jai guru dev

ok so i'm back in action after 2 weeks of breathing, yoga, meditation, chaos and silence at the art of living ashram near bangalore... yes FROM CHAOS TO BLISS is the mantra here. there were 12, 000 people who descended on this ashram and then 2 million people at the silver jubilee celebrations at the very dusty jakkur airfield. and get this, there were 20, 000 indians who came from ALL over to volunteer for the 3 days of art of living celebrations. i thought santropol roulant had lots of volunteers. this was just a whole other scale!

it was mayhem, but everything worked out and it was an extraordinary experience. world spiritual, political leaders and famous indian artists and singers shared the stage (for the first time! there was an orchestra of 13,000 indian musicians on stage). speakers included presidents, ministers of health, the UN envoy for refugees, heads of state from mongolia, denmark, croatia, argentina, south africa... over 50 countries) ... really, i've never seen anything like this.

i feel great right now, after all this breathing and singing (satsang every night!). very clear. and ready to keep up all this pranayam (breathing) so i can feel this way all the time. now that 98% of the people are gone from here to delhi for mahashivratri, another auspicous spiritual occasion, there is calm and quiet here on the ashram.

i have made the best of the ayurveda treatments here! i had my pulses taken by an ayurvedic doctor and it turns out i am a pitta constitution - means fire - so there are certain foods not to eat, and in fact a raw diet is good for the system. i also had a abhyanga hot oil massage (yes, and it is 35 degrees outside!). and is was AWESOME, so was the hot shower afterwards. what a feeling! and have had the facial marma and body marma - these are pressure points on the body, as well as the famous shirodhara where the scalp and head receive a gentle massage by way of a steady stream of hot, delicious oil. "relax! be in the experience!"

i took 2 advanced breathing and meditation courses, the first had 5000 people in it! they had to build a new space (a tent) for it. when i took the advanced course in montreal, there were 40 people and it seemed like a lot. but that is canada, this was the world! LITERALLY! there were translators working overtime all the time. in the second course, there were a mere 1000 people; it felt very intimate actually and we used the mahalakshmi mandap meditation hall (in the form of a 5 storey-1000 petaled lotus; it is a stunning building). so we went into silence for 3 days! i really really loved the silence. and the meditations were intense. i found that my body and mind both started to shift - and become less busy. i could actually sit comfortably for them for most of the time. so the stiffness in my hips and back and legs are slowly dissolving.

one world family
so i am ready to move, once again. i go to bangalore tomorrow, then to pondicherry to the vegan-eco-forest retreat and will meet up with my nasik family once again - nitin, anita and sakhi - to participate in meetings about alternative education and much more. then i head to thailand and malaysia to meet up with jimmy to travel and be in nature together. i am looking forward to being with a good friend (besides myself, of course). after this incredible international experience and this silence, i am wanting to connect and converse, and be quiet, with a close friend.

i realize i was with quite a unique family here at the ashram with people from all over the world at the same time as my blood family celebrated harriet and mark's wedding on the other side of the world, in vancouver. but i feel i was part of all it; that i haven't "missed" anything, that i was everywhere and nowhere, but the feeling of love and connection was inimitably present.

jai guru dev!

paces and places

this part of goa is tourism gone wild. there are some parts of the beach that are SO crowded it is unbelievable. in fact, last night, i took the beach route to town to do my fruit and veg shopping (rather than along the main road! what a discovery!). there was such a mass of people at one point that i thought there must be a concert or protest ahead. but no, it was the main opening to the calangute beach. it was predominantly indian families and boys standing around, or swimming en famille fully clothed in their salwar kameezes, while the foreigners line the beach on "sunbaths", long-chairs squeezed side by side ~ with rather large and pink people on them.

there was one group of teenagers with a frisbee, and i thought "o my god they are playing ultimate frisbee!" well, not exactly. it was more like ultimate rugby; the frisbee never took flight, only the guy holding it did. his friends made a human wall, and with a gleeful yelp he ran around the side of them all the way down to some imaginary but agreed upon line, and EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM went zooming after him in a hailstorm of sand. this is not how we use frisbees back home. i couldn't help but laugh because they were have a ridiculous amount of fun making up a game.

a new chapter begins on monday, as i leave for bangalore and stay at the art of living ashram for two weeks. first nasik staying with nitin and anita and sakhi in their home, then mumbai staying at a five star hotel and then on my own for the first time since arriving at a guest house, then goa in an apartment generously lent to me by a friend's family, then bangalore at an ashram~

the places and paces have all been so different.
and each one seems to be the right thing at the right time.

it's a family affair

atheethee devo bhava

the guest as god, and the guest is family ~
nitin and anita and sakhi opened their home to me in such an open, generous and unabashed way that i felt honoured and at the same time, simply part of the family. the routine of everyday life, the ups and down, fun and conversations, eating, sitting together, excursions, errands.... when i thanked anita for taking care of me when i was sick, nitin asked "would you thank your parents?" and i said yes, because i would want them to know i appreciated them, but i understood what he meant.

no guest ever goes hungry ~
my mother used to tell me about growing up in montreal during the war years and always having a place setting for an unknown guest. it was a time when men from the east coast, nova scotia and new brunswick, faced such unemployment and poverty that they walked and walked across the country to find work. sometimes they would pass my mother's girlhood home and see the door open and a place already set at the table. they would be welcomed, fed, nourished and then continue on.

in india this is a constant state; there is always food ready for the potential guest. and they come. just like that, unannounced and warlmly welcomed. like the midnight call and 5 am arrival of a colleague of nitin and anita's who came off a bus, slept for a few hours, was fed a delicious hot meal of puri and bahji, and then off he went.

hopitality as spiritual practice ~
i asked nitin how he saw hospitality.
he answered that when you invite someone into your home this way you are a host, as your role is to ensure hospitatlity, it is to take care of someone, and ensure their sense of belonging. as a host, you move into a different plane as a person. this role invites you not to think of yourself or your interests, but rather to make a community. in your home, with your guest.

experience me as i am; i am inviting you to see me, to see my life as it is, my relationships as they are, as they evolve. these are the raw materials of my life.

to offer hospitality is to have the courage to show one's vulnerabilities and to have the other accept them. this, so that our relationship moves ahead, deepens, and opens. this is growth; a mutual movement towards, and a reciprocity of learning, sharing, accepting each other as we are.

you are a mirror to my growth.

this letting go, opening up, vulnerability and non-judgement is spiritual, and to practice it with others is to create community. a true communing with one another.

hospitality service has become associated with a commercial transaction, part of a market economy.

hospitality as service bring us back home.