Trip to Annandpur Sahib (City of Bliss)

Guru Gobind Singh spent a lot of time in this area. It is very rural, hilly, lots of rivers. It’s farming country, but also a source of hydroelectric energy. We are there to meet again with the government official in charge of health care delivery for the state of Punjab. One of our proposals is to train the government’s psychiatrists in our approach to de-addiction (the Indian word for drug treatment.). We would like this beautiful training facility in this beautiful, holy area to be used for the training.

It’s also two days away from the hospital. We are burnt out trying to deal with the truth and falsehood of allegations floating around. I hope to be able to tell you more about this situation in a future Blog posting tentatively titled Skullduggery and Bukar (Bribery), but right now it’s still too aggravating. Anyway, we had an excuse to get away.

The official is impressed with the facility, as am I. It must be on 60 acres or more, beautifully constructed on a hill over looking a very rural countryside. (see pictures)

We drive 5 hours to get there on Friday and return home on Saturday so it’s not exactly relaxing, but a great getaway nonetheless.

There is a teacher training (in Kundalini Yoga) course going on while we are there. 37 students from 10-15 different countries. This is their last weekend. They are practice teaching. They seem to have had a wonderful 3 weeks.

We get up early Saturday morning (3:30 AM) in order to visit some of the temples (gurdwaras) and Guru Gobind Singh’s fort in the Amrit Vela (Nectural Morning). For some we drive, for others we walk. Each has been built in a place of historical significance. One is where Guru Teg Bahadur meditated for some years; another is where his head was cremated after having been beheaded in New Delhi by the Mogul Emperor (a good story, perhaps another time.) It’s a beautiful morning of meditation.

On the way back, we go to _________ where the Siri Singh Sahib’s ashes will be put in the river. It is a traditional place for ashes among the Sikhs. In the 30 minutes or so that we are there, we see several families putting ashes in the river. There is nothing uplifting about this place. It is depressing. The river is shallow and slow moving. It is not pretty. Mostly ashes have been brought in plastic bags (cheap shopping bags). The bags are also dumped in the river. It’s BAD. The Gurdwara appears to be under going renovation. I hope it is done before the entourage gets there in January with the ashes. Right now it is fairly funky. The pictures look surprisingly better than it looked in real life – both the river and the Gurdwara. Maybe it was because the vibe was so heavy that it looked so bad, but I don’t think so.

Guru Nanak would get harassed by his family when he was young because he would go into the cemetery and meditate. He said we are all going here…

The drive back is miserable. We take a short cut and get lost. It gets dark. It gets foggy. The traffic is awful. People drive on the highway like bees swarming. 20 kilometers outside of Amritsar we drive into the back of a small car which then hits the car in front of it. I thought it was going to be much worse that it was. It was VERY scary for a few eternal seconds. No one is hurt, our car is not damaged (We’re in a Tata Sumo, an Indian SUV, massive). The car in front of us has its rear bashed in. No one is hurt. There are five large men in the small car in front of us. The first one out is carrying a sub machine gun. Another eternal second…

We learn later that we have rear ended the Chief of Police and his body guards. “NO problem”, our driver says. “This is India”, he says; “Everything is fine”. Our driver is very sweet, but I’m not liking him at this moment. After a couple of hours in the police station parking lot (change the picture in your head, this is India. Think more like field on the side of the road behind locked gates), a few thousand rupees (bukar) exchange hands. The driver takes care of everything. Before we leave the Station, the policeman in charge of the police station and the only one who speaks English comes over to my window (We’ve never gotten out of the car, this whole time.). He’s very friendly, very warm. He explains to me how he has negotiated a solution agreeable to all parties. I acknowledge his accomplishment and thank him for his successful efforts. He knows we are with the “American Sikhs from Miri Piri Academy”. I suggest that he visit us some time and come over for lunch. He smiles and shakes my hand and says he would like that. It’s all theatre. We drive off
In an hour we are home. Glad to have gotten away. Glad to be home. Vowing no more trips at night. The fog is supposed to get worse in December and January.

The greeter at the truck stop. Hivale is the name. I thought it was Hill Valley.

He's getting married on Guru Nanak's birthday.

