Reflections On A Retreat in Ladakh

I returned on Sept 1, after 11 months of retreat in Ladakh. I was mostly silent and alone during this period. This was hand written on 29/8/2017:

My period of retreat is coming to an end in Ladakh. I sit in the cold of the early morning light looking at the magnificent Stok range, blue and gold with still a little on the icy caps, in sharp focus, and spreading across the horizon. The Indus valley in foreground is dry, barren and dusty brown with splotches of village greens. I sit amidst such dense greens of poplars and willows, dancing to the slightest breeze, and I reflect, on days, weeks, months flown by - most of it already in haze, some lit up like crystal moments, bright and illuminated like gems, in my treasury of memories.

I realise now that I am a collector, of all things bright and beautiful. This is neither a conscious decision, nor a deliberate choice - only a recent recognition. It allows me to face the ahead with an eager anticipation for discoveries yet to be made, moments yet to be captured and savoured. I therefore gaze in attention, and sharp focus, that precious details not escape my Now, the Present. My time in Ladakh has harvested a small bounty that will colour my days and flavour my experiences with who I have now become.

I wandered the bustling market places, alive, boisterous, spilling - with produce from the land - fertile, green and abundantly bountiful in the brief of transparent summer days. Land and soil, rich and fertile from generations of tilling, turning, seeding, harvesting and returning it all - back to the soil - in balance and harmony between man and his natural world. Apricots, milk, greens in all shades, crisp and fresh off the earth. Also, there are jewellers with turquoise and corals, gold and silver; carpenters, ironsmiths, tailors making Gonchas of thick wool and brass buttons, dyers with dye vats in shades of deep maroons and finally Kashmiris - with their beautiful faces and alluring invitation to just step inside " to Look - not Buy"- into shops fragrant with saffron and spice, finest Pashminas, silk carpets fit for royalty, old silver and gemstones unearthed from lost worlds and always stories. One knows that to pause, is to be lost, and yet, one halts outside, entranced, and beguiled, to descend hypnotised to wafts of Kahwa into their mysterious Alladin's caves.

I have wandered amongst many lives, and listened - for each has had a story to tell. And my treasury of stories has grown, feeding and nourishing my life with a connectedness by a common human thread, coloured with dreams, aspirations, a need for loving and to be loved. And I have learnt of their myths - that source spring that connects us to the Divine, that mysterious, unknown, omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient to whom we reach out, by closing our eyes.

I have wandered through seasons amongst hills and valleys on such gigantic scale that one is physically hit with one's insignificance - constantly; where rivers flow serenely turquoise, jade, in winters but become deep, thick earth brown, powerful and swirling-enraged in late summer. I have walked days along shores of mystical lakes that change their colour and hue in an eye blink and under lapis starlit skies that guided my steps. And all this colour, light and immense grandeur is imprinted upon my spirit - to be recalled later - when heart gets parched. The immense cobalt sky has cracked me open and seeped within into a pool that is growing deeper in silence and stillness - for me to carry back - wherever I go, whatever I do.

And finally I have learnt to turn my gaze inwards - face the turbulent dark currents of cares that had me drowned, blocking off all light. I realised that all my answers lie within and I would be led by this inner gaze. Slowly and gently my spirit revived, nurtured in nature by silence and beauty, till I was healed and whole, transparent and light. I was insignificant, yet became indispensable and integral to the cosmic vastness that surrounded me with mystery which opened my days and filled my nights with star songs.

And, I learnt, to let-go; that human caring need not only be a burden, and to walk a solitary path is never in vain. My wavering faith in myself grew strong - like the mountains; and like them I shrugged off accumulated scree till my slopes were cleared - for pristine snows to clad it in silence, for grass to grow, flowers to bloom and streams to meander their laughing course. I am now these mountains - strong, resolute, poised and uplifted; balanced between earth and sky. I am now - me.

