One nation under a groove

Finally, After several months, I wake up in India to the sound of silence. Only the early morning birds calling and announcing the break of dawn. Soon the sun will rise over the dry, black-rocked mountains.

The Krishnamurti Foundation study center where I attended a 7 day workshop on his teaching this week, is situated on a hill station named Tiwai hill, near the village of Rajgurunagar in the heart of the high Deccan plateau in the state of Maharashtra in western India. These hills are the northern end of the Western Ghats, the long mountain range which starts here and stretches all the way down to Kerala and the southern tip of the subcontinent along its west coast. The landscape is high and very dry with tall grass and black basalt rock, the only witnesses to the powerful volcanic activity which took place here millions of years ago. It reminds me a lot of Ramat Hagolan in August. Around the hills is a huge water reservoir, collecting the heavy monsoon rains to supply water to the city of Pune, one of India's most modern cities, only 2 hours away, with a population of over 6 million and an advanced high-tech industry. The sunsets over the big kineret-like lake is stunning and meets Krishnamurti's (and my) great love and appreciation of natural beauty.

We are 4 westerners among 20 upper-class Indians, teachers, engineers, doctors, pilots and lawyers from the big cities in south India: Mumbai, Banglore, Pune, Chennai, Nagpur, Goa and more. Our schedule here is very lax and consists of discussions in the morning and watching Krishnamurti's talks in the evening. The rest of the day is spent in nature, contemplation, reading and talking to eachother.

The thoughts I have after the evening talks usually have nothing to do with the talk's content. but just things the K's words have triggered in me. He actually doesn't say much, but the little he says has a lot of power to it when i'm fully present in the listening. The inner activity - mind and emotion becomes clear in light of his words, or the way he conveys his ideas. I sense he was truly awake, but had a bit of a hard time explaining to people what this actually means. He speaks of sudden perception, where thought, time and fear are completely eliminated from human consciousness by seeing through them very clearly. This moment lasted and stuck with him until he died. These moments do occur to me occasionally, as they do to many people, but the mind goes back gradually to its habitual patterns of thought. However, not completely. This is where I find a slight lack of correlation between K's teachings and my personal experience. I see a gradual process of awakening, unfolding constantly on many levels.

What I realized this week is that significant processes are happening all the time. Even at times when I think I am just idling and having doubt weather this workshop is "doing" anything for me. But I feel the real reason why i'm here is sneaking up to me through the back door (excuse the hebrew term) and Krishnaji is just a comfertable excuse to raise new and important questions into my field of conciousness.

All the people I have had interaction with this week have tought me something important. The funny and heart warming conversations with D, the Jewish writer from NY, have opened me up to new aspects of my jewish identity. She spotted me as a "Lanzman" the minute I told her where i'm from, and hasn't let go of me since. Her life story is interesting: Her family escaped from Germany before the second world war and she grew up with a heavily Jewish-German conditioning, carrying the horros of her cousins getting killed in the camps into her life which led her to years of alcoholism and 4 dysfunctional marriages which finally brought her to Krishnamurti 30 years ago. Now she is publishing books together with Kishore, the Director of the center here and a very wise and gentle man. She talks to me like I was her grandson, very funny and energetic, at the age of 73, the same age my maternal grandmother died, whom she reminded me so much of. She gave me a sense of being looked after and protected, a feeling i've been carrying with me since I left the Dharma gathering in Sarnath. Our conversations about the Holocaust and about Israel were raising questions again about my identity as an Israeli jew. These thoughts easily come about while travelling in foreign countries and constantly meeting people from different backgrounds. They provide great mirrors sometimes.

So does this identity I carry have any significance when I look at the world and at myself very clearly? Why do I have such a need in the past few years to declare at every opportunity I get that I want Israel to be my permanent home? Why is there such a strong connection to the earth, the people and the language? Is it just because I grew up in Israel or is it "in my blood" as D pointed out several times to me; this innate Jewish characteristic of learning and thinking and trying to find ways to reach god, or something greater than the self. Even Jack Kornfield, a world famous Insight meditation teacher, said once than Jews are naturally inclined towards spirituality.

To add to all of this, my encounter with H, a retired scientist from Hanover, Germany has been very illuminating. At first he was just plain interesting, with many historical and scientific facts about India and the world, but then he shared with me the story of his father: Drafted to a military academy at the age of 12 after being abandoned by his parents, raised to be an officer at the highest service of the 3rd Reich and the Nazi party in Germany in the 1930's. He fought on the front lines against the Russian army in Lithuania in WWII and reached a point where he rebelled against his high commanders, following the confusion and disorder in the way the war was being fought towards its end. Word got out to his superiors that he was rebelling and he was to be hunted down and killed. After writing letters to his wife and father, explaining he'd rather die in dignity than to be killed by the defunct and brutal Nazi regime, he shot himself. A few months later H was born, a product of his father's last visit home from the front line. Having never met his father, he tried for years to question his mother as to what happened and probe into the truth of his father's death, being told for years that he was killed in the line of duty. His mother closed down the walls and refused to touch the issue, trying to avoid the great pain of losing her husband so tragically.

