In times of intense crises when crucial decisions about the course of life one has to take confront Sai Baba followers they frequently fall back on a few peculiar practices : 1. There exists a book of 100 or 200 answers. So Baba followers pray intensely asking him to 'RESPOND' to the crucial question they are about to ask, and after an intense prayer they open at random a page of the Answer Book and read the answer that the book gives which is purportedly Sai Baba's ANSWER to the question.
So you may have an anxious girl asking Baba whether to say 'Yes' to a particular groom proposal, or you may have a financial speculator asking whether to invest in a particular share and so on. These days with technological advances, computers have entered this activity where the program generates a random number and a suitable response is displayed. The programs on the net advise you to take this business very seriously and pray with intense faith and further the questioner is asked to accept the answer with tremendous faith and refrain from asking the question again.
So it was that I too like a fool once took part in this exercise. It so happened that in Sai Satcharita which is the sacred book of Sai Baba followers, everyone is advised not to abandon his own Guru however more famous or attractive another Guru may appear. I had this injunction firmly implanted in my mind. One day it so happened that while browsing through the collection of books at a bookshop my eyes fell on a book by Sadguru Jaggi Vasudev entitled 'Essential Wisdom from a Spiritual Master'. Somehow the style and contents of the book appealed to me and I bought the book. On going home and reading through the book I came across three jokes:
1. Once a businessman boarded a flight and found himself sitting next to an elegant woman wearing the largest, most stunning diamond ring he had ever seen. Awestruck he exclaimed, "Wow! That's a beautiful ring you have there!" The woman replied "Yes, this is the Schoreder diamond. It is beautiful, but it comes with a terrible curse." "What curse?" asked the businessman. "Mr. Schroeder", answered the woman.
2. Once a hypnotist bombastically said he would take everybody in the hall together into a 'let go' state of hypnosis all at once. "I want you each to keep your eye on this antique watch. It's a very special watch. It has been in my family for six generations," he said. He slowly began to swing the watch gently back and forth, while quietly chanting "Watch the watch! Watch the watch! Watch the watch..." The crowd became mesmerized as the watch swayed back and forth, back and forth, light gleaming off its polished surface. Suddenly it slipped and fell from the hypnotist's fingers and fell to the floor, breaking in a hundred pieces.
"Shit !!" said the hypnotist.
It took three weeks to clean up the theatre!
3. A man sat in a train traveling from Bristol to London, with a young boy of four years. Halfway through the trip another man with two big suitcases got on the train and sat next to him. The first man said "Those two suitcases look just like mine; are you a salesman too?" "No," the other man replied, "I'm on my way to the airport, I'm flying to Greece." Then he asked, "So what are you selling, anyway?" "Condoms," the first man replied. Shocked, the other man said, "Condoms? And you're taking your son with you while you sell condoms?" "Oh, this is not my son; it is a complaint from Bristol."
Now, I'm fairly well read too. And I have come across many witty jokes. However this was the first time I came across these jokes. Now a spiritual guru who shares jokes like these while talking about spirituality I found very, very attractive. The style and the content of the books besides various other jokes too made me fall for his teachings.
Now I had been advised by Sai Baba never to abandon your Guru. Further you are repeatedly warned in Sai Satcharita that if you disobey the Guru you may end up severely repenting the act. So I was in a quandary. I wanted Baba's permission to go to Jaggi Vasudev.
I hence came on the internet to the site that purportedly provides Sai Baba's RESPONSES to your questions and gingerly typed:
"Have you appointed Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev to be my Guru?" and pressed the Enter Key.
The response on the computer was:
"YOU HAVE TO SUFFER ONLY FOR THREE MONTHS MORE. REMEMBER SHRI SAI. EVERYTHING WILL BE ALRIGHT.
With a response like this I lost my guts. I dared not disobey Baba. I read thro' the book but scrupulously avoided enrolling for the yoga programs of Jaggi Vasudev. As months dragged on, I found the urge to be associated with Jaggi become stronger and stronger." Finally, despite my own will, I found myself undergoing the Inner Engineering Course and even going on a Mount Kailash Yatra with them. From the past two days I'm being troubled in my mind whether to continue the yogic practices I learned from Jaggi Vasudev or not.
