Dharamsala Journal — Lost Gurus and Girlfriends

A Precious Human Life

Every day, think as you wake up
Today I am fortunate to have woken up.
I am alive, I have a precious human life.
I am not going to waste it.
I am going to use all my energies to develop myself,
To expand my heart out to others,
To achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all beings.
I am going to have kind thoughts towards others.
I am not going to get angry, Or think badly about others.
I am going to benefit others as much as I can.

— His Holiness the XIVth Dalai Lama

June 7, 2004
Dharamsala

Hello All,

I'm gazing up at two snow-laden Himalayan mountain tops rising above the green hills of the Kangra Valley from the window of a particularly well-placed internet cafe here in Dharamsala. Yep, I'm still here, having stayed in Dharamsala/McLeod Ganj a bit longer than I'd planned. Today I'm leaving Dharamsala for the second and presumably last time on this trip. I've done some great yoga training here, reestablished my meditation practice, further explored working with Reiki, taken a Tibetan massage course, gone on some wonderful walks on forested paths gazing up into the mountains and breathing the clean air, and enjoyed meeting many travelers from around the world with interesting tales to tell of their lives and wanderings. The energy of this place is amazing, and the gentle spiritual grace of the Tibetan people is inspiring and poignantly humbling as they keep the flame of hope for their culture burning.

View while writing this email journal entry from an internet cafe in McLeod Ganj on the day of leaving Dharamsala

I'd planned to aim myself southwards this week, take care of some business regarding my airplane ticket in Delhi, then go to Varanasi on the way to Chennai, where I'll be doing more yoga study. Then a few days ago I discovered that the Dalai Lama is going to give public teachings for three days in a place called Spiti, a region higher up in northern India reachable via 20 hours' journey by bus. So I've decided to extend my time in the north by a week or so. They say India has a way of changing your plans, and I've found that's happening for me. Things have certainly unfolded a bit differently than I thought they would during my first 5 weeks in India.

Cafe along the trail above McLeod Ganj

Apologies for the length of this travelogue-journal which follows as it relates to a personal relationship; were it not so interwoven with my experience of being here in India, I would have omitted the story from my public account of my travels. But for continuity's sake I feel it's necessary to sketch the events of the last two weeks, and I think D.'s experience is very relevant to why people come to India--therefore I've included it here.

Some of you may recall that in my last email I was having a bit of a struggle dealing with my girlfriend D.'s decision to go back to Agra and study with a "guru" she'd met, instead of meeting me in Dharamsala on May 12 to spend three weeks traveling together as we'd originally planned. We'd had an off-and-on relationship throughout this year, and I thought that the last three weeks in May was to be the time we could finally focus on each other and determine if it was worth continuing as a couple.

Monkeys along the forested road to Dharamkot, a small village just above McLeod Ganj

A few days after the last email I sent y'all, when it appeared we would not be getting together at all on this trip, I heard from D. again; seemed that after almost going to the Himalayas with the guru and a group of his devotees something had changed her feeling about staying with them and she'd decided to leave the scene. I called her at the Holiday Inn in Agra (yes, India has Holiday Inns!) and she said she'd tell me what had happened, but not over the phone, and that she wanted to meet me in Delhi.

Prayer wheels along the path circling the Tsuglagkhang complex

By this time I'd started to develop more of a focus for my time in India around my yoga studies; I was taking ashtanga yoga classes with a good Indian teacher and enrolled in a week-long course in an Iyengar yoga school taught by a six-year student of B.K.S. Iyengarin McLeod Ganj. So when I talked to her on the phone on Saturday I asked D. if she'd come up to McLeod-Ganj and spend some time with me here so I could do my yoga stuff too but she didn't want to do that; she said that if I wanted to stay I should, but she was uncomfortable meeting me in a place where I'd already developed friendships with other travelers, and she'd already been here anyway. We discussed how our energies in the relationship didn't seem to be harmonizing, and there was a sadness that whatever hopes we'd had for restarting a new positive phase of our relationship had been badly damaged by the way it had gone for us during the month in India. We were perhaps one sentence away from hanging up the phone on each other with bad feeling; I felt a wave of sadness sweep over me that someone who'd been an important part of my life for awhile was slipping away, and offered to come to Delhi and meet her for a few days to talk things over, to which she agreed.

