Shooting holes into the movie screen: Why it’s often so hard to trade in the life you planned for the life that is waiting for you

‘Ramakrishna had resigned himself to the will of God with a completeness which is beyond our imagination. He was therefore incapable of making any decision except from one moment to another. Planning seemed positively horrible to him. On one occasion, it is related, he saw Hriday with a calf and asked him what he was going to do with it. ‘I’m taking it home,’ Hriday answered; ‘in a few years it’ll be full-grown and ready for the plough.’ Ramakrishna was so shocked that he fell into a swoon. When he came back to his senses, he exclaimed, ‘Look how worldly people hoard for the future! It’s only a calf now, but it will grow and work in the fields! Always planning so far ahead! Won’t they ever rely on God! Ah – that’s Maya! ‘  – from ‘Ramakrishna and his disciples’, Christopher Isherwood

The above passage about the famous 19^th Century Indian mystic Ramakrishna illuminates something I have been wondering about for a while: the human need for future plans and long-term goals. I’ve often read accounts of Saints and mystics who are completely surrendered to Divine Will. They live from moment to moment, being completely receptive to what comes – and doesn’t come- their way, and are content with that. Sometimes, these mystics become so infused with ecstasy that they tear off their clothes and dance naked in the streets with tears running down their faces because they have realized who they truly are, and that beyond this, nothing actually matters.

In Glastonbury, UK, a place I visit frequently, I once made the acquaintance of a lady called Edwina. Edwina is a flamboyant character who loves wearing felt hats and travels through the world in her timeworn car. One thing that impressed me the most about her was her unwillingness to make any plans whatsoever. ‘Remember – no plans!’ she used to reprimand those who dared to ask her where she was going next, and when. She’d wake up in the mornings, listen to her guidance for the day, and live accordingly. If she felt that day to drive to a different country, then this is what she would do. If she didn’t receive adequate guidance, she stayed where she was. Another lady I came across in the same town decided to trust the Universe so completely that she gave all of her possessions, including her house and all money away, to live from moment to moment.

Yet, most of us don’t and perhaps cannot or don’t even want to live in this way. Our lives are often full of commitments and responsibilities, both imagined and real. Yet, I have a feeling that at a deeper level, much of our need for plans is really rooted in an inner insecurity. I’m not talking about a basic need for food and shelter here, though the mystics are generally so surrendered that not even this is an issue any longer. But for those of us who are not quite mystics yet, we often resist going with the flow even in small ways, such as taking a day off work to enjoy an unexpected warm, sunny day.

Few of us do follow the flow of life, and that’s actually not really surprising. Our whole system is based on living in the future, not in the now. When we’re teenagers in school, we’re already supposed to make up our minds about what career to follow and how we want to live for the rest of our lives. When we meet somebody, we already think about marriage or at least want to know if the relationship is going to last. We are told to plan for our retirements as well as for emergencies of all kinds. I’m not saying that any of this is wrong. But quite often, it also stifles our growth and sense for exploration and adventure from an early age. Because of constant planning and fear of ‘what could go wrong’, our eyes remain closed to what is around us and the endless possibilities that do exist. From experience, I can really say that the Universe generally knows best on how to bring us what is right for us. When we get in the way, we often choose the hard, arduous route based on our limited reasoning as opposed to the easy and joyful way.

But then, it all depends on what we believe the purpose of life is. If we really sit down and ask ourselves this, then what is – genuinely – the answer? Realized Masters have said for a long time that the only purpose of life is to realize who we truly are: Satchitananda – eternal bliss consciousness. But how many people in the modern world believe this? Do you believe this? Looking around, it seems more likely that we believe that the purpose of life is making sure we’re safe, both materially and emotionally, because life is so dangerous and unkind.

Rarely does a person live freely, without the trappings of ego desires and attachment. If we truly knew and trusted with every fibre of our being that we are an aspect of the Divine and that our purpose is to realize the Self, life would be very simple. We would, as Ramakrishna said, ‘rely on God’ and spend our lives in contemplation and celebration of the Divine. We’d know that our needs would be taken care of. But karma and Maya get in the way – we incarnate into this world with karmas that have to play themselves out, and on the way we get attached to illusions of security, desires and our fears of not having enough. And this is because we are steeped in ignorance as to how things truly are.

The fun of life, I feel, is uncovering that everything is an illusion. My friend Elahn Keshava, who runs Shekinashram in Glastonbury, recently put it this way: Life is like a movie screen. We believe that what we see is real, just like somebody who is engrossed in a really good movie. But then somebody shoots a hole into the movie screen, and light begins to flow through it. We become aware that actually, what we believe to be reality is not really real at all. There is a bigger reality behind it. And gradually, more and more holes start to appear in the screen until finally, it falls apart and everything is submerged in light.

You might like to read the following books – they are great accounts of spiritual personalities who have surrendered their lives completely to Divine will and had mind-blowing adventures on the way:

* ‘The Journey Home – Autobiography of an American Swami’ by Radhanath Swami

* ‘Tears of Bliss – A Guru-Disciple Mystery’ by Narvada Puri

* ‘Mere Aradhya – My Beloved Guru’ by Swami Dharmashakti Saraswati

 

If you enjoy my writing, my book ‘Meeting Shiva – Falling and Rising in Love in the Indian Himalayas’ is out now on Changemakers Books.

Embracing Kali’s Boon: How to surrender to what is, even when this doesn’t look at all how you imagined it

‘The blessing is only won when you accept both sides of Kali, including pain, sorrow, loss and death. The real death is trying to hold your tiny ego safe from the pain caused by desire and love. Flee from the dangers of life, and you will miss her blessings, too. But embrace Kali as she is, kiss her bloody tongue and feel all four arms around you, and then you have life, you have freedom.’ – Tim Ward in ‘Savage Breast’

I’ve always had an interesting relationship with Kali, Hindu Goddess of dissolution and destruction.  It can be hard for a non-Hindu, unfamiliar with the symbolism of the Goddess, to fathom her. Kali is often portrayed naked, wearing nothing but a garland of severed, bloody heads around her neck. She yields a sickle in one hand while rolling her eyes and sticking out her red, lolling tongue. To the unsuspecting observer, she can appear terrifying, violent, and even barbaric. For us in the West, where anything to do with God is generally light, angelic and nice, Kali may seem like a demon coming straight from hell.

But that’s not who Kali really is. Although she is sometimes misrepresented as dark, violent and merciless, she is commonly understood to be the compassionate Mother Goddess of Time and Change by her devotees. Devotees believe that Mother Kali helps them to let go of what is no longer needed in life, similar to a mother who takes a harmful object out of her screaming child’s hand. We might not understand or like it when things come to an end in our lives, but with hindsight, when we see the big picture, we often realize that it was for our best and that our greatest learning occurred through loss. Viewed metaphorically, what Kali really destroys with her sickles are the demons of ignorance and ego.