Malaysian Blues

Just came back from Malaysia. Had last visited it in 1984. Was a student then. Remember many things:
Gorgeous ornate boats lining the coast at Kota Bharu.
Zipping between rice fields on a scooter and an ornate reclining Buddha.
Our youth and our many excitements - new country, new people, and promise of a new love.
The silk of a chinese jade sea - floating face up - effortlessly.
My first bikini in red batik.
Strange colorful kites, amazing Indian food, many domes of masjids, my first duty free shopping. Bought many chinese silk sarees for family in India.

Went to Malaysia again with my daughter. Headed immediately to Pulau Perhentian Kecil - just off Kota Bharu. Reached by a speed boat - dense jungles framing limpid, dazzling, clear turquoise waters ; could see rocks and corals from above and also large parrot fish. Five days and nights; lots of snorkeling. Shallow turquoise became clear lapis - gold bits floated in and out of colorful reefs, also schools of brilliant fish, sharks, turtles, eels, wall of sword fish - meter long. Water so dense with salt - couldn't dive in - stayed afloat staring at all the wonder within.

I returned - floating and light, stained blue by the sea, and bits of gold in my eyes. 

Swept Away by Solar Winds

For the last seventeen days I have lived, perched on the fiords, two hundred kilometres into the arctic circle, blanketed in twenty hours of darkness and a little dusk. I have chosen to deliberately slow my spinning to a third of my tropical chase and face a numbing cold in this monochromatic world of black and white, dark and light. I am surrounded by white snow clad hills merging into dense. low, soft grey skies. Swatches of barren trees lace the lower slopes in black filigree.  An occasional red cabin dots this vast silence with colour and warmth - and a light burns within. The fiords lap five meters from my door, in jade, prussian blue, olive to navy - depending on the moment. Dashes of pale gold shine and silhouette the dark horizon - our hint of a sun that never rises. This is a strange world.

I am here chasing an old dream - to see the auroras - the colourful lights that light up the arctic skies in winter - raining down in sheets and swirls of dancing light. I remember teaching about this - three decades back - fingering in awe the colour photos in textbooks of basic astronomy.  I know that more is known than is mysterious when charged particles from the solar wind are captured by Earth's magnetosphere and are funnelled to the poles in arrays of mysterious light and awe inspiring beauty. The ancients thought these were their ancestral spirits, dancing.

I saw these lights - in shades of mostly green, with an occasional hint of pink, swirling across the skies in furling-unfurling and sheets of chiffon, dancing to the solar melodies - gliding across swathe of Milky Way, reflecting on water, hills, us. People here say that they can feel the solar wind during periods of high auroral activity. We had several of these, yet I am too much of a novice to recognise the direct breath of the sun from the winds of this earth which surround me.

We stood with our faces to the skies, surrendering to this grace - knowing we have been blessed to be thus awed.

First Impressions from France

We are on our way to Metz, France. At the Charles de Gaulle airport, Paris, we have a four hour layover:
I sit - a speck in a giant and mobile patchwork quilt - of fractured people and voices. Vaccuous silent bands mark inviolable spaces dividing people of different colors, races, language, culture, religion and style; it is a study of high contrasts, and separations, lacking an artist's touch of synthesis to create a vibrating and a living, whole.

It is Sunday. Everything is closed in Metz:
We are on a deserted planet - with wide empty roads, an occasional racing car, bus or an unbearable  rearing motorcycle. We walk closer together, than we have done since our youth, bonded by our strange mooring in this silent, sterile and non-peopled world.

Nature, on the other hand, revels in our enchantment and blooms, many thousand times over. Leaves hint at crimson and gold, swans glide, and a hundred birds take off in chorused flight - just for us.  We are hungry on only chocolate bars, coffee and pastry. Would die to have sambhar-rice. I buy an extravagant potted plant - purple-black Calle lilies now bloom in our tiny and barren studio apartment. I sleep hungry, but with a smile......... 1 Sept 2013........

