Calcutta - Part 1 of 27 at this rate

I didn't want to go to Calcutta.  Never wanted to.  During the many months before my trip that I spent micromanaging futures that were unlikely to be played out, Calcutta never came up.  Too dirty.  Too crowded.  Too urban.  Even upon reaching India, even upon inching closer toward Calcutta on the map, the city and I repelled each other like a couple of negatively charged magnets.  I slipped into India with lingering spiritual questions and a desire for reflective growth, and in my judging mind Calcutta seemed antithetical to this.

Expectedly, unexpected circumstances arose, and a Buddhist Monastery in the town where Buddha found enlightenment proved unfit for my spiritual development.  Too quiet.  Too peaceful.  Too removed from the undeniable chaos and noise that is as much a part of our world as solitary trees and meditative hilltops.  So I flipped open the ole' Lonely Planet and found that lo' and behold, in crazy, chaotic Calcutta there was an ideal volunteering opportunity at Mother Teresa's Missionaries for Charities where I could work with destitute Indians during their Death.  Sounded like the opposite of an artificially calm monastery.  It sounded more like a firm kick in the crotch from Reality's steel-tipped boots of Suffering.  Sign me up.

The next day, fueled in equal parts by the enigmatic curiosity of pre-historic Sea-Crossers and the masochistic lunacy of a Social Worker, I boarded the train to Kolkata.  Haha, masochistic curiosity.  At one point, not too long ago, deep in the Himalayas at the snow-covered base of Mt. Everest, I felt the clouds of confusion clear away, revealing my illuminous Soul which told me my purpose on this Trip was to pursue, appreciate and create that which holds unmistakable beauty.  Now, I'm being wildly led astray through foreign lands by the impulsive hands of Masochistic Curiosity... Gosh... No wonder my Mom worries about me so much...

Calcutta's first impressions were about what I'd expect from an India metropolis.  Crazy, overpopulated, polluted.  Saying that, the touts weren't quite as harassing as they were in Delhi and unlike Kathmandu the city had sidewalks, so it felt oddly comfortable.  I wasted a day away in this comfortable madhouse with some vagabonds who were at least equally odd as myself.  Then, the Beginning of Everything began.

First, I received my orientation at Mother Teresa's Charity where I planned to spend a week volunteering.  I arrived early, and for a while sat nearly alone in a non-descript Hall in an inconspicuous Nunnery tucked away from Calcutta Chaos.  I watched as a few people wandered in, spreading across the hall in small, scattered groups.  Suddenly, swarming, gossiping hordes of teenagers assaulted the orientation and quickly transformed the hall to a loud, overcrowded Mass of Humanity.  In other words, they brought India along with them.

Thus, orientation commenced in the manner you'd expect with a large, bustling group of confused people.  Logistical and impersonal.  We learned the whens (7:00 am.), the wheres (Prem Dam), the whos (people with long-term mental or physical disabilities, NOT the terminally ill like I thought) and the whats (cleaning and compassionate interaction with the residents) but left the whys completely untouched.  Skeptical thoughts started brewing.  What difference can huge groups of untrained well-wishers make on such complicated and personal matters?  Why is everyone even here?  Why am I even here? Hanging around snickering teenagers made it easy to cynically question others' abilities and motivations, but it was even easier to question my own.  I mean, I readily acknowledged that I just wanted to get kicked in the nuts.  Well, to be fair, I also wanted to learn about social problems and social work practices in India, and I kinda hoped I could do something at least minimally useful to the Residents.  Still, a dispassionate wish to check things out and broaden my perspective isn't exactly the best qualification to carry on the work started by the boundlessly compassionate Mother Teresa.


I left the orientation and that lingering thought behind for a bit, for I had my second date with the Beginning of Everything rapidly approaching - a couchsurfing meetup where I would have the rare India tourist opportunity to actually talk and hang out with Indians.  Also, it was here I would meet the man who was offering me his couch to crash on.  Admittedly, I walked into the meetup with an uncharacteristic tinge of apprehension.  My last Couchsurfing experience in Varanasi led to awkward silences with fundamental India parents who neglected to acknowledge me and terrifying motorbike rides with drivers who neglected traffic laws (but that's another story).  Despite this, I confidently strolled into the cafe feeling mostly excited and hopeful for the possibilities that can evolve from kickin' it and sleeping over at stranger's homes.

