The Good, the Bad and the Angry

The Good, the Bad and the Angry

(The Emotional Truth)

It always surprises me that one of the most common things that holds back those new to their spiritual path is the illusion that emotions are either 'Good' (such as happy and loving) or 'Bad' (such as anger or sadness).

We have emotions because we are human beings and it is a perfectly natural and wonderful thing. They are just different energetic expressions of where we are in that moment. Emotions provide us with important information because they tell us, at a deeper level than our mind, what is really going on for us in that moment. And they are more reliable than our mind which, because it carries conditioning and the pressures of others expectations, often wants to put up a mask and so is not always honest about how we really are, to our-self or others.

Society has come to attach a notional label of 'Good' or 'Bad' to emotions depending on whether they are socially acceptable, or whether they are likely to impact 'positively' or 'negatively' on our ability to function as part of a society. Society handles some emotions easily, such as laughter, happiness (so long as they are not extreme expressions like rolling around on the pavement with laughter!). But other emotions are avoided, such as tears and anger. These emotions are often seen as inconvenient and embarrassing and so, not surprisingly, we often suppress them (to 'get rid' of them) and pretend they don’t exist and maybe try to focus on a ‘good’ emotion to get us into a good space. Short term this seems like a good idea and can make us feel better, but in the longer term this gets us nowhere.

There are no good or bad emotions - all emotion is an expression of what we are feeling in that moment and is an outward flow of energy. Anger is often cited as a 'negative' emotion - it is actually a beautiful emotion that is extremely powerful and flows like a torrent! Many people will perceive it as a 'bad' emotion because in their experience it is often aimed at them, or aimed randomly, and accompanied by physical and/or emotional harm. So fear arises as soon as anger is encountered and it is tempting to avoid it at every opportunity. Hence we never get to experience the power and beauty of pure anger without that fear of harm.

These emotions are a valuable doorway to our deeper self and there are ways in which we can use them to go deeper. We can notice them and allow them to be there totally, and really feel the emotion. We can remain present to it, accepting that in this moment we have this emotion and feel it totally, so allowing it to pass. Sometimes we may need to express it, although for some emotions a safe space to express them in is not always available.

This may seem similar to suppressing it but it is in fact the opposite. When we suppress it we resist it and move away from it or find something else to do to ’take our mind off it’. When we allow it to be there we move closer to it, welcome it and immerse ourselves totally in the emotion (which may then become more intense), welcoming all of it to stay with us in that moment and for as long as it needs to. Then after a short time we will find that it dies by itself allowing us to move on in a more peaceful and clear space.

Whether you express them or just feel them, do it totally, else you will suppress the rest of it. By repeating this process we find that, in the longer term, we feel the benefits of allowing all emotions and we become more real and have more clarity.

Allowing emotions to be there takes courage as it is something we don’t normally do, and welcoming them in may seem counter-intuitive, but the benefits are there waiting for us. However, first we do need to let go of the idea that there are ‘Good’ and ‘Bad’ emotions, and realise they are all OK. They are not you at your deepest level, but they are the closest you will get to 'you' in that moment, so accept and cherish them in that moment, be real and allow them to be there.

And the point of all this? Because if you want to know who you are at your deepest level then these emotions are a doorway opening inwards - for you to go deeper and start to explore...

More to Life than Increasing its Speed

'There is more to life than increasing its speed'

Mahatma Gandhi

1869 - 1948

A poster with this quote and picture of Gandhi has been prominent on the London Underground recently. Some cynics may say this is an attempt by Transport for London (who sponsor the posters) to suggest that a slower journey is a good thing, and that tube upgrades are unnecessary! However there are other interpretations...

When I read this quote for the first time I was surprised to realise that, even a century ago, Gandhi was already seeing a world where change caused him to question the real benefits of 'progress'. And the pace of change in those days was a tiny fraction of what we see today.

When I came to work in the City of London in 1990, I saw a 'mobile' phone for the first time. From memory it was bigger than the proverbial brick and came with an even larger battery which was so heavy it had to be worn on a special belt. Naturally (in those days) I was impressed. It enabled the trader wearing it to be 'in touch' with the markets whilst also being in the pub at the same time! I wondered whether I would ever be important enough to be worthy of such a status symbol! :-)

Just 20 years later, anyone without a sleek, pocket-size, multifunctional mobile phone is setting themselves up for social exclusion, and we have seamlessly integrated the idea of a 24/7 culture into our lives.

Technology helps us stay in touch with our family and friends - without having the hassle of actually meeting them! We can have new friends we have never met. We can maximise the use of our time. Do more. Have more. Go faster. Fit more stuff in. We will not have time for enough sleep. But somehow that will be OK.

Even when we aren't actually doing anything, thoughts fill our minds - there is so much to think about, so many possibilities - we simply don't allow our minds to switch off. My life must be more than it is. I must be more. This is not enough!

So why should we be concerned? This is an improvement, a step forward, an advantage. It makes our lives more efficient! We can do more in each day. Live on adrenaline. And then, one day, when finally we have achieved all we want, then finally we will find the time to be happy! (We hope.)

But STOP for a moment, if you dare, and consider the cost. Is it possible that we are simply adding more to our lives, somehow cramming more in, without any leakage or loss?

You may find we are not adding to our lives, we are simply exchanging one thing for another. Yes, we can have more and do more but at the same time as we are getting our hands on a sleek new exciting piece of hardware or software, without noticing we are allowing something else to silently slip away.

Bit by bit we are letting go of those moments when we could stop and not have to do anything, not have to think anything. Those moments when life is OK, just as it is without us having to try and fix it! Those times where we can just appreciate the world as it is and feel the deeper quality of each moment. They are becoming fewer. We are neglecting our deeper self, our deeper needs.

We have no time for this moment! We are too busy thinking about how to manage the next moment, rushing on to the next meeting, the next workout, the next social... we have the speed, we have got QUANTITY sorted... but the inner QUALITY of the present moment is lost.

To feel the present moment is to risk feeling your truth.

To the proverbial alien visitor, it would probably appear that most of us want to do more, to be in touch with others and the outside world at all times and extract the maximum QUANTITY from our lives.

Yet when I ask people for what purpose they are doing and having these things, I get the answer that what they really want is to feel inner QUALITIES like, love, peace, acceptance and happiness.

We continue to look outside for these qualities because it is a lot easier to look outwards and measure our lives externally (using judgment and comparison with others), than it is to be honest and look inwards and feel our own truth. And in the short term the satisfaction gained from looking outside can seem like a good substitute for what we really want.

But the real qualities we seek are not on the outside, they are only found by looking inwards and that is what we are ignoring as we are lost in the fog of the race for more speed.

That is what Gandhi's quote means to me. Speed is one of life's variables, and it can be exciting but it is not worth chasing at the expense of the qualities we are truly seeking.

Do you have All Your Adult Teeth or were you Chased by a Hippo?

Have you All Your Adult Teeth or were you Chased by a Hippo?

Not the obvious chat up line but it would have been perfectly acceptable at the School of Awareness (SofA) Launch Party which was held in central London on 20 April 2010. It attracted a good crowd, some new, some familiar faces and everyone was soon mixing enthusiastically partly in thanks to the icebreaker which challenged you to identify people in the room who had 'achieved' one of 15 unusual things. Could you honestly sign for 'juggling 3 balls for 10 seconds'?

SofA has been founded by former bank manager Ankur to support and expand individual and collective Self-Awareness, Consciousness and search for Truth by delivering high quality Empowering, Experiential and Transformational workshops, active meditations and events that are affordable and open to all.

This is badly needed at this time, especially in London where there is a tendancy to get dragged into leading a very superficial life and not making time for our deeper self.

To ensure these events are open to as many people as possible, all chargeable events are ‘Income Based’ so participants choose what they pay based on what they can afford. For example, the upcoming workshop 'Inner Personal Power' on Sunday 23 May ranges from £25 for students and those on benefits, and then in £10 increments all the way up to £95 for the highest earners. Other events are free, such as the innovative ‘Social, Picnic and Meditation in the Forest’ events held deep in London's Epping Forest during the summer months where as well as connecting with each other, we connect with the forest and so with ourselves. Most Londoners don't even know that there are over 6,000 acres of real forest on their doorstep, let alone that it is all accessible by Tube! The next event in the forest is on Sunday 13 June. See www.SchoolofAwareness.co.uk

for details of this and other events.

So just how do you spot someone who has been 'chased by a hippo' across a crowded bar? And should you check if they have all their adult teeth before you ask? As each participant could only sign for one 'achievement' and it transpired that only one person in the room had ever been chased by a hippo, but several claimed to have all their adult teeth (and keeping them in a box didn't count!), what you asked someone to sign for was important. The winning strategy required you to be more successful than the hippo and corner the lone escapee for her signature before moving on to check other people's teeth!

By the end of the evening it emerged that the quietest person in the room had jumped out of a plane, it was the Swedish girl who 'had a Snowmobile License', whilst the whitest person in the room was 'from Brazil'! Participants who had 'swum with sharks' or could 'hold a conversation in 3 languages' were also discovered. And what about the guy who said he could 'juggle 3 balls for 10 seconds'? Yes he could and he proved it.

And congratulations to the two winners Vishal and Ossie who each win a SofA workshop of their choice. All in all it was a great start to a new chapter on the SofA.

