Last day and a half in Rishikesh. Yesterday at the German Bakery I ordered a rice pudding, in search of the ultimate rice pudding. A mistake, since it had chewy fresh coconut bits, which apparantly aggravated a broken filling I have been having a bit of trouble with. Anyway I have to hope it doesn’t get infected before my return. Problems with teeth was one of the things I feared before coming here and consequently had a check up before departure. But I could have predicted that something like this would crop up anyway. I think there is also another broken filling.

I will now be happy to return home. It could have been at least a week shorter, which was my original intention. Moral: go with intuition.

i had a masala dosa, curd and honey-ginger-lemon tea at a dhaba – possibly the same one I remember in Lakshman Jhula from years ago. The masala dhosa is good there, though I found a hair, and there are small cockroaches that crawl around the room – the same as I found on two occasions in my bedroom.

The meal seems to have passed uneventfully with regard to my broken filling. I tried to chew on the other side.

Afterwards I spent half an hour in the internet cafe – there was no new mail so I caught up on the news.

Then I made the trip back to my room, where I have been reading The Stone Woman. Tariq Ali’s stories are by now fairly predictable, or at least familiar. Political insight, depth of emotion, tainted with a little sleaze.

Someone is spraying in the room next door – perhaps for cockroaches? Yesterday evening I saw a truly enormous bug, which also had wings. These are jungle creatures. Like the monkeys that cling to the bridges, nursing their young. These symians are so human in their ways. I think that western scientists would have come up with the theory or evolution much sooner if they had lived around monkeys. In the vedas, there is an evolutionary theory, though it isn’t conceived exactly as in the west.

In the street, jeeps with loudspeakers keep passing, carrying the message of one political candidate or another. Earlier i saw a western woman with her fingers stuffed in her ears. I didn’t see any Indian with a similar gesture, or even anyone express impatience, let alone anger, at the raucous sounds of the Indian street. They seem to accept everything as natural. I was thinking earlier that all the talk by western sympathizers for eastern spirituality, in which they speak of a union between western technoological and scientific know-how and eastern spirituality, seems to have been proved wrong by India, which, being steeped in its spiritual heritage, has now acquired western materialism. The mixture, to my eyes, is not a happy one. Motorcycles, cows, horses all encountering one another on a narrow street. The street itself made narrower by dhabas, dukans, juice stalls and the rest, with crowds of people in front of them. A hopeless mess.

The monsoon seems to have ended. Three sunny days in a row. The beaches on the eastern shore seemed to have less expansive channels and rivulets across them than before. Ferries have begun to transport passengers again, just south of Ram Jhula.

They travel across at a very odd angle, almost bearing straight into the current in order to cross at something like a straight course.

Are foreign countries always places where compatriots of one country or another come to find and mingle among themselves? Just as India is such a place for Israelis today, it was once so for the British. And there are similar places today where young Germans or Italians meet. No doubt there is something always special in such an encounter, something worthy of literature or film.

But as for me, this has been more of an encounter with myself. Such encounters are all right for a time, but then you wonder what if they remain permanent. Would it be bearable, or all that bad?

Of course I would feel more cheerful in my own space, with my books, music, my computers, around me. Being in a strange room gives no homely feeling. Perhaps there is an art in living in foreign rooms. You can bring along the things you need to make it feel like home. As for this trip, I wasn’t sure that is what I wanted to do at all. I wanted to come into contact with myself, not bring along substitutes for home. Maybe it’s foolish. Maybe you can meet yourself better, when you bring along something of the familiar. On future trips of this nature, I think I will want to keep my world intact, bring the items that help me be more like myself. Goodness, I didn’t even have a camera.

Later

Reading Thich Nhat Hanh makes me realize I have to soften my aspect, my expression, my approach. The clothes I wear, the words I speak and write, the thoughts I think. It costs me nothing. The opposite. What exactly am I trying to protect with this armour?

