Bodhgaya again

I have to tell you, I keep getting attacks of: "My God, I really did it!!" Here I am, back in the place I was only last March, where I promised myself - "I shall return" - and by god - I did!! It is the strongest feeling I have ever had of really and truly living your dream (as opposed to dreaming your life, as I saw on a T-shirt not long ago).

It's been a while since I could get at a computer with nobody breathing down my neck, so now I have to bring you up to date about all kinds of things.

We shall start, chronologically, with Santosh. This is the cab driver who took me into Trivandrum (from the ashram) together with a few friends. The guys were sitting in the back, and I was up front with Santosh. By now, we all know that it is virtually impossible to meet people here without getting deep, DEEP into their personal lives, so nobody was surprised when he pulled out a photo album and proceeded to show me pictures of his recent wedding (yes, continuing to drive all the while).

It turns out that he married a girl from the US last March, and now they are waiting for him to get a visa so he can join her there. From what I understand, there are quite a few Indian men who dream of "making it" like this - a passport out of India, into the Great West. So, no surprise that Santosh's success was written up in three different local papers (which he also showed me). And now we get to the killer part: hearing about how happy I am in India, and that visas to India are only issued for 6 months a piece, Santosh very generously offered to arrange meetings for me with several of his matrimonial-minded friends, so that I could get an India visa (as the wife of an Indian), and they could get an American one. Too bad I was leaving the next day...

And leave I did, getting (once more) on the Kerala Express bound for Delhi. Experience has taught me that the AC (air-conditioned) cars are worth reserving - not necessarily for the air-conditioning (the weather is really nice during the winter) - but because these are the only cars that are closed (so your bags are safer; and you get no beggars, although the jokers that try to sell food and magazines still pester you), there is no dust on the bunk beds (you should have seen the layer on the top bunk in the non-AC car - a real cushion!!), and you get your meals and your sheets brought to you by the porters. You still have to pay for your meals separately, and I can tell you with complete authority that the meals served on the Jharkand Express are a lot better than the ones on the Kerala Express (but you pay more, so it evens out). Plus, the cockroaches in the AC cars are not much bigger than your thumb-nail, so it is relatively easy to settle down to a good night's sleep with them lurking in the corners of the windows and bunk-beds. Altogether a homey experience. So, we (cockroaches and all) reached Delhi, and I still don't like big cities.

Two days later, I was on a train to Bodhgaya, and here I am. Now I want to tell you about the bicycle-rickshaw ride from the station. It took two hours of my life, and it deserves mention.

The train actually does not stop in Bodhgaya, but rather in Gaya, another town that is about 15 kilometers north of Bodhgaya. When you get out of the train station (sometimes while you're still on the train, just trying to get out) - all the taxi and rickshaw people from miles around are trying to get you into their vehicle. This time, I chose the bicycle-rickshaw. This is the cheapest transportation option, but after seeing how these guys work, I think they should be getting the most money.

We started out through the market of Gaya. This is a typical Indian market-place (I should say North-Indian, because my friends from South India maintain that the south is cleaner). To begin with, pavement is un-heard of, but the roads aren't really dirt, because they are almost completely covered with cow-dung (from all the cows moping about, naturally) and all sorts of garbage (the piles can come up to your hips in some places). Then you've got your local yokels, either sitting in their shops, or just roaming the streets looking for something interesting to happen (such as a western-looking woman riding a bicycle-rickshaw). And lets not forget the rest of the traffic: cars, rickshaws, cows, rattling trucks, more cows, a few dogs, some dirty children (only partly naked) and the occasional ox-cart. Have I mentioned the water buffalos? And everyone is happy to see you. They will wave, call out, or just smile. It doesn't take much to see that these people have nothing, they probably live in the same shop where they work, on the dirt floors, with the openings in the mud-brick walls serving as windows. So why do I feel so at-home?

Then, we finally pulled out of town, and hit the country-side. May I remind you that all this is being done by a guy who is slowly pedaling me (no feather-weight) and my two (not too small) backpacks through the pot-holes and the ditches. And occasionally, we have to stop, because his left pedal keeps coming loose, and he has to get a rock from the road-side and bang it back into place.

Now, going through the country-side, things are a bit cleaner (because the concentration of the garbage is so much lower - there is more room to spread it around) (then again, most of the garbage is organic, coming from whatever is around you, so there isn't much to worry about). Still, we go through small concentrations of mud-brick houses, women sitting on their door-steps, picking through other women's hair (you do it outside so that the sunlight will show up the lice); and kids playing with a stick, or a beat-up old bicycle wheel. I have seen kids making a kite out of an old plastic bag - just watching their games can be occupation enough.

