Destination: irrelevant

There is great truth inherent in the saying, "It is not the destination that matters, but the journey itself." I have made good friends with a human named Matthew from England. With plans to make a pilgrimage in July, we decided to give ourselves a trial-run yesterday in Rishikesh: the yoga capital of the world, home to dozens of Hindu temples and the holiest river, the Ganges.

Matthew and I took a shared jeep from Dehradun to Rishikesh; about a 40-minute drive. In the shared jeeps   they squeeze 12 human beings into a space that really only comfortably seats 8. The close proximity of the passengers, scorching summer heat, and India traffic certainly make for an interesting ride.

There are no single-file lines in all of India; rather, the manner in which you get yourself where you need to be involves implementing whatever method possible. This includes driving. Thus, at any point in time where traffic was not moving fast enough, our jeep driver would instantaneously start driving on the other side of the road. You would look up and think to yourself, "Oh, here we are...on the other side of the road...there's a bus driving straight towards us." The driver would pull away just in time and resume driving on the correct side of the road. At the next stoppage of traffic, he would swerve around various vehicles and start driving on the other side again. You would say to yourself, "Oh, here we are again...on the other side of the road." Repeat this process for 40 minutes. It is probably best to not look and to just trust that you will get where you need to be in due time.

When we finally arrived to Rishikesh we were looking to find our way to Ramjhula, the large bridge suspended over-top the Ganges River, which we would eventually cross. Rishikesh is a busy city; many people are on some sort of journey here; dozens of people are bathing themselves in the Ganges at any given moment.

Our eventual goal was to arrive at Neelkanth Mahadev Temple, a major pilgrimage site for Hindus. We knew that the trek to Neelkanth from Rishikesh was a 12-km hike up the Himalayan mountains; we just needed to figure out how to get there. We expected the hike would take us 3-4 hours. Before asking anyone for directions, we looked up and saw a temple in the mountain range. Excited, we said to ourselves, "That's it!" and we started trekking along the path. We were walking up the steep hills for a bit, accumulating sweat on our bodies, and quickly the distance between us and the temple was diminishing. Feeling cocky for having arrived in 30 minutes, we approached the temple to realize this actually was not the temple we were searching for. We laughed at how our egos had lead us blindly to the wrong place (probably only 2-km away from where we started), and retraced our steps back down the mountain.

We started this time the right way: asking for directions first. After being turned around in circles by several people's only partially accurate directions, we eventually found a parking lot full of shared jeeps that were taking the drive to the temple. We asked which direction the temple was, and we were told to hop in the jeep. Upon telling them that we wanted to hike to the temple instead, we received a plague of blank stares and "...that's far!" Realizing we were persistent in making the trek, they kindly pointed us in the right direction; a path leading up the Himalayan mountains; an eventual 12-km to our destination. Finally, we were on the right path.

No temple could be seen in sight; just an inviting forest of trees, mountains and monkeys which would be our fellow companions on this journey. We had no idea how long it would take to make the trek, if there would be any place to get water along the way, or really if the road we were on would ever even lead us to the planned destination.

We hiked along the path for awhile. The incline of the mountain and the summer heat were both surely taking a toll on us. Never quite sure of how far we had already traveled or how much longer was left to go, we kept  along the path and stopped every so often to catch our breaths and enjoy the remarkable view overlooking the city of Rishikesh at large.

The longer we continued walking and the more the sun continued to dominate the sky, the more tired our legs grew and the more our bodies demanded rest. There was a point in the journey where the steep incline made each individual step pressing, requiring somewhat of an intellectual calculation so as not to fall and slip off the side. Our legs felt like jello, our breath was contrived and heavy, and at this point in time the thought of the quick and effortless jeep ride up the mountain sounded quite tempting. I kept remembering the passage of the Quran that reads, "Verily, with every difficulty there is relief." Our journey had been pressing, but relief was surely due to come.

Every now and then we would see a building amongst the mountains in the distance. We would say to ourselves "Surely that must be it." Then we would continue along and encroach on the place only to find that was not the temple quite yet. Along the way we had met several others who were making the same trek to the temple; it is a feeling that carries you to where you are going-- the feeling of sharing the journey in its pain/beauty/defeat/glory with other human beings. Actually, Matthew and I had become quite famous along the way. Several people who passed us on the way down the mountain asked to take pictures with us, giggly and shy in their mannerisms as if we movie stars. We were just white people.