And this brings me to something I have pondered for a while: surrender. Surrender is such a big word in spiritual circles. But what does it actually mean? Surrender, put simply, is to cease resisting. It may include acceptance and letting go. Interestingly, one of the dictionary definitions of surrender is to ‘cease resistance to an enemy or opponent and submit to their authority.’ What makes me laugh about this is that the way we fight with reality most of the time makes it seem as though we regard reality truly as our enemy. ‘I don’t like this’, ‘he shouldn’t have said that’, ‘this should be different.’  Rarely do we accept what is, even when it’s something that we can’t change, such as the weather.

It’s easy to surrender when things are going our way and according to plan, right? Then we’re ‘in the flow’, the Universe is supporting us and life is just wonderful. But then we contract that serious disease, our relationship falls apart, we lose our job, our home, our status, or a loved one dies – and suddenly it’s ‘Damn! I didn’t ask for this!’ And suddenly we’re wondering about the kindness and flow of the Universe because this is not what we had planned or wished for at all. We begin to feel alone, abandoned, helpless and out of control, our situation is ‘horrible’ and quite often we sink into depression, anger and despair.

But these hard times are Kali’s greatest blessings, because they are our biggest initiations. Life in these circumstances is only hard and painful because we resist the nature of life, which is impermanence and change. Let’s face it: most of the time, we don’t know what is good for us. From where we are, we can’t truly discern as to what is fortune and what is misfortune, because we don’t know the big picture. Unless we are realized or at least highly evolved, we haven’t got a clue about our karma and our life’s true purpose. And this is where surrender comes in. I believe that there comes a point on the path of every spiritual seeker at which s/he throws up his or her hands and says ‘Look. I have understood that I don’t know anything. Please, God/Goddess/Universe, take over my life and guide me. I surrender. Do with me as you will.’

And with this humility and surrender, a great freedom sets in. We begin to trust that there is indeed a divine plan, even if this divine plan means that we’re tossed out into the streets, lose everything we own, get ill and end up in places we had never planned on going to. Freedom is recognizing the grace that is in all things and trusting that we will always be alright, even when we’re not.

By meditating on Kali, we can remind ourselves that loss of control is the only way to transcend our false egos.  With swift precision, she cuts away our ignorance, our attachments and our conditionings because she knows who we truly are and what is good for us. When we ask for transformation and growth, when this is truly the highest goal and ideal of our lives, we have to accept the most direct ways in which this is possible. And that is very often a way our egos don’t like.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t endeavour to heal from illness or get ourselves out of difficult life situations when they occur. But we can do so with equanimity and wisdom, and most importantly, we must not lose the lesson this life circumstance is presenting to us – for there is always something to be learned. And this also doesn’t mean that we cannot grieve or be sad, but within that, the big Self recognizes what is truly happening and can be calm within the storm. There is equally nothing wrong with having desires, but we need to understand that desires are often nothing more than karmas. It’s important to develop the discernment between an ego-desire that will bring us satisfaction in the world, and a desire that comes from our soul purpose.

Caroline Myss describes the act of surrender and the meaning of grace beautifully in her book ‘Defy Gravity’. ‘I frequently put entire groups on the spot by asking this question’, she writes, ‘What if an angel came down and offered you two choices? The first is the highest potential your ego desires, with all the bells and whistles and applause and admiration you are craving – except that it’s really not your highest potential. The other choice is far less grandiose in appearance yet far more potent as a means of making a difference in the world: becoming a vessel of grace in service to others, though many of them will never even take notice of you. Which would you choose?’ (…) Most people admit that they would choose their fantasy of their highest potential, even when offered the authentic alternative, because they would want the experience of abundance, security, admiration and fame.’

I find this to be very thought-provoking. We often believe that we know what our highest potential is – and that often includes worldly fulfilment such as financial abundance, a great relationship, a successful career – but maybe our highest potential excludes all of those things in favour of something more authentic. Surrendering means being open to all of the possibilities that life presents us with and knowing that everything always works out for our highest good. We can do this by going inwards and learning to listen to our soul’s guidance. As Mooji says, ‘Life is so much wiser and kinder than your mind imagines. Trust & Be Still.’

 Tools that can make surrendering easier:

• Meditate. Nothing can develop intuitive knowledge of the ‘big picture’, inner guidance and wisdom better than meditation.
• Spend quiet time in nature.
• Learn to read and trust the signs – usually they happen in the form of synchronicities on your path.
• Surround yourself with inspirational, spiritually-minded people or even better, have satsang with spiritual teachers and guides.
• Read inspirational books.
• Chanting mantras, especially Kali mantras, can really help to transcend our ego desires and align ourselves with our soul purpose.
• Read this article on one of my favourite blogs: http://www.vishnusvirtues.com/how-to-manifest-your-hearts-desires-without-shaking-down-the-universe-like-a-mob-boss/

• If you enjoy my writing, my book ‘Meeting Shiva – Falling and Rising in Love in the Indian Himalayas’ is out now on Changemakers Books.

Freedom from bondage: Do we really need to eat, sleep and lose vital bodily fluids?

‘A person who has perfect control of body and mind is a yogi in every situation.’ – Hatha Yoga Pradipika

A couple of days ago, I visited a local ashram for a Vedic fire ceremony. Later, I shared a table with an acquaintance who works at the same yoga studio as I. As we were waiting for dinner to be served, she told me that she was waiting for her young daughter to have food before going home. ‘Oh’, I said, ‘you’re not eating?’ ‘No’, she replied, ‘I am a breatharian.’ Breatharians, or Pranier in German, are people who don’t need to eat or drink as they can exist on prana, the life force. ‘Really?’, I asked her. ‘Tell me more.’ The woman told me that the inspiration to become a breatharian came to her during a spiritual practice her Guru had given her. ‘It wasn’t so much a conscious choice to stop eating’, she told me, ‘I just suddenly knew in my meditation that this was the way for me.’

So she began with a ‘conversion process’ during which she didn’t eat or drink for seven days, and only practiced the pranayama techniques her Guru had shown her. In total, the process to become a breatharian  took her three weeks. Since then, she rarely eats – only when she feels like it, which is about once a week. ‘I eat for enjoyment now’, she said, ‘or when I visit my parents, who don’t know that I am doing this. And I also noticed that the urge to eat comes to me when I am stressed. But the main thing is that I don’t have to eat, which is a liberation.’ Surely it is. When you think about it, most of our time is dedicated to food. We work to acquire food, then we purchase or grow it, prepare it, eat it, and clean up the dishes afterwards. When we travel, we spend a good amount of time looking for food. It’s a time-consuming affair. I’ve often thought that it would be great to eat only through choice, for the experience, and not because I have to.