Today I chose to look into Sai Baba's crucial response to my question. I found that Sai Baba had responded indeed but not answered my question!
Suppose you ask a man "Do you think it will rain today?" and he replies "Two plus two equals four." HE HAS ONLY RESPONDED TO THE QUESTION BUT HE HAS NOT ANSWERED IT! The response may even be factually true but it is certainly not the answer! So on reconsidering the computer response and using my commonsense I choose to continue with the yogic practices. After all what might happen? I may get punished a little, but Baba is not a hangman!!
This entry is to highlight the futility of such practices that Baba followers like me foolishly follow.
This is supposed to be the way in which the famous oracle at Delphi responded too! Once upon a time, a powerful king - King Croesus of Lydia planned to wage a war on another powerful kingdom, the king of Persia in order to annex it. He was a little unsure and nervous of the result so he approached the Delphic oracle and asked whether it was wise for him to wage a war on the other king. "If Croesus went to war with Cyrus, he would destroy a powerful kingdom!" was the response of the oracle. Hence with a new found confidence and strong courage the king proceeded boldly to wage a war. However to his dismay he was thoroughly routed and his kingdom was destroyed. Afterward, his life being spared, Croesus wrote a bitterly complaining letter to the Oracle. His letter was answered by the priests at Delphi, who claimed that the Oracle had been right In going to war Croesus had destroyed a powerful kingdom indeed - his own!
Sunday, September 26, 2010
The Freebies of Partial Enlightenment !
Yeah! It is interesting to talk about the 'freebies' one gets on the path of enlightenment. There is only one hitch - you cannot claim any of the credit either to knowledge or to the intelligence of the piece of writing, or to the style of language or anything. Yet it is yours.
Now there is another aspect. That of remarkable coincidences. On the route to partial enlightenment one is often struck with remarkable coincidences that can leave one dumbfounded. These coincidences can make you conclude that a thought of yours, or again a particular action of yours caused a cloudburst in Bangalore resulting in some tragic deaths and so on. This can turn out to be scary for you tend to assume responsibility for all sorts of tragedies and human suffering. Then again, like it happened to me today, I wanted the telephone number of a former colleague of mine (Mr. Bhasker) since I was interested in getting some articles that I had penned and given to him for his consideration many years ago. The trouble was I didn't have his telephone number. So I rang up another colleague with whom I am in closer touch (Karthik) to fetch the number of Bhasker. So when I rang up Karthik, he told me that he wanted to in fact ring me up just to enquire how I was. Then again, on getting the name of Bhasker and ringing him up, he told me that he too was thinking about me and was intent on ringing me up or contacting me as he was perchance attracted to information on Mount Kailash which I had visited recently, as he had suddenly come up on the name of a certain Sadhu Sundar Singh and CHRISTIAN HERMIT IN A MOUNTAIN CAVE - THE MAHARISHI OF KAILASH. Mr Bhasker asked me to consult the Internet by searching on 'Sadhu Sundar Singh'.
So it accidentally happened that I got the information that Sadhu Sundar Singh was born a Sikh at Rampur, Punjab in 1889. He converted to Christianity in 1903 after he had a vision of Jesus Christ while he was intent on attempting suicide. He first visited Tibet in 1908 before entering a Christian Divinity College in 1909. Abandoned his preacher's life in 1911 and again became a 'Christian sadhu'. And from Wikipedia I get the following: "That first year, 1912, he returned with an extraordinary account of finding a three-hundred-year old Christian hermit in a mountain cave-the Maharishi of Kailas, with whom he spent some weeks in deep fellowship."
