JUDY: My soul always seeks to be with other souls that are on the same journey.

My aim, at this stage of my life, is to... more and more understand God.

I like to think of it as a wheel where there's the center which we all look for, and then all these spokes in the different ways we each approach that search.

What I think to take back is a transformed Judy.

FEILER: And so, each of these pilgrims prepares for the journey.

If organized religion often obliges believers to conform and comply, a pilgrimage frees them and invites them to figure it out for themselves.

FEILER: In the West so much of religion has been about go to a building at a time the building chooses and read from a set script.

Whereas on a pilgrimage, all that's stripped away.

You're out on your own.

Even if you're in a group, you're on a personal journey.

And that journey almost compels you to ask: What do I believe?

FEILER: Later that evening we all gather for a huge communal celebration on the famed river steps of Varanasi.

Here, every night, is a colorful ceremony of the lamps, or Aarti, one of Hinduism's most ancient rituals.

At water's edge, pilgrims make offerings to Mother Ganges, which is both a river and a goddess.

(man addressing crowd over loudspeaker) Religion has always been good at spectacle-- the smoke, the light, the color.

Just a little rupture in the day that says, "Stop, come together, and celebrate."

FEILER: I'm struck that the basic language of this event-- fire, water, smoke, song-- could be the same in any sacred ceremony around the world.

The colors and smells may say India, but the flames could be the passing of the Easter Fire in a Greek Orthodox church.

And the blowing of the shell could be the sounding of the ram's horn at the Jewish new year.

(shell sounding) FEILER: The Aarti ceremony is an ancient ritual that here has been modernized and brought to the river's edge to make it a nightly gathering spot for pilgrims.

FEILER: But I think it's great because it shows that religion isn't just static, it can evolve.

Here you take an age-old custom, in this case sending light onto the river, and you update it.

Religion is at its best when it pays homage to the past, but it keeps evolving and it shows that it's still alive.

FEILER: As the ceremony ends, the lamps and flowers slowly make their way downriver.

Tomorrow, the pilgrims head the opposite direction- upriver, toward Allahabad.

FEILER: Dawn.

The pilgrims are packed and ready to set off-- with excitement and nerves.

Are we ready?

We're kind of anxious to get going, you know, and get to the Kumbh.

We just have essentials, you know, like things like a towel... FEILER: And fears about leaving the comforts of home.

And we have a roll of... T.P.

Toilet paper, that's critical.

Did you see they were selling it down by the river?

That's a critical item for us Americans.

FEILER: Like on any pilgrimage, part of the test is what you're prepared to do without.

I thought pilgrimage was about suffering.

Now you're talking about creature comforts?

No, suffering is optional.

FEILER: To get to the festival grounds we have a four-hour drive along India's greatest highway, the Grand Trunk Road.

(laughing) FEILER: For 2,000 years, this thoroughfare has joined India from east to west, 1,600 miles teeming with life.

As we travel, the pilgrims talk more about why they've come.

Don Jenson is from Colorado.

DON: There was a turning point in my life when I had been drinking a lot.

And I needed to make a change in my life.

It got to the place where I was extremely unhappy.

And I was at a place in my life where I did not know what to do.

And it was at that place that I became open-minded.

And for me it started with being open-minded and then it felt like my heart started to open up a little bit to new ideas.

FEILER: How does this journey fit into that journey you just told me about?

DON: It's about opening my heart.

And what I mean by that is, I continue to try and keep my heart open.

It hasn't happened all the times.

There's times when I've gotten stuck.

At this particular point where I feel like I'm at is a place of opening, a place shedding, a place of letting go, a place of transformation.

FEILER: And what better place to do that than a pilgrimage?

To come on a sacred journey is to strip away pretense and expose our raw selves.

It's a process that grows more urgent as the destination nears.

FEILER: Pilgrimages are very layered.

There's the call, the leaving, the separation.

Now they're in this very distinct phase, the anticipation.

They're excited, they're a little apprehensive.

I would say the biggest question everybody has is, "Am I going to get what I came for?"

FEILER: And then at last, our first sight of the Kumbh Mela camp, a pop-up mega city on this legendary holy site.

When the summer monsoon rains die away, the Ganges and Yamuna recede, leaving a wide, sandy plain.