My acquaintance also told me that since she stopped eating, all of her health problems disappeared. ‘I used to have a lot of pain in my body, terrible back pains, as well as psychological pain’, she said, ‘and it’s all gone now.’ And she looks great: glowing, radiant, and not skinny at all. Her story fascinated me. I’ve heard about breatharians before, but I’ve never actually met one. If you believe the Internet, then more and more people are learning to live on light and air, and long-term breatharian Jasmuheen is giving advice on  how to on her website http://www.jasmuheen.com. Apparently, it’s a mental choice – breatharians say that we erroneously believe that we have to eat to survive, but we can equally choose to live on prana.

From a yogic viewpoint, this is not really anything new. Yogis in India have lived on little or no food since ancient times, because their spiritual practices support them with everything they need. The bodily needs and even functions are considered to be bondage, because they keep us from being truly free and also distract us from our spiritual progress. Likewise, the conservation of vital fluids, i.e. semen and menstrual blood, is recommended in some of the yogic texts, as these fluids contain our life force.

As a woman, I find the idea that our life force is contained in the menstrual blood very interesting. It certainly makes sense, as women tend to feel tired during menstruation, and it is suggested that we rest as much as possible during this time. As Hatha Yoga was traditionally a masculine path, much has been written about the conservation of semen for men, especially during the sexual act, and practices have been developed that help men to do so and thus contain the prana in their bodies. One of these yogic practices is called vajroli mudra, which has to be practiced under the guidance of a Guru and consists, among other things, of learning to slowly draw in air through a tube that is inserted into the urethra of the penis. Perfection of vajroli mudra is said to give a man greater vision, as well as increased vital and mental power. Loss of semen equals degeneration and death.

What is less known is that there is a related practice for women called sahajoli mudra, which instructs women on how to control their rajas, the menstrual blood, as well as suppress ovulation. This practice involves the same muscle contraction by the urethra as vajroli mudra. Note that this practice only makes sense for yoginis who have chosen not to have children, and should only be done under the guidance of an experienced teacher. If a woman wants to reproduce, a rich menstrual loss, just like a high sperm count in men, is of immense value. Likewise, in many traditions, menstruation is seen as sacred, as this is the time when a woman is at the height of her power, in particular spiritually. She is more intuitive and it is a time that is conducive for introspection, seclusion and sadhana.

However, ultimately, for a yogini this is also bondage as a woman’s vital energy is draining from her every month – vital force that she could conserve and circulate within her body to nourish her internal organs. The mental and physical fluctuations that accompany a woman’s cycle bind her to physical consciousness. By withdrawing the bindu (ovum), a woman experiences the awakening of a higher energy force within her body and her consciousness effortlessly expands into transpersonal awareness.

The ‘third pillar of bondage’ in yoga is said to be sleep. Highly advanced yogis are said to sleep just two to three hours daily, or not at all, if their meditation practice has been perfected. As the spiritual aspirant advances, s/he will need to sleep less and less, parallel with prana being increased through practices given by the Guru. This development is also aided by the practice of Yoga Nidra, or yogic sleep.

It’s interesting to see how limited our earth-bound consciousness is, and how much we are capable of given the right practices. Of course, if we live in the world, have demanding jobs and families to support, these spiritual attainments may be difficult to master. But we can nevertheless take inspiration from the yogis – and in sadhana, every hour of practice helps. Perhaps the middle path is a path in which we have better and deeper sleep aided through Yoga Nidra; practice brahmacharya and eat healthy pure foods to lessen the flow of menses; and eat moderately but choose foods that have a high content of prana, such as fresh organic greens, vegetables and fruit. In this way, we increase our prana, expand our consciousness and heighten our sensitivity at the same time.

Find out more:

‘Hatha Yoga Pradipika’ by Swami Muktibodhananda (Yoga Publications Trust)

‘Conscious Eating’ by Gabriel Cousens (North Atlantic Books)

‘Yoga Nidra’ by Swami Satyananda Saraswati (Yoga Publications Trust)

Living your purpose: reflections on the meaning of karma yoga in modern times

‘The world is imprisoned in its own activity, except when actions are performed as worship of God. Therefore you must perform every action sacramentally, and be free from all attachment of results.’ – Krishna to Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita

I have to admit that during my yogic journey, I’ve wrestled with the concept of karma yoga for a good while. The first time I came across karma yoga was in India. A few years ago, I’d landed in an ashram in Rishikesh where I wanted to study yoga. To my surprise, all residents were asked to clean the ashram, serve food or help with building work in their free time. This was called karma yoga, Sanskrit for ‘selfless service’. We were told that altruistic work, carried out without attachment to the fruits of one’s deeds generates good karma, purifies the mind and ultimately leads to moksha, liberation from the cycle of birth, death and rebirth.

Interesting idea, I thought then. My resistance kicked in almost instantly. Karma yoga?! Surely that’s just a clever way devised to get cheap labour. It was evident that karma yogis worked hard. They cleaned, cooked and built and didn’t receive compensation of any kind, other than the promise of karmic benefits somewhere down the line. Moreover, in many modern ashrams karma yogis were expected to pay for room and board in addition to working all day long. It seemed a bit absurd to me, and I resolved that I wouldn’t fall for this.

A few years and a few ashram living experiences on, my views and understanding of karma yoga have changed considerably. I understand now that in traditional ashrams, the practice is used to generate an attitude of equanimity, surrender and non-attachment to likes and dislikes. It’s actually a valuable tool that helps us to work through our resistances and to observe our minds. Do we always want to do well? Do we expect praise? Do we always want to do what we enjoy, or can we generate the same joy while cleaning the bathrooms?

I think one of the problems is that many ashrams nowadays are commercial enterprises, and this can overshadow the purity of karma yoga how it was intended. If you can clearly see that an ashram is not a non-profit organization and that the owners are doing very well from running it, then the question of karma yoga becomes redundant. Volunteering there can still be a valuable experience, but this volunteering shouldn’t be called ‘selfless service for God’.

But there’s still something that puzzles me. In the Gita, it says that actions must be free from all attachment of results. ‘Do your duty, always; but without attachment. That is how a man reaches the ultimate truth; by working without anxiety about results.’ That, in my opinion, is a very interesting point. Karma yoga in ashrams aside, how does this apply to the modern world? A good friend of mine, the writer Tony Crisp, always used to laugh at me when I went to ashrams to clean and cook. He spends his days writing books and articles and answering people’s queries about dreams and the inner life – for free. ‘That’s my karma yoga’, he used to say. He writes because this is what is natural to him; he uses this innate gift to share it with the world and as a tool for transformation. He doesn’t care whether he earns money from it or not; he does it because he loves it. Sometimes he earns money and that’s fine; at other times he doesn’t and he lives frugally, that’s fine, too. He trusts that his needs are taken care of as long as he is sharing his gifts with the world freely.

