"pilgrim-vedchi" Archive
Birds Leave No Traces
It hurts. But really, who hurts?
Later in the day, a monk takes us to bath in the holy Narmada. It's as if all our physical and mental tensions are cleansed by the rippling water, overcast sunset, surrounding mountains and the gentle breeze.
A bit later, we meditate on the banks of the Narmada. Peace. Deep peace.
In a distance, a bird is gliding through the empty skies. Birds leave no traces as they travel.
by Nipun Mehta on May 11 '05 | add comment | permalink | more 'pilgrim-vedchi'
Q&A with Rajeshree Muni
"Can you record what you are saying?" we ask humbly. "Why?" Rajeshree Muni responds with even greater humility. "So we can spread the words you are saying." "I'm not interested in spreading my words. The world functions of its own accord."
Rajeshree Muni is a very well-respected saint, who had an "order from Shiva" to go and "serve those whose food you have had for so many years". So he came out of his intense meditations for seven years and by next year at this time, he will go again into deep sadhna, never to see anyone again. His devotees think he is very close to true liberation.
Like every other place, we had just showed up at the Kayavarohan temple. Rajeshree Muni is hard to get a hold of, but he shows up the day we are there. He speaks very little to people and can only be seen by others at specific times, yet he breaks his rules to spend 3 hours responding to our questions. :)
His responses to our questions are deep, thought provoking and profound, and very direct. Below are few Q&A, per my understanding of how he responded:
[ read more ... ]
by Nipun Mehta on May 12 '05 | add comment | permalink | more 'pilgrim-vedchi'
Arriving as Pilgrims, Not Guests
"This a very bad area. Naked people live here. Ten, fifteen of them will attack you at once and take all your stuff away. Everything. And when they see women, they start thinking about other things too. It's a very bad area," a random teenager tells me.
I slow down to make sure Sheetal, Veena and Guri catch up to me and translate some of what this teenager is telling me. All of a sudden, we are all walking together in a bunch, rather fast. :)
How this 19-year-old drunk kid found us, walked 8 kilometers with us, and took us through a bad village, is a trademark trait of this pilgrimage: luck. But I prefer another word: grace.
by Nipun Mehta on May 12 '05 | add comment | permalink | more 'pilgrim-vedchi'
Blogging Blessings
"I pray for you and Guri every night before I sleep." That's what I read in my inbox last night.
So many readers write to us that they are moved to tears by the personal stories, by this unrehearsed journey, by an all-out search for true reality; and today, I want to say that I am moved to tears by your tears. Thank you.
And the larger thank-you goes to two people who insisted that I keep a journal: my mom and Rev. Heng Sure. As of yesterday, this blog is getting 20,000 hits everyday; couple organizations post daily entries on their office walls and make it mandatory staff reading; Akanksha is compiling a book of these stories, for the 8000 Bombay slum children that they serve; Profiles are reprinted in many places, folks want to translate this blog in couple languages, press is writing stories we can't track. And so on.
Personally, I'm not much of a writer. Many of my sentences don't have subjects and predicates, I don't remember what gerunds and appositives are, and I hardly check for typos. Not to mention run-on sentences. But I write with my heart, in the hopes that it connects with other hearts.
For the couple hours that I'm connected to the "web", it's a nice affirmation of what my heart already knows -- we're all connected.
Your kind wishes is what keeps us going. Thank you for making this your pilgrimage.
by Nipun Mehta on May 13 '05 | add comment | permalink | more 'pilgrim-vedchi'
Lifting Loads, Pushing Cars
Paras and I are talking about pain. "It isn't about enduring pain, but rather about understanding it. The more you feel your sensations, the more the universe around you comes alive. That's been my experience," I tell him.
About 500 meters ahead, an old man is looking out into the fields. Through his torn shirt, you can see his six-pack stomach. In front of him is a huge stack of freshly cut farm crop.
Paras is dead tired, on his first day on the walk. While others are walking ahead, we take a little break. Incidentally, it is under the same tree from which that old man is gazing out.
[ read more ... ]by Nipun Mehta on May 16 '05 | add comment | permalink | more 'pilgrim-vedchi'
700 Kilometers of Lessons
Here is my not-really-top-ten list of lessons experienced during the 700 kilometers that Guri and I have walked to date:
- We are not alive in the universe; the universe is alive in us.
- Nature is our teacher.
- It's pointless to endure pain. It is liberating to understand suffering.
- Pilgrims don't walk on paths; they travel patterns of their own habits.
- I am not my ego.
- Those who have less, give more.
- To greet another soul, you must first walk in through the door of goodness.
- Human minds cannot grasp the destination of their journeys.
- Winds of grace are always blowing. Just open your sails.
- You won't solve all the problems of the world. But make sure you aren't a problem for the world to solve.
by Nipun Mehta on May 19 '05 | add comment | permalink | more 'pilgrim-vedchi'
H-two-O, H-two-O
Right as we finish getting the directions from Anandbhai, I randomly look to Gulab and say, "Gulab is coming too." As his host for the next month, Anandbhai looks to Gulab with a question mark on his face. Gulab spontaneously says, "Yeah, I'm going to walk with them." He almost doesn't know why he says yes, but he does. "Thirty-four kilometers of walking?" Anandbhai asks. "Oh yeah, no problem," the third year college student confirms.