Then, almost overnight, an army of laborers moves in, putting in power lines, street lights and water pipes, creating an instant metropolis stretching over 20 square miles, a city at its peak that will be home to 30 million people and visible from space.

Just a few months ago, all this was under water.

Now it's a vast grid of streets, with police stations, fire departments, restaurants, hospitals.

It's a pilgrimage on a simply epic scale.

But well organized, too, divided into neighborhoods.

Soon, we locate ours.

Each tent has its own address.

SD1, SD2, SD3...

I think you're over here.

FEILER: To be honest, I hadn't quite expected such plushness.

Maybe Peggy was right: suffering is optional.

PEGGY: Very incredible.

SUE: Is this, like, electricity?

Do we have electricity?

Welcome to your chic tent by the Ganga.

Chic tent.

A working toilet and running water.

We're very impressed with our accommodations here.

I don't have any tea to offer you at the moment, but... FEILER: The Kumbh Mela is at heart an Indian festival.

There are some class distinctions in housing, but in the end, the event is for the masses... drawing people from across the country and around the world.

And for those streaming in by bus and train, the sheer grandeur is part of the appeal.

A Hindu tradition, the focal point of the world.

FEILER: The group from Miami-- Karmen, Jamie, Sadhu and others-- arrive as well.

We're all staying in the same compound.

What draws them here?

SADHU: There's some sort of attractor that compels people to get on airplanes and to arrange their lives, to take time out of their lives to come to another land across the ocean, you know?

Pilgrimage is something that calls us deeper in our spirit and it's not really logical.

HAUSNER: Pilgrimage is and has always been a very compelling practice.

The idea of traveling for a religious reason gives people an incentive as far as the potential for transformation in their lives.

And the idea of going to the Kumbh, which is understood as the holiest time and the holiest place, manages to combine all those facets in one.

KARMEN: I've never seen anything like this before.

I am blown away right now, completely blown away.

FEILER: Reza Parsiani is making his first trip.

REZA: To walk in the footsteps of so many hundreds of millions of people that have been here and been doing the same ritual over and over again.

So it's truly amazing.

It's beautiful, it's absolutely beautiful.

Millions of people coming to this river.

It's one of the most sacred spots on earth.

Whether it's inherently sacred before they came and gave it that identity or whether they have now made it sacred because of all the intention here, I'm not sure.

But there's just this beautiful spirit of gathering together for something spiritual.

FEILER: Pilgrimage has always been central to Indian spirituality.

Bathing in rivers, group meditation and yoga are all ways to deepen the act of stepping away from your daily life.

JAMIE: Back in the States, the priorities tend to be focused, you know, on external indicators of success.

So, to see people so focused on an inward journey and a spiritual destination, internal or external, is really something amazing to see.

FEILER: Many pilgrimages take place where rivers meet.

In Sanskrit, a pilgrimage site means "a crossing place."

Here, 18 pontoon bridges link the terrain.

From our camp, the best way to get around is by river taxi.

For Shambhu and Peggy, this trip is an anniversary.

Having met as college students in Wisconsin, they first came here soon after they were married.

SHAMBHU: When we came last time, I think we were here at night and after that we left early, you know, so we didn't stay here that long.

I think this will be really much more memorable, you know.

This is definitely more memorable.

36 years ago, I was a young bride.

All I knew was I loved this good-looking fellow.

I had really no clue where I was.

So this is my opportunity now to come back to a pilgrimage of pilgrimages.

FEILER: Indian religion has always been mobile, but in modern times, gurus have taken its traditions to the world.

In the 1960s, it was the Maharishi with the Beatles.

Before him was Yoga Nanda, whose teachings inspired Shambhu and Peggy.

PEGGY: I'm looking in the Orange County Register, the newspaper, and I see a picture of Parmahansa Yogananda.

And under the caption it says, "Original Christianity, original Hindu teachings."

And I said to him, I said, "Wow!

This is it!"

SHAMBHU: He basically brought lessons of Christianity and great parts of Hinduism into a very simple practice.

Basically, realizing the self and finding God realization through the practice of meditation and yoga.

So it made it very simple.

FEILER: During their stay, pilgrims will practice yoga and meditation and listen to the teaching of gurus, especially Swamiji, a spiritual leader with millions of followers worldwide.