In the afternoon I went for a walk north. There is some sort of rich man’s home or unmarked institution, set in a well-maintained garden. A sign of the gaping class division, perhaps. Then after the garden there is a path down to a lovely beach, with the grey sands of the Ganges. Nice places to sit and meditate. I should have discovered it earlier. And if I were a bit more serious about meditation, could have got up early each morning and spent an hour there. but I am not really serious at all, any more. I have optimal conditions, but don’t use them wisely. I am not sure if I was ever great at meditation but lately I seem to have lost the magic. Or lost the illusion. Whatever. I don’t have the necessary belief. At least not here, away from home. I have sa a little almost everyday. But nothing interesting happened.

I seem to believe in a quiet life, but not in meditation itself.

Exercise in appreciation

Living alone like this for a month actually makes me happy with what I have got at home, and in the village, and in Israel. A good stable job, a home, a wife and children, and people I can talk to, if not really friends. Maybe I complain too much. Instead of complaining, I should be working out how to make it better, how to make our lives more enjoyable and fulfilling. I should be investing creative energy, rather than stagnating. And I really should be making friends, instead of closing myself off to people. and closing myself off to the country. And I should be learning Arabic properly, a little each day, just as I began to learn Hindi. I am leaving too much aside, while simultaneously I develop strange areas of expertise that no one in my natural environment cares about, such as social networking sites (lately). I need to develop interests that are more useful. I also need to develop spiritually and academically, but not in such a way that it creates a distance between me and those around me.

Sannyasin ideal

I think that this is an urge that has finally departed from me. I have been developing a kind of culture of portability for years now, a feeling that I ought to be able to just pick up and go. But for a month I picked up and went, and what do I find? First that I don’t feel like moving on once I’m here, and secondly that I don’t feel sufficiently comfortable with what I have with me. So all this portablility didn’t do me much good, eh? And also the myth that I could somehow feel at home in intternet cafes and have enough web applications to just settle down at any computer, proved to be false too. I didn’t feel at home there. So actually I need a home around me, not a rucksack. Of course, what our stable lives do not sufficiently give us is the knowledge of how to set up home again, if this one is ever taken away from us. That’s something that it would have been good to learn sooner rather than later. And also I personally am missing the challenge that many people have in reconstructing their social world. I haven’t even managed very well with that the first time around. But all one ever really needs is faith, confidence, openness and generosity of spirit – in all things.

It seems that whenever I enter a restaurant, Israelis come and settle nearby. It is hard to get away from them. In general I am coming to prefer solitude to the company of others. Perhaps it’s a period in life which is anyway more conducive to this, since young people are not much interested in the company of elders. Now I am coming to welcome it. I feel confident enough about myself. If I would stay longer here I would pick up Hindi.

I have been making quick progress through Frawley and Feuerstein’s book, which gives a feeling for the ancient world, and the spiritual vision that somehow survives in this country through the millenia. It seems to linger here more than in any other modern country. It would be possible to say that Judaism too preserves an ancient culture, an ancient spiritual tradition, except that somehow it doesn’t, exactly – perhaps due to the destruction of the Temple. It does preserve a tribal tradition and an ancient dogma. And countries that are founded on the traditions of holy men or prophets such as Buddha, Jesus or Mohammad miss that ancient spiritual vision, in which natural phenomena are viewed as imbued with spirit, and the actions of humans are seen as being a part of the divine order.

So Swami Chidananda has passed away while I was in Rishikesh. He died the day before yesterday. The irony is that I have often worried after his health and thought that I would probably miss his final moment. Now it happens that I am here and I also missed it. About last Wednesday I was in the ashram for the evening satsang and they said that he was unconscious, though his condition was stable On Friday – the day that he died – I also visited the ashram though just spent an hour meditating in the samadhi hall. Not finding anyone, I didn’t ask about his health. Today I did meet someone, and then asked in the reception office. There, as always I found an unresponsive clerk from whom it was impossible to get more than short responses.

