Namaste Nepal

Well I'm finishing up my visit in Nepal and looking forward to my next adventure in India. I've been reading one of the best books I've read in a long time too, a fair contender for a position in my top five as a matter of fact. A nice blend of corruption and the philosophical contemplation of existence and how to objectively determine a measure of good and evil. The perfect in preparation for Delhi: "Shantaram". Below I've included some of the best one liners, although the book is full of them, and some excerpts that moved me. I hope you enjoy as much as I have:) Before I get to that though, I have two short stories of my own and my New Year's Choices to share with you first. The first story is about a guy I met who is working for U.S. Aide in Nepal and the second is about how I was compared to a monk...I know, I was as surprised as you are:)

Without Words
I've always been clear about what my nirvana would be like- it was the happy place I allowed my mind to slip into to indulge myself on occasion. Filled with feathers that licked your skin like eyelashes, warm winds as soothing as the gust from your hair dryer on a cold morning, but most of all I would drown in the sounds of my heaven...the laughing of children; the belly laugh of children who haven't learned yet to restrain their emotions. Not until a conversation I had this week did I realize I had never considered what hell would be like. Sharing traveling stories at the dinner table with two kids from U.S. Aid, one told me about his stint in the Peace Corp. He was placed in a village in Senegal (the western most country in Africa) to coordinate with other teachers to revamp the curriculum. It all sounded quite interesting and I asked if he has learned French before he got there. He laughed and said that that wouldn't have really helped since French was only spoken in the larger cities and he was in a village...where the next closest village was miles away; where the closest American was hours away. That actually didn't bother me as much as the fact that there was no one who spoke English at all in the village. Here he was there to help with the curriculum and I could picture him putting his index fingers on either side of his head and making a "moo" sound while gesturing to the meal on the plate. (Don't laugh, I've done it.) He didn't speak their language and they didn't speak his. This is in no way similar to my situation. Yes, I go into foreign countries where I quickly acclimate to the customs and societal ques given to me by the public. I may be in a different setting than I'm used to, but I can usually find someone eventually who can speak English, albeit broken, English nevertheless. He made an interesting point though after my mind was still trying to get around the idea that had been his reality. He said he chose to go there. That had it been something that was imposed upon him, he might have had a very different experience. Simply because of his approach to the situation, his perspective, he enthusiastically embraced his placement in that village was for 2 years.

Reintegration
While speculating upon some of the situations that may potentially cause a bit of culture shock on my part as I attempt to shove the toothpaste back in the tube by one day returning to the U.S., a story was shared with me from a book called "The Client that Changed My Life". The book is a compilation of accounts from therapists about a client that had a significant impact on their life. The one that reminded this person of my situation was about an American woman who had moved to Taiwan and become a monk. She had lived, chanted and immersed herself in the philosophy of Buddhism and after considerable time in the monastery she developed an allergy to one of the staple foods used daily in their meals. She had no choice but to leave and return to the U.S.. After years of living a fairly simple life without wants and with minimal needs, she found herself overwhelmed with Los Angeles and its life style. She began working as a spiritual guide hired by families for patients in the hospice ward of hospitals, helping them prepare to die. She recounted to her therapist taking several buses to get to a particular hospital in where one of her patients was staying. It was common knowledge that the time between buses was minimal- at best, barely making a transfer possible. People run across the busy street to make it to the next bus for transfer. The buddhist philosophy is contingent upon the principle of divine perfection in each moment: there is nothing you need to be, nothing you need to have (aside from the essentials) and nothing to get to. Life unfolds just as it is meant to. It states that the only moment is now and thus, monks don't run. Upon arrival at the terminal she determined that she would join the default race to the next bus like everyone else, because after all she was trying to re-acclimate to the "real world", but instead of running in stride with the rest of the passengers, she broke into a full-bellied laugh at the absurdity of it all. The whole situation and the significance with which people held on to it as the mob ran from one place to another was just too much for her. The person said that having gotten to know me, he could fore see this as the most challenging of situations- seeing the comedy, and the tragedy for that matter, and just allowing it to be.

