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
Showing posts with label Who Am I?. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Who Am I?. Show all posts
Wednesday, 31 January 2007
Tuesday, 11 April 2006
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
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
Wednesday, 15 March 2006
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
... 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
Saturday, 19 February 2005
Where 31 - Delhi, India --OR-- How I Found Out Who I Am in an Underground Padded Room
HI Everyone,
Seems ages since I was in Goa dodging the waves - since then I have spent a month at an ashram followed by a couple of weeks rushing around.
Firstly, the Osho Ashram in Pune (actually it is now called the Osho International Meditation Resort so they can charge loads of cash for meditating there [ashrams are normally funded by donation only]). I was only intending to go for a few days but ... ended up staying a month - you know what it's like when you find somewhere that it so not like real life (or real travelling), it is not only easy to stay, it is frightening just thinking about having to face the outside world again, let alone actually doing it. Some people I met there are still too scared to come out, and a months stay may seem like a long time, but it hardly made me a long term inmate by Osho standards.
If you think meditation is about sitting silently in a room with loads of other people also sitting silently in a room then think again. OK, so some of it did involve sitting silently in a room with loads of other people also sitting silently in a room (the quality of this silence was something else, if you made a sound or coughed you were swiftly thrown out (quietly of course) by the neo nazi guards), but most of the meditations were dynamic, meaning you have to move and make sounds and stuff like that. In the 6am Dynamic Meditation we were encouraged to make as much noise as possible for 10 mins; and immediately after was 10 mins of jumping up and down continuously - call it circuit training if you like!
What kept me there really were the courses - I did two 3-days and one 5-day course - mainly looking at how my childhood conditioning affects me now (yes it is all to do with the people called parents) and how I can change back into who I was supposed to be and not the stranger I had become. The 5-day one was a bit tough as we (30 of us) were in total silence outside the group room for thefirst 4.5 days. I had to get up at 5.30am, and didnt get back to my room until 11.30pm - and then had to do homework! So there wasn't much time for sleep ...
Sharing all those emotionally intimate experiences in an underground padded room with 30 people I didn't know, and wasn't allowed to speak to, was kind of weird but very powerful; then after 5 days when we talked I realised I had 30 intimate friends who I didn't know a thing about - and none of us could think where to start. But when we did get it together it was like having a whole new family of friends, wonderful!
So after a month of what approximates to an exorcism of my past, I turned out to be a completely new person (perhaps a slight exaggeration), although whether I changed back the moment I stepped back into the street I'm not yet sure. Anyway to celebrate being this new person (however briefly) I had my head shaved (OK so that was years ago) and have a new name, Ankur (I'm sure I have been called something similar to that before anyway). Whether this is a final step or just a first step I'm not really sure, but it is a step...
So having gritted my teeth and with one eye on my visas' expiry dates, I left for more orthodox 'adventures' - up north to Rajasthan and into the desert:
Jodhpur (which really did give its name to a pair of trousers) - A huge fort, perched on an enormous slab of rock dominates this town, nearly all of which is painted blue (they reckon it helps keep the mossies away, but what mossies would be doing in the desert I have no idea). And apart from (What have the Romans ever done for us?)the very inpressive fort, the lovely (and cheap) food, superb lassis (note for Scottish people - these are yogurt drinks, not girls), the clock tower, full on sun, views across the town from rooftop restaurants and vibrant markets (there is no aqueduct here), what has this place got that is worth coming here for? Nothing!
The fort was founded in 1459, in was gradually expanded by various rulers, and despite having faced many attacks and sieges was never taken - when I stood at the top of the 125m high rock but still at the bottom of the huge walls I understood why.
Jaisalmer - further into the desert, out of which a walled city rises in defiance of everything that surrounds it (which is nothing except rock and sand, but the thought was there). Started in 1156, inside is a beautifully quaint whole town where even quainter people still live with quaint cramped houses, temples so squashed (and quaint) that they literally merge into one another, quaint narrow winding alleys ... and of course, being India, fat cows, shit excreted by all manner of mammals, an abundance of rubbish and nutcases on motor cycles.
- So I escaped into the desert on a camel for 3 days (with 7 other travellers and 4 guides/cooks/camel herders). Unfortunately ... after being driven by jeep an hour into the desert, when I tried to get on my sitting down camel for the first time, I had half a leg across the 'saddle' and it decided to get up and I only narrowly avoided castration but did lose half a fingernail in the process (a fortunate trade off perhaps), then opening my daysac (to mend my finger), I found I had lost my waterbottle, and then once I did get on my beast, my stirrups (which were only pieces of string) broke. So I rode off into the desert without water, stirrups and with only 9.5 fingernails. I felt that at least one of these was probably not a good idea!