The meetup was an easy-going, fun time that taught me a lot about Kolkata life and attitudes and laid down the foundation for even more enlightening experiences down the road.  Amongst the ten men assembled there, two became most important in this foundation - Anjan Moto and Sudipta Dawn.  Anjan is a large, stocky guy in this early 20s who might look intimidating if he didn't have such pinchable cheeks and affable air about him. Anjan and I (but mostly Anjan) talked a lot and he made the extroverted offer/demand that we meet up later in the week.  Fine by me.  The more random strangers I hang out with the better.

Then there was Sudpita Dawn, a 30-something year old guy who wears the sort of tattered goatee and hastily combed hair that suggests you might be dealing with one sly son of a bitch.  He carries a relaxed, loose posture that proclaims to the World he doesn't quite give a shit and his wry grin and choppy chortle hints that he may have a perfectly valid reason to not give a shit.

Apart from this, he houses a dry, occasionally confounding sense of humor that he displayed right off the bat.  Out of nowhere he excused us from the group and matter-of-factly informed me that we had to go back to his house and go for a race.  A race?  "Yes, a race Doug.  A foot-race between you and I.  Hurry let's go."  I kinda thought he was kidding until we stopped off at his tall, narrow concrete home and he grabbed his running shoes.  Rolling with it, we continued down the streets toward the race track.

Walking through old, non-touristic streets and chatting away with an intelligent and witty local about life transformed the city of Calcutta in my eyes.  Ya, there was plastic bags and wrappers strewn liberally along the tired, worn-down slabs of concrete housing.  Ya, there was that ubiquitous India dust hanging in the air and on the strained storefronts.  But there was more than that.  Underneath that beat-up, Indian veneer was a City and People that was alive with ideas and damned proud of who it was.  It had that character of a scruffy, ragged man who got roughed up pretty bad in a fight over a girl, but still came away with her Heart.  Calcutta ceased to be a set piece in my crazy adventure and became a companion.

Another companion joined us when some White French girl apparated from a side alley and stated she was going to join the race, which Dawn seemed to approve of.  So Cleo, how do you and Dawn know eachother.  "We met at an electronic show at an Indian rooftop party."  Cool.  The rest of our conversation suffered quite a bit from accent barriers (For some reason, the French can't understand American accents very well), but she smiled a lot, was working on an interesting (I think) project.  Plus, any white girl who frequents Techno-Indian parties and is ballsy enough to maintain relationships with the men she meets there wins major brownie points in my book.

A few moments later, we arrived at a park, slithered through the gate and prepared for the race on the surprisingly nice and even track.  Only then did I finally realize that Dawn was just being sarcastic.  We were just going for a pleasant evening jog with his friend Cleo. Feeling slightly disappointed and stupid, but mostly relieved, I declined the offer to jog and just ambly strolled along the track.  After a half-hour or so, Dawn called my cell and let me know he was on the other side, so I rounded the bend and headed there.

My danger radar started beeping, and I noticed an older man walking quickly along the track behind me, seemingly in an effort to catch up with me.  Alert but unfrightened, I welcomed his approach with my Fight or Flight instinct a milimeter or so underneath my skin.  "Hello, which country are you from?" America. "Very good country.  I want to feel your muscles." Flight it is.  Not knowing the culturally sensitive response to creepy old men, I just ran, ran, ran, all the way back to the front gate.  Once there I relayed the story to Dawn who dryly told me, "Yes, he most likely wanted to have sex with you.  Many gay rapists come to this Park."

I'm not really sure why we went to a Park famous for Gay Rapists.  I'm sure parks with nice tracks are in short supply in Calcutta, but I would go so far as to say that no park at all is better than a Gay Rapist Park.  Even someone as masochistically curious as myself is neither masochistic or curious enough to willingly explore the inner-working of Gay Rapist Park.