We were several hours into our journey, and it did not seem as if there was much more mountain to be climbed (though mountains can be deceiving). I felt lightheaded and headache-y, and found solace in each swift of wind and shaded rock, though few and far between. The path had brought us to a small village in the mountains just outside of Rishikesh, and at this point the road was on less of an incline. After 4 hours of trekking, we had made it safely, exhaustedly and happily to Neelkanth Mahadev Temple.

For a spiritual place, there is such an unattractive culture of begging, deception and lack of genuineness. From the moment you step on the temple grounds, you are hounded by sales people trying to sell you various prayer beads or blessings, anything to up your status and get you on good terms with your God. A man walked up to Matthew and I, gave us a blessing by touching our foreheads, and then immediately put his hands in front of our faces and said "Money." I said, "No thank you" and walked away.

Beside the temple was a large line of barefooted humans impatiently crowding around one another and waiting for their opportunity to receive a blessing and bow down to the temple and Shiva. There are several signs which read, "Pay X amount and your family will receive blessings for X many years." Make an even larger contribution and your family will be blessed for even longer. Still an even larger contribution and bless you and your family; you are on great terms with God now. The larger the contribution, the more your spiritual bulge increases.

Why people fight over ritual has got nothing at all to do with anything spiritual. The most spiritual aspects of that place were not even the temple itself, though it was beautiful. I only stuck around for maybe two minutes at the most in observation of the temple and the people because I knew my having arrived at the temple was never really the point. For me, the destination was irrelevant. It was the 4-hour long excruciating journey along the way that was the real test of my character.

I walked away from the crowd of people-- all the shops, and all of the sales people-- and stood alone in observation of the mountain and its mystique. Somebody long ago had made this same journey, before the town had been capitalized, before roads had been paved up the mountain, and they decided to build a temple there because it meant something. For them it was the journey; there was no destination yet. They were creating it. I stood and observed and imagined those very people at some point in time making this same journey; how hard it must have been to transport the materials by foot that would eventually make up the structure of the temple; how they succeeded.

Who would want to miss out on the opportunity of this test of one's character and instead take a helicopter or a car or a jeep up to the top of the mountain?

Need for (Spare) Change

There is a clear line of demarcation between an intellectual understanding of something and an experiential understanding of something; a line between our assessments and perceptions of reality and reality itself.

We see movies presented to us like "Slumdog Millionaire" or read books or keep up with the news, so we have an idea of things that occur in other parts of the world. But when you witness a truth first hand-- when you have an experiential understanding of it-- you certainly do not forget it. What I mean is you may think you are aware of some of the cruelty and injustice in the world, but when you actually witness it you are caught off guard. You think to yourself, "Wait, you mean this actually happens?" The experience gets imprinted in your mind. At least that is what happened to me.

India is home to about 1 billion people. It's cities are overcrowded, millions are homeless, electricity is quite often shut off in smaller cities to be able to distribute it to the larger more industrial cities, there are water shortages, health hazards are below par, and the slums are absolutely squalid. India really is just a different animal. You cannot prepare for it; you cannot tame it. You cannot know what it is like to see someone with leprosy until you see someone with leprosy. But the thing that is the hardest to swallow is the amount of children beggars.

There are countless children beggars throughout all of India. It is an epidemic. From early on these children are taught to beg as a means of survival. Some are runaways that escaped uninhabitable living situations at home. Some are forced into these situations by family members looking for a method of extra income. Others have been kidnapped and are being forced to beg by gang members.

Gang members often trick children into begging; sometimes kidnap them from their homes, or in extreme cases even kidnap newborns from hospitals. The business is all about profit; the goal to accrue as much money as possible each day. And the gang members will do anything it takes to invoke pity and sympathy in people in order to assure they will give money to the beggars for the gang leaders to collect from them later. Sometimes this means maiming the children to up the ante by making them appear more pathetic.

Some children will be wearing rags for clothes, others will have missing limbs, and, yes, as "Slumdog Millionaire" portrays, some children are blinded as a result of their eyes being burned or removed from their sockets.