I have yet another friend who takes this attitude to an even higher level. Beth Forster of Mosaic Magazine in the UK not only publishes the magazine because of her love of spirituality, she actually pays for all of the printing costs herself and doesn’t use advertising to make up for them. For a long time, the magazine was available for free; now she sells it at a very low price and has the shops who sell it keep 100% of the sale price. Crazy, a commercial-minded person would think. And Beth is not a millionaire: she has used her own savings, and just when they ran out and she wasn’t sure whether she could afford printing any more, she inherited some money that secured the future of the magazine. Recently, people have come forward voluntarily and offered donations to pay for further printing. Such is the extent of her trust – producing the magazine is Beth’s gift to the world, and she believes that she will be supported for as long as she is meant to do so.

Maybe this is the modern interpretation of karma yoga. As you may know from reading this blog, I am very fond of Sri Prem Baba, a Brazilian Saint, who fuses the wisdom of East and West and puts it into a contemporary context. In his book ‘From Suffering to Joy’, he says: ‘Each person brings certain gifts and talents to this world. You have to give what you came here to give. You brought the gifts – are you going to hide them away in the closet? Karma yoga, the path of service, means giving your gifts away with love and tenderness. In this way you fulfil the purpose of your birth. This love takes you to God.’

This – the knowledge that I had certain gifts to share – has always been my struggle with the karma yoga of the ashrams. I thought – if I already know what my gifts and talents are, then why should I spend all of my time cleaning and gardening? What happens to these talents if I am too busy to share them? Of course, these thoughts came to me when I was considering living in ashrams for a long period of time, not just a visit of several weeks or months. And I am aware that cleaning and gardening have to be done, but there should be a balance between the tasks that are necessary and the task that we came here to do.

I truly believe that we all have a purpose in life and certain gifts to share. Many of us don’t become aware of those gifts until later in life, unless we are very lucky. And many of us, though we may know what our gifts are, can’t live them out fully because we have a family to support and are dependent on a steady wage. But for those of us on the spiritual path, for those of us whose human self has submitted to the will of a deeper truth, of a calling, nothing else can work. We have no choice but to share our gifts with the world, no matter what, because that’s the truth of our existence. And I also believe that in cases of such surrender, the Universe will create ways for us to have abundance as well. Prem Baba says that ‘the spiritually mature person knows that their actions are governed by the heart’s intent, and that money is a natural consequence of their actions. Work, often perceived as a burden, now is transformed into service and becomes a precious gift given to others from the depths of one’s being.’

There’s yet another aspect to ‘fruit of one’s labour’ – and that is success and recognition. For many people, money may even be secondary as long as they are recognized and admired for their work. Maybe this is even more seductive than money. In the yoga world, there are suddenly so many ‘stars’ – affluent, beautiful, famous people with a large following. I find this to be an interesting phenomenon. In the old days, the yogic teaching tradition was mostly 1:1. An accomplished yogi did his or her best to stay anonymous, and the students had a hard time finding him/her, and an even harder time to get accepted as a student. The yogi didn’t really care about having students or fame. This way of teacher-student relationship has always appealed to me, both as a student and as a teacher. The teaching carries much more depth in this way, and if I can transform just one student’s life with my teaching, isn’t my purpose fulfilled? But this type of teaching is hard to sustain in our reward-driven society, and requires a huge amount of surrender.

Of course, everything ultimately depends on what your goal is. I once read an interesting story in a book about Amma. It talked about a filmmaker who wanted to make a documentary about Amma. Amma in turn had him do all sorts of tasks – cleaning, milking the cows, chopping vegetables and so on – until he was completely transformed. He arrived at a stage where he wasn’t attached to filmmaking any longer: he enjoyed all tasks equally. And that is liberation, of course. If we think that our desires and thus our talents are karmas, then it is liberation if we are released from those karmas. But I do remember thinking upon reading this story: ‘oh, what a pity about the filmmaking talent. He could have enriched a lot of people’s lives with his films.’ Yes – he can also enrich people’s lives through cleaning, but I’d say that the main result from his interaction with Amma was the loosening of his attachments and karmas.

So, it’s all good and valid. For me, until I am enlightened, Prem Baba’s view currently makes the most sense. Share your gifts and talents generously without attachment to rewards and results. Do your work dutifully, to the best of your ability, and surrender everything else – financial gain, success, recognition – to the will of the Divine.  What matters is that the love flows through you. When you live your truth and are centered in your heart, the lives of those around you are enriched and transformed automatically.

Til life us do part? Reflections on intimate relationships in an increasingly conscious age

‘Relationship is the best seminar in town.’ – Ram Dass

Have you noticed that things are changing rapidly around us now in all kinds of ways? People have been talking about the shifts of 2012 and ‘the end of the world’ for so long, and to me, it’s becoming impossible to ignore that these changes are finally happening. With ‘the end of the world’ I mean ‘the end of the world as we know it’ – we are transitioning from one way of living into another, with the consciousness of humanity rising rapidly. I can see evidence of it everywhere: old useless patterns are falling away, people are struggling for freedom and justice and are coming together to create more authentic, sustainable ways of living.

This shift is particularly noticeable to me in Germany, where I live right now. I have been abroad for twenty-one years and maybe this is why I see it all the more now. I’m amazed at what has happened to the country. Suddenly, famous TV chefs are vegan and organic; organic shops are sprouting everywhere; fair trade and ethical banking are becoming more mainstream; the once conservative magazines like ‘Spiegel’ and ‘Geo’ are running special issues about yoga, meditation and downshifting into simple ways of living; more and more people are giving up stressful jobs to live less lucrative, but more fulfilling creative lives in the countryside. The smallest villages now have yoga studios that focus on introspection as well as health. Of course, there’s still much room for growth and change, but the important thing is that it’s happening and that there is a noticeable shift in people’s consciousness.

Also our relationships seem to be changing drastically. We seem to be realizing now more than ever what the true, or perhaps, the spiritual purpose of relationships is, and how to conduct within these new boundaries. It’s like the outdated concepts of both patriarchy and matriarchy are finally merging into a marriage of male and female energies within, and that we are starting to connect from a more balanced and powerful place now.

This brings about much disquiet and confusion in some of us. If many of the old concepts and securities are falling away, then what do we want our relationships to look like in a conscious age? What are our relationships really about now? And, if personal and spiritual growth is on our agenda, then how can we reflect this through our partnerships?