- I didn't like the camel too much after that (it was lazy and always at the back as well) so later I managed to change to the one that was always at the front and was by far the biggest, a magnificent beast and quite well behaved, although he did keep trying to attract the females by blowing up cabbage sized pink sacks from his mouth which drooped (unattactively, need I add) over his bottom lip. Camels mouths are incredible, looking into one is revolting - a kalidascope of geen, red, purple and blue slime resides there - with teeth as twisted and colourful as Bugs Bunny's 85-year-old grandma who had been a heavy smoker (of Camels?) all her life.
- One thing that no-one advises you to take into the desert is wet weather gear, so I didn't. And yes it did rain - luckily only briefly. I do now know the difference between rain and camel spit, and this was definitely rain.
- The desert is not empty - if you have ever wondered where peacocks live, they live (at least some of them do) in this, The Great Thar Desert (Todays useless fact : peacocks are India's national bird). Mainly they walk everywhere although a few did fly briefly, probably just for our entertainment, but we didn't stop to find out why - we got away quick in case they came and hassled us for 'rupees' or 'school pen' - it is like that in India.
- Back inside the walled city the 7 Jain temples with a total of only 3 entrances betweenn them(merged remember) contained a maze of stunning 3D carvings - I could try and describe them but would probably fail and anyway you probably would get bored or have work to do, or most likely, both (and no karma sutra ones this time) - suffice to say they are probably the best I have ever seen for detail and condition given the age (12th - 15th century) - yes even better than Bantrey Srei at Angkor in Cambodia.
Bikaner - Then onto the most shit filled streets I have ever walked (and there is some pretty stiff competition in India). And it rained really heavily during the night and flooded the streets. And I was wearing open toed sandels. Liquid cow shit - and I just had to walk through it - not just for fun, but there simply was no other way to get from room to breakfast.
- This was not the main attraction of going there however. Even worse was 'The Rat Temple!!'. This is a temple filled with rats. They are not just tolerted but actually fed, watered and worshipped, no-one knows how many there are but one guy who worked there (over)estimated 60,000 - they only count the white rats which are considered lucky if you see one - there are 11, I saw 3 (or the same one 3 times).
So just relax and imagine going into this temple barefoot.
Rats are running around everywhere.
And these are not nice, specially bred rats; these are the degenerates of the rat world: scrawny, scabby, brown rats varying from mouse size (presumably younger ones) to the size of, well..., a well-fed rat.
So you are standing there, and just watching hundreds of them crowding round the food only a metre away makes your blood curdle.
You stand close enough to have your photo taken with them, and even crouch down to make it look like you are really pally with them; you may be thinking 'JUST DON'T ... come any closer'.
Then they run really close to you and you may think 'I'm OK'; breathe deeply, 'I'm bigger than them, they're not going to attack me or anything'.
And then they come right up to you, the scabs on them screaming 'I'm a scabby rat' at you. Then they nibble your toes ... Urrrgg ... and you try not to scream.
Then they run over your foot ... and you try and remember how honoured you are to have this happen to you.
Then they run up your leg!
F**K OFF ME!
It was just like that - and yes I do have the pictues to prove it!
- Agra - Couldn't leave India without seeing the Taj Mahal (completed in 1653 so fairly old). Got up an hour before first light to see it wake up. It is spectacular as it changes its hue in the early light, a wonderful testament to a man's love for a women and what happens when the King has too much money to waste. The best views are from a distance; I immersed myself in its shape, its form, its colours and its beauty - it makes an impact. But the closer I got the less interesting it was. Then I got too close and realised that apart from a few bits of intricate inlaid stones, it is just huge slabs of marble; just a building and not an overly interesting one at that.
And nearby there is a fantastic Red Fort made out of red sandstone, and adorned with white marble palaces - all built by the same people who built the Taj Mahal.
Delhi
Onto the capital, just for a couple of days. I expected this to be a modern westernised place, and some of it is. But it also boasts roads covered in muck (those cows again) and traffic jams of cycle rickshaws (a really slow but pleasant way to travel if you can stand the pollution). It also has a red fort (made of red sandstone!) which isn't a patch on the one at Agra, and India's largest mosque (completed in 1658) which can hold 25,000 people. Surrounding this mosque are streets of butchers shops, something of a surprise in India - the muslims eat stacks of meat, and judging by the displays of the shops, goat's heads are a speciality. Strangely there were no cows wandering the streets near here - wonder what happened to them?
So after 3 months I am nearly finished in India - just up to the Golden Temple at Amritsar and then over the border to Pakistan. I feel like I am heading home - well at least I am heading NW which is pretty much the right direction - may take a few months to get back but the food might be better than if I went by 'plane.
- Incidentaly I have been travelling nearly 5 months in Nepal and India, eating fantastic food and haven't been ill once. I will regret writing that sometime soon!
- I was tying to think how to sum up India in a few words or a picture. After careful(?) thought it would have to be a picture of a man pissing up against the wall of the Taj Mahal!
