Opening words

Do you think the soldiers of today could rival the warriors of the times of ancient Greece and Troy in terms of unshakable integrity? Do you think the ship crew of today can rival the Vikings in courage and valor? Do you think today's backpackers could come close to the adventurousness and entrepreneurship of a Marco Polo? Nothing is preventing us from living up to these standards!


The Sun rises for every one of us, no matter in what time scales we are prepared to think in for ourselves.

"The treasure lies in every one of us, wherever we may be, but we tend east in pursuit of the means to dig it out."


Several thousand miles, a rainbow of emotions and people, many worlds, two Dragons and at least one Stargate later I embark on a flight back west, rising heavenwards before the early-morning sun, forecasting its path in the sky . . .

Far from closing a chapter, I am aware that the journey has just begun . . .

01.03.2012 - 15.04.2012

Since my stay in Rajkot I realize gradually that I reached my goal. The necessity to continue traveling ebbs away as naturally as it had begun to flood into my being some three years ago . . .


"Let our religions be deeply hidden and embedded in the recesses of our innermost hearts fortified by the unbroken seals of our lips."

I find this little passage on the second page of a little booklet entitled "Mohammed - Prophet of Islam". It is a practicing Hindu that has written this booklet - Prof. K.S. Ramakrishna Rao. A young man with stylish glasses, hair-style and sweatshirt hands it to me enthusiastically out of the blue as I am checking in to a hostel room at the Chandigarh bus stop.

I travel onwards from Spiti over Chandigarh to Rishikesh, the 'yoga capital of the world'. In Rishikesh I once again encounter numerous foreigners. Many are here for the countless yoga sessions, ashrams, Ayurveda classes and Satsangs. Therefore I'm surprised to meet Radek from Poland with a materialistic mindset in a place like this. It is the commonly accepted notion that consciousness is a result of brain electrochemistry, that physical laws are the frame of ultimate reality. We go on a longer walk and during our discussion I state a little parable David Chalmers had quoted in his 1995 paper in the Scientific American:

"Suppose that Mary, a neuroscientist in the
23rd century, is the world’s leading expert
on the brain processes responsible for
color vision. But Mary has lived her
whole life in a black-and-white room and
has never seen any other colors. She
knows everything there is to know about
physical processes in the brain—its biology,
structure and function. This understanding
enables her to grasp all there is
to know about the easy problems: how
the brain discriminates stimuli, integrates
information and produces verbal reports.
From her knowledge of color vision, she
knows how color names correspond with
wavelengths on the light spectrum. But
there is still something crucial about color
vision that Mary does not know: what
it is like to experience a color such as red.
It follows that there are facts about conscious
experience that cannot be deduced
from physical facts about the functioning
of the brain."

"And this" I continue "is the root from which the worlds spirituality and religions spring: conscious experience. This is where the domain of objective, technological, quantitative and discrete science ends and that of subjective, psycho-energetic, qualitative and continuous science begins. Call it exhilarating moments, existential realizations, consciousness of a higher order of reality, or flashes of enlightenment."

Thousands of years ago people applied the word God to it. Unfortunately, and peculiarly enough, the meaning of this word has not followed the course of the regular evolution of languages and has remained unchanged for thousands of years, like an obstinate rock on an otherwise endless, flat and shining white sea shore. As you could expect, countless algae, barnacles and other detritus accumulate on a substratum like this, while the waters of time wash over the surrounding sands quite naturally, keeping them fresh and clean. So it is with the word God in our otherwise quite well functioning languages.

In any way Radek seems to be quite thrilled: "Ohh no, you know what you have just done?" He exclaims " . . . You have just created an irreparable dichotomy in knowledge."

I reply: "If we assume that there is a reality, which, following healthy common sense, is at least not too far-fetched, we quickly arrive at the point where we have to decide what role our consciousness plays in it. Of course the mechanics of all the experiences of daily life can be explained by materialistic investigation. Evidently however the content of these experiences cannot be thus explained and we are necessarily driven to look for other means of investigation to explore its depths. This is where spiritual practice comes in. This is its value and meaning. This is what the ancient texts of India, the Vedas, Upanishads, Tantras and Puranas have treated of in depth thousands of years before any Freud could have come about to state that there are hidden aspects and determinants of conscious experience."

