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Published: November 21st 2006
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I'm sitting on the rooftop of the hotel on the eve of my last full night in India. The sun is gradually sinking behind the Delhi haze and the jumble of her buildings. Hawks and flocks of birds are circling alone and in groups, creating a sort of pink concerto in the sky. The temperature in Delhi this time of year is cool......it feels like autumn. The wind, still a tint warm from the sun, is tossing colored flags around on a nearby rooftop and lapping seductively across my face.
From the ledge i can look down and see the source of all the noise. The cars and people and cows maneuver through the narrow alley like blood cells through a vein. There is a buzz of activity all around me, but i am attempting a sort of detached concentration that i hope will allow me eloquently express and summarize the time i have spent in India.
It is appropriate i think, that the trip should end where it began, in Delhi. I remember my first impressions after stepping crummy eyed off the plane into a sweltering heat. I remember how small i felt under the stares of
Lotus Temple
....we visited the Ba'hai temple in Delhi so many inquisitive eyes, and how the first visions of people sleeping on the streets shook me. I remember tip toeing around trash and shit of all varieties and being assaulted by smells and noise. I remember the first night in my hotel, without a blanket, staring at the stains under the flourescent lamp and thinking to myself, "boy lynz, you're really in it now. Do you really think you can hack it here for 3 months?" And i remember feeling like the answer was a resounding "no."
If my earliest emails from abroad seemed harsh and scary, it's because the author that penned them was unfairly so herself. It was a little bit hard for me to come here alone. There was nobody to whom i could defer, or share my first experiences here, and so i dealt with them internally. I was afraid and ignorant of the culture. Despite being somewhat well travelled, India unfolded before me more foreign than any land yet. It was at the time, and even still now, almost a different world. Through my tenure here i've learned that viewing a "different" world through the lens of "my" world is bound to create
Chance meeting
...i met Wakana last fall in Saigon and saw her again yesterday in Delhi. Small world yeah? an innacurate picture. To get down to the real essence of India, to really "see" it, would require a change in the seer.
My immersion in yoga was a brilliant way to bring about this change. Those of you who read along are familiar with the various physical and mental hurdles i had to overcome just to get a glimpse of yoga's aim. Those first weeks were incredibly hard. They were filled with pain and struggle and refreshed doubt that i would be able to endure. But then, by some grace of G-d, the positive effects of physical exercise and mental relaxation found me. I cannot express what a joy it became to rise each morning with the sun, to stretch and tune my body for my health, to really DEEPLY pray, to breathe and feel like my lungs were absorbing everything they possibly could. I cannot tell you the last time that i took a month out of my life and really focused my energies on becoming a better human BEING. How many people even get that chance? For this, i feel deeply blessed.
The travel portion of my trip was just as effective a teacher as master ji. I waded through some thick spiritual muck, encountered a ghost, became stricken with illness, and dealt daily with the abrasive world of touts and carhorns, pollution, poverty, excess and chaos, and did so all with varying degrees of misery or joy.
I think India is my favorite country so far. It's not a vacationer's dream, and just as i wrote that line i mentally retracted. How could i place this, over say, the balcony overlooking the ocean in Italy? For all of the griping i've done via email how does this subcontinent emerge as the globe trotter's most revered? I guess it comes down to the range of experience. In a way i've felt like i've led a mini lifetime here. I've gone from glimpsing the most profound silence, to the most irritating and constant of noise. I've felt extreme joy and utter misery. I've enjoyed optimal health, and overpowering sickness. Here i have been my impatient and ugliest self, and my most beautiful. Through all of that internal and external experience i see parallels and commonality.
Time for lyndsey's daily affirmations:
1. Internal health and well being has a critical role in how i view the world. The most beautiful experience can be lost on an angry heart.
2. It is important to find a reason to celebrate. The people here are exemplary at it. There is always a holiday, always an offering, always prayer. Wouldn't it be great if we could live like that?
3. Accept paradox. To quote F. Scott Fitzgerald :
"The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two
opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise."
4. Realize that G-d permeates everything. Conceptualizing paradox can only be done, for me, by realizing that division is illusory. "Good" and "Evil", "Heaven" and "Hell" are as real at the societal level as they are inside of me......they are currents from the same source, and that "SOURCE" is so palpable here.
It runs through the sound of brooms on the street, it gurgles in car engines. It expresses itself in the bright splashes of saris and the grand canopies of century old trees. It looks longingly through hungry eyes, and compassionately through humble ones. It's constantly creating, and constantly destroying. It is always, always there. In an 'in your face' sort of way, India is a constant reminder that life is crazy, and G-d, as illusive and beguiling as he/she/it can be, is out there and in there and everywhere anything can ever be.
Just a quick thanks for everyone that kept up on the blogs. I know it's a little impersonal and can get daunting at times, but sharing my experiences with people back home makes them all the richer. Almost everyone on the list took time out and sent me at least one email and i have to tell you, that though i may not have responded on a personal level, they all meant the world to me. In closing, i just want to quote a few paragraphs from a book i just finished called "Code Name God." It describes India perhaps better than i ever could, and i thought it would be an appropriate end.
"So India presents a paradox. It is profound and primitive, deeply spiritual and darkly superstitious, both universalistic and maddeningly provincial, with an enthical system that placed community well above the individual and yet allows outrages like the caste system and the often murderous rivalry of Hindus and Muslims. IN many ways, the land of my birth is- like my adopted country America- a mirror of human society's best and worst, and though the two countries reflect these extremes differently, they have much in common.
Both India and America endured British imperialism for nearly two centuries, and both eventually threw off the yoke in revolutions based on the ideal of equal treatment under the law. Both nations have been great "melting pots," accommodating a staggering variety of races, nationalities, and belief systems, yet each has also been stained by intolerance and social prejudice. Both survived brutal schisms that might have destroyed lesser nations.
America has emerged from these trials rich and forward thinking yet predominately materialistic and spiritually ambivalent. India is still plagued by poverty and strife, yet remains spiritually vibrant and perhaps more in sync with the abstract realities described by modern science. It has often occured to me that each country could use a taste of the other's medicine."
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jaswin
jaswinder singh
I am realy mooved by your comments , you briliently sums up the view of a foreigner , India is really a paradox in itself ,to understand india a whole lifetime is less and you really can not judge it from the top view ,one will have to sink into it. America and india has one more thing in common good people goverened by bad leaders