Tossing about in Kashi

Is anyone still checking in on this horribly faithless blog? Unfortunately, it is a direct reflection of any journal that I have ever tried to keep. A very good start, then a rapid petering out!

A lot has happened in the last month or two, far more than I can remember, a fair amount that I am happy to forget and a million endless details and visual vignettes that I wish I had written down.

After spending much of the last year in this city of Kashi and being subject to its many changing moods, I‘ve developed a true sense that this is hardly a place of this earth, rather it is an enigma of time and space, existing in its own vortex but encompassing the whole of earthly experience yet somehow suspended outside of it. While everything is a microcosm of the macrocosm, in Kashi it just so much more evident and intense.

This is not a place for the faint of heart or for those who are looking for comfort or a flower laden path to enlightenment. The whole city is a cremation ground. You come here for knowledge (jnana). Not intellectual knowledge, but the kind of knowledge that gives liberating insight and the deep seeing (darshan) that changes your entire consciousness of yourself and the world. Essentially, you are working for cremation of ignorance (avidya), for it is ignorance that is the essential impurity (mala) that keeps us separate from our divine essence (the Self, Consciousness, God, etc…).

Anyone who has ever tried to change a habit or a thought pattern that was causing disharmony their knows that old behaviour/thinking was based on ignorance (misperception, if you like) and when you try to rid yourself of the ignorance it is usually extraordinarily challenging. If you are here seeking knowledge, this place in space and time called Kashi is ready and willing to help, but pulling the teeth of the ignorance is as painful as you might imagine. And, for everyone I know, who is here studying, their deep, disharmonious ruts of thinking and behaving (samskaras) rapidly come to the forefront and demand addressing. There is no hiding here.

So, all this to say, that I’ve been involved in some major deconstruction of little self and confrontation of binding thoughts and behaviors. A really good yogini would be strong in her practice and watch all the turmoil on the surface as though they were just what they are- waves or ripples on a deep ocean that ultimately contains so much more than worldly experience. Turns out I am not that yogini. In my typical style, I dove into the waves and let them toss me about, experiencing to the fullest and for that matter, trying to get an understanding of what they were, how and why they moved, while at the same time loosing the feeling that really are connected to that much deeper calmer, more full aspect of the whole. I’m a bit tired of tossing around on the surface and ready again to rest in the stillness that is on the deeper level. Maybe I’ll dive in soon.

After a few months of spending 10+ hours a week in philosophy lectures, my head is a bit “done in” and I’ve decided that a philosopher I am definitely not! Too much thinking and not enough practice (meaning meditation and mantra - asana too!). Well, study is definitely practice (sadhana), but again, if you are not careful then it gets far to intellectual and can cause a disconnect at the heart. On the other hand, if you keep it connected to the heart, it can be supremely elevating.

On the more material level… The weather is changing (still coldish, but getting brighter and crisper), I’ve settled into a very shanti (peaceful) new home and I’ve rearranged my classes a bit. So maybe the next update, whenever it comes, will be a lot less blah, blah and have a few more details about the wonder that is to be experienced every day!

Ok, I’m off to lunch and for jaunt around to enjoy the beautiful weather!
I’ve decided to read a bit of what other people have written on the place. The main feeling I am having now is one of deep deconstruction of individual self. It is an interesting experience but not exactly easy.