So the other day I was on a bus headed to Guchu Pani in Dehradun to see a cave with the hopes of also coming across a waterfall or some place to swim to cool off my body in the ever persistent scorching heat. Being on a bus in India is an experience in and of itself. They will fill as many people on the bus as humanly possible (pun intended); people hanging half out of the bus and half in. Before the bus took off, two child beggars came on to walk around and collect money. They were holding hands. The younger child was a small boy, maybe 4 years old. The other child was a bit taller and older, maybe 9 years old. As they approached me, I looked up to make eye contact and to acknowledge them. The older boy had a patch of skin over his eye sockets in place of the eyelids. His eyes had clearly been taken out. The younger boy still had his eye sight and had not been maimed, but for how long?

These situations can really just leave someone feeling emotionally bankrupt. Do you give money to the child because you pity him and it makes you feel better to do so? Or do you refuse to give any money because you know the money is not going to the child anyhow and that giving money is only prolonging and encouraging the situating? Both feel shitty.

I do not think there is necessarily one right answer as both scenarios can be justified. But I do think this situation needs some serious attention drawn to it because, no, it is not a fantasy story. It actually happens. Every day. India is another place. It is not paradise, and one comes to this realization shortly after arriving here. India is not some fantasy land of ultimate beauty, yet at the same time it is. Beauty and corruption, as it is everywhere.

One should be thankful for all of the opportunities that have been provided for them and that they have made for themselves. Because others have certainly been robbed of this.

So thank your god that dreaming's free. It isn't everywhere.
Spare change?

http://www.pratigyaindia.org/?page_id=86

The Art of Meditation

The other day I met a man who was in the planning stages of organizing a group for children who had dropped out of grade school and high school; a support group more or less; a commonplace for these children to meet to propel themselves forward despite the struggles of life.

And I was thinking that in many ways we have never learned how to properly cope with our emotions. Think about it: our whole lives we are only really ever taught how to find things and verify things in the external world. No one ever teacher us how to look within or how to verify within.

Even our education system is one which institutionalizes us from the very start. Our education is partial, for it only teaches us to assess the external and the physical, under a very guided and narrow curriculum some source separate from ourselves has deemed valuable and interesting.

So from the very start we are robbed of our identities, robbed of our innate curiosity, and we continue along the path which we are told is the "right" way to happiness. Quickly we become strangers to ourselves, and the more we continue to look for outside verification; to allow people the right to call us "intelligent," "average," or "stupid" and the moment we start believing these external assessments of ourselves to be valid, then we have strayed from our cosmic intelligence.

So, we take all the steps in the game that society claims are the progressive steps towards happiness and success, but we find these steps don't actually lead us to success at all and we become confused and depressed when we can't understand why we are so unhappy even after we have done everything they told us to and played the game so well.

And that is because the whole time we have avoided looking within. We have become so estranged from our own physical existence, and all of these anxieties and fears have been harvesting. Each time we ignore them they just come back stronger. But if we acknowledge them and sit with them long enough, we can actually get to know ourselves again and know what it is we are actually interested in; we can see that our cosmic intelligence was there all along; and we can see that there is a place in us that no one can ever touch. We take up space; we matter, and we don't need anyone else to validate that.

The best teacher of the mind is its own experiences, so by meditating and breathing properly and fully, we consequently create good habits for ourselves. The consequences are invaluable as we can learn how to properly deal with our emotions. Our emotions are so closely linked to our breath, that by breathing properly we can actually regulate our emotions and experience a transformation. I think this is a more sincere and honest way towards happiness and success.

The main reason why we can't answer the question "What do you want?" is because usually we already have it. It is a matter of looking within. Meditation is invaluable.

Refugees in India

There is a part of me that feels a bit on edge sitting in this computer room and typing at the moment. Last night there was a scorpion in here. And a couple of weeks ago, there was a black snake in here. But aside from the poisonous creatures, Dehradun has been quite enjoyable.

Recently I have been attempting to learn more about the Tibetan population in India. Along with Dharamsala and several other cities in India, Dehradun is a location where many Tibetans have lived in exile since China invaded their country in 1949. The Dalai Lama fled Tibet in 1959 to Dharamsala, followed by over 100,000 Tibetans, and thereby established the Tibetan Government-in-Exile. 

Chinese policies are threatening the future of Tibet's religion, nomadic lifestyle, and language. Tibet's natural resources are being systematically eroded, and now Tibetans are a minority in their own land. According to Free Tibet, Chinese occupation has resulted in the deaths of at least hundreds of thousands of Tibetans, the destruction of over 6,000 monasteries, nunneries and temples, and the imprisonment and torture of thousands of Tibetans. 

