Never Ending Peace and Love Edit IV

 

From I’ll Never Do It Again to Never Ending Peace And Love. 

The long greens of the plants are moving in the wind, slowly the sun is settling in the late afternoon and I'm lying tired on my bed. The day is not over. Another invitation to let go, let loose and be free has just reached me when I was walking in the sun around the beautiful lake that I know so well. The day bright, my mood blissful since I arrived yesterday almost noon after a nightmare of a bus trip of over 20 hours which were announced to be twelve. 

How did I even get here after I thought I would just go for a quick visa run to return to my ever lasting love the yoga torture place that helps me so much in my growth and on my path and yet I had to come to admit it had weighed me down more over the past weeks than I wanted it to. Too stressful, too noisy, too loud. Too much input, yet not enough. Losing myself in the heavy energies of holy Rishikesh I cpi;d sense that my heart was longing for something else. The purity of the Nepali mountains. The fresh air, the clear surrounding, the kindness of the Nepali people and nature refreshing my mind and soul. And so I decided to listen to my heart instead of my fear which was reminding me of keeping my yoga practice up when what I really need is a break (free), a change, a new and yet familiar environment. A safe space, a happy place, a base to recover, recharge and reinvent myself from my cloudy mind to a clear heart.

As I had made my decision the Universe started to bring back my flow and let all the bits and pieces of my journey fall into place as it does every time.

On my last rainy day in Mother India before leaving, I go to see Master N to pay off my dues for the month to then take my last class. Arriving at his place I already feel tired and drained. Sitting down next to him we start talking as he reminds me directly to not take the class because I am already tired and need rest. I smile, I laugh I know. Just at times I need to hear it from someone that I see as qualified to justify it to myself even when I know it is justified by nature. Validation. So important. So human. And so as the few times before over the last weeks when we had the chance to chat I feel like I just wanna hug him from the first moment on. Genuinely embrace him for his dedication, devotion, purity, being grounded and humble, his humility, his selfless passion, giving in charity, his overall goodness in his all existence peaking into returning me over a third of my money of what I was willing to give him for his classes for a whole month. He's truly selfless and kind in all his words and actions.

Sitting talking with him he's telling me about different aspects of his past life, how due to certain ways he has lived his life he feels like he doesn't deserve all of this what ever it is he receives, having such high gratitude for whatever is given to him and wants to give back to us, all that yoga has given him. Feeling so lucky  to be able to be a yoga teacher and share his learnings, he only wants to return all that he's been given (by his own disciplined practice and choice of being kind caring and giving). The way he knows himself and in which simplicity and authenticity he's presenting it is absolutely unique and so rare to find in today's world, more specifically in these high frequency yoga and spiritual places across the world where everyone is trying to sell themselves as the most authentic Guru, Master and Teacher while Master N is not even contemplating to be one at all smiling telling about his unyogic lifestyle. We're both sitting smiling about the outside spiritual passing by.

This is the reason why whenever I enter his space I feel like I'm being surrounded by such genuineness that it makes me wanna cry. What a wonderful interaction before taking off to my next adventure for the upcoming month. The adventure that's starting off with someone inviting me to come with him by taxi to do the whole border crossing without expecting again any financial contribution from me.  Finally arriving slightly exhausted from being pushed around from one checkpoint to another, we settle in our overnight hotel and go outside to move our legs a bit and find a local place for dinner. Walking around I check out the different shops where I could do some last minute shopping before taking my nightmare bus the next day. Randomly I enter a shop where only after a couple of hours away from the border crossing I experience my first act of Nepali kindness. I ask the young boy if he had an extra piece for my phone accessory that I'd failed to find anywhere in India for quite some time. Without much explanation he nods his head smiling, picking out my missing piece of another gadget and hands it to me over the counter while some young excited girls start taking a video of me and themselves as my travel companion enters as well. Again not asking me for money but instead telling me that this is a welcome gift to Nepal as it won't be the only one and it makes my heart smile brightly. These are the tiny moments of magic that I've missed so much.