Then I attended the evening satsang. After the Jai Ganesha and gita recitation, they began with a film of Swami Chidananda in Hindi. I stayed for the first 40 minutes or so of that, then bowed and took my leave. I think it is the last time that I will visit the ashram. That Swami Chidananda died while I am here seems to imply a kind of conclusion or parting of the ways for me with Swami Sivananda’s legasy. Somehow, after Swami Vishnu passed on, the only continuing link that I felt was for Swami Chidananda. He was a saint, no doubt, but the organization that he headed had a cold feeling about it. The evening satsangs that I attended this time were frightfully boring. The samadhi hall gave me a cold feeling also the last time I saw it. There is not enough joy in this organization. I want no further part in it.

About Rishikesh, which is India for me, I have mixed feelings. I think in order to know Indians better I would need to speak Hindi. That’s natural. There are lots of things I like about them, and of course lots that I like about their culture. I respect their religious feelings and their spiritual culture.

Today I saw a cow gently tearing a political poster off a wall and eating the smiling face of the politician – I think it was the same guy they were campaigning for today in a jeep with loud speakers. I smiled to a couple of passers by who also noticed the cow eating the poster and they understood the joke too.

2 AM

I said earlier that the passing of Chidananda and the feeling that the last link for me has been cut with the legasy of Sivananda has given me a new feeling of freedom. I want to try to define what this means.

I mean that I feel free of the guru diksha, of the guru parampara. Free to pursue any other path that seems reasonable to me. I will no longer consider it disrespectful to ‘my teacher’ to follow any spiritual or other direction, because from this point I do nothing in his name, and am in no way anyone’s representative. I will not make any claim to be representing anything and have no longer any sensitivities in this direction. I am free of all that. I will make claims only in my own right and make no excuses for my behaviour or moral conduct, as if it is based on something that I inherited.

With regard to the Hindu tradition my respect for it is as an ancient, elder brother tradition. I respect the notion that spirit is present in all life, that everything carries the divine seed, which is the non-individuated whole, and the breath carries the key to this in the understanding of the soham mantra. This is the fundamental spiritual truth for me. It’s a conscious assertion like a mahavakya. It is not self inquiry, not negation (neti, neti). But it can be explored in various ways, such as through studying the law of interbeing of Thich Nhat Hanh, and through smrti (mindfulness) in Buddhistic practices.

I believe that the principle of anatman in Buddhism is just another dimension of the same truth according to which there is no being that exists independently of any other being. The best way to actually understand the soham mantra (which is dualist) may actually be through Buddhist concepts which do not give prominence to any one concept. All things are as if strung upon a mala.

Monday 1 September

It seems that whenever I enter a restaurant, Israelis come and settle nearby. It is hard to get away from them. In general I am coming to prefer solitude to the company of others. Perhaps it’s a period in life which is anyway more conducive to this, since young people are not much interested in the company of elders. Now I am coming to welcome it. I feel confident enough about myself. If I would stay longer here I would pick up Hindi.

I have been making quick progress through Frawley and Feuerstein’s book, which gives a feeling for the ancient world, and the spiritual vision that somehow survives in this country through the millenia. It seems to linger here more than in any other modern country. It would be possible to say that Judaism too preserves an ancient culture, an ancient spiritual tradition, except that somehow it doesn’t, exactly – perhaps due to the destruction of the Temple. It does preserve a tribal tradition and an ancient dogma. And countries that are founded on the traditions of holy men or prophets such as Buddha, Jesus or Mohammad miss that ancient spiritual vision, in which natural phenomena are viewed as imbued with spirit, and the actions of humans are seen as being a part of the divine order.

I am sitting in the German Bakery. Shortly after I came here a heavy rain shower began. Now it’s still raining off and on, and a wonderfully cool wind is blowing in through the open window at my side. The window overlooks the fastly moving river and Lakshmanjhula Bridge, which is currently crowded with pedestrians.

Earlier I confided with Ahmad my thoughts about how we might continue in the C and D office, and I have been continuing to think about this since, while reading The Stone Woman.

An Indian family are sitting in front of me. While walking to the restaurant I had a feeling of love for these people, their simple devotion. How they bow to the statues of Ganesha and Devi while passing by the 13 story temple People who are very poor, hoping that their dreams will be fulfilled by the Gods. On the bridge you notice how they come in waves. There will be a group of white-clad turbanned men, then a group of colourfully clad women carrying bags and luggage on their heads. They are groups of people on pilgrimage, often from distant parts of India.

