Kalachakra Festival – Tour Itinerary (5 Nights / 6 Days)

Kalachakra, which means ‘time-wheel’ or ‘time-cycles’, is a Sanskrit term used in Tantric Buddhism. An important and complex practice in Tibetan Buddhism, This festival in Ladakh has now especially come to be associated with His Holiness the Dalai Lama, who initiates thousands of people from India and abroad, into the practice every year during the Kalachakra festival. The ritual is based on understanding ‘time’ as a system for liberation and enlightenment.

In Buddhism, time is referred to more as a measurement of change than hours and minutes. The ‘internal’ aspect of such a definition of time is measured by repeated occurrences such as a woman’s menstrual cycles. The ‘external’ aspects are measured through astronomical, astrological, cosmic and historical changes in the universe. The Kalachakra theory believes that the human body undergoes many physiological changes in its lifetimes. These changes have myriad effects on the mental and emotional cycles. Similarly, as the universe continually undergoes cohesion and destruction, so also, the human body goes through conception, growth and death. A human-being’s actions and thoughts amidst these changes, leads to the formation of karmic undercurrents. These make their presence felt at appropriate astrological, historical and life-changing moments. The ‘winds’ that give force to these karmic undercurrents are energy-impulses. The impulses cause the currents to flow in a particular direction. The Kalachakra theory equips the practitioner to understand these effects of time on the human mind and body. That helps them to deal with their karmas and put oneself on the path to salvation.