Navratra

I'm on Day 4 of the 9 day fast of Navratra. I just finished one of my hardest and most productive yoga practices ever, and I decide to let myself have just a little nap before starting pranayam and meditation. As I start to slip immediately away, I'm startled by an sharp, eerie, unearthly sound that jolts me upright. It's a pig walking outside the window. I laugh at not only my sleep sogged imagination, but yet another reminder, I'm in India. And then I'm out again, until I hear the knock on my door. YES? I leap up to open it and it's the carpenter bearing a lovely cup of chai. Kaushal not being here today, the carpenter's under instruction to keep me in good condition for the fast.

Navratra is a semi-annual 9 day festival of fasting and prayer. Occuring at both equinoxes, the fast is to clean the body to be in good health for the coming seasonal changes. It seems to me that in America, most, if any, of our wisdom on this topic is to have a positive attitude toward a change of season cold as a way to rid the body of accumulated toxins. How much better to turn it into a festival with that unique inseparable Hindu mix of religion, health and science. But this is uneducated rambling on my part. I realize I have little to say on the topic of what American life is like, my own experience being a mishmosh potpourri of who knows what. And I'm learning about India from people who speak very little English. Kaushal discourages book learning saying it fixes ideas in the mind and prevents inner understanding. So I'm just doing what everyone else is doing and checking it out for myself. I have to say I'm in excellent spirits. The last post was indeed a necessary down point which forced me to look more deeply within and find my own answers. And finally, finally with the understanding that there are no fixed answers and no mistakes either, for that matter. The amount of despair I experienced opened a new door to depths I couldn't have known were waiting for me. Trust only God was the instruction I came to. Human beings are so falliable, but that's our nature, it can't be the problem. In trusting God, I see that anything I might deem a mistake, is only a lesson I need, any difficulty an opportunity, and thus, the end of fear. OK, I know how that sounds, but this is my real experience. I've said YES - again, but yes to my path, a subtle but essential difference. Yes to India does not include me and then I'm adrift and at the mercy of those I hand over power to thinking they are India. But YES to my unknown path, trusting God, and whoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo! I no longer have doubts about why I'm here.

So when I suddenly hear that tomorrow starts Navratra and do I want to fast and do I want to do the midnight rituals, well friends, you know me by now! But it's not a fast like I ever could've imagined. Daytime is only milk, chai, and some fruit if necessary. I have been put on bananas and I think it's a good call. But meanwhile, it's very, very strange, because the main ingredient in the daytime seems to be, feels like, sugar. I'm drinking water, but most Indians rarely do so. So it's cup after cup of chai. Even to the Indians it's a big enough joke to get translated to me. When someone talks about how strictly they're observing the fast, someone else will say, yes, chai every half hour. I haven't experienced any hunger pangs at all, but I certainly am getting the sugar rushes.

Plus there's a full dinner. No wheat, rice or dhal, but there are special substitutions like a Navratra only type of rice and chestnut flour pakora and chapati. I eat like crazy for dinner, like a wild woman, though I haven't realized my hunger until that moment. In Indian, the more you eat, the more you're offered. Once satiated, I think, what the hell kind of fast is this? I've thought about that a lot, but I'm doing it 100% anyhow. Last night, after dinner, my intestines discreetly informed me that they were painlessly, but urgently, going to perform a cleanse. Unlike other times I've been in this situation, I just felt totally great, somehow mind and body in a harmonious releasing process, leaving me feeling clean and energetic. So today I'm not so worried about the sugar. Plus, as Kaushal says, it's a 9 day fast and I can't afford to lose much weight. He's telling me I need daily honey and I shudder to think of even more sugar in the diet, but what do I know? I am, at this very moment, both the best proportioned and most fit I've ever been in my entire life, with energy and confidence increasing daily.

Speaking of which, it's time now for my meditation practice and I'm trying to be faithful. So a quick posting and more soon I sincerely hope. Thanks much to everyone who's responded, I love hearing from you, and I will be in touch individually. I love you all!

Lord Shiva is calling

Slowing down. Letting the decision I have not made, but is made, flicker and pulse from my heart through my body. Feeling my inner body now, as I’ve not before, feeling relaxation, not inertia, but vibrant patient life, flowing, yes, flowing, finally, finally, finally. I am ready to begin.

