Hinduism extreme Pilgrimage

Pete Owen-Jones, a vicar in a Sussex parish, is dissatisfied with some aspects of his faith and sets off on three extreme pilgrimages to China, India and Egypt to explore Zen Buddhism, Hinduism and ascetic Christianity.

Pete feels that the Church of England is too much a faith of the head, and not enough a faith of the soul, the heart or even the body. He now sets off on a quest in search of a more physical and mystical path to enlightment.

Pete says: "What I'm looking for is a spirituality that is absent from western Christianity. A spirituality I know exists in the extremes of world religions.

"I hope to enter worlds where rule book and doctrine are replaced by an individual relationship with God and where the attainment of enlightenment is won by hardship, privation and pain. I have to become an extreme pilgrim."

Pete travels to India and joins the Mela, the huge Hindu pilgrimage that draws to the Ganges.Pete meets a Guru who agrees to take him under his wing and teach him how to become a Sadhu – an Indian holy man. He then sets off on a journey across northern India to the mountains in search of the Hindu road to spiritual bliss.