Before I know it, the Gay Rapists are a comfortable distance behind us, I'm parting ways with Cleo, and Dawn is escorting me up his narrow staircase to my room on the top floor.  Lying in bed, I reflect on the fact that two nights ago I was sleeping in a monastery in Bodhgaya and now I'm sleeping at some guy's house in Calcutta.  When you're on the road, Reality has a funny way of dissolving and reappearing in new and unexpected forms, like a magician who changes his entire wardrobe in a finger-snap moment behind a falling curtain.  Just like this, the Beginning of Everything said ta-da, faded away, and left me with my new reality- Mother Teresa, Couchsurfing and Calcutta - and the Beginning of Everything Else.

Bodhgaya - Words or Path?

I sat under the tree where Buddha found enlightenment.  It was quite a beautiful tree, and pilgrims had come from all over the world to pay it honors.  Throngs of Tibetan refugees were scattered around, performing a ritual where they stand straight up, then lie down, stretch their arms toward the tree and rise again.  Each cycle is one "prostration.", and they will complete 100,000 of these over the next month to show their humility to the Dharma.  Meanwhile, groups of monks meditated to find some of that sweet realization and clarity that Siddharta found 2600 years ago.  Then there was me, soaking up all the magic and serenity with my best attempt at a calm, aware, Buddha mind.

Eventually this mind moved from the present ambiance to its history.  Siddharta's story played out in my head.  The Noble Prince viewing suffering for the first time and rejecting his fortunes to find the remedy of suffering.  The Young Seeker, learning from the aesthetics and moving into a cave where he meditated for six years.  The Skeptic, questioning the methods of the aesthetics and finally accepting a bit of food before sitting under the Bodhi tree.  The Buddha, who sat under the tree, this tree in fact, and found enlightenment.

This historical Buddha offered quite an interesting contrast to the hordes of Buddhists in front of me now.  Buddha himself rejected the wealthy, the aesthetics and all other worn paths.  He came to this tree to find his own answers.  Meanwhile, the rest of us come to this tree to celebrate his answers.

This balance between  borrowing others' wisdom and unleashing our own innate wisdom became a prominent task during my stay at Root Institute for Wisdom Culture, where I studied Buddhism and meditated for six days in complete silence, speaking only in discussions and debates with the resident monks.  I wanted to plug the holes in my spiritual understanding of the world and untwist some of the contradictions in my practice, and I hoped Buddhism could lend a helping hand.

To be fair, I found a lot of truth in Buddha's teachings that did just this.  Saying that, I saw just as many holes and knots in the Buddhist philosophy and practice as my own..  My major insights came when some Karmic Words cracked away at my thick skull, and a beam of my inner wisdom was allowed to shine through and spread.  These gleams of insight sometimes agreed with the teachings, but just as many times they disputed the teachings, which did no damage to their ultimate truth or utility in my eyes.  Even though I'm still a few major epiphanies away from finding and creating a really meaningful spirituality, by the end of my stay I felt like I had come a long way, due just as much to my own doubt and skepticism as my acceptance in the teachings.

So, while I suppose Buddha's words are quite helpful in giving us direction and support, ultimately its his path we must follow.

Varanasi - Public Cremation

Ashes to ashes.  Dust to dust.  I've always know this.  I've always known that one day all of the world's children will return back to Earth so that new life can be created.  Yet, the process itself is subtle in its continuous and lengthy manner, so this idea of recycled matter and life remains just that, an idea.  Never an experience.  Unless you visit Varanasi that is.

While strolling past cows, beggars and mystical pilgrims on the Ghats of the Holy Ganges, a group of burning woodstacks on the riverside caught my attention.  If I had read Lonely Planet more closely (or at all), I would've known why these piles were burning and what they contained.  Instead, this information was revealed by watching two young men haul a dead body wrapped in white cloth from the river and drop it into the flames.  I was at the cremation ghat.

Most people nonchalantly walked past, ignoring the ceremony as if it was a flier plastered on the side of a building.  I on the other hand, was mesmerized.  From a distance of about 20 feet, my gaze stay fixated, never wandering from the body that was now submerged in flames.  I watched as the body became black and slowly crumbled into the fire like a dying, cracking leaf.  When I could no longer make out the body from the pile of sticks, I walked closer for a more discerning vantage point.