So here it was again! The holocaust, being Jewish, descendant of Polish jews who would have been in the camps (my grandmothers' families actually were), facing the son of a Nazi officer 60 years later, both of us trying to make some sense of this violent, crazy world we were born into and how it affected us as human beings; our relationships, fears and behavioral patterns, through the teachings of J. Krishnamurti in India. Kind of surreal no?

Who would of thought 60 years ago that this would be possible? I'm hoping that in less than 60 years, my son will travel to India and meet a Palestinian guy his age and together they will see the futility and ignorance in the senseless battles that were fought over the land they live in; how that conditioned their psyche, their sense of national and religious identity. I feel a lot of love when I bring all these life stories together and look at the present, and at mankind's ongoing, relentless striving for happiness and clarity of mind; freedom from the fog and from the dividing constructs which drove our parents and theirs to conflicts and war. Over what?! For god's sake! what the fuck for?! Ignorance has killed so many people, and for what? for having a country? God knows how long that's going to last. We've only been on the land for 60 years now, who can guarantee the next 60? Is it worth dying for? I feel that this has been the agenda for which I have come here, oddly enough.

All this is reinforced by the Indians in this workshop, constantly asking me questions about Jerusalem, Israel and Judaism. I'm happy to reply, and it brings to my attention again the fact that this is an identity I have constructed for the past 29 years, despite the fact that on a deep level it is not WHO I AM.

At times, the morning dialogues were a bit frustrating. Going on and on about theoretical terms without penetrating the actual essence of the teaching. Kishore is very intelligent and concise, but his facilitating skills are a bit poor and the thread of conversation is often broken going into the hands of a babbling mass of old Indian intellectual men. I saw how I very easily started labeling these people as this mass, incapable of authentic insight and only concerened with terminology. But as the days went by, I was proved wrong. My heart opened to them completely during a ride 12 of us took to Bhima Shankar temple, a Shiva temple 40km from the center. I suddenly found myself getting to really know them, up close, this fascinating cut of Indian society, melting the barriers i've created in my mind and realizing how alike they were to me.

These people have worked hard to be where they are in life and they do not take for granted the affluent lifestyle in which they live. Many of them own several cars, live in big houses, have servants and maids and send their kids off to study in Europe and America. But at the same time they see on an everyday basis the other side of India; the poverty and the corruption and the mass idolatry and carelessness for the environment, and found them selves also struggling with the less attractive sides of their own country. They see more clearly than any other Indian I have met the absurdity and dangers of India's fast development and the problems of holding on to traditions such as the caste system and religious beliefs. This is what brings them here, to the radical teachings of Krishnamurti, instead of running off with the rest of the millions to Sai Baba, Amma or any other of India's popular present day gurus. They are seeking answers that their ancient culture could not give them, although they feel an integral part of it. They still closed their eyes and chanted to Lord Shiva in the temple, and prostrated to the Shiva Lingam covered by a silver cobra. But that does not give them security like it does to many other Indians. They are thinkers, articulate english speakers, demanding more from life, even after achieving the comforts of living a high-class life in modern India.

And I couldn't help but feeling the same. Growing up with a sense of being Jewish, that Zionism is important and that without Israel we'd all be killed by our neighbors or by all nations of the world, but feeling there must be more to it than that. These stories don't provide answers to the deeper questions of life. Who am I? What is the nature of our existence as human beings, without these titles and identities? Why is the system so defunct? Why is the violence never ending if this is the "right" thing to do? Why did my friends have to see people blown up to pieces in Lebanon at the age of 20? Why is there such neglect of our environment and of resources while we clearly see the world being destroyed in front of our eyes? Why the apathy and blindness? Why do people have to be so bull-headed? Including myself. Isn't it much simpler to love? Is holding on to ideas and images so much more important? Can't we see it's leading us nowhere as a human being on this planet?

I think this is part of what brings me to India. Gaining some perspective, being away from the routine and having the space and time to look deep within and investigate. look clearly into the movements which are going on inside my mind and heart, and maybe to understand the way I act out of conditioning, the way I react to the world around me. What makes this human organism of mine tick? Why does the world function as it does? Not to take anything for granted, appreciating the capacity to question life given to me by the love being human and being able to think and feel, and eventually realize something which is greater than myself, great than the self; a reality which encompasses all of life and all experience which all phenomena comes out of and dissolves back into in an ongoing, ever changing flux of natural interactions arising and passing away, being born and dying in every second without leaving a trace.

