Ahhhhhhh.... McLeod Ganj

Alright... so no better way to start off a post than with a joke... I think of this joke frequently being in this incredible town of McLeod Ganj....so: what's the difference between Mick Jagger and a Scottish sheep herder? Answer: One says "hey you, get off of my cloud" the other says "hey McLeod!!! Get off of my ewe!!!!!"

One realization I have had while in India is that the best place to study hatha yoga is right in our backyards. I had heard this before coming, but as I hung out in the yoga capital yoga of the world (Rishikesh) I truly realized and experienced the broader world of yoga, simply defined as any practice that brings you closer (union) with a higher power or higher truth. This coul be Kriya, Bhakti, Karma, Jnana, Sabdha, etc...The yoga that we know in the west (hatha) is only one construct of bringing us deeper into ourselves. from my perspective, hearing this and knowing it while living in San Francisco is one thing, but to be experiencing this and be in the presence of people that are living these different forms of yoga on a minute to minute basis is quite another....once again, cheers to the beginniner mind.

The view off my balcony at sunset:



I heard stories of people arriving in McLeod Ganj, planning on staying 2 days and staying 2 months. So, we planned on staying two nights and tonight will be my fifth. McLeod Ganj is home to the largest group of Tibetan refugees in the world. It is about 100 miles from the Tibetan border in the middle of the himalyas at about 6K feet. The views from everywhere in this town are either looking up at tremndous peaks, or down gorgous valleys into the vast plains below. Here is a view off my Balcony at the end of a sunset with crescent moon and Venus.



The Tibetan people are beautiful. I see more Tibetans here than Indians on a day to day basis, and there are many monks. The Dalai Lama's residence is here and it's a beautiful temple. I hoped to get an audience with him while I was here, but alas, the waiting list is long. As I walk down the narrow alleys in this mountain town, there are tibetan prayer flags everwhere, Buddha's everywhere, pictures of the Dalai Lama in every store, restaurant, bus station that you visit. There is a sparkle in the eyes of the people here... something difficult to describe in text, but you can feel real compassion when you look into their eyes... and you feel this while also knowing the incredibly brutal hardship they have gone through, many of them here in McLeod Ganj with everything else that they have ever known back in Tibet (family, friends, etc), with no way of communicating. It is a pleasure and a joy to be staying in this community.



There are a lot of westerners here.. and we have met a few that we have hung out with on a regular basis.. we even got a home cooked meal of pasta a veggies with a delicious Kashmiri spinach with cardomon and tumeric. We also found that they serve beer, so I had my first beer in 2.5 weeks. (i know, i know.. some of you wondered if I could make it...) I think I was burning off my beer karma.... unfortunately, I think I've got a few lifetimes of that to go... Which always leads me back to one of my favorite quotes/rationalizations by our beloved Benjamin Franklin: "Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy"

the opposite view from the balcony:



Dave and I split up tonight with him heading back to Delhi. I am off to Amritstar, Punjab tomorrow, and then a 16 hour train south to Pushkar and Udaipur, Rajastan. From there, I am planning on going to Bombay, then further south for some beach and sun and undoubtably more bhakti, in Goa and Kerala. My cup runneth over.



On that note, and without proofreading, I bid you adieu. more to come soon, I promise.