A Temple, Some Dust, and the Naked Truth

I’ve done a lot of things in my life that have pushed me mentally, physically, and emotionally. But nothing rattled and rewired me quite like Burning Man.

Imagine 80,000 people dropped into the middle of the desert. There is no cell service, no stores, not even the ability to purchase anything. Just pure human interaction, creativity, and community. You don’t get to run to the grocery store if you forget something. You survive because people take care of each other. And somehow, it works. Better than most systems I’ve seen that do have rules, structure, and money.

I used to think of spiritual experiences as yoga retreats or a weekend of silence. And they definitely are, but there’s another layer to it. Sitting in the temple at Burning Man for four hours—mourning my grandparents, surrounded by strangers doing the same—that’s one of the most sacred things I’ve experienced. The energy is insane. The air was thick with grief, love, and release. I felt them there with me. And I left that temple lighter than I walked in.

And then there’s the rest of it. I hugged a fully naked man with a white beard. He was probably someone’s grandfather, could have even been an attorney. If you had told me I’d be sitting in the desert, talking about Indian saris with an old nude guy in the middle of nowhere, I’d have laughed at you. But there I was. And it was one of the most honest conversations I’ve had in a long time. 

That’s what Burning Man does. It strips you down—figuratively and literally—and makes you look at your own judgments, your discomforts, your assumptions. It forces you to be human and to see the humanity in others.

There are no headliners, vendors, or corporate sponsors. The only thing you can buy is ice. Everything else is gifted. Experiences, food, stories, healing, even a last-minute invite to an Indian wedding in the desert where we all rode bikes in traditional clothes behind a sound cart that represented elephants. You can’t make this up.

Burning Man is a reckoning. It’s not something you do if you’re looking for a vacation. It’s like going back to India—but this time, you pay for the discomfort. You sign up for the challenge and you come back a little more cracked open.

I’m going again this year. Because once you’ve seen what humanity is capable of when money, ego, and judgment are stripped away, you want to keep immersing yourself in it. You want to live just a little closer to that kind of freedom and connection, every day.

- G aka Guru of Getting Uncomfortable