10 New Year's Choices for 2010
- Learn 5 new things in each country I visit
- Choose a place to settle down and grow up
- Be generous in spirit by allowing others to contribute to me
- Live life like I'm on top of the jungle gym
- Be with it, whatever "it" may be, even when everything in me wants to run
- Say what I feel no matter how bad I think it makes me look
- Create something that will last on Earth longer than I will
- Fall in love passionately and whole heartedly without holding back
- Live in the present thoughtfully
- See the divinity in each moment


Shantaram ...on love
"The clue to everything a man should love and fear in her was there, right from the start, in the ironic smile that primed and swelled the archery of her full lips. There was a pride in that smile, a confidence in the set of her fine nose. Without understanding why, I knew beyond question that a lot of people would mistake her pride for arrogance, and confuse her confidence with impassivity. I didn't make that mistake. My eyes were lost, swimming, floating free in the shimmering lagoon of her steady, even stare. Her eyes were large and spectacularly green. It was the green that trees are, in vivid dreams. It was the green that the sea would be, if the sea were perfect.
"Her hand was still resting in the curve of my arm, near the elbow. The touch was exactly what the touch of a lover's hand should be: familiar, yet exciting as a whispered promise. I felt an almost irresistible urge to take her hand and place it flat against my chest, near my heart. Maybe I should have done it. I know now that she would've laughed, if I'd done it, and she would've liked me for it. But strangers that we were then, we stood for five long seconds and held the stare, while all the parallel worlds, all the parallel lives that might've been, and never would be, whirled around us...I listened as she spoke to them, but I couldn't understand the language. Her voice, in that language and in that conversation, was surprisingly deep and sonorous; the hairs on my arm tingled in response to the sound of it. And I suppose that, too, should've been a warning. The voice, Afghan matchmakers say, is more than half of love.
"She was so relaxed and at home, so much a part of the street and its inscrutable lore. What I found bewildering, all around me, seemed to be mundane for her. I was reminded of the foreigner in the slum-the man I'd seen from the window of the bus. Like him, she seemed calm and content in Bombay. She seemed to belong. I envied her, the warmth and acceptance she drew from those around her.
"But more than that, my eyes were drawn to her perfect loveliness. I looked at her, a stranger, and every other breath strained to force its way from my chest. A clamp like a tightening fist seized my heart. A voice in my blood said yes, yes, yes... The ancient Sanskrit legends speak of destined love, a karmic connection between souls that are fated to meet and collide and enrapture one another. The legends say that the loved one is instantly recognized because she is loved in every gesture, every expression of thought, every movement every sound and every mood that prays in her eyes. The legends say we know her by her wings-the wings that only we can see-and because wanting her kills every other desire of love.
"The same legends also carry warnings that such fated love may, sometimes, be the possession and the obsession of one, and only one, of the two souls twinned by destiny. But wisdom, in one sense, is the opposite of love. Love survives in us precisely because it isn't wise."

"...'Yes. You're a good listener. That's dangerous, because it's so hard to resist. Being listened to--really listened to--is the second-best thing in the world.'
'What's the first best thing?'
'Everybody knows that. The best thing in the world is power.'
'Oh, is it?' I asked, laughing. 'What about sex?'
'No. Apart from the biology, sex is all about power. That's why it's such a rush.'
I laughed again.
'And what about love? A lot of people say that love is the best thing in the world, not power.'
"They're wrong,' she said with terse finality. 'Love is the opposite of power. That's why we fear it so much.'"

"...She loved the guy. She did it for him. She would've done anything for him. Some loves are like that. Most loves are like that, from what I can see. Your heart starts to feel like an overcrowded lifeboat. You throw your pride out to keep it afloat, and your self-respect and your independence. After a while you start throwing people out-- your friends, everyone you used to know. And it's still not enough. The lifeboat is sinking and you know it's going to take you down with it."