For many years I've been strongly feeling (thinking?) that God is either not Muslim (Allah), Christian or Jewish (Jehovah), Hindu (Shiva, Vishnu, etc.) or Zoroastrian or is all of these. I tend to credit myself with having a rather secular and liberal viewpoint and in being broadminded. But could what I'm feeling and thinking be due to a reason outside me? Like being exposed to information about Sadhu Sundar Singh and such things for instance. In fact most of my readings that I came across by chance were such that it promoted a secular nature. Of course, it is also true that I had an inherent preference for such a bent of writings. But then, is it only the environment in which I was raised that is responsible or are there other factors that have not been given due importance. Why do you find a one year old (or maybe a two year old) child having strong preferences - some don't like curds, some have an inherent dislike for certain vegetables. So if by some outside chance I have a character that can be called 'liberal', 'good', 'progressive' how much credit must I appropriate to myself.
If such happenstances help to make this blog interesting am I to take the full credit?
Now there is another aspect. That of remarkable coincidences. On the route to partial enlightenment one is often struck with remarkable coincidences that can leave one dumbfounded. These coincidences can make you conclude that a thought of yours, or again a particular action of yours caused a cloudburst in Bangalore resulting in some tragic deaths and so on. This can turn out to be scary for you tend to assume responsibility for all sorts of tragedies and human suffering. Then again, like it happened to me today, I wanted the telephone number of a former colleague of mine (Mr. Bhasker) since I was interested in getting some articles that I had penned and given to him for his consideration many years ago. The trouble was I didn't have his telephone number. So I rang up another colleague with whom I am in closer touch (Karthik) to fetch the number of Bhasker. So when I rang up Karthik, he told me that he wanted to in fact ring me up just to enquire how I was. Then again, on getting the name of Bhasker and ringing him up, he told me that he too was thinking about me and was intent on ringing me up or contacting me as he was perchance attracted to information on Mount Kailash which I had visited recently, as he had suddenly come up on the name of a certain Sadhu Sundar Singh and CHRISTIAN HERMIT IN A MOUNTAIN CAVE - THE MAHARISHI OF KAILASH. Mr Bhasker asked me to consult the Internet by searching on 'Sadhu Sundar Singh'.
So it accidentally happened that I got the information that Sadhu Sundar Singh was born a Sikh at Rampur, Punjab in 1889. He converted to Christianity in 1903 after he had a vision of Jesus Christ while he was intent on attempting suicide. He first visited Tibet in 1908 before entering a Christian Divinity College in 1909. Abandoned his preacher's life in 1911 and again became a 'Christian sadhu'. And from Wikipedia I get the following: "That first year, 1912, he returned with an extraordinary account of finding a three-hundred-year old Christian hermit in a mountain cave-the Maharishi of Kailas, with whom he spent some weeks in deep fellowship."
For many years I've been strongly feeling (thinking?) that God is either not Muslim (Allah), Christian or Jewish (Jehovah), Hindu (Shiva, Vishnu, etc.) or Zoroastrian or is all of these. I tend to credit myself with having a rather secular and liberal viewpoint and in being broadminded. But could what I'm feeling and thinking be due to a reason outside me? Like being exposed to information about Sadhu Sundar Singh and such things for instance. In fact most of my readings that I came across by chance were such that it promoted a secular nature. Of course, it is also true that I had an inherent preference for such a bent of writings. But then, is it only the environment in which I was raised that is responsible or are there other factors that have not been given due importance. Why do you find a one year old (or maybe a two year old) child having strong preferences - some don't like curds, some have an inherent dislike for certain vegetables. So if by some outside chance I have a character that can be called 'liberal', 'good', 'progressive' how much credit must I appropriate to myself.
If such happenstances help to make this blog interesting am I to take the full credit?
Thursday, September 23, 2010
At the Jayanagar 5th Block gardens.
It is just around 7:00 a.m.on 23rd Sept. 2010 as I start writing this article. Today I just decided to enjoy the crispness and the freshness of the dawn. I didn't care too much about exercising and just wanted to enjoy the chirping of birds and look at flowers and the pale green leaves of the hedges in the beautiful garden behind my house.