Happily we continue our walk as I continue to randomly pick just the things I need until we return to our local Thali dealer and continue our conversations about all that we know and see and perceive, uncovering the illusions that have been infiltrated in us so deeply, our conditioning and manipulations. Talking about our families, how we're choosing to live our lives, the yogic lifestyle breaking through cycles and reorganizing what was, what is and what will be. We talk about relationships, what we bring to the table, what we really want in a partner (looks, success representation age, style...) about how we've been unconsciously programmed to find certain features attractive and how to crack open these illusions of our conditioning (TV, society, culture). It keeps continuing as it has started from the moment I entered the taxi in the early morning. A truly unique connection and welcome encounter. And so we don't run out of things to talk about, to share with each other and learn from one another until we're too tired to get going. As my first day in Nepal comes to an end to be followed up by the bus ride odyssey finally delivering me to my place of peace. PPP.

When I arrive at my new home the magic is spot on right with me. My host already getting my backpack out of the car for me, as he was waiting, directly ushering me into an upgraded room with attached washroom, extending my stay and silently dropping the day I arrived late. I know why I love these people so much. Their kindness, their giving manner is absolutely exceptional and outstanding exemplary in this otherwise so selfish egocentric world. After showering and coffee I just treat myself in all my favorite places. Walking around, going to my favorite hang out socializing place, having my cappuccino I feel full. Full of Love and Peace. It is so very true for this place. The magic unfolds just as I enter. Floating around like a fairy, feeling like I'm not attached to the ground anymore I finish off my day with some freshly steamed Momos in some small local place made by a kind young woman near my holiday dream home with the best view over the lake and my own hammock in front of my door. Almost inhaling the whole plate within only a few minutes, I also finish my lemon tea and pay. Looking at the change she gives me I'm irritated and turn back to her. She only charged me for the Momos. And she refuses to do otherwise. The tea is a gift. She smiles. I smile. I feel blissed and blessed and who knows what. This place is just bringing me joy. Grounding me and yet uplifting me into higher spaces as it will continue to do so.

Waking up refreshed after a good 11 hour sleep the next day, I feel ready to go to yoga despite my period having just arrived. I'm curious how it will be. Energized and blissful I walk my way to the Eco Lodge. When I enter the gate a young man welcomes me and invites me to come sit with him, offering me a seat. There it is the story of my life represented in yet another human body, looking so similar to all the other ones before him. My never ending life lesson. Yet this time I pay attention. Naturally we start talking. He says he's seen my face before. Why not. He knows how to speak, he's aware, he's attentive, he's intentional. I can see that from the first moment. We have a flow. Naturally... From my side. After just a few minutes he recognizes my Georgian tattoo and asks me about it. ჩემი გოგო. Here we are. I ask him if he's the yoga teacher and if he's Indian. Indeed he is both. What a surprise and what a classic Lina. 

After finishing our tea we step into the yogshala. I'm his only student and so I enter a very welcome unusual yoga experience with him. Fluent, moving, hip opening, emotional release, pain, sobbing, heavy breathing, more opening up. It's intense, it's intimate, it's needed. I feel synchronized with the Universe. This is me right here where I need to be. After a little talk and when my tears have subsided I hand him the money, he gives me a long deep hug and I leave to go for my cappuccino to my favorite paradise spot as of no surprise it is his favorite as well... Talking about coffee. For a split second I wonder why he's not joining me just speaking about it. Less than an hour later I'll find out.

Ordering my cappuccino and a big meal surrounded by green, the view on the lake, watching people going in and out, he walks in only a few minutes after me. I knew it. I look at him, say that he's following me with a smile in my face. He replies to me nodding. For sure. Then he goes to sit on an extra table a few meters in front of me toward the lake side. Sitting in front of my humongous plate of veggies I offer him to share but he rejects telling me he already had eaten. Since I don't feel very hungry I just order another cappuccino and leave the food for later. Sipping on my hot treat I start making up thoughts about him while having my eyes on him. Imagining my highest ideal of how he could be in my personal vision, in a dream world while observing him in reality. Just being there. Here. Present. Making up my own story in my mind, living my illusion consciously as an observer. Making it an actively aware illusion that I enjoy, instead of twisting reality into idealizing him or the situation. Only minutes later I get an answer to the things I was wondering about. A girl is approaching and he hugs her the same way he hugged me. He’s drawing while talking to her. Drawing her for all I could see. I sip on my flat white and take in the scene before I leave to go home and shower. What a morning. I feel at excess, overflowing, full of life and connection. Confident and grateful about life. Back into my flow, feeling the very essence of being alive.