Did you think that the unrivaled perfection of the pyramids of Giza came about by barbarian 'guess-and-check' or the latest microchip and satellite technology? Evidently it was not in their understanding of the order of things that something was missing. Do you think that Stonehenge and Newgrange were built by the whim of senile chieftains for them to have a round dance floor under the stars or to have a cozy place to cry for their forefathers? Do you think that the hundreds of stone giants weighing up to 80 tons were erected on the Easter Islands because an elder in charge had a dream one night, which inspired him to decorate the place? Do you think the massive Nazca Lines in Peru were drawn because an artistic soul ran out of canvas one day and decided to try something new? Look at the dimensions. Look at the precision. Look at the flawless alignment with cosmic bodies. Ahh alright, so these guys were smart mathematicians, lacked the pen and paper to share their knowledge and looked for other ways to do so. Well, "5.5 MILLION TONS of limestone, 8,000 tons of granite (...), and 500,000 tons of mortar" should have been about enough. That's the materials and weight of one(!) Egyptian pyramid - the Great Pyramid of Giza. So now you think all this has no relation to spiritual science? Think again.

In Rishikesh a Russian family invites me to a Satsang of a former Osho disciple. He speaks truly and with great humor: "Most people hold on to their body and the world. With age their bodies get weak, they cannot move properly anymore, their eyes get weak, they cannot hear properly, they take out artificial teeth every night, because their own have all fallen out, but still they fear to leave their body. Why are the people so fearful of bodily death? He who takes his lessons from meditation does not fear to leave his body. When he gets old and his body gets weak he simply says: 'I am content in having traveled and seen the world, I have experienced its rich variety. I acknowledge that my body is now becoming of little use to me. Its time for me to leave it.' And just so he lets go of the body naturally when its vigor leaves. For him there is little suffering or hardship."

"To be afraid of death is to be afraid of life. Actually, there’s no reason to be afraid of anything. Fear is always a bad counselor and the result of the lack of a broader picture." - Dejan's Beginner's Handbook for Successfull Living. (update: 21.04.13 - currently offline)

So I complete my University applications and decide to take my last step to Nepal. This is indeed the worlds kingdom of trekking where all from the 100 dollar backpacker to the British royal family climb the mountains for inspiration, air, nature, peace, views, activity and great company. It all seems incredibly outworn to me, but without a doubt the vastness of the Himalayas holds much to discover. I volunteer at the plant nursery of 'Nepal Agroforestry Seed Cooperative Ltd.' in the east of Kathmandu and  around in humus in the search of earth worms. It's a great practical lesson in botany, gardening and vermiculture. After one week I continue to the tropical south, to the province of Chitwan. There I volunteer on the Bhattarai farm, where a charming family hosts me. This is the deep country side next to Chitwan National Park, where I experience true communal life of the farmers in the neighborhood. Doors are not locked, all families help each other when needed; food, tools, work time is shared among the community freely. Everybody comes by once in a while for a chat. The family had already hosted over 400 volunteers from 22 countries, they have a computer, keep a small library from books volunteers have left them and all speak English. The children are very well educated and the family father, although a farmer himself, holds a Master's in the Humanities. I have never seen such a fit grandmother. She lives in the same house as the family does, but occupies a separate room with her own cooking facilities and cooks her food completely independently of the family. Fair enough, I guess. But one day I see her ploughing away vigorously on a strip of land behind the house. I find out from Balram, the family father, her son, that she not only cooks her own food, but grows all of it as well. She's 81. 'We give her some food sometimes if she needs it" Balram says.

Later he says: 'Head work leads to tensions in the mind and illness in the body. We have no such problems. The physical work keeps us healthy. We have natural peace of mind."

The whole family gets up naturally at 4am every morning. They go to bed at around 9pm.