SWAMIJI: The essence is living the truth.

Living the eternal truth.

In all scriptures, all religions they say to love all.

Heal all.

Help all.

RAM-PRASAD: Originally the guru was a highly qualified spiritual teacher and instructor.

They are seen to have attained some kind of insight and society accepts them as being qualified to teach.

I think over a period of time, becoming a guru has become more a question of charisma, of appeal, of being able to speak to people about their concerns.

What is the greatest welfare for life?

It's not the outside world.

Makes you full, makes you happy, makes you complete.

It's self, and that connectivity to the self.

And when this happens, then the true spirituality takes place in our whole life.

Then minute to minute and moment to moment, you'll become full of spirituality, full of awareness.

Full of light, full of love, and full of peace.

FEILER: Not just a celebration, the festival is like a giant spiritual teach-in, with activities from morning till night.

It's the perfect emblem for Indian life, as this quiet internal journey must coexist with a boisterous external one.

One minute you're meditating and stretching.

The next, you're plunging into the crowds.

FEILER: So we just crossed the river and now we're going to go up into the festival area and see what we see.

FEILER: At the heart of this spiritual city are the stars of the show, the nagas, the naked holy men that are the public face of the Kumbh Mela.

The river is behind me.

We've just walked through this giant outdoor market.

And we're going to this huge, massive area where the holy men gather and open their tents for anybody to stop by.

So, we're going to go meet some of them.

Okay, see you on the other side.

FEILER: These holy men, or sadhus, like early Christian hermits or Buddhist monks, reject the material world and practice austerity, some with incredible feats of self-denial.

RAM-PRASAD: Once we start acknowledging that physical discipline is intrinsic to spiritual discipline, what happens if we push the body to its very extremes?

In concentrating on that, maybe our spiritual focus will also increase.

So long-time practitioners, especially amongst these renouncing Sadhus, tend to put more effort into what might seem contortions because by putting more effort in pushing the body to its limits, we push the mind to its limits.

FEILER: Some of these physical extremes are hard to comprehend.

FEILER: So how long has he done that for?

NAGA PRIEST: For last five years.

And before that he has been standing for 12 years.

So after 12 years of standing, then he changed to sit and to elevate his arm?

NAGA PRIEST: Yes.

FEILER: What should I learn?

NAGA PRIEST: When they can do achieve something, why we can't?

So this is a message, do what you are doing 100%.

FEILER: Even though 100% commitment is called for in the pursuit of enlightenment, one striking thing about Hinduism is that you don't need 100% commitment to one spiritual guide.

DODSON: You don't necessarily always need to choose one.

Right?

And so you can go and you can spend some time with one baba.

He'll tell you about his own philosophy of life and then you can go to another and they will talk to you as well.

You know, you don't necessarily have to say, "Okay, this is my baba and I'm going to stick with him."

People are not moving necessarily between traditions here so much as they are perhaps moving between different questions in their lives or different stages of their lives and in which they are looking for certain kinds of answers, a certain kind of guidance at specific times.

FEILER: It's this open marketplace of spirituality that makes the Kumbh Mela feel so contemporary.

In a world where everyone is searching for meaning, this is the ultimate searching ground.

I've been here almost a full day now and it's not exactly what I expected.

First, I would say, it's awesome.

It's awesome like a lion in the jungle is awesome, like the view from a mountain is awesome, like the birth of a baby is awesome.

It just feels like this huge, grand human spectacle.

Second, I would say it's ricocheting.

I don't even think that's a word but that's what it feels like.

It's like you're in a pinball machine or a Japanese pachinko parlor, or bumper cars.

You're just constantly bumping up against things.

And I guess the last thing I would say is, it feels like an end, like a destination.

And as long as you're going to have a pilgrimage, and all these people are going to come here, this feels like you're somewhere.

And it's somewhere really cool.

FEILER: That sense of wonder surrounds you at all hours of the day and night in Kumbh Mela.

An appreciation that in the headlong rush into digital nirvanas that characterizes much of the world today, there are still places, actual stretches of earth, where holy land and sacred water come together.

A world where what we can see and touch and count is overshadowed by what we can't see, can't touch, and, yes, can't even know for sure.

In the end, that's what pilgrimage is about: Daring to ask in our scientific age if what we believe but can't prove still has meaning in our lives.