The path of the yogi.

I can’t help but remember the same thing from, can it be true, from only a few months – go to India. And where was I given this idea? At a Breema intensive, the passion of my last 10 years. There, of all places, there, where I was closest to what I was looking for, there, it came. Go to India.

But at that time I knew of no other possibility than letting the mind run rampant. Isn’t that the very nature of mind? My path was one of acceptance, not control. And indeed, acceptance offers a rising above, an opportunity to see transparency, to see thought as only thought, but for a brief moment here and there. With gratitude though, sincere gratitude. But my heart’s doubts could not be silenced. Is this enough? Yes, thank you for a moment of self-remembering here and there. But God, can I be closer to you?

My life is not my own. From that first shock of certainity, but was it a shock? I was 19. I had dropped out of college to bum around New Orleans, giving myself hard and wonderful experiences as it appears to be my fate to do so. I’ve not tried, I’ve mostly been burdened by impulsive, compulsive risk taking combined with a dangerous dose of naivete. So there I was walking around a lake in the poor rural outskirts of New Orleans. I’d left the city itself to travel with a boy I’d fallen deeply in love with. What a romance for a few brief days. But he was on a different journey. Despite his youth, he’d just left a wife and a rich, important, demanding family and was headed into the jungle to find himself. I have to laugh as I write this which has never been written before. The details are lost to time and to the innocence of my youth. Did this really happen? What was he thinking? What was I thinking? All I know is I said yes, I’ll go with you for three days and then you go alone. I remember the joy of the setting off and the gradual withdrawal as he prepared himself, leaving me behind before he left. I learned about that then, but that hasn’t stopped it from happening a thousand times since.

And so he dropped me, by a lake, alone, and I found a toothless sharecropper with 2 kids to share a night’s trailer with. He served me pig’s feet stew and tried to have his way with me, but luckily gave up without a fight. That was good. But it was before that. I’d been dropped off by the lake and so I decided to walk around it. I was heartbroken, but as that flooded through my body, something else arose in me too. I won’t describe the experience, because any words would be false. But my life was forever changed and my path forever clear, even in all the confusion and meandering that’s come since. I would follow. It was decided. I knew.

The first question Mr. Titu, manager of the forest ashram I’ve just returned from, asked me was my age. When I told him he said “Lord Shiva is calling you.” That sentence has been reverberating through me a lot since. The American in me keeps saying, don’t be ridiculous – on multiple levels. But I do know, and I do not say this without great hesitation, embarrassment and some fear too, that it’s true. Lord Shiva is calling me. Why have I come to India? How did I meet Kaushal, friend of my soul? For what have I already gone through such trials and tribulations?

Lord Shiva is calling. The path of the yogi. Living in India. Again, a yes to the unknown. With a wish to know I'm saying yes to the moment.

the truth comes out

Kaushal was planning to take me to Tarkeshwar, a very small forest ashram at a religious power spot. He had his wife's blessings, and her help with packing, and permission from his job for the days off. But after 3 days of being browbeaten into believing that Kaushal was an evil tantric manipulating madman, setting me up for dire consequences, I decided to cancel. The problem was I had to get some of my luggage from Kaushal's house. I had to say no and good-bye in person.

I made up excuses for not going to the forest and I cried, for in reality I was quite a wreck after the onslaught of negativity I'd heard about my supposed friend. At the end of my rambling Kaushal was quiet. Then he said, I've never forced you into anything, it's your choice. But I ask you just one more time if you want to go to Tarkeshwar?

Out of my mouth came a "yes". To this day, I have no doubt that yes came from God; I was shocked and horrified. But the yes came out with it's own certainty and I followed its will. That yes changed my life.

I had one more night at the hotel and one more night of hearing Kaushal painted black, but I went to Tarkeshwar. An hour into the trip I realized I was happy with Kaushal, and not just happy, but his presence was supportive to my spiritual practice, my aim. Could I say the same about the hotel manager? No, the time spent with him made me miserable, questioning, depressed. Kaushal was taking me to a very special sacred spot, that I could never have found on my own. The hotel manager wanted me to go with him and his wife to some fancy condo in Goa. Who had a better sense of me?