India is the best and the worst of everything expertly blended together.
So what is happening with you ... ?
Home soon(?)
Love
Ankur/Pete
Seems ages since I was in Goa dodging the waves - since then I have spent a month at an ashram followed by a couple of weeks rushing around.
Firstly, the Osho Ashram in Pune (actually it is now called the Osho International Meditation Resort so they can charge loads of cash for meditating there [ashrams are normally funded by donation only]). I was only intending to go for a few days but ... ended up staying a month - you know what it's like when you find somewhere that it so not like real life (or real travelling), it is not only easy to stay, it is frightening just thinking about having to face the outside world again, let alone actually doing it. Some people I met there are still too scared to come out, and a months stay may seem like a long time, but it hardly made me a long term inmate by Osho standards.
If you think meditation is about sitting silently in a room with loads of other people also sitting silently in a room then think again. OK, so some of it did involve sitting silently in a room with loads of other people also sitting silently in a room (the quality of this silence was something else, if you made a sound or coughed you were swiftly thrown out (quietly of course) by the neo nazi guards), but most of the meditations were dynamic, meaning you have to move and make sounds and stuff like that. In the 6am Dynamic Meditation we were encouraged to make as much noise as possible for 10 mins; and immediately after was 10 mins of jumping up and down continuously - call it circuit training if you like!
What kept me there really were the courses - I did two 3-days and one 5-day course - mainly looking at how my childhood conditioning affects me now (yes it is all to do with the people called parents) and how I can change back into who I was supposed to be and not the stranger I had become. The 5-day one was a bit tough as we (30 of us) were in total silence outside the group room for thefirst 4.5 days. I had to get up at 5.30am, and didnt get back to my room until 11.30pm - and then had to do homework! So there wasn't much time for sleep ...
Sharing all those emotionally intimate experiences in an underground padded room with 30 people I didn't know, and wasn't allowed to speak to, was kind of weird but very powerful; then after 5 days when we talked I realised I had 30 intimate friends who I didn't know a thing about - and none of us could think where to start. But when we did get it together it was like having a whole new family of friends, wonderful!
So after a month of what approximates to an exorcism of my past, I turned out to be a completely new person (perhaps a slight exaggeration), although whether I changed back the moment I stepped back into the street I'm not yet sure. Anyway to celebrate being this new person (however briefly) I had my head shaved (OK so that was years ago) and have a new name, Ankur (I'm sure I have been called something similar to that before anyway). Whether this is a final step or just a first step I'm not really sure, but it is a step...
So having gritted my teeth and with one eye on my visas' expiry dates, I left for more orthodox 'adventures' - up north to Rajasthan and into the desert:
Jodhpur (which really did give its name to a pair of trousers) - A huge fort, perched on an enormous slab of rock dominates this town, nearly all of which is painted blue (they reckon it helps keep the mossies away, but what mossies would be doing in the desert I have no idea). And apart from (What have the Romans ever done for us?)the very inpressive fort, the lovely (and cheap) food, superb lassis (note for Scottish people - these are yogurt drinks, not girls), the clock tower, full on sun, views across the town from rooftop restaurants and vibrant markets (there is no aqueduct here), what has this place got that is worth coming here for? Nothing!
The fort was founded in 1459, in was gradually expanded by various rulers, and despite having faced many attacks and sieges was never taken - when I stood at the top of the 125m high rock but still at the bottom of the huge walls I understood why.
Jaisalmer - further into the desert, out of which a walled city rises in defiance of everything that surrounds it (which is nothing except rock and sand, but the thought was there). Started in 1156, inside is a beautifully quaint whole town where even quainter people still live with quaint cramped houses, temples so squashed (and quaint) that they literally merge into one another, quaint narrow winding alleys ... and of course, being India, fat cows, shit excreted by all manner of mammals, an abundance of rubbish and nutcases on motor cycles.
- So I escaped into the desert on a camel for 3 days (with 7 other travellers and 4 guides/cooks/camel herders). Unfortunately ... after being driven by jeep an hour into the desert, when I tried to get on my sitting down camel for the first time, I had half a leg across the 'saddle' and it decided to get up and I only narrowly avoided castration but did lose half a fingernail in the process (a fortunate trade off perhaps), then opening my daysac (to mend my finger), I found I had lost my waterbottle, and then once I did get on my beast, my stirrups (which were only pieces of string) broke. So I rode off into the desert without water, stirrups and with only 9.5 fingernails. I felt that at least one of these was probably not a good idea!
- I didn't like the camel too much after that (it was lazy and always at the back as well) so later I managed to change to the one that was always at the front and was by far the biggest, a magnificent beast and quite well behaved, although he did keep trying to attract the females by blowing up cabbage sized pink sacks from his mouth which drooped (unattactively, need I add) over his bottom lip. Camels mouths are incredible, looking into one is revolting - a kalidascope of geen, red, purple and blue slime resides there - with teeth as twisted and colourful as Bugs Bunny's 85-year-old grandma who had been a heavy smoker (of Camels?) all her life.
