11 - 19.11.2011

Hossein and Mustafa are incredibly helpful in going with me to the police and I visit the embassy several time to sort things out. I meet Karina again. Our ways parallel. We met in Tblisi, Yerevan and Tabriz before. We spend an evening in good company with Bijan an actor, Bahram a film director, Boris, another visiting couchsurfer from France and numerous further young men and women.

I meet Soroush Parsi, a friend of Rasoul from Tabriz, and talk to him about Zoroastrianism and Iranian society in general. Soroush directed and produced a film about Zoroastrian society nowadays, which follows some families on their yearly pilgrimage from Yazd to a cave temple in the desert. This was a principal refugee for Zoroastrians during the Arabian invasion in the middle-ages. They preferred to face the harsh conditions of the desert to preserve their religion and way of life, than to lose their heritage and adopt an alien system of values. Hence Yazd and Kerman are the cities in which most Zoroastrians are found today. I learn that their principal precepts are essentially those of the 'Bhagavad Gita': The personal self is unified with the eternal flame, Ahoura-Mazda, the Universal Self, or the Hindu Brahma, by means of goodness: Goodness in thought, goodness in speech and goodness in deed.

At a later date Hossein and me meet with Akbar in a student dormitory. Akbar proceeds to elucidate three principles on which all acts that we might call 'magic' are based upon, and asks me which one of these I am most interested in.
"None of them for the sake of physical or psychic phenomena" I reply "It is knowledge of existence that concerns me. I am well aware though, that the first principle, that of Will, is most intimately tied with this." After a long discussion Akbar agrees that a religious life is not a requisite for the dawning of such knowledge, that a critical and curious intellect, intuition and conscience may suffice, without the frames of any particular religion.

"What do you think is the role of love?" Mehdi asks
"We talk much of knowledge, consciousness and understanding, but all that we learn and read, all inner awakenings and flashes of light may be seen as containers. That which fills these, which gives these their living quality, their color, is Love. It is the dynamic power, which makes these profoundly positive to an individual, which fills these with emotional reality" I reply.

Mehdi talks of his own relation with 'supernatural' phenomena. His mother took part in a group working in seances, evoking and contacting spirits. She wanted to introduce her daughter, Mehdi's younger sister, to the group and their work, but Mehdi protested vehemently and repeatedly. One night he was away from home and woke up in the night being completely unable to move. It was as if a horrifying force was holding him down to his bed, inhibiting the slightest of his movements. He was lying thus in absolute horror for the rest of the night, unable to escape, until the first rays of the sun shot forth from the horizon and the Muezzin started to sing the morning prayer. In that instant the barrier vanished. The following night he returned home. At night he woke up to his mother wreathing and mumbling in her sleep and recognized in this exactly the horror he experienced last night. He wrenched his mother out of sleep and while she was trying breathlessly to explain to her son what she had dreamt, he was finishing her sentences for her. She was amazed at how he knew so precisely of her dream and Mehdi told her he had experienced just this state the night before. Mehdi's mother immediately left the seance group and never involved her daughter in it.


Hossein arranges a meeting with Asgher, who is attending a lecture at the US Embassy. The man lecturing is famous for his lectures on Zionism and Freemasonry. Freemasonry nota bene is banned in Iran. The walls of the embassy grounds are covered in artworks portraying rockets, bombs, the stripes of the American flag fading into barbed wire over a map of Iran or the skeleton of the statue of liberty. Only now do I remember that the embassy was closed some 30 years ago. It is now used for other purposes but is still commonly called the 'spying house'. The lecture is in Persian, there are no accompanying graphics and the content is too dense for Hossein to translate, so I exit, sit in the sun in the yard and learn Hindi. I am approached by first one, then two, then three men, evidently trying to tell me in Persian that I am not allowed to be here. They seem somewhat unsure of their cause, but I finally follow them to the front yard of the embassy grounds, where I am told to sit. The gatekeeper chats with me, telling me that it is simply a law stating that no foreigners are allowed on the inner grounds. I sit on the bench outside for some time, it is getting cold and I wonder if there is a paragraph in the law about foreigners freezing their bones off while waiting for friends inside. I stroll back to the lecture hall. On exiting again after the lecture with Hossein and Asgher the gatekeeper is already waiting for me in front of the door, visibly upset by the fact that I went back inside. He calms down after exchanging a few words with the two and mentions that I was the first foreigner inside the US Embassy since Islamic Revolution in 1979.

