Himalaya Trekking

Hello good people!

From Dharamsala , India , the seat of the Tibetan government in exile, we traveled to Nepal . The Hinduism we experienced throughout India and the Tibetan Buddhism we experienced in Dharamsala have blended for 2000 years in Nepal . What a wondrous surprise for us to discover temples with images of Buddha and Ganesh!

We visited temples, monasteries, and nunneries in Kathmandu , Patan, Pashupatinath, Bodhnath, and Bahktopor. We witnessed a wedding celebration, a funeral procession, cremations, masked costumed dancers at a temple ritual, puja prayer offerings, pilgrims circumambulating Buddhist stuppas, and daily living. Even on short walks around the town squares, there was so much to take in. Amazing sights!

Church member Megan Fouts recommended our trekking in Nepal . Our daughter Sarah and son Ben were able to join us for a week trekking in the Himalayas . We hiked from Lukla to Phakding to Namchee Bazar to Kumjung to Tenboche and back. We hiked up to elevation of just under 13,000 feet with glorious views of Mount Everest . The trek exceeded our expectations—the beauty of the land, the people, the mountains. We hiked under clear blue skies, sunshine, rain, hail, and snow. We didn’t know that all along the hike there would be stones chiseled, carved, and painted with Om Mani Padme Hum, prayer wheels, water mill prayer wheels, prayer flags, glorious gates and monasteries.

In Khumjung we visited the school established by Edmund Hillary and maintained by the Hillary Foundation. We learned more about the work of the American Himalayan Foundation which has over 130 projects—schools, daycare, hospitals, reforestation of hillsides, wildlife protection, restoration of ancient monuments and monasteries. And in a small village we visited the world’s highest dental clinic.

We celebrated Buddha’s birthday at the monastery at Namche Bazar and then processed around the village with others who carried a statue of the Buddha, played horns, drums, and cymbals, chanted, and carried banners proclaiming “Let peace prevail on earth.”

Throughout these months we have had opportunities to experience a wide variety of religions: Bahai, Brahma Kumari, Hindu, Sikh, Christian, Muslim, Sufi, Jain, Unitarian, indigenous tribal religion, Buddhist, Tibetan Buddhist, Tantric, Interfaith, ashram and utopian community. The time has been enriched by the variety of experiences. We have been fortunate to share meals and stay in local people’s homes and to visit service projects which do such good work. We have visited sacred places, sites, and shrines. This has been an amazing opportunity. We are full of gratitude.

We are excited now to visit family across the country as we make our way back to Berkeley . We will arrive and have a few days at home before driving to General Assembly in Salt Lake City . We’ll be back at church Sunday, July 5. We look forward to seeing you and hearing what has been going on in your lives.

With love,

Barbara and Bill

Dharamsala

His Holiness the Dali Lama is in the U.S., in California, and we are in Dharamsala and Mcleod Ganj, his home, temple, and the seat of the Tibetan Government in Exile.

We arrived to Dharamsala in time for Easter at St. John’s in the Wilderness. Church member Paul Hudson had told us about the church which serves 40 Indian Christian families and visiting international tourists. We were late for the English language service and early for the Hindi service.

We were also three days late for a Passover seder that was held at Jimmy’s Italian Restaurant here in Dharamsala Mcleod Ganj. We’ve had experiences with so many religions here in India. We wish we could have gathered with Jewish people celebrating.

Lhasa, the Dali Lama’s Tibetan home, is said now to be a tourist site for the Chinese.

His home away from home Mcleod Ganj is also a tourist site. Dharamsala Mcleod Ganj is a mix of Indians, Tibetans, Buddhist monks and nuns from around the world and lots of Western tourists, hence Jimmy’s Italian restaurant.

Last night a brass band dressed in white and gold uniforms processed down the street with Hindu men in red turbans and women in red and gold or green and gold saris followed them dancing. Bald headed monks in maroon robes, police in brown berets, tourists with day packs, Tibetan women in traditional jumpers and stripped aprons, Kashmiri Muslims who operate bizarre stalls, all shared in the joy of this wedding procession.

Easter Sunday morning we walked the church grounds, hilly and green and full of old gravestones. Irises were blooming in the cemetery, amidst death, new life. The Easter sermon was on Jesus having no nationality, but a child of God, boundary-less. For communion, people took off their shoes and went onto the chancel and knelt. The minister offered the wafers and common chalice cup. After the service, a group of Indian women all called out to us, “Happy Easter!” One older woman gave each of us a wrapped candy and a little blossom whose fragrance grew in the warmth. That was a moment of Easter.

Later we walked down winding paths and steps, spinning prayer wheels as we circumambulated the Tibetan Buddhist temple. We appreciate seeing how Tibetan Buddhism has many images that look like Hindu images.

We had a few days here with our friends who are active in a U.S. Unitarian Universalist congregation. We shared some UU rituals. With a cloth over a suitcase and a candle, we gathered in a circle for a chalice lighting, check-in and sharing. The next day we hiked together to a sacred lake and had a dream group. Dreams were shared and each of us responded with “If that were my dream…” Two religious rituals of Unitarian Universalism.

Through another church member Cynthia Josayma who lived in Daramsala Mcleod Ganj for many years, we have introductory letters to a Tibetan scholar, his translator, a Tibetan opera singer, and a man who served for 44 years in leadership in the Tibetan government, many years as the Dali Lama’s right hand man. All are gracious and hospitable and generous with their time. They talk freely with us about relations among Tibetans and Indians, newly arrived Tibetans, 2nd generation Tibetans in exile, and long ago refugees. March marked 50 years of Tibetan exile in India.

We got to hear Kelsang Chukie Tethong sing Tibetan opera at a gathering of Afghan Muslims in town for a peace conference.

Tibetan monk and scholar Geshe Sonam Richen granted us a private meeting. We each presented him with a white scarf which he placed around our necks as is the tradition. He has a warmth and a beautifully expressive face. We talked of the commonalities of world religions and his belief that it is good to study world religions and incorporate into one’s own spiritual practice what works. We asked about compassion and non-attachment, and he delineated the difference between attachment which grows compassion and clinging attachment which distorts perceptions. As Buddhism spreads around the world, it adapts to local cultures, but he sees Buddhism as always holding as its essence compassion for all sentient beings.