And now, every time we stop to fix the left pedal, the local kids come to talk to the foreign woman. A fourteen-year-old boy asked me if I was married. When I asked him the same thing back, he explained to me that he has to finish school and get a job first (everything has it's place and time, right?). Sometimes they don't wait for the rickshaw to stop - some of the local hot-rods come by on their motorcycles, and then they slow down to ride along-side, and ask "You are from?"

So now I know Siddhartha, who claims to have worked at the Root Institute (where I am currently staying, and Babaloo, who rode by on a bicycle when I was walking to the internet shop. Already, I have friends, now we just have to wait and see when the marriage-proposal will come...

Buses

OK, so I'm back at the ashram. What can I say? I'm a yoga junkie (or a spiritual junkie, as someone said when I pointed out that I'm just as happy (or happier) in a Buddhist retreat). I'll only be staying here for a few more days, and this coming Tuesday - I'll be bravely taking the 3-day train for Delhi again. For those of you who do not remember my impressions from the last 3-day train trip - the bottom line was: DON'T DO IT. However, the alternative is either unbelievably expensive (airplane) or physically so much worse (bus).

Now, the thing I really want to tell you about is the buses – or rather - the people who work on them.

I just have to mention, before I go on, that once again, I am sitting here in a small hut that serves as home to a social-worker, and is now being used by the local children for a singing class. So that, just on the other side of the cardboard partition, they are all sitting on the floor and singing at the top of their lungs (probably partly for my benefit). I just want you to have the right idea about the settings. Occasionally, one of the kids gets smacked for misbehaving, and you can hear the thwack from quite a distance. The Indians evidently aren't shy about discipline.

Now, about those conductors & assorted bus-workers. I have spent the last ten days or so riding the local buses. So I've had time to get a better idea of how they work.

To begin with, you don't pay at the ticket counter before you get on the bus, or at the door when you get on, either. They trust you. You get on, you find a seat (if you're lucky), and eventually, the bus driver finishes burning his incense (for a safe trip), revs up the motor (so they hear it across town), and you trundle off for your destination. May I remind you at this point that the roads in India were probably last maintained just before the British left here in 1948. I would also like to point out that space limitations mean nothing to the people here. Any vehicle will hold twice the people it was meant to, while the late-comers don't mind hanging on to the outside bars on the sides and back, or sitting on the roof (why would they mind - that way, their heads don't bang against the ceiling when the car hits one of the many holes in the road...)

Now, about the bus personnel. There is the driver, of course. And there is the conductor, who pushes through the throng, collecting money after the bus is under way.

And there are the door-keepers. These are the most interesting of all. They don't drive, they don't take money. They just hold onto the door. Quiet job, you think? Let me tell you, it is an action-hero's job. The simple part is ringing the little bell attached to the ceiling next to the driver's head - once for him to stop (because some local yokel waved, and maybe he wants to get on the bus); and twice to get going again (because how is the driver going to see if everybody got on and off properly, with all those arms and legs and heads in the way). So if you want to get off the bus, you just catch the eye of the door-keeper, and he will take care of you.

Then, the bus goes passing another vehicle on the road. Now this in itself is enough to get your blood racing, considering the narrowness of the road, the existential uncertainty of where, exactly, it is (because there's nothing there but rocks and holes), the steep slopes(remember we were on our way to a hill station - "hill" meaning mountain), and the total indifference of the truck you are trying to overtake. So this is where the door keeper functions, ringing his little bell furiously, just to tell the driver that he's looking out the side, and, yes, you can keep going, you haven't scraped the side of the other car yet. The same thing happens when your bus has to reverse. You can't expect the driver to see anything behind him - he can hardly see in front. So again, ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding to signify - nothing back there to be run over. Yet.

And then, you want to see what happens when two busses meet each other in the city. One coming from the left, the other from the right, both aiming for the same street. Needless to say, right-of-way and such niceties as road-etiquette are unheard of. Whoever manages to push his way in first, gets to go first. And there is your door-keeper, and this time, he is pounding his hand against the OTHER bus-side, while his other hand is ding-ding-dinging the little bell. (Which, by the way, is nothing more that a piece of metal attached to a string that is threaded through a series of loops on the ceiling.)

Don't tell me this is not an active job!!

The only thing left to tell you about is what happens when the bus gets full. Well, after people have packed themselves in the standing portion of the bus (no more crowded that your average sardine tin), and sitting three or four in seats that were meant for two, they start spilling out the sides. Do not mistake this to be a sign for the driver to stop picking people up.

No, this is where the interesting part begins. First, the door-keeper will stand on the door-step, holding the door under his arm-pit (by this time, you see, it is physically impossible to close the door, because of all the bodies inside). At every stop, he gets off, herding the passengers that are getting on or off, and then banging the bus wall twice (if he has no bell) to let the driver know it's time to move. And hopping onto the door-step as the bus starts moving. Eventually, his position is taken by other passengers, and he ends up with no more than his toes on the door-step, his body completely out of the bus, and hanging on to the (open) door for dear life. I wonder what the mortality rate for this job is...