I feel growth inside of me happening while I walk under the heat of the sun around the lake. Transformation... actively changing my pattern, breaking through it with softness and attention, observing my feelings, my thoughts, my sensations in my body. It is as if I change my life right here right now. My DNA. My observations bringing me clarity a new sense of reality. No made up projections of what a great encounter I've had but just pure presence. No judgement. No expectations.

Walking back in the late afternoon I receive an invitation from him for a blindfold intuitive dance event. Something I could really need although I feel the exhaustion from all the walking in the blistering heat and the intense hip opening in my body, slowly crawling into my bones. If it's for my mind and body I should take a power nap. Or rather rest for the remaining hours of the day. Writing him back, laying on my bed, feeling my body giving in, my eye lids silently closing over my eyes, I tell him that he should keep the others from stepping on me as I'm feeling very exhausted and I may end up just lying on the floor. My subconscious mind is hoping he would be one of the attentive, grounded, mature men who would care enough to tell me to stay home. Like Yogi N. But reality is that he wants me there. May it be for the money or  just because. His reasons are intentional as it turns out there will be absolutely nothing going on in the evening when he had tried to sell it to me as a social event. It's the details but luckily I was also internally prepared for this scenario as I could already sense some discrepancies in his words, intentions and actions. I had some sense of his motives not being purely selfless and this conversation should reveal its truth of my intuition to me. Besides the sweetness of his nature, his openness, reflectiveness and linguistic talent there are also other layers to him being revealed only when I read between the lines.

Entering the garden for the second time this day, I see him sitting alone on a table. I'm quite on time and I see neither a prepared venue, any musicians let alone participants. It doesn't take a genius to understand the situation. I don't mind. Things happen as they're supposed to. Also I don't mind his company as I'm curious where our conversations will lead us. Just like in the morning topics arise naturally since we have many points of similarity in our lifestyle, our sense of being, our sense of self, how to live life, where and how to find the place we belong to. How we've lived through many different personalities and lives in our past and all kinds of other dimensions. He's telling me about this amazing place he saw regarding our ideas about living, talking about how our dream place would look, asking me on a hike to go there the next day. While we seem to connect on many different levels, I also recognize notions in myself that are not new to me. I've felt this way before. Not at last with ever lasting reminder A. Little moments of disconnection, hearing his ego speak instead of his heart. Seeing fear, pain, a little boy, speaking intentionally to protect himself rather than being true to himself.

Patterns that I recognize. Patterns that I've lived through what feels like a thousand times. It doesn't take long until my absolute favorite topic of this is nothing personal comes up. The topic I have studied for longer than I would have liked as he's now trying to lecture me about. Me who has studied his fellow people exactly because of it and he will call it out exactly that way when I tell him about how blissful I am that I am in this state of observation though I know it's not a state I can hold up constantly or I am at least wondering if it is humanly possible to maintain that state of observing without judgement. Like so many other much too often reproduced phrases from some spiritual books, ideas of like letting go, surrender, live in the moment and so on and so forth...  YOLO is all I am thinking. Let's stay grounded. I wonder for myself if this is not clearly an ideal state of mind that sometimes when we're mindful enough we get the gift to experience it and yet we are all living beings, having ups and downs and sometimes feel disconnected, lost and absolutely not capable of connecting to that kind of clarity. It's one of these things I believe is reserved exclusively for enlightened buddhas. He seems to disagree as he's making it a private lecture for me to learn about it as if I've never thought about it before. A personal lesson from his ego to me. This lesson that I've had for so many years. Mansplaining in their ignorance of perceiving my intellect but rather convey to me what they know.