Shantarum ...on acceptance of the differences in cultures
"'It's good to know what's wrong with the world,' Karla said after a while. 'But it's just as important to know that sometimes, no matter how wrong it is, you can't change it. A lot of the bad stuff in the world wasn't really that bad until someone tried to change it.'
"'...I went down from my hotel to meet Prabaker [his guide] on the street. But on the stairwell, there were these Indian guys, one after the other, carrying big pots of water on their heads, and climbing the stairs. I had to stand against the wall to let them pass. When I made it to the bottom, I saw this big wooden barrel with iron-rimmed wheels attached to it. It was a kind of water wagon. Another guy was using a bucket, and he was dipping it into the barrel and filling the big carry-pots with water.
'I watched this for ages, and the men made a lot of trips, up and down the stairs. When Prabaker came along, I asked him what they were doing. He told me that was the water for my shower. That the shower came from a tank on the roof, and that these men filled the tank with their pots.'
'Of course.'
'Yeah, you know that, and I know that now, but yesterday was the first I heard of it. In this heat, I've been in the habit of taking three showers a day. I never realized that men had to climb six flights of stairs, to fill a damn tank, so that I could take those showers. I felt horrible about it, you know? I told Prabaker I'd never take another shower in that hotel again. Not ever.'
'What did he say?'
'He said No, no you don't understand. He called it a people-job. It's only because of tourists like me, he explained, that those men have a job. And he told me that each man is supporting a family of his own from his wages. You should have three showers, four showers, even five showers every day, he told me.'
She nodded in agreement.
'Then he told me to watch the men while they got themselves ready to run through the city again, pushing their water wagon. And I think I knew what he meant, what he wanted me to see. They were strong, those guys. They were strong and proud and healthy. They weren't begging or stealing. They were working hard to earn their way, and they were proud of it. When they ran off into the traffic, with their strong muscles, and getting a few sly looks from some of the young Indian girls, I saw that their heads were up and their eyes straight ahead.'

"Now, long years and many journeys after that first ride on a crowded rural train, I know that the scrambled fighting and courteous deference were both expressions of the one philosophy: the doctrine of necessity. The amount of force and violence necessary to board the train, for example, was no less and no more than the amount of politeness and consideration necessary to ensure that the cramped journey was as pleasant as possible afterwards. What is necessary? That was the unspoken but implied and unavoidable question everywhere in India. When I understood that, a great many of the characteristically perplexing aspects of public life became comprehensible: from the acceptance of sprawling slums by city authorities, to the freedom that cows had to roam at random in the midst of traffic; from the toleration of beggars on the streets, to the concatenate complexity of the bureaucracies; and from the gorgeous, unashamed escapism of Bollywood movies, to the accommodation of hundreds of thousands of refugees from Tibet, Iran, Afghanistan, Africa and Bangladesh, in a country that was already too crowded with sorrows and needs of its own."

"As I walked along the narrow rag-and-plastic lanes of the slum, word spread that the foreigner was on his way. A large crowd of children gathered and pooled around Prabaker and me, close to us but never touching. Their eyes were wide with surprise and excitement. They burst into fierce gusts of nervous laughter, shouted to one another, and leapt into jerky, spontaneous dances as we approached.
"People came out of their huts to stand in every doorway. Dozens, and eventually hundreds, of people crowded into the side-lanes and the occasional gaps between houses. They were all staring at me with such gravity, such a fixity of frowning intensity, that I felt sure they must bear me enormous ill-will. I was wrong, of course. I couldn't know then, on my first day, that the people were simply staring at my fear. They were trying to understand what demons haunted my mind, causing me to dread so terribly the place they knew to be a sanctuary from fates far worse than slum life."

Shantaram...tidbits
"Truth is a bully we all pretend to like."
"It's a fact of life on the run that you often love more people than you trust. For most people in the safe world, of course, the opposite is true."
"As the minutes passed, I reflected on that particularly Indian custom of amiable abduction."
"We have a saying in Persian- Sometimes the lion must roar, just to remind the horse of his fear."
"The burden of happiness can only be relieved by the balm of suffering."
"I think there are two points about suffering that we should remember, and they have to do with pleasure and pain. The first is this: that pain and suffering are connected, but they are not the same thing. Pain can exist without suffering, and it is also possible to suffer without feeling pain...The difference between them is this, I think: that what we learn from pain-for example, that fire burns and is dangerous- is always individual, for ourselves alone, but what we learn from suffering is what unites us as one human people. If we do not suffer with our pain, then we have not learned about anything but ourselves. Pain without suffering is like victory without struggle. We do not learn from it what makes us stronger or better or closer to God."
"Every virtuous act has some dark secret in its heart...and every risk we take contains a mystery that can't be solved."
"Cruel laughter is the way cowards cry when they're not alone, and causing pain is how they grieve."
"You can never tell what people have inside them until you start taking it away, one hope at a time."
"I love him because he has the task, where other men do not even have the dream, of changing the whole world."