Path of Love - The Aftermath

Finally made it back to the chilling reality of London a few days ago. It seems a long time since I crashed out exhausted on Day 6 of Path of Love (PoL). I spent the next 3 weeks in Pune trying to physically recover from all that had gone on, some obvious and much of it far too deep for me to be aware of yet.

Yes certainly stuff has changed and I do feel much freer - maybe some barriers have disappeared - and I dont feel right now that I HAVE to do anything I dont want to do. It is like what I had thought was possible before is now happening and to tell the truth it really isnt much effort! I have clarity and any remnants of fear that lap around me are easily ignored. I have a real choice, although the way forward is so simple and clear that it isnt much choice at all - I can onle see one path so what chance of confusion? (the project in hand is to set up a centre/school of spiritual development in London).

How much of this is because of PoL I am not sure (ironically that bit isnt clear! - but then it involves looking back to how things were before which is something I do not wish to spend time on in this moment) because I had this sense of direction before I went to Pune but now I keep asking myself where is the difficulty with this project, where is the reason I am not doing it now, and there is no reason and I am making it happen now (actually it feels like it is happening by itself and I am merely doing a bit of administration to allow it to flow).

And everything I said in PoL seems so irrellevent in a way cos it was nothing to do with what I am doing now - but I do realise of course that the sharings, the honesty and the where I am now are very closely related - all those barriers and all those fears about not being good enough in whatever way (and for me that it what they all came down to) have caused all fears about not being good enough to evaporate and all those very real barriers I saw before have melted away. What I shared was just the tip of the iceberg but it has caused the whole iceberg to melt.

And so now I am left in a strange sense of freedom. Like walking through a landscape with no features - no barriers and nothing to stop me doing whatever I want. That is strange because I am not used to it, and free because in this moment everthing is simple, and I trust and have time. Maybe I am just choosing the simple things to do and ignoring the complicated - and if I am then that seems like a pretty good idea too - why indulge my mind in the complicated when it is not necessary?

Enough of this mind stuff - back to the journey - simple, clear and free. For the moment at least.

India (again) Dec 2009 to Jan 2010

I have been in Pune, India (a very rapidly growing sprawling mass of 3.5 million people) for 6 weeks now at an ashram (or more correctly the Osho International Meditation Resort) - great to get away from the cold and snow to the warm and reliable weather of India... And doing some intense inner work including assisting on an 8 day Primal course and participating in a 7 day Path of Love. After these then I was completely exhausted (physically, emotionally, in every way) - but I still managed to notice a few things about India... the good, the bad and the very ugly... not necessarily in that order.

Things that I dont connect with:

- The traffic on North Main Road - Five years a go when I first came here it, this was a poorly paved road which didnt really go anywhere and it had a few cars and bikes that bumped their way up and down the road. Cows roamed the verges in search of food, and water-buffalo were regularly herded up and down it on their way to the river, causing not much inconvenience to the trickle of traffic.
Now it is a fully paved dual-carriageway-superhighway crammed full of cars and (motor)bikes. It is not just 'busy', everyone using it is attempting suicide. And as I have to cross the road several times a day (as the ashram is on one side and I live on the other) and apart from at 5.30 in the morning when it is quiet, I always feel that I am half a step away from not making it. So then that makes me a reluctant road user, and therefore an unwilling participant in this suicide pact.
Getting halfway across is the worst as then I have to stand cms from traffic, whizzing by in both directions, who sole aim is to miss me by as little as possible. And if I should wobble, lose balance or take a tiny step forward or back I would immediately be gobbled up in a knashing of spokes and a mess of car body parts.

I occasionally sat and watched it all (whilst drinking freshly squeezed sweet lime at the roadside) and was amazed at how close everything came to hitting each other - the only word that kept coming to my mind was 'Suicide! Suicide!' How can these people put themselves through this it is madness only worse! Somehow they miss - I dont know how. But with 30,000 people killed on India's roads every year and countless more injured then I guess they dont always. But there is no road rage, no one gets angry, no-one is taking anyones elses space, because in India the rule is that 'everyone has right of way all of the time unless someone else gets there first' and everyone knows this and this allows them all to drive like maniacs without ever realising it!

There is a crossing - and I used it once - it has green and red lights to tell the traffic when to stop and the pedestrians when to cross. Unfortunately I thought it would work - that was my mistake - and so crossed when the green man appeared only to find the traffic roaring all around me as if I shouldnt have been there. Safer not to use the crossing!

And of course the road gives rise to incredible noise and pollution... but that is a whole other story.

- Pollution - this is a whole other story (told you so) - being unable to breath, being knee deep in rubbish, being awakened at all hours of the night, the stench in some places... from every imaginable source: cars, bikes, rubbish, washing powder in the rivers - in short everywhere and everything pollutes and no-one really seems to do anything about it...

- Cockroaches - I find it difficult to respect the (Hindu) sanctity of life when there are large cockroaches in my room - sod them they are gonna get trodden on!

- Words that Indians dont understand No. 8
'Quietly' - Nothing is ever done quietly - it is all an excuse to make a noise. Even in the cinema everyone loves to describe each scene to their neighbour as though they were blind; in English, Hindi or Marathi, or frequently a combination of the three.


But enough of moaning - there must be some great stuff about India:

What I was in tune with:

- Th eoccasional small herd of Water-buffalo crossing the road as if they own it (well I guess historically they do). What I love is that they just walk out into the streaming traffic without a care in the world and without any fear at all. The traffic realises this and has to slow or even stop (a rarity in India) and the buffalo just stroll around totally unhurried - I found it beautiful to watch - it makes a change, the old creating havoc in the 'advanced' world rather than the other way round - maybe the balance is being restored.

- The food - it is great, fantastic, can be very cheap, always interesting and usually waiting time is minimal. This applies to Indian food. (It does not apply to the various Indian attempts at European food which are woeful and embarressing! In England we have Indian people who cook Indian food, Chinese people who cook Chinese food, Italians to cook Italian food etc etc and that is they way it should be - this experience has shown I do not value that diversity enough!).

- The wildlife - diverse and beautiful in all its ways - the constant supply of different coloured flowers that fall around me as I walk along (less busy) roads, the herons, egrets, kingfishers, cormorant, striped squirrels, parakeets, and elegant vultures that constantly glide overhead (like birds of prey not like the scrawney ugly ones in cartoons) and small birds - they all somehow put up with the pollution to live here - how they do it I dont know but I am grateful that they do. And then there are the enormous fruit bats which come out every evening and dance around they sky.
There is an exception - the elephant that is made to walk up and down the superhighway to grab the attention of locals and foreigners alike - it is an amazing animal but it should not have to suffer this environment.

- The markets (mainly fruit and vegetable) full of vibrant colour and shapes, and with some things I had never seen before - especially the matt black stuff that looked like small bit of coal - I was told you have to peel and cook them (a bit like potato).

- The meat market - despite being mainly Hindu (who are vegetarians normally) and cows being sacred, I did manage to eventually find a thriving (Muslim) beef market. Oddly enough an awful lots of cats and a huge number of vultures seemed to have discovered it too!

- The colours - this is a colourful society beyond doubt - why do we wear desperately boring colours in England - maybe we are desperately boring?

- The dogs - There are many on every street corner almost all unowned. I am strangely attracted to them - most are in decent health - as they are playful and friendly and I love the way they just go to sleep by the roadside and expect everyone to go around them (and everyone does) and then just get up when they want and wander around, defending their territory against insurgent dogs - it is a whole culture in itself.

- The pavements - actually the pavements are useless for walking along - I have no idea what the actual purpose of a pavement is in India but where they exist they are put together with such care that they must have a purpose. What I love is that if there is an obstruction, like a tree, in the way they just incorporate it into the pavement, no cutting down of trees here. Unfortunately this often means that the pavement is completely obstructed by the tree and so everyone has to step into the road to walk around it. So most people just end up walking in the road anyway.

- The poverty and the disparity between rich and poor - I have to mention it even though the huge divide between rich and poor goes unnoticed after a while - it is just part of the fabric of life here. It is a direct result of being Hindu - if you are born desperately poor then it is your karma and so you should stay that way for this lifetime. In Pakistan, which is generally poorer, there are almost no very poor people, as one of the tenants of Islam is to give to the poor. I do have to remind myself that the whole of India's poor are not my problem although it does sometimes feel like it - especially when the beggars who target westerners are on the prowl (and that means that they aren't 'real' beggars anyway but out to con those who are a little more gullible).

When I came to the end of my stay I gathered up all my excess clothes and bits and pieces that I wasn't going to take home to give away to locals who ran basic stalls along the roadside so they could sell them. Amongst them was a plastic 'lunch' box that I had bought, used and no longer needed. I decided to fill it with nice stuff and give it to someone who I had come into contact with and who was obviously poor. This raised tonnes of issues such as:
- what do I fill it with - what does a 'poor' person in India need?
- Am I helping the right people - I mean is the family I intended to give it to really poor? - I mean there must be poorer people around.
- what does poor mean in India? How little do you have to have - do you have to be starving to be poor - and how do I know whether they are or not? They do look poor and most people who are poor try and look like they aren't (apart from professional beggars).
- If I can help one family a bit why can't I help others - 2 families, 3, 4, ...10 ...100 ... In some ways helping one family seems so pointless in amongst the millions that need it.
- And why am I doing it - is it just to feed my ego? (not that 'poor' people would care but I did feel that my motivation was important.
- And what if they didnt accept it - unlikley in India but who was I to break the Hindu concept of karma and acceptance?

