Around The World In 80 Years

80 years - that's what we have - a flash in the pan? An eternity? Let's investigate...
Einstein once explained relativity like this:"When you are courting a beautiful woman, one hour seems like one second, when you are being tortured with hot coals, one second seems like one hour." 80 years is just a random number, and what it means is all relative - some of us may not even have that many, all we know is that its a number between one and eighty. I mean, we have 80 years, that is 2.5 billion seconds. The "experts" think the Earth is around 4 billion years old. If you could travel at the speed of light, it would take 26,000 years to get to the center of the Milky Way, our galaxy. 26,000 years, and you would be travelling at 186,000 miles per second!

Our lifespan is defined by this highly relative term of 80 years. I am already almost halfway through, and it seems like a twinkle in time. Sure I have a lot of great memories, lots of great travels, lots of great experiences, lots of bad experiences, but from the halfway point, they all condense into a few moments in time. Even if your memories seem longer than this, they most probably don't feel like 40 years worth. And when we are 80, I bet they won't feel like 80 years, maybe a few months at best. Months!!!! So, if we are living, and we know we have this "relative" lifespan that may as well be a week or a month, why wouldn't we spend every day doing everything we need to do? When we are sitting at work, or watching a movie, or walking outside, we can catch ourselves wondering, what is happening? Moments are going by, am I engaged? Am I on Earth do do these tasks? Am I doing these tasks the way I was meant to be doing them? Or when I am angry with someone, or dreaming about something, or wanting something that I don't have...am I on Earth to be doing this? Are we on earth to build a house? Buy a car? Earn social security? Make a million? Are we here to judge? To hate? To fight? To get up on Monday morning? To get 2 WEEKS of vacation per year(that would be 160 weeks per life, or one half year off per life, not counting weekends and retirement!) What would I be, if I had one year? Or one week? Or one DAY?

We don't always get to choose what happens in life, but we have a lot more choice than we give ourselves. Bad things may happen, we may get angry, but life is too short to worry about any of it. Don't let something like the magic number 80 make all your rules, that is just living by the clock and calender, stuff we made up in the first place.



Everyone has their very own reason for being here. We can spend our time any way we like. We may have strict requirements, responsibilities, and rules that we created out of thin air about how we spend that time, but those are just blinders and excuses we give ourselves for not owning up to our reason for being here. Why wait? Why delay? We know it in our hearts, so why are we embarrassed, or scared, or worried. In the blink of an eye, the snap of your fingers, it will be gone, so lets get on with it. If we can learn to live and spend our "time" on that, then we may be onto something. Otherwise, we are just living the dream, and in 80 years, or tomorrow, we are going to wake up and rub the sleep out of our eyes, look around, and say to ourselves:"hmmm...that was interesting."

Travel is a great metaphor for this idea. We plan and plan and plan a trip, maybe two weeks, maybe two years, and once we get on the plane or train or bike, everything becomes dynamic, our plans are out the window, we get curve balls, we get lost. We deal with new faces, new sensations, new surroundings, new everything. We can be ourselves, or anything we want to be. We can bring our baggage along, or leave it at home, we can worry about money, about food, about doing it right, about being lucky, or we can just sit down and enjoy it. We can drop all of our preconceptions and preferences, and get our hands dirty, wake up and become alive, or we can sleep away the day in the air-con, in crisp sheets, watching CNN, eating scrambled eggs and biscuits. It is all up to us, and is always up to us, maybe with a little fate and faith thrown in depending on how you see the world. We may be on a two week vacation, or an 80 year life, but it is every moment that counts. Travel on!

I Think Therefore I am Not

Ladakh is one of those special places - look it up on a map and it is impossibly far from anywhere, nestled high in the Himalayas, along the banks of the Indus, near the old silk road. It is influenced heavily by Tibet and Buddhism, yet exists in a cloud at the top of the Indian sub-continent. It has been the scene of a centuries old power struggle between influences of Islam and Tibetan Buddhism and was not open for foreign visitation until 1974. Ladakh retains much of the Shangri-la qualities that are becoming increasingly difficult to find. As you survey the gompas and sprawling capital city of Leh while the effects of hypoxia cloud your brain, you are struck by the stunning beauty of the place. The main valley is dotted with gompas, terraced fields of buckwheat line the river banks, and the whole scene is dominated by snow capped giants and azure skies.