The road passing the gated entrance to the Tibetan government's headquarters in exile

The next morning, Sunday, the Dalai Lama left Dharamsala for Europe. As I mentioned last time I'd planned to see him leave, and I went down to stand in front of his official residence to see him off at 7:30am. I enjoyed being among the crowd of Tibetans who waited faithfully for his car to drive up the road; a monk standing next to me kept humming "Ommm" softly to himself, and some chanted "Om mani padme hum" (it is said that all the teachings of the Buddha are contained in this mantra, which does not translate very directly into English); many were beautiful older Tibetans, with a lifetime of deep folds and creases lining their gentle faces. Together we waited for His Holiness to drive by. And waited. Finally at 8:30 we saw many people walking up the road and the word spread that his departure time had changed to 10am. So I left to have breakfast with an interesting yoga teacher named Libusa, Croatian-born and living in Switzerland who I'd met while standing there; we came back at 10 but HH had already gone--seems his security staff was deliberately giving everyone the change-up to get him on his way to the airport as quietly as possible. What with the Dalai Lama's unpopularity with the Chinese government I guess that's understandable. Libusa and I then made the ritual walk along the forested path which circles the Tsuglagkhang, the Dalai Lama's complex, buying a mani stone inscribed in Sanskrit with Om Mani Padme Hum to place there.

New friend Libusa sitting among the mani stones

On Monday I left for Delhi, taking the overnight bus, a 13 hour ride. I sat next to a Kashmiri gem merchant on the way down, a nice guy who chatted with me through the course of the ride, and when we got off the bus Tuesday morning he was kind enough to negotiate with my auto rickshaw driver in Hindi in order to prevent him from overcharging me (which he tried to do anyway). The bus unloaded everyone in a neighborhood called Majnu Tilla where many Tibetans in Delhi live, and after a long auto rickshaw ride through a good part of the city of Delhi I arrived at the Amar Colony neighborhood to meet D. at the home of an Indian family she's become friends (the Singhs own several delis in Manhattan, including one in D.'s neighborhood on the Upper West Side). We had breakfast and enjoyed the hospitality of the gracious Indian family; it was nice and interesting to be experiencing a window into Indian home life. Later that morning D. and I left for a guesthouse she'd reserved and thus began a real long, emotional, very personal day together.

Khan Market in New Delhi

She shared with me her experience with the astrologer-guru. The guy is a U.S.-educated Indian man, a very intelligent, gifted astrologer and homeopathic practitioner who is also retranslating the Mahabharata (one of the great spiritual literary epics in Indian literature) with the aim of revealing its prejudicial support of the Brahmin caste in Indian society. D. had been referred to him by one of her close friends, an Italian filmmaker with whom she'd worked on a documentary of the Kumbh Mela in Allahabad in 2001 together. She stayed at his large, unairconditioned house in Agra for over a week with a group of devotees while he gave discourses for much of the day (it was so hot the temperature got up to 109 degrees in the house at one point); she said much of the material was fascinating and felt she'd learned a lot from him. However, after several days had passed while staying with this group she realized that his devotees had a zealously worshipful relationship with him, and in fact the female devotees considered themselves his wives; the devotees regarded him as an avatar, an incarnation of God; the astrologer-guru apparently was fine with this arrangement. When this finally became apparent to her D. became uncomfortable and decided it was best for her to leave before she got herself involved beyond a point where she could extricate herself from the situation, and fortunately she was allowed to leave, although apparently she encountered some resistance from the group at first when she communicated her desire to go.

Narrow street in Old Delhi

Three modern-day Indian spiritual masters who changed the lives of those aspirants who were lucky enough to encounter them (from left): Neem Karoli Baba ("Maharaj-ji", guru to Ram Das and many others; Swami Muktananda, founder of the Siddha Yoga lineage; and Ramana Maharshi, perhaps the greatest Indian saint, whose Self-Inquiry method of asking "who am I?" has shifted the consciousness of countless seekers."

