The beginning of the end...

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So here is the scene... I am in Pai, it is beautiful here- really beautiful. There are little villages pocketed around, the surrounding countryside is green and graceful, there are waterfalls dotted around like post boxes and it's all within a short ride to Pai town, which is a sweet place, full of little joints that play 'cafe del mar' and offer shots of wheatgrass with spirulina. There are yoga classes available, I have my own motorbike to cruise around on, I have a good well-priced wooden bungalow, I have money in my pocket and adventure waiting for me just across the border in Loas... so why am I not HAPPY!!!

It's a tart question. You would think that I am the luckiest girl with all this. I am free. I can do what I want, when I want. So why is it that I want to do nothing in particular. It is 10am in the morning on a beautiful day and I am moping around the campfire, thinking, tapping away, writing this blog.

So! I have been reflecting on this state of affairs for a while now. I have been off-centre ever since I arrived in Thailand. I have been feeling homesick for the first time since the start. I keep swinging between intervals of wanting to go home and convincing myself that I am having a great time. I feel so different here than I did in India. I felt so true in India, so comfortable in my own skin, so connected to everything, so very assured and confident that everything was just right and that I had everything I needed to be, I was ME, the real me, my true-self. Do you ever feel like you are acting? Do you ever feel like it's all a bit of a play, you're a living piece of theatre? You know, you meet someone in a bar, at a party, during a work doo, and you both dance the dance... 'what do you do, where do you live, oh really I went there, blah blah' and however much you think that you are enjoying yourself, that, that you're having a great night, that you'd love to meet them for coffee, there is a small knernal of knowledge deep down in the either of your soul that says "this isn't real". That wasn't the real you, you didn't even really want the conversation in the first place and you know what... you didn't like them! Even more than that, you wake up, you have the customery thoughts of every morning, you run through the motions, showering, dressing, what to do in the day, your appointments, your morning meeting and it all feels like an untruth. You're not really doing what you should be doing, you're not really being honest, you don't know why you're doing it as it's not making you happy, you're just wasting your time??

Well upon reflection, this is how I felt BEFORE I went travelling. I had a sense of it then, I wanted something real, I wanted to discover truth, everything I did felt like a lie, I even wrote a short prose called 'why I'm going travelling' to this effect (it's on my facebook notes), but I only really realised it in its full panaramic view since the ashram. I discovered what was not real (basically everything as I suspected) and what was real. I felt that reality, I glimpsed that Truth. I understood! And now... it pains me too much to be feeling the same way as I just described AFTER travelling all these months and finding myself in the ashram.

This eight month travel was meant to be my journey of self-discovery. I quit my job, gave up my apartment and came out here to push myself out of my comfort zone and find some answers, find out what I'm all about. Whether it was my good past karmas or just good fortune... I found everything I was looking for! I am lucky, I feel I did, at least as much as I can deal with right now, in the ashram I found everything that I needed. I was inside me the whole time, I have everything I need, it's just a practice of delving down and finding it again , connecting to it. So it's ironic that I started travelling the world, continents, countries looking for aswers when I found them exactly where I was standing... inside.

So with all that said, I know that I have progressed past this state of doubt and confusion! I have cleared this level... I want to move on - and I can't! So despite my amicable and enviable situation, I feel that I am wasting my time here (again). Since the ashram all I think about (all the time) is teaching yoga, doing yoga, meditating, where, when, what time, how often, the kind of yoga teacher I want to be, the clasess I will teach, the yoga studio I want to build, the people I want to serve, the better daughter I want to be, the asanas I want to work on, the books I want to read, the sanskrit I want to learn, the chants I want to lead. It is a situation of - how you say... 'being stuck in paradise'!! I am in Thailand, with time, money and my health, but I am just going through the motions, it's not real, it's just an act, I'm not getting anywhere, I am not at peace, I am not being true.

Plus there is the profound sense of lonliness that I feel... I can't even explain it, it's so deep. I remember one of the last conversations I had with my last yoga buddy from the ashram in Varkalla, I told him that once he'd gone, I was going to be so so sooo lonely! It's not about meeting people or making friends, that's really the last thing it's about. I meet people all the time, if I wanted someone to hang out with or travel with someone, it would be as easy as saying "hi, how's it going" and striking up a conversation. That's not it. I feel lonley even when I'm with people, because I'm not connected to them, they are not at my frequency and I am not at theirs.

