Having just finished teaching an official yoga class for the first time, and preparing to leave the town of Bhagsu, a place I've called home for nearly 6 weeks now, I feel compelled to write something. Teaching this morning made my whole trip through India come full circle. I remember just over a year ago, when I sitting in my room in southern Colorado, and wondering what life was going to bring me next. My job at Fort Lewis College was coming to an end and I needed to make a decision about what to do next. For possibly the first time in my life, I felt like I actually had options. I went from having what seemed like no options to having too many in just a matter of a few days. Basically, it was when I stopped believing the lies that my mind was telling me, about how I am a victim and have limited opportunities in life. When I believed this, I was powerless. When I stopped believing, when I pulled my head out of my ass, a whole world of opportunities opened up for me.
It was like a hobo had run up to my dirty car windshield at a traffic light and suddenly cleaned it without me knowing what happened. All of a sudden, I could see! But since there was no need for a hobo, I didn't have to pay anything, it was free! At that moment, or in the course of those few days, I made a decision that would undoubtedly shape the course of the rest of my life. It was the decision to return to Thailand that did it for me. It was a difficult decision to make, and came up as if from nowhere. I realized that I just needed to use a credit card to buy my ticket and count on my last couple paychecks with the school to keep me going until paychecks from teaching English rolled in.
English nor money was pulling me back to Asia, but rather, it was what's called Samvega in the Pali language, which means something like spiritual urgency. I knew that the East is a good place for a young seeker to be, with many opportunities to explore Buddhism, yoga, and meditation. Since these three things have become my passions in the last few years, I had to trust my intuition that was pulling me back. Not long after that I bought my ticket and my time in Colorado was yet again coming to an end, as it had the first time I left it for Thailand 3 years ago. Since I was connected with a strong community of yoga and meditation practitioners in Colorado, I had a few weeks to ask around, getting ideas for places to meditate and countries to visit. At the top of my list was Burma, which is known for having some of the most intense meditation practices in the world. Of course, in my mind, I had everything planned out, but as I am once again reminded, I'm not in control here.
So I was going to get a meditation VISA for Burma and try to spend a few months at one of the monasteries that I had my eye on. But then another idea came up, maybe I should go to India first, do a yoga teacher training course and prepare my body for sitting in meditation long of the day. Either way, I would return to Colorado after a year and settle down in Durango. Both seemed like good ideas, and although the big decision to make about whether or not to go back to Thailand had been made, a series of equally difficult decisions had yet to be made, and again, those decisions have been shaping my life ever since then.
After teaching English for about 5 months, I moved out of my bungalow in Sukothai province and hit the road on October 1st of 2012. Since then, I've managed to spend 2 months in intensive meditation settings in 4 different countries, incuding Thailand, Burma, India, and Nepal, and devoted about 2 months to yoga, including a 4 week teacher training course. Even though my plan didn't work out the way I thought it would, you can see that my dream last year and the reality of what has happened the past 7 months are pretty similar. The details look a little different, but the beautiful thing is that what actually happened was better than what I had hoped for. Despite not getting a meditation VISA for Burma, and thereby having to cut my trip there to 1 month, I have a feeling that the way things have worked out have been far beyond what I could have imagined.
It's important to have plans, to have dreams about the future, but we need to understand that ultimately, the future is out of our control. There are too many forces at work, unexpected twists and turns in life to think that we can create the future. But, we do find that we can co-create with the universe. By having an intention, we act and can thereby manifest something within the confines of our own abilities and in accordance with the laws of nature. In this way, we can cause a rock in our hand to hit the ground by letting go of it. The intention will be to let go of the rock and one can be sure if unobstructed, that rock will hit the ground. This is working within our limitations and in accordance with the laws of nature. Whether we do this consciously or unconsciously, we are doing it. If we can become aware of our intentions, we can consciously sculpt them in order to bring about a desired result. One will find, that if they let go of the rock but have the desire for it to go up instead of down, they will be going against nature and will fail to produce the desired result.
What this means for us is that we can set intentions to consciously create our future while understanding that we have limited abilities. Instead of having a plan and sticking to it, we can see that it's better to have dreams, to have ideas, and to be open for what the future holds. If we are too attached to our plans, we will miss opportunities as they present themselves to us. Besides, you never know when you get hit by a bus while trying to cross the street or a meteor lands on your head. You just never know.
