Adventures in India

I hope that this message finds you joyful with the awareness of the many blessings that you have in your life.

It has been a few months since my last offering of stories of adventures and insights. I have once again been going deep into spirituality and uncovering the layers of myself. My travel has shifted to this sole intention of discovering the many layers of my being. The further I go into this exploration, the more I realize I have to learn. There is so much! There are entire universes to explore within and I have been making use of many facets to undergo this self discovery.

My time in India began with surroundings that I was unaccustomed to. I am generally a low budget traveler and stick to places where I can live on about $10 a day. My normal scene was exchanged and I found myself staying with friends in the Mumbai music scene. My days and nights were filled with fancy meals, artistic performances, and the Mumbai night life. India is simultaneously very rich and very poor. I was fascinated by the scenes of luxury sports cars filled with expensively dressed passengers as they drove past dirt covered woman in saris while they bathed their children in the water flowing through the street gutter. The contrast is shocking. India pierces into you heart and soul like no other place I have been. It is sometimes difficult to stay open in such places because the suffering of so many of these people is so great. I felt guilty sipping my cappuccino that cost the same amount as a family of 4 could live on for a couple of days. It is humbling to see such sights. It always moves me into a deep state of gratitude for the countless blessings that I have. Could you imagine never having a hot shower in your whole life? Imagine washing your clothes by hand near the city sewer. This is their life! Nothing that we have to deal with in the western world is as close to as difficult as these people’s entire lives are…..they struggle for food while we are worried about not having the latest type of cell phone. I am not saying all this to bring guilt…I am saying it so that we can find a sense of gratitude for all that we have rather than feeling a sadness for all that we think you lack.

It was interesting to go into this alternative scene in India with awareness and consciousness. I watched myself in these surroundings and really saw that I can remain in meditation even when the world is spinning so quickly around me. There were many amazing people that I was connecting with, but I saw that my place was closer to a pure state of Mother Nature.

After a day of intensity squashed on a local Mumbai train overflowing with triple the amount of people it should be holding, I booked the next possible train to Hampi. Nestled in my comfortable sleeper car, I set off on the 24 hour adventure to this amazing bouldering destination. It is interesting because in India, 24 hours for travel to most places is customary. Trains are generally 1-15 hours late and sometimes never actually come at all. Traveling in India teaches you to really trust in the flow and forces you to discover the infinite grace of patience. If you don’t discover a certain level of letting go, you will not survive in this country. One certainty is that you will never run out of things to look at or discover while you are waiting for that train that may never come. India is a feast of colors, sounds, smells and strange sites that you will never see anywhere else.

Hampi is a relaxed town in the inland southern part of India. It is covered with rice patties, palm trees, mountains, blue skies and boulders as far as the eyes can see. It is enchantingly quiet and caters to relaxed backpackers and climbers. My time here was filled with climbing, photography, meditation, yoga and encounters with interesting people from around the world. I was enjoying the silence and stillness of this sacred pilgrimage place, but felt that after one week, I was ready to move on.

The universe pushed me along, as it always does, and I was directed to a city 4 hours from Mumbai called Pune. Pune is famous for being the location of the international meditation center of Osho. (www.osho.com) Osho is a Guru that was especially famous in the 70’s and spread his teachings of free love and celebration throughout the world. His teachings ranged from Zen Buddhism to Vigyan Bhairav Tantra. Osho teaches that everything is God and that a spiritual life doesn’t mean a life of renunciation, it means a life of total acceptance for whatever something is. He says that you should go into everything with spontaneous totality and complete awareness. He created meditation techniques for the modern man that catered to his/her restlessness. Instead of sitting cross legged and trying to go into a state of silence, his mediations are dynamic and full of dancing, movement, yelling, crying, jumping, breathing and shaking. You do something with so much totality that you split into the doer and the watcher.

I spent one month in this center and went deep into my first 3 chakras. It was a love hate relationship. Pune was sometimes a difficult teacher and showed me the lessons in intense ways. Despite the difficulties, much strength, creativity and trust was uncovered. I really began to discover my will power and ability to stand up for myself. I saw that I don’t have to be nice all the time. Many times in my life I have been unable to do and say what I feel because I am worried about how it affects people around me. I have oftentimes allowed people to walk over me because I am afraid of hurting them. I discovered the beautiful ability to be strong and in control, and simultaneously have an open heart and full awareness. We can be loving and compassionate, while doing what makes us happy. It is important for us to stand in our power with grace and love, and be and speak our truth. It is extremely liberating to realize that we have this ability. We all have this gift to be confident in ourselves, while being aware of the others. We must simply allow it to come forth from within us…..

After a 2 week Christmas break in Rishikesh and Prem Baba, I returned to Pune for a random job as a New Years Eve fire dance/ hula hoop dance performer. It was a unique opportunity and I actually made money performing at this 4 star hotel on New Years…..the pictures can speak for themselves….hehe….

