PART TWO
So the bus to Varanasi. It was an eventful 8 hours. 2 tyre blow outs, then the drunken bus driver runs out if petrol 5km outside Varanasi. I take a rickshaw with fellow yogis Aton and Kev, and a couple of friendly monks we met on the bus. Finally, I find myself riding very fast on the back of a motorbike through the alleys to find a guesthouse.
Each morning on my way to the old town I walk past the one of the burning ghats, a powerful and moving experience. There is nothing like watching a few corpses burn before breakfast. I’m told it takes 3 hours for a corpse to burn, and only men would attend the cremation. After the burning the men would wash in the Ganga. 13 days later they would return to scatter the ashes in the Ganga. This is said to ensure liberation from the cycle of death and rebirth. Children and pregnant women do not get cremated, they are floated in the river, as the lungs fill with water they sink to the bottom and are eaten by the fishes.
9th February, 6pm on the roof of the Ganga bank hotel – the sun has just set. Chanting and prayors can we heard in all directions. Varanasi could be so peaceful.
A week later, I’m in Jaipur. This was challenging times. It’s a busy and dusty city – ‘the pink city’ as it is affectionately dubbed, but it wasn’t really all that pink. More a sort of dirty brown. The only thing it seemed to have on offer was shopping. The bazars were sprawling, difficult to navigate and full of the same old shit. The only redeeming feature was the roof top restaurant at the Pearl Palace hotel where I ate most of my meals, although to reach it I had to cross many roads, the trick was just to start walking out, and then weave in and out of the motorcycles, rickshaws, cars, buses and really just hope for the best. I was very happy to be heading to Pushkar.
Oh, I have completely missed out my two days in Agra where I didn’t visit the Taj Mahal. One morning I did get out of bed, and joined the queue at 6am. But then thunder and lightning stuck, rain followed so I sharply head back to my hotel and my bed. It wasn’t meant to be.
The two hour bus journey from Jaipur to Pushkar via Ajmer, I was in a terrible mood. Dukkha in abundance, I was longing for another vipassana more than ever. After Ajmer the bus continued onto Pushkar, this is where the journey starts to get interesting. We wind through Nag Pahar (snake mountain) passing temples and families of monkies on the road side. The landscape is beautiful, I get off the bus and this Hindu pilgrimage town works it’s magic, calm transcends the angst. I feel happy to bealive again.
Brahma dropped a lotus flower on the earth and Pushkar appeared.
I find a room at lake view hotel. 100 rupees a night, my cheapest room yet. No bathroom or window but it’s just perfect. Up some steps I find the restaurant with it’s vistas of the sacred lake. The rows of ghats march down to the lake from hundreds of milky blue temples.
I spot Pilgrims and hippies. I feel at home for the first time on this trip.
A week later I’m on an over night bus from Pushkar to Jaisalmer. Ten hours in my sleeper compartment- a kind of pod. It would be fine, but the roads are so bumpy you are flown about all over the place. Luckily, Jaisalmer is the last stop as I am still sleeping when we arrive. I’m woken by the man sweeping the bus. I jump down, grab my bags and ahead of me is an empty dusty road. I am in the desert. A jeep stops, and a man shouts “We’re heading to the fort. Jump in.” I jump in and head to the fort to find a guest house.
What do you do when it rains in the desert? Play the rizla game of course!
Jaisalmer is the place you go to do to a Camel safari. I book with Delboy at Trotters Camel Safari as recommended by James Burt 6.30 am the next day we set off in a jeep (myself and 6 others) for the short trip to meet up with our camels and guides. It was wonderful, riding the camels – even through they were spewing snot everywhere – they all had colds. And sleeping under a blanket of stars was very special and the chai brought to us in bed by the guides tasted amazing (and they used baby formula as milk?!). Oh and the bhang cookies and the cold Kingfisher beer on the first night! A man rides on camel 10 km to deliver cold beer. Amazing.
But what could be more painful that riding a camel for 3 days? I was about to find out…
A second Vipassana completes the trip. This time at dharma pushkar, which teaches the Goenka’s technique and notoriously strict. The 4 am wake up call was a bit of a giveaway. No phyical excercise is allowed, no Reading, no writing, no eye contact. We didn’t even have jobs to do. Doing your laundry was the only extra curricular/ recreational activity.
I was counting down the days/hours/minutes – from day 1. The food was horrible, the female teacher wasn’t the most inspiring person – she was very unhappy, didn’t speak any English and a bit scary, the 4am wake up call was just impossible. My body hurt. I was suffering- mentally and physically. I was telling myself I can get more insight from practicing in the real world. Insight? Hmm, well I’m just in a really bad mood all day everyday. The setting was stunning, the accommodation was nice, there were beautiful mountain vistas, and by evening stars shining bright, but that was no consolation for the suffering I was enduring.
I feel like a school child deliberately disobeying the rules as I write secretly. Any Reading or writing or physical exercise is strictly forbidden under the Goenka rules. Men are seperated from women and there seems to be an awful lot of porridge. Day 5 I made the bold move of filling out an official request slip asking for only a banana for tea. The 5pm cup of chai and banana was the only thing I had to look forward to, Oh and here is the timetable…
THE COURSE TIMETABLE
The following timetable for the course has been designed to maintain the continuity of practice. For best results students are advised to follow it as closely as possible.
| 4:00 am | Morning wake-up bell | |
| 4:30-6:30 am | Meditate in the hall or in your room | |
| 6:30-8:00 am | Breakfast break | |
| 8:00-9:00 am | Group meditation in the hall | |
| 9:00-11:00 am | Meditate in the hall or in your room according to the teacher’s instructions | |
| 11:00-12:00 noon | Lunch break | |
| 12noon-1:00 pm | Rest and interviews with the teacher | |
| 1:00-2:30 pm | Meditate in the hall or in your room | |
| 2:30-3:30 pm | Group meditation in the hall | |
| 3:30-5:00 pm | Meditate in the hall or in your own room according to the teacher’s instructions | |
| 5:00-6:00 pm | Tea break | |
| 6:00-7:00 pm | Group meditation in the hall | |
| 7:00-8:15 pm | Teacher’s Discourse in the hall | |
| 8:15-9:00 pm | Group meditation in the hall | |
| 9:00-9:30 pm | Question time in the hall | |
| 9:30 pm | Retire to your own room–Lights out |
I’ve been back in England a week – 10 days since finishing the Goenka vipassana, and I am truly reaping the rewards of 100 hours of meditation! It works. I have jet lag, I’m trying to find a job, I have delayed delhi belly but it’s all perfect. I’m watching my negative thoughts arise and pass.
I ride the waves of my states of mind with equanimity. My practice has changed, I am viewing the world through different eyes. Although, I’m struggling to understand where I go from here, there are some obstacles but also some forks in the road and I am adjusting to the fact I just don’t know myself any more.
I have experienced peace, contentment and equanimity - and I do believe liberation is possible within this lifetime. Whether I’ll return to a Goenka meditation bootcamp..hmmm. Only time will tell. Back in my office at work I’m asked if it was like Eat, Pray, Love – my intial reaction is ‘No!’ but I suppose it was a bit but without the romance and medicine man, although I did get my chakras rebalanced by a reiki man – does that count?
Om Shanti.
