I just returned to the United States after leading 40 "pilgrims" on a sacred journey with my husband Bob to southern India. I’ve led sacred journeys annually for many years now, and these trips are more than a vacation; they are life-changing experiences. We take ourselves away from our normal everyday routines to experience another culture and to learn spiritual lessons. But even more importantly, we get the beautiful opportunity to practice embracing the sacred in every moment so that we can learn to live our lives—each and every day—as a sacred journey.

On this trip, we certainly had the opportunity to experience a culture different from home. At every turn, we were mesmerized by the kaleidoscope that is India: in the cities, crowds of colorfully dressed people and traffic jams of epic proportions—with the occasional cow, as well; in the countryside and smaller towns, rows of bright green rice paddies and fields dotted with herds of goats, dusty palms, and tiny, brightly painted temples. But it didn’t stop there. We were blessed to be immersed in rich spiritual and emotional explorations.

We spent an exciting and uplifting ten days traveling together, visiting revered spiritual leaders, inspiring spiritual communities, Hindu temples and shrines, sacred sites, and ashrams. Everywhere, we learned about the many religions and philosophies that call India home: Hinduism, mystical Shaivism, Jainism, Advaita Vedanta, and many, many more. Our days were spent experiencing spiritual services such as darshan at Sathya Sai Baba’s ashram in Puttaparthi and visiting with many revered spiritual leaders such as Sri Jayendra Puri Swami at his ashram in Bangalore. We practiced and experimented with the spiritual discipline of meditation—meditating at the sacred ashram of Ramana Maharshi, discovering new methods of meditation like dancing and movement at the Osho meditation resort, and chanting at Sathya Sai Baba’s ashram. We even meditated on our own traveling ashram—the bus!

We met with thought leaders like Peter Pruzan, a visionary and author studying and writing about spirituality and ethics in business. We visited Auroville, a conscious community that is a living experiment in human unity and that inspired us in our own community’s development. We took part in ancient ceremonies at holy sites such as the Dancing Shiva temple (Chidambaram Natarajar Temple) in Chidambaram. On New Year’s Eve, we each had our turn with Nadi Leaf fortune-telling readings and experienced this ancient art of India. Every day was filled with our own mini-miracles, including the opportunity of having a private audience with spiritual leader and humanitarian Sri Sri Ravi Shankar who at first promised he could only stay with us for five minutes and instead stayed and shared with us for close to an hour. Each experience was unlike the other, and on top of these deep spiritual experiences, we were all having our own inward experiences with each other, traveling together and exploring our spirituality, not to mention evenings topped off with incredible performances of traditional Hindu dancers and sitar and tabla players.

And now, home for a few weeks, I feel like I not only left a part of myself in India, I’ve also brought a piece of India back in my spirit and my psyche. Sometimes I feel like I’m still bridging two worlds. And that’s the beautiful “work” ahead of me and all the pilgrims on our trip—to integrate the lessons and insights into each and every day.

May you live each day of your life as a sacred journey,

Judith