Dalai Lama Land

Dharmasala Day 1

My first day in Dhasa as the locals call it here was truly a blessing in disguise. My

original plan was to see all my teachers/ gurus here in India, but I was not going to hold

too tight to that plan because many things happen on trips like this. I let go of the idea

of seeing Dalai because the public program was past by one day when I would arrive. And they

denied my request in the main office for a visit. So I went to Dhasa with the intention of

meeting Susie family and trying to capture a snapshot of life in Tibetan Refugee

grounds...Dharmasala. After a long 13 hour buss ride which was not too bad, except that I

didn't sleep all night I checked into my guest house and crashed for an hour. It was a

stroke of luck that I even made it to this place because last night I had exactly the

amount of R's to get on the buss, silly me thought they might take credit so i missed

going to the bank before the Main bus terminal. So I'm traveling all the way up into the

Himalayas again with like 2 R's and no dinner. I was OK with it though. I had my emergency

bars if i needed. At the dinner stop a Indian man sitting next to me would let me go with

out dinner so he bought me a ticket for the thali. I was grateful and thanked him 3 times

and he told me to stop HaaHaa! Anyhow, its a long ride and any food will help bear the
hours.

SO after my nap i decided to make a plan. What am i going to do here exactly. Well, I

called Sonam and meet with her first. She is the mother of Susie's family. Susie a friend

from Seattle tried to adopt her kids but it was not possible so she instead send support

and gifts when possible and I was the carrier this time. First we connect and give her some

cash...about 185 USD which is enough to pay her rent for about 1 year. We instantly became

friends. Now i am a little careful with her because its natural, but I feel and see she is

just a simple person with a big heart. She tells me Dalai is teaching and takes me to the

office to get my pass. At the office other westerners are turned away because this lesson

is only for high monks and not public. however, Sonam walks me thru the line and i get a

pass! YEAH! Dalai I'm here.
I spent the afternoon with Sonam and her family...brother and mother. The rest are in

school or abroad. i took them all out to dinner. I offered to take them to some place

really nice. They only knew one restaurant in their small town because they never go out to

eat. We forget how lucky we are in America. The meal was about ten usd for the 5 of us.

At this point in the trip I have been super charged by so many miracles. so seeing Dalai is

just adding to the pot of golden love that has surrounded this soul here and now. The 2nd

morning i went to the temple and sat in meditation with about 400 or so high level monks as

Dalai chanted the lessons to them about karma. The morning was from 9 to 1130 and afternoon

1 to 3. I didn't bring my Fm radio with me because I forgot to get one so I didn't

understand a word, but it was not necessary. the energy flowed thru me this morning as if I

was breathing from inside out. Quite peaceful and energizing. Maybe its the altitude or

exhaustion, but whatever it is its welcome here.

The next few days I will spend time doing a few sight seeing tasks, but mostly spending

time with Sonam and her family. I decided to document their story and create a slideshow

from the images and sound recording I will get from them. I'll not write about them now,

because when I return to the usa i will be doing an extensive script about them. be on the

look out for the work will be presented in a few months at a fundraiser for the Tibetan

cause.
The last day in Dhasa...I went to the Temple in the morning. There I sat in the middle of

about 150 refugees including Sonam's mom and received
blessings from the Dalai lama and 2

other highest Lama's. I was buzzing for like 2 days following. I never expected this and I

hope that i can blast anyone how comes across my path with this energy from now on is some

sort of manner.

Mumbai Wow its HUGE!M UMBIG!!!

I still can’t comprehend the massive scale of this city. I like it here though. People are friendly, its warm and massive! I took a cab into the main area of town called the gate of India. It took about 1.5 hours to get there in traffic. Didn’t seem too unusual. I felt a little indecisive about leaving the house because i really didn’t need to go. As i said the main purpose was to be near swamiji.
Well,  I’m glad I did go! The museum was awesome and i loved the paintings. Beautiful old Indian paintings! Just a treat to see, candy for my eyes for sure. I took the audio tour and felt i learned a little more about Indian history and culture, but I think I may have forgotten it already, like seconds after leaving the museum. I realized i checked my bag in with all the info on how to get back to the house and if i lost that back that would have been a BIG problem. Ahhh! a moment of panic and then ok… grace is here no problem, the bag was there. Who Grace have you met her?  I headed to the elephant caves from a boat to the island where they use to house and trade elephants, and built a Shiva temple. Actually it was a perfect thing to do, seeing I was a little tired. The boat ride was fun and the cave temples were really great. I spent a little time there and appreciated the huge caves someone built like 2000+ years ago for the act of worshiping Lord Shiva!! Rock On…Pun intended! I’m now going to try and get back to the house. but before i do one last boat ride to the main land. I was thinking that i would try to convince my roommate to build a Shiva temple in the back yard, well I already know the answer.
After a long day, I decided to head back home to sit with Guruji before bed. I called the taxi that drove me here and he said he was too far away to come get me. So I jumped in a non AC cab and headed towards the Condo. God I had no Idea how far the drive would take in what appeared to be rush hour in Mumbai. Lets try 3.25 hours. Jezzzz US I thought I would never get back. Even the cab dropped me off and I could see he was exhausted from the drive so I gave him a few extra R to thank him for getting me there safe.
So I went in the house and was immediately fed dinner. now normally there is nothing unusual about eating dinner, but in this case there were like 20 Indian disciples sitting around guruji and suddenly they were all watching me eat and laughing. Now I’ve been the butt of many jokes here in India, but this was just silly to me. although Guru JI Complimented me and said you have learned how to eat like an Indian. And they started calling me a senior disciple since I know guruji 17 years now. Was pretty flattered!
there is very little sleep going on for anyone in the presence of a master like Guru Ji. his energy just flows to deeply that sleep is forgotten and not needed. So we were up until like 12-1 and of course we get up at 4 for meditation. Amazing feeling. Amma has said that all you have to go is look at her and grace will be there. how beautiful. And this time with guruji I felt grace flowing and meditation was almost not necessary. Many of us sat for the 3 days mostly without speaking. After all Guruji doesn’t speak much anyhow. However, he did grant me an interview on the last day of the visit which I recorded. I will upload it as a youtube link…