- One thing that no-one advises you to take into the desert is wet weather gear, so I didn't. And yes it did rain - luckily only briefly. I do now know the difference between rain and camel spit, and this was definitely rain.
- The desert is not empty - if you have ever wondered where peacocks live, they live (at least some of them do) in this, The Great Thar Desert (Todays useless fact : peacocks are India's national bird). Mainly they walk everywhere although a few did fly briefly, probably just for our entertainment, but we didn't stop to find out why - we got away quick in case they came and hassled us for 'rupees' or 'school pen' - it is like that in India.
- Back inside the walled city the 7 Jain temples with a total of only 3 entrances betweenn them(merged remember) contained a maze of stunning 3D carvings - I could try and describe them but would probably fail and anyway you probably would get bored or have work to do, or most likely, both (and no karma sutra ones this time) - suffice to say they are probably the best I have ever seen for detail and condition given the age (12th - 15th century) - yes even better than Bantrey Srei at Angkor in Cambodia.
Bikaner - Then onto the most shit filled streets I have ever walked (and there is some pretty stiff competition in India). And it rained really heavily during the night and flooded the streets. And I was wearing open toed sandels. Liquid cow shit - and I just had to walk through it - not just for fun, but there simply was no other way to get from room to breakfast.
- This was not the main attraction of going there however. Even worse was 'The Rat Temple!!'. This is a temple filled with rats. They are not just tolerted but actually fed, watered and worshipped, no-one knows how many there are but one guy who worked there (over)estimated 60,000 - they only count the white rats which are considered lucky if you see one - there are 11, I saw 3 (or the same one 3 times).
So just relax and imagine going into this temple barefoot.
Rats are running around everywhere.
And these are not nice, specially bred rats; these are the degenerates of the rat world: scrawny, scabby, brown rats varying from mouse size (presumably younger ones) to the size of, well..., a well-fed rat.
So you are standing there, and just watching hundreds of them crowding round the food only a metre away makes your blood curdle.
You stand close enough to have your photo taken with them, and even crouch down to make it look like you are really pally with them; you may be thinking 'JUST DON'T ... come any closer'.
Then they run really close to you and you may think 'I'm OK'; breathe deeply, 'I'm bigger than them, they're not going to attack me or anything'.
And then they come right up to you, the scabs on them screaming 'I'm a scabby rat' at you. Then they nibble your toes ... Urrrgg ... and you try not to scream.
Then they run over your foot ... and you try and remember how honoured you are to have this happen to you.
Then they run up your leg!
F**K OFF ME!
It was just like that - and yes I do have the pictues to prove it!
- Agra - Couldn't leave India without seeing the Taj Mahal (completed in 1653 so fairly old). Got up an hour before first light to see it wake up. It is spectacular as it changes its hue in the early light, a wonderful testament to a man's love for a women and what happens when the King has too much money to waste. The best views are from a distance; I immersed myself in its shape, its form, its colours and its beauty - it makes an impact. But the closer I got the less interesting it was. Then I got too close and realised that apart from a few bits of intricate inlaid stones, it is just huge slabs of marble; just a building and not an overly interesting one at that.
And nearby there is a fantastic Red Fort made out of red sandstone, and adorned with white marble palaces - all built by the same people who built the Taj Mahal.
Delhi
Onto the capital, just for a couple of days. I expected this to be a modern westernised place, and some of it is. But it also boasts roads covered in muck (those cows again) and traffic jams of cycle rickshaws (a really slow but pleasant way to travel if you can stand the pollution). It also has a red fort (made of red sandstone!) which isn't a patch on the one at Agra, and India's largest mosque (completed in 1658) which can hold 25,000 people. Surrounding this mosque are streets of butchers shops, something of a surprise in India - the muslims eat stacks of meat, and judging by the displays of the shops, goat's heads are a speciality. Strangely there were no cows wandering the streets near here - wonder what happened to them?
So after 3 months I am nearly finished in India - just up to the Golden Temple at Amritsar and then over the border to Pakistan. I feel like I am heading home - well at least I am heading NW which is pretty much the right direction - may take a few months to get back but the food might be better than if I went by 'plane.
- Incidentaly I have been travelling nearly 5 months in Nepal and India, eating fantastic food and haven't been ill once. I will regret writing that sometime soon!
- I was tying to think how to sum up India in a few words or a picture. After careful(?) thought it would have to be a picture of a man pissing up against the wall of the Taj Mahal!
India is the best and the worst of everything expertly blended together.
So what is happening with you ... ?
Home soon(?)
Love
Ankur/Pete
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