We arrived there in mid October - a bit late for the Ladakh "season", but on purpose to avoid the tourists of summer. We planned to do some trekking, probably through the Markha Valley, expecting good fall colors, cool days, and an empty trail. As we provisioned and began inquiries as to the status of the trail, we learned that the snows had come early this year. In particular, the region, normally bone dry had received a rather severe blizzard in September, the Manali-Leh road was closed for 3 days, with several buses and cars stranded, and several people died from exposure in snow several feet deep. As is typical for India, especially remote off the grid India, we were getting various different reports as to the conditions of the Gongmaru-la, the highest point and critical pass of the trek at 5306 metres. We were going light, and were not carrying snow gear, crampons, etc. and we were trying to avoid walking in hip deep snow through sub-freezing temperatures. The preferred direction of the trek is to cross the pass from the Markha side, as you have a steep descent on the last day, rather than a steep ascent to the pass on the first day, but due to the conflicting information and potentially dangerous conditions, we decided to travel to Hemis Gompa and on to the tiny village of Shang to begin the trek. The day we left, we heard rumors that the last group to attempt to cross had turned back at the pass due to blizzard, and the mountains were freshly powder coated in white.

Hemis Gompa is the celebrated seat of the Drupka Tibeatn Buddhists in Ladakh. It is also called Chang Chub Sam Ling or "the lone place of the compassionate person." It is very old, and is constructed as a 3 dimensional mandala, making it all the more auspicious. It is even rumored that Jesus spent some of his 30 "lost years" studying here. If you pilgramige here, and wander up the creekside trail, and sit under the prayer flags in meditative silence, you will have no doubt about the power of this valley, and you will get a taste of the real Ladakh, that feeling of Shangri-la, a lost place of peace that feels like a true oasis in this crazy world of ours.

But I digress. We walked down from the Hemis valley, feeling very clear and alive. We walked the 15km to Shang along a most incredible river gorge. The silence was such that it made your ears ring as my brain searched for a sound to hold onto. It was late in the day when we arrived. The workers were coming in from the field as the sun set over the mountains. There was a camp set up by the river, the porters were setting up the mess tent, and two trekking tents were set up with some exhausted looking trekkers laying flat, feet protruding from the door. We asked the guides how the pass was - knowing that the answer was not going to be good. They said it was hip deep snow, and super icy on both sides of the approach, and this was from a secondary pass, not on the main trail. Add to this it started snowing again, and the temperature was close to freezing down here some 1600 meters below the pass.

I began to realize that for all my planning, all my thinking, a whole trip arranged around doing a trek in Ladakh, we were going to be turned back within 10 miles of the goal. Fly to Delhi, fly to Leh, acclimatise, provision, bus to Hemis, trek to Shang, where we now sat. It was so close I could taste it, my wife was less enthusiastic after hearing reports of hip deep snow. And even though the trip was now for all purposes impossible, I still clung to its idea, and tried to "figure out" how we still could do it - in other words, I could not let go - could not detach, I was losing the battle with my ego, running in mental circles.

We camped in the town gompa's courtyard, snow falling gently. At 4am, in the crisp cold darkness, we made our way to the back door of the gompa for morning puja with the one monk who was in residence. Three of us sat in a 5x7 foot room, adorned with traditional tibetan buddhist thangpas, horns, cymbals. The butter lamps flickered off the painted, carved ceilings, and our misty breath co-mingled in the cold air. The monk began the puja, chanting and reading the ancient texts, drumming...

After tea, we walked up to the old gompa. The snow blanketed the hills, the old gompa sat perched 1000ft up a side valley, the walls arising out of the rock. Standing atop, the views were stunning. Blue sheep toed the brown crags, and the prayer flags rippled in the wind.




How did we get here? Where were we actually? Somewhere along the way, I thankfully lost my mind. I had stopped wondering why we couldn't trek, when we were so close, and had come so far, stopped being attached to that idea, that random idea, that that was better, that was right, that was meant to be. I did not know any of that to be true, after all, as my wife pointed out, we could have been walking 15km with wet feet through freezing snow, all while we gained 2000m in elevation. But the point is, while I was thinking, worrying, obsessing, being attached, I was never here and now. While I was living in my head, I was missing where I actually was, and what was actually happening. I had to learn to relinquish control of a situation over which I had no control, and never had any control of in the first place.