I ambled across to the park around 6:00 a.m. and watched the day break in gradually. It was my wish to see a clear blue sky, but it was moderately cloudy and it was unlikely that I would see the sun come up. But then there is a beauty of its own in a cloudy morning. I noticed a lot of dragonflies flitting about in the air. For a moment I saw that these were just flitting about randomly in a sort of Brownian motion. For a while I felt like wondering what they could really be up to! They were definitely not seeking the nectar of flowers because they were not hovering around flowers but were rather flitting about in mid air with nothing live in the vicinity. Then I wondered what, in fact, were they seeking. Is it worth a study?
(Today (April 16th 2013) I learnt that dragonflies are carnivorous and it clarified why they were not around flowers seeking nectar. Perhaps it is worth a study !)
At that moment I stopped myself. Mankind has collected enough and more of such knowledge. I myself have remarked about the wondrous touch-me-nots. I envy the primitive man who perhaps watched their leaves fold in salutation to God even as a man touched them. There was magic in creation. Now the scientific Man knows that the leaves fold-up as water is expelled from one part of the leaf to another. The magic has been removed from creation! We now have information, but how sad! How dry that information makes this world of ours. So for whatever reason those pretty dragonflies flit around I decide to just enjoy that magical moment.
And there was another magical moment too this morning at the garden. After I spent over three-quarters of an hour just enjoying nature, a young man and a young woman came and sat down on one of the other seats some distance away. They seemed to be doing some warming-up exercises, and after some minutes of watching them it became clear that the woman was leading the man in these exercises. As I kept watching out of curiosity I found the woman giving the orders rather firmly but soon the tenderness behind the sternness became obvious. After some more minutes of watching as the couple began practicing the chanting of the OM sounds, it became apparent that the man had an obvious health problem as he could not keep his voice at the required modulation. As I continued to watch with greater intensity I came to realize that the man had a slight degree of retardation. The man apparently looked older than the woman.
I just surmised, seeing the man's obvious handicap, that the couple must be a brother and sister and that the concerned woman was helping her brother cope with life. I felt like congratulating the woman, but being of a reticent type, I just felt hesitant to approach the couple. After many minutes of dilly-dallying I found the urge to talk to the couple building up within me. Finally I went over and said:
"Excuse me! Are you a brother and sister?"
"No! We are husband and wife!", the woman replied.
On further questioning she told me that they were quite distant relatives and that she had married him to help him out in life. My thoughts went back to my own nature at the same age - around 25 yrs. How I had intensely desired a pretty woman for her beauty and saw the contrast with this young lass. The woman's name I found out was Leela and the husband's name was Karthik, they perhaps live on the 11th Main, Jayanagar 4th Block.
I ambled across to the park around 6:00 a.m. and watched the day break in gradually. It was my wish to see a clear blue sky, but it was moderately cloudy and it was unlikely that I would see the sun come up. But then there is a beauty of its own in a cloudy morning. I noticed a lot of dragonflies flitting about in the air. For a moment I saw that these were just flitting about randomly in a sort of Brownian motion. For a while I felt like wondering what they could really be up to! They were definitely not seeking the nectar of flowers because they were not hovering around flowers but were rather flitting about in mid air with nothing live in the vicinity. Then I wondered what, in fact, were they seeking. Is it worth a study?
(Today (April 16th 2013) I learnt that dragonflies are carnivorous and it clarified why they were not around flowers seeking nectar. Perhaps it is worth a study !)
At that moment I stopped myself. Mankind has collected enough and more of such knowledge. I myself have remarked about the wondrous touch-me-nots. I envy the primitive man who perhaps watched their leaves fold in salutation to God even as a man touched them. There was magic in creation. Now the scientific Man knows that the leaves fold-up as water is expelled from one part of the leaf to another. The magic has been removed from creation! We now have information, but how sad! How dry that information makes this world of ours. So for whatever reason those pretty dragonflies flit around I decide to just enjoy that magical moment.