After a First Week:

The population of Metz is 2 lakh. We have seen people now. Most smile and say "bonjour" without making eye contact. Restaurants and beauty parlors abound - including parlors for kids, and pets. I must say that people are really interesting to look at; everyone is so interested in practicing a personal style - from the ultra sophisticated and refined, to really weird and funky. People do seem to care very much about how they look, to others, and that makes them interesting to watch. Yesterday, we sat eating pizza with a rose wine, at a sidewalk pizzeria and watched people. We might be the only boring ones in this city. Today, I have kohled my eyes jet black and no longer feel a drab sparrow.

One could never successfully have such street side cafes in US, but one could in India.
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I was stopped on two consecutive days by security and asked to open up my bags..I try to not feel bad. Their racial prejudice is part of their job and profiling it requires of them. Yet, I consider that I do not look like a thief or even needy, by most standards. Maybe because I am so thin...? and not because I am brown? Clive used to laugh and say I looked like a famine victim from Africa.

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I enjoy wandering by myself. Have a sense of their land shape, soil color and texture, the unexpected dense copses of trees with dark mystery, the deeply interesting and forgotten cemetery with ancient gravestones, stained glass, ivy and flowers. In a over-organised layout, I search for dirt roads and shortcuts, sniff out abandoned cottage and still blooming poppies in mowed fields. I search under trees for sweet plums warmed by the sun - and pop them into my mouth, unwashed..ambrosia! Pears weigh down heavily and knock my head; orchards are filled with apples that no one wants.
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I am tired of all things complex and human...and "too much mind".  Visited the Pompidou Museum for Contemporary Arts...seems like so much thinking and analyses of all human processes. All the western psycho-analyses seem to be mere fabrications of bored minds - and then others analysing the original analyses, and so on...really, societies with too much time and too little to do - a veritable devils workshop. All this thinking, and still they continue to wage wars on real human beings, based on duplicity, lies and for profit and power. What has all this thinking really taught anyone?

I sit meditating on "No Mind"                      ............9 Sept 2013

Walking up the Elephants Hump and Sleeping on a Lemon Grass Bed

It has been over a decade since I thought I should go climb Savandurga - the kids call it the sleeping elephant. One can view it all along the Magadi road, after Tippugundanahalli - a giant monolithic rock crouched low, with a smaller head of the sleeping elephant. I have taken this route regularly, every couple of months or so, for this last over-a-decade.

Last Monday I went and climbed the rock.

My son and I decided to go and spend a night there, taking the lesser known and used route to the smaller hump. We carried some food, some water, and our sleeping bags up. It was a difficult but an extremely rewarding trek through dry raspy forests, along fort walls, climbing sheer rock faces with grooves - enough barely to hold with toes, on rock and wood bridges, crawling through caves and thorn thickets, mostly leaning low, sometimes on all fours...birds cooed and called through the still silence, seed pods burst with a snap, twirling silver seeds parachuted down in a gentle dance, golden leaves covered the forest floors. Sheer black rock face set off the neon greens while orchids of purple foliage clung to rocks, trees. Blue gray lichen abounded and ferns of many varieties peeked from under nooks and corners..begonias blossomed in startling profusion...I panted, soaking sweat and smiled.

We reached the top, explored tiny rock pools covered in green, sauntered through abandoned stone shelters and scavenged for wood. We carried stones to make a protected fire and rigged a flimsy grill to roast our potatoes. In the evening we lit a fire - roaring, crackling, snapping - and sat - staring. We wanted to sleep under the stars, but we got a flaming sky at sunset and an overcast night. We lay on sloped sides of the rock - no flat surfaces here - with a stiff breeze , that chilled us to the bone, even inside our sleeping bags. Finally at 3 am, we decided to try the stone shelter. It was protected, flat, and had a bed of lemon grass, ready for us in a corner. After checking the cracks and corners for snakes - we lay down a slept.