The famous phrase that launched the modern era of scientific deconstruction, and human misplacement in the world: "I think therefore I am", shot us out into an orbit from which we are still trying to recover. When we are thinking, where are we? What are we? Deep in thought? Lost in thought? Day dreaming? We certainly are not PRESENT. We are not HERE. I am, when I am in the moment, smelling the air, enjoying the view, enjoying where I am, what is happening. When I give up control, which I never really have anyway, everything is comes easy, it flows, it is enjoyable, not painful. So, if you find yourself stressed out or find yourself lost in the hamster wheel of your mind while you are trying to figure it all out, just take a deep breath, go outside and check in, smell the flowers, sit in the sunshine. Let go of thought and control, and feel alive - otherwise, what are we all really doing here?

Places like Ladakh always have lessons to share, this was mine this trip; I think therefore I am not. So as we sat drinking butter tea on the roof of a gompa, breathing rarified air, 100 kilometers from nowhere, I gave up control and that was what my wife had been telling me all along.

The Multi-Dimensional Universe

Last weekend I found myself amidst the crowds of the annual Flame Tree Arts festival on the island of Saipan. This is a local gathering of artists from the islands, replete with local music and entertainment, food from the islands of the Northern Mariana, and crowds of tourists and locals “window shopping” and being seen. One can peruse beautiful local paintings, basket weavings, shell art, as well as eat to the hearts content on Chinese 5 choice, fresh fish, apigigi, arroz caldo, and desert on tropical fruits and concoctions. Mango and flame tree season have just come into their own, and the islands are awash with orange.



Fresh back from a trip to the mainland, I found myself enjoying the pace of the islands, no stress, FRESH food, real food, and beautiful sunsets, water and tropical breezes. The westward lagoon view in Saipan contains the most vivid variety of colors of anywhere I have ever been. So, wandering around the festival, it dawned on me that we are living in multiple dimensions all the time, and travel is a key to that world vision. Just as physicists and astronomers theorize that there are multiple dimensions of space-time out there, we can see those dimensions around us right here on Earth as we travel around we move between them. The fact that we are able to move between them, suggests that there are dimensions between which to move, but we usually don’t pay any attention to those shifts.

Jet lag is a good experiential example. When I fly from my quiet papaya garden in Saipan, to the chaos of Los Angeles, I cross the dateline, get there the same day and hour that I left, and transport myself between worlds – and yes, it does feel like different worlds. The pace, the people, and the concerns – the US runs on a different speed than the islands, a different vibration, and when you stop and actually feel the shift, you realize even a different universe or dimension. People in one place have absolutely no clue what it is like in the other unless they have been there very recently, and as soon as the air-lock of the plane door closes, or you sail off the shore, that dimension you are leaving begins to inevitably fade into the matrix. You can look up the news or weather, but it exists only in two dimensions, you cannot smell the air, feel the sane, or experience the sunset.




So as I was mentally traveling between my recent US experiences, and how different is than my Flame Tree Arts festival experience, I walked into the Voyagers camp. The Voyagers at the festival this year sailed 30foot sailing canoes from the outer islands of Yap, all the way to Saipan. These voyagers are renowned for their ability to navigate by the stars and currents, the clouds, and the sky. They can read weather and they know the sea. Some of the best are even blind, steering the boat by the way the current and waves sound against the wooden hulls. Now as I stood in their camp on the fringes of the carnival atmosphere of cotton candy and Budweiser, I was transported again to the outer islands, another downshift in pace and scope of life. It was quiet; people were sleeping on grass mats, cooking on open fires, speaking traditional languages, probably about food or sailing. The lagoon waters lapped against the wooden hulls of the boats, and I imagined them out there t night, listening for the currents to make a sound, feeling the sea air on their faces and I traveled to their outer islands, where there are no computers or iphones, no ATM’s or airplanes, some may not even know they exist, and for all intents they don’t when you are there. Their universe, their dimension was different than mine, it was different than the festival, yet I was right there on the edge of it. If I slowed down enough to travel with them, I would have joined that world for a little while. So now I had three dimensions in my experience, and that was profound, because then I knew very vividly that there were layers to this world that exist simultaneously, on top of one another, just like the physicists say the space-time dimensions exist all wrapped around and between each other. It just takes a subtle shift of perspective to go between them, if you are aware of them. How many more are out there, how many more had I been to in my travels, in my dreams. Reluctantly I stepped off the sand and back into the fray of the carnival, back to the dimension I was currently living and experiencing, but feeling both awed and unsettled at the same time that we are living among countless layers and dimensions all the time, and that we can CHOOSE, and we can BE, wherever we want to, with just a flick of perspective. Bon Voyage!

