Aarti and Puja

We wake up around 4:30 am to meet at a small fire pit where we chant and have a fire ceremony.  There’s a small square fire pit with a few logs in it.  The fire is small.  The flame is just there.  I slip off my shoes and enter.  Mataji sits at the head of the fire.  She has her eyes closed.  She actually appears to be nodding off every couple of minutes, but as she is not ever startled awake, I believe she’s just in a deep meditation.  Ha!  We sit in silence for a long time.  I’d like to sit and meditate with the others, but it is just dawn and the light and the energy of our tiny fire are too amazing for me to ignore.  It’s misty outside and the gardens look enchanted.  I’m in an area in Haridwar where there are many ashrams. Off in the distance you can hear a woman chanting.  It sounds like she’s chanting over a loud speaker.   Somewhere else there is drumming; I can faintly hear it.

The sounds and the light remind me of Burning Man, just as it breaks dawn.  Suddenly the magic of the night is over and the world is beginning to come alive.  As you get on your bike and peddle home the last remnants of music can be heard on the horizon.  I’ve always loved this time of day.  The sliver of blue sky in the distance.  The birth of sun.

Mataji opens her eyes and we begin to sing and chant in Sanskrit.  All the other’s know the words, but for new comers, like me; I’ve been given a book with the mantras.  We sing mantras to Krishna and Shiva, the Guru, and Ganesha.  It’s a choppy little rhythm, sometimes more like yelling than singing.  Suddenly someone starts to ring bells in time with our chanting.  There’s clapping.  Mataji begins to make a colored paste from a brightly colored powder.  Yesterday it was yellow and today it is red.  One by one each of us comes to Mataji and kneels down beside her.  We touch her bare feet and bow our heads.  I look up at her and she gives me a smile.  She dips one finger in the paste and puts her finger directly to my third eye.  With a quick and simple gesture she smears the paste from my third eye up my forehead forming line.  The fire is dying.  The morning has come.   I quietly slip my flip flops back on.

Santosh Puri Ashram

After a bumpy chaotic rickshaw ride to Haridwar, my friend Ira and I arrive at the Santosh Puri Ashram.  Our rickshaw heads down a small alley where there are many ashrams behind big gates.  We stop at a gate that has been speckled with colored paint and out from behind it appears a tiny man.  He’s barefoot with a long white beard and balding white hair.  His third eye is accentuated by colored mud.  We’re taken inside the gates where there is a small courtyard surrounded by orange and yellow plaster buildings.  We are given some chai as we wait to do check-in procedures.  At last we are approached by a woman.  She speaks softly and her English is a little hard to understand.  She is the old German woman who runs the ashram.   Mataji.  Her name means mother in Hindi.  She is wearing all orange and barefoot.  Long grey dreadlocks run down her back to her waist.  She has very light blue eyes.  We are shown around and shown to our room.  It’s beautiful here.  There are full lush gardens with marigolds, hibiscus, and hydrangeas.  There is a large tree with huge fruit growing on it.  Fruit the size of melons!  I keep asking everyone what kind of fruit it is, but no one seems to know.  The stairwell up to our room glows with color.  The steps alternate orange and yellow.  Our room is small but it the nicest room I’ve had in India.  Ira and I are so excited about what the next days will bring.  We begin immediately to unpack and make this beautiful ashram our new home.