This wild journey has no path. No comparison; no way of evaluating where I am, how I'm going, what is happening to me. It is a path not yet trodden and only I am walking it. It is forming as I step on it, each step revealing new and fascinating realities. There is no security in this journey. No one who can tell me I will reach somewhere at the end of it or who knows when it actually began. It may have began before I was born, much before I knowingly did anything about it. Doing implies that there is someone actually on this path, but the more I see the less I sense myself actually doing anything or making any real choices. Life is just unfolding itself and showing it's grandeur more and more, bit by bit, non sequential and non-chronological because time is not a factor for it. I put my experience in terms of time and I am not in the experience anymore. Time implies there is movement of thought, but who is thinking? Thought is just commenting on it, trying to fit into habitual ways of thinking, associating it with me, the ego, the self and everything happening in relation to it. But I am a part of this journey just as everything else and new aspects of its existence, or non-existence unfold just as other aspects of reality show them selves.

Thank you for listening.

(The title to this entry provided by brother George Clinton. Long live the funk!)

Light in the Indian sky

I finally arrived in Pune after over 15 hours of travelling with every type of vehicle possible: Rickshaw, plane, train and taxi. It was tiring but I'm now settled in pune and tomorrow I'm going to the Krishnamurti Center.
I had an amazing experience on the flight over. As I was riding on the rickshaw from Sarnath to the Varanasi airport, I was getting very emotional. I had just said goodbye to all the wonderful people I met in the retreats and felt like i'm leaving family. But as the emotions were coming up, a true sense of happiness was there, and I saw the streets of India in a new and bright light, with a fresh feeling that nothing can go wrong. Everything is ok.

So at the airport, I finished my check-in and as I was waiting for the boarding to the flight I found myself right in the middle of a huge group of tourists from Argentina. It felt like being in Meflasim. Very loud and noisy and a lot of spanish. But I felt at home with it in some strange way, like I was connecting with Gali's family through these people with their fun and spicey energyies. As they got on the plane, the waiting hall got quiet and a strange group of middle-aged American women, all wearing pink and white Saris took seats around me. Immediately I felt good for some reason, being near them. Something about their faces kept me drawn to looking at them with a strange fascination. They had calm, soft eyes and I saw a aura of light around them. I never felt anything like this before. I had to find out who they were, I was very curious. So I started chatting with this woman, Caroline, and she told me that they are a group from a community of women in Iowa (central USA) of TM, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi disciples. Kind of like Hararit in Israel. They all came for the funeral of the Maharishi who died on Feb. 5th, and they poured his ashes into the Ganga at Allahabad and Varanasi with a big ceremony. Then she started telling me all about the maharishi and the practice they are doing for world peace, building communities all over the world where they are determined to raise the collective consciousness of the world through reciting vedic mantras and connecting to the cosmic TEDER of the universe. She was so passionate about it, and I just sat there listening, drinking her words.
After that, as if by cosmic plan, my seat on the plane was right in the middle of the group, and sitting next to me was one of the managers of the Maharishi University in Iowa. He looks like a typical rich american in his 60's but he had this softness in his eyes that just melted my heart and we had an amazing conversation all the way to Mumbai. He told me more about how their practice is changing the consciousness of the world and how the vedic sciptures are built in correlation to the human body and mind and embody the powers of nature in the text (much like the kabalah...). On the breaks between talking we both just naturally closed our eyes and went into meditation. At one moment I opened my eyes and saw the whole row of seats to the left of me, 3 men and 2 women, sitting and meditating and I felt the great power and sweetness of this moment, that everything is ok as it is.

So I just feel there is some force protecting me from the moment I left Sarnath, My heart is open and the world is in it giving me back love and support.

Om

The land of awakening

Bodhgaya 2008. 5:30 AM at the Thai monastary. The Temple loudspeakers begin to greet the the dawn with reminding us to take refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha. Almost 30 secondes later, as if planned, the quadruple minaret mosque a block away annonces Allah is great and Muhamad is his messanger. And as if trying to remind me i'm still in India, a little chai shop starts its day with loud playing of a poppy "Om Nama Shivaya" tune. All of them tying to point to the direction of a reality larger than ourselves, something beyond the mind's capacity to grasp, but each in it's unique way, modified by centuries of religoious thinking. The sun starts to flood the green gardens and glittering gold temple, and the bells start going off and another day of silence and meditation begins.