And there was another magical moment too this morning at the garden. After I spent over three-quarters of an hour just enjoying nature, a young man and a young woman came and sat down on one of the other seats some distance away. They seemed to be doing some warming-up exercises, and after some minutes of watching them it became clear that the woman was leading the man in these exercises. As I kept watching out of curiosity I found the woman giving the orders rather firmly but soon the tenderness behind the sternness became obvious. After some more minutes of watching as the couple began practicing the chanting of the OM sounds, it became apparent that the man had an obvious health problem as he could not keep his voice at the required modulation. As I continued to watch with greater intensity I came to realize that the man had a slight degree of retardation. The man apparently looked older than the woman.
I just surmised, seeing the man's obvious handicap, that the couple must be a brother and sister and that the concerned woman was helping her brother cope with life. I felt like congratulating the woman, but being of a reticent type, I just felt hesitant to approach the couple. After many minutes of dilly-dallying I found the urge to talk to the couple building up within me. Finally I went over and said:
"Excuse me! Are you a brother and sister?"
"No! We are husband and wife!", the woman replied.
On further questioning she told me that they were quite distant relatives and that she had married him to help him out in life. My thoughts went back to my own nature at the same age - around 25 yrs. How I had intensely desired a pretty woman for her beauty and saw the contrast with this young lass. The woman's name I found out was Leela and the husband's name was Karthik, they perhaps live on the 11th Main, Jayanagar 4th Block.
Postscript: I'm adding this on 24th Sept. because I chanced to see a question in Yahoo! Answers which was worded "What is beauty to a blind man?" Ms. Leela of the above episode looked homely to my eyes, but if I were blind would I have found Leela extremely beautiful?
Monday, September 20, 2010
My Teacher
I have a Teacher whose contribution to my well-being I am yet to fully appreciate. But I seem to get a rough idea of how it could be. Suppose you are about to make a 3000 mile long journey. You are sitting in a craft as a pilot and have just taken off. Suppose a person comes over and makes a slight three degree shift to the right, in the direction in which the craft was headed almost at the very beginning of the journey. Suppose you just accepted that direction shift without much knowledge about where it would lead. And then suppose as time flowed on, and after a considerable distance has been covered, the landscape around you was getting more and more pleasant and you become more and more sure that you are traveling in the right direction and the destination is up yonder. You may never guess the importance of the small change of direction at the very beginning of the journey! You may have initially been heading towards a desert!
My Teacher asked me to seek knowledge from my Guru. In accordance with those directions I prayed for knowledge. I feel I was thence blessed with a degree of self-awareness that my Teacher didn't seem to possess. My Teacher had blessed me with a certain set of procedure for my spiritual uplift, but I surmise (I stress that I only surmise) she didn't quite know the logical purpose or the reasons why the procedures worked. It apparently appears so to my perception. However the Guru's directions to me clarified the purpose of the procedure to me (I add that it could be only one of the purposes among several others that I do not know).
And in accordance with the innate human tendencies I had mentioned in my previous blog entry, I sort of judged my Teacher for a lack of self-awareness that I seemed to perceive in her. This after my Teacher only had directed me as to what to ask my Guru for !! I do feel quite contrite now but I do keep my fingers crossed that I do not make a grave error by being ungrateful.
One of the main steps that spirituality advises is a set of procedure to still your mind. The more restless and rapidly flitting your mind is, the greater is the danger you are supposed to be in. So before anything else, the Teachers try to still your mind and to achieve this you may be advised a Mantra to suit your personality or even advised to watch your breathing. The mind - body - breath interconnection has been given a great degree of importance in Yoga and if one is really open, one can get to experience how watching your breathing and thence regulating it can bring a degree of stability to a troubled mind.
The advice that is frequently given in India to respect your teachers is to forewarn you about the tremendous value that lies in the teachings that you are to get and the extent to which they can change your life.
xxx
My Teacher asked me to seek knowledge from my Guru. In accordance with those directions I prayed for knowledge. I feel I was thence blessed with a degree of self-awareness that my Teacher didn't seem to possess. My Teacher had blessed me with a certain set of procedure for my spiritual uplift, but I surmise (I stress that I only surmise) she didn't quite know the logical purpose or the reasons why the procedures worked. It apparently appears so to my perception. However the Guru's directions to me clarified the purpose of the procedure to me (I add that it could be only one of the purposes among several others that I do not know).