From this angle I could confirm that the majority of the body had ceased to exist.  However, one shin still maintained some sort of charred resemblance of a shin, for it laid on the edge of the fire where it's hunger was weaker.  Meanwhile, the foot laid completely outside the grips of the flame, fully intact and appearing alive as it ever had been.

Now only 10 feet away, I focused my entire mind, my entire being, on that shin and foot.  The fire slowly ate away at the shin while the foot remained untainted.  Eventually the shin became so withered and brittle it could no longer support the weight of the foot.  It cracked like a twig, and the foot tumbled toward me.  This brown foot, the last piece of physical evidence that within those flames lie the ashes that once constituted a human being full of joy, despair, dreams, struggles and love, sat a couple feet in front of me.  Quickly, a man knocked the foot back into the fire with a nondescript branch before attending to other business.  There were still many more bodies that needed to be cremated.

We all know that everyone is going to die one day, but we know this the same way that we know the South Pole exists.  Surely though, this intellectual concept of the South Pole is a far cry away from waking one morning to piercing cold and sweeping snowfields.  With the same sudden shock of waking in the Arctic, the idea of impermanence exploded from a corner of my mind and permeated into everything around me.  Every person and every thing was burning, hurdling toward non-existence.  Each moment a cremation suspended in time.

This new world existed with me for a few hours before giving way to my normal methods of perception and life.  I'm not really sure if realizing impermanence in this manner is ultimately helpful or not.  The vacant face and dazed constitution I possessed for those few hours certainly wouldn't serve me well on a first date, or really any task for that manner.  On the other hand, maybe consciousness of our Death could help us live life more meaningfully.  Moreso, maybe seeing everything as a cremation is a doorway to seeing the other half of the equation, everything as a birth.  Either way, whether it's useful or not, whether I acknowledge it or not, those few hours were reality.

Doug Becomes a Teacher... Kinda...

I approached the headmaster of JibJibe Secondary School and informed him that I was here to teach English for two weeks, but he told me I could just teach all of the subjects.  Then he pushed me into a classroom full of confused Nepali 10th graders and hastily told me I'd be fine as he walked out the door.  Ok... I guess I'm a teacher now... I assessed the situation.  60 Nepali students were crammed onto rotting, rickety benches which themselves where crammed inbetween cracking walls and a tin roof.  I had no idea which subject I was supposed to teach, let alone how to effectively teach that subject, let alone how to speak my student's language.  Also, I had no chalk.  I was fucked.  For a few moment I just stared at the class with the stupid, slackjawed expression of a nervous schoolboy who had suddenly been shoved face to face with the prettiest girl in school.

Well, I couldn't give an hour long lesson on blank stares, so I jumped into an introduction of who I was, where I was from, and what America was like.  The students probably understood only a fraction of what I said, but at least I knocked off ten minutes.  Finally, I just asked the students which subject they normally took at this time.  English!  Perfect!  Even better, they all had little exercise books, and all I had to do was lead them through practices that they were probably familiar with already.  Maybe I could bullshit my way through this after all.

The first exercise asked the students to read a passage about milk and answer questions about it.  How many interesting sentences could you craft about milk?  One?  Maybe two?  Well not this book.  Six whole paragraphs about milk!  Unsurprisingly, as one student read aloud, everyone else just chatted amongst themselves.  I continuously had to quiet down the class, but even in silence they just ignored the reading.  So did I.  It was six paragraphs about milk for Christ's Sake.

After we finally stopped reading about milk, we answered questions about milk.  I difficultly communicated to the students that they could work in groups to answer questions.  Groupwork emphasized the importance of cooperation, unity and the value of shared purpose over individualistic effort, but more importantly it relieved me from the pressure of having to do anything.  Yet after ten minutes no one had come up with any correct answers, and it became clear I'd have to intervene and at least try and communicate with the students.  Mid-way through my fruitless gesturing and slow explanations, the bell rang and class (otherwise known as "The Shit Show") was over.  At this pointed I conceded I probably wouldn't be Julia Roberts in the Freedom Writer.  It would be a miracle if I could just teach one useful thing.