One thing about this country is that it is a nation on the move, aware of itself. The country is a world of its own in so many ways, and has been so for a long time.

29 8 Evening

‘In the Discourse on the Many Realms (Bahudhatuka Sutta), the Buddha taught that all our anxieties and difficulties come from our inability to see the true face, or the true sign of things, which means that although we see their appearance, we fai to recognize their impermanence and interbeing nature. If we are afraid or insecure, at the root of our fear or insecurity is that we have not yet seen the true face of all dharmas. If we investigate and look deeply into the 18 Elements, we can transform our ignorance and overcome fear and insecurity.’ p.77

Beggars

I have resisted almost every beggar in India so far. The couple of times I gave something, they asked for more, so I give nothing. Not every beggar directly asks for money. Sometimes they just rattle their tin, sometimes they just say a word of greeting. These, I have been ignoring too, or usually not ignoring, but responding with a smile or an acknowledgment. Sometimes I have patiently listened to their story or spiel, and still not given anything. Today a crippled man, driving a cart that was driven by a chair peddled by his left arm, asked me to push him, and that too I ignored, Eventually I saw an Indian man pushing him. It was near Sivanandashram. One day a man in orange said that he was a disciple of Swami Sivananda and needed money for medicines, or for an operation. I listened but did not give him any money.

I am not completely sure why I ignore these people. After all I am grateful that they are asking for money and not stealing it from me. Maybe it is lazyness, or a lack of feeling of responsibility, or a wish not to be involved or implicated in the reality that they face, or a feeling that I am an outsider and therefore exempt. If it is the latter I have a question mark. It is the same excuse I give in Israel. Either I am always an outsider, or I am always an insider – I have to decide. Some people are natural outsiders, whereas others are natural insiders. They become involved wherever they are at the moment, sometimes erroniously, because they misread the reality – but maybe this feeling of responsibility is preferable. Obviously what is preferable is an informed and intelligent involvement, rather than the two extremes that I have presented. The sense of being an alien is erronious, a fallacy.

Since writing the above, I haven’t enjoyed any other inspiration. Simply bided my time. Read a little from my two books, the one by Thich Nhat Hanh and the other by Tariq Ali (The Stone Woman), studied some Hindi, talked a little with the people in the Surya Guest House, gone for walks, visited the Ashram. Yesterday I heard that Swami Chidananda had become unconscious due to a blood clot in the neck. It seems that his days will not be long. It’s an end of an era for Sivanandashram. Odd to be here at this time – I wonder what it means that I am here at this time? Anything or nothing for me? I already feel more distant from the ashram and the Divine Life Society than I did previously. But there is a respect still there. I know that Swami Chidananda is one of the holiest persons I have ever had the fortune to meet. There is the matter of the internal politics of the organization that I have never understood, but knowing organizations, it is clear how these could develop.

Looking at my life lately, I see a kind of emptiness. A lack of direction. I am functioning, but don’t seem to be making much progress in any direction. I would have liked to express more creativity, but don’t really know how to go about that. Yet I always feel on the verge of something. Maybe what I am missing is a bit of courage.

I have always been better at promoting causes other than my own. That’s true of the Sivananda organization and is also true of Neve Shalom. The reason is probably because I tend to believe in people and am a good apologist. Whereas I have less belief in myself and an ego that refuses to develop or conflate.

But lately I have been doing more towards developing my individual point of view, through the internet. Perhaps I should work more on that aspect, find my niche. With my tendency towards being abstruce, I don’t suppose I will ever gain acknowledgment in any way.

India

impressions: 454 million people described as poor, by the United Nations. Half of the women feel their husbands are justified in beating them. Diseases, corruption, violence, organized crime, bad movies, cow shit, poor hygiene, inability to face reality, complacency, rudeness, blaring horns, unscrupulous merchants, overpopulation, abortion of females, dowries, expensive weddings, obsession with the more gross aspects of western materialism, superficiality of middle classes, lingering caste and class consciousness, religious divisions, religious charletans. beggars, handicapped people, nationalism. It is much easier to think of India in negative terms than in positive ones. The delights of Indian music, cooking, literature, are all there, as is its lofty spirituality, and the warmness of its people and their ingenuity. It’s just that these things tend to fade into the background when one is confronted with the everyday realities of present day India.