Asgher equally had out of body experiences, but as the state commenced, he was able to move about freely by his own will. He tells me of how he visited the University in this state once, seeing students and lecture halls.
"But this is not what interests me. I'm interested in the phenomena of parapsychology in politics" Asgher says.
At his apartment he portrays the history and alleged origin of Freemasonry and elaborates on the modes of psychic attack and deffence. I remind him that most information about such societies and psychic practices point in the opposite direction of Self-Reliance, Goodness, Truthfulness and Philosophy:
"It is essential to be informed about all good and bad there is, but nothing should occupy our minds to such an extent that we loose sight of our essential duty: the duty to be happy, to feel good."

07 - 10.11.2011

I meet yet another couchsurfing host hitchiking from Rasht to Chalus. On the way I get out in Ramsar, follow the hint of Babak and decide to have a closer look at the back-country. The air amazes me. It's November, but it feels truly subtropical. The forest is just that. I was aware that Iran is not only made up of desert and that it actually has forests; I was not aware that dense jungle covers parts of it. I hike to a small village in the mountains behind Ramsar. There I ask at a house how the road continues, if I can continue to the jungle or if it leads somewhere else. The family father explains that the road leads to exactly this village and no further. Past it there is only jungle he explains. I understand this as an invitation to hike further and to spend a night breathing rainforest air away from settlements, but find that the jungle and mountains form an impassable wall at the edge of the village.

 
I hitchike back to Ramsar and then continue to Chalus. As I want to hitchhike to Tehran a man stops. Habitually I say: "Are you going to Tehran? I have no money . . . no money."
"Yeah man, take it easy" the man answers in perfect English.
I get in and he asks whether I have any plans for today or tomorrow morning. He invites me to his place in Noshahr near Chalus for the night. I'm tired from hiking, it's getting dark slowly and I'm happy to have the opportunity to get to know another local. Pourya's apartment is luxurious. I join him in his daily two hours of meditation on the multifariously shaped fifteen or so species of fish and the one lobster in his freshwater aquarium.
"This is my love" Pourya says.
He does however live with his wife, who is just visiting her family in Tehran for some days.

In the evening we visit his uncles place. We enter a walled terrain with many enormous villas and finally reach a huge palace of a villa. Inside there is a young girls party, all dancing to pop-music, shouting around and laughing freely. Upstairs we enter his uncles study. Kazim greets us calmly, from among his artworks, which are spread across the whole floor. He proceeds with his work, appearing to dismantle and put together again from scratch a huge flashlight. Pourya explains that his uncle is preparing to go out hunting for the night, pointing out the two guns in the beautifully decorated hand-made cabinet. I am struck by the atmosphere of the room. I sense Kazim going about his work with seemingly infinite peace of mind. His entire nature sings:
'   I   just   do   W H A T E V E R   I   want   ' There is not the least bit of pride or vileness in his energy, but rather constant creativity and productivity.

I learn that Kazim is a renowned architect and most of what is spread on the floor are samples of his custom-made decorative wall-tiles, each one of which costs well over 1000 dollars. The family Shahyeste, of which Pourya is one of the numerous descendants, fled from Tehran after the Islamic revolution. They owned entire neighborhoods. The government worked to break their power, which even led to a family member being murdered.

Pourya and I talk of world civilizations, the developments of history, social structure and traveling. while Kazim interjects most composedly and thoughtfully once in a while, not lifting his eyes from the gigantic flashlight he is now testing on the balcony.
"The development of civilizations proceeds in ever recurring cycles" I say
"You know that this our civilization is not the first to span the globe with flying vehicles and high technology." Pourya adds assuredly.
"We are not in fact rising to a golden age at the moment. We are descending to the depths of a dark age. We are facing an end. In what manner is hard to say, but this civilization is falling" Pourya translates Kazims comment from Persian.