Still, I'd keep trying anyways.  I was trying to ask what the next subject was, when the science teacher walked in and told me all I had to do was teach the students about heat... Ok... what do I know about heat... Quickly, I raced through the dusty corridors of my brain to uncover some dormant knowledge of heat, but all I found was a crumpled piece of scrap paper that read, "Uhh... like... heat comes from the sun... and uh...it's like... wicked hot."  As I contemplated how I could spin this knowledge into an hour long lesson, the science teacher handed me a piece of chalk and exclaimed in fractured English that he was excited to learn about Western techniques for teaching, to which I replied I had no fucking clue what I was doing.  He disappointedly taught the lesson, and as he did so, I borrowed a student's mathbook and practiced the advanced algebra I was supposed to teach next.  By the end of the lesson I hadn't got a problem right.

Thankfully, at the end of class, the principal rescued me from a failed math class and told me I could stick to English.  Knowledge of my limited knowledge must have spread quickly, but at least I offered the Nepali teachers a more accurate view of the average American's grasp of science and mathematics.  Then, almost suddenly, I found myself in front of an overcrowded class of 5th graders.  Out of the frying pan and into the frier.  Once again completely unprepared, I relied on the textbook.  Once again, the students read a passage and had no idea what they just read.  Once again, I helplessly gestured to try and convey meanings of certain passages.  Then class ended, and for the third time in as many attempts, I failed to offer the students anything meaningful.

I was getting pretty disenheartened at this point, but at least I had a break period now, finally giving me a moment to reflect.  Of course, quiet, thoughtful contemplation is difficult when you're surrounded by swarms of frenzied children screaming "Hello, how are you!!!" and "What is your father's name!!!" (Apparently, the students are taught that asking someone the name of their father is the go-to icebreaker of the English language).  Still, amidst this chaos I was able to come up with a  couple useful conclusions.  First, the text book exercises were useless for me.  I posited that the student's actual knowledge of the English language was far below what the book demanded.  Thus, I would be far more effective if I ditched the book altogether and came up with my own exercises.

So, I tried again, this time with 50 seventh graders and some reclaimed confidence and purpose.  I taught comparison words (tall, taller, tallest etc...) that I could easily gesture.  Next, I showed how to use these words in a sentence using the students as examples.  Finally, I had the students write their own examples.  The kids eagerly shoved their papers in my faces, which had to be corrected over and over again, but by the end the majority of students were showing me functional English sentences.  It was working!  They were learning stuff!  Now, I suppose this is a very basic lesson, but compared to what I offered my earlier classes, this was like offering the wisdom to overcomes all of life's problems and confusions.  Screw my earlier doubts, I could be Julia Roberts! (The one who's an inspiring teacher, not the one who's a prostitute...)

I felt I could do this because I had just realized something that I had always intellectually understood.  The key to doing anything in life is malleable persistence.  It's some blend of headstrong determination and honest humility.  More simply put, it's trying and trying again, while maintaining the awareness to realize when what you're trying isn't working, and changing course accordingly.  It's a simple lesson that most people probably understand and agree with, but frequently ignore in the practicalities of life because of the undeniable pain of failure.  This time though, I took the punches, persevered, changed my swing a bit and delivered a knockout lesson.

And that's how things went in JibJibe school and life went for the next couple weeks.  Every evening I came up with meaningful activities and lessons for the next day.  Sometimes they worked, sometimes they didn't, but I always tried.  When I realized that I should focus on fun and culture, I changed the curriculum from grammar to popular American songs.  When I spent my day off working in the rice fields with the villagers, I worked through the pain while adjusting my rice-cutting form for maximum comfort and efficiency.  It may not have always been pretty, or easy, but in the end I taught the students some good knowledge, some great songs, and more importantly made deep, meaningful connections with a handful of students and my Nepali family.  Malleable persistence made my last significant Nepali experience a great one.