The Grass Is Always Greener

When I step off the plane in a country like Indonesia, I look around, and feel a sort of bucolic/tropical/peaceful daydream come over me. The heavy equatorial air is almost succulent, and as it washes over your brain you start to slow down and dream of ripe mangoes, so orange that you don’t need a PhD to know that there is vitamin A there. I think of my busy life in the US, and watch the locals amble down the rice paddies, heading to the temple, or a soccer game, or who knows where. I see a man sleeping on his rice field palapala, in his straw hat, and think: wow, this guy has it figured out - a peaceful life, working in the beautiful green rice fields, taking naps, eating healthy local food, no television, no electricity, just the man and the land. Even if he is not making much money, and it is hard, back breaking work (thoughts which I may or may not have let into my daydream), I still think, wow - I have to figure out how to move here - find a nice simple house, buy local food, and slow down the pace of my life.



Yet over time, I begin to wonder - or project 3 months into the future...picture myself sitting in my new house….I cant speak the local dialect, I have no work, I don’t know anyone, and I am not in my culture, I wasn’t raised here, I don’t know the traditions, I have to leave the country every 30 days just to get my visa renewed...and so on.




Then consider the other side.... This farmer looks at me and says wow - this guy has it
dialed right. He's here on vacation, his dollar is worth 10,000 times more than mine, and he is eating at restaurants where his average bill is my months salary, buying luxury foods not even from this country, and then still is enjoying Bintang's and clove cigarettes whenever he likes. I want to go to America and make that kind of money. I don’t care if I have to sit in a cubicle all day in air-con (hey free-aircon) and stare my life away into a computer, I will even get paid to sit down! I can live in a nice condo, with a refrigerator, microwave and electric coffee maker and stove, and drive on the freeway to work everyday.



As we daydream more, we can even go a step further and convince ourselves that the simple, hermetic life is more "enlightened" - and that is very green grass. Escape the day to day, and sit in a field and meditate while we pick rice. Yet when we get there, and it is hot, and there are flies, and snakes, and we earn 2000 rupiah/day, we may forget our mission of enlightenment, and focus on how hard the work is, and how hot the sun is, and how we wish we were back in the air-con, going to the pub with office mates for happy hour. Should I move back? Did I make a mistake? And the farmer finds himself locked into a job of misery doing data entry, having to work overtime to make the rent payments, eating 99cent hot dog deals because its all the food he can afford, and dreading the 75mph traffic on the freeway - dreaming of his rice paddy, fresh food, and wondering why he left to pursue the American dream and the almighty dollar, and how rich he is now that he has that lifestyle.

And on and on it goes, the hamster wheel of life, running and running and running away, looking for the holy grail, the mystery – but stop, slow down, recognize that it is all around us, all the time, no matter where we go, what we do, what we drive, what we eat. As we drop the concern for these details of life, and start realizing why we are living, we may enjoy every moment that we have. Share this with our fellow humans, help each other, become aware of what we are doing and being. Let the grass be greener, because after running around the wheel a few too many times, we will start to see that the grass over there is really the same grass over here, just seen from a different perspective, but, REALLY THE SAME.

Why do we always want what we do not have? The grass is always greener, even when we haven’t even the faintest idea about what the other side even feels like or looks like. We live in America, but want to live on a tropical island. We live in Philippines, and want to eat Pizza Hut, and commute to work on a “freeway”. It is one of the great human challenges- to be happy where we are, focus on our living - instead of our living arrangements. It is far to easy to spend away an entire life looking for that perfect spot, or job, or car, or house, or trying to figure out how to transplant your life into a foreign culture, a far away land, or an escape. These details just are not what we are to worry about. After all, what is perfect anyway, and does it really matter if you have wood floors or concrete, or a thatch roof versus steel? Focusing on these details removes us from the real work of life, and takes us out of the moment. We are forever lost in
a world of illusion, wondering how we can make it better, get what that person has. The grass is always greener speaks to the fact that we are trying to escape the difficult work of life. Not the manual labor, but the actually owning up to what we are here for, and how we can help ourselves and others live better and feel loved. If we wake up, and feel good about what we were born with, or even where we have ended up, then we can forget the detail, and focus on the work at hand - living. Smell the flowers, enjoy the view, smile at people, and be compassionate. Then we may see that the grass is always green here and now, and always good - and that feels very free, very light, and very alive.

The Wheel of Life

The world is a crazy place these days...it seems out of control, and beyond our control. The media tells of global economies failing, volcanoes erupting, climate changes, wars, civilian casualties, unimaginable hardships in Africa, overpopulation, starvation, inequity of resources and wealth, even inequities between our fellow humans - how can we change it? How can we help? What can we do? It overwhelms the mind. Some even talk about the end of the world...