The "truck stop"; actually a very nice restaurant / way station on the highway. Good food for about $1. Lots of Punjabi heritage models outside as well as bumper cars and video games for the kids. This is a model of a truck with a manniquin driver coming through the wall. I guess you call this "sense of humor". The diners are real people. 

The drive to Annandpur Sahib. This is the two lane highway. The small van is passing the big truck, as are we. The small van is filled with people AND they are hanging out the back. It is not unusual to see people sitting on the roof of busses as they go by. 

Guru Nanak, Peace Guru

Guru Nanak is the founder of Sikhism. There are many wonderful stories about him. (You might want to find the book, Guru for the Aquarian Age if you’re interested in reading more.) Last Friday was Guru Nanak’s birthday - . I was thinking about him the other day. He was born in northern India (in a part of the Punjab now in Pakistan) at a time when the Moslems were marauding, conquering India. They were converting people to the Moslem faith “by the sword”. Guru Nanak began traveling around with two musicians, signing the praises of his experience of the Divine. One of the musicians was a Moslem, the other a Hindu. Nanak, though raised a Hindu, sometimes dressed as a Moslem, sometimes a Hindu. He had many beautiful messages as he sang. The heart of his teaching was “There is one God”, called by many different names. Meditate on the Name of God (whichever name you like) every day, with every breath. He was a mystic, teaching how to have direct experience with the Divine.

He traveled all over India and the Middle East. At one time, while meditating on the banks of a river with some devotees, he walked into the river, disappearing in the water and didn’t come out. His followers panicked, thinking he was dead, washed away in the river. After 3 days (Aren’t there stories of other holy people being dead for 3 days and then returning. This fascinates me.), he walked out of the river, sat down and recited a prayer poem – Japji (literally, ‘beloved meditation’). This prayer is now recited every morning (as we walk out of the river of sleep) at the birth of a child (to be the first sounds an infant hears) and other significant beginnings. Yogi Bhajan said that this prayer tunes the mind to the Cosmos in poetic vibration, establishing the mystic vision of Nanak in the consciousness. I think this is true. It certainly is a beautiful sound current in the early predawn hours (Amrit Vela)

Just one more of my favorite Guru Nanak Stories: While in Mecca, he was sitting, talking with a Moslem priest. His feet were pointing toward a Mosque. The priest became angry, telling Nanak to not point his feet toward the house of God. Nanak’s response was to ask the priest to please move his feet to a direction where God does not dwell. In his mystic vision, every aspect of the creation is an expression of the Divine.

Wow! It goes to the teaching center in Annandpur Sahib. It will get more layers of Gold Leaf there. It is already quite beautiful. I suggested to Mukthiar that he rent space on the inside. People could put dolls of themself to recieve the good energy, in a fashion similar to the way voodoo dolls are used. He wasn't interested in hearing about it. I thought it could be a real fund raiser for the project.

Mukthiar at work. He's been tireless, creative and fun loving and devoted in this project. It was great to have him a part of our household. 

The model of the Golden Temple that Mukthiar (now back in the US) is finally ready for the gold leaf and the marble. 

On the roof. 

Lost Thoughts

In the course of the day I think about interesting things to tell you about. Things about the culture, the environment, the program, the clients, sharing personal thoughts and feelings; stuff like that. Then the moment passes and the thoughts recede into …. Where do those receding thoughts go?.... Anyway, I’m hopeful that now that I have taken time to sit and write again, interesting stories will come back to me.

After the Meditation. Good comradarie. 

After the meditation. On the roof (3rd floor) of the Golden Temple. 

I kicked the nurses off the unit

Mostly, the student nurses have been very sweet. They take client vital signs each morning, reporting any areas of concern to us from the night before. Some sit in on our yoga and meditation classes. Mostly the sit at the nurse’s station studying their lessons.

However, we get a new batch rotating through every couple of weeks. This last group was awful. They would come on the unit while we were in session, sometimes 10-15 of them, loud, social, and insensitive.

On this particular day, it had occurred on several occasions. We had spoken to their supervisor, twice. I was taking the yoga class. (We have had our clients teaching the afternoon yoga and meditation classes for two weeks or so. We want them to feel confident in their practice and able to share what they have learned with family and interested friends. In family meetings, family members sound excited about having their husbands, brothers, etc. teach them what they have been learning. This follows Yogi Bhajan’s model, “I’m here to build teachers, not gather students.”)