Drunk Yogi Wisdom

For the past week my mind had been obsessed with soul, what it is, what it does and how to unleash it.  A fundamental part of my current understanding was interdependence, not just the intellectual understanding of it but the expression of it.  However, the more I closed my mind in on the subject, the less I interacted and connected with the people around me.  Ironically enough, this focus on interdependence and mind isolated and blocked my soul from other - the exact opposite effect I desired.  So, I entered my six-day yoga retreat at Sadhana with mixed emotions and many questions.  Will this retreat help reveals the mysteries of Soul and Mind?  Do these secrets even need to be understood?  And more practically, can I do yoga without looking like a complete idiot?  Thankfully, concern over these questions proved to be pointless.  For a few days into the retreat, I realized the focus lay less on the Soul and Mind and more on eating and chilling out.  Just what I needed.

While we did practice yoga and meditation for 5 or 6 hours a day, most of the real action occured during our huge breaks inbetween sessions.  Mainly this was due to the fantastic people.  Of course there was the cyclical discussions of where you were from and what you were doing in Nepal, but with quite a few people I was able to move a bit past these formalities and engage in some solid, meaningful discussions.  More importantly, we were able to have goofy, meaningless conversation which always seemed to erupt uncontained laughter at the most inappropriate times.  This may sound like a simple pleasure, but for the past week I felt like my mind had been spinning and flipping around on a solitary alien planet.  After a while, not pleasant.  On the other hand, talking and laughing grounded me back in reality and relieved the vertigo of a mind wandering a bit too far.  Of course, this was pleasant.

As it normally does, simply being happy and content opened the door to memorable experiences.  One morning, a few girls and I walked up to the Yoga Centre rooftop and slapped mud all over each other's bodies.  None of us could quite figure out how covering your body in mud was beneficial to your body and mind, but none of us could quite give a shit either.  It was fun so we did it.  Dancing to the Sun Gods like a bunch of swamp hippies taking ballerina lessons was fun too, so we did that as well.  Not exactly high-class culture, but I've always held higher regard for absurdity than normalness anyways.

I suppose it's good that I prefer absurdity, for there was an abundance of it during a conversation I had with a shopowner down the road.  It went something like this. "How old are you?"  22.  "Are you married?"  Haha, no.  "Do you have a girlfriend?"  Not at the moment.  "Do you like Nepali girls?"  Ya, they're pretty nice.  "Would you like to marry one?"  Uhhhh... (awkward silence)... what?  A few inquiring questions later I learned there was a young Nepali woman named Santi up the road who was quite keen on marrying a foreigner.  I explained to the shopowner that in America, two people usually knew each other and dated for years until they married, and then asked how it worked in Nepal.  "You meet Santi now, and probably later today you get married.  Maybe tomorrow."  He then went on to describe how if we married, I could buy a small plot of land up the road, build a house and farm there, and come and go from America as I please.  For a brief moment I looked out upon the lake, the idyllic hillside and joyous children playing around.  I imagined working seasonally in America for four months, travelling for two months and living on a quiet farm in Nepal the rest of the year.  Not a bad idea I thought.  Then I thought just a tad bit harder and realized this was the stupidest idea I'd ever had.  I darted back to the Centre, ignoring the pleas to wait and meet my potential Nepali wife.

Considering I momentarily considered marrying a stranger, it should come as no surprise my judgement dictated it wise to drink beer during a yoga retreat.  Such it was, when a few of my closest yogis-to-be left the course and had one more night in Pokhara, I skipped afternoon meditation and yoga to replace peace with chaos.  It started with a beer and Nepali jenga down by the river.  Then there was some food.  Next came some singing.  Naturally, entranced dancing followed.  Mixed inbetween there were public sun salutations and shameless smack talking.  Moreson that any one particular event though, it was our glowing radiance of fervered insanity that made the night special.  We carried around the auroa and grace of a wrecking ball.  No thing or person around us was safe.  Honestly, I'd probably consider our group a no-good bunch of rambunctuous jackasses if there wasn't so much sincere laughter and good spirits.