On my second-to-last day in Nepal I visit Chitwan National Park in the morning. At one point the guide points out a massive boulder next to a large water hole. He tells me its a one-horned Rhino. I move closer and I distinguish head, eyes and ears. They move slightly. Then the giant gets up. It's truly amazing. It's just like looking into the eyes of a dinosaur. Later that day I return to Kathmandu. I have booked a flight for the next day.

09 - 29.02.2012

In a quiet suburb of Gurgaon, south of Delhi, Dejan greets me in the household of Harsh Wardhan with two other students learning to play the bansuri, the Indian bamboo flute, with him. As I find out later, Harsh Wardhan builds flutes for Harriprassad Chaurasia himself (http://www.wardhan.com). His son has a gifted ear and has now taken over fine tuning these. Denis 'Juganath,' a professional tabla player from Russia comes to visit for some days and beautiful concerts by him and at least one bansuri player of the family fill the living room each day. On another day, Daniel, a tap guitarist from Belgium arrives and in the evening with his self-built guitar and the household is once again mesmerized by melody. 

One day Denis tells us of a concert that is taking place in the evening in Delhi and arranges free entry for us through his connections. Only after we settle in our seats in the auditorium and the vibes start to transpire through skin and bones do I realize that infront of me on the stage is sitting none other than Bharat Ratna Ravi Shankar himself, cross legged holding his sitar comfortably on his lap. I distinguish a marked difference between him and other gifted muscians of the western world. The latter seemingly become one with their instrument, internalising it, as if it were an organ of their body, and in turn infusing their entire being into it, loosing themselves in it. Undoubteldy true musical geniuses of that kind will thereby unify their audience in a single unbroken breath, enthralling, holding, creating soundscapes, unfolding a tale in colorful waveforms. Just so it is with Ravi Shankar. But far from infusing his being into his instrument, losing himself in it, the most astounding tsunamis of sound role forth onto the audience, his hands moving with well-nigh imperceptible speed and agility, while he himself is sitting on top of it all, not touched in the least by the breathtaking exersions of his body, observing the happenings in the theater with supreme aloofness and razor-sharp attention, as if expressing: "Yes this is godlike, I know. You think its special? I'll show you what special is..." and he tripples his extersions - and the audience is lifted another couple of centimeters higher above their seats. He just smiles approvingly. This sound, this being, is indeed music taken back to its spiritual birthplace.

It is time now to progress in material existence as well. Although I continue traveling, from now on I spend the greater portion of time in front of the computer writing applications to Universities and for summer-jobs. From Gurgaon I send my tent and cooking pot back to Europe. I continue to Dharamsala and then Shimla in Himachal Pradesh, where I meet many westerners, among which is, Lobsang, a man from west Australia who left his life as a farmer and became a Tibetan buddhist monk, being inaugurated in the Kopan Monastery in Kathmandu, Nepal. I meet many westerners clad in buddhist monk robes in fact.

However, I decide to make one last excursion deep into nature before I return back 'on-grid'. I head to the remote region of Spiti, south of Ladhak. This is ethnographically speaking Tibet, albeit within the borders of India. Merely an 'Inner Line Permit' is required to travel the highway from Shimla to Tabo. For a considerable stretch it runs only a few kilometers far from the south-western border of the Chinese-controlled Tibet Autonomous Region. Here the climate and environment is akin to that of Ladhak and the culture is barely tainted by Chinese influence. In fact I learn that Spitian Tibetan is of all the Tibetan dialects that which has remained closest to the written alphabet.

I am the first European soul venturing into this lunar landscape . . . at least this year. So I am told at the military checkposts.
  

It takes two full days on the bus to travel from Shimla to Tabo along gravel roads in steep valleys, winding their way up and down around "hair-pin bends with only centimeters to spare to the cliff edge". In Tabo the bus arrives in the evening of the second night. Snow covers the surrounding mountains. It is well below zero degrees. Along with me two locals also want to continue traveling to Kaza, however no jeeps continue that day. There is too much snow for buses to pass. We stay at the Tabo monastery, where a monk leads me to the old prayer hall showing me some of the best preserved Buddhist paintings world-wide. The monastery was founded in 996AC and the large part of the paintings dates back to approximately this date. I marvel at the many colorful and detailed depictions of historical Buddhas and Boddhisattvas, as well as the depiction of Siddharta's life. In winter there are only some ten monks occupying the monastery.