Most of the time I feel like an alien. After the ashram, I had friends (my ashram teacher veterans) who shared my compulsion to get up at 6.30am to meditate and do yoga. Someone would start singing 'Jaya Ganesha' or their favourite chant and the other one would join in with a smile. We kept each other up, we resonated each others thoughts, we were connected by an invisbile cord of shared understanding, we rode a wavelength that carried us past the usual requites for a friendship. We were like extensions of each other. In contrast if anyone heard me singing Jaya Ganesha now (as has happened) they would think me very strange. I can't crack a joke about our beloved Guru, or use some sanskrit word in jest, this is nothing to be shared. So when I told my dear friend how his departure would make me the alien that I am, it was a real insight into the future. I struggle every day to varying degrees with how much the ashram has affected every inch of my life. I feel the aftershocks of it's teachings all the time. For example, I don't drink now, it still feels weird saying it. This is becoming one of the walls that seperates me into my lonliness... "hey you wanna come party with us, we're going to the bar"... "are you here on Friday, there is a big party"... "I'm going to get a Chang, do you want one"... the answer is always "no thanks". I can't drink, I can't party, I can't go to bed late, I can't because I don't want to. No one is forcing me, there is no secret police watching me, I just don't want to, it's just not my frequency anymore...

The truth is that I am lonely, not for friends or people to keep me company, I'm lonely for myself! I miss that person I was, the self that I found at the ashram, the self where you're not acting anymore, you're REAL! At first I thought it was just about being alone. I was looking forward to Thailand as I thought, great no more obligations, no more people, I'll really get to be on my own. No! It's doesn't work like that.

After the ashram, I kept getting irritated with people that wanted to talk to me, start a conversation with me, be in my sphere of energy polluting it, go to the beach when I did, join me etc. One girl in particular latched on to me and I shared a room with her for four nights and everything about her presence annoyed me (sorry universe), so strong was my need to just be on my own. But really, this isn't the answer, as you can only reach that frequency, touch that silence within, find that Self... not when there is no one else in the room, but when you are not in the room! You are the room, you are not the room, you don't exist, there is a stillness, a perfect eqilibrium between existence and non-existence, where it is still enough to just be... it sounds weird to most, but I'm sure a few people reading this will understand this experience. So it is that I know that I must mediate, I must do my sadhana practice everyday and I must to watch my mind... these are the only solutions.

So I have stopped battling with my mind now. In its nature, 95%!o(MISSING)f the time my mind is playing tricks on me, the other 5%!o(MISSING)f the time it unveils some good stuff (like right now). Therefore, as much as I feel like an alien, doing all these things that I do; not eating meat, not drinking, maintaining a yoga practice, not giving in to the norm, however painful they appear to be at the time, are the the things I should to be doing. Therefore, during this moment of intermision, I am allowing myself to concede that wanting to come home is a good thing. I want to carry on everything that learned at the ashram, I am ready to end my journey and start a new one, even if this does mean leaving paradaise behind!

All that is left to say is that coming home really will be the best aspect of leaving it in the first place :-) OM shanti...

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Comments

[Mike]

Be a tree
Dear Serpil'cim, You are at the beginning of your quest not necessarily the end. My sentiments are that you should be like a tree. Don't think too much. Simply just exist. Observe your environment. Enjoy your breathing. Be a sponge to beauty of nature... True happiness is shared... I feel when you talk about being connected this is where the chain is missing a link. Don't rush your journey back home - (as much as we wish to see your return :). Learn patients and perserveriance. Home is always where the heart is... I hope I don't hear you utter those words "I'm busy" ever again... :) PS If you do want to come home sooner do so. You can always visit those places with loved ones again you know... ;)

[Eva]

Beloved Sepril
You are on a beautiful path Sepril. Enjoy! I can mirror myself in your story (with a smile in my heart). Lots of love to you. Namasté / Eva Wiberg