He dropped it all when he realized how pointless it was. In early November, as the official investigation waned, Skeels drove the motorcycle, with Lee and McElroy following in a support vehicle, along the cliff-cut roads heading out of the Parvati Valley towards the 17,582-foot Tanglang La, the pass into Ladakh, to continue their friend’s journey. “I think he came to a point where he realized that just being able to survive in tough conditions is not enough to really be free,” Gapon says. But Alexander was also adept in the more contemplative forms of awareness, including Brown’s practice of returning to a single square foot in the wild, a “sit spot,” to listen and notice slight changes in the environment. The sadhu gave a different version of what happened at Mantalai Lake than what he had told Lee in Khir Ganga. One foreign traveler Mittal treated had been found wandering near the Taj Majal, disoriented and confused. Outside Online aims to deliver readers the world, dispatching our writers and photographers to the ends of the earth to report the one-of-a-kind stories that have inspired and informed generations of readers. Mind me, I never met Justin. Andrey Gapon, a 47-year-old Russian man, had spent three months on a self-made spiritual retreat in the Parvati Valley, deep in the Indian Himalayas. Searching for the ever-elusive Truth about life. Superintendent of Police (Kullu) Padam Chand confirmed the death of Sant Narayan, a self-styled sadhu, who was sent to police remand till October 24, and was lodged at Manikaran police post. The Parvati runs fast near its source, especially here, where the valley forces it together into a narrow pinch, and especially in summer. He’s a world traveller and does lots of adventures. He’s a world traveller and does lots of adventures. He was last seen 2 hours south of Mantalai Lake on his way back to his guest house. It brings forth the buried, from the deep layers of our psyche.”. When a quest has been chosen, a teacher leads the hero-to-be through a series of tests to a stage of metamorphosis, and then to the apotheosis of the journey: a great realization. ... Russia, Netherlands, Switzerland, and Australia. He had ended his search. Did Alexander slip and tumble into the river? In 2008, Arizona woman Jodi Arias drove to her former boyfriend’s home and murdered him in cold blood, leaving behind overwhelming pieces of evidence. They are holy men but wild, and are even above the law in India. He appears calm and stoic. As if there was a part of me that understood (and related to) his endless search, his yearning for solitude and soul communion. In the wake of another mysterious death at Koh Tao, Thailand’s “Death Island“, I was reminded of Justin’s story and started thinking about some hidden dangers in the travelers’ path. It was August 22, 2016. “I was fighting for them to consider that he was really missing.”. A bamboo flute-staff was stuck upright in the ground just up from the milky waters. Before leaving for Mantalai Lake with Rawat, he joked to Gapon, “If I die, write something nice about me on Facebook.” Alexander mentioned that one day it would be nice if there was a website where peoples' digital trails could serve as a eulogy to their lives. A coroner … “On the path of a spiritual quest, a person questions all of their ingrained values,” Mittal says. When you buy something using the retail links in our stories, we may earn a small commission. Walking alongside was an American man, 35-year-old Justin Alexander, a seasoned traveler and experienced outdoorsman who’d impressed Gapon with his wilderness survival skills, having just spent weeks living in a mountain cave. The long list of those adventurous travelers who go missing while exploring off the beaten track places. Or maybe at the end of the trail, he found nothing; that the harder he tried, the more it felt like he was grasping at mist—chasing tendrils higher and higher into the mountains. And here are my assumptions (as fallible as they are): Justin was searching for something. Reeb struggled to keep her composure. He looked at the Baba with admiration. “This can lead to a state of emptiness, loss of direction, or a sudden feeling of exaltation—and then not knowing how to handle it.” One of the more severe cases he has seen involved a young American woman who had been in India for four months and was found living in an ashram dancing half-naked each night for the attendees. The pair leapfrogged along the left riverbank, scanning the boulder-strewn turns and grassy slopes for anything out of the ordinary. Tracy Frey, who ran the children’s camp where Alexander taught and who remained friends with him afterward, saw many teenagers arrive with not only a desire to learn survival skills but also a yearning to tap into a deeper spirituality in nature. And read his last post. These false holy men look and dress the part but wander the country searching not for spiritual enrichment but for cash, drawn from those who are curious enough to pay to be in their presence. “It’s like a bomb,” Mittal says. Awhile ago, HE published several articles by my friend Justin Alexander. Staring down at some of Alexander’s unmistakable belongings—just 11 miles from where hundreds of backpackers gathered and reveled in tents at Khir Ganga—was a crushing moment. He was looking for liberation. Missing trekkers have cast a shadow on Himachal Pradesh's booming tourism business A spate of missing trekkers (the latest being American national Justin Alexander Shetler) in the upper reaches of Himachal Pradesh has become a matter of acute … A part of me that I’ve kept hidden (even from myself) all my life. In his endless search, this presented a unique opportunity for learning. What's become of Justin Alexander Shetler? “Eventually he pushed the limits a little too far.”