The next day Pourya insists on organizing a ride for me to Tehran instead of myself hitchiking. The road from Chalus to Tehran is blocked, due to heavy snow in the mountain pass and a rock having fallen onto the road. At the blockade the cars turn to go the alternative way over Amol and Pourya walks among the cars and talks with several drivers. After some minutes Pourya calls me to a car. A man, Mehdi, agrees to take me to Tehran. I tell him from the outset that I have no money. He says its no problem at first, but quite soon he asks me for money as he needs to buy fuel. He  notices that he does not have enough himself. I only have Euro bills left. In addition he has difficulties finding the way to Amol. One man on the street he asks for directions, lends him money worth at least half a tank full of fuel. He insists on not taking anything in return. They exchange numbers. The man is a total stranger. Again I am amazed at how people are ready to help each other here.

Mehdi takes another couple and child with him from Amol and we make our way through the mountains to Tehran. We change seats several times and I drive perhaps one third of the way in total, as Mehdi wants to use the phone, smoke or just rest. In Tehran the couple gets out and we make our way to Azadi Square. Mehdi runs out of credit and I lend him my phone. He then stops once again under a large bridge and asks me to drive again. There are mounds of earth beside the road under the bridge and I tell him I'll take a leak there. As I face away from the road I hear the engine wailing behind me, driving off at full speed. Phone, passport and wallet are in the car, along with everything else I had. Im wearing my glasses, sweater, jacket, linen pants and shoes.

In a fraction of a second comes first disbelief then realization. I jog along the road for some meters just to make sure Mehdi hasn't reparked the car or if bad conscience hasn't stopped him somewhere. Fear and anger creep in, but together with the realization that he is indeed gone and that there is not the slightest thing I can do, I let go of it completely. What is left is the wave, the impetus, but without its cold and negative coloration; a wakeful and productive high grows. Only Life can continue my story now.

Two men drive me to the nearest metro station from where I go to Azadi Square. Hossein, a couchsurfer is waiting there for me, but I am well aware that I will reach the square long after the appointed time. I feel a thrill and joy. I taste a crumb of the pure life without credit cards, phones, money, passports and appointments. What I have vaguely desired in some unknown form becomes reality for a moment. Naked as I was born, so I stand again. For the duration of the 45 minute metro ride I float in no-where. From no side is there any pressure, for there is nothing like a cellphone, or contact number with which I could get back in touch with the entire society I grew up in, the society I was in touch with, the society that sketches the outlines of my course of action. From no side is there any pull, for no part of this society can in any way contact me and in fact I cannot do the least in the moment to change this. I have no possessions, perhaps a dollar in my pocket, there is not a thing I can loose. The slightest subconscious thoughts of protecting my own person dissolve in nothingness. I am practically invincible.

I feel an immense health and vigor pushing its way out from my breast and throat through my mouth, nose and eyes. Every pore of my skin breaths out full-throttle from an inexhaustible reservoir of power. I sense in what a sea of incredibly dull energy I am sitting: the metro, city-life, routine. Some eyes turn towards me once in a while. I wield a resistless lightsaber of attention and hold it at every person in my view; not a single one replies to it or reflects it for any appreciable length of time. All the while I am talking to a man who gave me money for the metro ticket. He tells me of his 7-days-a-week job, deep in his tracks of routine, deeply depressed and deeply pessimistic. I lighten him up: Life is beautiful; there is always something to look up to; maybe it is not your situation that is bad, maybe it is essentially very similar for people anywhere in the world; there are always alternatives, perhaps not easy to achieve, but more than worthwhile to dare.

On arriving to Azadi Sqaure I don't look for Hossein anymore. I don't believe he would have waited this long. Under the Freedom Tower my freedom is sacrificed. I touch down again to return to the simple chain of practicalities. I meet three young men to whom I portray my situation. The high begins to subside. They are extremely forthcoming, ready to help and take me with them in their car. For some minutes Farzad and I are in the car alone and I express one of the recognitions which has just crystallized:
"It is hard to be completely integral and truthful in your life without being fully responsible for yourself in all respects. You cannot be truthful to yourself if you are dependent on the whims of others. You cannot be truthful to others if you cannot be truthful to yourself. You cannot attain inner Peace and Power if you are not truthful to the world around you."