Back to me. I don’t think I have any kind of future in fiction writing, and it is time to admit that to myself. I might fancy myself as a writer, but definitely not in that. I don’t have sufficient interest or understanding in people in order to invent them, and I don’t have enough human experience in order to contrive situations. I think I can be a good enough writer of non-fiction, but I have to make up for the holes in my education. Perhaps I should pursue further my education in the field of peace education or some similar field. I don’t think my interest in conventional academic topics – such as in the behavioural sciences or education – is sufficiently strong to pursue that, but softer subjects, such as the humanities, holds more interest for me. There’s no doubt that I have a penchant for learning and furthering my education and knowledge, but I need to channel it better. Maybe even journalistic or media studies could hold my interest, and I need to develop somewhat my confidence in interviewing people. Perhaps I need to develop video skills.

If I am thinking of developing any further skills or furthering my career in the village, I should think in terms of what can help me personally. Up till now, in the last few years, my thinking has been that I should master all of the skills that are required for presentation of information, such as web design, writing, photography, etc. and I have succeeded partly with this goal. I have been less successful at some areas, such as working with print shops, and the more technical aspects of web development, like java script and flash. I have not even tried video. I’m also not great at getting people to pose for cameras.

I might further develop my communications skills, but perhaps what I need is to develop my analytic and organizational skills I mean my ability to interpret what I am reporting or writing about, and my ability to organize the product. I think I was not far wrong, whenI thought about this a few months ago. Perhaps I did not yet identify a proper direction for development. But I should press on with this in some way.

So there is Galtung – I am not sure whether or not this is the most promising approach. Perhaps there is some Buddhist methodology that would appeal to me? I’m a little afraid of approaches that attempt to read the hard realities of the Middle East according to some glossy western approach. Maybe what I need is a way to improve perception that does not impose any cognitive approach, but which allows one to develop one’s natural ability to see things as they are, or even better, helps to reveal the inner, hidden relationships between things.

For action:

take Galtung’s peace journalism course

look for new age style vision and writing courses that emphasize holistic vision and the way things connect to one another.

Look for books on the subject of how the world works. Capra, others. Permaculture, ecology, interrelationship. I ching, interbeing. Apply all this to understanding how the Israeli – Palestinian conflict has become so intractible, and why Palestinians and Israelis hurt each others’ and their own interests. Study what interests lie behind the conflict. Study if and how it may be possible to change the situation towards peace.

Read the chapter in Thich Nhat Hanh on mindfulness and this is very impressive and touching. It made me think about my mysterious relationship with Dorit – so poorly defined or understood. There was also a passage in the other book I am reading, The Stone Woman, by Tariq Ali, which made me think of that too today. Perhaps the real question is how much I am present to anyone around me, and how it is that I am somehow so distant, while feeling that I am present, patient and all the rest. I always feel that about myself at least, that I am open and friendly and patient as a listener. But perhaps there is something missing in the quality of my listening, such as a lack or responsiveness, or empathy, or insufficient reciprocation, or lack of emotional intelligence. The latter is in any case beyond my control. I can only try to be truly present for the other person, and to be willing to reciprocate confidence.

Let me summarize the miracles of mindfulness here:

1. to be present, to touch deeply the other.

2. to make the other present also

3. To nourish the object of our attention

4. To relieve the other’s suffering.

5. To look deeply.

6. Understanding.

7. Transformation.

I have a tendency to exclude myself in my relationships with other people, and, in my relationship with Dorit, to act as if it is outside the bounds of a usual married relationship, as if I were never truly married. Sexually, it was never a very strong match. Maybe it could not be otherwise between us, and fortunately, I did not insist with that. What I probably missed in life was a better sexual relationship with someone, although I think that healthy, long-lasting sexual relationships are probably harder to find than successful marriages. Marriages have more to keep them together, whereas longterm healthy sexual relationships depend upon the ardency of desire in both partners, which is not an easy feat.

