Twenty years ago I moved into Parmarth Niketan ashram for one week. It was the second week of my backpacking trip to India in September, 1996. I was 25 years old, and I had taken a semester off from my PhD program in California to travel abroad. The unanticipated, indescribable experience of spiritual awakening I had on the banks of the Ganga River was richer, deeper and more meaningful than anything I had ever known. I stayed back in Rishikesh to keep drinking the Ganga’s nectar—literal and metaphoric. After She captured my soul and pulled the drop of water I had called my identity back into Her infinite stream, re-merging me into Myself, I was carried to the feet of one of India’s most revered spiritual masters, H.H. Pujya Swami Chidanand Saraswatiji, the president of Parmarth Niketan. The details, the story, the plot of that journey make up a book that is underway. Here I want to share only the most fundamental life lessons that two decades of living in India has taught me:
1. Knowledge and wisdom are critically different
I was a top student and a graduate of Stanford University. My test scores—standardized entrance exams as well as IQ tests—were always in the highest range. I was, I believed, smart. I even believed I was intelligent and wise.