In the end I decided:
- Anyone who sits by the side of the road all day trying to scrape together a very basic living is poor.
- Helping one family is better than helping no-one
- I can only do as much as I am able in this moment
- I may be feeding my ego but creating this 'opportunity' and making it happen also it felt like an important thing to do (not historically being some-one who gives anything away).

So I asked at a shop what 'poor' people might need and filled my box with what they suggested (like shampoo, toothbrushes, tothpaste etc) plus I added a few more fun things like chocolate and biscuits (well if you are going to clean your teeth you might as well make it worthwhile). And they were delighted to accept it - as delighted as I was to give it. And whether it made a difference I dont know - I would guess at 'a little'. And ego satisfied - giving is not that difficult after all.



I have concluded that India, and Pune in particular, and North Main Road Superhighway in particular particular is simply an experiment to see how much stuff you can throw at one place (and by stuff I mean people, cars, bikes, rubbish, pollution, dogs, shops, in fact life in general) and keep throwing more and more stuff at it, and without anyone controlling anything, just see what happens. This is what it feels like and so far the experiment is progressing well with huge increases in everything and life adapts and still functions - which is lucky cos the experiment has very far to go! I hate to think what it will be like in 10 or 20 years, but it will be stretched to the limit, and probably beyond. But being India, it will still some how function just because it has to cos people's lives depend on it worksing somehow (although outsiders may not use the word 'function' to describe it).


The last word must go to the Indians who put up with all the shit, accept it and get on with life, cos that is just how it is right now. I am not sure if I want to learn a lot from this or not! The acceptance of 'what is' is great, but it feels like there is also an acceptance that things will always be like this (or worse) so why bother trying to change them - and that feels like a missed opportunity. India is full of contradictions and I should expect nothing less than to be challenged by them all!

Are Your Emotions Real?

One thing I notice repeatedly in workshops and meditations I facilitate is the resistance some people have to admitting to themselves (and others) that they are not a perfect bundle of love and joy all of the time. For them it is quite a shock to be told that it is OK to be Sad, Angry or to Cry as well as to be Love and Happiness. Not surprisingly, often their first instinct is to reject it and then maybe accept that it is OK for others but not OK for themselves!

Somewhere along the line they have picked up these beliefs, maybe from their parents, and maybe it has been reinforced by society in general. Of course, society doesn’t often openly say ‘Don’t be Sad’, ‘Don’t Cry’ or ‘Don’t be Angry’ but it is hidden in many messages we get ranging from Government measuring ‘Happiness’ and how it is ‘good’ to be happy, to the social embarrassment of a friend crying or being angry in the street. In fact, almost everyone reinforces that it is ‘OK to be Happy’ but not ‘OK to be Sad’ by their unconscious words and actions, such as saying ‘Don’t cry’ or ‘Cheer up and give me a smile’ when that clearly isn’t the emotion that needs to be expressed right then.

I am certainly not saying that being sad or angry is better than being happy but, as human beings, all emotions naturally arise in us from time to time, not just the ones we have chosen to label ‘good’. Expressing Joy and Love is unbelievably fantastic and an abundance of these qualities lies deep beneath our everyday emotions. But to connect with them we need to go deeper. How? By first simply connecting with yourself and notice how you actually feel deep down in that moment, and allow yourself to be exactly that. Totally accept that however you feel is real for you and just allow it to be there in that moment. Recognise that, in that moment, this is ‘you’ (or more accurately a collection of you and all the emotional baggage you have picked up throughout your life). And totally express and release the everyday emotions that are there. Really be yourself!

Unfortunately, whilst freely expressing emotions is OK in your own space, it is not generally OK in a society which has become used to people presenting a whole range of (fake) masks, one for every situation, and it is far easier to conform to what others expect! Pity, because underneath all the layers of masks and everyday emotion there lies an abundance of real Joy, Love, Happiness, Peace etc. Real because it isn’t painted on like a mask. Real because there is no need to pretend ‘I’m good right now’ when I’m not. Real because we don’t even need to think ‘happy thoughts’ to connect with it. But first we need to express whatever is there in order to go deeper and discover the wonderful stuff that lies hidden within. But most of us don’t, simply because for our whole lives we have been trained to conform to the rules of this society which just isn’t comfortable with us being real. And we take the easy option and carry on conforming rather than breaking away from those rules and living as our real selves.

So what is the point of being real? Expressing your emotions can bring great clarity and peace within and allows you to go deeper, beyond those emotions, bringing more realisations about who you truly are. This is a path towards Your True Self - but it isn’t an instant fix so don’t expect an instant ‘cure’ - this is the start of a path of self-discovery and self-realisation of who you really are at your deepest level.

So, if you choose, you can stop all the ‘trying’ to be something you aren’t (just so you can appear to be happy to others) and give this a go:

1. Find a physical space where you feel comfortable;
2. Start ‘being’ yourself by connecting deeply inside (remove distractions, close you eyes, allow your thoughts to fall away, and just notice how you really feel, deep down, right now - don’t try to be anything different);
3. Be totally open and honest with yourself (don’t worry if you find this challenging);
4. Release and express whatever you find there (but remember do not harm yourself or anyone else, and if you feel physical anger, hitting a pillow is better than smashing up the room);
5. Notice how you feel deep inside afterwards - you may notice peace or clarity beneath any remnants of the emotion you expressed. The more you do this the more you will notice.
6. Then when you have the courage to go beyond the fear of letting others see who you really are, you can start being truly be real when others are around. Just be aware that other people may be offended if, for example, you express anger at them or when you are with them (this is their issue - yours is the one you are expressing - but they probably won’t be aware of this) so take it one step at a time. Maybe start by simply being honest with them and telling them how you feel.

If it feels like some more guidance and practice on being your real self could be useful see the Awakening Your Inner Child and Discovering Your Own Meditation Workshops at www.LondonCollegeofSpirituality.co.uk and the ‘Free My Life’ Spiritual Coaching Programme at www.spiritual-coaching.co.uk

How Superficial are You? --OR-- The Easiest Mistake You can make on Your Spiritual Path

One of the biggest barriers we face as spiritual seekers is the ease with which we can fall into the pretence of the superficial world of Love, Peace and Joy.

Don’t get me wrong; the world that our spiritual teachers almost universally ‘sell’ us does exist. And the qualities such as Love, Peace and Joy are there in abundance. There is nothing superficial about that; unfortunately nearly all of us aren’t there yet.

What is superficial is when we TRY to feel love, joy or peace because then we fall flat on our faces. Take this simple example:

1. I feel angry with a particular person.


2. I then remember what my teacher said, and think ‘I shouldn’t feel anger, I should feel love for this person’.


3. So I ‘go inside’ and try and find love for this person, and maybe I do, but in focussing on love, I have suppressed the anger.

It would be nice to think that in connecting with love, the anger would just float away on a cloud! It doesn’t.

In a situation where you feel an emotion, anger for example, you have three choices:

1. Suppress it. The unresolved anger may seem to disappear, it hasn’t it has just been pushed into your subconscious. Your subconscious will put it with all your other suppressed anger and present it for resolution at a future time when triggered by some event. With practice this can be done with a minimum of conscious effort but the emotional effort is significant, as the subconscious will repeatedly present the ‘heap’ of suppressed anger for resolution until you deal with it.


2. Half-heartedly suppress the anger thinking I don’t want to feel angry, and allow it to hang around for hours or days before eventually ‘forgetting’ about it (suppressing it). This is the one that most people take most of the time because it requires the least conscious effort; subconsciously it involves more emotional turmoil than the above.


3. Sit with it. Watch it. It’s OK to be angry. Allow it to be there. Go deeper into it. Really feel it. Experience it. Become it totally. Express it if you are in a physical space where you can; if not, just feel it totally. In short: Be Real, this is the biggest challenge.When it is ready it will go; allow that release. You may find a calmness and clarity arise to ‘replace’ it. If anger returns at any stage then it has not been fully experienced or expressed, so repeat the above.

This applies to any emotion or feeling that arises. Whatever it is, by allowing it to be there totally you can experience it and allow it to go.

Trying to feel a particular way is destructive. Holding on to the ‘good’ emotions or stopping the ‘bad’ ones is an example of you trying to be something other than you are in that moment. Instead, just allow whatever is there to be there.

If you want to ‘hurry up’ the process it is possible, though not by yearning after love, joy or peace, but by using a technique like Self Enquiry that allows you to go more deeply into whatever is there for you in that moment. Qualities such as Love, Joy and Peace will arise by themselves once enough of your lifelong suppressed emotions have been released.

Do You feel challenged by this? If so, then great! It’s OK to feel challenged. Stay with the feeling of challenge and go deeper into the feeling (don’t get lost in the mind thinking about it). Being challenged in one way of moving forward on your path.

If you don’t feel challenged then maybe you were already fully aware of this, or you have had an ‘Ah-ha’ moment, or maybe you have just thrown it away because you just aren’t ready for it yet. And if that challenges you, then allow yourself to be open and go back and read it again…

Ankur Spiritual Coaching - Guidance for You on Your path...