Yet somehow, our situation is not unique, and the world has been crazy before. Circumstances always exist outside of ourselves, sometimes we say they are "good", and sometimes "bad", but really they are just circumstances. An alignment of the stars may be responsible, but what can we do about that? Life is full of drama, and worries, and purpose, and hope. We struggle against an unknown enemy just to survive here, as we have done since our human brain became big enough to recognize itself. Yet, what is really so different between now and then? Yesterday and today? We are endlessly caught in the web of duality, of comparison, of preference. Rich and poor, black and white, night and day, us and them, war and peace, happy and sad, right and wrong - its overwhelming to have that kind of choice every moment of every day.

What is constant here? Where is the solid ground? How can we focus? Whether you are running a country or a household, whether you live in a cave or on the streets, whether you have family or are alone, whether the volcano erupts or not, the sun still sets EVERY night. Everyone can step outside of the box and see or feel that time of twilight, when the light goes soft, and the colors awaken. It is the same in Garapan, and Los Angeles, and Varanasi, and Lhasa, and Cuzco, and Narita. The traffic, the television, the harvest, the election, the monsoon, the war, are all external, and these externalities have been running for eons, and it would seem we do not control them.

We are here now, wondering what to do, when all we really can do is to live - eat a warm meal, smell some flowers, gaze at the clouds, watch the sunset, help a neighbor, feed someone. No matter what we believe in - these are constants. When we stop worrying about the external, we focus on living. Escape the virtual reality - for it is not real. See through the great ponzi scheme that floats around us. Embrace this life, and re-discover what we came here to discover. We can turn off the tv, and the world wide web, and walk out of any doorway, and become the same. Money does not matter in that place, nor does race, nor does hunger. That place is united, not dual, and it feels like home. In that place there is peace, there is warmth, there is food, there is comfort from the storm. The beauty is that we can go there anytime we want, because there is always right here, just behind the sunset, just out the door, always in our hearts.



Tibetans paint the wheel of life on every gompa. That symbol expresses these ideas in a one complete, complex picture. It represents this ever turning world, and how beings evolve and move through it towards liberation. This wheel of life is constantly spinning, its centripetal force keeps us in it. We all find ourselves in different places, different situations, different distractions. When we know that the grass is not greener, and that there is nowhere to GET to, we gain the strength to let go, be ourselves, and get down to our business. Let the wheel keep on spinning - it always has, always will and always does. Things always happen, and life goes on spinning. Step back, take a deep breath, and enjoy it wherever you are.

Mount Kailash Kora

The old man wore a sun hardened, wind worn face, a beaten leather jacket, a necklace of dzi beads, shells and ancient turquoise. He walked forward, his hands never stopping, working his mala. He stopped, looking at the mountain, placed his hands together in prayer, and bent down on hands and knees, forehead scraping the earth as he lay in full prostration, all the while chanting softly the mantra: “Om Mani Padme Hum.”

The Kora around Mount Kailash in Western Tibet is considered by many one of the holy grails of this planet. Whether you are there as a prostrating Buddhist, or Hindu on pilgrimage to Shiva’s throne, or just a traveler looking for some inspiration, the sacred mountain calls you. Kailash’s pyramid of snow juts into high altitude sky, and its rainbows of prayer flags send their offerings on the breeze. The kora is 50+km clockwise trek around the mountain with the start and finish in Darchen, a frontier town in Western Tibet.

You cannot fly here; the only way in is by jeep, bus, bike or hike. Most pilgrims opt for the jeep or bus, since Darchen lies more than 1000 kilometers west of Lhasa, and over 700 kilometers northwest of Katmandu, Nepal, the nearest feasible airports.
If you ever make it all the way to Darchen, you probably are here for kora.













The kora takes you 50+ kilometers clockwise around the peak. Thousands of pilgrims flock here to advance their sadhana. You will see grandpas and grandmas, infants, and everyone in between, walking, or prostrating to the high point at the Domla-la, over 5600m.


Along the way you can camp, or stay at the gompas or parachute tent camps. From the Drirapuk Gompa, you can walk to the Kangkyam glacier, hanging off the north face of Kailash. Standing on the blue ice, at the headwaters of the four rivers; Sutlej, Brahmaputra, Karnali and Indus, one cannot help but feel that this truly is the center of the universe. Four major religions consider this mountain sacred: Jain, Buddhist, Bon-Po, and Hindu. The kora around this abode of the gods is considered extremely auspicious. In fact, it is said that one proper kora can rinse you of a lifetime of sin – complete 108 koras and you may find yourself strolling the fields of Nirvana, enlightened beyond your wildest imagination.