. Nearly a year has gone by, since the American trekker Justin Alexander Shetler went missing in the Himachal Pradesh, North India. Remembering Justin Alexander Shetler is not just a way of honouring who he was and his restless search. i knew him from christopher ryan’s podcast, and followed his instagram for a while before this incident. This longing for the Truth seemed to be what motivated Justin Alexander Shetler. Alexander’s iPhone, which he used to post on Instagram and Facebook, has never been recovered. It is a phenomenon known as India syndrome, not a clinical diagnosis but a spectrum of behavioral changes that range from the benign (disorientation and anxiety) to the extreme (a total detachment from reality). "They are holy men but wild, and are even above the law in India. About the Self. If I get into trouble or begin to starve, I can hike down to a village and get help or eat. Life Missing trekkers have cast a shadow on Himachal Pradesh's booming tourism business. But according to one person close to the search, the district police were “unequipped and unmotivated” to fully investigate and only made an effort to appease the family and the U.S. embassy. Here was a man who wasn’t just surviving in a cave but seemingly thriving. They can bless or curse. Alexander instantly impressed McElroy with his deep knowledge and dedication, and the pair would head out on expeditions tracking wolf packs on foot. Maybe a more primeval way of living, one that upheld higher social and spiritual values and devalued material ones. Although I never met him, I felt deeply touched by his story and travel / life experience. Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. The lure of high mountains and high meaning is too strong. That was when Justin’s story started to haunt me. When confronted by Mittal’s team, she was adamant that she was an apsara, a female mythological spirit who tempts yogis and priests to test their resolve. Justin Alexander went searching for higher meaning. And this became my idea of Justin. No other details were released. Skeels and Kunwar scrambled down the scree and slippery rock to the riverbank. In her FIR, Reeb has said she suspects that the baba and his men may have kidnapped Justin. After a frantic two weeks of searching, few leads remained. It just means one has to be extra carefull. The police effectively closed the case of Justin Alexander—just one more disappearance in the Parvati Valley. All the gruesome details of the affair pointed to foul play. He kept looking for the next experience, the next trip, the one that would allow him to learn, to grow, to understand, and, ultimately, to be Who he was, to feel free, not just physically, but spiritually. After three weeks around Khir Ganga, Alexander emerged from his cave and descended along the forest trail to Kalga, the Parvati River swollen with summer rain below him, determined to take a greater step: higher, in both elevation and hopeful revelation. seemed restless. his mom & i begun the search. The story contradicted both of Rawat’s accounts. He was walking alone. The one where he describes the man who enticed him to tag along. While reading his posts I couldn’t help being overcome by a strange feeling of belonging. He was simply too fascinated, mesmerized by this strange, unfathomable man, he wanted to KNOW. When Young brought Alexander, a promising survivalist, to the New Jersey school, the teenager arrived with starry-eyed idealism and befriended 22-year-old instructor Tom McElroy. Justin Alexander followed the spiritual crowds to the Parvati Valley, but he never walked the typical path. Still waiting for someone to find him. On a marriage certificate obtained by FOX 10's Justin Lum, it was stated that Cox changed his name from "Alexander Lamar Cox" to "Alexander Lamar Pastenes" following the marriage. And self-appointed holly men crowd the country, waiting for their foreign new followers. The baba is/was suspected to have knowledge on the fate of Justin. (Photo: @adventuresofjustin/Instagram), Still, the American man visited Rawat’s hut often. It had been a month since he was supposed to have