What is Spirituality? A simple explanation... --OR-- Your First Steps on Your Path

From my work as a Spiritual Coach and teaching at the London College of Spirituality it is clear that the concept of Spirituality confuses many people even at the most fundamental level. So I have revisited my experience to find some simple words that may help define it for you and I offer some suggestions about how you can start to go deeper...


Many ‘spiritual seekers’ get so consumed by all the ‘stuff’ that surrounds spirituality, the beliefs, rituals and practices, they end up lost in a haze of thought and activity and maybe even end up on a ‘spiritual’ ego trip which appears promising but which is going nowhere. In short, they completely miss the point.

Spirituality is not about your thoughts, your actions or even your beliefs. You may have spiritual beliefs, but the essence of spirituality is beyond that.

Spirituality is simply what leads you back home to yourself. More specifically, spirituality is what leads you to the truth of who you are in any moment, the true self. And since anything that comes from outside you is not you, the focus must be inward. It’s just you becoming you. It’s that simple.

So why do so many people get so sidetracked by the stuff? Primarily because looking at stuff with our minds is far easier and less challenging than looking inside with awareness and checking out who we truly are and what is really there for us in any moment. Especially as what we find is often not attractive!

Instead, it’s easier to ignore what’s real, and dive into our mind created ego to slip on a mask from our elaborate and extensive collection, which gives the image we want to portray in any given situation. Because in our society, it is regarded as more important to portray the ‘right’ image than to reveal who we really are. Why else would we spend most of our time peeping deviously from behind an aura that we proudly show, not only to fool others but also to convince ourselves we are something better (or sometimes something worse!) than who we think we are?

The irony is that we are all a whole lot ‘better’ than we think we are, but that true part of us has been covered up by the very same mind created ego that now portrays a false image.

To go beyond this and unravel your truth you need to start looking inside and be open to whatever you find there, even if it something you do not like, such as sadness, anger or fear. Being honest with yourself is challenging, but there is no advantage in delaying starting right now.

So how do you start to connect with you at a deeper level?
Firstly you have everything you will ever need – the true You (which is always there but is under a pile of your ‘stuff’) and some Awareness (the more you can gather the better).
Secondly, connect with inside. Put all your attention on how you feel in that moment. If it is blocked by thoughts you can ‘drop’ them by simply not giving them any energy or attention and allowing them to go (don’t fight, hang on to or suppress thoughts). More thoughts may arise... keep doing the same and soon gaps will be revealed between thoughts.
Thirdly, just notice how you are feeling in that moment. Whatever is there is Real for you in that moment… it is unlikely to be the True Self just yet but at least you are looking in the right place.
Lastly, start to notice when you act differently to what is real for you in any moment, and ask yourself for what purpose you are choosing to act differently, and how ideally you would like to act. What’s really stopping you being you and having what you really want?

Being Real is not always easy in our society, but, as your awareness grows, your behaviour will change. This awareness is the driving force of your journey towards yourself. This is spirituality in action - you are treading the right path…

The Path of Transformation --OR-- A Brief Summary of the Spiritual Parts of My Journey

I was a spectator, not only of the spectacular crescendo of explosions that enlightened the Thames in the first minutes of the 21st century, but I was a spectator in my life too. Just watching it bounce along in no particular direction. Of course I did have direction, but it was from work and others. My life was being directed by others; I was just fitting in, to their show. What was I getting out of my life? Where was I going?

I was a bank manager. A hard-working, focussed, stressed and thoroughly pissed-off bank manager. I had a ‘good’ job and I played hard too, but I was (very) slow in realising that I didn’t have a Life. I was merely a distant and powerless observer of my existence, as it slid aimlessly down a slippery slope. I was devoid of feeling, unknown to joy, and had never been truly ‘in love’. And I was a complete stranger to the values of peace and fulfilment. Plus I was lost in the maze that is the corporate jungle…

And then it all changed.

Within months I had a choice to make. Move to another role with the bank or take a redundancy. I thought, I analysed (‘cos that’s what I did best), I thought again, and from somewhere I found uncertain courage to take the money and run. And run I did. Well actually I stumbled a bit at first. But once in my stride I ran and ran and ran. For six years, through over 50 countries and across six continents (Antarctica still eludes me).

Along the way I ended up in India and thought that I would take in an ashram for a week just because… well, to see what it was like and to try something different (I had never meditated before). And luckily I found a fellow traveller to drag me along to one, although not without a stack of reservations on my part about... everything.

So what was it like? Like getting up at 5.30am to do a one-hour very active meditation, then a shower, then a one-hour very silent meditation, and that was all before breakfast. And then meditate some more during the morning, more in the afternoon and some more in the evening. And they were the easy bits! I struggled with the numerous petty rules – you must wear a robe, and it must be this colour during the day… and this colour in the evening (more stuff to buy)… and only this colour trunks in the swimming pool… and use this payment card in the day but only this one in the evening and… AAAAAAARGGG! Plus it was very expensive by Indian standards and I was a backpacker on a budget. Now suddenly submerged and lost in a bewildering world, rules stalked me - openly, money flowed worryingly quickly from ATM to ashram, and the only thing I was ‘Being’, was totally confused. For five long days I fought and struggled bravely with these multi-headed monsters. And then tragedy! I was shocked to learn that my mind, which I had considered to be my ultra reliable and dependable sidekick ‘til then, was actually the sworn enemy of meditation and even that it wasn’t me at all! By now my world was gyrating uncertainly.

Sure, there was value in the meditations, and some of the multitude of multi-day courses looked good if I could only understand what they were all about, but they were sooooo expensive… and anyway, I was only there a week, so no time for that. But it was playing on my mind – if indeed it was my mind? Confusion reigned.

I was just about to book my tickets for ‘elsewhere’ when my resistance suddenly ceased! It was the calm after the storm. OK so maybe the clothes weren’t totally ridiculous and everyone else wore them, and besides I had bought them now. And comparing the ashram prices to those in UK made it a little easier to swallow. In these terms, maybe it wasn’t sooo bad. But that lead to a new dis-ease around there being nothing now to stop me carrying on and ‘doing stuff’ here. The meditating felt good, and I somehow felt a desperate need to do these courses. And I realised I needed some help, so ‘I’ could look at ‘me’ - was this a ridiculous concept? Could I really broaden my vision and shed the narrow view I had held all my life? And for the first time ever, could I challenge myself, challenge what I thought, connect with my feelings, have emotions, feel true love and discover who I really was? Now I was getting scared!

And that is when my journey really began.

I stayed a month, I had to move on because my visa was running out, but the seed had been sewn and I had taken a new name, Ankur (meaning 'new growth'). I had only scratched the surface, but at least I now knew where to dig. And just 12 months later I was back, this time for four months. Many hours of meditation, numerous courses, much pain and self-discovery later I emerged a very different person: with emotion, with a heart, with an awareness of true self and a new level of self-esteem. I experienced the qualities of joy, peace and total fulfilment that are my true self and can just feel how incredible it is to be in that space. I was not complete though, these were just the first few steps, but I had found a path….

And as well as going back to that ashram, further steps on my journey have included studying NLP, Life Coaching and Enlightenment Intensive work which I now combine with my experience for my new roles in life, as a Spiritual Life Change Coach and Meditation Teacher – my path it seems, is also to help others discover themselves.

So am I still a spectator of my life? Yes, I certainly am. But I am no longer looking from afar. I am looking from the inside, at the inside, aware of who I am and how I feel in every moment (well… most of them); and I realise that I am responsible for my own feelings and behaviour and I have real choices about my future. I am finally scripting my own show.

Now with new Openness and Awareness, I constantly seek the courage to Allow and Accept whatever is there. Just trying to be connected with myself and be real in every moment is an enormous challenge, which I relish simply because I can feel the benefits in every moment. I create my own reality – and my intention is always to do that from the blissful space of my True Self.

Check out how you can discover yourself and change your life at
http://www.spiritual-coaching.co.uk/
and
http://www.lifechangecoaching.co.uk/

Where 42 Kiev, Ukraine --OR-- There is no Bad Weather, Only Bad Clothes

'There is no bad weather, only bad clothes' I was told as I arrived in snowy sub-zero Kiev with what had suddenly become a backpack of substandard garments. I did find that this was offset by volume, and so wearing an unlikely high number of layers made the weather improve significantly. However it wasn't until, after some days, when there was a sudden rise in temperature (up to zero) that I started to feel 'warm'.

I asked a local girl what Ukraine was famous for. After a moments thought she replied 'Andriy Shevchenko (footballer)... and Chernobyl !' Both expensive mistakes - one seems to have faded into just a distant memory whilst the other is still red hot and can only be visted with a Geiger counter in hand.


The Grey

- The Cloud - In India 2 years ago I remember that I only saw one cloud (in a blue sky) in 2 weeks. It is the same here, one cloud in 2 weeks, except that this single cloud is the colour of an elephant and the size of Eastern Europe, plus it is stuck right here for 2 weeks!