I have a huge amount of respect for D. to have the courage to explore an opportunity for spiritual learning and a potential darshan with a guru (darshan is being in the presence of a guru or saint). There is a great tradition here in India of realized, enlightened masters--many of us in the states have perhaps heard of Paramahansa Yogananda (he wrote Autobiography of a Yogi), Neem Karoli Baba (he taught many influential '60s counterculture revolutionaries including Ram Dass of Be Here Now fame), Ramakrishna (the acclaimed saint from late 19th century Calcutta), of course the Maharishi (who popularized Transcendental Meditation), Ramana Maharshi (whose method of meditative self-inquiry, in which asking "who am I?" led himself and others to God consciousness)--there are far too many more for me to list. The point is, some people do meet enlightened ones here, and when that happens it can be an incredible, uplifting, transformative and life-changing experience. It's true that there are more than a few sham gurus in India these days, but there are also people who have attained a high state of self-realization in this land where there is such a history of valuing the spiritual path. It's just possible that one's travels in India could lead to an encounter with the genuine article, and only if one had the courage to go check out a guru for oneself would you ever have a chance for a transcendent experience. I know it was difficult and disappointing for D. that she didn't have the experience that she'd hoped for, and even somewhat scary when she realized the cultishness of the group she'd discovered. But if she hadn't checked it out she'd never have known if she'd passed on a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

Lodi Garden in Central Delhi, with tombs of 16th century Muslim rulers of India

It also brings up a question I've long been fascinated with: who, or where, is the real guru? Some believe that the ultimate function of a legitimate guru is to point one towards "the guru within." And even as I've spent quite a bit of time checking out yoga and Buddhist spiritual teachers the last few years in New York, I tend to feel that ultimately one has to "get it" oneself (which is not exactly the way the guru lineage and transmission system works). Anyway, D.'s adventure has led me to ponder what I myself seek in terms of spiritual experience and teaching, and the relative value of looking without or within for answers to the burning questions of our existence.

Arches leading into two-tiered courtyard built in Muslim style of architecture

And so, after listening to her fascinating account of what had happened in Agra, we got around to dealing with where our relationship was at. We came to the conclusion, after a lot of heartfelt emotion, that this thing between us wasn't working very well as a romance, and we were better off letting that go and honoring our connection with each other as friends. D. decided she wanted to go back to New York now instead of staying another couple of weeks in India, and so that afternoon we went to the American Airlines office in New Delhi, located in the circular district at the center of the city called Connaught Place,. The only flight available within the next few days was that evening, and so she changed her ticket to fly out at on the 2am flight. Then we had to go back to the Singh family's house in Amar Colony to get her other bags, where we were served dinner at around 10 pm and received bracelets of red thread tied to our wrists, Hindu protection and blessing cords (I'll be wearing mine for the remainder of my India journey). Then a long taxi ride to the Delhi airport, while we composed ourselves and accepted the reality of our parting; I finally said goodbye to her at the airport after midnight.

Street scene with bicycle rickshaw in Old Delhi

Early Wednesday morning I took a bicycle rickshaw back to Connaught Place, where I bought a bus ticket for Dharamsala (touts at Connaught Place tried to take me to travel agent buddies of theirs who were charging 650 rupees for the ticket; I finally went to a travel agent at the YMCA recommended in Lonely Planet, and I got a ticket for 550 rupees, which it turns out was 150-200 rupees more than most people on the bus paid for their tickets--it seems like the business of fleecing tourists in India is something you have to live with). I called the Iyengar yoga school in McLeod Ganj whose program I had wanted to take and they said there was still a spot open for the class which started Thursday (usually you have to preregister on Monday to get in and it fills up); they said they'd hold a spot for me. Then back to the guesthouse, where I rested a little before check-out at noon; they kindly permitted me to leave my bags there for the afternoon. I went back to Connaught Place still once more and whiled away a few hours during the afternoon, changed some travelers checks for rupees, found a book I'd been looking for, Living with the Himalayan Masters by Swami Rama (so now I have still one MORE book to carry around!), whiled away some time in Star Beans, the Indian version of Starbucks.

Before I left for the bus I had a real nice chat with Kailash, the guest house manager; we were talking about relationships, and he told me how he had learned the importance of forgiveness and patience, and that one can't expect anyone to be perfect when one is in a life partnership with them. He told me a story about how as an eleven-year old in Calcutta he'd gotten into a fight at school with a friend who'd slapped him first and was severely punished for 15 days at his Indian school (he had to stand on one leg in the hot sun all day and was beaten with a stick whenever he put the leg down); but he went to his friend everyday afterwards with flowers and sweets asking for forgiveness, and eventually returned to being close friends again. I felt like here I was getting an important lesson on living from this humble smiling Indian man.