And in accordance with the innate human tendencies I had mentioned in my previous blog entry, I sort of judged my Teacher for a lack of self-awareness that I seemed to perceive in her. This after my Teacher only had directed me as to what to ask my Guru for !! I do feel quite contrite now but I do keep my fingers crossed that I do not make a grave error by being ungrateful.
One of the main steps that spirituality advises is a set of procedure to still your mind. The more restless and rapidly flitting your mind is, the greater is the danger you are supposed to be in. So before anything else, the Teachers try to still your mind and to achieve this you may be advised a Mantra to suit your personality or even advised to watch your breathing. The mind - body - breath interconnection has been given a great degree of importance in Yoga and if one is really open, one can get to experience how watching your breathing and thence regulating it can bring a degree of stability to a troubled mind.
The advice that is frequently given in India to respect your teachers is to forewarn you about the tremendous value that lies in the teachings that you are to get and the extent to which they can change your life.
xxx
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Mt. Kailash - Manasarovar - Pretty pictures !
Dusk at Manasarovar. The planet Venus is seen shining bright.
An artistic Tibetan Building at Changan village near Millarepa cave.
Ramesh Perumal on a Chinese bike near Paryang.
Mountain adjoining Mt. Kailash.
Farewell to Car drivers before our return to Nepal.
Perilous road prone to landslide on our way to Kodari.
A meandering river in Tibet.
Another river landscape.
Tibetan girls in modern attire.
Some Tibetan women - both traditional and modern.
Ramesh and his Tibetan porter.
Mahesh Acharya (L) and Balamurugan at the gardens of Hotel Shanker.
Mt. Kailash - Manasarovar Sojourn - 10
The last aspect of the Kailash - Manasarovar Sojourn consisted of a three kilometer trek up a streamlet issuing forth from Mount Kailash. The path is a mildly steep gradient that commences with a grassy surface but soon transforms after a short while to a valley strewn with granitic and basic igneous boulders that makes the trek a little difficult. As one ascends, you chance to see the grandeur of the valley around Dirapuk and the Tibetan village at a distance. Mt. Kailash looms large over the valley as we approach closer and closer. After a considerable ascent, the troop leader Swami Prabodha together with his associates performed with intense devotion a holy offering to Shiva in the vicinity of Kailash. Swami Prabodha led the whole group in various chants and mantras. It certainly was a very solemn occasion marked by total surrender to the power of the Divine.
After the adoration and worship of the divinity, some of us made a further climb along the valley up to a point where Dilli's altimeter gave a reading of 5250 m (17,325 ft). At that point I collected a rock fragment that seemed to resemble the rock of Kailash parvat. I also collected a bottle of the holy water of the streamlet issuing from one of the glaciers of Kailash. After a round of silent meditation we headed back downwards towards the Dirapuk hotel. I would like to mention that Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev speaks that the rocks of the Kailash Parvat are of a metoritic composition. But to my perception and even in various photographs of the North Face of the Kailash Parvat I seem to see the presence of distinct sedimentary layering. While to my eyes the rock appeared to be a layered ferruginous chert, I cannot deny that the boulders in the stream that we traversed were mostly granitic, with a few resembling mafic igneous rocks. But I did collect a fragment of a ferruginous chert cobble, which to my perception formed the upper layers of the Kailash Parvat. In my assessment it didn't resemble a meteoritic rock.
(Top) The hotel at Dirapuk in the distance. The village settlement is seen on the opposite hill slope.
Left (3 km trek upwards toward Mt. Kailash)
The rest of the day after returning to the camp was spent in light-hearted banter and relaxation. Thus the final aspect of the Mt. Kailash - Manasarovar Sojourn drew to a close.