- Whenever I have visited ex-Soviet countries (Ukraine was part of USSR 1922-1991) I have seen the Soviet style housing i.e. grey tower blocs (sic), and as usual here they are situated some distance from the centre, across the (frozen) river. However this is the first time I have 'lived' in one. There is a dense forest of concrete blocs, a whole city 'nicely' planned out around amenities and sprouting as far as I can see. The gardener has indeed been successful. The age of each can be deduced from merely counting its floors - the oldest have only 6 whilst the new ones (yes they are still building) go up to 20. Inside the common areas the decor has disintegrated not through vandalism but just because it was never really meant to last 20 years. The not so rich are crammed in with an extended family sleeping in one room (plus kitchen and bathroom). The 'richer' may have a spare room to rent out. Either way, space is jealously guarded and the number of rooms a well boasted measure of wealth.

- Away from the spectacular Soviet monstrosities of the centrally planned centre, uniform grey men have thrown up repetitive housing blocks in their own image, or maybe this modern barracks for the people is intended to be a reflection of the featureless monotony of our favorite depressing gun metal grey cloud which dominates the country and so camoflages the housing as it merges into the freezing landscape. These central planners have seared their brand deep into the psyche of the people who reluctantly but obediently buy into it.

- The sun is a stranger - she alone is able to temporarily life the gloom. Even the snow, tempoarily dazzling with its pureness, soon fades to grey as it strives towards uniformity with its resting place, soon disolving into a darker landscape devoid of life other than for grey pigeons, stark trees - a reminder of what once was and what may be again. This land, and many of the people seem in hibernation, waiting for the first signs of spring.



- Walking - Most civilisations have developed simple but effective systems to cope with the elements, but here, despite regular snowfalls, partial thaws and refreezing, not one thought seems to have been directed at reducing the paths to anything other than an ice rink. Actually there is one man that does this. One man in the whole of Ukraine (which is the largest country wholly within Europe) who has the job of clearing the paths - I know this because I saw him once near the border with Poland - but if he isnt visiting your city this year, your paths will remain icey.

- Churches - At first I thought that going into a church to get out of the cold was a good idea. But most must have ganged up against paying their electric and heating bills and surely have been cut-off as a result. Entering into most is being plunged into a dark domed freezer with a small window (with curtains) high up on a far wall. I warmed my frozen hands above the forest of candles lit by the orthodox worshippers.

- Black and brown bears still dance in the circus to a human tune. A sad throwback to me, but the locals see nothing wrong in parading these animals in chains.

- Zebra crossing marking on the road have faded to... nothing. Not that it was that important because even when the green man is displayed cars can still 'go' (legally) so long as they avoid hitting any stray pedestrains who may have decided to risk crossing the road. As a result the traffic doesnt go that fast but it randomly lurches across the crossing from gap to gap without warning. Personally I prefer to cross on the red man as at least the cars are predictable...

- The Metro - Fast, efficient, cheap and packed. The escalators are by far the longest I have ever seen. Unfortunately the blue 'm' signs on the surface are tiny so it is almost impossible to spot where the station entrances are. 'Fortunately(?)' there seems to be a Macdonald's next to each one and the large golden arches are far easier to spot...

- The tiresome ritual of dressing in multiple layers before stepping out the door, and the reverse when I came back... Inside it was warm though!


The Bright

- The Beach - amongst the tower blocks there are a scattering of lakes and sandy beaches have appeared - there is a whole beach culture, sunbeds, sun, volleyball... at least there is in summer... in winter they are not surpringly desolate.

- The Food - Traditional, tasty and healthy. Ok so there are numerous MacDonald's, but excluding them the food is good and real. No nasty cook chill preprepared meals here. And the soups are something else.

- Caviare - Cheap and after the initial shock of having fish eggs on bread for breakfast (and many other meals), it was tasty!

- The metro costs 1/50 of that in London, the bus 1/10, beer 1/5, coffee 1/2 whilst bananas are more expensive. But the average earnings are far lower than London, although there are enough rich people for a significant number of western sports cars and designer handbag shops.

- Beer is cheaper than milk! And they also make English beer - Porter to be exact (one bottle has the Houses of Parliament on it)- and they do it so well that I exported some.

- The Opera - 'slightly' more accessible/cheaper than in UK - I saw La Traviatta in Italian with Ukrainian 'sub-titles' - so I had no idea what was going on.

- Tea - A strange several hour tea ceremony (involving music and dancing) with green tea balls which incredibly grew into flowers when put in boiling water - and the tea tasted good too! Ok so tea balls come from China but I have never seen them anywhere else... nor do I know how they work.

- Eating original Chicken Kiev in Kiev. Tasty.

Oh and my trip was so well timed that I missed Xmas in UK AND Ukraine. I spent 25/12 in Kiev and returned before the Ukraine Xmas on 7/1. Though we did get a real Xmas/New Year tree and covered it with lights

So it was an eye opener - I would love to go back in a warmer time of the year when there are less grey clouds!

Love
Ankur

Where 41 - Pune, India --OR-- How to Cross the Road and Survive

HI Everyone

I wake up to suddenly realise that I have been away for nearly 2 months and havent sent any communication worth the name. Some of you may think this is a good thing... others will read on...

So, in India (again) since early Dec, planned for 6 weeks but extended a couple of weeks to complete what I started - which means I will be home shortly, although home will mean London again (after over 6 years of being elsewhere) just a couple of days after I get back...

So far I have managed to :
- Completely miss Xmas (actually a few local shops did start selling xmas decorations about 2 days before xmas, and plastic pine plantations appeared outide others, so I did suddenly realise it was happening ... somewhere) and I did import an Xmas pud especially... It did slip by pretty much unnoticed though.
- Celebrated a completely alcohol free new year (in fact I have had no alcohol since leaving the UK)
- had about 100 'curries' [well, Indian food] - lunch and dinner every day and occasionally breakfast.
- nearly get run over many many times (but i have just had to accept this as part of the culture) which brings me to a favorite topic...


Crossing the road
The traffic on the road I have to walk up and down has massively worsened since even a year ago. I have worked out that the following techniques can be recommended(?):
a) wait for a decent gap in the traffic which may occur between 11pm and 8am (to 10am on a sunday).
b) close the eyes and walk slowly across ignoring all the horns blaring which they do constantly anyway (this generally works with motorbikes but not so well with cars and certainly not with lorries and tankers, so it is best to have a decent idea of what is coming before the eyes are closed)
c) wait until a cow crosses and hide behind it.

Method c) was of course the favorite method but now the traffic has increased to even more improbable proportions the cows cannot stand it any more and have left for more pleasant areas leaving the human population stuck on one side of the road or other for most of the day.


So I hired a bicycle for bout 10p a day and quickly realised that this was just a quicker way to 'nirvana' than walking. In addition to the rider, hire does include ample accommodation for at least 1 (and I have seen 2) passengers and maybe even a working brake. However, turning right is about the most dangerous thing one can do in India outside of being a politician, as 2 wheels are a bigger target than 2 legs!
In a recent survey around 20% of Indians admitted to driving on the wrong side of the road. This means that any normal 2 lane road immediately becomes a 4 lane road with contraflows either side of the two mains lanes. This unplanned but apparently unavoidable chaos is 'OK' because it is safer to do this for short distances (less than a mile) where entrance and exit are on the same side of the road because it is far too dangerous to cross the road once, let alone twice just to get on the 'correct' side! In fact I really have no idea which is the correct side anymore, suffice to say that I just ride my bike along the path of least resistence (pedestrains are softer than cars and trucks!)

Apart from instantly forgetting what side of the road they should be on, Indians have astoundingly good memories, probably cos they hardly ever write anything down (outside state run bureaucracies). I was surprised that the second time I went to a particular restaurant, the waiter reminded me exactly what I had had the first time I had been there! Then I was amazed that the first time I went to collect my laundry the guy in the shack said my name before I could say anything and instantly pulled out my washing knowing exactly what was there - this appently is normal. I was even more astounded when later I realised that when I dropped my washing off, that man wasnt actually there, someone else was...


The Inner Journey
And to the reason I came back here - to spend 7 days in a room (with windows and without padded walls - so much more civilised than some of the stuff I have done) having someone ask 'Tell me who you are?'. And now I know 'Who Am I'. Well, it is not quite as simple as that, but I do have a lot better idea and a lot has changed inside as a result of that. I could try and explain how this works in detail, but ... basically finding out what is there in that moment and expressing it frees up so much of the crap which isnt me, and underneath it all, is me - it is that simple.
And as a result of the huge impact that had on me I went on to train as a facilitator for the process and go deeper into it (intellectually and in an effort to uncover more of what I am). So I am a couple of weeks late back, but who is really counting???

Apart from that I did short courses on Living in the Moment and one on Intuition (relating to tarot reading).

So when I get back I will no doubt be looking for volunteers for Life Coaching, Tarot Reading and those who want to find out who they really are. Anyone interested?


What else to say - except almost uninterrupted sunshine, around 30C, no TVs, no meat ... and I will miss it all...

Love and Hugs

Ankur/Pete

Where 40 - Delhi, India --OR-- Mangoes and the Truth about Indian Food

Hiya,

In May Mango Mania arrives in India - yes it is the time of the year when mangoes are ripe and the whole of India goes nuts for them (well the rich people anyway). Everything that can be made out of them is. And some are even eaten as they are - especially the Alphonso variety, the king of mangoes.