The exploration of that which is hidden within me continued as I settled into my familiar home in Rishikesh. It is my third year here in this beautiful holy place in the Himalayas. I am blessed with the opportunity to spend 4 intensely magical months here with my Guru Prem Baba. For those that don’t know, a Guru is a spiritual master. It is someone who has become self realized/ enlightened and helps to guide others towards their own enlightenment. He is a source of infinite wisdom, love and light. I had the grace of encountering him 2 years ago in this sacred place and have been since blessed with much transformation through my connection to him. Prem Baba is from Brazil and is the same teacher that I went to South America to study with.

It is the only the beginning of the season, but much has already been changing. My days are filled with satsangs (“truth gatherings”…..discourses on spirituality), volunteer work, mediation, yoga, dance, friends, yummy food, and so much love. I am really falling in love with the world. The weather is cold but the Energy is high. The largest gathering of people on earth is taking place close to where I am staying. It is called the Kumbh Mela and is a spiritual gathering spanning 4 months. (www.kumbhmela.org).

Change is happening and I have recently taken a huge step to go beyond my identification with being a blonde girl. I went through much fear and vanity and I decided to shave my head. I know to many of you this seems rather crazy, but I must say that is has been one of the most liberating experiences of my life. I feel so absolutely free. It has been an opportunity to allow my inner beauty to shine out.

My heart is expanding at a steady rate. Fears are dropping away as I am learning and growing to embrace humanity. I wish to love the whole world so that the human race can go beyond our selfishness. People play game after game to try to force those around them to give them attention and energy that they have mistaken as love. It is such a silly cycle. We spend day after day suffering and trying to get exclusive love and attention. We fight with our partners and play so many silly trivial games of jealousy, lust, pride, lying and cheating. We say that we love each other one minute, and then the next we feel so much hatred for that same person we claimed we had loved. The truth of the matter is, if we truly love someone, we could never hate them. Love is born from freedom and joy. It is unconditional and cannot lead to hatred when the beloved does something against your will. The trick is to realize that we don’t need to receive love from the outside. We all have so much love to give. The more we give our love freely and without expectations, the more we are filled by this overflowing, abundant energy. We can love everyone. We don’t need an exclusive person to love because our very nature is love. Love everyone. Love even the one that is hurting you because the reason they are hurting you is that they are suffering their own deep pain. Love them so intensely that they are filled with love and no longer have the need to try to hurt you anymore.

What is the point in being so angry and vengeful?

Why do we need to be right and have power over the other?

The only way we will ever have world peace is if we work for peace within ourselves and our relationships. How can countries ever stop fighting if we can’t even forgive our family, friends, neighbors and selves? We don’t even take the time to look people in the eye and say hello. We are all so entranced by our need for survival and desire for superficial pleasure that we forget about the beauty of existence. We forget the joy that we can experience by really connecting with someone. We forget the joy of a walk in the woods or the sun shimmering into a cloudless sky. Life can be so so so beautiful. Life IS so so so beautiful, we have all just been too entranced to stop and take a look.

Just stop for one minute. Have you lost yourself? Have you forgotten yourself? Who are you? What are you doing? Have you been lost in society working for what you think will bring you joy in the future? Have you forgotten that you can have joy right now? The only time for joy and love is right now. If you can’t have it now, you will never have it in the future. Stop. Remember yourself. Remember the beauty and gift of life.

We are alive. Look at your hands. What a phenomenon that we have these hands attached to this body that we get to explore life within. When have you last celebrated the magic of your life? You can sing, dance, play and celebrate this extraordinary experience of your own existence. There is nothing we have to get because we already have everything we need within us. Joy. Love. Life. We have it all in this moment, only many times we forget because we are too busy looking for it somewhere else.

Stop. Wake up. Remember yourself. Remember that life is a celebration. We don’t have to suffer or wait for sometime in the future to find our joy. Wake up now. Change your perception of the world. Rediscover the simplicity of life. Take the time to encounter yourself as you encounter this earth of your brothers and sisters. Stop closing yourself off into your world of what you need and want. Wake up and ask how you can help in the world today. Live to help others and we will all realize that little by little the world will become transformed. I feel this urgency for all of us to help this world to wake up from this nightmare of hatred, mistrust, selfishness, indifference, anger, isolation, and war. The only way it will happen is if we begin to transform ourselves in our day to day interactions. Take the time to look into someone’s eyes and really listen to what they are saying. We all need to shift our attention from trying to get, to trying to give. See everyone as a part of you and honor them as such. Why would you want to hurt yourself? Everyone is doing the best that they can with the tools and experiences they have been given. Give love and joy and we will see how the world will change. Little by little….each one of us doing our part to shift the consciousness of the planet. We can heal this world, that seems like is falling apart, only if we shift our own focus to love and joy. I really see how this can work. So please heed my request….Wake up! Work to stop the pain and suffering. You are the embodiment of divine love! We are all the embodiment of divine love! Each of us is a source of everlasting joy. Remember your true nature and come back to the beauty and grace of your phenomenal existence!

I will have more about this soon. I will also include some tips on how to bring more consciousness into your everyday lives, how to not get lost in the moment, and opportunities to share more love with the world.

Thank you so much for sharing yourself with me and moving towards a life filled with love and joy. I will be in touch soon. Please feel free to send me any comments or questions. It touches me deeply whenever I hear back from you!