We visited the Tibetan Children’s Village where 2000 children live and go to school. We were impressed with the well run school and homes, the self-contained, content children, and all the objects and messages preserving Tibetan culture and heritage. Each child is paired with an older child who tutors with homework, teaches the child to cook, and guides the child in learning prayers from Tibetan prayer books. The children study Tibetan, Hindi, and English languages. The TCV motto is "Come to Learn, Go to Serve."

The Norbulingka Institute preserves traditional Tibetan culture and arts. Through apprenticeships, students learn the ancient ways of painting, metal work, appliqué, and woodwork. We watched as craftspeople pounded metal to make a life-size Buddha.

We’ve attended programs and teachings at two monasteries, at the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives, and at the Tibetan Museum, and we have meditated with large groups in Buddhist temples.

Our second Sunday we attended the English language service at St. John’s. The service was led by young adults whose nationalities are from around the world. They played keyboard and guitar and led us in lovely singing.

Getting out beyond the town, there are glorious hikes along terraced green mountainsides with the snow-capped Himalayans in view, rocky paths and ancient steps to Hindu temples, and rivers, waterfalls, and clear pools of water.

We have been reading to each other our journal entries from throughout our time in India, integrating our experiences, and giving thanks for all the opportunities the sabbatical has brought us.

Love,
Barbara and Bill

Chandigarh, April 17th

Our time in Chandigarh was meaningful because of two connections.

A friend from California grew up in Chandigarh and his mother and sister welcomed us. Chandigarh, unlike any place else we’ve seen in India, is a new city built following the partition of India and Pakistan as the new capital of Punjab as well as Haryana. Chandigarh was built by plan for neighborhood sectors arranged in a grid, each with its own shops, schools, places of worship, and parks. Our friend’s family walked with us in the Rose Garden, the Bougainvillea Garden, along Sukha Lake where we saw a new site for us -- local people in sweat suits and running shoes out for their early morning exercise. Piped in along the walkway is Indian classical music. We attended a mesmerizing concert of classical Indian ragas at the newly remodeled Tagore Theater. The city is clean, and traffic is orderly with lots of round-abouts.

A highlight was participating with the family in the celebration of the birthday of Ram on the ninth day of the new moon. Young children visit homes. Our friend’s mother sang prayers as she washed the children’s feet. All of us were given red tikkas, third eyes. Puja prayers were sung in front of the home shrine. Fire was lit and then incense and everyone was blessed by smoke and scent. The mother and sister fed the children their first bites of delicious homemade suji halwa sweets on puris given to the children. The children bless homes by their visits and the hosts let the children know they see the divine in them.

Because Chandigarh has been viewed as a new, prosperous city, many people have moved there, hoping to improve their families’ lives. Right outside the boundaries of the orderly city are neighborhoods with great poverty. Church member Frederick Shaw directs a public health care project in one. The project’s center has bare bones preschool classrooms, beginning library, (old!) computer room, kitchen for nutrition classes, health care promoters’ training rooms and a staff room. Frederick walked us through the neighborhood the project serves. We saw open sewers, pigs eating in mounds of garbage, flies, an area that was once a playground strewn with trash. Each plastic bag becomes a pond during the monsoons, a breeding ground for the disease carrying mosquitoes. A woman came out of her home to show us the water line of where the sewer floods her home during the rainstorms.

The health care project recruits and trains a person from each neighborhood of 200 people in about 20 neighborhoods. These health care promoters visit each family, chart the weight of children, check on immunizations, teach nutrition and family spacing of children, and look in on the general health of everyone in their group of 200 people.

We were able to do a little volunteer work at the project. We repaired and painted broken preschool furniture, cleaned up computers, cleaned floors, freshly painted a blackboard, and visited preschool classes. We participated with the health care promoters in their early morning breathing and stretching exercises, led conversational English with them in the early afternoon, followed by team building activities.

One day each of us was able to accompany a health care promoter while they made their neighborhood rounds. Families greet the health care promoters with respect and welcome. Everyone, children and adults, wants to be weighed. Most homes have one room, plain and simple, with a cot, a few possessions, and a small religious shrine. The floors are swept and washed, but right outside there are open sewers. The health care promoters, along with their teaching, do a lot of listening, showing care and compassion.

We went by one place with four little children on the dirt compound outside the house. One baby, just able to sit up, was crying. Another about nine months older was sitting with snot all over his nose and face, which was covered with flies. A third boy was playing in the dirt where large cockroaches crawled. Another boy about 7 or 8 years old was suppose to be taking care of the others. The mother was at work, cleaning other people’s homes. The father was at work too. Two older children were at school. The mother hasn’t agreed to participate in the program. Sad, very sad. The health care promoter is doing what she can. She elicited help from neighbors. How amazing to have a trained, trusted health care promoter come door-to-door, offering care and support.

Over the days, we came to really respect and feel connected to these health care promoters and to witness the good work of this project. We wrote our appreciations of each staff member, intern, and health care promoters. Our last day we all formed small groups and created non-verbal enactments of compassion, trust, team work, and justice. A part of the justice enactment included a Hindu and a Muslim reaching out to one another. We offered our gratitude to them for all we learned. Then a group of the health care promoters offered us a performance of Punjabi folk dances.

With Frederick Shaw we visited a film discussion group held at the University and a potluck meal of expats from Germany, the Netherlands, England, and Canada. These experiences gave us glimpses into more people’s lives in India.

With our friend’s family, we shared delicious meals in their warm, comfortable home. We felt like family.

We talked of issues of relations among religions and cultures, the suffering of Indians, Muslims and Hindus, during the riots and partition, and the family’s visit to the U.S. One said she would never forget seeing in Las Vegas a poor, under nourished child looking out of a barred window. We talked of poverty and environmental concerns in both our countries and around the world.

We felt so at home with the family. We shared laughter as we tried to take group photos and moving experiences with them at Sikh and Hindu temples. They go regularly to both.