The following day, once the people's bones and the car's engines thaw down sufficiently at around 10:00am, a car takes me and the two others to Kaza. From here I take a marvelous 4 hour hike to Key Monastery through Spiti valley under the shining sun and cloudless sky. I recall seeing such a dark hue of blue in the sky from airplanes at cruising altitude only. There is not a particle of dust anywhere. I remember signs prohibiting photography in ancient Georgian churches or large public mosques in Turkey. I wonder why there are no such signs here. How perfectly I now understand this prohibition. How I could start campaigning against such people that would feel inclined to take photographs here! If there is a place on earth where there is room for such uninhibited jaw-dropping awe and wonder at the illustrious magnificence of nature then it is here. In no other place on earth have I felt so close to the living cosmos. A higher order of things is expressed in no other place on earth as well as it is here.

A young monk, perhaps 12 years of age, calls me from the ridge that Key Monastery is perched upon, beckoning me to take a shortcut up the mountainside. Deep, droning didgeridoo-like vibrations and long high-pitched trumpet sounds make for a magical greeting as I make my way up the winding path to the cluster of white monastery buildings on the hill above Key village. The last rays of the evening sun illuminate the varnish in orange. A bright half moon shines down on the scene while the sun sets carefully behind the majestic Zanskar range.

This is the largest monastery in the area founded by Rinchen Zangpo, the great translator, during his 6th conscious incarnation in the 11th century. He currently heads the monastery in his 24th reincarnation although I do not have the honor to meet him, since he is in central India over the winter months along with most other monks. Of the 300 monks usually occupying the monastery only some 80 are now present. I witness the ceremonies of Losar, the Tibetan new year. The monks congregate in the prayer hall at 8am, sitting well ordered in several rows and commence an uninterrupted series of prayers of powerful mesmerizing rhythms. Short half-minute breaks are taken to drink special salted milk tea, which is poured into every monks vessel by a few junior monks on duty. The prayers build up in intensity accompanied by trumpets, large and small drums, cymbals and bells and culminate in special prayers of the head lamas and senior monks. At 3pm the younger monks almost instantaneously disappear out of the prayer hall to play cricket on the school ground below the monastery.

The atmosphere of this place, the sharp mountains, the crystal air, speaks of something primeval. The wars of the last 3000 years pass unnoticed here. It is but a blink of an eye. A different rhythm of breath determines the order here. The mountains stay content. Remembering ages of grand civilization, which came before, they await the coming of the next, which would once again listen to their voice and reply.

01 - 08.02.2012

I go to the south-coast of Gujarat and visit two ashrams for some days.

I wash my body and soul

And let them dangle on the line

As if they were stranded

On the endless shores of time

After returning to Rajkot for two nights I travel north to Delhi where Dejan awaits me. Months before we travelled together through the caucasian mountains in Georgia.

31.12.2011 - 31.01.2012

In Chennai I stay with a couchsurfer John Peter and his cousin and dance into the new year with a mass of locals on Marina Beach to tribal drum beats. Another couchsurfer recommends that I visit Tiruvannamalai so I take the 4 hour bus ride. I am greeted by a horde of westerners from France, Germany, Russia or elsewhere swarming around the several ashrams in the outskirts of the city, among which is the ashram of Ramana Maharishi. There I chat to some people and just as I want to leave to visit a popular meeting point that was recommended to me, my attention meets that of three inspecting pairs of eyes, three Swamis – holy men or teachers at the ashram. We smile at each other and start conversing. They laugh at the notion that I am looking for a teacher:

“Can a teacher make known to you that which is unknowable? Do you need a teacher to show you that which is already known? ”

Later at the “German Bakery” café I meet Neeru and her little group of companions. They have come from Goa for a retreat. In the evening I join their dynamic crazy dancing meditation. Later I talk privately with Neeru.

