In Choj Village

Arriving at a new place is always a bit strange. It takes some getting used to the fact that friends have been left behind with the promise to come back. I am staying at a guesthouse on top of a village in Parvathy valley. The place is called Choj village and it’s across the river around one hour walk from Kasoul as we like to call it around here. Alas, I can’t really feel the flow yet. I mean, I don’t really know what I am doing here. Maybe all this is more than a bit strange. But then again, given that i have just arrived this afternoon, who wonders?!

Revisiting the past weeks, I think of my friends in Vashisht. Vashisht struck me as a wonderful place, a paradise for trekking lovers like me. And because i found family there. They were hospitable and provided food for me several times free of charge. I helped them out here and there. We went to the hot spring together and decorated the restaurant they planned to open ‘any day now’.

Right now I am staying at a homely place. I share a small room with two other travelers. The room is as big as the room I shared with my bro when I was a kid. A thin mattress and a carpet-like blanket to cover up when I take rest. I can hear repetitive music through the walls.

I look outside – it’s drizzle weather. It’s fresh. I find myself in the middle of nowhere here, really. At the foot of a mountain range. If i wanna use the bathroom I have to get out of the room, walk down the steps, out of the house, go around two corners and have my feet already soaked when I get there. When I am finished, I wash my hands. Power cut. Pitch black. I mean, absolute absence of light. Hmmm… I think about joining the group to the jungle to gaze at the stars… ahhh, no, it’s raining. I can’t see my hand in front of my eyes, and BOM BHOLENATH I have got my cellphone with me. Take it and turn on the torchlight. Walk back to the dorm where four mattresses are lined up like they are in barracks – on the floor, with around 9 cun (the width of three hands) in between. And a carpet as ‘blanket’. Yeah, i know i said that already. Living with the bare necessities, there we go…

Transitions

Tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis.

Times are changed; we, too, are changed within them.

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Meeting different people from all walks of life & listening to their stories reminds me that the content of their narrative is often not as important as what it awakens in me, how their storytelling affects me, impacts me, touches me. If travelling is about making me grow as a human being and develop a healthy sense of self (before i can let go of that illusion) i need to get in touch with my own experience while i am listening. Do envy them? Do i try to visit the same “must-see” places as they went to? Why? Because they say i’d have to – because “it was the(ir) best experience ever”… ? Do i feel like i missed out? So many fellow travellers tell me about their adventures. The infamously famous bucket list gets longer and longer. Enough for three lifetimes, it is.

I have heard and told many stories by now. Many times, part of the excitement derives from exaggerating the good times and neglecting or downplaying the not-so-good times. When it comes to travelling, the stance of a person can provide insight into how sHe lives one’s life. An example. Before i came to help out at the farm in Karnal i attended a vipassana meditation retreat. What this is like, i have written before, here, here, and here.

This time I was serving at a course, i.e. helping out with different tasks to keep the course run smoothly. Throughout the course there were hints that life is really about transitions and how we handle them. Changing pace is essential, and it certainly helps to get a feel of where you stand and what you are doing at the moment. This morning, for instance, it became clear that there is a switch between sleep mode and wake mode, i.e. a clear distinction when the body switches and the senses “switch on” to function at their full capacity. Eyesight clears up, the ears open up, the skin feels different, and movements become more coordinated. We are usually busying ourselves with “I” thoughts as soon as this mind state kicks in: “I have to get there, have to do that today, will meet X later, have to take care of lunch…” Et cetera. Those are all useful thoughts, but nothing else; you intend to keep on living an entire lifetime limited to utilitarian mode, to carry out a life sentence restricted to obeying ego’s commands? C’mon.

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Awareness of transitions is essential for being able to deal with change: falling asleep, waking up, moving to a new place, going from city to countryside or vice versa… And, yeah, of course, living and dying. This includes the death of ideas – ideas we harbor about ourselves, ideas about other people, and ideas about the world as it is and as we believe it should be.

As a matter of fact, we have to come to terms with change. It is life. Just as Baruch Spinoza’s dictum “Deus sive Natura” (God or Nature) presented a worldview in which nature as an active principle (natura naturans) can be equated with God as a free principle, i propose we can say “Vita sive Mutatio” in the sense that Life equates Change. To remain equanimous in difficult circumstances is paramount. On Day 8, Goenkaji shared with the meditators:

It is easy enough to be pleasant

When the life flows along

Like a sweet song.

But a man worthwhile

Is a man with a smile

When everything goes dead wrong.

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One thing gets very clear through the practice of Vipassana: how futile and useless it is to relive the past (and form an identity around it) and how much is missed of the present moment because of that habit to think back and imagine some situation that has long passed.

To establish myself firmly in the present is the best remedy for this dis-ease of mind that has become so used to jumping back & forth in time, in the self-created prison of time. May all learn how to be present every moment!

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When a loved one dies…

… reality strikes and vanquishes ideas