In a conspiratorial manner leaning in towards me, his face coming closer to mine he talks to me about PERSONA as if he was sharing the most well kept secret of the inner circle of Gurus in human history when really any person who has ever started diving into getting to know themselves knows that this is the absolute basic to learn about. By being too consumed about himself and his thoughts, ideas and knowledge he fails to see me at all. To see who I am. What I have lived through, where I am coming from, what I am capable of, the knowledge and wisdom I carry, the way I feel, think or see things in any matter. There is no recognition for who I am in what I’m sharing about myself as he is not responding to what I'm offering, not asking the questions, digging in but rather tying a knot to 'teach' me something about what I am sharing. All of it leads back to him and what he knows. Although in moments I get a glimpse of him reflecting back on it but then again he's doing it again. 

Me being able to not take this personal is my own achievement and the result of hard work and being in a good mood. While from his side it’s the failure of bringing the necessary sensitivity to the conversation expecting the other side not to take it personal. I've seen and heard it so many times in similar shapes and forms that I am only now noticing. It doesn't get me on an emotional level today. No stress, no disappointment, no irritation, no anger, no sadness. Just understanding. It's the ego. If I didn't know... Our egoic mind urging us to feel so special we overlook how special the people around us are. And also I like him. He doesn't seem to be a totally blindfolded idiot but someone who may genuinely be on his way to open up his horizons. 

When he tells me that he can see my heart, my purity, authenticity, who I am, my values and that he likes it, I just nod but I don't feel anything. Other than the times before where I would have failed to notice what's behind it, I would have felt this being a true connection. Not this time. This time I'm observing my reaction. Something feels off. It reminds me of my Indian madness before and how I wasn't able to spot the intrinsically hidden twist in the words. Now I do. First of all it doesn’t take a masters degree in psychology to figure out my personality as I wear my heart on my sleeve, coming with my open heart and mind, sharing how I feel. It’s not hard to spot my authenticity and heart if you're not an idiot as I’m conveying it openly. It's not a sign of interest or curiosity about me. Because for that you would have genuine interest in who I am. Secondly he's making this a statement about how great he is himself by telling me that he can only look through me this well as one can really only see the heart of a person when they have connected to their own. I'd call this a self compliment. Seeing my heart complimenting himself not me, a mirror of where he really stands. Saying something nice to my face only to reflect it back to himself. The classical male yogi move. Mansplaining. Ah it's too bad as I like him as a human being for some aspects I think I've seen in him and feeling good energy between us on some levels... And yet... I can be mistaken because this is nothing personal and I know it all too well. The good I see and feel, is not the reality. It's what I create. Not what's been offered to me.

Clearly he's underestimating my intellect for actually seeing through him by sharing how much he thinks he knows and has learned instead of making room for the possibility that he's confronted with a person that he could also learn from. His ego taking the space for me to be. For me to convey something to him as he is of the conviction he knows and therefore closes the door for receiving information from me on any level. That way he closes the door for getting to know who I am thinking he sees through me, missing humility for his own faultiness or inadequacies, overestimating his perception. 

The message he’s sending, even saying it himself, hidden behind his every word is this is nothing personal. It seems it shall become my life motto within the Indian madness. It even doesn't hit him when I send him an extract of my essay about this topic that I may have studied it intensely, that I may know much more than he could imagine as I dove much deeper into the matter than he may now or ever especially coming from the opposite side. It doesn't get him curious to learn about himself as I already years ago have discovered interesting psychological insights about it that he may never learn about and apparently is also not curious to know about. Learn about himself. The only reaction I get is a stupid comment about how much I write. Oh Gosh if you only knew my friend. Instead of recognition, admiration or interest I reap boyish side kicks. Nothing seems further from him than acknowledging me for who I am.

Telling me about little details he's recognized to do or say in the past that were degrading to women making me smile. Having caught himself in the past for comments that may not have been appropriate. It's beautiful to see and hear and yet it carries the biggest danger of all in overestimating our ‚progress‘ or underestimating our ego in having learned something, feeling like we now know and understand it all. This is when again we have made space for the ego to grow. The last drill is usually the hardest. If I learned something from yoga it's this. The last push. The last holding still. The last breath. And so once we think we've already achieved it, we've drifted away into that space of ignorance and darkness instead of the light again. Into this closeness instead of openness. Sitting in front of me here and now he makes similar statements towards me as he's made in the past to his partner without maybe even noticing.