When it came time to leave Chandigarh, the time seemed to have gone by so quickly. The time there was so good.

We took the bus from Chandigarh to Amritsar to visit the Golden Temple, Sikhism’s holiest shrine. We stayed in a guesthouse donated by UK, Canadian and U.S. Sikhs.

We covered our heads, left our shoes, washed our hands, walked through a warm stream of clear water washing our feet, and entered the temple compound.

In the early 1980s Sikh separatists occupied the Golden Temple. On order of then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, the army evicted them. The temple was damaged and there were violent Sikh and Hindu clashes. Thousands, mostly Sikhs, died. Her Sikh bodyguards later assassinated Indira Gandhi. Yet there is no security.

At many temples and historic sites, we have gone through metal detectors, had handbag searches, body searches and scans. At the Golden Temple you just walk in. All are welcome – no matter the religion or caste.

The golden gurdwara or temple shines in a large pool of water, and the surrounding white marble compound buildings involve a mixture of Hindu and Islamic architecture. Beautiful, shining, everything is clean and clear, away from all the mad hustle and bustle of the old city bazars beyond its walls. We circumambulated the temple grounds. There’s a section where people discretely take a dip in the water.

We were hungry so we made our way to the Guru-Ka-Langar, the common dining hall where up to 40,000 pilgrims a day are served. You pick up a tin Thali plate from one man, a bowl from another, a spoon from another, and wait for one shift to come out and then you go in and take a place on the floor. Rice and dhal are each scooped out of buckets onto your plates. You cup you hands and a couple of whole-wheat chapatti are offered to you. It happened to be the first evening of Jewish Passover and Christian Maundy Thursday when Jesus washed the feet of his disciples and they ate supper together. Our friend took the last part of her chapatti and offered each of us a piece to take in remembrance of this place.

We walked outside under the full moon shining in the sky, lighting up the temple, and reflecting in the water.

The Sikh holy book is chanted continuously and the original copy is ceremoniously taken in at 10:15 at night and returned each morning at 4:30. We experienced both rituals.

Though there is a lot of ritualized ceremony, the place is relaxed, peaceful, and joyful. Women come up and place their babies in our arms, ask their young children to say Hello and to shake our hands. Men and women are lovingly with their children. People act as if a child is a gift from God. We don’t witness children whining, complaining, hitting. They look cared for and content. Youth and young men want to be at this place. Elder’s hands are held by their children and grandchildren.

The Golden Temple is beautiful as the sun rises and sets and under the full moonlight. But what was most moving was the communal meals and their preparation and clean up. We saw groups of people sitting on blankets peeling mounds of garlic, huge pots of dhal being stirred, a whole dishwashing assembly line. Everything is so well organized to keep everything functioning. Bucket brigadeswash down the walkways and clean the buildings. There is so much volunteer cooperation in such a prayerful and joyful way. The Golden Temple is a place of community, sharing work, sharing food, sharing ritual and song.

At Amritsar we also visited Jallianwala Bagh, the place where 2000 Indians were killed or wounded by the British in 1919. We know the history from the movie Gandhi. 20,000 Indians were holding a peaceful demonstration in an open space surrounded by high walls. General Dyer, without warning, ordered his troops to fire.

When we visited Jallianwala Bagh, it was Good Friday when Christians mark Jesus’ being killed for speaking truth to the powerful and calling for non-violence. We were talking about feeling badly about our English heritage and all that white people have done to people of color when a man came up and asked the usual greeting, “What country?” We responded “United States of America,” and he introduced us to his wife, daughter, and son. He said, “I welcome you to my country.”

We’re grateful for all we are getting to experience in India. We know much is going on in your lives and we send our good wishes, appreciation, and love.

Love,

Barbara and Bill

March 31, 2009 Delhi

After a sweet farewell with the family with whom we were staying in Kolkata, we took the overnight train to Varanasi ( Benares ). The train stations are overwhelming. People spread out on blankets sleeping on the floors, dogs walk about. It always seems confusing and teeming with sound, sights, and life. Such a contrast with what the only Unitarian woman minister in the Khasi Hills told us was difficult about her trip to Boston . She stayed in the guest house of the UUA headquarters. She said the building was empty, so quiet and lonely.

At Varanasi we walked along the Ganges River , watching the dhobi wallahs wash laundry, beating the clothes on rock washboards. Every day of the week, every week, year after year after year, people pray, bathe, wash clothes, and play in the water. Water buffalo relax in the river. Women shape cow dung into bricks that dry in the sun on the river banks. At one of the burning ghats, we witnessed seven cremations and the ritual process that follows when the priest with his back to the river throws a last clay pot of water over his shoulder on to the fire – pot and all – and walks away. We sat and watched the flow of life as ashes blew on us like snowflakes. We watched as a youth of about 12 – 14 years old did the clean up work as goats ate up the marigold garlands and dogs sniffed through the ashes. The place felt peaceful and commonplace. The rituals did not seem intentional and precise, but more like everyday work. The human body –small and wrapped – burned to ashes and dispersed by the end of the day.

Everything in India feels to us like the Ganges River – activity without ceasing. A tender sight was an old man who came up to a cow who had chosen to sit by the river next to a shrine to Shiva. He touched the cow so tenderly with such devotion and love. He stroked the horns and then touched his own forehead. He petted the ears and touched his head. He stroked the face, the back and as he moved to leave, the cow stretched out a front leg as if to ask for more.

We watched the evening fire rituals along the water, prayers like dances with bells ringing and people chanting. In the morning we rowed out in a little boat as the sun rose. Again the pray-ers, the bathers, as well as people practicing laughter yoga and hatha yoga. We wandered the alleyways around the town, losing our way in narrow passageways. As we walked, people offered help and we twisted and turned around corners and walkways. When all seemed lost, we came out right where we needed to be.

After Varanasi , six of us traveled in a minivan around to remote Buddhist sites in the towns: Bodhgaya, Rajgir, Nalanda, Patna , Vaishali, Kushinagar (Kasia), Lumbini, Kapilvastu, Sravasti. We visited the sites thought to be where the Buddha was born, where his father ruled, the place he sat under the Bodhi tree, preached his first sermon, where he taught, where he converted a robber, spent 24 rainy seasons, where he announced he would soon die, where he died, and where he may have been cremated. We saw sites and ruins of once great monasteries and universities where Buddhist communities and sanghas grew.