After the adoration and worship of the divinity, some of us made a further climb along the valley up to a point where Dilli's altimeter gave a reading of 5250 m (17,325 ft). At that point I collected a rock fragment that seemed to resemble the rock of Kailash parvat. I also collected a bottle of the holy water of the streamlet issuing from one of the glaciers of Kailash. After a round of silent meditation we headed back downwards towards the Dirapuk hotel. I would like to mention that Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev speaks that the rocks of the Kailash Parvat are of a metoritic composition. But to my perception and even in various photographs of the North Face of the Kailash Parvat I seem to see the presence of distinct sedimentary layering. While to my eyes the rock appeared to be a layered ferruginous chert, I cannot deny that the boulders in the stream that we traversed were mostly granitic, with a few resembling mafic igneous rocks. But I did collect a fragment of a ferruginous chert cobble, which to my perception formed the upper layers of the Kailash Parvat. In my assessment it didn't resemble a meteoritic rock.
Left (3 km trek upwards toward Mt. Kailash)
The rest of the day after returning to the camp was spent in light-hearted banter and relaxation. Thus the final aspect of the Mt. Kailash - Manasarovar Sojourn drew to a close.
Mt. Kailash - Manasarovar Sojourn - 6
It was quite late by the time we left Saga on our way to our next destination at Paryang situated at a distance of 235 km from Saga. We could leave only by 10:00 a.m. local time. This route is quite treacherous and we had to pass sites where the roads were actively under construction, and the prevalent rock types (purple, green and carbonaceous shales and in variegated colours) yield a rather clayey mud that forms a thick gooey slush through which the cars have to negotiate. One of the cars lost direction and missed the path and came down a precariously steep slope that left the occupants of the vehicle quite rattled.
(Photo below: Highway where we were stranded by the authorities)
Along this muddy and bumpy route that rattles your bones, you find that the authorities block large tracts of the path and force the convoy over the rough countryside. It may even happen that the road authorities may deny permission to move ahead and forcing you to spend hours on end stranded in the middle of nowhere. This is precisely what happened to our convoy around 11:45 a.m. or 12:00 p.m. when we were halted by the authorities who vaguely said that they may condescend to give us permission to travel further by 2:00 p.m. or failing which we would be permitted to move ahead only after 10:00 p.m. in the night. This was rather disconcerting and the leader of the team decided that in such an event we would move directly to Manansarovar without stopping at Paryang. Such a scheme of things would really be exhausting and we kept our fingers crossed that matters would not come to such a head. In the meantime we decided to put the time to the best possible use and finished our lunch as we waited. Luckily, the authorities cleared our passage by 2:00 p.m. and we headed on our way to Paryang.
Enroute we saw some wonderful arcuate sand dunes of quite large sizes that appeared very attractive in the golden glow of the late evening sun.
For the first time after several hundreds of kilometers we saw a petrol filling station with filthy stinking toilets. It was the only gas station that I saw on the entire route.
After a drive of another hour or so we reached the village of Paryang at around 8:00 p.m. The hotel there is a very threadbare one with four beds to a room of rather small size. The toilets are in a miserable condition which forced many of our group members to go out in the open. We were warned about the dogs around here as they are reputed to feed on corpses of humans that are abandoned in the open air when they die. So we were advised to be wary about the dogs here which created an additional problem of going out to the toilet in the open air. Later in the evening we had a satsang and around dinner time, the B3 Group which had left for Manasarovar around August 16th came to Paryang on their return trip to Katmandu.
In my effort to get some information on the difficulty of the Shershong - Dirapuk trek I was surprised to find every single man and woman advising me to take a pony for the journey. Not one person assured me that I could make it on my own steam. This was bad because the pony costs 1200 Yuan (Rs 9000) and I did not have that kind of money on me. Further, I viewed the trek as a challenge to my physical capabilities and I had undertaken to do it on foot as a religious observance and vow of some sort. After dinner we rested for the night.
