Divine Human Mystery School, Part 5: Ranikhet

Psyche & Co. presents · Divine Human Mystery School · Part 5 of 7

Among pine and deodar, facing the snows, learning again how to listen.

The fifth gathering of the Divine Human Mystery School climbs into the Kumaon hills of Uttarakhand, to Ranikhet, a quiet hill town ringed by forest and within sight of the great Himalayan peaks. After the teaching-rich week in Kashmir, this is a week given largely to silence, to walking, and to nature as teacher, with Andrew Harvey offering teachings that grow out of the mountains themselves.

Many of us live and work in rooms, among screens and other people's words. Here the invitation is to let a landscape do some of the work: to feel how vastness quiets the mind, and how attention to a single tree or a line of snow can become prayer.

The place

Ranikhet, whose name means "Queen's Meadow" in Kumaoni, sits at about 1,869 metres in the Almora district, surrounded by forests of pine, oak, rhododendron and deodar. It became a British cantonment in 1869 and remains home to the Kumaon Regiment. Near the town, the Jhula Devi temple to the goddess Durga is known for the bells pilgrims hang as offerings.

In Indian tradition the Himalaya is sacred ground, the home of Shiva, and Parvati is the daughter of Himavat, the mountain king. From Ranikhet the view stretches to Trishul, named for the trident of Shiva, and on clear days to Nanda Devi, at 7,817 metres the highest mountain wholly within India, whose name means "Bliss-Giving Goddess" and who is honoured as the patron goddess of the Garhwal and Kumaon Himalaya.

The teachings

• The mountain as abode of the gods: how Hindu tradition reads the Himalaya as the home of Shiva and the Goddess, and what that means for a modern seeker.
• Nature as teacher: practices of attention that let forest, light and weather shape the inner life.
• Silence as medicine: why sustained quiet heals what talking cannot, and how to bring a measure of it home.
• The Divine Feminine in the land: Nanda Devi and Parvati as images of the Mother present in the earth itself.
• Smallness and grandeur: how standing before the snows restores proportion to our worries without diminishing them.

A sketch of the days

1. ArrivalArrival in Ranikhet and a gentle opening evening, with an introduction to the week's rhythm of teaching and silence.
2. Days 2–3Dawn contemplation facing the peaks, short morning teachings, and unhurried forest walks.
3. Days 4–5A period of extended silence, held together, with optional walks to nearby viewpoints and the Jhula Devi temple.
4. Day 6Breaking the silence: sharing what the mountains taught, and how to carry it back into daily work.
5. DepartureA closing circle at first light before leaving the hills, with a look ahead to Part 6 in Kerala. A sketch of the days; the final programme will be confirmed.

This is an outline to give you a feel for the days. The final programme, teachers and timings will be confirmed with the dates.

What you'll take home

• A felt experience of sustained, supported silence.
• Simple practices of attention to nature that work as well in a city park as in the Himalaya.
• A deeper sense of the sacred in landscape, drawn from Indian tradition.
• Rest for an overextended nervous system, and a clearer sense of what matters.
• Continued companionship within the Mystery School circle.

Who it's for

This gathering suits therapists, psychologists and carers who are tired of words and want to be restored, as well as laypeople who love mountains and sense that nature has something to teach. You need only be comfortable walking on hill paths at moderate altitude. It can be joined on its own or as part of the seven-part Divine Human Mystery School.

Photographs via Wikimedia Commons: Harshit SR (CC BY-SA 4.0); Karan Dhawan India (CC BY-SA 4.0); Dr. Satyabrata Ghosh (CC BY-SA 4.0).

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