On this trip in particular, almost nothing has gone as planned. I thought I knew what was going to happen, I was to fly to Goa and start my yoga teacher training on the beach right away. I'd be a certified teacher by the end of January, make my way to the Kumbha Mela, then to Bodh Gaya for a meditation retreat, and then to Rishikesh before flying back to Thailand in March. I had it all figured out and was happy about my little plan. Oh, how foolish I was! What I didn't know, yet, was that India had a different plan for me. When I've been able to accept this, things have gone pretty smooth for me, but when I resist this idea, and I try too hard to control, I have suffered. And believe me, Oh, how I have suffered on this trip. Not only has it been the most rewarding adventure of my life, it's also been the most difficult, and challenges have been plentiful.
So what happened was I didn't like my yoga course, in Goa, dropped out after 1 night, and headed to Auroville, a spiritual and intentional community run mostly by foreigners, to volunteer at Sadhana Forest, a reforestation project. After 3 weeks of living with travelers from all over the world, planting trees, and making new friends, I headed to Bangalore to see Amma. My week in Bangalore gave me time to spend 3 days at the Art of Living ashram for a yoga course, and to see the IKSCON (Hare Krishna movement) International Headquarters. From there I took the train to Kolkata and then to Gaya, for my 10 day retreat, which proved to be the only thing that really worked out as planned. After 2 weeks in Bodhgaya, soaking up the Buddhist pilgrimage vibe, I dropped my stuff on in Sarnath and headed out to the Kumbha Mela. Although I did have that planned before as well, I planned to go before the meditation retreat during the peak time of the over 1 month religious festival that attracted 80 million people. Having found the crowds when I was there to be more than enough, I was grateful to not have gone during the peak bathing dates.
It was around this point that I decided to take a short dip into Nepal, to hit up a Burmese meditation center in Lumbini that a German told me about. Besides, I had already gone to two of the four main Buddhist Holy places, and this allowed me to complete the circuit. This new idea meant I only had one night at the Mela and one night in Varanasi, India's holiest city along the Ganges River. After sleeping on the ground with a bunch of dirty hippies in the Rainbow Camp at the Mela and then watching dead bodies burn and barely avoiding getting eaten by street dogs in Varanasi, I was ready to get back into the silence of a meditation retreat, so as to do the work that would allow me to handle these adverse situations that India was throwing at me. If you come here in your own little world, full of judgments and feeling entitled, your bubble will be popped by the shit-show that is this country. The more I practice meditation, the more I am able to find peace amidst the craziness, to keep my balance even in the face of difficult situations. It helps me to see that everything is in a constant state of flux, and there's nothing really there to grab onto. I sense myself constantly changing and understand that so is everything else. Understanding this helps me to relax my expectations, and to be okay with whatever happens. It hasn't been easy. Sometimes, I feel strong, and other times, at my weakest.
While in Auroville, in January, I made reservations for another yoga teacher training course in Rishikesh, so I headed there from Nepal after my 8 day retreat in Lumbini. I started training on my own, taking classes around town, and preparing for the 1 month intensive. After the first few hours of the course, I knew that, once again, I had found myself in the wrong place. Another failed attempt to plan to be where I needed to be. Where I needed to be, as I found out, was further north, up around Dharamsala. So after 2.5 weeks in Rishikesh, I came to Dharamsala and found the neighboring community of Bhagsu for a third attempt at becoming a yoga teacher. When I got here, the doubt that was prevelant in Goa and Rishikesh had vanished, and I knew with all my heart that I was exactly where I needed to be.
Looking back in this way, at the facts, makes me realize how blessed I've been and how it would have been impossible for me to plan out for all these things to happen to me. My trip has been much different than I expected, but more rewarding that I had imagined. By staying open to what the universe has in store for me, I've been afforded the ability to see opportunities, and the flexibility to take advantage of them. I now know that when sculpting my future, it's good to have dreams, it's good to have a sense of purpose and direction, but when the time comes, it's good to be able to let go of plans and step into the magic and the mystery that is the present moment.
Now, one year after returning to Thailand, I have no plans to return to the good ol' USA and am overwhelmed by this magic and the beauty of life. My head is once again filled with a million ideas about the future, but I'm learning how to keep the fire stoked without getting burned. What lies ahead for me in the future is only possibilities, and I now believe that any dream of mine can come true. As for my fate, time will only tell. I can only hope that this feeling I have today, high up in the Himalayas, about how life is one epic journey, will never fade. Keep dreaming!
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