Personally, it has taken me a long time to understand what relationships are really about. Brought up, like many of us, on a diet of romantic movies, novels and ideals, it took me many years of trial, error and heartache to finally understand that relationships are mirrors and accelerators for our growth. Intimacy, if we have the courage to allow it, can be one of the greatest transformational powers in our lives. It takes much introspection, awareness and humility to understand and work through our samskaras, our conditioning, and not blame our partners for our problems and inner conflicts. This can be painful at times, but ultimately, also very liberating. As I wrote in my forthcoming book ‘Meeting Shiva’, which is all about the spiritual purpose of intimate relationships, ‘no knife cuts as swiftly, deeply and precisely as the blade of the Beloved. ‘And what is being cut away are the layers of the false Self, of the immature ego, that hold us back from being who we truly are.

Sometimes, our commitment to personal growth may also mean that we have to let go of a relationship if it doesn’t support us or the other person any longer. In fact, sometimes, letting go, as hard as it is, can be the greatest act of love because we understand that this is what is best for the overall situation right now. When we overcome emotional attachment and focus on love, we realize that there is no separation. Love is always going to be there, even when we are apart, and when the time is right, this very love may bring us back together again. It’s about trusting the mystery of life to unfold itself and knowing that when we are committed to our path and to growing into all we can be, everything will fall into place.

When I look around me now, more and more people are engaging in a new kind of relationship that is based on honesty, transparency, personal responsibility, freedom and conscious communication. I am very excited about this new form our relationships are taking – mature relationships that are based on complete freedom and trust, and not on emotional attachment. Such connections, which are hard to find and quite possibly even harder to maintain, have the potential to truly revolutionize our lives.

I recently listened to a satsang with Adyashanti, in which he shared a beautiful experience he had with his wife. One evening, they came home from a seminar and she had just had a powerful awakening. She turned to him and said ‘I don’t need you anymore!’ For him, he said, this was the greatest declaration of love she could have made him, and he was so happy to hear it. We so often confuse need and emotional fear with love, when need is the very thing that can turn love into dependency. Furthermore, Adyashanti said that sometimes, when he’s on retreats, he can go for days without even thinking of his wife. But when he sees her again, it’s a totally different story because then he’s there – present with her. This doesn’t mean he doesn’t love her, it just means that he is present in the moment, and that love has nothing to do with need. It just is.

As Rumi says, there is no separation. ‘Goodbyes are only for those who love with their eyes. Because for those who love with heart and soul there is no such things as separation.’

 

 

 

‘How do you know?’ A Chinese parable by Hermann Hesse

An old man called Chunglang, that means ‘Master Rock’, owned a small estate in the mountains. One day, it so happened that he lost one of his horses. And so his neighbors came to express their condolences for Chunglang’s misfortune.

But the old man asked: ‘How do you know that this is a misfortune?’ And lo and behold: a few days later, the horse returned and brought a whole pack of wild horses along. Again, the neighbors arrived and wanted to congratulate him for his good fortune.

The old man from the mountains thus spoke: ‘How do you know that this is good fortune?’

Since there were so many horses at his disposal now, the son of the old man began to develop a liking for horse-riding, and one day he broke his leg. And again they came, the neighbors, to express their sympathy. And again the old man said to them: ‘How do you know that this is a misfortune?’

In the following year, the commission of the ‘Langen Latten’ appeared in the mountains to draft strong men to serve the emperor as palanquin bearer and for other lowly works. The son of the old man, who still had damage on his leg, wasn’t taken.

Chunglang smiled.

 

Are we truly free?

On a recent yoga training course, I was asked to reflect on the statement ‘My life belongs to me’. In response, the following words came to me: ‘On a human level, perhaps. But does it really? Are we not guided by the currents of the Divine, leading us onto the path we are meant to tread? Are we not co-creators of our destiny, hand in hand with That?’

It’s an interesting question. Does our life belong to us? When I was younger, I was an avid defender of free will, most particularly, self-will. My speciality was to run my head against the wall. What I wanted had to happen, and it usually did – with the consequences in tow.  I was the doer of everything and thus felt powerful and special.

Now, that I’m a bit older, I have come away from the belief that we have free will. Our so-called free will is so influenced by our conditionings, our karma, our culture, our society and our experiences, how can it be truly free? If I have a strong desire to follow a certain career or life-style, then is this really what my true self, my soul, wants to do or is it a by-product of what others in my society do, or a rebellion against it? Is my desire motivated by fear, by lack, by insecurity or by a desire for revenge? These are all questions we need to ask ourselves honestly as we work to discover who we truly are, beneath all the layers of conditioned beliefs and illusions.

And what is our definition of freedom? Is there such a thing as true freedom in a human body? Aren’t we always dependent on something in life? We may be dependent on money, and in the rare case in which we are not, we are dependent on food, on weather conditions and on the elements. Even if we think that we are secure if we are self-sufficient and not dependent on the system and on society, it is an illusion. We are still dependent on the sun, the rain, the soil, the air, the crop and our health.

The exception to this may be the yogi. All the practices of the yogi point towards the ultimate freedom. Freedom of mind, of the senses, of the karmas, of the body, as well as dependence on as little external circumstances as possible. The sadhu who lives alone in a cave, owns nothing and desires nothing is the one who is truly free. In the initial stages of sadhana s/he may still be dependent on food. But if s/he is a serious practitioner, s/he can get to a stage where s/he will not even need food other than what s/he can find, because his or her intake of prana is so big. S/he will not need warmth and shelter because s/he can raise bodily heat at will. S/he will be able to suspend breath and heartbeat at will. Through the power of the mind, s/he will dwell in Truth and Bliss. You could argue that the yogi is thus dependent on sadhana. This may be so initially, but when the ultimate goal of liberation is reached, even that ceases to be so.

Though most of us are not cave-dwelling yogis, we can draw inspiration from these masters. Through their example, we can understand that all states of being are ultimately in the mind. Freedom, security, permanence, whatever our needs and desires are: nothing external can ever fulfil them permanently. And the ironic thing is that often we have to live our desires out externally before we can grasp that they are internal. We may have to feel secure through something external only to lose it and realize that this thing didn’t give us security at all: it was a safety blanket that created the illusion that something external could ever give us security. Personally, I have had to travel the whole world and live an outwardly very free life to realize that true freedom is a state of mind. I have had to own things to realize that owning things can create bondage as well as a fear of losing them. I have had to give up career, home and friends to learn that home is nothing but that safe place within. I have had to experience gain and loss and befriend both before I understood that the only thing that is permanent in this world is impermanence and change.

Surrendering to the belief that I don’t have free will and that everything is in constant flux has made my life much easier. Now that I have found my path and my purpose, even though this is very different from how I thought it would be when I was younger, I find it easier to trust. I have learned that beyond the aforementioned running of my head against walls, there is an easier way of doing things. It is the path of relaxed effort.