OK, enough hair-raising tales. 

Keep the faith

Apology

The last time I was in India, my dearly beloved son Eyal asked me for - believe it or not - MORE PHILOSOPHY. Normally, I would do whatever is in my power to spare other humans from the weird workings of my own mind, but the young man actually asked for it. And then I thought that maybe one or two other people might be interested. (In other words, I figured - why make only one suffer, when I can do more?) So here are some thoughts that I have been writing for the past couple of weeks. Just in case you're interested.

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So I've been thinking. On the one hand, I keep talking about exploring into this philosophy - and on the other - Sivananda doesn't really go beyond the basics.

The thing is: somehow this "simple life" agrees with me in ways I don't begin to understand. I suspect there is a nomadic part of me that is happiest when I am unattached and moving; and I know that I will always wonder if that part is genetic or acquired (as if that mattered). There is something un-nerving in feeling a surge of joy and realizing that it is just for going away from HERE, wherever HERE may be. This is especially disturbing when you have children, who would appreciate it if you would stay put for a little while longer. John Steinbeck wrote: "once a bum, always a bum" - and my own personal experience would prove him right. So this would be by way of apology.

The point of just living like this, even without actively studying anything, is that you learn more about what is really important (at least on a subjective level) - just for the sheer experience of settling down to a life with few possessions (no more than you can carry), in a land where poverty is the norm. You get a chance to look reality in the eye.

Funny thing, reality. I know that the common reaction to what I am doing is: "she's running away from reality".

Define reality, please.

The people who live in the near-by mud-brick houses with palm-leaf roofs would just love to "get back" to what we commonly call reality. They have no idea that they are living an illusion in an un-real world.

Personally, I think it's a real hoot for a guy who's sitting in a concrete & metal building on a plastic chair in polyester clothes to be talking to me about reality. Especially if he's dealing in virtual option fortunes or making movies.

But my point is not that "what I am living is reality and you are not". My point is that none of it is real. It's all Illusions, just like Richard Bach said. He actually has a bit there where he compares life to a movie, and you just choose whichever feature you prefer. I choose this one.

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First point:

Nothing is real.

Buddhism and Hinduism flat-out say so, and so does the Course in Miracles. You can more or less find the same implied in other philosophies, I think.

The idea is that everything - all you can possibly conceive of - is a fabrication of your own mind. You do not even know what or who you really are, because you are so bogged down in your illusions and fantasies and fairy tales that you have been told since you were born.

The first immediate conclusion to this is: everything, with no exception whatsoever - EVERYTHING is open to question. Absolutely NOTHING is sacred. This is the basis.

It's really scary having nothing at all to believe. Imagine jumping from a plane with no parachute, and then seeing that there is no ground to fall on. Should you be scared that there is nothing to break your fall, or relieved that there is nothing to crash on?

Second point:

Well, where does the first point leave us? The Hindus (and the Course In Miracles) say that the only reality is God, or Brahman, or Love - call it what you will.

Now, God is a very tricky subject, because every religion has at least one (except Buddhism, which we will look at in just a minute). But the God of the Old Testament is a jealous one that threatens to destroy anyone who insults him, and the God of various Christian faiths will send you to hell in a New-York minute if you don't follow his rules.

These Gods have wants (they want people to do things). They are supposed to be able to work miracles, but at the same time are unable to control their followers (or else why is hell necessary at all?) Something doesn't make sense here.

The concept that I am following says that ITT just IS. ITT has no wants, no needs, no likes or dislikes. ITT is the only reality there is, and we are part of ITT, whether we realize this or not, just like waves in the ocean, if each one believes that it is a separate entity.

Now, if this ITT is so over-all real, then nothing is impossible to ITT. By the simple act of thinking about something - you make it possible.

So if it is that simple, then why is it so complicated? Before you can answer that question, you have to look at a few more basics. Such as - if ITT is all that is real, then what am I, and what are you?

Look at the wave again. Is the wave part of the ocean, or the ocean part of the wave? Which is more real - the water or the wave? (Not my original statement, I know.) And is the wave really an individual entity, separate from the other waves, and from the ocean?

This is not to say that I know the answer, but an exploration.

Point number 3:

The Course In Miracles says that the One And Only ITT (or Godd) is actually nothing but Love. The Hindus call it Existence-Knowledge-Bliss, and when you get into it, you find that they are talking about the same thing, with different names. This is where you can get really suspicious of all religions everywhere, because – lo and behold, no matter what religion you get into - the deeper you go into the definition of God, the closer you get to the exact same definition. Even the Buddhists, who declare that there is no God, speak of attaining a state in which you know everything, see everything, and are in a perpetual state of joy, love and well-being. The Hindus consider this state to be one with God - isn't that a coincidence?