Palmistry

Walking around Rishikesh, you get the idea that everyone has some sort of psychic power.  Palm readers, astrology, aura cleansing.  It’s a bit like Boulder really!  I’ve decided that I want to see a palm reader.  I want an old Indian man to share his wisdom with me, tell me something profound that I will always remember.  There is a man that has a small space in a temple that does astrological and palm readings.  I pop my head in his shop and ask him how much for a reading.  “150 rupees.  I will tell you about past life, present life and future life.”  Alright!  Three readings in one!  Such a deal!  “Alright my friend!  I’d like my palm read.”  I say.  “Yes please Madam come, come!  Sit!  Sit here!”  I have my friend Aitor with me.  The little Indian man has me put my name and country in a book he has there, somehow Aitor gets wrangled into the whole thing and puts his name and country in the book too.  I sit facing the palm reader and put my hands in his.  He studies both my left and right hand for some time.  Examining every little crease and crevice.  He gets out a pencil.  He’s following lines on my hand and counting the tiny creases on the outside of my palm.  Finally he looks up at me.  “Oh yes, good life.  Very good life”.
“Past life good.  Little problem.  Present life good.  Better.  Future life, very good.”
“Health.  Health very good.  Small problems, but no oppression or accidents.”
“This line is for the mind.  See?  Here.  Past life, too much thinking.  Present life, better.  Up and down.  Future life good.”
He continues on giving me little bits of information.  Yoga and meditation is very good for me, he says and I’m getting better at it.  This is true.  He said nothing profound, he really gave me no new information.  But when he looks at me sweetly in my eyes and tells me with his toothless smile that I have a good life, I believe him.

Himalayan Dust

There is a fine green dust here.  Everywhere.  It’s a very fine pollen that blows from the pine trees.  You can see it blow through the air like green mist.  It covers everything.  The already green plants have an eerie green glow to them.  Spiderwebs are illuminated by this green dust and look like they’ve been crafted with green web.  When the monkeys jump from tree to tree there is a cloud of this green dust that rises from the tree.  My book is covered in green.  As are my feet, which make little green dust footprints.

Monkey Pool

There are many monkeys in the forest in which Tushita resides.  They are brownish-red with medium long hair.  They have little brown faces and little red butts.  As you can imagine they are adorable.  Adorable yet a complete nuisance.  They steal your food and may steal your underwear just to parade around in it.  The nun here at Tushita constantly reminds us that we must close all windows and doors.  There are large packs of them and they often linger when we’re outside eating lunch.  There is a sweet dog here that often runs off the monkeys when they get too close.  When it’s between you and a monkey for your lunch; monkey wins.  One of the founding Lama’s here had a special wading pool built just for the monkeys.  It’s about 5ft long and 2ft wide it’s maybe a foot deep.  The large males usually come by and wash their face.  The babies have much more curiosity over the pool.  They lie at the edge of the pool, reach their little hand down and test the water.  Then they’ll jump in.  yes, jump!  And splash.  It’s sounds like they’re swimming laps.  There is probably nothing more entertaining than watching monkeys swim in a pool.  It’s warm in the sun here, but we’re at 7,000ft so once you’re in the shade it’s cold.  The little monkeys come out of the pool sopping wet and cling to the hot cement.  I can remember doing that as a kid.  When you’re cold and wet after being in the pool there’s nothing better  than laying on the hot sidewalk baking in the sun.  The monkey’s chill for a bit soaking up the sun and then they’re off, as quick as they came, back into the woods. 

Light Offering

Our Introduction to Buddhism class is held in the gompa at Tushita.  This is basically a place to meditate.  It’s a large room with high ceilings.  There is a large Buddha at the back of the room.  From the walls hang Tibetan paintings.  Some of different Buddhas (our teacher, Jimmy, keeps pointing to the Buddha of Compassion to show us this thousand armed Buddha), some of the wheel of life (with demons and Hell realms… yikes), White Tara.  They’re beautiful and extremely detailed.   In front of the large Buddha in the back of the room there are light offerings.  I’ve just arrived in the gompa after dinner and I’m the only one in here.  It’s evening and the only lights in the gompa are the light offerings.  They remind me of Christmas lights on a Christmas tree.  The light offerings are different colored lotus flowers with lights in them.  There are larger candelabra types that sit in front of the Buddha and in the display case of Tara there’s just a row of these lotus flower lights at the bottom.  They have the calmness and serenity that a Christmas tree has at night.  The peace.  I have been up a many of times after everyone has gone to bed, admiring the Christmas tree.   I love to observe the lights and how they glint against the Christmas ornaments.  At these moments looking at the tree it’s really felt like Christmas.   This beautiful sparkling tree, there’s something really sacred about it.  Maybe I’m just a Pagan who only wants to worship the tree, but there is something about the light.  The gentle glow.  The luminosity.  I can see why there are light offerings.   I’d like to think that our Christmas lights are light offerings to the trees.