I should take a break from these stories and say this about the Yoga Retreat.  It did involve yoga.  Amazingly, I was able to retain some level of dignity despite my feeble attempts to stretch and contort my body.  Even better, I feel like I learned a valuable tool for developing two tremendously important traits - awareness and presence.  Through my daily life, my awareness is frequently held hostage by trifling thoughts and attachments.  Like meditation, yoga helps me free my awareness and bring it back to the present moment.  Once there, the inevitable times of suffering don't seem so frightening when they're stripped of the excessive worries and negative meanings I place on them.  Moreso, the dull and boring moments are invigorated with the true colors and life they hold.  Awareness and presence in the moment.  Truly so crucially important.  So important in fact, plenty of my exhausting mental explorations into Soul before the retreat were concerned with this.  So important, I made myself look like a fool practicing yoga for six days in an effort to strengthen it
.
Yet, what I'm finding is that yoga, meditation and contemplation only account for a fraction of what I'm searching for.  The rest of it lies elsewhere, and it seems to be found performing an activity I have aptly titled, "Living Life."  During immersing conversation at Sadhana, I was connecting with other people.  I may not have been cogniscent of it at the time, but I was experiencing interdependence.  Making an ass of myself in public with drunk yogis may not be an acknowledged step on the path to enlightenment, but at least I was living in the moment.  Throwing oneself into absolutely absurd situations was on neither the Kopan or Sadhana schedule, but sometimes it's when I have to ask myself "What the hell am I doing?" to actually be aware of exactly what the hell I'm doing.

Meditation, yoga and contemplating the soul have certainly proved to important parts of my spiritual path, but let's be honest here.  I'm not going to be a religous scholar living in a library or a driven yogi living in a cave.  I'm a simple human being who lives in a breathing world, and interdependence necessitates that this world is just as much a part of me as my sense of identity.  So if I'm truly going to find the Nature of Soul or Enlightenment, the world and all of it people, chaos and absurdity are going along for the ride.

Everest 8 - The Way Back Down

The hike back down was interesting to say the least.  For the first time in nearly a decade I contemplated the literal existence of a God and Soul.  I read like crazy.  I meditated like a madman (a very peaceful and calm madman).  So, what did I garner from this?

Well… let’s just say I still have a long way to go.  Most of my insights were on a philosophical level, which bothers me a bit.  I’ve always been annoyed by philosophers because they seem to climb to the peaks of human thought, but never seem to bring anything meaningful back down to the valleys where people live and do stuff.

But I will say this.  My spirituality has been dull and stagnant for a life time, and if nothing else this has revived a seeking attitude in me again.  Even more, when reflecting back on all my talk on the Travelers Key and following your heart, I’ve realized that I’ve actually been contemplating a common idea.  Being in the moment.  When people say, “It’s about the journey, not the destination.” More or less they’re advocating this idea of being in the moment.  Much like my walk up to the foot of Mt. Everest was a journey, my spiritual seeking is a journey in itself, and in both cases this journey is more important than the destination.  I’m certainly still searching, but from here on out I’m not going to concern myself so much with reaching some sort of divine truth or pinnacle of spiritual experience.  I’m still going in that direction, but I’ll be sure to be grateful and aware on each step toward that goal. J

As of now, I’m in Pokhara and leaving tomorrow for a week long yoga retreat.  After that I’m off to a village to teach English for a couple weeks… Haha life is good.

Everest 7 - Base Camp and Irrational Spirituality

Today certainly wasn’t a bad day, my hikes just didn’t possess that magic they had in the past few days.  What the day lacked in breathtaking views and “moments”, it more than made up for in new, exploding thoughts.

When I woke up, I just didn’t “feel” the hiking.  Maybe it was because I was physically exhausted from walking with a 35 pound pack on my back for the past ten days, or I was emotionally exhausted from the beauty that had been assaulting my senses.  Either way, I really just wanted to hang out in the common room and read a book.  Still, I asked myself “How often am I in the Himalayas?”, and forced my trekking boots on and walked on to Base Camp.

Of course the hike was gorgeous.  It was the same peaks, valleys and snow that nearly brought me to tears the past two days, but some of the magic was gone.  I tried using the Key, but it simply wasn’t effective.