Tibetan Buddhists also fear the future of their religion since China has invaded and took over. There is controversy about who the 11th Panchen Lama is, as Tibetan Buddhists claim China has kidnapped their Panchen Lama and replaced him with their own. This controversy could potentially negatively affect the chances of finding the next Dalai Lama, the reincarnation of the current and 14th Dalai Lama. 

I have visited some of the Tibetan refugee camps and conversed with some of the locals in Dalanwala and Clement Town in Dehradun. I visited a shop where Tibetans were weaving rugs. It is a process that usually takes about 6 months. They were hard at work and had the most genuine smiles on their faces. The one woman was especially excited to meet me, so I asked her if I could take a picture. The rug weaving was such an incredible process to watch. Below are some additional pictures of the town and the refugee camps.

The fact that these individuals had many of their rights stripped from them is really a shame. I hope to engage in more dialogue with some Tibetan refugees and hear their stories.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/11th_Panchen_Lama_controversy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tibetan_independence_movement
https://www.studentsforafreetibet.org/

Bicycle, bicycle, bicycle

Today I had a lesson in Sanskrit, and I thought: "What better way to get there than by bicycle?" It was only a couple miles to the Sanskrit teacher's house and a couple miles back, but it certainly was an interesting ride. Makes me rethink my previous complaining of Philadelphia's potholes and lack of bike lanes. India brings bicycle riding to a whole new level.

Part of the ride home. I even pick up the camera half-way through to see if it's still filming after all the bumps I had gone over

Made it safely to the Sanskrit lesson

 And then made it back home safely just in time for sunset and dinner

What a day! Riding a bicycle in India: check

"Mera nam Asha hai"

Dehradun is a quaint city at the foothills of the Himalayas. During the day it gets to be very hot, but in the morning and at night the city offers a quiet, chill breeze. I have been waking up at 530 each day to walk to yoga down the street and witness the magic this city has to offer along the way. This is my favorite time of day in Dehradun. It is so quiet you could hear a pin drop.

The other day Aman introduced me to a 12-year-old girl who lives nearby. Her name is Asha. Asha knows very little English and wants to improve, though she has no reinforcement at home as her parents, brother and sister do not speak any English. The first day we met I could sense she was nervous to communicate with me. Her legs were shaking and she did not say much at first. The best way to learn something is by actively engaging in it, so I decided it would be a good idea to take a walk with one another. We planned to meet the next day at 10 am, and we were going to walk to get shampoo. She helped me ask for the shampoo in Hindi, and then we walked back to the house and sat down to look at her school books. She showed me her English, Hindi, Math, History, and Geography books. We both decided we liked Geography best so we opened up the book, looked at several maps, and talked for an hour or so. At the end she said, "Tomorrow at 10?" I said, "Deal."

We have since been meeting up each day at 10 to take walks and practice English (and Hindi) together. Ankieet had let us borrow his camera, so yesterday Asha and I walked around Dehradun taking pictures. She had never used a camera before and so she was pretty excited. We strolled the city for awhile taking different pictures. She walked me to town and showed me the different shops. In India there are practically no road rules, so it is very common to see a road scattered with cars, rickshaws, bicycles, motorcycles, people, cows, vendors, taxis, etc., each of which honking at one another every few seconds. Here, honking is not considered to be rude. In fact, it is absolutely necessary (which makes a walk through town quite a noisy experience). Asha walks through town rather fearlessly, and her knowledge of direction is very great and helpful.

We are meeting again tomorrow to continue talking with one another. It amazes me that she was nervous to meet me the first day, as there is probably more I can learn from her than she could ever learn from me.