Anyway I need to keep these mindfulness trainings in mind. And they relate to what I was earlier saying about learning how to see and understand the world in an integrative way.

In seeing the world I need to develop a tool kit. I have been thinking, while reading about Buddhism, also of Frawley, and his view that in an earlier age, the way that people saw the world was imbued with spirituality, that in the age of the vedas and the early upanishads, the view of the world, by these ancient people was so deeply spiritual that it resisted formulation. The philosophy of Sankara and Buddha was more of an attempt to recuperate something that had been lost, which only half worked. But, be that as it may, they were writing for the world that in which we now lived, and they no doubt understood what had been lost better than we do today. I had better study Frawley more deeply before commenting more. However, my view is one of integration, or reintegration. I think that in our present stage of evolution we need to reintegrate the knowledge and the wisdom of the past, and the wisdom and knowledge of all present day cultures, since we are at a kind of junction and juncture. All things now. We cannot afford to exclude anything. We are a kind of seedbank. What we fail to incorporate now may be lost, what we do incorporate can enrich us.

These sannyasins who walk half naked along the banks of the Ganges carry with them an old knowledge, even if it is imperfectly understood, even if their behaviour is a kind of show. I should spend some time and sit with them, quietly.

The thing about Rishikesh, unlike many another place, is that it is okay here, legit, to do what I am doing here; thinking. reading, meditating, writing. That’s what people do here. It is the natural thing.

I spent the morning walking around Rishikesh. I found a tailor and got her to shorten my white pyjama pants, as well as to make me a new natural cotton colour kurta, to match a pair of pants I had purchased. Then I went up to look at the Swiss cottage complex – looked at about 3 hotels. Then I walked all the way along the high road behind Sivanand Ashram, and at the bottom checked on Omkarananda guest house (expensive) and Yogananda guest house, less expensive, but not especially attractive. Then I walked across the bridge, turned right and kept walking till the end, reaching the old Maharishi Ashram, I guess. On the way I had stops for food and drink. Afterwards I walked all the way up the eastern shore, back to my hotel.

At one of the bookshops on the way I stopped and bought a book by Thich Nhat Hanh, ‘The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching’. I had been intending to get a Thich Nhat Hanh book. This seems to be a good one.

I think I will stay here at Aadi Badri – it is comfortable enough, and quite a good deal, actually, compared with what is around. And I think I will stay in Rishikesh. My main purpose and responsibility, since I have made this such a long vacation, should be to do something spiritual, for my soul, to recharge my batteries, and so forth. Rishikesh is a suitable place for this. But I am not so inspired these days by contemporary Indian spiritual culture (as mentioned). I feel like I am getting a grip on what is necessary. I have realized that whereas Indian philosophical systems point to an escape from mundane consciousness, Thich Nhat Hanh is talking about a transformation of it. Whereas others are talking of a way out, he is talking of a way through. And this is more attractive to me, at this stage of my development.

Is my desire to study TNH now just a way of justifying my time, and convincing myself that I am doing something useful? It could be if I do not attempt, at the same time, to put what I am learning into practice, and live mindfully during this period. It’s a little hard without relatng to others, and there are not so many opportunities for that here. But I should try to do what I do do in a mindful way while here, practice slow walking, mindful eating, etc. Perhaps to take a long walk each day along the river, in one direction or the other.

There is one aspect to my relation to spirituality which I can’t get away from. My existence on this earth is fairly two-dimensional. Or it seems to be that way to me. I am monkish and reclusive in my disposition, even if I am not completely reconciled to that. I do not so easily find company. The examples and paradigms offered by TNH do not always apply well to me because I do not have a well developed sociability.

Later

There are different ways of viewing the same situation. I said earlier that maybe I am using the reading of spiritual books to justify my long stay here. but it would be more accurate to say that, having found that I had assigned too much time to this vacation, and having discovered that I am not so interested in visiting more Indian towns, I am simply trying to make the best of my time here. And, who knows, maybe something good will come of it.