This post has actually been inserted much later. Four months have now passed and my computer is working reliably for the first time since I've been in India. I want to start writing again and it's actually hurt me to know I've not amended my prior blog. I heard a lot of bad things about Kaushal at that time and a portion of them were true. I know this directly because there's been no need to hide the unsavory aspects of our own lives. But in the end the whole thing was not even about Kaushal, but the irrational jealousy of the hotel manager. Jealousy never comes to a good result and the hotel manager lost 2 friends. He's continued to make other efforts damage Kaushal's reputation, but again his lies have brought about the opposite of his intent.

Kaushal's not perfect, far from it, just like me, just like all of us. He and I share some of the same struggles which makes him an excellent teacher for me. Meanwhile, he's become one of the best friends I've ever had, he's now my business partner and I really am a part of his family, formalities are long past. It's not been easy for me to trust, particularly in India, and I've had to go through a lot of doubting, questioning and analyzing. And Kaushal and I fight; we bring out the volatile, reactive side in each other. But every time I check within myself, I check with God, the answer, so far, remains the same - you're in the right place, Marcie, hang in there, everything you've ever wished for is coming your way. When I think of what I've wished for I'm struck by the fact that it's never once been ease. So why would I complain to be maximally challenged? When I think of what I've wished for, it's only ever been one thing.

I wish to be with God.

Blessings to the hotel manager, for me it was an invaluable experience, but I'm heartbroken at the inner pain that would make someone want to do harm to a friend.

2 quotes, with gratitude, from the Dalai Lama:
In the practice of tolerance, one's enemy is the best teacher.
Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them humanity cannot survive.

dear friends

This is really going to be more of a personal letter. My official blogging has not been going well. I've had enormous technical issues that have taken up an inordinate amount of my travel time. Has it been a waste? I no longer have any sense of what we're supposed to be doing with this life we've been given. I'm learning a lot, so does it matter whether I'm in some grubby computer store or cybercafe or at my desk getting nowhere? Should I be seeing more temples, getting out more, doing more yoga, less yoga, spending more money, less money? I have no answers, I have no plan.

Warning - the past couple days have been rough. I'm not ready to give up and I'm changing direction totally, right after writing this. This is where I'm at in this moment. But do realize I'm writing from a dark place and as it changes, as it will, I may or may not be able to be much in touch, either technically, geographically or depending on what kind of program I'm doing. So don't worry about me dear friends. If I get in any bad situations or need help, I won't hesitate to ask. So please no worries on my behalf. I'm being taken care of.

So in terms of events and travels, I haven't written (or rather I have but haven't had the time for the uploading machinations) about the international yoga festival which briefly was a joke. The superficializing of the profound. The politicizing and marketing of the spiritual. I stayed at a luxury ashram, luxury from the outside, the rooms were disgusting pits and mostly I was pretty deeply depressed by the commercialization and westernization of yoga. One guided meditation was just ridiculous psycho-babble (by the guru's right hand girl, a Stanford grad who's renunciated her past life to live in some bizarre bubble here - note to self!) I got the dreaded food poisoning, but actually it was a relief just to spend time in bed. There was one great teacher, the one sent from the Iyengar school, and by the end I wasn't participating in anything other than his class. In typical Marcie fashion I took everything too hard and too seriously, feeling devastated by what I was witnessing. I have to say, I honestly don't know what my problem is. I'm not always rolling with the punches. In Breema terms, it's important to have acceptance, but at this moment I'm questioning my basic functionality in life and can't see that acceptance alone is going to help.

I'm having a hard time. I don't know what the fuck I'm doing.

So anyhow, I was delighted to come back to Haridwar. Again I haven't written (or it remains not uploaded) about the extent to which I'd become involved in Kaushal's life. Amazing experience. Welcomed, taken into his family, his community. My back's getting better, my yoga and meditation better. He's helping me with everything to do with Indian life, his wife loves having me over, his son calls me Auntie. He and his friends are good people, Indian style; there's a lot of heartfulness expressed here especially from the men. Kaushal and his friends are kind, compassionate and intelligent. Amongst this group I've only been welcomed and included, no one's trying to get anything from me. This is the educated, but traditional middle class. When I'm invited along on a journey, I'm not allowed to open my wallet. I have to fight with Kaushal in order to pay him for a private yoga class. It's all so exciting and such an adventure. But can I trust what's happening?

