I was transfixed and could not stop looking, no, staring, at the sannyasi, who, with his eyes closed and head tilted back, appeared completely lost in his act of worship, until another, elderly monk sat down in front of me and blocked my view. I looked across the sea of faces towards my friend MJ, who sat kneeling near the rear of the room, and noticed tears running down her face from beneath closed eyes. I turned back towards the altar. My heart filled with the sweetest ache. I had never heard anything so beautiful in my entire life.
In the weeks and months that followed, I would often think back to this moment. I would remember the clear, melodious voice of the sannyasi, the cold stone wall against my back, the dense smoke of incense in my nostrils, and wonder how different my life would have turned out if I had left the temple that day and never returned; if I had made the choice to go and therefore escaped what was to become an encounter that would turn my world upside down and shatter everything I knew about love.
Tiziana Stupia is a writer, yoga teacher, ayurvedic consultant, vedic fire ceremonies practitioner, and traveller. She publishes widely on the topics of spirituality, travel, health and personal growth. She lives in Leamington Spa, UK.
Meeting Shiva is a spiritual memoir. Tiziana, a single woman in her mid-thirties, is at the end of an adventurous overland trip through the Himalayas, which she embarked on to search for her tantric soul mate. When the soul mate hasn’t materialized after eight months of wandering through Tibet, Nepal, Pakistan and India, she decides to go home. Before her departure, she sets out on a final mountain trip. It is here that she meets Rudra, the man she has been waiting for all her life. But there is a catch: Rudra is a sannyasi, a celibate Hindu monk who lives in an austere ashram in the remote Himalayas. The two get drawn into an intense, romantic relationship that soon spirals out of control as Tiziana is drawn into a past long forgotten that ultimately leads her through pain and misery to healing and transformation.
Meeting Shiva - Falling and Rising in Love in the Indian Himalayas by Tiziana Stupia, published by Changemakers Books August 2013. Paperback: 978-1-78099-916-6 | $20.95 | £11.99
eBook: 978-1-78099-915-9 | $9.99 | £6.99