Here are some of the pictures she/I took:

 The street to the yoga studio

 Ankieet's father

 Strange vegetable

 The back to the kitchen in our home

 The Pranic Healing Center at our home

Asha

 The kitchen

 Outside the Vipassana house

 Asha and her house

 Asha said I had to take a picture in this tree

 Picking a lychee from the tree. There are lychee trees and mango trees everywhere in Dehradun

 Outside Asha's house

 Asha and her sister Rika

 This city has a jungle feel

 Morning traffic

 Asha

 My bedroom

My desk

 It is sometimes easy to forget you are in the mountains here. So I climb on the top of the roof for the best view of the city. Surrounded by the Himalayan mountains and a beautiful town

It is so relaxing on the roof, and the breeze is so inviting. I think I will sleep here tonight

Rupa = "form; beautiful"

The woman who does the cooking here at the Vipassana house feeds us three times a day: 8 am, 1 pm, and 8 pm. She is very punctual and so it is best to arrive for your meal at exactly these times so as not to keep her waiting. The very first morning I was here I woke up late at 9 am because I did not have an alarm clock. When I awoke, I just assumed I missed breakfast. I did not understand how the system worked quite yet. However, she had been waiting 1.5 hours for me. I felt so badly.
At the beginning of my stay Rupa, the cook, seemed lukewarm to newcomers. She does not speak any English, so I used to just smile at her in gratitude. She would give me a beautiful smile back, and though we did not understand one another's language, we were communicating in some form. I was determined to learn Hindi so I could connect with her more because she is a beautiful human.
So the other day I learned some phrases, and after one of the meals, I said, "Dhanavad, Rupa." She smiled big and let out a nice laugh. It was beautiful.
All I did was thank her. The simple things.

Start a revolution with a grin

You surely could not learn about something like this on CNN or Fox News, but today, in India, was the start of a large revolution initiated by India's own spiritual guru Swami Ram Dev. Today thousands of Indians gathered in New Delhi to protest the mass corruption and division present in their government. In India, there are over 350,000,000 people who are left to starvation. Today, Swami Ram and his followers gathered in the scorching heat of New Delhi and began a fast in honor of their fellow Indians who are neglected and deprived of the basic human right of food. 
Swami Ram declared to go on an Anshan-- an indefinite fast-- in order to pressure the government and eradicate the all-pervading corruption present in the government. The attempt is to bring back the black money which is being sent abroad. It is estimated that about 1.5 trillion USD is being stashed away abroad. In India, the black money market situation is an epidemic. If this money was restored to the country which it belongs to, then India has the potential to be one of the wealthiest countries. These 350,000,000+ people would not be left to starve. 
Swami Aman said if this black money was returned to India and exchanged for gold, then the amount of gold which exists would be able to pave every single road in all of India 1-cm thick. Imagine that.
Swami Ram Dev and his followers are initiating this revolution with the attempt to clean up their government and restore it under the ancient principles of the Vedas and the Upanishads. Last year they initiated this revolution and the government attempted to kill Swami Ram. This year, they are back head-strong and do not plan to give up until the government budges.
Meanwhile, India is experiencing a heat wave. Locals say it is as hot as it has ever been in the month of June. Yet still these people are convening throughout the country in protest of something they truly believe. A revolution with a grin.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_black_money
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_in_India

Home in the Himalayas

How it all began (05/29-06/02)...
Car ride to 30th street station Philadelphia, Megabus to New York City, 1 train to L train to Williamsburg, L train to Queens, B15 bus to airtrain to JFK airport, flight to Helsinki, 615 bus to downtown Helsinki, 615t bus to Helsinki-Vantaa airport, flight to Delhi, car ride to Gurgaon, taxi to metro to Delhi, train to Dehradun, rickshaw to home in the Himalayas.

Needless to say, I am very exhausted. In my short time gone thus far I have learned many things, and I have been hoping to share them ever since. On the 30th I was flying overnight from New York to Helsinki. I knew it would be to my benefit to eat and sleep well on the 8-hour plane ride since I had a long layover the next day and long travel plans over the next few days. The plane was packed, and we were seated 9 people to each row. To no avail, my seat was in the very middle of the row. I played chess on the plane, listened to Alan Watts' lectures, watched the silent black and white film called "The Artist", and also watched several episodes of Modern Family. We were served food an hour into our flight and an hour before landing. For dinner, we were served a slab of beef with crackers and a roll with butter. For breakfast we were served ham and cheese on a roll. Needless to say, I was not able to eat either of those meals and thus I chewed my buttered roll and crackers very slowly. Letting the flight attendants know I am vegetarian was not something I had thought to do beforehand. Now I know.

