The intrepid Mahavishnu Swami and his Bhagavad-gita display hat

At other times, the devotees were sobered at the sight of many dead bodies floating down the river—some deposited there after death, some drowned.

“The last night we stayed, there was a skeleton on the ground only about twenty meters from our tent,” Parasurama says. “And there were three dogs eating a dead man.”

These horrors brought the devotees deep realizations about the mortality of the material body. However, magical Krishna conscious experiences where also common.

On one occasion, the Ganga river explorers were caught in a heavy rainstorm. Darkness was falling, and they had been warned about crocodiles in the area. They had to find shelter somewhere, and quickly.

Then they spotted a light in the distance. Paddling over to it, they began to hear singing. To their surprise, it was the Hare Krishna mantra. Docking and climbing onto the bank, they discovered a 138-year-old sadhu with long, matted hair and beard, dressed only in a loincloth.

“He looked like Srila Vyasadeva,” Parasurama says. “It turned out that he was a follower of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, and was holding a 24-hour kirtan. He welcomed us, and we stayed there for two nights, taking shelter from the rain.”

Another time, the adventurers found themselves in an even worse thunderstorm, lightning flashing all around them. Wind and rain slammed into the little boat, propelling it down the river. As night fell, they wanted to stop, but couldn’t, as the driving rain was causing the 14-foot-high sandbanks to collapse and tumble into the river.

Finally, at midnight, the wind slowed just enough for them to pull over. And right there, where they docked, was a small temple. In the temple was a sadhu (renunciant) in the line of Shankaracharya (an impersonalist philosopher).

“He knew we were coming, from the newspapers,” Parasurama says. “He took us in and cooked for us. And the funny thing about it was, he wasn’t really an impersonalist. He told us, ‘I’m initiating in the Shankaracharya line, but to be honest, I’m actually a devotee of Krishna!’”

For Parasurama, the peaceful, simple, rural life that still exists on the Ganga is a glimpse of the ‘real India.’ And traveling in a natural, technology-free way, while associating with devotees, distributing prasad and Srila Prabhupada’s books, and living off the Ganga rejuvenates his taste for spiritual life.

“Now, not a single day goes by that I don’t remember the Ganga,” he says. “It’s just ingrained in my mind. That’s a great benediction.”

Parasurama plans to keep doing his river adventure every year, learning to live simply and spreading Krishna consciousness in the process.

“Since most of the rivers in India are holy, we might start going down different rivers, too!” he says.