Jumps across Journeys

My parallel journeys are strange...they take quantum leaps across parallel universes defying notions of either continuity or rational forces. The journey continues, uninterrupted, but elsewhere in else-time with a else-me leading a life contrary to my spiritual needs or aching desires. Both these needs and desires are born of journeys previously taken or journeys awaiting the threshold of possibilities.

From Parallel Journeys that used to unfold and meander under infinite blue skies, across landscapes rarely stepped, sheltered in villages and homes of people with gentle smiles and enormous hearts - as large as their mountains, clear as their rivers, I have leapt unknowingly into worlds and paths - suffocatingly cramped with vileness and greed, of agendas devoid of the spirit, in spaces governed by the ambitions of a few and their power over life, land and liberty of many.

I awoke this morning in memories of parallel lives previously lived - of vast turquoise rivers and vaster inner expanse - of gompas perched on dome hills against backdrops of giant snowy peaks. I awoke in memory, as close as a recent moment, of dripping icicles and silent star songs suffusing all my simultaneous worlds with awe and wonder - alive and grateful for the opportunity - not even a speck in an infinite order, but still an alive, throbbing, integral speck of that infinite.

I meander now amongst the crud of the suffering - deliberately - and aware - both of my responsibility and privilege of choice - most of those who suffer have been bereft, by larger design, of choice. I journey with fellow human beings inflicted by their wounds, wounded by their sorrows - and I remain, here and now, in their different universe - to undo in certain measure my collective responsible wrong. I awake some mornings, like this morning, with the rivers gurgling in my heart, with oceans thrashing in foamy waves, with stars spilt milk across dark skies - I awake and reject with a smile the chance to run back - I choose today to carry it only in my heart.

On Dreams and a Drink

Several years back, on a trek in Colorado, my kids and I were crossed by an older couple. Many meters ahead, the woman paused, bent and picked something from the ground, turned around and approached us. With a smile she held out a Dandelion fluff ball and said "In my country, we blow on this and make a wish, to have a dream come true!"

Today, a walk through campus was lit by luminous, silken white floating seed balls parachuting idly between trees, across lawn, along tarmacs, all over in a dream-scape of wishes and desires. The fine fragile spheres became rainbow halos when lit by sun in a particular direction - a myriad brilliant possibilities, all within grasp, weighed by a seed, waiting to take root. I thought then that it was no different from my today - full of possibilities for a dream to take root - any or many dreams. The difficulty was in responsibility to fulfillment for a dream-sprout - the requirement to see a dream through. Or was this an artificial constraint? that it was ok for a million seeds to germinate and end - without purpose? that the burden of responsibility killed the joy of possibility of a million dreams simultaneously lived....??

I ponder on this with a drink:
1 fresh green chilli sliced lengthwise
4 cubes ice
generous decent vodka
a lemony fizz drink to top! YUM!

A Tree

Missing The Squirrels

This morning I awoke and pretended that I was still asleep. I stayed curled, snug and in full alertness listening to the morning sounds. Something was not right - I did not hear the squirrels. I listened with my antennas extending farther and farther, in the darkness of closed eyes, thinking, "where are the squirrels?" I could make out a variety of bird calls under sounds of revving cars, moving humans, kitchen sounds etc. Maybe I awoke too late and the squirrels were fed and quietened?

With some urgency, I wandered into my garden this morning. I was looking for squirrels. I saw a pack of dogs in hard chase after a monkey, I saw a tiny frog (barely an inch long)hop out of the way, and I heard the squirrels - in a distance. Maybe they realised that I had stopped looking at them, and were driven away by my inattention?

So, today I spent listening to peripheries of silences in my everyday life - some shallow, some deep enough to realise that there is no real absolute quiet. I listened and found the sounds that keep my world sane - sounds of nature buried in the noise of man made bustle. And, I let this sanity drip into insanity of my days, in round crystal drops of silent clarity - drip, silence, drip...silence expanding vaccuously into confusion of my chattering head.

I am glad I heard the squirrels today.

Pining for the Hills...

Fields and Foliage

Mostly Shells

Air, Water, Earth,Fire in Goa