ripped apart and grateful

Sometimes I just don’t want to admit how hard this is for me. I worry my friends will worry, will want me to come home, but no that’s not it - I’m embarrassed, I’m ashamed, I’m filled with doubts that create suffering and turmoil; the tumultuous surface atop my inner certainty.

I haven’t had a hug in months.

I have to see, examine and shed every unconscious cultural norm that’s allowed this Marcie machine to function effectively on automatic pilot.

In India people don’t cry, it shows weakness. Women don’t even cry out loud in childbirth. In my experiments with it, I’ve seen some great value. It’s an opportunity to rise above the transitory emotionalism of the moment. Personally, I’m inclined to indulge the transitory emotionalism of the moment. And here when I’m up/down, up/down, up/down a hundred thousand times a day, I’m learning to not let the tears seep out, not to even silently let them run down my cheek. But sometimes, when I’m alone, when I feel so isolated, when I think there’s no one here that understands being an American in India who’s not a tourist, but trying, trying, trying, when I can’t call my friends because I’m too depressed to talk, then I just let loose and sob.

People are happier in India. At first I thought it was cultural pride talking, but I’ve been watching. Seven months living only in people’s houses, in their lives, and I have no doubt it’s true. So now I want to understand; I’m impressed. One friend says, “In the west you make small problems big and here we make big problems small.” My own experience bears this out. But how to not worry and be happy? I ask Rashmi who says, “That’s the time we pray, meditate, go to God and find comfort there. If we let ourselves think about the problems, we’ll go mad.”

In the west, we talk and talk and talk about things. I like it a lot; I’m a Gemini. But the need to talk and talk comes from the fact that we believe the things we think and think. The only thing that brings real change is raising our level of consciousness. And that we do alone, though let me amend the verb to ‘prepare for and receive’.

What is it that’s so hard about my life after all? I have everything I could possibly want or need. Spare by our standards for sure, but luxury here. I enjoy washing clothes by hand once I make my peace with how long it takes. And therein lies the rub. The path to inner peace demands making peace with EVERYTHING, one by one by one by difficult one. In my life to date, there’s been no Buddha to hold up a flower that could cut through all my illusions in one fell swoop. One by one by difficult one.

India is stripping me bare, ripping me open, exposing my negativities, identifications and suffering. Isn’t this what I’ve prayed for?

Thanks God! But could I have a hug now and then?

Or maybe I could have some gratitude for those moments of knowing, of basking in your light.

Bhakti. If anyone doubts the wisdom actually present in this place, in this country, think of the vocabulary alone India has given us, let alone the teachings that bring the definitions to understanding.