When there is not enough time I feel pressured, and when there is too much time, I don’t know how to appreciate it or use it well. I mean I am doing a little Hindi and other reading. But I’m not going to the heart of Rishikesh, and not bothering to explore other places either.

I like the stretch between Lakshman Jhula and Ram Jhula along the river, where there are many sadhus. Of course they do not speak to people like me. Why should they? There are too many foreigners. Yesterday a boy of around 18 perhaps looked into my face and began to walk with me.. He walked next to me all the way back to Lakshman Jhula, occasionally looking round at me with a beaming expression that wasn’t exactly a smile. When the opportunity arose I shook him off my trail.

This morning there is some blue sky and the sun is shining. Yesterday there was hardly any rain. I think the monsoon is ending.

What makes sense

in any situation in which one finds oneself.

Slowly learn the language, as I am doing here. Back home I should be spending a little time each day to learn arabic. Do a little spiritual practice. Keep the body and the mind fit. Avoid wasting time. Be open and friendly with people, one’s neighbours. Spend the minimum time working, earning money – just enough to cover one’s needs. Minimize one’s needs. Keep things simple as possible. Spend little time in traveling, making purchases. It’s all unnecessary. The main thing is to enjoy a peaceful, full, rewarding life that is gentle upon the earth’s resources. Even the beggars of Rishikesh live lives that are more moral than the average Westerner. They beg a little, but they do not steal. We are stealing the earth’s resources, while thinking we are morally superior. Most of what we earn we use to support our egos. Our needs are much more simple than we assume.

UG Krishnamurti would probably say that it is the effort of peacemaking that is creating the war. In the Middle East, this would be true on the political level, since peacemaking is part of the same game. The question is whether this would also be true of the grassroots peacemaking efforts. Are they part of the same process? Do the same thought processes give rise both to war and to peace efforts? Is there a point that one would reach in which the whole negative and positive process ought to be equally shunned?

Again, I come back to the conclusion that the only way to make peace is to be peace, and the only way to work for peace is to create it in the here and now. I have been through these thought processes in the past.

If thinking could change anything in my perception of the problems, maybe it would have done so by now.

I need to look at the system of Thich Nhat Hanh and see in what way it is transformational. Is there a difference between mindfulness on the level that a beginner practices it, and the level that an advanced person practices it? Are there levels at all? Does the practice lead anywhere? I am not all that sure that it matters. I sort of reject UG’s one pointed zeal to reach a transformational experience and his declaration that only that can change anything. It seems to me that people who are living with some spiritual consciousness in their lives are in fact better off for it. That those who have an awareness of interbeing have made an important adjustment. The vedanta system has the concept of adopting concepts intellectually in the beginning – the process of affirmation – and later expanding these from the level of concept to integrative experience, and beyond. An idea like ~interbeing~ is false in so far as it is a concept, but works within the conceptual system for as long as the world of concepts exists. In other words, it does not fail to make sense at any level.

Yes I have been feeling a kind of revulsion of the system of denial, in the Indian system, of reality as we know it, and suspect that it is linked with a similar distancing in Indian culture from many of the distasteful sides of Indian life; the ability to make blatantly unrealistic statements about Indian civilization, etc. I think maybe there is a basic inability to accept things as they are. This makes a lot that is said here suspect ; wishful thinking, the big lie, etc. A better way of dealing with reality may have been to look with a critical eye, but since I am not Indian, and do not have to deal with their culture, it is probably better to leave it all up to them.

So I am rejecting transcendentalism to the extent that it tries to deny or supplant normal perception without offerng anything in return. And I am embracing the concept of mindfulness, linked to the idea of interbeing.

Picked up a book by U.G.. Krishnamurti, a man who, in his life, knew both Sivananda and Krishnamurti, and rejected them both. He rejected them because he thought that they did not give him the enlightenment that he sought from them.

He eventually did have an experience which transformed his life, which he describes as something completely physical, and which left him with a condition that he calls ‘the natural state’ , in which there is the experience of ‘not knowing’.