(thunder) FEILER: That night there was an unexpected torrential rainstorm.

The storm was so jolting in the midst of the pilgrimage that it made the national news.

(newscaster speaking Hindi) FEILER: In the low-lying areas of the camp, roads and tents were washed away.

While those sleeping in the open struggled to rescue their possessions from the mud.

Since our compound is on higher ground, we were waterlogged but mostly unharmed, though at least one tent was knocked down.

JOSEF: I saw this flash and I said, "That's got to be lightning."

And I started counting the seconds.

Kapow, you know?

KARMEN: I've never experienced it before.

This is the first time I've ever experienced a tent in a monsoon in the middle of a festival, so... And most of our group is experiencing this for the first time so... Oh, my goodness.

Yes.

FEILER: Since we were all caked in mud and charged up by the storm, a warm breakfast is welcome.

This morning it's bread, potatoes, lentils and yogurt.

On this pilgrimage, food and drink are plentiful.

And with them comes fellowship.

Pilgrims from around the world are staying in this compound, and swapping stories is part of the fun.

SHAMBHU: I was just talking with a girl from Brazil.

And you can see the... she's so happy.

She's been here for about a month now.

From Brazil, you know.

And she's having great days, you know, she says, "I do this every day, I do that, "I take... "I go do this, I do this meditation, I do that," you know?

So, things are growing in places all over the world right now.

FEILER: Although this is a Hindu holy place, the Kumbh Mela draws believers of all faiths, all of whom share a common interest in pilgrimage.

Shanthum Seth is a renowned Buddhist teacher and writer.

The Buddha advises many of his students to go on pilgrimage.

In fact, he said, go on pilgrimage as a practice.

Pilgrimage for me is the practice of... of the inner journey while taking an outer journey.

And it's essentially that.

And how do you relate the outer to your inner?

FEILER: The story of how this spot, at the confluence of two rivers in Allahabad, became home to a great pilgrimage and a place to bathe in the nectar of immortality goes deep in Hindu mythology.

SADHVI BHAGAWATI SARASWATI: There was an event in the spiritual history in which we had the forces of good and the forces of bad, together, churning the ocean, in a quest for the nectar of immortality.

They had been told there was a pot of this nectar in the ocean.

Jayant, son of Indra, took this pot and, in order to save it for the forces of good, ran off with it.

As he ran, four drops of this nectar fell onto four spots of the earth... Allahabad, Hardiwar, Nasik and Ujjain.

Allahabad is actually the largest.

FEILER: Smaller festivals are held in the other cities on a rotating schedule.

The cycle climaxes every dozen years with a mega-pilgrimage held here.

The Kumbh Mela takes place here once every 12 years, determined astrologically based on the time in which the planets and the stars align with how they did at the time when the drops actually fell.

FEILER: It's those days on the astrological calendar that form the most auspicious time for pilgrims to bathe here.

Tomorrow is one of them.

And there's yet another reason this place is especially holy.

Beyond the Yamuna and the Ganges, a third river, the Saraswati, is said to have converged here.

It's now considered invisible, having vanished long ago.

FEILER: So you're saying that the color of the water, you can actually see where the confluence happened?

SUE: Right.

FEILER: The green is the...

CROWD: Yamuna.

FEILER: And then the brown is the... Ganges.

Is the Ganges.

And what about this third river, where is it?

It's coming up from the bottom.

It's mystical, you know.

But what color is that?

It's probably gold or something.

(laughter) Nice, nice.

FEILER: Pilgrimages convene in these places of transition where people can step outside themselves and reach for higher meaning.

RAM-PRASAD: At the point of the confluence of the rivers, a space opens up between this world and the celestial, this world and the spiritual world.

And that draw, I think, is what is at the heart of the Kumbh Mela.

FEILER: Since tomorrow is a peak day, more and more people are arriving at the festival grounds.

Organizers are forecasting 30 million pilgrims will be here by the morning.

For one day, this will be among the largest cities on earth.

But with the crowds come complications.

Inevitably, many visitors, especially the old and young, become separated from their families.

All day and night, loudspeakers blare with messages about lost people, summoning loved ones to 17 lost-and-found compounds.

FEILER: Around a thousand children get lost here every day.