Sitting under the Bodhi tree brought back memories of so many beloved trees. Circumambulating shrines and touching bare feet to warm earth felt good. It was a privilege to witness pilgrims and monks from Buddhist communities in Asia practice their devotions, hear their chants, walk and sit with them. At one temple, we took the beginner’s meditation in zasen zen.

Hindus view Buddha as the 9th incarnation of Vishnu. It’s been powerful to witness devotions and all the lives influenced by the Buddha’s teachings and to feel the impact on us as we experience the places where he was born, enlightened, taught, and died.
It was challenging to travel in a minivan and see similar size local vehicles and even smaller packed with two to three times as many passengers with more on the rooftops and holding on to the back rails. We constantly confront our privilege and struggle with how to deal with people trying to offer a flower, beads, blessings, postcards for money, how to tip with people continually offering little services, and how to be with people asking for money. There have been many friendly, fun times, talking with children and adults. Some people asked to be photographed with us.

The roads are extremely rough and rugged and traveling took much longer than the kilometers would have had us think. We had flat tires, engine trouble, saw overturned huge trucks, heard explosive tire blow outs, and witnessed too many near misses. The drivers here are skillful and find a way to weave in and out of impossible situations.

The drive between Buddhist sites is through rural agricultural areas, beautiful fields of grain and tribal villages with mud huts and thatched roofs. We witnessed so much life as we traveled.

At Lucknow we took the overnight train to Jansi, arriving around 4:00 in the morning. In the station, we watched a cow on the railroad platform going up to groups of people, maybe looking for handouts. Then it strolled by us, past the station entrance, continuing to the exit gate where it strolled out.

We made our way to Orccha and happened upon a Brahmin ritual to bring rain. Bill tried snapping his fingers, rubbing his hands, clapping, slapping his thighs, and stomping his feet. The priests were using milk, ghee butter, fire, and water. Later there was thunder, a big wind and dust storm and a few drops of rain.

After the visits to the Buddhist sites, we traveled to Khajuraho and visited the peaceful green grounds with flowering shrubs and the beautiful temples with sculptures depicting so much life. At one of the temples women and children were offering puja, prayers, flowers, and water. Another was full of playful monkeys. By dark the temples were lit and almost magical.

We are now back in Delhi for a few days visiting the Red Fort and the huge Friday Mosque or Jama Masjid where foreign women, no matter how covered their heads and bodies, are being asked to wear gaudy, bright colored printed smocks. This was difficult and began many conversations between us and with other travelers and attendants at the mosque.

In Delhi we are fortunate to be staying in the flat of a cousin of our friends. So good to glimpse what people’s daily lives are like and to walk, not to tourist sites, but around neighborhoods.

We miss you and hope life is going well for you. You are in our thoughts.

Love,

Barbara and Bill

March 13, 2009

How fortunate we are to stay with a family in Kolkata. We’re grateful for the conversation, delicious meals, looking at old photographs, learning family history and stories, and the way they weave together with the larger history of India. How great it is to be in a neighborhood and walk to the market to shop for fruits and vegetables. We’re able to wash out our clothes and hang them on the line outside on the balcony. One evening we all sat together in front of the television eating dinner and watching a weekday nightly drama on Partition. Good to experience normal life.

We’ve talked with the elder of the household. She is 84years old and her wedding was on the rooftop terrace of this house. She gave birth to her two children in the bedroom in which she now stays in a hospital bed. She has many stories to share.

We’ve visited the cemetery and the gravesites of family members.

When we get lost in the larger neighborhood, someone always shows up to lead us where we want to go. So much happens on the street corner right outside the house. Chickens are raised, sold, and slaughtered. Clothes, dishes, and bodies are washed. People sleep, sell grain, laugh, and play.

We walked to the Mother Teresa Mission House. We attended the rosary and mass. The chapel was full of sisters, novices, and guests. The sermon was on going beyond just feeding the hungry and nursing the sick, to respecting people. After all the blessings we’ve been fortunate to receive at temples, we feel fortunate to receive communion and blessings here. We are seeing the connections among religions—displaying images, offering food, blessing with touch. Afterward we talked with the priest who had just flown to Kolkata from San Diego, CA. He currently ministers in Tijuana.

In Kolkata, we have also sat silently in Jain Temples.

We traveled from the heat of Kolkata to the cool Khasi Hills to Shillong, Jowai, and Padu to visit Unitarian congregations, schools, and people. We visited Children’s Village, a Unitarian home for children whose mothers have died. Children’s Village was just opened and dedicated on February 28. Though the children come from as far away as 100 kilometers and they have so recently left their extended families and villages, they are open to being with us. We sat together, took hands, smiled, and hugged. We also visited Unitarian primary and secondary schools—schools open to all and without tuition. We walked around classrooms shaking hands with each student. The children and youth are polite and friendly. There is a shortage of teachers and these children all seem curious and eager to learn.

The Unitarian churches are throughout remote areas of the Khasi Hills. The ministers we met are third generation Unitarians. They are respectful of the tribal indigenous religions. We travelled with a minister who is General Secretary of the Unitarian Union over rugged dirt roads. To arrive to a small rural village and see a steeple with a flaming chalice amazed us.

This minister also took us to visit a sacred grove where tribal rituals are practiced. He told us local legends of creation and of the workings of the cosmos.

We received warm hospitality from Unitarians. They sang hymns to us, shared food with us, and before meals offered blessings in the Khasi language. As we talked with people, we felt connected in common beliefs and principles. We attended a service and heard familiar readings and hymns read and sung in Khasi.

We drove from city to town to village to town to city. The roads are full of bright, colorfully painted trucks, some with pictures of the Hindu god Krishna, some with the Islamic moon and star, some with a Sikh warrior, some with Jesus, and we hear there are some even with a flaming chalice!

These beautiful trucks are hauling loads of coal, much of it exported to Bangladesh. The mining and trucking are changing the lives of these rural villagers, the air, the rivers, and the mountains.