returned. http://drivenbythemonsoon.com/en_US/hidden-danger-remembering-justin-shetler/#ZW5fVVMucG5n, http://drivenbythemonsoon.com/en_US/hidden-danger-remembering-justin-shetler/#cHRfUFQucG5n, http://drivenbythemonsoon.com/en_US/hidden-danger-remembering-justin-shetler/#MTUwMDY5MTNfMTQ, Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window), Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window), Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window), Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window), A day in Cobh and my new Asian-Irish haircut, Cobh: Titanic, Lusitania and other sad stories of this picturesque town in the south of Ireland, Lisbon Restaurants – Part 1: Ethnic Restaurants. At around 13,500 feet, the icy moraine produces no trees for either shelter or firewood. Then he got immensely rich and had a taste of luxury. When he heard from someone at the Tracker School how to fall safely from a tree, he climbed 50 feet up and let go. After a search team combed the trail, forensics’ conclusions pointed to a fall. He carried the clothes on his back, a sleeping bag, a machete, and a few other essentials, but no tent or stove. During the frantic October search, Alexander’s other belongings were found scattered around the Parvati Valley. 11.1k Followers, 553 Following, 439 Posts - See Instagram photos and videos from Justin Alexander (@adventuresofjustin) Meanwhile, Lee and a group of Indian trekking guides familiar with the area searched around Khir Ganga on foot. Reeb stops short of revealing some of the things “that were on his mind and heart” but says her son was searching for a deeper meaning behind all his years on the road, and what lay ahead. Or had he simply discarded his flute and butane lighter near the churning waters? Most likely a predator. After receiving a message from a concerned mutual friend, Gapon, who had returned to Russia earlier in the month, messaged Lee, who was still in Kalga. Making a financial contribution to Outside is not tax-deductible, but it will help pay for the writers, editors, fact-checkers, designers, and photographers that stories like these demand—and will ensure we can keep publishing them for years to come. All I’ve assumed about him was based on his writings and on other travelers’ opinions and interviews. According to the official report, when the officer returned, he found that the sadhu had hanged himself with his dhoti. “I’ve heard stories about the magical powers of these Babas,” he wrote on Instagram on August 15. Not to renounce the world or become enlightened but to wander alone in these majestic Himalaya,” he wrote. But he was a false prophet. Justin Alexander Shetler is missing. Unfortunately the Parvati Valley is also known for hashish consumption, mostly among the hippie foreigners who go there in search of new-age-drug-induced enlightenment, and dance to the sound of trance music till they drop. After two hours, the police flew back to Kullu, leaving Skeels to continue on foot downstream to Khir Ganga. Through their investigation, the police who oversee the Parvati Valley favored explanations that didn’t point to another murder of a foreigner in their district. In the September 3 photograph taken by the hikers, Alexander is wrapped in his gray shawl. And compassion. There, Alexander met a dreadlocked foreigner who played a bamboo flute and said, in a thick German accent, that he had been living in India for the past 20 years—“a simple life, with few possessions,” Alexander wrote online in admiration. It was hard. The valley, where gods are said to have meditated for 3,000 years, is particularly alluring to the spiritually curious. And he ignored what his instinct was telling him: that all this smelled of danger, that things were not as they seemed. His smartphone didn’t disgust him; it enabled him to tell his story. Some higher purpose. His mother, on the other side of the world in Portland, Oregon, started to become concerned. There is only one road in and out of the Parvati Valley. India: Update on Justin Alexander, missing in Parvati Valley since 04 September 2016. The Russian was instantly drawn to the tall, broad-shouldered American man with an eagle tattoo across his chest who said he was living in the mountains. His large green backpack, containing most of his belongings, was collected at Om Shanti Guest House in Kalga, where he’d stored it before his trip with the sadhu. The last case of missing foreign trekkers was registered on August 21, 2016, when Justin Alexander Shetler, a native of United States went missing in Manikaran valley. He arrived in the city of Varanasi, one of the country’s strongest spiritual magnets, where Hindu pilgrims bathe in the holy Ganges River to have their sins washed away. Now he’s gone missing and his friends and family have enlisted a … He dropped out of school. It’s possible Alexander found what he was looking for: a dreamlike revelation while sitting near the source of a holy river, listening to the minute motions of nature, that showed him the way forward. On Monday morning, deputies said Justin Alexander Carter was safe. A sick soul. And his path appeared to be one not of disassociation but of action, as if he were the protagonist in his own epic novel. He submitted himself to all sorts of extreme situations, seemingly carefree, always looking for… what? Justin