At their friends place I access the internet and use their phone. I do not have Hosseins number online, but Ali, another couchsurfer sent me his. Kianoush and Farzad lend me money, for which I am deeply grateful and I meet Ali at Pastor Square. We proceed to his friends place, Ahoura who lives just around the corner. Ahoura plays in three heavy metal bands, performs on underground gigs, directs films and is an avid photographer. Ali tries to call my phone, but it seems to be switched off. He tells me that he will send Mehdi a text on my number, threatening him to give back my things. The next day Ali tells me that Mehdi's girlfriend called him, ready to give back my backpack, at a yet undefined time. I cannot believe my ears, but Ali doesn't fail to remind me that they could just be trying to win time with a false message to have enough time to sell my passport.

I proceed organize things at the embassy that day and meet Ali again in the evening. He does not mention a thing about the backpack at first, but when I ask him he says that he has not received a call back from Mehdi or his girlfriend for specifying a time for returning the backpack. The following day at noon Ali tells me on the phone that he has a surprise for me. In the evening we meet at Ahoura's home. I ask about the surprise and Ali is happy to portray his own presence as the surprise. Ali leaves for the night and later Ahoura calls me from his room, beckoning me out on the street:
"Ali called! Your backpack is on the street. A taxi driver left it there. Ali got a call."
We find my backpack on the sidewalk just around the corner to Ahoura's place. Everything is there except for passport and money. What...?!...Is it my worn out socks that smell fishy?

The following day I leave Ahoura's place and meet Hossein and his friend Mustafa.

04 - 06.11.2011

I take the bus from Tabriz to Qazvin and a shared ride the same evening to Rasht. I am hosted there by Babak. He tells me of his previous guest who came from Melle, the tiny town near Osnabrueck where my dear grandmother comes from. I start out in the early morning next day for a day-trip to Masoule. Mohammed, an English teacher from Fuman, takes me the last half of the way. He is a most avid mountaineer and a living encyclopedia of mountaineering expeditions throughout modern history all over the world. From Masoule we climb fast and swift and have great conversations about the Iranian state of society, the differences between east and west, linguistics and the source of religions. Among other things Mohammed points out that young men and women come here to be together in peace, without the fear of doing something wrong in the eyes of the 'social police'. Mohammed returns to Fuman for his classes and I continue hiking through the mountains. On my return to Masoule I meet a larger group of University students. Eyes from the group shine at me. Again the differences between Eastern and Western states of society are our topic.  Faroogh states in his imperfect, but perfectly comprehensible English:

"Economy in Iran is low, but Love in Iran is big!"

I must totally agree with him.

 

After having a short chat with another couchsurfer from Rasht, that I meet in a cafe of Masoule by chance, I decide to explore the town. The town is built on a mountainside so steeply that many entrances to houses are found on the roofs of the houses below. High in town an elderly couple invites me to their place, calling from their balcony. I have a tea at their place and am invited to marvel at the newly restored and refurbished interior. Mozaffer, another English teacher takes me back to Rasht and again the difference between east and west are a major topic.

While the people in the east are looking up to the state of society in the west, the people of the west, having arrived in it and experiencing as a norm all the conveniences it has to offer, do not find there a fulfillment to their deepest yearnings. They look for deeper qualities of life in simpler conditions, without the distractions and without the isolation technology facilitates. Due to this green and socialist movements prevail and are in many parts of the western world coming strongly to the forefront. Due to this also such an incredible number of travelers embark yearly on the pilgrimage to the east. The motivations between people might differ, but the mass-movement of young generations, the cross-fertilization of east and west is a fact. The west teaches of scientific and technological achievement, of perfect infrastructure and organization. The east teaches of the value of family and social life and of the satisfaction and power that lies in deeper spiritual states and insights. The east is attempting to shuffle off its outgrown chrysalis of religious discipline to attain to a state of outer freedom, freedom of expression. The west is searching in dire need for a sense of direction and guidance from among the results of a freedom devoid of higher ideals.

