Barefoot In Banares : A Spiritual Pilgrimage

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"You either hate India, or you love her," I was told before going there. I found out that you both hate India and love her. That, at any rate, was my experience.

I was awarded with the Fulbright-Nehru Fellowship for the academic year 2012-13, which enabled me to teach and do research in India. I opted to stay for four months, because that was the longest leave my wife could get from her work. She ended up staying for two months, I for five. I wanted to go to India to learn more about the origin and history of nonviolence - the subject, besides philosophy, that I regularly teach. It is a subject that has interested me since the breakaway of my native country, Yugoslavia, an event that led me to realize that the world desperately needs a healthy alternative to the epidemics of violence. India provided many insights about nonviolence. But, I learnedfar more about violence, as well as about the gray area in between.

I decided to go to Banares - now officially called Varanasi - not only because it is probably the city with the longest continuous existence in the world, but also because it is considered the holiest of the holy cities of Hinduism. In the process of living there and discovering what is so holy about it, I came to understand much about myself and about the world I come from. Most of all, I learned about India, the land of extremes, the culture you come to hate and to love.

**Contents and Sample Pages**