And after 4 months sitting around doing nuff... meditating and stuff ... I finally managed to remind myself that travelling is about going places (and it was getting very hot in Pune) - and so I went somewhere, some places in fact, although at first I was wondering why ...

To start with something familiar kicks in - here I am on a train or a bus... then I encouter the disgusting squat toilets which look lke they have been just used by a herd of free roaming cattle which had a particularly bad beer and curry night the night before and whose aim was worse than a Peter Crouch penalty. Then the poverty - no matter what I have seen one day there is always something worse to see the next. Everyone walks round it, ignores it and builds huge very posh hotels next to it ... thats just the obscene way it is. And if you want to see the worlds biggest toilets just look out of the train window in the early morning as it pulls into a big city - endless rows of people squating down baring all (nearly all men oddly enough - I dont know where the women go)???

First stop Udaipur, which is a pretty place (well the bit around the lake and palace is at least) and spent most of the 3 days on the open air restaurant of the place I stayed looking at the views, but hardly moving cos it was so hot (over 40C in the shade) and once the palace and the odd temple had been viewed there wasnt really that much to do. So I decided to go to Jaipur...

Big mistake! Not only was Jaipur hotter than Udaipur - about 45C - (too hot to even lie under the fan comfortably), but it has to be the most scummy city I have been to in India, and you can imagine that is up against some pretty stiff competition. And since India can pride itself at being top of the world scummy city league then you may be able to imagine what Jaipur is like. Suffice to say that the description in LP of Jaipur being 'Whacky Races on acid' is about right. Traffic is constant and choking and constantly choking and when I tried to avoid it, it came looking for me! Everything is crammed in to small spaces. There are twice as many people, cars, rickshaws, cows per sq metre than in most cities in India, and more animals per sq metre than an english farm. The piles of rubbish and muck that line the streets are competed over by cows, goats, water buffalo, dogs, pigs and rats and often people as well, (cardboard is a delicacy for the pigs, cows and goats - Ive never seen humans eat it, yet) and then once they have eaten, they wallow in it. Then they follow me! I have been closely followed by people, dogs and cows (and in the mountains by monkeys) - I dont know which is worse, but it is best not to turn your back on any of them...

However I did realise that there is some value in a society that castes everyone into a specific role in life - opportunists follow the water buffalo herds as they trundle along the street and as soon as the poo hits the floor they grab it and mould it into rounds the size of chappaitis and dry it out for cooking fuel (it is normally poo of good consistency, unlike the liquid splodge left by cows - you cant spend time in India and not be an expert in poo - its everywhere - Regular washing of footwear is advisable).

Out in the villages things are not as bad although the transport can be worse. I was in a normal size jeep heading to a local market with 5 (inc driver) in the front, 6 of us in the 2nd row and about a dozen in the back (several hanging on the rear door). Now even for India I thought this was pretty full but was astounded to find that the next time we stopped to pick up passengers there was a brief discussion and no -one got on. At last I have been on a vehicle in Inida that even the locals considered was full - a first for me! Then at the next stop 2 people got out of the 2nd row ... and 4 got in. I think that in the school syllabus here, maths has been replaced by people management!

Travelling by state owned bus on the narrow winding roads in the hills of Northern India has to be about the worse transport experience I can remember - not only was I jammed in, knees crushed against the seat in front, but after about 5 minutes I was feeling like decorating the bus a queasy shade of green. Luckily it was only a 5 hour trip and I got over it in a few days (just in time to catch the next state owned bus on the narrow winding roads in the hills of Northern India...)

After trying to see the Dalai Lama and finding that he was busy, I went to Dalhousie, a place where Indian tourists go and there are hardly any foreigners, so it was kindda weird. But I did bag myself a small cottage in the hills where I stayed and meditated, and read and found I could sit on my porch gazing out at the spectacular view with one eye whilst watching England play Sri Lanka (live) at Cricket with the other. One eye is all you need to watch cricket anyway...

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Interlude

Its hot, hot , hotter here. At least in the hills it was a lot cooler, even cold. And it rained. And when it rains it rains.

Cool and wet? Reminds me of home.
__________________________________________________________________

Now a bit just for the travel averse, who think an Indian is a restaurant in the high street, and a taste of India means going into an 'Indian' after a large number of beers, here is some other true stuff about India:

- Onion Bhajis - forget it, India's best food is not actually available in India! Well i did find one place that did them ... and they were rubbish, the english versions far better.

- And whilst we are on the subject they dont do poppadoms and pickles like we do either ...

- And Cobra beer doesnt exist here (cos it was invented in Bradford, England) - although Kingfisher is available (and there is an airline also called Kingfisher which astoundingly uses the same logo as the beer! - what does that say about air safety in India?)

- India has (inventively) partyly solved it transport problems by declaring that on the roads, everyone has right of way over everyone else all of the time. So there is no 'waiting' for other traffic to pass, no 'holding back' to let oncoming traffic through before overtaking, no waiting at traffic lights just because they are red ... everyone just goes for any space that is available happy in the knowledge that he has right of way over everyone else. Even more odd is that there is no road rage either. Despite everyone cutting up everyone else all of the time, no-one gets the slightest bit upset or shouts or says anything at all. And everyone having right of way works - well about 98% of the time. There are clearly some teething problems to be ironed out but I don't want to dwell on the number of dents, the odd vehicle on its side or the occasional bodies strewn across the road; it is sufficient to say that I have been repeatedly reminded by repetition that the word for 'accident' in Hindi is 'accident'! Anyway only 80,000 people a year are killed on India's roads (one every 6.5 minutes) so with a population of this size and growing this quickly it's clearly not that important...

But now (save a taxi to the airport at the dead of night) all that is behind me - I have been vegetarian (the only way to be in India) and had virtually no alcohol in the past 5 months, so to be plunged into several rounds of World Cup BBQs and beer extravaganzas very shortly which will be a challenge ... cos I will be home before the big tournament kicks off (lucky coincidence that!).

And that was all the travelling I did in 5 months. For the other four 'I' was the journey.

See ya soon

Love and Hugs

Ankur / Pete

Where 39 - Pune (again), India --OR-- Where Did Being Sane Ever Get You?

HI Everyone

It has been yet another month's hard labour at the ashram, breaking rocks and the like.

Someone did ask me to describe the place I am in, but since I have been here over 3 months, walking up and down the same road everyday it has ceased to have any cultural attraction. Suffice to say that:
- The ashram is like living in a pradise with loads of jungle like trees, plants and flowers interspersed by walkways, open areas, air-con buildings and a swimming pool; You can always check it out at
www.osho.com (meditation resort)

- The main roads are hotbeds of hotrods and hotheads, choked with SUVs, tuk-tuks and two-wheelers striving to make their mark on the clock, the road and (sometimes) their foreheads since crash helmets are not required in cities (!). Calling it mayhem would hardly confer the insanity which prevails in even venturing near the roadside (the pavements being virtually unusable, let alone trying to cross it. The real killer though is the (perfectly acceptable) practice of driving or riding at the side of the road in the opposite direction to the traffic in the nearest lane ... just when I thought it was safe to walk at the side of the road, some bugger is coming the opposite way and expects me (walking) to move out into the traffic so he can nip behind me staying close to the relative safety of the kerb.

I have, on a few occasions, made the dubious decision to ride pillion on two wheelers (often driven by Italians (need I say more) - the men are crazy, the women are worse - I sit there hanging on grimley to anything that feels relatively fixed, considering that maybe this is what suicide feels like, not listening as the respective Italian enthiusiastically recounts stories of this and that (actually I have been to scared to ever listen so I dont know) in broken english with one hand forsaking the handlebars in order to give the story an unnecessary flourish, the other hand merely has a passing acquaintance (two fingers are just enough to keep the twist grip on full power, any excess fingers would reduce the excitement by bringing in an element of control). I am frozen whilst in wonderment at their power of longevity as we crash through another pothole, swerve around a large water buffalo with excessively long and threatening horns, and at this point I am tempted to remind them that whilst I have changed a lot in the past few months, I am not yet immortal!

_______________________________________________________________________

Interlude

From the reports the weather in UK actually seems to be getting a little warmer ( or less cold at least), although the amount of rain doesnt sound great. Here it is 40C during the day and 20C at night, so the fans are on all 24/7. Not that the temperature is the problem, the humidity is the killer, and it is getting to be unpleasent during the middle of the day - the only respite is air-con but then the suffering is double upon exit...
Unfortunately, as I head up north the first two places I am heading for, Udaipur and Jaipur, are even hotter - forecast 45 during the day and 30 at night!!! After that I head to the hills and cooler weather ... I hope.
_______________________________________________________________________


The most fun thing in the last month was a 3-day course on tantra - more about love, energy and breath than sex - but mingling amoungst (some) hot bodies is always beneficial; and delving into my own heart emotions by projecting onto my partner or using them as a mirror is very powerful and revealing - and maybe just a bit frightening.

And the main event has been 21 days of Mystic Rose ... I can see I will have to explain ... it may sound strange ... this is a meditation that consists of 7 days of laughing (at nothing), 7 days of crying and then 7 days of silence ... actually its not a whole day just 3 hours but the mood created inside does affect the whole day (and night). Laughing for 3 hours was really hard work cos it is non stop. Crying was extremely difficult, although it is getting in the state of mind and body that is more important than the tears themselves. Silence was a breeze! And so after that my emotions are swirling round in strange directions and will take a while to settle ... so I am heading off to a quiet place by a lake for a few days before doing a bit of travelling.

