ok, here we go.... First of all I would like to beseech anyone, anyone who can give me some tech advice as to how i might create a photo album on this silly blog, where i can put all the photos i download so i don't have to just run them down the right side of the page. i don't know how to do it.. but i was wishing you could click on "photo album" and go to all the pics, rather than have them all here on the front page, but maybe it works alright as it is... I don't know.
India is constantly questioning and testing my idea of the world and how i think it "should" work. I am back in Rishikesh. Civilization. I was at Sivananda Kutir ashram 7 hours drive up in the Himalayas where the air is clean, you can drink from the river without fear and there is no sound but the rush of the river, constant and unrelenting, that can be heard from wherever you are at the ashram. I loved it there and the people i met were very cool. It was just really wonderful to be so far up in the mountains. Just a few hours further up that road and you run into holy men meditating in the caves up there, where the Ganges literally flows from out of the earth. So i am where i wanted to be. The power there and here is palpable. I spent a lot of time just sitting on a big rock in the river. You can hear the river say "om". At first I thought I was hearing a human voice, someone somewhere, in the meditation hall or somewhere, chanting "om", and i listened, i listened hard to this "voice". After some time I realized, this sound is not a human voice, this is the sound of the river herself, the universe itself, resounding "om". It is continuous and unbroken, this sound that sounds like many human voices perpetually chanting the sound of the universe. It puts you in quite a state to hear it and it makes you feel quite reverent.
Back in the hustle and bustle of Rishikesh, I feel around to find my feet. I know that I am going to be a resident here from some weeks or perhaps months... so I have to stop thinking of myself as a tourist. There are many interesting things here, people, studies, sights, to keep me occupied for some time. I think I will probably start with a massage course and some ayurvedic treatments and studies. I feel there is some more work I need to do on my own health first, before I begin to learn how to heal others. It is interesting to me how this priority has worked its way into my consciousness. All this time since arriving in this country I have been purifying, healing and strengthening, in body and in spirit.
So along with the priority of healing myself and growing myself stronger... is the priority of settling into a lifestyle that is economical and sustainable. This involves finding a "home", a place to stay that is cheap and comfortable. Today I checked into Ved Niketan Ashram for 3 nights. It is popular with travellers and there are many many rooms set around a central "courtyard". i put courtyard in quotations because it involves a grassy areas with walkways crisscrossing it, one single cow tethered to a post and a work crew busily contructing a.... shrine? i'm going to guess. I believe the yoga hall also occupies the center of the area.
My room is exactly like what i imagine a jail cell to be... stark, more than basic, no frills and sparse in its furnishings. i have a bed and some shelves built right into the plaster of the wall. but it is totally fresh and clean smelling, and not in a toxic cleaning chemical sort of way but in a moutain meadow kind of way and the energy in it is quite good. The price is right... it costs exactly $2.40 canadian per night, and that includes yoga and meditation classes daily and the bathroom is shared. quite a deal. So. based on that, i can live on as little as 5 dollars or less per day while i decide what needs to happen next. i will stay there 3 nights and in that time i will scope the city to see if i find something better. I tell myself... this is the real India. If they can live with so little and if all these other travellers can... then so can I. i didn't come here for a vacation after all. and what better way to understand the people than to live like them. My health remains good and i've even had the opposite problem of "Delhi belly", somehow. I don't know how or why. I must be the only person who comes to India and has the opposite problem. anyhow. too much information.
I am relieved and happy that Rishikesh is so safe. Being a kind of pilgrimage center, it is very friendly and safe, even at night. I never feel any concern for my safety here. Very important.
This morning I had an interesting conversation with Ram, the person who works at the rooftop restaurant where i had breakfast, overlooking the water and in a nice westerly breeze. Banana pancakes, a banana lassi, and chai,( if you must know.) His English was quite good and he was happy to share his views and opinions about Indians and their ways and Westerners and their ways, and i was able to ask him questions and express my concerns about my slowness to adapt to such a different environment. His comments and observations were quite illuminating for me and gave me some insight as to how the people think and operate and i feel much more at home here as a result. It is like learning a whole other language when you are learning the ways of a people and a culture and how things operate. wow.
I am learning and I am coming to realize that the people here are very warm, accepting, and loving. Their greatest resource is eachother and they are used to helping one another and working together very closely.... at a range that would make most westeners cringe. It is just so different from Canada and i marvel everyday at how my long time dream could have been to come to a place like this, where the filth and the poverty, the noise and crush of activity, are suffocating at times. I have moments of panic over what i have done and what a big piece i have bitten off and now have to chew. but that is the whole reason why i have done this. to push myself, because i knew in coming here... there would be no turning back for me. and instinctively, i feel that this is the place i need to be to grow in the way i need to grow. it is like a tonic or a medicine somehow, and it doesn't always taste so good, you might make a face, but it is very good for you.
It is like sinking or swimming, i have no choice but to thrive. It will take me some time to adjust to everything here, and i know that once i do, it will be time to go home, and for all the struggling with myself to adjust, it will probably break my heart when i leave. and all the things i now find exasperating or disgusting will be completely overshadowed by the jewel of humanity that will uncover itself over time.
well, that is quite enough rambling i think. all this writing is so self indulgent. writing on the blog is hard. it is easier when i write personal emails to convey what needs to be said. writing here seems to overwhelm me. it is intimidating. but i'll get over myself. soon.
here's to laughter and friendship and strangers who smile.
love to all
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