His ideas and the way that he expresses them, make sense (though the physical experience he describes can only be accepted or rejected on his testimony). In particular, the logic that he sets against J Krishnamurti makes sense. However I find myself rejecting the man, because he is not able to offer me anything useful. If I would be a person similar to himself, perhaps this would be different. I mean his message serves as an antedode who approach spiritual teachers with a greed for nothing less than the ultimate experience. But the teachers who I have approached in life were able to give something from first exposure to their teachings. They already made me feel a little better right from the beginning. In the case of Swami Vishnu, this was a healthier approach to life. In the case of J Krishnamurti, it was the understanding of the need to decondition myself and accept diversity in a humble way, in the case of Thich Nhat Hanh, it was the value of mindfulness, and a vision of a spirituality that touched everything in the now, without waiting for some distant goal. I feel fortunate for having encountered my teachers, rather than cheated by any of them. Still, I think that the best way to learn from our teachers is to implement their teachings in our lives, rather than place ourselves in the teacher’s permanent custody.

Maybe the test of a teacher, for the common man, is whether his influence upon our lives appears to be good from the very beginning.

One interesting but often unspoken thing is the way in which teachers suit their messages to the times, reflecting the knowledge that is available in the real world. Thus Sivananda’s message does not seem as timely and relevant today, and this is true of Krishnamurti, Swami Vishnu, and most other teachers whose teachings came a little earlier than today. Perhaps somehow the prophets of earlier periods managed to speak in such a way that their messages carried across the centuries. But it is the job of most teachers to fill out the details, and one is aware when their ideas and insructions do not suit the wisdom that continues to accumulate in the world.

Maybe there isn’t a direct link between the cosmology and practice. Directly trying to connect these may not be the most efficient way to express a spiritual vision of the universe. But I started this discussion with the question of how to tap into the flow of energy that overcomes physical disabilities and limitations. The question is not of eliminating such disabilities but making sure that they do not conquer the spirit. According to some teachers, physical disabilities may even be an expression of mental or spiritual weaknesses, and we certainly see a correlation between one’s mental and spiritual state and one’s degree of immunity to disease, and one’s ability to surmount disease.

As mentioned, what does not appeal to me is development of will power, as something individuated from the cosmic. I would rather draw from the cosmic, align myself with it, and in the terms of Indian spirituality this is known as bhakti. Bhakti is usually towards ishwara, or God with attributes. There is also bhakti towards the cosmic without attributes, though this is conceived of as more difficult. It can also easily take on an intellectual veneer. I wonder if I can find in India a school that practices bhakti towards the absolute without attributes, with which I can feel comfortable? or maybe I should look elsewhere? In Buddhism, the Buddhism of Thich Nhat Hanh, there is the concept of interbeing, of non-separation, the idea that all beings are related to each other in their essence. This isn’t a theism, but an ecological view of the universe. A view that things do not have a separate existence. In Buddhism, and other spiritual perspectives, without theism, the field of interest is shifted away from the egoistic context to awareness of the whole. Rather than a judgmental and critical view of the world, there is direct awareness, which includes within its vision also the interrelation of all things.

The above worldview is not one of bhakti, exactly, but of appreciation. It is not the worship of the God-spirit in all things, but mindfulness of the interdependence of all things. No thing can exist independantly, but requires the presence of other things for its existence. Not only does the divine essence exist in all things, it also binds them together.

The urge is to ask how can I link myself to this energy, join this union, and usually I think we attempt that by joining some spiritual movement or sangha – but these are only surrogates. Joining oneself to the divine essence, or rather reaffirming the existing connection, is probably not something that offers security, a membership card, the sense of belonging to an elite group. However, if one truly succeeds, a feeling of fellowship, dissolving individual ego, should follow from it.

You are because I am

I am because you are

We are linked

Because of your poverty

I am rich

Because of your weakness

I am strong

Because of your crookedness

I am straight

Because of my health

You are diseased

And sometimes the tables are turned

Weakness and strength are two positions on the same dial.

We are all brothers, brother.