Yes after all these months, I finally have a plan which actually involves going somewhere! Starting with getting on a train and heading up north via the desert to the mountains where it should be a bit cooler; and leaving this place behind ... and I feel it really is time to leave ... I have been through so much here and existence is now pushing me elsewhere, somewhere quieter, less intense and reflective ... where I can look forward to the blossoming of new emotions...

You may of course think I am insane ... but where did being sane ever get me?? Or you??


Love and Hugs

Ankur

Where 38 - Pune (still), India --OR-- How to Have Everything You Want so long as You Want Nothing at All

Hiya

Thanks for all the emails warning me about being brainwashed at ashrams in India. I'm sure some of them were out of genuine concern, and the others were at least amusing.

I have spent most of the past month indulging myself in massages and the like - not intentionally of course, but it just happened that way ...
- Firstly, I went to th Ayuverdic doctor to try and fix my left knee which has been getting worse since I have been here (and is my excuse for not being able to kick a football with my left foot). I ended up having my whole body smothered in oil several times and then on numerous occasions my knee was swabbed firmly with boiling oil which was excruciatingly painful. At least my knee did get a lot better (back to where it was when I got here).
- Then a couple of times I had deep massage - the guy (who has been recommended to me by loads of people) found bits of me I didnt know could hurt but I floated off somewhere afterwards so it must have been good.
- Transomatic Dialogue - next I stumbled upon this, but still dont know what it means. It isn't massage but I got to lay on a table (clothes on though) and after revealing my deepest secrets to the therapist, she proceeded to talk to my body for an hour and a half - kindda weird but it went deep.
- And now finally I have decided to try Acupuncture (Tibetan style) and have needles stuck around my knee and all over the rest of me as well. Ive just started the course but I will let you know how it goes...


Just in case it seems like I am at a health farm, there are occasional reminders that I am in India, like:

Roads - Around here they love laying new roads. Unfortunately there is no overall plan and so when a road that has never been anything other than a dirt track gets tarmac'd, someone found they needed to dig a trench the whole way across within 2 days!

Language - It constantly amazes me how the locals can change languages several times in the same conversation apparently seamlessly between Hindi, Marati and English, and then back again without anyone batting an eyelid. Whether anyone really understands what is being said does not seem too important.

Pavements - these rare stretches of paradise are built around existing trees which is very enviromentally friendly (about the only thing here that is) but often to the point where the pavement is completely blocked by said tree and everyone has to walk in the road (not recommended due to ridiculous amount of traffic and standard of driving), although often there are less potholes in the road than on the (new) pavement!

Elephants walking along the road. It happens!

The diet is of course a vegatarian one (chancing eating meat here is an unnecessary risk I dont need to take) and the veg food is very good. Add to that the variety of ripe fruit available at very cheap prices and I find I am stuffing myself at every opportunity with fruit and veg and still eating more healthily than ever before. The only problem is that I'm struggling to take in enough calories, especially with the rising heat having a negative effect on everyone's appetites. So just to increase the sugar intake a few of us have started to have a weekly pig out at an unlimited thali place with loads of sweet stuff as well ... ah, the joys of Indian food... but I have definitely lost quite a few kgs since I got here.

And talking of looks, my hair is now long enough that it needs a direction to grow in other than simply outward!

____________________________________________________________________

Interlude

It is kindda strange that London is now getting over an hour more daylight than we are here but according to the BBC the temperature is attached by an elastic band to a point near freezing. Here I am just glad that it hasn't breached the 40C mark although it has been 38 or 39 most days for some time now. At least the humidity is relatively low, although that is starting to rise unstoppably in anticipation of the monsoon in June, by which time I will hopefully be back in the UK enjoying more friendly temperatures - mid 20s would be nice.

_____________________________________________________________________


And of course there are meditations - yes I am still getting up at 5.30am to jump around the inside of a marble clad pyramid although I only managed to do 26 days in a row this time as I was getting bored and wanted a few days rest. Better meditations include poi (swinging 2 small weights on strings around the head) - these can be alight but at the moment I am settling for the ones with brightly coloured scarves attached as being safer (when it all goes wrong) and better in daylight anyway; I'm not that good but for some reason a couple of people asked me to teach them, so I now teach it as well! And yes it might sound (an awful lot) like playing but this really is meditation - one of the major points of (eastern) meditation is to get out of the mind, and it really is impossible to think about what is happening to those weights at the end of the strings as they whizz round in funny patterns - so the mind just gives up ... trust me ...

And of course, Courses.
- All these courses that I have done have (eventually) brought up their share of confusion of the mind and body (emotionally) which is a bit weird at first cos it catches me unaware; suddenly, for no reason, I feel different.
- The main one this month was called 'Who is in?' which is an intensive 3 days where the first thing they do is take your watch away and then tell you to be on time, everytime. They also made us get up at 4.45am (although we had no idea what time it was) and eat boiled veg and tofu (yuk, yuk, yuk). And we were not allowed any salt and pepper either. If ever you need a reciepe for tastelessness then try tofu and diet dal.
So having got us all under their complete control 'they' sat me down opposite a partner who asked me the koan (Zen word for a riddle with no answer), 'Tell me, who is in?'; I looked inside myself and had to talk for 5 mins on how I felt (emotionally, sort of), on what was there. Then I asked my partner the same question and then 5 mins later I was asked the question again and so it went on for 3 days - I was asked 100 times and gave 100 different answers. The whole point is to bring up all these masks, personalities, egos, conditioning which are not me and discard them. Then what I am left with eventually is 'I'. And at the end of the second day I felt a different space inside me, that had been covered up by all the other rubbish - a space of contentment, beauty, happiness and bliss, and yet all so simple. Although I didn't recognise it at first I found that this was the 'I' I had been searching for!

And then I realised that I could have absolutely everything I wanted, so long as I wanted nothing!
And realising and understanding this is very powerful indeed.

Let me know if you get it!

Love and Hugs
Ankur / Pete

Where 37 - Pune, India --OR-- How to Live in Bliss - the Intellectual Answer

HI Everyone ...

... from the land of bombs and bird flu. Not that anyone asked, but if they had I would have been able to tell them that although I am close to the location of the confirmed cases of bird flu, I have not eaten eggs or chicken since I got here and am currently surrounding myself with cats and street dogs (easy here) to avoid any birdfowl coming close. And I have been some distance from the bombs which have killed quite a few locals (but no tourists) so far.

I have been in India 2 months now and have got used to the little intricacies of life here:
- the constant power cuts which happen several times during the day, and are of indeterminent length - the only reliable thing is that they DO happen every day.
- yesterday I ate at an italian restaurant for a change from the usual curry, and they gave me a knife and fork! I thought they only had spoons in India? I havent used a knife and fork for 2 months and could barely remember how to use them - mind you eating pizza with a spoon could also be tricky.
- Festival - today was the Hindu festival of Holi which involves half the population (i.e. half a billion) roaming the streets armed with copious amounts of coloured powder and paint to throw at the other half a Billion. As you can imagine the result is an enormous unholi(!) but xtremely colourful mess. Luckily, I have avoided being coloured to death (so far) although the road is a mosaic testimony to the heavyweight encounters that have taken place, and many of the locals shimmer like rainbows.


In the past month I have managed to find a bit of time to relax, that is when I have not been beating myself up on some course or other. Last post (a month ago) I was part way through a Fresh Beginnings for a New Life Course ... thankfully now completed. But first a few things I forgot to mention last time.

Vipassana (10 day course)
It only took 20 hours for me to learn to drive a bus to carry and look after 50 people - it took 100 hours to learn Vipassana meditation to look after just me. Efficient it is not - but effective? Well, maybe it allowed me to experience a new level of ... just living!

Fresh Beginnings for a New Life Course
I was told by the facilitator that the first thing I had to do (before the course started) was find someone to do my laundry for the first 12 days of the course when we were in isolation! I was horrified - I had just arrived, I hadn't even met anyone yet; Imagine having to go up to someone you have never met before and ask them to do your laundry for 12 days. Now that is a test (of what I don't know), but I had to do it, so I did. Hopefully never again!

As part of the course I had to carry around a large blue bunny rabbit (covered with pink hearts) for 10 days (his name was Blue Bunny and he has magic ears so he can fly!). He had to go everywhere I went: sit next to me in the meditations and at mealtimes and in bed. We must have got some funny looks wandering around like that - but we weren't allowed to make eye contact with anyone so thankfully I never saw any of it!

Part II of this course was 8 days spent examining our adolesence; Strict committment to secrecy prevents me from revealing what we did on this part of the course (and you wouldn't believe me anyway) suffice to say that it was examined in depth and at some length (but it did involve a lot of chocolate!).

And finally, Part III which was 3 days of silent meditation - and that was the end of the course, a massive 28 days after it started (inc breaks) - and it did seem like a lifetime!

And at last I get to have a lay-in - well deserved I feel after a record (for me) 42 consecutive days of getting up at 4.15am or 5.30am. And you all thought I was having an easy life ...