The following day I visit Ghale Rudkhan, a Seljuq castle high in forest covered hills. With astonishment I find that what I am hiking through is temperate rainforest, lush, humid and fresh, full of wondrous sounds and invigorating smells.

31.10.2011 - 03.11.2011

After a night in Meghri I pass the border to Iran. I remember that I was told to always ask whether the driver wants money before entering a car when hitchiking in Iran. I neglect to do so with the first driver and after he takes me to a town near Jolfa he asks for money. I get mad and make a big scene out of it: his car is not advertise as a taxi and he did not say a word about having to pay when I entered the car. Some men flock around and follow the argument intently. A Russian speaking man translates. Finally I give the man 10,000 Armenian Dram and get 180,000 Iranian Rial. I have no clue how much I just had to pay, but leave with the bad feeling of having been ripped off.

Having learnt the lesson, I hitchike to Marand. In the minibus from Marand to Tabriz I talk to a man who explains the monetary system.
Rial is the official currency used in the country.
12,000 Rial = 1 US Dollar
The people count Rials in Tuman however. Almost all prices are advertised in Tuman.
1,200 Toman = 1 US Dollar

In Tabriz I am received most warmly by Rasoul and his neighbor Asgher. Rasoul starts to portrait life here in Iran. There are two parallel realities: officially there is to be no sex before marriage, adultery is a crime, alcohol is not to be drunk, modern dancing is forbidden, as are all types of modern music. In reality however the concept of girlfriends and boyfriends seems to be far more accepted than in the east of Turkey for instance, there are probably not many countries in the world in which having relationships aside of the marriage is social norm to such an extent as it is here, there are 'underground' parties at which people drink and dance regularly and American pop-music and TV shows are ubiquitous.

I found a sufficient number of people in Turkey to be truly religious although they might not have attached much value to religious form and codex. Here on the other hand form and codex are an external layer, an official necessity, under which simple atheism spreads far and wide. Government enforced repression of pre-marriage relationships stands in the most awkward contrast to media projections of sexuality, dance and party, which find their audience in most households of the country since satelite TV has become readily available some 10 years ago. Rasoul tells me of his own dissatisfaction with the official restrictions, while I catch a glimpse of an episode of 'Sex and the City' flashing on the TV screen in the corner of his room.

I go out to the city the next day with Georg, a fellow couchsurfer visiting Rasoul, who is, as I am, also on the way to India. On the streets and the bazaar I am confronted with the utmost respect as a foreigner from Europe and feel most warmly welcomed by total strangers. I find it hard to feel like a foreigner in fact. People seem cultured, intelligent; shops abound in all products we know from the west and the atmosphere on the streets is bright and clean. Here, total strangers hold together and help each other. There does not seem to be any of the mistrust between people, which seems to be so fundamental amongst foreign people in western cities, which is not even noticed in the west because it has become such a norm. If there is mistrust then it is most effectively concealed by the social norm of politeness and helpfulness.

People take total strangers with them in their car routinely. During rush-hour at larger junctions of the city you may see 20-40 people at any given moment waiting on the side of the street for somebody to take them to a different part of the city. Private cars stop constantly to give the crowds a lift. They stop and in a matter of seconds all the seats are taken. Sometimes not even a word is exchanged between passenger and driver; the destination seems to be irrelevant at first. People which have thus come together in a car might start chatting about their day, what is on their mind or what they are currently occupied with.

Crime, as we understand it, seems to be almost non-existant. Repeatedly I see people walking on the street with large batches of banknotes in their hands; at the gasstation the employees spend their whole day with stacks of money in their hand, while fueling the masses of incoming cars. Should the 'social police' however catch boyfriend and girlfriend kissing on the street, a day or two of imprisonment might follow, a substantial fine should be payed and a letter from the parents should confirm that such an act will not happen again.