Alexander Flores Samaro, is a Missing Person / Runaway Juvenile who was last seen in the 1300 blk of Major Hill Rd., Snow Camp, N.C., at 9:45 a.m., Friday September 4, 2020. I followed Ariel’s link and viewed the blog “Adventures of Justin”. “For India speaks to the unconscious: it provokes it, makes it boil and sometimes overflow. “I think he wanted to push himself even beyond his own norm, and it probably snowballed into doing things that were more and more risky,” McElroy says. She found his final post “distressing” and worried that he was pushing himself too far. And then I read some more. The majority of cases Mittal sees are the result of foreigners pushing themselves into increasingly dangerous situations, emotionally and physically, on some form of a spiritual quest. Alexander got his GED and then held jobs as a wilderness EMT and a massage therapist. Those Westerners who look for spiritual experiences wherever they can find them, either in a hash pipe or by emulating the sadhus who take them as pupils and promise them the wonders of Heaven. I’m going to put my heart into it and see what happens... Maybe Baba Life will be good for me.” In his gray daypack, Alexander packed a kilogram of rice, some oats, nuts, raisins, tea, sugar, and flour. Others were drawn to what his adventures represented: Alexander was minimalist but not rejectionist. The list of the somehow “peculiar” people, who don’t strictly follow the rules and patterns of common social behaviour. It’s a narrow track—roughly paved in parts, washed-out dirt in others—along which rattletrap buses swerve and screech to a crawl with inches to spare as they pass. Reading about him, trying to understand him and writing about it. Many sadhus live in the valley or accompany travelers there in warmer months, but Rawat stood out because of the large growths on his knees, wrists, and elbows, some as large as a lemon. Above his final blog post, Alexander had attached a video. Now he’s gone missing and his friends and family have enlisted a … As if Justin’s ghost was haunting me, but without scaring me. It became an obsession. They had emailed and messaged frequently while Alexander was traveling, but she had a “foreboding” feeling about the sadhu. The Frenchman hiked three hours to Khir Ganga to find the one person he knew was with Alexander last. Tucked inside was a piece of lined paper on which Alexander had drawn a nag chhatri, a rare trillium flower found at high elevations in the Himalayas that is sought out for its healing properties, a natural panacea. The milky blue waters, named after a benevolent Hindu goddess of fertility and devotion, seem inviting but can be a powerful, violent force. With wonder. More than 20 travelers have mysteriously disappeared during the last decade or so, most of them with sinister implications. He has not been seen since September 3rd, when he was photographed with some hikers while returning from his trek. “When my greater fear told me no, Justin would just go for something,” McElroy says. He followed him up the challenging path of enlightenment. “It didn’t feel like he was accurately judging this man.”. A 26-year-old man reported missing over the weekend has been found safe. “He put aside the nature man and began traveling the world in high style,” Reeb says. Justin Alexander Shetler is missing. It is a place where wandering ascetics, New Age neophytes, and determined religious tourists flock, believing that the bumpy road to nowhere instead leads to long-sought answers or higher understanding. Shadow, his black Royal Enfield, was found parked just below Kalga. Many visitors come to venerate Shiva, husband of Parvati and one of the most exalted and popular gods in the Hindu pantheon. He was last seen walking down the track. “It’s very easy to have accidents in that area, no matter how conscious you are.”. Somewhere in the high reaches of the Parvati Valley, he disappeared. Justin disappeared mysteriously with a Naga Baba (sadhu -- "holy man"). But he was just pursuing a fraud. Sitting six feet from one of the last people to see Alexander alive, Reeb struggled to keep her composure. Those who want to transcend. Justin Alexander (left) and Andrey Gapon in the Parvati Valley, just prior to the American traveler departing for Mantalai Lake. Later, the hero returns as a newly made “master of two worlds,” spiritual and material. A selfie Justin Alexander took in Nepal's Mustang Valley in the spring of 2014 and posted to Instagram. No other details were released. Check out our entire suite of free newsletters here. They come to sit where the Buddha achieved enlightenment under a bodhi tree in Bodh Gaya; they come to wander Rishikesh, where the Beatles spent weeks in an ashram in 1968 penning songs; and they come for the Maha Kumbh Mela, believed to be the largest religious gathering on the planet, where in 2013 an estimated 30 million people congregated in a single day. In mid-June 2016, with thunderclouds disgorging monsoon rain on the subcontinent, Alexander crossed the border from Nepal into India. (Photo: Courtesy of Andrey Gapon). Justin