I now realize that beyond my self-will there is a greater will, and that with my actions I co-create with this greater will. And what this greater will has planned for me and how it has planned it is infinitely better and so much easier than anything I could have thought up or chosen myself. All that is required of me is to stay open and to act when I feel certainty within me. It’s kind of hard to describe. It’s a fine balance between being and doing, between equanimity and passion, between surrender and fierce determination. I don’t make huge long-term plans in life anymore, but I always ‘feel’ what my next steps are when the time is right. These steps sometimes surprise me, and sometimes they are not in line with what my ego would like. But they feel ‘right’ and I am often shown the purpose of why I had to take this path later, even though it doesn’t make rational sense to me at the time. I simply trust. It is important to not confuse emotions and what we would like to happen with this ‘knowing’. The keys for this ‘knowing’ are my spiritual practice, silence, and reading of the signs: the synchronicities that show me which way the wind is blowing. How can I dance in tune with what wants to happen right now, with the flow of life, and how can I always stay present to that?

Life flows beautifully when I stay open but don’t push. When I push, it creates resistance and paradoxically slows things down. Pushing is equal to self-will, of not trusting life enough to give me what I need when I need it and that where I am right now is exactly where I am meant to be. This is the beauty of relaxed effort, something I didn’t quite understand when I was still highly ambitious and believed that I was the one in charge. Now life is a co-operation. Even when obstacles and tests turn up on my path, they don’t knock me as they used to. I simply stay still until I know what I need to do, rather than frantically looking for solutions and advice as I used to. I have learned that I am here for a purpose and that this purpose is unfolding itself as naturally and purposefully as a flower that is coming into bloom. I can’t always see it growing, I may lose my faith and my trust sometime, but when I return to my centre and realize that everything that is happening is perfect and contributing to my growth, I can relax again. Whenever I have come through a difficult phase in life during which I thought I had lost everything, I have later laughed with awe at the perfection of life’s great plan. What had seemed like a terrible disaster has invariably always turned out one of the great blessings of my life.

Go Forward With Courage

When you are in doubt, be still, and wait;
when doubt no longer exists for you, then go forward with courage.
So long as mists envelop you, be still;
be still until the sunlight pours through and dispels the mists
— as it surely will.
Then act with courage.

Ponca Chief White Eagle (1800’s to 1914)

 

 

Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu: Thoughts on meditation in action

‘In dark night live those for whom

The world without alone is real; in night

Darker still, for whom the world within

Alone is real. The first leads to a life

Of action, the second to a life of meditation.

But those who combine action with meditation

Cross the sea of death through action

And enter into immortality

Through the practice of meditation.

So have we heard from the wise.’

– Isha Upanishad

There is part of me that would quite happily live in a cave in the Himalayas. Few things in life are more blissful to me than disconnecting from the realities and pressures of modern society and spending my time in contemplation of the Self. Late last year, I was really inspired by reading Tenzin Palmo’s ‘Cave in the Snow’, a wonderful book about a young British woman who became a Buddhist nun and later spent twelve years living in splendid seclusion in a small cave in the Himalayas. There are other such books which bring forth a similar yearning in me to leave everything behind to spend the rest of my life in meditation and devotion.

But somehow I feel that this isn’t the sole purpose of my life this time around. True, the ultimate purpose of life is self-realization, and meditation is a big part of realizing our true nature. Yet, whenever we see a realized Master who walks this Earth, it is likely that we see them engaged in alleviating the suffering of others. With the merging of the Self, compassion for the condition of mankind springs forth. Saints like Swami Satyananda Saraswati, Amma, Mother Meera or Prem Baba are great examples of realized souls who are engaged in work that helps to elevate the lives and consciousness of others.

Of course, meditation is important work, too. Some yogis sit in caves for their entire lives, for it is only in seclusion that spiritual heights can be attained. These renunciates merged in meditation develop cosmic awareness and become generators of cosmic radiation which they send out to different parts of the Universe. But this leads us again to the same point: whether in seclusion or not, meditation always leads to compassion for the condition of mankind and thus to action to alleviate suffering, whether this action is visible or not. Swami Satyananda Saraswati summed it up perfectly with ‘I have certainly become aware of the purpose of my life – I have a definite twofold mission. The first is to become a means of alleviating the deep-rooted suffering of humankind, and the second is to be one with the highest existent reality.’

Now, I am not a realized Master but this philosophy of karma yoga really makes sense to me. What good is realization if we become indifferent to the pain of others in our bliss? I am touched by the words of Sri Prem Baba who said that ‘I have noticed that spiritual seekers are often fascinated with the search for enlightenment as their sole purpose, to the point where they forget that enlightenment means becoming love itself. Often stubbornly focusing on the discipline involved in practicing their sadhana with the one goal of becoming enlightened, they become blind to the plight of the person sitting next to them. Sometimes their neighbour is needing a bit of attention, perhaps just eye contact and a smile. Maybe we need to re-define the goal: if enlightenment means realizing our true nature – which is love and light – it’s a sign that we are nowhere near our goal when we behave with disrespect or indifference.’

And indifferent is something I hope I never become. Yes, we are bombarded from all sides with pictures and stories of war, catastrophes, starvation and crime. It’s easy and sometimes even necessary to shut down to not get overwhelmed by all the negativity in the world. But at the same time, if I feel unease because the world is imbalanced then I also feel it’s my responsibility as a human being to contribute to rectifying that imbalance. We’re all here for a purpose, and I believe in these times of change, it’s more important than ever to become a channel of light. The outer disharmony in the world only reflects our inner disharmony, which we can redress internally through meditation. And through our internal work, our outer actions become more wholesome and compassionate, which will create more harmony in the outer world.

Whatever the spiritual reasons for our current situation may be, it simply doesn’t feel right to me that there are people in the world that are starving to death while we are throwing away tonnes of food in the West every day; that there are girls who aren’t allowed to go to school on the basis of their gender; that women are being sold and trafficked as prostitutes for the financial gain of others; that indigenous tribes in the Amazon have their lands and livelihoods polluted and taken away because of mining and cattle-ranching.  Mahatma Gandhi put it aptly when he stated that ‘there is enough in the world for everyone’s need; there is not enough for everyone’s greed.’

I’ve often wondered what we as individuals can do on a grassroots level about this inequality in the world. It’s not everyone’s dharma to become an activist and set up a NGO, but how can we do something to re-dress the balance?

One thought that recently came to me is this: how would it be if every single one of us in the West (or anyone who is reasonably well off) decided to help empower one person who is less fortunate? A type of partnership between two individuals in which the one who is more empowered helps empower another less fortunate person. Then later the newly empowered person can help another, and so on. These type of partnerships could go a long way, especially if there is personal contact involved.