Things turned up a bit when I was at trekkers base camp and chose not to go to the Climbers Base Camp.  A guide told me that trekkers were supposed to stop here and the views weren’t really going to be any better or different at the climbers camp, so I resigned to stop hiking for the day.  I watched a group walk further toward the Climbers Base Camp, and found a comfy rock to lay on and soak up the sun.  Here, I was not driven to the point of tears, but a bit of that magic seemed to creep back into me.

This brings up something I only briefly touched on the other day.  Until now all aspect of this figurative Travelers Key I’ve been carrying with have been mental processes.  They’re all states of mind.  None of them involve actions.  How could I ignore this?  A couple days ago I sensed there was a relationship between the Key and following your soul, heart, intuition or whatever you want to call it.  Now, I think that listening to that irrational aspect of self that tells you what to do isn’t related to the key, it’s part of it.

In the shadows of Lhotse Mountain I reveled in this new understanding for a bit.  Gratitude, clear mind and egolessness could only do so much if you were betraying a fundamental aspect of yourself.  And what is this aspect?  I’ve placed a lot of new age sounding word on it, but at it’s core it’s just doing what you want.  I suppose most people would argue that in their free time they already do what they want without listening to some logic-defying inner voice, but I’m not so sure.  It seems that the current American lifestyle is so stressful, that our rare moments of free time is merely spent escaping the stresses and anxieties of life.  Escape is quite different than pursuit.  Also, It seems that even when we’re momentarily free from all of our responsibilities and stress, we become more concerned with feeding an ego than listening to our true nature of mind that really reveals what we should be doing.  When you compound this with the reality of our expanding workweeks and decreasing vacation times, doing what you want is becoming harder and harder to come by.

I also imagine that quite a few people would consider simply doing whatever you want as a selfish desire, but I’m not so sure of this either.  I think violent criminals are simply afflicted with many delusions of mind.  Furthermore, it seems like those that are involved in the helping profession are much closer to doing what they want than those in the Corporate World.  From this frame of reference, it seems people lean toward the socially proactive when left with the option of doing what they want, not such a bad thing.

Doing what you want – Following your heart – Intuition – Wisdom – Soul – It all started to seem like the same elusive thing to me at that moment.  Even more important, it started to seem like one of the most important aspects on the effectiveness of the Traveler’s Key, one of the most important aspects of a fulfilling life.

Maybe the strength of the sun rays at 18,000 ft made me disoriented, maybe I was dehydrated, but as I laid on that rock my mind began to race all over the place.  Reflecting on the difficulty of simply doing what you want to do, my mind turned toward the CBT model of psychology.   The basic idea is that our thoughts, behaviors and emotions are all interrelated, and for some reason the unification of thoughts, actions and emotions seemed like the most beautiful idea in the world to me.  Furthermore, it seemed like the Travelers Key I’ve blabbed on so much about, was the key to accomplishing this!  I think all three times I was on the verge of tears was not only because of the natural beauty around me, but because of the harmony in which these different aspects of self were in accordance with each other.

I kind of laughed to myself on the rock for a bit.  Everyone is wandering by, sitting around, snapping photos, and although they see me in the background here, they have no idea what’s going on in my head.

Anyhow, the swirling of thoughts momentarily slowed down a bit as I reveled in the harmony of self I’ve been lucky enough to forge on the trek here. But then I started thinking of the aspects of self, and the currents of my mind grew stronger than ever.  Thoughts – behaviors – actions.  These are the aspects of self that the CBT model views a human.  Nice, tidy, easy to define and measurable. 

After living the past few days in the appreciation of that which is irrational and illogical, this normally neutral concept seemed repulsive.  Surely there is more than this.  Surely there is an aspect of self which holds higher meaning than this, something that escapes measurements, definitions and reason.  Surely if there was such an aspect of self that escaped logic, modern psychology and science would miss it!  Our attachment to reason, fostered since a child in our classrooms, would almost blind us to its presence!

The swirling stopped and I had a clear thought.

Yesterday I said my purpose was to pursue, appreciate and create that which holds unmistakable beauty.  As part of this, I now dedicate myself to a personal understanding and practice of spirituality.