How easy it feels to be superfluous in such surroundings as this farm and the region I have passed through the past 10 days, in no haste and not in want of any gainful destination. This is the land where it is said the Hindu god Krishna played and teased his love-struck human friends over 5,000 years ago. Where, as a boy of indescribable charm and disconcerting smiles, he played his flute and danced with the cow herder girls, the Gopis, his almond eyes agleam with the sparkle of heaven and flowers.

In many of the meticulously-cared-for farm fields, the time-darkened ruins of formerly graceful temples have stood as numerous as the stumps of an old and great spiritual forest. Many of the keepers of those temples, still topped with prayer flags, have somehow sensed my passing and had me go behind their walls to be fed and sheltered from the foggy nights. Never have I found heaven and its God to be of so many forms, nor so many confidently hopeful, happy, obedient devotees.

The members of the various religions have been as different and colorful as the innumerable tropical birds swarming through the forests like winged kaleidoscopes. They have ranged from one group that dresses entirely in burlap sacks, to one that is heavily financed by American pocket change and whose well-mannered, cologned disciples live in spacious, sterile apartments and dance wildly to sequin-covered deities housed in an enormous palace built of the finest marble and crystal chandeliers dollars can purchase.

I even had an audience with my first "saint," although I must confess that, after humbly raising my eyes from my bare feet to his gleaming white beard and gown, I could not bear to gaze upon him for very long. His nervous eyes revealed, all too painfully, the real reasons for his six automobiles and all the immense property he had lately felt in need of acquiring.

India, it is said, is a religious experience. I can vouch for that. Self-serving saints and monied statue worshippers aside, there is unquestionably something here that plays with attentive minds and souls. This has been particularly true in the countryside, where the hard glare of technology is practically nil. There, mixed with the pastel shades of yellow mustard flowers and wispy, green eucalyptus leaves, a clear and subtle illumination of the oneness of existence does reach the spirit. As simple and uneducated as most are, the farmers and their families bear the calm of contented monks. They are happy, and Nature reflects that joy. The people laugh so naturally, so effortlessly, as do I when watching with delight the many wild monkeys and peacocks each day.

What a pleasure to again see man and woman as equals, to not see the women cowering and hidden away like inhuman objects, as they are in the staunchly male-controlled Muslim societies. In this serene and indiscriminate domesticity, there murmurs a common pulse of being: there is no hesitation to tie up a loose blouse, or roll up a sleeve, and help another with his or her labor, or for the animals and their keepers to work together.

My eyelids closed, heavily, slowly. Sounds of a world not quite asleep trailed across my fading thoughts . . . the soft rhythm of a baby swaying in a wicker basket; a dog's paws scampering to--or maybe from--a suspicious moon shadow; a field mouse scratching curiously inside my backpack; a housewife in the heart of one of the mud huts, clustered in the farm's center, chanting prayers before a simple altar, her prayer beads rustling nervously every so often. The sounds, as much as all the glories and love I've experienced in the past 8,300 miles of walking, assure me there is much more to life than the obvious.

And yet the tears fall...again. My spirit is still so numb from the news I received on Christmas night that Dad had died, that he no longer will be anxiously awaiting my figure to come back up our long driveway. I cry because I loved him, still love him. Because in spite of all the miles between me and home, I can feel too strongly the void his sudden absence has brought to my life.

As I suspect too many other children do with their fathers, I took him so much for granted. He broke down and cried when I left, so afraid he'd never see me again. His intuition proved correct. Now it is my turn to weep.

I have plodded along in a state of amazement, sometimes smiling, sometimes weeping. One must have a stout heart to follow the unusual road I have taken, for it is long and full of sacrifice and decisions to be made. But something tells me the road I follow is no more "heroic" or difficult than that road the parents of a large family must take to see their children become responsible adults.

Perhaps, like me, Dad also sensed there is a source for the deep restlessness that stirs the human soul, and that the path leading there is not a path to a strange place, but the way to our real home. Now perhaps he is walking the path home himself. Maybe he's already there. I hope so. For, God willing, we may yet embrace each other one more time.

Steven