Our group arrived yesterday morning in Delhi airport after an 8 hour flight, and the day transpired into quite the adventure. It was my first day outside of the U.S./Canada/UK and my first in a third world country, so, of course, there was a lot of new sights and experiences on the trip from the airport alone: ridiculously chaotic traffic, lots of road construction w/o the American safety amenities, low ceilings, amazing and terrible smells, and people napping everywhere from roadsides, to gutters, to on top of buildings and cars.
We arrived at our YMCA hostel, checked in, etc. I showered, but actually shrugged off the initial groups of people heading out to eat and such because I wanted more rest. By mid-afternoon, I decided to go out, grab something vegetarian/cooked/safe-looking/water-free to eat, perhaps find a cheap rate on a phone, and see if I could find my peers who were heading towards one of Delhi's (perhaps India's?) largest Sikh temples close by. Well, I went out alone, which was a fantastic idea, yet something I'll avoid doing in the future. Within twenty minutes I had made two complete rotations through the six realms of being: heaven (beautifully new smells, flower arrangements, people, clothing), human (massive amounts squeezed into confined spaces), titan (aggressively friendly street-vendors, motor-rickshaw drivers, taxi drivers, teenagers looking for a kick), hell (poverty you just have to see for yourself), hungry ghost (all kinds of beggars/scam artists) , and animal (monkeys, cats, dogs (alive and dead)). Well, twenty minutes later and only one task achieved (a safe-looking veggie sandwich), I found some of my friends in a market -- boy did they stand out -- and we made our way to the Sikh temple.
The Sikh temple was quite beautiful; here's someone else's pic (http://www.worldchanging.com/temple.jpg). We kind of just wandered in, found out what was expected in terms of hair coverage, prostration, donation, feet washing, and enjoyed sitting, listening to tabla/sitar music and Sikh proselytizing (presumably in Hindi) booming from speakers all around: a tremendous spiritual vibration to absorb. Meditation was quite effortless; all you needed to do was close your eyes.
Well, nothing too interesting after that. Today at 1:00 PM, I meet with my acarya (teacher, adviser, friend) from Ananda Marga, Dada Rudraprakeshananda, who led me through my experience at the retreat center this summer at Ananda Kanan. We arranged to meet some time ago, and I'm very excited to see him again and have a trustworthy Indian lead me around!
In terms of culture shock, I'm doing surprisingly wonderful at the moment. At the moment . . . I'm sure that'll all change as time goes on.
That's all for now.
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3 comments:
I'm exceedingly glad you're keeping a blog about your adventures. I imagine you'll have some great insights to share as well. That Sikh temple sounds and looks cool but next time include the picture in the post! Copy-and-paste is too hard. But seriously, your solo expedition through Delhi sounds awesome. If anything awesome happens here, I'll email you.
In Bombay, I saw the same type of unbelievable humanity, though I hear it's much worse in Delhi. Metropolitan India is just indescribable, but you've done well. Also worse in Delhi is the way white people stand out. Especially tall, blue eyed, handsome, vegan boys that I miss a lot... yeah especially them.
This is a great opportunity to see the human condition in a whole new light. One of the things I hear from friends who've come back from El Salvador or Guatemala is how hopeful the peoplE are, even when dealing with awful circumstances. I'm interested in know if you see the same things.
Take care...XOXOXO. ~KM
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