Growing up on farms, Gulab has attended schools on scholarships and kindness of others. A hard working student, he has come to help his mentor for the two summer months.
"Gulab, are you ready?" I ask him minutes before we leave. "Oh yeah, absolutely," he says with a smile that lights up his partially cross eyed face.
by Nipun Mehta on May 20 '05 | add comment | permalink | more 'pilgrim-vedchi'
Putting It All On the Line
(Photo courtesy of Sheetal and Guri, from early May)
by Nipun Mehta on May 20 '05 | add comment | permalink | more 'pilgrim-vedchi'
My Crazy Jewish Brother
Sitting at a fancy New York restaurant, with some important people, he notices a person falling off a building. Stunned, with an open jaw, he doesn't know what he just saw. But indeed, it was a suicide.
He can't sleep that night, so he calls me up at midnight (3AM, NY time). "Hey man, I can't sleep. I've been thinking about death and all, and I think I really want to do some giving. I want to get involved with CharityFocus," he'll say with some four-letter expletives thrown in between.
I crack up. But that's the kind of friend he is. Every so often I get a call at midnight, or a once-in-a-year email, but almost always it is at a turning point in his life. On one hand, he'll talk about meditation and service and on the other hand, it's about alcohol, cigarettes and women. Still, he's a magnet for spiritual people; he'll shares stories about a mystic he met in a remote basement of New York or a yogi he ran into on the roads of Idaho or a secretary who ended being a palmist that told him his future or his desire to visit India at least once "just to see what happens".
Every email or phone call of his had two things in common. The opening: "My Dear Indian Brother." The ending: "Your Crazy Jewish Brother."
Yesterday, I got a note from him with those two phrases, and couple lines in between -- "Bro, I got called to Iraq. I want to talk to you."
While I didn't get to talk to my 'crazy Jewish brother', a part of him is walking with me and a part of me is headed to Iraq. Sometimes I wonder if we're all the same pilgrimage, but don't know it yet.
still haven't had the chance to email majority of my non-bayarea friends about this pilgrimage, so he probably didn't know that I am foot in India right now. But "My Crazy Jewish Brother, I'm walking right there with you."
by Nipun Mehta on May 21 '05 | add comment | permalink | more 'pilgrim-vedchi'
No, Not My Water Bottle!
Wrapping up Guri's sprained ankle, I left my water bottle at the tea stall that lent us their chairs.
We walk little less than a kilometers, and I turn to Guri and Veena and say, "Shoot, I forgot my water bottle." I drop my stuff and head back.
On the way, my first thought: "Darn, I had to make a mindless mistake on the day we are walking 42 kilometers! My body is gonna pay for this." Second thought: "That water bottle is a little banged up, but man, it's one of those unbreakable Nalgene bottles. Life will be so hard without it." Third thought: "The water bottle would've made for a nice memoir, if it survived the end of the trip. I really should've been more careful."
Fourth thought: "Hahahhaha. Attachment is so funny. You could only have five things, but if your heart is impure, you will latch onto those five things." Fifth thought: "I don't learn the easy way, so that's why I need this grueling pilgrimage. Walk on, pilgrim, walk on."
The water bottle is in the same spot, with all kinds of kids playing around it and unknowingly protecting it. I pick it up and walk back in silence.
by Nipun Mehta on May 22 '05 | add comment | permalink | more 'pilgrim-vedchi'
Stares and Smiles
I'm a missionary today. I have decided to convert stares into smiles.
It's 4:50AM. A man on bicycle, riding hands-free, is singing devotional songs; I feel a current of positive vibrations as he passes. I smile. A bit later, four guys jogging -- two of them without shoes -- at a 10 kilometer/hour clip; they are easy converts and smile back at my smile. Then, a cow stares. So I smile, fold my hands and do a half bow. Unfortunately, the cow keeps staring. :)
Inviting stares, threatening stares, i-am-confused stares, get-lost stares ... it doesn't matter. I'm going in, head first, to do my job.
Candidate number 17, probably: a semi-toothless man standing outside a Hanuman temple at 6:35AM. I match his stare with a rock solid smile. But he's a tough one to crack. He keeps staring. So I pull out other tricks up my sleeve.
[ read more ... ]by Nipun Mehta on May 22 '05 | add comment | permalink | more 'pilgrim-vedchi'
2005: State of Gandhi's Khadi
Khadi. It's a hand-spun cotton cloth made famous by Gandhi's promotion. Fifty years ago, it had a greater market share in India than any other material and today, willing converts are left searching for reasons to wear it.
Many Gandhians like khadi because Gandhi liked it. Most government officials propound it because first, it's their job and second, it generates some employment for "poor". It's questionable if consumers like it, considering that Khadi is less than 1% of the national textile usage, but some are known to wear it because the material is porous.
Today, I ran into the one of the heads of India's Khadi Commission. After a rather confusing series of arguments, I decided to look deeper into the topic. Beyond the emotional, short-term and material reasons, my goal was to understand the rational.
I sit down with a very interesting personality -- a super smart athiest, who is also the grand-daughter of Mahadevbhai Desai, whom Gandhi called his sixth son. Umaben Desai's logic is neither emotional, nor spiritual, nor Gandhian; it's just facts.
Here's the inside scoop on khadi ...
[ read more ... ]
by Nipun Mehta on May 24 '05 | add comment | permalink | more 'pilgrim-vedchi'