One or two of them, authorities say, never see their families again.

It's a common theme in Indian films.

Lakshmi is lucky.

After a few anxious hours, her family arrives.

Once the paperwork is complete, Lakshmi can safely rejoin her tearful grandma.

FEILER: It's only hours now until the great bathing day begins.

As the crowds mount, so does the garbage.

Swamiji is making it his mission to ensure that the Ganges is not left defiled by the pilgrims who've come to worship in it.

SWAMIJI: We are living in a new century.

Let this century become a green century.

What we have done, we have given a concept to this Kumbh Mela as a Green Kumbh Mela.

And this planet is not given to you to abuse it.

Just to use it, and reuse it, but not abuse it.

FEILER: It's a small step, but a symbolic one.

Leading a group of American pilgrims, one of India's top spiritual leaders pulls on gloves and wades into the water, picking up trash and burying human excrement.

When we come back we have to clean that area there, you see that?

SWAMIJI: Ganga is holy.

It is given to us and we have to give back to the newcoming generations also and the generations to come.

And we are all one.

We all can work together.

That's why we brought this Ganga Action Parivar.

It means family.

That in the family, especially in India, what happens, that people have a great, amazing spirit.

That once they are together, they can do anything.

Life is giving, giving and giving.

REZA: Nobody is above doing the simplest and the purest thing for the greater good.

Watching Swamiji do this and dig in the sand and dig in the dirt, it just shows you that no matter your status or achievement in life, you're really never above doing good for the greater.

KARMEN: It feels good to be here, to be participating in his mission and with him.

It's a blessing, really.

SADHU: It's stopping the routine to do something that's real and deep and touching.

FEILER: Once more, the pilgrimage becomes a place of teaching, a way to show that no one is too mighty to fish debris from the waters and clear the ground for another.

What is great today might be humble tomorrow.

Ancient myth leads into modern reality.

The wheel turns again.

(drums, clapping and singing) As dusk arrives, Karmen, Jamie and their group celebrate a day when practical action becomes a step toward spiritual enlightenment.

This is why they came.

To experience the journey together.

Since tomorrow is the peak day, tonight is even more frenetic.

The already enormous flow of transportation balloons yet again.

4,500 shuttle buses flood into the city.

750 special trains arrive all through the night.

It seems as if all of India wants to be in this spot.

The joy and wonder are infectious.

FEILER: Many of the pilgrims arriving at this late hour have no tents.

They'll simply go to the camp, settle down on the sand, unfold a blanket, and wait for the stars and planets to align.

Few expect to sleep tonight.

The moment instead calls for reflection, contemplation before the plunge.

It's as if everyone wants to experience a transformation.

FEILER: For Shambhu, Peggy and their group, the final hours are spent at a special fire ceremony that dates back thousands of years.

Built around the idea of purification, this ceremony is designed to cleanse and ready the pilgrims for the bathing to come.

(chanting) BHAGAWATI-JI: The really beautiful thing that I have found about Indian spirituality and the way that it exists in India is you come to a Yajna ceremony, you listen to the chanting of the Vedic mantras.

Regardless of you understanding what they say.

But there's actually a magic in the sound themselves.

FEILER: For the group, the chants express supplication to the gods.

The offerings, their devotion.

But the key outcome of this ceremony is a feeling of unity.

The pilgrims are making this journey together.

Tomorrow they travel together to be cleansed in the river.

(chanting) And there's yet another reason to be expectant this year.

While the Kumbh Mela at Allahabad is always the holiest gathering every dozen years, this year is even more special.

Tomorrow is the holiest day of the astrological calendar in 12 sets of 12 years.

That makes this the most sacred night on earth for Hindus in the last 144 years.

RAM-PRASAD: One of the most important dates for bathing will be the new moon, which this time happened on the 10th of February.

The new moon of course is associated with rebirth, with the coming back of light.

It's that sense of the transformation of the self and therefore is auspicious.

FEILER: The sacred moment arrives.

It's 5:00 a.m. on February 10, when Jupiter completes its 12-year cycle and the planets are in alignment, on the spot where the holy nectar of immortality is said to have spilled, in the confluence of these sacred waters, an opening for humans to touch eternity.

And so it begins.

(cheering) The sadhus, the naked holy men, are given the place of honor.