“The three Swami’s were right” she says “You don’t need a teacher. You should write a book.” 

Only later do I find out that Neeru is quite widely known around the world, that she arranges satsangs, retreats and meditation sessions in numerous countries; www.neeru.org. 

I stay at the place of a young shopkeeper who comes here all the way from the Jammu-Kashmir region for work, selling Kashmiri handicrafts.

I return to Chennai and stay at Ramki’s place, a truly gifted cook, who writes cookbooks without recipes. Publishers are sceptical at his highly unorthodox approach. Talking to me, Ramki manages to condense the totality of the world’s cuisines into a handful of principles. He is infact now working on his masterpiece, the “World Cookbook” – again containing not a single recipe.

I take the night train to Varkala in Kerala. There I encounter Indian tourist industry at its climax of development.  Among the flood of beach resorts, restaurants, textile and handicraft shops, Yoga, Meditation and Ayurveda advertisements plaster the surroundings. Nontheless the atmosphere is truly tranquil and the beaches are above all doubt fabulous. I jump into the water and am tossed senseless like a jellyfish in the waves. No Ayurveda Spa can compete in terms of nasal cleansing treatment - Palms, white beaches and baby-blue water at bathtub temperatures.

I continue north to the small rural coastal village of Thelissery, where I stay with Sathyadass and his family for two nights. He provides some insight into the political reality of Kerala. It is the wild-west of India in which the communist party holds sway in bloody rivalry with Hindu parties. A small US flag hangs in Sathyadass’living room. In the night he might sit on his porch with his gun at hand.  He introduces me to some friends that apparently know how to build bombs. All the while he talks enthusiastically of Osho’s teachings and his bookshelf contains many books of a spiritual kind. In the morning he gets up and walks around the garden, silently confessing his love to the trees and flowers around him. He once came across a turtle on the road. He quickly took hold of a candle at his place, stuck it on the turtles back and lit it. He thus followed the living altar the whole night, step by step, immersed in meditation.

Then, Goa. I hear much of the former hippie-culture there, but what I encounter now is an established, clean tourist destination in which westerners have created their own little India, with their own life-style. The beaches are beautiful and there is certainly a great community of alternatively minded people to mingle with. I am sure however that here, as in the other touristicated places further south the root of spirituality may not be found.

I continue to Pune, where I stay at Ajit’s place. Himself being a Jain, he recommends that I visit a Jain wandering monk with his students. I follow his recommendation and meet Nayapadmasagar in Palitana, the Vatican of Jains. The following days I wander with them by foot. We meet several monks and their students on the way. They recommend that I visit Junagadh and the mountain of Girnar. I am told that along with Mt. Abu and the Himalayas, this is the place to meet Yogis, to tap the root of true spiritual teachings. At Girnar I am amazed at the profanity I encounter. The series of temples on the mountain-range are daily visited by masses of locals as if they were attending a football match, smoking, listening to music on their phone, eating chips. Many Sadhus – originally spiritual recluses – get stoned; a ‘guru’ on Mt. Data counts money while the visitors bow to him . . . 

On the mountains-range I stay with Bhaveshdas the student of Paraddas. Paraddas lived here with Mahakal Bapu. Nobody knows how old Mahakal Bapu really was. In 1998 he decided to leave his body and foretold the end of his physical life without an error. Many generations climbed up here to meet him. . .

I meet Biman in the bus back to Ahmedabad. He invites me to his place in Rajkot and I stay at his place for a couple of days. Biman introduces me to several men. . .

It could be anywhere, but here I start to experience the heart of India. It is actually not that of India. It is that of humanity. Perhaps India is only a beacon for its safeguard. It is the heart in which true social and family life will never be lost. It is the heart in which true guru- and chelaship will always arise. Sometimes, unsuspecting, man and woman come across its seed. 
It is that which leads to eternity. 

True Religion is purely personal.

The relations which can teach of it are completely wordless in essence.

The more name and form there is, the less content one encounters.

True content is invisible to the senses. Only the Will leads to it.

 

"I learned this, at least (...): that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours."

Henry David Thoreau - Walden