Choosing to make a ‚joke‘ about my tiredness from my period that I have an excuse now for being exhausted (having the audacity when he was the one inviting me to an event that wasn't going to happen), he may as well have chosen the path of validation for my state of being instead of crossing a thin line between acknowledgment and care for me to toxic masculinity. Considering all circumstances of not knowing me and my degree of sensitivity about certain topics it may have been more sensible to find sensitivity for the topic instead of brushing over it and make it a joke.

Me actually showing up despite my weakened state, not even apologizing for it but instead joking, choosing immaturity over sensitivity. Finding empathy, compassion for my period caring for my well being. Even picking out little ‚flaws‘ while I’m speaking.

There are moments of light when he reflects upon how he used to do certain things and yet to fails to see them here and now. Then there he's creating these moments of blindness where I hear his fear, hurt or ego speak. His shadow. Whatever name you wanna give it. I can not clearly identify if he’s conscious about it or unaware and his ego is still playing little games without him noticing.

As I'm writing these finish lines, sitting in the exact spot, my favorite, the spot where everything connects, I hear my name. Hey Lina. When I look up, I see... Him. Yes of course. I feel strangely amused and caught in the act looking at him smiling, just having written these lines talking to him. You look so professional sitting here with your open laptop. I laugh. If only he knew. Yes indeed as he had mentioned. This is me writing. A lot! About my experiences. With him. I like seeing his face. He's sweet. He seems genuine even when he might be in a stadium in his life where he sometimes slips into ego behavior. Maybe he's partially aware, maybe not. For all I know he means well and maybe just nobody has told him like it happens to so many of us. And how to learn if nobody is telling us. Maybe he is a lone wolf. Maybe he likes to be that. Maybe he's not. How would I know anything about him at all other than what I perceive?! And then this is only my truth.

This day will be no less connecting starting with my two German boys making fruit salad and ginger tea for me in the morning, sitting in the sun providing me with all the necessary info about my trek when my host is recommending me an extra one, going into my yoga flow before finally heading out for… yes food and coffee.

This place. It carries that magic to connect people in the right moments. As I've entered it I see this girl I have last seen at Ganga beach. She is paying. I speak to her, she talks about the rainbow, like my other friend today. We connect we chitchat and hug each other goodbye, like I do after these lines with him. One of his cozy hugs. Hugs they are needed. I need them. All these little interactions will reengage again later on this day, only few hours past when I finally start packing. When I finally after changing my plans try to gather more information on how and where to start. Organizing my last few bits. Washing, boiling eggs, going to eat while my fellow ex travel girl has just arrived and is trying to disentangle her ongoing scenarios about this trip. Once again I feel all the energies shifting, moving, bringing together what needs to be together, separating what needs to be separated. 

While I am having dinner in one place, she's having hers at another. Finishing my last bites I'm about to go meet her while she is also finishing hers. Having just answered my messages I receive a new one from an unknown number wanting to join me for ABC. My new travel buddy. I'm astonished. How could anyone possibly know about it? That place. I reply to him as I am making my way to meet her. Finally in all the turmoil while texting with him. He seems to be only a few minutes behind us. In surely the same place. Are you at the lake side? He's asking me as if I can sense already where he is. He's in my favorite place. Which is also the place where he got connected to me. Through my Rishikesh connection. And here we all are reconnected. Me with my old and my new travel buddy, running up and down that road for the third time today.

It's funny how things go sometimes and how many people just don't want to go alone. How all of us connect, reconnect, interconnect. I feel again and still blissful. Finally making my way home buying even more snacks and fruits like a real German always prepared, I already know I will have the heaviest backpack just because I need to hoard my chocolates and boiled eggs. The adventure is near and I'm more than excited to see what the Universe has in store for me for these upcoming days and weeks. In love with the Universe and Life itself.