Originally, a cluster of small mud houses on the banks of a big dry riverbed, the village of Bodhgaya in the poor state of Bihar has turned into the Jerusalem of the Buddhist world. The word Bihar (or vihar in sanskrit) means place of learning, and functioned as the ground for the development of one of the most profound and revolutionary schools of thought 2,500 years ago - Buddhism. Today, while the local Biharis are living in the poorest and simplest conditions, cooking in clay stoves fed by cow manure outside their small houses, living the lives of Dalits, the lowests of the untouchable casts in India, forced to live at the edge of the village, outside of the system and deprived of any real rights to work in dignity (although by law they are equal), across the road a fancy 2008 Toyota minivan filled with Japanese pilgrims cruises to the fancy 5 story hotel where they can be far enough from the smell of burning garbage and sewage and easily reach the object for which they came - the glorious Mahabodhi Temple, at the site of the tree where the Buddha reached full awakening. For 3 months out of the year, the village gets packed with pilgrims from all Buddhists countries: Japan, Thailand, Sri lanka, Burma, Tibet and many more and provide the local population (who is mostly muslim) with a bit of tourist money to help them get by the rest of the year, which is just too hot and humid for any foreigner to bare.

In the past year, the government of Bihar, notorious for being one of the most corrupt administrations in India, has formulted a master plan to "improve" the site of the holy temple. This includes wiping out the entire commercial and residential area of the town and surrounding the temple with gardens and a small number of luxurious hotels which will cater to rich tourists. If the life of the locals was hard, then this was the last blow that would make their lives complete misery, depriving them of any kind of decent livelihood and relocating them to places where they will not be able to find any work or even have a small rice field to feed from. There has been some protest, but they feel so powerless in front of the government officials, especially because they believe that they themselves are powerless, after years of accepting the caste system into their society and treating themselves as outcasts of society.

But with all the hardships of this town, there has been a steady group of people, numbering in about 150 each year, from all different countries in Europe and America, Israel and India, who spend almost 3 weeks together, in silence, to practice what may be what the Buddha had originaly taught and bringing more clarity and understanding into their lives. Ironically, it is the western, non-buddhists who are actually practicing meditation, while the rest of the Buddhist tourists are satisfied with a short pilgrimage to the Holy sites, where famous scenes from the Buddhas life took place. This is an active group, and our presence in Bodhgaya provides a great support for the local villagers and shopkeepers, as well as some of the money donated for the retreats going to Charity organizations helping the locals get an education and bring themeselves out of poverty.

I had the privelage of accompanying a group led by Sister Mary, a catholic Indian nun from Pune, to a small village nearby, where she decided to find ways in which women of the untouchable cast can feel better about themselves in their families and in society and empower them to get an education and open small businesses by using the micro-loan system (small loans with low interest managed within the community). It was heartbreaking to listen to these women tell their stories, of how they are treated not only as members of the untouchable caste, but as women, who'se place indian society is very low, and are often deprived of education and even of the right to leave the house and socialize with other women. With this initiative, they suddenly realized they have power as a group of women supporting eachother and being able to transcend the constrictions of caste and society and realize themsleves as human beings. They open small workshops where they make clothes and artifacts they can later sell in the town, and shops where they can sell their local produce. This all sounds simple to us westerners, but you should see how these people live; in the simplest conditions, beautiful mud houses with no electricity and not buying anything they don't actually need and does not come directly from their own village. It was inspiring to see such simplicity of living, and that the human capacity to find hapiness and new sources of power in such conditions is possible. All it needs is a shift of awareness, a freedom from what we have always thought life and reality was like and a fresh way of looking at our future, boundless and free from conditioning.

It is always strange for me to see that 3rd world countries who are deeply stuck in their social and religious structures, often need the intervention of people from the west to help them be free from it. not that we do not have our own social and economic problems, but there is more freedom to act and move around in the west, more freedom to investigate and question our own reality, and that is something I am learning to really appreciate in my life and in the society which I come from. The huge movement of a new kind of awareness taking place mainly in the western world today can happen as a result of this freedom to move around, travel to places like India and the east and see that there are other ways we can live and empower oursleves to make the most out of our lives and be free from social and psychological conditioning.

I've just finished reading a fascintating book named "The Buddha and the Sahibs" by Charles Allen. It tells the story of the first Englishmen who were stationed in India during the 1700's and 1800's as scientists and soldiers working for the Royal court and the East India Company. It was the more eccentric of these people who were actually the first westrners to ever have a fascinations with Indian culture and mysticsm and with amazingly patient detective work, started uncovering the history of Buddhism in India. It wasn't an easy task, the folks back home were very conservative and treated the local Indian culture as barbaric and dangerous to white people. But these people were determined. They were seen living in remote places in the indian planes, wearing Kurtas and sarwals, amoking chillum and translating ancient Sanskrit texts. These were truely the first India-wallas!! They had a passion and saw the magic and the revolutionary thought and practice that was the cultural foundation of India for centuries. It's thanks to their persistence that these profound doctrines reached the west eventualy and influenced our society and thought of several generations, including the beatniks in the 40's, the hippies in the 60's, who renewed the contact with India with the oveland "hippie trail" from Europe to the east, and the rediscovery of spirituality taking place in the present, not to mention the profound changes in the outlook of psychology and psychotherapy today.

My love and passion for this country are increasing as my days here go by.

Namaste.