As I sit at home writing, Kailash and west Tibet become one of those places that defy imagination. So remote, so high, so spiritual, that details quickly retreat behind layers of cloud. Kailash is such a place that leaves you wondering if you ever actually touched the ground there. Huge skies, electrically blue, ear ringing silence, and thousands of Om Mani Padme Hum’s fluttering in the wind leave you breathless. Standing at the top of Dromla-la, 5636m above sea level, I hung a set of prayer flags in offering to the Mountain for safe passage, to a friend that he would vanquish his cancer, and to the Gods that I was even given the chance to breath the air in such an amphitheater.

Gurus in India

Another trip to India - and what a trip it was! Why India? The land of dirt and chaos, the Delhi belly, relentless touting, noise, pollution, and whatever else you may have heard or seen?

Because in India, nothing is as it seems.

On the surface, it looks one way, but look again, even a split second later, and the scene has changed. Look deeper, and you begin to see beneath the façade, to what India really is. India cannot be put into words, but it is the unspeakable which we are after. Those experiences that are indescribable, so deep, or so transcendent, that no words can do them justice. Just to begin to describe them takes away their luster. These experiences are what you find when you meditate, climb a mountain, do a fast, be with a guru, or, when you go to India.

Travel in India requires patience, fortitude, a sense of adventure and street smarts. I have been there numerous times, and I will catch my self daydreaming that I have it figured out(as if we ever could figure it all out) It is then that India throws you the best curveballs. Its not just having a train cancelled, or the bank teller close his window (after you stood in line for 2 hours) for his 11 am chai break. We are talking about the real India, the spiritual fabric underneath all the chaos - the lotus flower in the mud. When you look deeper and tap into this layer of India, you really start to have some wild experiences. You ask yourself: did I just see that 5 year old holding a cobra. Did the boy sweeping the train compartment just stop, look deep into your eyes, and tell you: "your life is a mistake." Did that quote painted above the bus driver's compartment,"To live is to serve, to serve is to live", just answer all your questions? Where do find these hidden gurus and messages? All over, and where you least expect it - that is India. When you order a chai, pay attention, when you give a beggar 50 rupees, pay attention, when you strike up an unassuming conversation with a shop owner, pay attention, when you ride a bus, pay attention. Pay attention to the flower girls, the street cleaners, the jeep drivers, the sadhus, the scholars, and the bakers. Pay attention to the pan wallahs, and the rickshaw wallahs. You can sense where this energy is, and catch a glimpse of it too. It is everywhere and nowhere.
Maybe we need a concrete example. Take the Ganges river in Varanasi for example. On one hand, science has written it off as the most polluted septic river on Earth, complete with low oxygen counts and dying fish. And it is true that raw sewage spills into it every day. On the other hand, millions swim and bathe and renew their spirit in those waters everyday. They worship it, they sing about it, they bury their loved ones in its waters. They even drink it. And there are fish in it, and birds and frogs, and all sorts of life thriving. And when you stand there on the ghats, and look into that gray green water, you realize that its just water like anywhere else, and you wash and swim in it like anywhere else, and it makes you feel good on a hot summer day. And then you may even read that some other scientists have tested the waters, and that the Ganges processes biological waste 30 times faster than other rivers, and that its not septic, but carries a good amount of oxygen. The waters of the Ganges have indeed been touted as magical, they can cleanse a lifetimes of karma, and even release you from this samsara.




So which do you believe? What do you believe? India is full of these paradoxes and India is like a guru, she will tell you anything and everything you need to hear, if that is, you are ready to hear it or believe it. The more time you spend in the world, you begin to see how everything is in the eye of the beholder. You can choose what to believe, there are so many options. And yet, as we see in quantum physics, its not at all random, its all connected. An electron a million miles from its partner, "knows" which way to spin to conserve the laws of energy - how does it know? How does the taxi driver "know" what you most needed to hear about your life right at that perfect moment that you could hear it, and take it to heart? That is the mystique of India - the guru pops up everywhere, when you least expect it, and when you surrender. If you go searching up in the caves, out in the mountains, or deep in the temples, there is no telling what you may find. It doesn't seem to work that way. When we are in control, we are not in control. When we give up control, we gain the ultimate.

So, listen to the universe, it will tell you. You never need to beg and you never have to fear that you are lost, because the answers are all around us all the time. If you need some reassurance, make a pilgrimage to India.