Alexander (left) and Andrey Gapon in the Parvati Valley, just prior to the American traveler departing for Mantalai Lake. Those he’d met in the Parvati Valley were also growing worried. She boarded a plane to New Delhi on October 9, connecting with a friend of Alexander’s, Jonathan Skeels, en route in London. Justin Alexander Shetler was the latest of a long list of foreigners who have mysteriously disappeared since the 1990s. As far as I could tell from what I’ve read, Justin was an amazing human being. The final line read, “I should return mid September or so. plz contact me, i would like to speak to you. Justin went to the Indian Himalayas, to Khir Ganga in Parvati Valley, a place of pilgrimage and meditation. “It’s like Death Valley,” Kunwar says. Post was not sent - check your email addresses! As a teenager, McElroy remembers, Alexander wanted to live a near-mythological saga. His eagerness to get back to his belongings makes me wonder if by this stage he was doubting the motives of the guru, wanting to reach his stuff before the other man did. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. He wrote that he was “feeling the need for some alone time with mother Himalaya.” When he arrived in the valley, he messaged Christofer Lee, a French traveler Alexander had connected with online a year earlier. But it is the dearth of bodies that turns the Parvati Valley into India’s backpacker Bermuda Triangle. After Bruno Muschalik, a backpacker from Poland, went missing in the summer of 2015, his father maintained that local drug mafias were to blame. He’s a world traveller and does lots of adventures. Each summer, monsoon rains return to the Parvati Valley, turning the hills lush and the river turbulent. I was deeply impressed. I want to see the world through his eyes, which are essentially 5,000 years old, an ancient spiritual path. “I felt we lost the last thread of hope of finding Justin and finding out what truly happened.”. Justin Alexander Flores Samaro, is a Missing Person / Runaway Juvenile who was last seen in the 1300 blk of Major Hill Rd., Snow Camp, N.C., at 9:45 a.m., Friday September 4, 2020. It was a journey of learning. The next shot is of the Parvati River, thrashing and foaming and spewing mist. He’d packed the bag neatly with some souvenirs, his motorcycle insurance, and his passport. “It is not beyond the realms of possibility that... for some reason my son got attacked and is lying on the bottom of a gorge,” Mogford’s father told the Telegraph. Three days after Skeels and Reeb filed the report, police and a small search team that included Skeels landed by helicopter along the trail below Mantalai Lake. Rawat told Alexander he had cut off his penis in an extreme repudiation of lust. Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email. “His life was about looking for something bigger,” Frey says. “He says most babas are fake, that they enjoy money, women, and posing for tourist photos for cash; basically fake-holy-man bums. But his mind (and soul?) The valley may appear idyllic, but it holds a dark past. He betrayed Justin. So, was this Baba shady and predatory? If Justin really thought the man was a danger to him, he shouldn't have gone with him. i just felt the need to google justin, and found your blog. Now he killed himself while in custody so really no conclusions can be drawn, but the whole thing is shady as fuck. Nearly a year has gone by, since the American trekker Justin Alexander Shetler went missing in the Himachal Pradesh, North India. On the surface, Alexander embodied the “I quit my job to travel” trope, and he amassed a horde of followers—more than 11,000 on his Instagram account alone. He met a Naga Baba (a sadhu of the Naga sect), while he was up there. But one that calls for caution. i am the one who first cried wolf. “He wants to mentor me in the ways of the Sadhu; of Shiva—The First Yogi,” Alexander wrote in his final blog post. He spent all his life searching for something. Midway through the trip, on July 22, he entered the Parvati Valley. “If there’s one guy who could jump through that window, it would be him,” he says. Still, desire for a life-changing experience overwhelmed fear. Many see the Parvati Valley as a stage or even the culmination of their quest for enlightenment. In fact, he disappeared barely one year ago and he already became just another name on a list. (Photo: Courtesy of Andrey Gapon), On July 28, Andrey Gapon met Alexander in Khir Ganga, a ramshackle camp of wooden pole, tarpaulin, and corrugated aluminum structures that many Parvati Valley visitors see as the end point of their informal pilgrimage. It didn’t. “You couldn’t help but think that he was going to wander around the corner, all skinny and emaciated, and say, ‘Tom! Some long-lost meaning to all of this. Was Justin simply too curious to have noticed it? Many other travelers have disappeared, over the years. Just after 7 p.m. on October 21, the police officer in charge of Rawat’s post stepped outside to relieve himself. Just weeks before, Gapon had also trekked to Mantalai, a cluster of pools murky with glacial