Tag Archives: Rishikesh

Everything & Everywhere

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Namaste friends

In the High Holy Lands Where Magic Sometimes Happens

For the last while (long while really. Actually many years), I have dreamed a few times a month, sometimes more, that I am in, about to arrive in, or just about to leave Rishikesh in India.

Rishikesh is a small town straddling the Ganges River, and nestled in the foothills of the Himalayas. For millennia it has been considered a sacred place. Its history replete with stories of divine beings, ancient sages and saints, not to mention its status as a major pilgrimage destination for at least a thousand years and the town becoming ever more popular in recent years for pilgrims and ordinary pleasure seeking tourists from around the world.

This isn’t me but it could be

I last visited Rishikesh in 2016-17 (having previously spent time there in 2006) when my partner hermit and I stayed for several months. I associate that stay with the strengthening and deepening of my spiritual practice as well as the gaining of a kind of clarity in terms of my outlook on the world particularly on the spiritual path that had been calling to me – as it does still.

Putting aside health issues that hinder our mobility, I think it’s fair to say that my attachment to Rishikesh and my longing to return have more or less faded away almost completely over recent years.

Rishikesh has always been a busy, crowded place with the associated traffic, noise, pollution, and inflated prices. Rampant commercialism has long threatened the town’s ‘spiritual ‘ or ‘sacred’ vibe. These days it is the fourth most visited place in India for overseas travellers  so it’s likely to be more busy, choked with traffic, noisy, more commercial and material focused than ever, with the associated degradation of its appeal for some.

But, even if I were also  able to put all this aside, I think the core of the letting go of my longing for Rishikesh has more to do with the turning inward that has accompanied our eventual recognition of our calling to the hermit life with its quiet, secluded, contemplative lifestyle (or the aspiration for that life).

So, why the dreams? Why so often? Well, as I’ve mentioned, Rishikesh has played a significant role in my life. And despite the dropping away of those longings and attachment, I’m not saying going there again is totally out of the realm of possibility, but it no longer has that ‘I’m home’ kind of feeling. No longer has that magnetic attraction for me.

Now, here’s the missing information about these dreams I’ve neglected to mention thus far: Not one of the dreams has been set in the ‘real’ Rishikesh; never have they been ‘geographically correct’ for wont of better description.

Sometimes the dream town is nothing more than a small clump of houses sitting on a hill or in a field with a dirt track passing by.

Other times it is a sizeable town with temples, streets, cafes and shops masquerading as an Indian town. Sometimes it’s simply a story taking place inside a shop or restaurant that, in the dream, I know is in Rishikesh though not in the terrestrial town. There have been dreams in which the town is more like a city with highrise buildings, multi-lane roadways, and all the rest.

The most recent dream had me in a bus headed for another bus connection to Rishikesh. Worried about missing the connection, I was told that the Rishikesh bus wasn’t due ‘for weeks’.

Many and varied settings all standing in for the ‘real’ Rishikesh. But I don’t think I need Carl Jung to tell me the meaning of these dreams. All of them are my internal sacred or significant ‘Rishikesh’. It’s as if the actual geographic location in India called Rishikesh is the illusion and these dreams are the reality for me. All emanating from the cave in my heart

My inner or true Self, you might say, telling me that my being concerned with my specific geographical location is missing the point. A message for me that I am always in Rishikesh, that I am always in sacred space and with saints and sages, and that the Divine is everything and everywhere.

Om Tat Sat

Just Another Day at The Office

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Who am I to even contemplate composing a commentary on the Bhagavad Gita (BG) after only seven or eight years of study, some formal with a teacher and some more casual alone?

Well, what I am is nowhere near qualified, nowhere near ready. Actually I don’t feel qualified in any way for such a thing. So much less so was I when I first sat down with my newly gifted BG in a tiny cafe called The Office in Rishikesh, literally hanging over the river Ganges.

A Saddhu or Holy man and his phone at The Office

With the best fruit salad in the Universe, and fine chai to match, it was the ideal place for contemplation – that is when it wasn’t bursting at the seams and crazy.

But, as I sat there with my new BG I was one of only a couple of customers, so it was a conducive atmosphere for the aforementioned contemplation. Instead I think what happened as I thought about how to proceed to a proper study, was I allowed the sugar from the just ingested fruit salad go to my head.

You see, I decided, as I sipped a post-fruit salad chai, that the perfect study method would be to write a commentary on the whole thing starting with Chapter one, Verse one.

I no longer possess the diary in which this masterpiece was begun. Nor do I recall much, actually nothing, of what I wrote. It’s enough to say however that nothing I wrote could possibly have had any significance or depth or proper perspective.

So, as you might guess, I rambled and waffled for a couple of verses before I snapped out of my ego-driven state of arrogance and hubris. I realised I had absolutely no business taking on such a task. My lack of knowledge, wisdom, experience, all disqualified me from even thinking I had a right to try.

Now, even with the small amount of knowledge I have managed to acquire after all the study, I’m stunned at that arrogance and hubris – even if it was sugar induced. I mean, I’d never even read more than a few verses of the BG before. So, how could I even form a ‘first impression’ or ‘casual opinion’, much less a full blown commentary?

A couple of days ago I read a couple of verses that really resonated with me, as they have before. So, just like that fool sitting in The Office all those years ago, I confidently asserted that I was more than up to the job of making a commentary on those verses for this blog.

But, and here’s the really weird thing: I only just now realised, as I’ve been writing these notes, that the two verses which I will quote for you shortly, address precisely my behaviour on that post fruit salad, sugar shock induced ego trip.

I realised that it’s as if I have indeed written a commentary on those verses. And I have used a personal experience to illustrate the text. Absolutely unintentionally as it happens.

Regardless of what excuse I come up with the error in judgement in thinking I could write a full blown BG commentary all those years ago, the reality is that I failed to act with discrimination, or what I would call discernment.

In the high holy lands wrong thinking can still happen

Somehow I ignored (or totally forgot) the facts: I knew nothing! I’d lost the ability to discern what I could do and what I couldn’t do, what was a sensible action and what was a ridiculous one.

Stop! Memo to Self: Please stop picking on me!

Anyway, moving right along, here are the verses – free from commentary!

‘Thinking about sense objects brings an attachment towards them. Attachment leads to desire and desire leads to frustration, which in turn leads to delusion.
When you are deluded you lose your memory [the knowledge and experiences you could draw on to make proper decisions; sometime even to the extent of compromising your own values] and with the loss of memory the power of discrimination is destroyed; with the destruction of discrimination your self itself is lost’ .

Bhagavad Gita Chapter 2 Verses 62-63 (my version of the BG sometimes combines verses as it has here)