On the plane I was so engaged in my own mind and my own apprehensiveness that I slept maybe one hour maximum the whole flight. Besides, it had never gotten fully dark as we were traveling through different timezones, and I feel as if I witnessed several different sunrises along the way. The sunrise as we were flying over Iceland was incredible; every single color of the rainbow. I smiled big. When we landed at the Helsinki-Vantaa airport in Finland, I was exhausted and hungry, but I had an 11 hour layover before my next flight and so it was time to get a move on. I had no specific arrival plans or preconceived notion of how to get around town, but I knew that I wanted to travel to downtown Helsinki somehow and ride a bicycle. With no knowledge of the Finnish language, I roamed the airport with a child-like curiosity admiring the sites and the language being spoken. Finnish is a beautifully written language; the words are very long, and thus my attempt at learning dialogue was futile. I got as far as "Haloo" and "Hei" (Hello and Hey). While roaming the airport I made a friend, and he kindly told me how to travel to downtown Helsinki. I found the bus stop and took the hour-long ride downtown. When I arrived I had two motives in my mind: Food and bicycle. The food was easy: I ate at the first place I came across and ordered a bagel with Brie cheese and mango. Finding where to rent a bicycle, however, was much more difficult of a task. I asked many people (in English, of course), though each of them had absolutely no idea. Eventually I came across a very friendly couple from Mexico who were riding bicycles; I knew they must have rented their bicycles because they were stopping at the intersections and looking quizzically at the city map. I approached them and finally I was given an intersection in which I could rent a bicycle. I found a map, wandered aimlessly until I found the bicycle rental place, and in no time I was cycling around giddy on the streets. Helsinki has a set up strangely similar to that of both San Francisco and Portland, and so it was rather easy to travel around. I biked around for an hour taking many pictures. After taking the last picture I made the mistake of placing my camera in the basket on the back of my bicycle. Within two minutes I reached back to grab the camera out of the basket again only to find it had been stolen. I hope the person enjoys the pictures I took.

Eventually I was to take the bus back to the Helsinki airport, as my flight to Delhi was approaching. I sat in the airport for several hours before my flight with the intention of napping, but everything was noisy-- especially my mind-- and I was not able to sleep still. I was beginning to feel anxious at the thought of not being able to eat or sleep again on my next 8-hour flight to Delhi. The thought was nauseating. We boarded the plane and several things worked out in my favor. The flight was under-booked and so there were probably 40 of us in the entire plane. Imagine the back of the plane-- some 20+ rows-- only seating maybe 10 of us, and you will get the idea that this flight was like an intimate sleepover. I took a nap immediately, before the plane even took off. I was very hungry and was starting to think of ways I could convince the flight attendants to supply me with vegetarian food. As laughable as it is, I started thinking of a "I-have-a-meat-allergy" story and as the flight attendant was serving dinner and approached me I had it all planned out in my mind what I would say if a slab of beef was the dinner again. However, she said three magical words which were the highlight of my day thus far: "Chicken or vegetarian?" My eyes opened big and I think I said something like "whaaa, oh my god, vegetarian!!!, thank you so so much, bla bla bla". She looked at me strangely and handed me the vegetarian meal which was an Indian cuisine. Success!

After a long flight we finally landed in Delhi. It was very very hot, I was very very tired, and I felt nervous about how I would find my ride to Gurgaon. I crossed through the bureau of immigration, picked up my backpack at baggage claim, took a deep breath, and exited the airport hoping to find the man whose home I was to sleep at that night. Luckily, as soon as I stepped outside there was a man waving at me holding a sign which read "Kristen//Vipassana house". Swami Aman had taken the train all the way from Dehradun (6 hours) to greet me at the airport because the day before the taxis in all of India went on strike, and he was nervous that as a foreigner I would have no idea what to do in that situation. I feel very grateful. I hopped in the car with Swami Aman and his friend Puneet; Puneet lives in Gurgaon, and that is where we were headed to spend the night. Gurgaon is only a 20-minute drive from the Delhi airport, and in that short time I witnessed the unique beauty of India and fell in love immediately. We were driving away from the airport and there were many people sitting on the side of the road meditating and practicing Pranayama. We drove by a homeless man on the highway who was sitting with a bunch of coconuts and a knife. Puneet and Swami Aman said something to one another in Hindi; Puneet slammed on the breaks, put the car in reverse (into traffic on the highway) and parked the car next to this man. Aman turned to me and asked "Have you ever had coconut water?" The man slashed the coconuts with his knife and gave us straws inside. In just a minute the three of us were drinking the delicious coconut juice (stopped on the side of the road on the highway).