 
So, we have 3 basic pointers to a reality which we will call God (because everybody else does) or ITT (because I like that). But we will not attach any attributes or characteristics to this Godd without examining them first to see if they make sense to us (so you can forget about keeping Kosher or genuflecting). Now, Hinduism and the Course In Miracles have as their stated goal to unite with this God and become one with ITT, as they say. The Buddhists actually have the same goal, with a different name. They talk about reaching a state of divine bliss, and who is to say that Godd is an entity and not a state of being? If Godd is so all-encompassing then ITT is neither, because no definition can set the boundaries of what ITT is. ITT is – by definition - indefinable.

And everybody wants to get there. This, by the way, is actually the first reason that I prefer Eastern religion to Western. Judaism and Christianity see God as a separate entity, and declare their goal to serve Him (and why not Her, I'd like to know?). Hinduism not only declares it's goal as BEING God, it also declares that each and every one of us already IS. I know that if you dig deep enough you will probably find the same idea in Western religion, but I'm lazy by nature. And I like the idea of a mentality that sets it's goal as being happy rather than one that sets it's goal as service (although they come out the same in the end, as we will see). At least you don't have to explain why being happy is a good idea. I like happy.

The rest of religion, any religion - just deals with ways and means of achieving the goal. And again, the Eastern philosophies seem to have more straight-forward methods than the West. But they all, without exception, agree that getting there involves considering your fellow-man as dearly as you consider yourself, if not more so.

But doing that does not mean disregarding yourself or belittling yourself or making yourself suffer. The idea is that you are Godd, but then, so is everybody else. The perception they are going for is one of seeing yourself as part of everything and everyone else you see, and seeing perfection in it all. When you've managed to do that, you've got it made.

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So, what I've written here is a sort of an exploration, a thinking-out-loud, of the philosophy that I'm trying to work with. It is there in the back of my head most of the time, accompanying just about everything that I am doing. So I thought I would let you know about it, and see if you have any comments.

Kottayam

Well, I'm out of the ashram. Just so you know, I actually did manage to get back into the headstand one more time before I left. It still needs work, but the important point, the one you want to be careful not to forget - is that I CAN STAND ON MY HEAD (even if it is only for about two seconds).

I left the ashram a couple of days ago, to meet a friend and hobo around a little bit together. (This is someone I met at the ashram when I was here last January, and we kept in touch.) So anyway, now we are Kottayam, with the main objective of getting to one of the hill stations as soon as possible.

What's the rush, you ask? Indian weather, that's what. The last few days at the ashram had all the characteristics of living in a sauna. The rain comes pouring down, but the heat doesn't get the hint, and it just sticks around, waiting for the clouds to stop dripping. And then, BAM, it hits you again, only this time so much wetter. I kid you not - my glasses literally steamed up periodically, just from being out there in the weather.

So, I wiped them off, and headed for the hills. I have been promised that the hill stations, as they call them, are much cooler, so that you can actually breathe without feeling like you are being cooked. From the inside.

Anyway, so far, all I've seen is more rain. We took a bus yesterday from Thiruvananthapuram (this is just me showing off, because it's commonly called Trivandrum, but I like to prove that I can say it and spell it) to Kottayam. Since I'm traveling with a real live Indian now, I get to take the local transportation instead of paying the big bucks for a private taxi. Not that I'm not allowed to do it on my own, just that I'm too chicken to deal with all the signs in Malayalam (the local language which looks like a bunch of circles and squiggles), and the Great Mystery of boarding a bus without really knowing where it's going - the local population would love to help you, but even if they do know which bus you should be taking, they don't necessarily know how to make themselves understood. And even if they don't know, that's not going to stop them from trying to give you directions (they do so want to be helpful, you see)...

And what did we get for the 4-and-a-half hour drive? Rain, that's what. Pretty much like driving in a river (no, not beside one - inside one). Now, you have to understand that the busses are like just about everything else in India, not really built to last, but rather more built to blend in with the environment (physically blend, that is). So they reserve the right to fall apart anywhere, anytime. Our window decided to exercise that right, once the rain started. One more thing you have to know, in order to get the picture, is that the windows aren't really there. There are the square openings in the wall of the bus, but there's no glass to cover it. You get the full benefit of the fresh air. And there is a little accordion-like rubber sheet attached to the top of this window, that is held by a couple of braces which you move aside in order to unfold the rubber covering in the case of rain. Only the rain does not necessarily know that this covering is meant to keep it out, so it comes in anyway. Wasn't I lucky that my friend was sitting by the window and not me?

Well, now we've dried out, and we're looking around for another bus to take us farther into the mountains, so that I will stop complaining about the heat. Next time you will hopefully be hearing from a colder me.