When Kaushal and his friend Shahji came to pick up me up from the yoga fest, I was so happy and relieved to see them. And unbeknownst to me, we were on the way to meet a real Himalayan guru. Real or not, I can't evaluate, he only speaks Hindi, but the energy was great. I felt like I was back in the real India and I felt my optimism rising again.

Guess what folks? Too good to be true is very probably not true. Due to the Indian holiday of Holi, it was decided that I should stay in the luxury hotel where I'd first stayed, where the general manager, Krishnan, is my friend and where I first met Kaushal. I hope to write more on Holi later but it's primarily a water balloon, paint holiday and I didn't feel like getting trashed, though it was fun watching from the roof. Fun also to see the newspaper pictures of all the politicians covered in Holi paint - how to prove you're one of the people.

Krishnan had not realized I'd gotten so involved with Kaushal and his friends and he spent the next 3 evenings giving my the lay of the land. Bit by devastating bit, I'm getting the picture. Not that Kaushal's done anything wrong or hurt me in any way whatsoever, but I'm torn apart by my own life and decision making and what I catch and what I miss and just not understanding why I am the way I am. What I've finally put together is that Kaushal essentially is a repeat of Russell, for those of you who remember my first husband. Kaushal is considered a magic man - his skills, his understanding, everyone acknowledges that Kaushal can do anything and he's loved by many. That said, apparently, and I never saw this, he can't function not on grass, as they call it here, and his life is in a shambles and he's the leader of a rag tag group of friends. Really lovely people, again no one denies that, and lovely on the level of being honest and generous with each other, and acting with integrity, but high levels of drug and alcohol use and perhaps the only intelligent one is Kaushal. A bunch of Indian middle class losers.

So Kaushal fed me a dream - of who he was and what he's doing, and the thing is, I think he totally believes it. He has a very high level of self-delusion but it's not based on nothing. He really heals people, when he bothers to work with anyone, which apparently he doesn't do much, though he was always there for me. His astrological forecasting is widely respected, with politicians and lots of rich people calling him from all over India, but he doesn't ask for money and he's totally unstructured and unorganized and not doing a good job of caring for his family. In fact, his real family, who are apparently multi-millionaires, kicked him out giving him an unfinished house as a final gesture. As someone tried to explain to me, he's unable to be serious in his own life.

I'm shattered, but it has actually little to do with Kaushal and all to do with me. For one thing I let myself get completely dependent on him and as I'm getting back into India I find in fact I don't like being a woman alone here at all. Yesterday I walked to this temple and even the monkeys were threatening. I bought some prasad realizing it is the proper thing to do when visiting a temple and a monkey had taken it from me in less than 20 seconds. But yesterday was a low, low, low day for me and anything would've and did make me miserable. Last night was when I came to clarity on this whole thing and today I'm starting over. But I'm sad. For one thing, Kaushal is a lovely person and in terms of my actual experiences with him, I'm very sad to lose the fantasy too. It probably didn't have much more life in it anyhow, cracks had begun, but best out immediately. Which I have not always done, but now I am.

SO - here I am, realizing I don't really understand anything about India, but the killer being that I don't understand anything about me. I can't help but wonder if I attract all these brilliant and dysfunctional people because I am the same? What am I doing here? Why can't I simply find a job and make it work? What is wrong with me? Should I give up and come home, but what will I do? Work at Rainbow? Live in a shared house? Do I think there's anything wrong with that? Today I'm forcing myself out of bed because I think it's time for me to deal with life a little differently. How long can I be so naive? Why can I see somethings so clearly (I was talking with Krishnan about the yoga festival and he summed up what's happening so beautifully, he called it all - shockingly shit)and then just pull in the same personality traits over and over and over again? I fell for something here and I'm not even clear what 'cause I only saw the good side. The dark sides of Kaushal I've had to take on faith, but the clues are all over the place. That said, Kaushal never took anything from me, never hurt me, was only there, there, there and deeply so. But at this moment, as the tears are coming - I can only keep repeating to myself, what the fuck is wrong with me? Right now, I'm deep in being lost.