They parade en masse to immerse in the water.

It's like a scene from the dawn of humanity.

(cheering) And as the sun rises, millions upon millions of other pilgrims prepare to follow the sadhus down to the river.

This simple timeless ritual is what draws them, immersing themselves into the holy waters.

Wave after wave, gurus, families, old, young.

The diversity is extraordinary.

Many pay homage to their ancestors.

For Shambhu and his sister, this journey is even more special.

Earlier, in a private moment, they scattered the ashes of their father, who recently died, on the holiest of resting spots, the river.

I'm bringing my family's souls also with me.

My dead father's here, he's buried here somewhere, no?

In fact, one of the reasons I'm taking this trip today is because of him.

FEILER: Shambhu hopes his bathing can help their father's soul attain what Hindus call Moksha-- liberation from the cycle of death and rebirth, an eternal union with God.

I was talking to my sister Sandhya and she said, "Hey, let's do it for our dad.

He's not here and we've got to do this for our dad."

So, I said, "Okay, no problem."

We're hoping that his soul gets liberated and he moves on to the ultimate union with God, you know.

That's what our hope is.

FEILER: That's so beautiful.

FEILER: At a pier in the heart of the confluence, the boat docks, the bathers disembark and enter the shallow water.

Even surrounded by so many, each pilgrim finds a spot to be alone.

It's the perfect emblem of Kumbh Mela.

Amidst the many, I pray alone.

Even though there's millions of people around here, I feel at one with myself.

FEILER: Shambhu seems drawn back to his childhood.

SHAMBHU: You realize how simple people live and still see the brightness in their eyes and the peace in their face.

FEILER: And maybe that's the point of pilgrimage.

We think we're going to a specific place at a specific time.

We think we know the destination.

But once we set out, we spin the wheel of chance and have no idea where we'll land.

It's cold.

FEILER: Maybe the pilgrimage takes us to a reflective place, Maybe to a place of reverence and release.

I think it's beautiful, it really is, you know?

It makes it all worth it, you know?

FEILER: Or maybe it takes us back to a time when we walked with our father down to the river, sat in the water, and played.

FEILER: The pilgrims from Miami-- Karmen, Sadhu, Jamie and the others-- also bathe.

They start on the bank and plunge into the Mother Ganges.

And for the Ganga!

KARMEN: My spiritual journey began in the States.

I've been working up towards this for ten years.

And now I'm here surrounded and immersed.

It's a miracle, it truly is a miracle.

(squealing joyfully) FEILER: This whole scene out here is a lot more playful and maybe less solemn than I expected.

To me it's a reminder that religion doesn't always have to be so holy and so sacred.

It can be everyday, and that is particularly true in this country.

(cheering) SADHU: It's beautiful.

It's a very special opportunity to come and connect in an atmosphere that's so saturated with reverence and gratitude.

SUE: It doesn't matter that the crowd is one million or 50 million.

It's the undercurrent of devotion, is what's there.

REZA: The start of a beautiful new chapter in my life.

I feel like I let go of the parts that didn't serve me and I'm welcoming the parts that will moving forward.

FEILER: Religion in many ways is the interplay between past and present.

There are old texts and storied passageways, but also contemporary questions and reinventions.

FEILER: At the end of my journey, what strikes me most is the ability of this massive pilgrimage to be personal for each pilgrim.

One reason sacred journeys are so popular today is that they're not overly bound by tradition and rules.

Pilgrims pay respect to the old ways, yet choose their own path, their own leaders, even their own rituals to perform.

It's that very openness that ensures the tradition will not just endure but thrive.

FEILER: To me the lesson of Kumbh Mela is that journeys like this still matter to people.

But to survive, they need to continually update themselves.

And the people going on these journeys need to find in them answers to the questions they have.

A pilgrimage in the end is a blank slate.

The story only gets written if you go.

I'm in western Nigeria, the heart of the Yoruban people, where every summer, thousands of people gather in this sacred grove in the town of Osogbo.

With 100 million worshippers, this is one of the world's ten largest religions.

Carried to the New World by slaves, the faith is experiencing a renaissance among their descendants.

MAN: Although we left Africa, Africa never left us.

FEILER: Osun Osogbo, next time on Sacred Journeys with Bruce Feiler.

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