The bus pickup point was on the side of the road in the same Delhi neighborhood as the guesthouse. Turned out the bus was really late, and I spent 3 hours watching Delhi human and motor traffic pass before me along with the other unfortunate ticket holders for that bus. An employee for the bus line was there with us, and periodically someone would go up to him and ask him where the bus was; invariably he said "coming in 15 minutes," which he repeated for the last two hours of our wait. I did have an interesting chat with a local Indian guy who was sitting outside of a shop near the bus stop where I bought some samosas and Indian sweets; he kept telling me how difficult it was for Indian people to get visas to the United States.

Finally the bus arrived; turns out my "deluxe" seat was in the back of the bus, where the reclining seats had been removed for a couple of boards with foam padding, which I shared with a Canadian couple and a Tibetan man heading to Dharamsala. What with the bench-like seat and the bus's shock absorbers being well past their prime it was quite a bumpy ride. Still we went through some interesting neighborhoods in Delhi which I observed out the window and I had some nice chats with my bench mates in back; at the dinner stop, which was basically a roadside stand with food stalls and tented tables, I shared an Indian thali meal with some of the young Israeli travelers on the bus; I'm finding that so many people I've met traveling have a strong interest in yoga, which serves as a great conversation-starter.

Vijay, the ashtanga yoga teacher I took classes with in Dharamsala

The bus arrived in McLeod Ganj around 8 am, which was pretty good since we'd left so late. I managed to secure a room and make it to the 4 hour Iyengar yoga class I'd wanted to take by 9:30 am. I was a little tired and stiff from getting beaten up by that bus back seat, but the class was worthwhile and by being able to take it that Thursday I was able to basically pretty much stayed on the schedule I wanted to be on, even though I went to Delhi to see D.

Dhondup, the Tibetan massage master whose class I attended, his gracious wife and their one year old daughter Tenzin

So now it's my last day in Dharamsala. There are so many more impressions I could share of being here: the peaceful walk from the hotel early each morning through the streets of McLeod Ganj, looking up at the green forested hills, enjoying the soft pink and blue pastels of the morning sky on my way to the chai stand by the bus stop; all the colorful, vibrant people I've met, more than I can have space to mention here: Dhondup, the Tibetan massage master whose class I attended, whose gracious wife and one year old daughter Tenzin were a delight to be around; Henri, a 50 year old man from France, who says that of all the places he's traveled, no place gives him the feeling he gets from coming back to India ("one of things I love about India is that here the cows and dogs are free; they may have a hard life, but they have a good life"); Couimhe, from Ireland, who told me a bit about the Gaelic traditions; Nadine from Australia, returning to resume her life as an environmental engineer; Suzy, a pharmacist from Miami via Brazil; Josh and Dori, from Toronto, whose six months of traveling the world is their honeymoon; Julia, a school teacher from Vancouver who's coming to India from a year and a half spent in Japan; Moishe from Israel, whose 15 year old son will soon be joining him to travel for six weeks in India; Stacy, a yoga friend from Chicago, on her way to Tucson; Ken and Gosia, an American and his Polish wife who live in Poland and traveled on an Enfield motorcyle through much of India; Katje, a psychologist and dancer with whom I went yesterday to attend a dharma talk by the Karmapa Lama at Gyuto Tantric University in Sidhbari, a nearby town (the Karmapa Lama is the spiritual leader of one of the four major schools of Tibetan Buddhism, the Kagyu tradition). And I know I've left out other great people who I've had the pleasure of sharing some time with. (There is one annoyance I won't miss too, the motor traffic which traverses the narrow streets during the day, stridently honking and forcing pedestrians to get out of their way--I can't seem to get used to the Indian system of right-of-way in these small towns!).

That's it for now; I have to go back to my hotel room now and somehow squeeze everything into my pack for the next leg of this journey. I salute you if you actually read all the way through this one! I hope everyone is well and enjoying the summer as it unfolds, wherever you are.

Peace,
Sol