But soon I'm going online and I have good recommedations for a very nice ashram with a very nice program, the one I mentioned in my blog about Cristian. I have some other plans (I think a Himalayan trek is called for) and I'm giving myself some time. A part of me wants to race back home, but even just in writing this, I'm getting the first glimmer that hopefully this can be, wiil be useful. So far I've just been relentlessly critical of myself. But, as they say, it's always darkest before the dawn. I hate India - and I love it. There are possibilities here that I don't feel back at the home. But there's a lot of shit to wade through, both externally and internally, and there's no escape. I think I'll stay just one more day in this nice hotel!

I've taken the risk just to lay it all out there. Please friends, don't worry about me. All is well. There's a process happening that I just don't understand yet. But it's leading me in the direction of wishing to be productive and responsible, but somehow without giving up my quest for God. Wouldn't it be funny if it's India that helps me to be less woo-woo and more practical and grounded? And with each time I do this, the situations get less emotionally damaging, shorter lasting and an increased commitment to go more slowly, look ever more carefully. I wish I could beat some understanding and maturity into myself, but I promise to do the best I can. I'm rising up again already.

I love you all and miss you,
marcie

tuskar hati

I’ve had so many technical problems that I’ve not spent the time I wanted to writing. There are things I’m sad not to share. During my stay at the ashram, the holiday of Shivaratri was coming up. For about a week before, pilgrims started coming. People walking to a special spot at the Ganges and gathering water to bring back to their village. More and more started coming, thousands of people walking day and night to gather water.

I’m already getting used to things like this. I’m actually amazingly comfortable in India. It’s home already. So sometimes I will myself to remember. I love the cows wandering around, the goars, the pigs – all on the road, all interacting.

But there is one experience I must write about. I saw a wild elephant. We were coming back from the wedding, taking the long route home in order to show me Nainital, the Swiss resort of India. After a short boat ride in the lake, we got back in the car and proceeded through the jungle. Just as we were about to leave the area, Kaushal suddenly said stop. In retrospect, there’s no doubting the guy’s tuned on, but at the time, it was just to get some last jungle air before hitting the upcoming polluted towns. I see this beautiful tree and go wandering off to give it a hug. Sanjay comes and takes my picture and we head back to the road and take some more pictures by this termite colony, snake home. Almost immediately Chennibhai shouts elephant, elephant. We look up and see this running elephant, right near the tree I’d been at moments before. I cross the road to get a good look and everyone starts shouting at me, get in the car, get in the car. I obey and we drive off. I got a very good look, though I would’ve liked to have stayed, but then the stories start. Elephants treat a car like a ball. An elephant will put one foot on your foot and lift your leg with his trunk and split you in two. I believe it; I’ve already heard how many people die from elephants every year.

But I’m in awe. I’ve seen a wild elephant. I nearly cried. It was like something from the elephant entered my soul. But that’s sentimentalizing. I don’t know what happened, but I felt different after seeing that elephant. I couldn’t really speak. The others chattered away in Hindi and I just sat in awe.

After an hour or so, I’m back with the group and then I find out. We saw a tuskar hati – a dangerous elephant. Elephants in packs are pretty gentle and not that interested in non-threatening human beings, but when you see an elephant alone and running, that’s a killer elephant. Everyone but me knew, really knew. Suddenly I replay the scene in my mind and I understand it anew. The unmistakable urgency for me to get in the car, the speed with which we left.

But now it’s long past and we’re all safe. And I saw an elephant.

ashram life

I'm a ghost.

Ten days into India and I’ve moved out of the expensive but lovely Haveli Hari Ganga and into an ashram that Kaushal is somehow connected to. Seems like there’s no pilgrims here, only staff, but I can’t tell. No one speaks English, no one has the least interest in me. Kaushal’s introduced me to Bandari, the cook, and Bandari’s supposed to make sure I'm OK.

And so I move about the ashram as if it were my personal palace, for indeed it's a lovely place. In the 2 weeks I was there, I didn't have a single conversation with anyone, except the Madam, the very rich Malaysian woman who built this ashram for her Guru.

She dominates the atmosphere in very odd ways when she's there, but she lets me use the hot water in her room for bathing and mostly she's away anyhow. I continue to wordlessly glide around.

My room is simple, but has a table and sofa and 2 chairs and I'm very comfortable. The ashram is spacious and quiet. Three floors with a large meditation room on the ground floor and a beautiful marble temple in back.