They walked on the unit while we were meditating. (The door is loud enough. All noise echo’s badly on the unit.) They were talking; they walked straight back to the client’s art/game room and began playing games, loudly. I was furious. I walked back there and asked them if this was their work. Answering my own question, “I think not!” Followed by a raised arm and a finger pointing toward the door, “Get out!” They were shocked. (I was a little surprised.) “Get out!” I said again. Some started walking toward the nurses’ station. I was like a sheep dog, following them redirecting them, pointing toward the door. As we got near the class, some tried to ‘peel of’, and blend into the class. “Ruff, ruff, bark, bark, herding them toward the door. “Get Out”. I felt good, protecting our “guys” from disrespect. If you want to work or if you want to learn, you are welcome; if you are just here to be social and are disrespectful of the needs of those we are here to serve, “Get Out!”

Meditation at Golden Temple

The directions were to take some aspect of yourself that was challenging for you; whatever it might be, your fear, self criticism, addiction, whatever it might be; and put in into the center of the circle. We were on the roof of the Golden Temple. Me and Guru Terath and Yogesh and the 7 clients. We were sitting in a circle, attracting a crowd. It was a lovely meditation, chanting Guru Guru Wahe Guru, Guru Ram Das Guru.

I had not been having a good day. I was not centered or at peace. I was aggravated. I was being pulled in a number of directions (worries about home, pressures in the program, the manual, the future of the program). I was going along, but very little of me had been present on this outing. I put my aggravation into the center of the circle also my fears about the clients, about Carolyn’s health, about the future of the program. It went into the circle in the image of the exoskeleton of a locust-like bug. It was like shedding a skin. I felt it physically.

It was a weird feeling but a somewhat familiar image. As a child, I would sometimes spend a week with my grandmother (Grandma Nicolle) at her house in Covington, Louisiana. I have many fond memories of this time with her, reading on the swing on her front porch, picking vegetables from her garden, shucking black-eyed peas for
diner AND hunting these huge black and yellow and orange crickets (locusts?) in the tall grass around her house. (I was in elementary school, young, but these things were big. They must have been 4 inches long and could hop forever.) I would have a spring loaded dart gun (the kind that shoots darts with rubber suction cup tips.). I would take off the rubber tips and hunt the monster insects.
Anyway, that was the form that my tension/worries/stuffkeepingmecutofffrombeingpresentandfullyexperiencinglife took. It was an image, symbolic; the crusty, frozen, rigid, dead, defensive, cut off part of myself. As it went into the center of the circle that we were all chanting into on top of the Golden Temple, I felt such a beautiful release. I felt my self expand, no longer contained, freely expanding in the golden light of that special moment in that special place. Such joy, such freedom. It was as if I had become that Golden Light, limitless. Then, the image shifted. The Guru (or God or ???) had a Golden thread, from somewhere high above us; each of us in that circle was connected to that thread; As the Guru pulled on this chord, that exoskeleton (ego, defining-limiting mental structure; I don’t know what to call it,… giant cricket sheath,…) on each of us was pulled away and we were all radiant beings in and of Golden Light.

Small, sweet, country Gurudwara. 

Mustard field. 

Everyone's helping. These very young girls are carrying mudge shit to the mudge shit pile to be made into pies and placed in the sun to dry. THey will then be used as fuel to cook or heat. Sati, about that air pollution... 

Sprouts are coming up. 

The road gets busy. 

Still there. 

He's doing something; I couldn't tell what. He has a staff in one hand and a metal wire in the other. He's blessing the field or something. He was there for a long time. I was fascinated. 

Hindu Shrine in a field. 

Making bricks, by hand, one at a time. Become one with the mud. Tomorrow all these will be gone to the furnace, but the brick makers will be back. 

Chillin' 

Walking down a country road. Baking bricks in the background. Where's the EPA when you need them? Sati, you want to do environmental protection in India? 

Mukta and Guru Therath during rec time 

Some are pretty big. 

It's a very sweet afternoon. 

Families visit. Some ride 5 hours on a bus, each way.