Several times I spot particularly noble faces in the crowds on the street, faces of a royal, kingly character, handsome, beautiful, proud and aesthetic; they bring the association of Persian princes or heroes on the battlefield knowing exactly what they want; the long hair combed back, thick, well-kempt, the skin smooth and shining with a bronze tint, the radiation upright, awake and energetic. I am equally reminded of the Indian complexion and sometimes the hair resemble far-eastern types.

Indeed these are Aryans, today's living proof of the once mighty migration of a people, of art, of religion and of science from ancient India through the middle-east to Europe. I learn with the utmost clarity that comparing Arabians and Persians is like comparing Russians with people of the United State. On the surface, culturally speaking, they have little in common, save the same religion somewhere in the deep recesses of history. Persian is spoken here, not Arabic, women carry out the same jobs men carry out, women drive cars just as men do, antagonism against Arabians seems to be widespread, close to 3/4ths of the people are at least agnostics if not atheist and most people are decidedly against the government imposed religious law. Before the Arabian occupation of Persia some 1400 years ago, Persian was written in a pictographic alphabet, comparable to the contemporary Chinese and spiritual thought and practice was governed by Zoroastrian not Shamanic tradition. Within Zoroastrianism can be seen the inheritance of ancient India, Akkadia and Chaldea. In fact the three Magi's that visited Jesus allegedly came from Kashan in modern-day Iran, where Zoroastrianism prevailed.

With Rasoul I meet yet another man who tells me of his out of body experiences. In contrast to Veysel's experiences in Oltu, Turkey, Rasoul did not work on achieving this experience with his will. Since his childhood Rasoul finds himself out of his physical body every two or three nights with no breaks inbetween, looking down on it in as it is asleep. As a child he told his family about it, but they sceptically and sarcastically assured the silly child that he had a powerful imagination. These states continue routinely to this day. Rasoul went to doctors, where he was told that he has a very strong predisposition for such experiences, that his constintution is very prone to such experiences and that they can do nothing to help him. Rasoul went to fortune-tellers, which can be found in great numbers in Iran and are often perceived as absolute problem-solvers, and was told there that he seems to be a master of this practice and that they can give him no advice from their own minor or non-existant experience.

Rasoul himself is quite helpless in this. When exiting the body he perceives exactly the same overwhelming acoustic phenomena, which Veysel and Jay in London have described: extremely loud and frightening white noise, footsteps, whispers and knockings. Once he has exited he finds himself above his physical body in the room and any movement he does with his 'astral' body, takes an incredible amount of energy and willpower, so much so in fact that he usually recedes to merely observing and not doing anything. The further he tries to get away from the physical body, the greater the force seems to be he that he is working against and so he has never yet reached as far as the street outside of his apartment. Lately however he had managed something on which he was working for a long time and which took incredible amounts of energy: he managed to open the eyes of his physical body, seeing how they open from the outside.

While this experience is incredibly tiresome and demanding in itself, Rasoul feels an absolute calmness, freshness and invigoration when coming back to his physical body, so much so that he usually does not feel the need to continue sleeping for the rest of the night. Rasoul of course studied much literature on this subject and equally has the wish to travel to India to find a Master that could teach him how to control that, which he has been experiencing every two to three nights since his childhood.

One evening Georg, Rasoul, Asgher and I visit his home village, where we meet his brother-in-law. We continue to another nearby village where we visit the cabinet of a fortune-teller. The man in his mid-sixties perhaps shows that he has nothing to tell us, but Rasoul remains inside for a couple of minutes. I ask why he has visited these fortune-tellers several times and come to understand that he is simply curious to learn what they are doing and how it comes that so many people are captivated by them. We continue to the ancient village of Kandowan that evening where people live a relatively traditional way of life making handicrafts, selling them to tourists and bringing out their live-stock to the pastures. We have a look around and peak in to some of the rooms which were chiseled out of the rock thousands of years ago and are still inhabited up to this day.

I am grateful for Rasoul hosting me so warmly in Tabriz. I have to add that Rasoul drives like an absolute street-pirate. Hail Ibrahim Tatlises.