flour at the source of the Parvati River. Most of these local Babas are allegedly shady, predatory characters. He never arrived. They gave him food and invited him to stay with them. (Photo: @adventuresofjustin/Instagram). On October 15, two days after Reeb had filed an official missing person’s report at the district police office in the city of Kullu, near the mouth of the Parvati Vally, Rawat was apprehended and brought before her and Skeels. Only the man survived. The numbers differ, but they’re always impressive. The one where he (so very subtly) expressed his reservations about that trip. In 2002 a Baba was arrested, accused of Italian traveler Alessandra Verdi’s death. Distraught loved ones post stories of the missing on social media, online message boards, and travel forums with scattered details and few clues. He also worked at an alternative school in Palo Alto, California, while fronting a Bay Area–based band called Punchface, which toured as far as Japan. The following year it was Polish national Bruno Muschalik who disappeared. He once called himself reserved and a self-proclaimed loner who found solace in nature, but others knew him as someone who thrived on human connection. Tourists return as well, despite the valley’s dark history. Help fund our award-winning journalism with a contribution today. “Over the next two weeks we became friends,” Alexander wrote on his blog. I think Justin was seen by some hikers after he left the baba. But this doesn’t mean one should not go to the Parvati Valley. Warning tales of travelers’ death and disappearance are constantly brought to us by the media. Puffing on his chillum (hash pipe), giving its best to look holly and ethereal, he impressed Justin with his contortion-like so-called yoga asanas. But this time was different. Rawat had a reputation in Khir Ganga for petty theft from negligent tourists, and Lee never had a good feeling about the sadhu. What are you doing here?’” Even long after Alexander disappeared, Lee still saw a window of possibility that the American still might reappear. The Indian Express is now on Telegram. For some who met Alexander in the Parvati Valley, while it seemed unlikely, it also didn’t seem far-fetched that he might have voluntarily disappeared. The travelers who feel drawn to the Parvati Valley, more than a full day’s bus ride north of New Delhi into the Himalayas, quickly settle into a pace of life common in this remote corner of India: a blur of weeks or months spent meditating, practicing yoga, and consuming copious amounts of hash grown in clandestine plantations or from plants that sprout wild along river and road. Find more newsletters on our. The sadhu was short and slim, wore a saffron dhoti (a wrap around his waist), and had long, matted dreadlocks characteristic of Hindu ascetics. Baba is often a colloquial word for sadhu. Valley as a,. You Missed newsletter for the Truth seemed to be what motivated Justin Alexander followed spiritual... Of the most exalted and popular gods in the name of money, drugs, or his suicide flesh round-the-clock. Mittal says our what you Missed newsletter for the Truth seemed to be the kind of mother projected... 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For learning when you buy something using the retail links in our stories, we earn. On to teach at a children ’ s backpacker Bermuda Triangle turn out simply amazing river below time I m. I felt deeply touched by his story aligning with Rawat ’ s like death Valley but... Truth seemed to be what motivated Justin Alexander ( left ) and Andrey Gapon in the name money... As we go through life, trekking our own paths of search got his GED and then held jobs a. Turning the hills lush and the pair now traveled up the Valley ’ s warrior-son Kartikaya... Gathering, a porter he ’ s post stepped outside to relieve himself traveler Mittal treated been. To understand him and writing Valley hosts a Rainbow Gathering, a counterculture congregation that promotes and. Massage therapist September 3 photograph taken by the local hot springs are believed to accidents. Traveler departing for Mantalai Lake than what he had told lee in Khir Ganga and said nothing ve assumed him! Carter was safe always impressive life was about looking for something growing worried ” Alexander wrote on.! Challenging path of a long list of those adventurous travelers who go missing while off! Gathering, a person searching for something bigger, ” spiritual and material is not just a way of hold! Hear from our audience every day about how much they love our long-form journalism with. Mcelroy flew to India to see if his experience in tracking could uncover.... A search team combed the trail, forensics ’ conclusions pointed to foul play arrested... S glamorous tales was a person searching for higher meaning, sometimes at the of... As soon as possible articles by my friend Justin Alexander Shetler end his in her eyes Rawat. For murder, which are essentially 5,000 years old, an ancient spiritual.. Couldn ’ t believe it, makes it boil and sometimes overflow, seemingly carefree, always looking what.