(Photo Left: Hotel at Paryang)
Late evening Views of Paryang Village at an altitude of 15000 feet in the Tibetan Plateau
(Photo below: Highway where we were stranded by the authorities)
Along this muddy and bumpy route that rattles your bones, you find that the authorities block large tracts of the path and force the convoy over the rough countryside. It may even happen that the road authorities may deny permission to move ahead and forcing you to spend hours on end stranded in the middle of nowhere. This is precisely what happened to our convoy around 11:45 a.m. or 12:00 p.m. when we were halted by the authorities who vaguely said that they may condescend to give us permission to travel further by 2:00 p.m. or failing which we would be permitted to move ahead only after 10:00 p.m. in the night. This was rather disconcerting and the leader of the team decided that in such an event we would move directly to Manansarovar without stopping at Paryang. Such a scheme of things would really be exhausting and we kept our fingers crossed that matters would not come to such a head. In the meantime we decided to put the time to the best possible use and finished our lunch as we waited. Luckily, the authorities cleared our passage by 2:00 p.m. and we headed on our way to Paryang.
Enroute we saw some wonderful arcuate sand dunes of quite large sizes that appeared very attractive in the golden glow of the late evening sun.
 |
| Arcuate Sand dunes |
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| Sand dunes |
For the first time after several hundreds of kilometers we saw a petrol filling station with filthy stinking toilets. It was the only gas station that I saw on the entire route.
After a drive of another hour or so we reached the village of Paryang at around 8:00 p.m. The hotel there is a very threadbare one with four beds to a room of rather small size. The toilets are in a miserable condition which forced many of our group members to go out in the open. We were warned about the dogs around here as they are reputed to feed on corpses of humans that are abandoned in the open air when they die. So we were advised to be wary about the dogs here which created an additional problem of going out to the toilet in the open air. Later in the evening we had a satsang and around dinner time, the B3 Group which had left for Manasarovar around August 16th came to Paryang on their return trip to Katmandu.
(Photo Left: Hotel at Paryang)
Late evening Views of Paryang Village at an altitude of 15000 feet in the Tibetan Plateau
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Mt. Kailash - Manasarovar Sojourn - 1
For over 35 years, ever since I happened to trek vast parts of Arunachal Pradesh in 1975 and subsequently trekked parts of Kumaon Himalaya, I had heard of the Lake Manasarovar - a large turquoise and emerald coloured body of freshwater occurring at dizzy heights of roughly 15,000 feet in the Tibetan Plateau, and I had nursed a dream of being able to visit the place. Back then, the Chinese were still wary of granting permission to outsiders to visit these places. Perhaps it was only in the early 1980s that Indian pilgrims were granted visas in limited numbers to visit Lake Manasarovar Mount Kailash
During the past ten years I had constantly heard of private tour operators from Nepal Katmandu Mount Kailash Coimbatore Mt. Kailash Bangalore Delhi Delhi Katmandu Nepal
A bus transported the group from the airport to a fairly comfortable three star hotel called ‘Hotel Shanker’. I was allotted a twin-sharing room with a fellow traveler fromBangalore
A bus transported the group from the airport to a fairly comfortable three star hotel called ‘Hotel Shanker’. I was allotted a twin-sharing room with a fellow traveler from
Right: Split-level room - a rather inconvenient arrangement. The entrance is seen on the top.
During our stay at Katmandu Pashpathinath Temple
We later visited the Stupa at Boudhnath which has 13 steps and a lotus shaped structureon the top. At the very top of the Stupa there is supposed to be a chimney-like conduit, down which kings and royals are supposed to have cast down precious jewels and money. As a consequence, these stupas are supposed to contain a lot of wealth within them. At the outer periphery of the stupa are fixed several cylindrical wheels with Buddhist prayers engraved on them, which devotees set in rotatory motion as they repeatedly circumambulate the stupa.
The Boudhnath Stupa is surrounded by several shops marketing antiques, art, music CDs and clothes. A small Tibetan Buddhist monastery also is seen where Tibetan monks were chanting sacred mantras. We also visited an art gallery where artisans were painting very intricate paintings on specially treated canvasses made from cotton and wax and rubbed with a polished rock and using carefully selected vegetable and mineral dyes. These paintings, called 'Thanka Paintings' largely depict stories from the life of Buddha and include elaborate detail and are very skillfully executed.(See below)
Later in the afternoon we visited the Dakshin Kali temple about 50 to 60 km from Katmandu
Right : Dakshin Kali Temple
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