Initially I'm eating most of my meals at the ashram. Tasty, always with chapati and usually rice. Always with dhal though sometimes it's closer to gruel. One time Kaushal comes to eat with me and jokes that this is what they serve in prison. Earlier on, there were some green vegetables, but that changed to potatoes with hints of cauliflower and sometimes fried potatoes or nothing at all. I started to desperately miss vegetables. It took me a couple of days to both realize and explain that indeed I don't care about meat, but I need vegetables. More and more Kaushal started bringing me over to his house for great homestyle vegetable dishes, including organic veg as available. Both he and his wife are great cooks and she's so genuinely welcoming, I've become part of the family. Their young son calls me Auntie and is popping out the English words. If I don't see them for a day, they miss me and I them. I have a family. Of which you will be hearing more.

Meanwhile my days at the ashram developed a rhythm. Chai in the morning and 1 hour of hard yoga followed by 1 hour of meditation with brief prayers at the Ganges between. Hey, did I happen to mention that this ashram is on the Ganges and across the river is unspoiled forest? Did I happen to mention that my meditation takes place in the center of the dome of a beautiful marble temple with intricate statuary all over and in which I'm completely left alone? Did I happen to mention that a 2 week stay at the ashram, with food, cost me not quite $80? Did I happen to mention I'm very happy?

I never know what's coming up next in India. At first I was uncomfortable in my visible, invisible role in ashram life, but I began to love the freedom from interaction. It took me longer than expected to enjoy mixing the rice and dhal with my fingers before putting it in my mouth. I had to remind myself that I was actually getting to play with my food. Now I fully understand when they say eating with fingers gives the actual taste which a spoon does not. As I write this I'm at a gigundo mega ashram that offers tours of the facilities and the first day I turned the corner to see a giant bunny rabbit holding a trash can. Today I found the frog trash bin.

At the ashram, I used to walk into town to get bottled water and toilet paper. First down my neighborhood dirt road, subtly peering into people's daily lives, then down the next road with the goats, pigs and cows, then past the fancy ashram with an 85 yr old French psychologist guru, then past the large Shiva temple with a Bodhi tree to which pilgrims from all over come and then into town. I wish I could take you all on a walk with me.

dogs

I’ve passed the same puppy several times now. The first time I noticed the incongruity of this cute but big, round, fluffy black and white puppy, sucking on the tit of a yellow skinny teenage Mom dog. I wondered what the Dad looked like and marveled at the Mom/pup size similarity. It reminded me of the time camping that I was having a conversation with this woman while she was breastfeeding her child. He must’ve been at least 4, grabbing at her tits saying “milk Mommy, milk Mommy”, his legs almost touching the ground.

The next time I passed the doggies, the puppy was kind of chasing the Mom and she seemed less than willing to keep the feeding going. The time after that the puppy was alone on the road, adorable and friendly, but I’m not yet ready to enter into a relationship with an Indian dog. I’d been thinking they were just semi-starving, mangy, unloved creatures, but at one ashram they’re totally pets. Other than that I haven’t seen a lot of human/dog play. But the dogs at this ashram are as fat as if they were American and when I was sitting outside yesterday a big old one came and just sat quietly right next to me.

I’m starting to recognize other neighborhood dogs and learn their personalities, which gives me much to wonder about. Why do untrained, unneutered dogs stick so close to home here when many American dogs threaten to run away wily nily if they aren’t otherwise instructed. I’m fascinated at how even dog behavior is cultural. I’m still suffering with the cultural distinctions in body function. Why is it that Indian food always makes my nose run and doesn’t affect anyone else that way? I hate pulling out a kleenex, blowing my nose in it and sticking it back in a pocket. I think it’s equivalently gross to an Indian as the spitting and hocking up is to us. Though I suspect they are both more tolerant and less judgmental. But I could be wrong. As my friend Kaushil would say – not confirmed.

Today he and I went to the jungle and after some chai at a very small village, we walked up these old steps cut into a steep hill to a very old, rustic mountaintop temple. The village dog walked right beside us, quietly and politely, all the way up. She found a perfect spot on a corner of the temple grounds with the wind blowing directly in her face. She stayed there until we were ready to go and accompanied us down again.

On the way back to the ashram, the Mom and puppy were in there usual spots, but separated by several feet. The puppy is getting skinny now.