We learned of a tribal system of a numbers code of dream interpretation. People use this code to select lottery numbers! And the lottery is conducted with bows and arrows. We witnessed 20 men each shooting 20 arrows into a target of hay. The last two digits of the total number of arrows hitting the target is the winning number.

The people in the Khasi Hills have features that appear Tibetan and Chinese. They carry loads and dress differently than people in other areas. They don’t speak much Hindi and the dialects of Khasi vary village to village.

The Khasi Hills are so unlike other places we have visited. All this is India too.

We are grateful for such a variety of experiences.

We are back in Kolkata for a couple of more nights staying in our friends’ family home. We will leave to visit Varanarsi and then travel to Buddhist sacred sites.

We hope all is well for you.
Love,
Barbara and Bill

March 4, 2009

Mumbai (Bombay)

Across the bay from Mumbai is the island of Elephanta. We crossed the water by boat, docked at the island, walked the long walkway, climbed the many steps to the Elephanta Caves to discover their sculptures and the stories, mythology, and spiritual and psychological wisdom they portray. The Sacred Sites book is a fine guide. We go slowly, taking in. The sculptures are in pairs – Shiva and Paravati in their mountain abode at Kailasa where all is well opposite Ravana Shaking the foundations of Mt. Kailasa; Shiva as the master yogi seated still and calm in meditation paired with Shiva dancing the universe, still centered while in the ceaseless flow of life; then the idyllic marriage of Shiva and Paravati paired with the wrathful Shiva striking out against evil. There is the three-faced Shiva: destroyer, creator, and balanced one. The last sculpture is a powerful image of Shiva as androgyne, half-male, half-female, as an image of the possibility of harmony, integration, and wholeness. So difficult it is for us to capture in words the power of this place and our journey to it across the water.

We have been fortunate to share meals with the relatives of friends, to experience daily life of some people living in Mumbai. We have experienced powerful pilgrimages to grave sites and birth places.

There is a man we passed on the streets several times each day. His legs are permanently around his shoulders and he asks for money. We talked with our friends of our awkwardness at seeing him. Our friend asked for our leftovers from a restaurant. As we walked by the man, she bent down and their eyes met. She asked if he would like some food. He smiled and said, “Yes, thank you.” There was something so powerful about their engagement in real human interaction and the sharing of food. The next times we saw him we all could greet one another.

Pune

We traveled by train to Pune. We had plans to stay at Maher, homes for abandoned children and women. We didn’t know how we would find and recognize Sister Lucy who said she would meet us at the rail station. Sisters Lucy and Monju came right into our train car, embraced us with hugs, scooped us up, and loaded us and our luggage into their jeep. We traveled through Pune to outside the city to a rural area. We arrived at Maher at 9:30 at night and received a warm welcome by the community of young children, teens, and staff, 240 children. They clapped a chant of welcome, sang “Happy Welcome, dear Uncle and Auntie,” and “Glad to see you, very, very glad.” They sang with gestures, “Hello, Hello, How are you?” Sister Lucy invited us to light branches on their lamp of light. A young woman stepped forward holding a tray of flowers and spice with a lit candle in the center. Everyone sang a Hindu chant as she circled the tray around us and then painted third eyes on our foreheads. Garlands of marigolds were placed around our necks. The young children then ran forward, “Good evening, Auntie. Good evening, Uncle. How are you? What is your name? What country? My name is….”

After the welcome we were served a healthy, delicious dinner. We ate with the staff outside, away from the city, away from the traffic, under the stars. Sister Lucy told us her story of the beginning of Maher. She is a Catholic sister. A woman being battered came to her for help. She listened compassionately and then sent the woman home, asking her to return the next day. In the night the woman was set on fire by her husband. The woman died. Sister Lucy knew she couldn’t just close herself off in the safety of the convent. She had to do something. Twelve years later there are 20 some homes.

Sister Lucy saw the barriers religions and castes have made, and she envisioned a home where all faiths are honored, all major celebrations marked, and where all are welcome.
The Maher banner has symbols of all the major world religions and scriptures from them are on display. She wanted all the prayers to be inclusive, and so they are.

We were shown our simple, clean, small quarters with a pit toilet and Indian bath down the hall. The water and electricity supply is sporadic, and we felt so comfortable.

We have so much to learn from this community, from these people. The women and children seem comfortable, confident, their faces beautiful and open. We visited many of the homes, including homes for aging women, women with mental disabilities. We met women who had been widowed and abandoned by their families, women who had been raped repeatedly and rejected by their families, women who had lived in the city public toilets, women who were unmarried and pregnant. Many of the women, who come for refuge, find healing and are trained to become house mothers or cooks at the homes. The buildings are all so basic, simple, and plain. There is so much joy and laughter. They show one another and us so much respect.

At each home we visited, we received their same welcome ritual. We were offered tea and shared meals with the communities. The hospitality they show touched our hearts.

We joined the children for their 5:30 am yoga and meditation. All these young children and teenagers sit quietly on the ground together before the sun has risen. Afterwards they sweep the grounds, wash their own clothes and bodies. At 7:00 am the youth have a one hour Indian dance class before going to school. There are prayers in the evening. On the weekend they have tabla drumming classes and singing.

A volunteer from Holland does art with them. She is also translating Dutch picture books into English and she invited us to edit the stories. We were glad to give a little something back to this wonderful place of healing and hope.

Our last night at Maher, everyone sat in circles on the ground. One of the young people prayed for our safety, for our families, and our community. Bill said that in our community we all join hands. Everyone took hands. He said, “We join hands with one another to remind ourselves that we are all connected to everyone around India, all around the world, that we need one another and that we are one family.” Barbara expressed our gratitude and prayers for their safety, well being and peace. We had purchased bags and bags of grapes for a special treat for the children. Each child came up to us to receive a bunch of grapes as a ritual of the giving and receiving among us.

The next morning as we left, the children sang a goodbye song and kissed us on both of our cheeks.