We continued to Gurgaon where I was to meet Puneet's family. Puneet lives in a beautiful condominium-type-house and I was given my own bedroom. We drank chai and talked for awhile, and then Aman told me to get some sleep because he wanted to take me to see two shows later that same day. I layed in bed for several hours but could not sleep at all. Just the day before the weather was 50 degrees Fahrenheit in Helsinki...now in Gurgaon/Delhi the weather was 45 degrees Celcius (about 115 degrees Fahrenheit), and there was only a ceiling fan to cool the room down. What a difference. Realizing I was not having any success in sleeping I got out of bed feeling hungover from little food and very little rest. Puneet's friend made us all lunch; he told me he is a very good cook in Southern India, and if I want to visit he will teach me. We filled our bellies and soon Aman and I were going to see a Bollywood musical at the "Kingdom of Dreams," a place which Puneet used to manage. The dancing was incredible and I was very intrigued by the performance; however, I was so tired that I kept dozing off. For whatever reason my body decided that THIS was the place it finally wanted to sleep, instead of in the bed I was provided with earlier or the air-conditioned plane ride to Delhi. Silly body. I fought so hard to keep my eyelids open and hoped Aman did not notice me falling asleep. The performance ended, and I told myself that I only have to make it through 6 more hours (we were going to see another performance that night) and then I could finally sleep. The second performance was even better. Afterwards Aman and I sat outside under the moon waiting for Puneet to pick us up to bring us back to his house. In the distance I heard Bob Dylan's "Blowing in the Wind" playing out of speakers and I sat smiling looking at the nearly full moon thinking to myself that everything I know and everything I do not know, and everything I like and dislike all exists under this same moon. The notion of a two-tiered and bifurcated world is absolutely irrelevant and inconclusive.

We got back to Puneet's home, ate fresh fruit, and finally my eyes were to rest, though we had to be up in 4 hours to catch a train to Dehradun. We awoke, said goodbye to Puneet and his family, and then Aman and I took a taxi back to the Delhi airport where we were to take the metro to the train station which we would take 6 hours to Dehradun. When we got off of the metro it was 6:35am, and the train was departing at 6:50am, so we ran as quickly as possible to the train station and luckily made it with two minutes to spare. It is not like America where, if you miss your train, you can just catch the next one. If we missed the train we would have had to take an un-airconditioned bus all the way to Dehradun, because trains in India sell out veyr quickly. Aman said people camp out over night by the ticket booth to get a ticket because when tickets go on sale at 8am, by 830am tickets are sold out for the entire month in all of India. I feel grateful to have been given the opportunity to ride a train to my destination in Uttarakhand, as it is a very unforgettable experience for sure. There is a lot that can be learned by sitting on the train and observing. And by not knowing 99% of what is being said, I feel like an even better listener. The train passed through some of India's worst slums. The poverty in India is not concentrated; it exists everywhere. Even next to locations like Puneet's condominium in Gurgaon there are large families sleeping on the floor underneath a roof of branches in the insane heat. I sat on the train observing and listening to and learning from all that was not being spoken.

Aman and I finally arrived in Dehradun and were approached by maybe 10 different rickshaw drivers who were competing against one another to have us ride to our destination with them. Finally we had arrived at our "home in the Himalayas" as Aman calls it. I am very lucky to have Aman looking out for me, as he is very sensitive to what I can and cannot eat/drink as a foreigner. At our home in the Himalayas there is a meditation hall, several bedrooms, and a small kitchen/dining hall where we all gather together for three meals a day sitting on the floor in Ardha Padmasana and enjoying the qualities of life together. Aman believes that everything is composed of five elements: water, air, fire, earth, space. Before we eat, we synchronize with our food by allowing the five elements within us and the five elements within the food to become one. Then we eat slowly, chew fully, and pay attention to the food as it passes through the digestive tract. Aman told me he is impressed with how I eat with my hands and through our conversations of meditation and yoga he feels confident that I have lived here in my past life.

I have only been in India for a day and a half, but I feel as if I have been here much longer. There is much more to be learned, and I hope to find what I am not looking for. I want to share this gift with everyone, and thus I plan to blog as often as possible. And if I can grab a hold of a camera, perhaps I can also post pictures. The beautiful qualities of life...

Namaste.

maiN bahut qhuś hūN (I am very happy)