One way of doing this is by helping out a person in a crisis country. For example, I’ve been sponsoring a little girl in Afghanistan for her school fees for the last few years. In Afghanistan, girls as a rule aren’t encouraged or even allowed to go to school, which leads them with little hope of escaping a life of poverty. A girl will usually have to marry to a man much older than her and spend her life under his control.  By enabling an Afghan girl to go to school, something which her parents (if they are still alive) would not be able to afford, her life and that of her family suddenly has different opportunities. The cost of doing so? 20 Euros a month. Really not a lot for me, but it can completely change the course of somebody’s life over there. And this knowledge is as enriching for me as it is for the child.

I do this via a small German NGO called DAI who is run by Afghan and German volunteers. They do wonderful work such as building girl’s schools and solar-powered hospitals, thus helping the people of Afghanistan to rebuild their country sustainably.  The best thing about DAI is that all of the money I donate goes straight to the person who needs it. There’s plenty of these small NGO’s around who work hard to make a positive difference in the world.

Some young people from the USA wondered about the same subject and founded KIVA, a great micro-financing organisation. KIVA is an NGO through whom you can lend relatively small amounts of money to people in poorer countries so that they can set up a small business to support themselves. It’s a really great idea because it empowers the people to work for their own existence in often adverse circumstances – and something as little as $25 can change the live of a person. And you get your money back within a few months, which is great if you’re not that well off yourself.

If you can’t afford to donate money, there are other ways of supporting others. For example, there is a great NGO called ‘Futures for Children’ in the USA that helps Native American children, who are often at risk, through mentorships. The mentor writes to the child and encourages him/her to go to school, offers moral support and so on. The children sponsored by this program are more likely to finish school and build a positive future for themselves.

It’s so simple to make a difference, whether it’s through volunteering, signing a petition, visiting a lonely old person, picking up some litter, or simply smiling at the person in front of you. The smallest act can be incredibly powerful when it comes from the heart. May we never forget this in the bliss of our sadhana.

I close with a mantra that says it all:

Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu: ‘May all beings everywhere be happy and free, and may the thoughts, words, and actions of my own life contribute in some way to that happiness and to that freedom for all.’

Wonderful NGOs run by brave trail blazers that have inspired me and enriched my life:

Hindu Kush Conservation Association – a small NGO run by the courageous Maureen Lines who has dedicated her life to helping the Kalash tribe in Pakistan’s Hindu Kush mountains http://www.hindukushconservation.com/

Sea Shepherd – a vessel who helps stop illegal whaling and other environmental crimes in the sea http://www.seashepherd.org/

Kiva Microfinance – as mentioned above http://www.kiva.org/

The Afghan Australian Development Organisation – run by an amazing Afghani lady who is using the proceeds of her restaurant in Melbourne to build girl’s schools in Afghanistan http://www.aava.org.au

Deutsch-Afghanische Initiative (DAI) – as above http://www.deutsch-afghanische-initiative.de/

Eaves Housing for Women – NGO providing housing for trafficked women http://www.eaves4women.co.uk/

Somaly Mam – NGO set up by the brave survivor of sexual slavery http://www.somaly.org

Futures for Children – as above http://www.futuresforchildren.org/

New Internationalist Magazine writes about many issues that affect global imbalance, with advice on what can be done about them: http://newint.org/

Feelings want to be felt: the problem with spiritual bypassing

‘For imaginary thought to cease, clean up the garbage that clutters your mind. This garbage is composed of concepts, prejudices, beliefs, ideas, and suppressed feelings.’ – Prem Baba

In the last five years, I’ve spent a lot of time in yoga ashrams. Over and over, I have noticed something that used to puzzle me greatly. I came into contact with people, often Swamis, who had been practicing sadhana for decades, around thirty or forty years, and yet were very emotionally reactive. I observed them being rude to each other and to ashram workers, having fierce arguments amongst themselves and generally radiating a tense, unhappy energy. This used to scare me. ‘What’, I thought, ‘if after thirty years of doing my practice I am still emotionally reactive like this?’ and ‘What good is all this sadhana if this is the outcome?’

Over time, I realized that this was the by-product of what is commonly known as ‘spiritual bypassing’. Spiritual bypassing is when we try to transcend our being human before we are ready to do so. In yogic and other Eastern philosophies, there is much talk about the transcendence of emotions, of observing the emotions as they arise and likewise often a disapproval of common human emotions like anger. These are all wonderful ideas and I appreciate the wisdom of seeing things from a spiritual perspective. There is a reason for every difficulty we experience in life and we can learn something from every situation. And of course it would be wonderful to stay calm and reflective in the most difficult circumstances whilst radiating love, light and understanding.

The problem with this approach is, in my view, that it often pushes our emotional body into the cellar. Many of us carry emotional wounds and samskaras that are difficult to look at or feel. So the temptation is ‘I’ll practice yoga and do meditation, and magically these wounds will be transcended. I will be above such human emotions.’ I know this from my own experience. After years of meditation, it’s so nice to think that we’re ‘above all that’. And then we get into an intimate relationship with somebody and all hell breaks loose. We regress into childhood and the calm resolve is gone. If anything, it’s a good lesson in humility.

The reality is, we have to walk before we can run. First we need to cleanse the emotional body, and then we can begin to start thinking about transcendence.  Like my teacher Yogi Vishvketu from Rishikesh always says: ‘First you need to clean your house, then you can put nice things in it!’ This of course doesn’t mean that we can’t do yoga and meditation alongside emotional healing work – it just means that we have to be more aware to not bypass the emotions that need to be felt in their full extent before they can be transcended.

I used to be a prime contender for this spiritual bypassing, and still am sometimes. It’s so nice to be in the calm spheres of meditation. It’s soothing and it gives me great balance, and I wouldn’t want to miss it. But thankfully I’ve also done a lot of work that focuses on the emotional body, too, such as bodywork and authentic movement.  And this work has shown me that emotions, especially those we have repressed in childhood because they were too painful to feel, need more than just calm observation. A bodywork therapist recently put it aptly: ‘Imagine how you would have felt as a child if your emotions had just been calmly observed.’ Exactly. The emotions need to be felt, understood – for there is usually a good reason as to why we have them -, accepted, and then we need to learn to take responsibility for them. And that is key.

The other side of spiritual bypassing is emotional indulgence. We can be in danger of slipping into a victim role and get stuck in our emotions. But the middle path is the golden one once again. What we didn’t get as children because our caretakers were unable to give it to us, we now need to learn to give ourselves. But what happens more often is that we act our emotions out because we are unable to contain and fully experience them, and project those unfulfilled needs onto our romantic partners. And so we spend the best part of our adult lives trying to win an old battle by engaging in relationships that don’t give us what we need either and hoping to get those needs met by a partner who can’t meet them because he’s likely as wounded as we are. And that’s where meditation gives us the awareness to see the ‘big picture’.