Kolkata (Calcutta)

We traveled from Pune to Kolkata where we are fortunate to stay with the family of friends. They too have so graciously welcomed and included us. Their home is in the Muslim area of Kolkata and the 5:00 call to prayer wakes us to a time of meditation. As the calls to prayer happen throughout the day, we take them as moments to pause.

Here in Kolkata we have had a meal in the home of a couple we met at the ashram in Puducherry (Pondicherry). We lost their contact information and through many steps and helpful people, we were able to connect. They guided us through the Ramakrishna and
Vivekananda center and temple. These two religious leaders taught religious unity.

We also had the experience of following a dignified, lovely 74 year old man as he led us on a winding journey with twists and turns and the help of many people along the way to the humble shrine of a beloved Sufi saint.

So much of this journey feels like a dream, mythic, out of our collective human consciousness. We are experiencing so much. There is so much to say and not enough words.

We are ever grateful for your love and support.

Barbara and Bill

Puducherry

February 12, Puducherry

Happy 200th anniversary of the birth of Lincoln and of Darwin.

Happy 50th anniversary of Dr. King and Coretta Scott King's pilgrimage to India--now being retraced by their son.

And Happy Valentine's Day!

One political party here, the Sena, is trying to keep couples from celebrating Valentine's Day because it's further Westernization. Young people are playfully responding, sending Valentines and pink underwear to party members.

We are really glad to be here at the Sri Aurobindo ashram in Puducherry.
We like the pattern to our days. We meditate 2:30-3:00 in the morning, then back to bed. We rise later and bathe with a pitcher and bucket. We make our way through the lively, busy streets and crazy traffic to the ashram dining hall. We have all our meals in the Dining Hall and in silence. The meal is almost the same for each meal of the day and each day of the week and yet it always tastes good to us and is nutritious.

We walk to the ashram library.

The library has a kind of faded glory and books are musty and mildewed,
and still the place inspires a love for learning. The librarians work at old
upright typewriters, sit and read, and talk among themselves about family
and life. Everything seems quite pleasant and relaxed. A learned librarian
guides us and he always says, "it's a pleasure." At the library, we walk in
through the pillars, up the curved wooden stairs to the upstairs locked
collections of the library where we have received permission to view, two
books at a time, a collection of meditations on Sri Aurobindo's visionary
epic poem Savatri. We read a few verses and see the paintings a woman
painted based on the vision of the words described by The Mother. We
sit among sculptures, photographs, fresh flowers and mosquitoes reading
the beautiful poetry and seeing the beautiful images. For people who love
what we know of Whitman's poetry, Emerson's Oversoul, and the vision in
poetry and paintings of William Blake, this is a joy!

This is the way we spend the morning. Then to lunch. After lunch we each
do personal reading and writing and drawing and then an hour of taking
turns reading aloud. At 3:30 we gather with others for Tea Time and
conversation. We've met people from Kolkata and Chennai with whom
we've been very friendly. We ask questions and follow up on their
suggestions. We seem to be the only Americans here. There are
European people, mostly French.

After Tea Time, we return to the library or check email or explore. There
are 300-some buildings of the ashram spread out around the central city.
We walk to them -- cottage industries here include handmade paper,
batik, marbled silk, and by our rooms, incense is made from bark and
dried flowers.

We have classes at 6:00, one in Sri Aurobindo's prose writing Synthesis
of Yoga and The Divine Life, and the other class is in the many volume poem
Savitri. There are evening meditations.

We take off our shoes before we enter the Dining Hall, the Library, the School...

Last night we all filed out onto the playground. A regiment of elders,
all in navy blue shorts and white short sleeved shirts, were drilled in calesthenics. Then we all stood in tribute to Mother India. Then we sat and heard another old recording of The Mother giving a lesson and then sat afterword in silence. Then we filed by an open door with furniture and photographs of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother, flowers and candles, a shrine to these two who their devotees see as manifestations of higher consciousness.

Oh yes, we witnessed a new car blessing at the Ganesh Temple--garlands
of flowers draped around the new car.

So far, it seems as if what we are to do here is be open and receptive,
to follow leads, to learn, keep silence, and not let the mosquitoes get us down.

We are so fortunate to have this time.

February 22, 2009

At the ashram we joined the Friday night Om choir. Tell Bryan!

On Sunday we returned with a group of volunteers to Auroville, the city being created with the dream of people the world over living in unity. We filled a bus and drove as the sun was rising, low and full and red in the sky. We drove through red dirt and dust to Auroville's plots of green, sparkling with early morning dew. We filed into the Matrimandir, the Mother Temple. Outside the matrimandir looks like a giant golden golf ball. As you walk up the interior spirialing ramps, the gold exterior creates a rosy glow. The interior is white marble with twelve marble pillars and channels of falling water. We all put on white socks to enter the central room which is carpeted white, under a huge domed ceiling. We sat silently in a circle on white cushions facing a solid crystal (the world's largest). Rays of the sun shine down from an opening in the dome and beam onto the crystal. It is a huge and silent, light-filled space. After 30 minutes, we filed out to work in the gardens. The two of us join a crew shoveling and carrying composte to a conveyor belt on a machine which sifts the composte, making fine dark soil. We worked a shift and then washed up for a meal. After the meal we were given a tour of the gardens by the man The Mother asked in the 1960s to create the gardens. He studied landscaping, gathered seeds and sapplings from plants from around the world to make the desert bloom. He created new flowers which The Mother named for higher consciousness attributes.

We are glad for our two weeks at the ashram. Before we left California, we were given a gift of a packet of folded oragami paper cranes with the invitation to spread peace. Before we left the ashram, we looked up significant people who guided our stay and gave each a crane, wishes for peace, and our appreciation.

We bussed from the ashram in Puducherry to Chennai to catch a plane to Mumbai and then on to Aurangabad and to Ellora. From Ellora we made day trips to Ellora Caves and Ajanta Caves.

Ellora Caves are carved out of rock from the top floors down. They are Buddhist, Hindu, and Jain temples. Ajanta Caves are a Buddhist pilgrimage site--temples hollowed out of rock and adorned with paintings. The Guide to the Sacred Places of Northn India is our companion book. The first morning at Ellora Bill was awake early ready to go with the excitement of a young boy--sculptures, paintings, and caves! Bill with his flashlights and headlamps was ready to explore. Such an adventure!