Before I left the UK someone said to me that if they had 28 days they wouldnt spend them doing this. Yes, it is possible to look on this as 100% of your annual holiday entitlement being spent on a course, which lets face it, is not absolutly guaranteed to change your life; but if I live for, say, another 40 years, these days amount to is only 0.19% of the rest of my life - a bargain - especially compared to the 30% that will probably be spent sleeping!

_________________

Interlude

The Weather - It has been steadily getting hotter and hotter here (up to about 35C and down to 15C at night) without a cloud anywhere to be seen - and then suddenly it rains together with a huge lightening storm. At least the few days after were a little cooler (low 30's) and it made a change from all that blue sky stuff.

__________________


Other Stuff

- Three days spent in a police station...My ipod mp3 player was stolen which I had only bought 2 months before so I was really annoyed; then I spent most of the next 3 days in a police station trying and eventually suceeding to get a police report for the insurance. To say that it was bureaucratic is a slight understatement, and in the end I only got what I wanted because during one of my long vigils (meditations!?!) in the police station, the elder brother of one of the officers came in and I got talking to him - then he had a brief work with his younger brother and suddenly the police report (which I had to write myself anyway) became a slight priority and they stamped and signed it which took them all of about 10 seconds - after 3 days of waiting! Bloody Hell! People have committed murder, been arrested, tried, found guilty, executed and reincarnated in less time that it took me to get a signature on a piece of paper!!!

I have now come to terms with the loss seeing this theft as a gift of a beautiful opportunity to indulge in reading books and talking to people rather than encasing myself in artificial world of sound (I bet the person who stole it wasn't thinking that though).

- Escape!
After getting that bit of paper from the police, I was finally able to escape the intensity of the ashram and leave the energy of the course behind - and go to another ashram(!), but this one was on a hill overlooking a beautiful lake with unbelieveable sunsets ... and I was virtually the only person there - now that is bliss. And I needed it more than I could have imagined, I went for 3 days and stayed 9 before I felt I was ready to come back and face the intensity of the ashram again. And all the stuff that came up in the course is still swirling round my body, mainly subconciously until it wants to escape and drain me of my energy.


- Who Am I?
Since glibbly asking this 2 months ago I have come to realise (OK so someone told me) that this is the only question worth asking. So (unintentionally) I started off on the right lines. Unfortunately this does not make answering the question any more easy. But at an intellectual level the answer is something like this:
- You are not the body, you are not the mind (or the ego). What you really are cannot be defined in words.
- The past is just a record of events, do not indulge in your sad life-story (just thinking about it leads to more sadness).
- The future is your vision but must be without craving or aversion or ego. - Be totally in the moment, with no thoughts.
- Totally accept what is happening in that moment (it is happening anyway - it already 'is'). And there you will find who you are!

Unfortunately, these words are not the answer, words are only signposts. So intellectual understanding is only a small step - the answer must be experienced. To get a start on that just sit there without any thoughts entering your head for a few minutes - not as easy as it sounds.


When I came to write this post I was convinced I had nothing of interest to write, and now you have experinced that too! But if you have made it this far ... you probably skipped the middle bit!

Love and Hugs
Ankur / Pete

Where 36 - Pune, India --OR-- The Path to Bliss and Emptiness via Meditation and Pain

HI

I have been in India for a month now and what a time it has been. I have spent most of it in isolation, not allowed to talk to anyone in 2 stretches of 10 days and 12 days each. It has been a journey, nay, an adventure, albeit of a different sort to the type I usually end up having, but I am all the better for it. The bad news is that I have spent a tonne of money and tomorrow start another 8 days of intensive course, a break of 2 days then a final 3 days. Then I really will need a holiday!!

So back to the beginning:

Arrived in Mumbai (Bombay) with the aim this trip of gaining some inner peace and happiness - simple enough goals, perhaps?

Firstly, I went to Pune Riverside Vipassana Centre for a 10 day course. Vipassana is an ancient form of meditation as used by the Buddha to gain enlightenment 2,500 years ago (from where Buddhism comes). This pure form was preserved only in Burma and in the past 40 years has spread around the world. Meditation in the west is often seen as a means of relaxation and concentration, giving the mind 'space', but its real purpose is change and there is no change as great in a person as the path to enlightenment - not that I even want to try and follow it too closely, at least not now, but there are many benefits to be gained along that path such as knowing who I really am, or having a better idea at least.

So I end up with 30 guys and 20 women (nearly all local Indians) and in strict segregation, silence etc for 10 days. The timetable was:
4am Get up
4.30 2 hours meditation
6.30 Breakfast
8 Special 1 hour meditation (no moving at all allowed)
9 2 hour meditation
11 lunch
1pm 1.5 hour meditation
2.30 Special 1 hour meditation (no moving at all allowed)
3.30 1.5 hour meditation
5pm Snack (cross between large rice krispies and Bombay mix, a banana and milk)
6pm Special 1 hour meditation (no moving at all allowed)
7pm Video discourse
8.30 Half hour meditation
9pm Finish
9.30 lights out

So about 10 hours of meditation plus 1.5 hour video. And this was Hardcore! Not the silence cos everyone around was in silence as well, so no problem. Not even the food regime of virtually nothing after midday, was that tough: surprisingly I could survive on just Bombay Rice Krispies, banana and milk for 19 hours. It was the sitting there for 10-hours a day, day after day, that was 'hell'. Sitting there very still conentrating on breath for first 3 days, and then on sensations all over the body. Emotionally it was nothing. Physically the first 4 days were excruiating. Mentally the process was like smashing my head against a brick wall time after time. Insanity is too small a word for it. And at the end of 10 days I was told if I did this for 2 hours a day for the rest of my life I would benefit greatly! Thanks, have you nothing that works a little faster?

On the 3rd day, when i was really struggling with it all, I did have a moment; something inside me clicked and I suddenly broke into my broadest smile ever - a piece of inner happiness had escaped from my repressed core and stirred my soul. Fantastic! But that was the only such moment.

So after 10-days we left (there was a board with the no. of the day it was, otherwise I would have had no clue at all - one day was exactly, to the detail, the same as the one before and the one after!) - and I wondered what the point was as I didnt feel any different to the day I arrived (exept for being thankful that it was over). We all crammed on a public bus which was full before we all got on - I managed to sit on my luggage in the aisle, desperately hanging on as we crashed over the bumps, dust being thrust through the floor into my face - the usual Indian hell. And then I finally got it! This wasn't torture at all it was bliss! No matter what the external factors it was what was going on inside that counted. I felt great. Alive. Happy. And no ordinary crap was gonna stop me feeling that way.


--------Interlude--------
Cos I'm English I have to mention the weather!
The mornings are bloody freezing her - well not quite but it has been down to 5 C on a couple of mornings. but by 9am it is warm, and 1pm roasting in the sun. And there is sun - one morning a few weeks ago I saw a couple of small clouds in the distance - they have been the only ones this month.
--------End of interlude-------


I didnt know then, that what I had done so far was just the easy bit! Because, before I really had time to understand the effets of the 10-day vipassana, I was in a different part of Pune at Osho meditation centre - for meditation of a much different style - active, fun and relaxing. Not that I went there for that, cos 3 days after I got there, there was a course starting: Fresh Beginnings for a New Life. So far I have just done the first 12 days, there is a 3 day break and then a further eight days, a break of two days and 3 more days to integrate all the changes. Yes this place is all about change in a big way. The 12 days i have just finished was all primal work - digging up the conditioning put on us by mum and dad in the first 7 years of our lives. And there was plenty of it. Now this really is hardcore (oh so maybe the Vipassana was easy?). The 16 of us were told what to do every minute of the 12 days. We all slept in a communal room for 6 hours a night - they kept us busy every night til 11.30pm and we had to get up at 5.30am (almost a lie in after the 4am of vipassana) for 1 hour Dynamic meditation (exhausting). Throughout the day we were in an underground room with padded walls and we all had to bear our soles like we never thought possible before. Suffice to say that those 15 people and 9 helpers/teachers in the room know more about me now then anyone else on the planet - holding back was not an option - it was blood (not much), sweat (loads) and tears (plenty) all the way. This was mainly emotional pain, but often a lot of physical pain had to be gone through to release it. Silence was more difficult because there was a massive energy within the group and at meal times people around us (not on the course) were talking. We were on a speial diet of no sugar/honey (or anything with sugar in), no tea, no coffee, no alcohol, no drugs, very limited dairy and loads of other rules. F***! It was hard.

My summary:
Primal work is like committing open heart sugery on yourself (without an anesthetic) - it is more painful than you could imagine, but gives you the chance of freedom in a new life.

And that is where I am now. Empty. Simply Empty.

All that supression and supressed emotion of my whole life has been forced out. All my emotional defences went with them. I am vulnerable. A bit scared. Cautious, because any emotional event, however small can fill me with anger, sadness, joy or love - and life in india is full of all of these all of the time. Luckily the support is there, there are people around me who are wonderful, there are a few who spread a different energy - this is a time to choose who I spend my time with very carefully. And I am no longer controlled by all the parental rules which I had stored in my head for all these years and truly thought were my own values. This really is a fresh beginning. Now I am me, I have so many choices about were to go and what to do next. And this was just the first part of the course - the second part starts tomorrow...
But am I scared?

Yep!

More soon!

Love and Hugs

Ankur/Pete