In my experience, too much emphasis is placed on transcendence in many spiritual institutions when emotional maturity hasn’t yet been reached or even attempted. There are no tools available for those aspirants who need this maturation. Hence we see monks with alcohol problems, yoga teachers who sleep with their students, emotional reactivity and so on and so forth. We can be highly advanced spiritually and yet still in infancy emotionally.

Last year in Rishikesh, I came into contact with a wonderful Brazilian Saint. His name is Prem Baba, and to me he represents the perfect combination between spirituality and psychology. He recognizes the need for integrating our shadow self. And yet, he is a realized Master whose mere presence opened my heart and calmed my mind. His work is a perfect fusion of East and West, and he uses spiritual wisdom and traditional methods together with a mixture of psychological and shamanic tools to help his disciples to clean their garbage that clutters their minds.

I feel that in this changing world, this fusion between East and West, between tradition and progress, is the way to go. We need to become autonomous beings on all levels: mentally, emotionally and spiritually. And we can only become autonomous if we heal our emotions and de-condition our thought processes. If we don’t do this first or alongside our more transcendental work, we carry the risk of having a nice shining exterior house that is cluttered and dirty on the inside. And then our work to liberation can take twice as long because philosophical systems can condition us, too.

‘One cannot be autonomous as long as one is driven by relationship dynamics, by guilt or attachment needs, by hunger for success, by the fear of the boss or by the fear of boredom. The reason is simple: autonomy is impossible as long as one is driven by anything. Like a leaf blown by the wind, the driven person is controlled by forces more powerful than he is. His autonomous will is not engaged, even if he believes that he has ‘chosen’ his stressed lifestyle and even if he enjoys his activities. The choices he makes are attached to invisible strings. He is still unable to say no, even if it is only to his own drivenness. When he finally wakes up, he shakes his head, Pinocchio-like, and says, ‘How foolish I was when I was a puppet.’ – Gabor Mate, ‘When the Body says No’

For more information on the healing of emotions, I found the following books useful:

Prem Baba ‘From Suffering to Joy: The Path of the Heart’

Chris Griscom ‘The Healing of Emotions’

Diana and Michael Richardson ‘Tantric Love: Feeling vs Emotion’

Tony Crisp ‘Liberating the Body’

Gabor Mate ‘When the Body says No’

It’s all about choices: The value of living simply

‘Our ancestors had a regulated, disciplined life. They were not slaves of their senses as the modern people are. They used to do japa, pranayama, worship and study of religious books like the Bhagavad Gita, The Bhagavatam and the Ramayana. They used to do charity and selfless service, and observe auspicious days. They used to conduct spiritual conferences and pray for world peace and not for their individual selves. They used to take plenty of physical exercise in the form of walking ten to twenty miles a day and at a stretch. They used to observe yama and niyama rigidly. They used to live mostly in villages and not in congested areas. They were self-reliant and not dependent on others even for trivial matters. When today’s generation realizes the value of the way of ancient living, surely it will achieve all that it desires with the grace of the Lord.’ – Swami Sivananda Saraswati

A few months ago I was in a hotel in Chennai, India. In the breakfast room, I observed an interesting scene. At the table opposite me, two young Japanese women were sitting side by side, staring intensely at their iPhone screens. The waiter came and they ordered without taking their eyes off the phones, and when the food arrived, they glanced at it briefly before returning to their screens. This continued throughout the entire meal. Not once did I see the women look at each other, even when speaking. They were too engrossed in cyber world. Strangely, this scene is not uncommon. Just take a train and look around. You’re bound to see most people playing around with their phones. Very few individuals make eye contact or notice what’s going on around them.

A few months ago I took the decision to live without a mobile phone. It wasn’t so much a conscious ‘renunciation’, no, it was more of a gradual recognition that I didn’t really need or want it. I don’t want to be reachable everywhere and anywhere, and I also don’t want to carry e-mails and Internet access around with me. I want to see what’s going on around me, I want to look into people’s eyes, see flowers and nature. I want to be fully present to the moment and not be miles away with my mind. Of course, there is a middle path of only using a phone for emergencies, and keeping it switched off. And I’ve done this for a long time before I decided to give it up altogether. And I don’t miss it.

I am coming to the same conclusion what concerns the usage of computers and Internet. Again, it’s gradual. I just spent four months in India, and for most of the time, I hardly used the Internet at all – once a week for an hour at most. And my life felt so much better – more free, spontaneous and present. I didn’t feel that I was missing anything, and I had much more time to connect with the people that were actually in front of me.

Back home, it’s not so easy. I’m a writer, and write all of my articles and books on a computer. As I travel a lot, my friends are scattered all over the globe and it’s nice to keep in touch with them. But somehow, I feel it’s absurd to look at a screen for hours at a time to communicate with others, or to share ideas.

So I’m thinking of alternatives. When I was younger, I used to write with pen and paper, and I still do so sometimes. Part of my book ‘Meeting Shiva’ was written by a creek in Southern France. Ultimately, it’s all about choices. What’s most important to me? I may write faster on a computer, but is there really a need to hurry? Instead of writing e-mails to my friends, could I send them letters that I write outside basking in the sunshine? And would it not be nice to wait for a hand-written reply that takes a couple of weeks to arrive, rather than instantly in my inbox? I remember how nice it used to be to receive such letters when I was a child. Now everything has to be instant, and people get minor stress attacks when a text message isn’t replied to within seconds.

There’s something really beautiful in slowing down and living simply. The world has become so fast, and we’re all buying into it. But the question that always arises in me is: is it really necessary? And more importantly, do I want to do it?

Going slow and doing things differently may take more effort. Some years ago, I decided to go to Pakistan without flying. Yes, it took a long time. But the adventures I had and the people I met were really worth it. So I’d rather take a journey like this once in a lifetime than five weekend plane trips in a year. Likewise, returning to a more natural way of living might be more labour-intensive and require more patience, but it may also be more rewarding. Imagine sitting around a fire and sharing thoughts such as these verbally, rather than in front of a screen. Imagine the glow in people’s eyes, their smiles, their enthusiasm.

I realize I’m writing myself out of a job here. But returning to a more natural way of life away from machines seems the logical choice to me in a world that’s running out of resources and is getting crazier every day. If that means I have to write my books in a different way, or stop writing altogether and start talking, then so be it. I’m thinking of doing an experiment of giving up the Internet for a year and see what happens in my life as a result. It will be interesting as many of us, myself included, rely on the Internet for so much. But I have a feeling that my life will be greatly enriched by doing so.