Wishes of peace for you and so much appreciation,
Love,
Barbara and Bill

February 10, 2009
Mt. Abu

We've spent 10 days at Mt. Abu. It's been good for us not to be in a huge city, but more than that Mt. Abu is a beautiful, magical place. In ancient times it was known as the place that increases joy. After Republic Day week-end, life quieted down here. The air has been clear, the skies blue, the mountains beautiful, the lake lovely, the sun warm, the evenings cool.

We've walked a lot around the lake, early morning when the monkeys also sit bathing in the warm sun, afternoon, sunset, little lights reflect across the lake in the evening. People rent horses, paddle boats, and feed the geese. We've hiked with the young couples and Gujarati youth tourists and families to sunset point and honeymoon point. We've walked to temples. One temple alongside the lake has a little manger of cows and a calf, another has 365 steps.

We've witnessed a lot of the rural and town life here and been friendly with people here on vacation from other parts of India. We've also had good conversation with people traveling from Brazil, Israel, and Germany. So many people have been friendly and helpful.

We've visited the sacred site of the Jains, the Delwara temples with their amazing marble sculptures, intricate, lacy, and extravagently multiple. The temples are called Hymns in Marble.

The Bharma Kumaris have their world center here. They have 7-8,000 centers in 95 countries. They have a university here and we have been students of BKU. We have sat in meditation with them and with their current leader a 93 yearold old energetic woman. BK teachers from aound the world are here for two week periods and they've included us in some meals, a picnic with field day games and dances, in meditations and teaching. It's been good to be included in such an international gathering. We've made nice connections with American and UK BK teachers.

We certainly don't see everything the way they do, but they are sincere and have created communities of meditation, cooperation, ethical living and service to the world. They are devoted to their meditaion and commited to living their values. Last night we sat with 100 BKs on the side of the mountain for an hour and a half, meditating as the sun set. There was barely any movement or sound among us.

Today we toured the hospital the BKs have here - free health care for all BKs and for the local people--all departments of physical health along with nutrition and meditation. They do many cleft palate surgeries for children. Though we are traveling with just a couple of pairs of pants each and a few shirts, nothing that looks professional, we were treated the same as doctors visiting from around the world. The hospital chief administrator met with us. When we said, "Oh you must be so busy..." he said, "I'm not so busy. I have time always for walking and meditating.

The BKs have one facility here to house 25,000 people which has the largest solar kitchen in the world.We will travel tonight on the overnight train to Mumbai then fly to Chennai (Madras) and then get a ride to Pudacherry (Pondicherry).We are healthy - full of gratitude and love.

Puducherry

From Mountain Abu, we traveled by overnight train, plane, taxi, bus, rickshaw, and foot to the Sir Aurobindo Ashram in Puducherry in the southern India State of Tamil Nadu.

Night time road travel is daring. Big trucks with huge heavy loads, cement mixers, and fuel tankers with signs that say highly flammable don't have tail lights and of course the bicycles, pedestrians, and animals don't have lights.

In Mt. Abu we wore our fleece jackets and layers of clothes during the cold mornings and nights. In Puducherry we wear our lightest clothes and our mosquito repellant.

The Ashram is not a quiet place of retreat but in a bustling urban area. We walk a few blocks through wild traffic from our room to the ashram dining hall where we have all our meals in silence. We read and study in the ashram's library, meditate with its guests and residents at its flower-festooned samadhi (tomb and shrine of Sri Aurobindo and Mirra Alfassa, known as The Mother), take in drama and dance at its theater, take classes in its school.

At night when the city's promenade is closed to motorized traffic, we walk with all the groups of friends, couples, and families along the Bay of Bengal.

Many women here wear streams of flowers in their hair and many women ride bicycles, sitting up so straight and strong. Being in South India reminds Barbara of her Peace Corps years in the Fiji Islands.

We read in the newspaper that 1 million Tulsi sapplings are to be planted around the Taj Mahl to produce lots of oxygen and cleanse the pollution. We've been filtering our own water and not using the plastic water bottles, and we are more conscious and conserving in our use of products and paper. Along the Promenade the lights installed by the city of Puducherry are solar. It's been lovely to walk the Promenade during the evening under the full moon!

On Sunday and Thursday evening the ashram community gathers for meditation at an enclosed playground but open to the sky. A recorded lesson from The Mother who died in 1973 is played followed by silent meditation. After we left the playground, we walked by the Ganesh (elephant-headed son of Shiva) Temple just as the men were carrying out the shrine. A painted elephant leading the procession reached out its trunk and touched us both. Other people were presenting their children to the elephant or bowing to it and the elephant touched its trunk to their heads. We've now been blessed by an elephant.

We visted the nearby Kali temple and Auroville, the experimental international community. Auroville was inspired by Sri Aurobindo and organized by The Mother. It was inaugurated in 1968 when young people from 128 countries brought soil from their homelands, combined and collected the soil in an urn in the geographical center of the community. The dream of Auroville is a utopian community of self-expression, self-development and service to the greater good. Auroville has organic farming and solar power. Somewhere between 1500 and 2000 people are living there from thirty-some countires. The dream is 50,000 people living in unity.

You are in our thoughts. We send our gratitude, appreciation, and love to all.

Love,
Barbara and Bill

Republic Day

Maybe a pilgrimage journey always involves a maze. For us our journey began with the security maze of SF, then British, then India security. We tried to imagine what it would be like if the first security guards blessed us on our way—and we wished each other safe passage. As we are able, we look at all the weary travelers with compassion. We’re all in this together.

We’re glad that we’ve booked a room ahead in Delhi with a small hotel that has someone after customs with a sign with our names. We arrived to our rooms and slept. The next day we had the energy and excitement for visiting sites. We began at the Bahai House of Worship, a vast white lotus building where all remove shoes and sit in silence. Files of students in school uniforms came in and sat quietly. Outside the building they greeted us with “Hello” and “Namaste.”

We visited both the Indira Gandhi Museum (formerly her home and where she was assassinated) and the Mahatma Gandhi memorial at the place where he too was killed. In what reminds us of the stations of the cross, you can walk his last steps, reading his words like “There’s nothing new about truth. Truth is as old as the hills.”

We traveled to Agra through a wild scene of pedestrians, goat herds, rickshaws, bicycles, pushcarts, three wheel auto-rickshaws, motorcycles, trucks with colorful painted decorations and sparkling tinsel, burros with heavy loads, camel drawn carts, ox-drawn carts, tractor-drawn wagons, monkeys, dogs, sacred cows, buses loaded with people, and more. Though the roads are sometimes two lane and marked as such, the traffic creates three and four and more lanes. All the vehicles with horns sound them. The roads are lined with trash; the pollution and smog are extreme, and we know our traveling here by plane and motored vehicles and our going through several bottles of water a day add to it all.

When we stop in highly congested areas, people selling beads, chess sets, bangles tap on the windows and don’t let up until traffic moves again. Agra is a crowded, dirty city. At the Taj Mahal women and men line up separately to be searched. Unlike Barbara’s memory of thirty-five years ago and unlike all the photographs, the Taj Mahal rises up in its magnificence through the smoky haze.

On the way to Jaipur we visited the palace of Akbar who acknowledged the truths of all religions. The architecture includes Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, and Christian symbols. In Jaipur we walked around the city and the bazaars. The market is full of colors, piles of red spice and yellow spices, beautiful round purple eggplants, piles of red rose petals and marigolds, painted elephants, dirt, dust, dung, urine, sweat, open sewers, stench, smiles, bright saris, tredle sewing machines, sculptures, shrines. Most people when we nod and smile, nod and smile in return. We are trying to keep before ourselves the worth and dignity of each person and to have our way of being acknowledge that. People are doing their best to make a living, offering rides, selling, begging, and the moments of connection that aren’t about money are worth everything.

When we stay in a grungy room we notice our discomfort, and when we stay in a nicer room we notice our discomfort as we think of the thousands of people we passed during the day who are living with so little. Our list of gratitude is ever growing. We are reminded of the story of Sidhartha who left his palace and saw suffering, old age, and death. We saw a funeral procession with a little band and a body wrapped in a cloth and covered with flowers.

While we travel we know our lives depend upon so many others – their driving, their growing, carting, and preparing our food, their hand washing and cleaning, their hand labor that made the roads and the sacred sites.

Each day involves the human tasks of cleaning up, washing out clothes, finding a place to dry them, finding food, finding the way to and from places.

In Ajmer we visited the great mosque dedicated to a Sufi saint. We made our way up the narrow alley packed with everything, all the stalls, vats of boiling milk, vats of boiling oil, food being prepared and eliminated, swine eating out of the sewers. In a rush of people, our heads covered, we entered the mosque, a cleric placed a prayer shawl over us and offered prayers for our safety as people tossed floods of red rose petals on the saints tomb.

Later we visited a Jain site and saw a two story golden diorama depicting the Jain concept of the ancient world in miniature – a golden city, flying peacocks, elephant gondolas, sparkling with mirrors and precious stones.

In Pushkar, with its thousand temples and lake with ghats, we visited the Sikh temple where we received a blessing of sweets, saw a Hindu temple with statues of gods surrounded by swirling colored lights, another wedding cake-looking temple where we were blessed with a lump of sugar, a temple dedicated to Hanuman, the monkey general. Late in the night there was a Hanuman celebration with music and chanting.

At Pushkar Lake we visited the Brahma temple. A holy student directed us through. It was January 20^th and he told us his sadhu, holy teacher, said his first puja, prayers, that morning for Obama. After visiting the temple he took us to a Brahmin priest on a ghat at the lake. We sat cross-legged and repeated the prayers in both Sanskrit and English. We ritually washed our hands, eye lids, noses, ears, and lips. We held plates of red spices, yellow spices, rice, marigolds—and wasps. The priest dipped his fingers in these elements and blessed us with third eyes and tied red and yellow threads around our wrists. We walked to the water and offered the elements to the lake with prayers for the world, for peace, and for Obama. He asked us the number in our family. We said it depended upon how you count. As we repeated his words we added to the prayers for family “and all our relations,” and we thought of all of you.

That night in Udaipur we got a room with a television and watched the inauguration on BBC International. From Udaipur we traveled to Mt. Abu, a site sacred to the Jains and where the Brahma Kumaris have their spiritual center. The mountains are beautiful, the skies blue, the lake lovely. Currently we are reading aloud Suketu Mehta’s /Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found/. We have a daily practices book from which we read at breakfast, and we share with each other our separate journal entries. We are enjoying one another, and we are remembering and sharing our dreams and seeing how through them we are trying to understand our experiences here in India. We are ever grateful for your love and support and truly offer ours to you.

Love,
Barbara and Bill

We’ve taken steps back from the regular day to day church work and feel in touch with the big picture and what’s most important. We’ve been flooded with gratitude. Your faces come to our awareness, and we feel much appreciation and love.

We’ve had the time to visit Spirit Rock Meditation Center for a dharma talk and sitting meditation. We spent New Year’s Eve at the Siddha Yoga Ashram in Oakland where we received a teaching and joined in an evening of chanting and meditation. One Sunday we worshiped at the Sacramento Unitarian Universalist Society and another with the Mount Diablo Unitarian Universalists in Walnut Creek.

To prepare for our journey to India, we’ve been reading about pilgrimage and more novels and books about India: Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger, Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children, and Sukanya Rahman’s memoir Dancing in the Family about three generations of classical Indian dancers. We’ve reread the Hinduism and Buddhism chapters in Huston Smith’s The World’s Religions, and we’ve watched the Joseph Campbell film Sukhavati and the first two episodes of the PBS series The Story of India.

We’re excited. We are writing this the night before we fly. We’ve each packed one bag. Along with our clothing we have journals; watercolor pencils; a small photo album of family, friends, and church life; a spiritual practices guide book with blue ribbon bookmark; and a flock of paper cranes to release to sew peace.

We hold you in our minds and hearts and prayers, and we are sustained by your blessings and good wishes.

Barbara and Bill