The Lama, standing on the edge of the mountain, surveyed the vast, gaping valley before him. The gusts of wind blew across his weather beaten face as his flowing, red, robes fluttered in the wind. He spinned his chanting wheel violently and as the anger surged in him, he rebelled within himself. He had come for enlightenment, but instead there built a raw, vile impatience in him that never seemed to ebb. He felt that staying at the gompa would never give him enlightenment. And then one day, when he felt that the world was crashing around him, he ran away, into the land of the vast, cold desert, over the peaks and passes, battling against the snow and sun. He traveled wild and lost, but his search eluded him. And when the pangs of defeat were looming on him, bruised and battered, lost and defeated, he returned back to the monastery. The elders didn’t curse him. Instead, they opened their arms and whispered into his ear the old, famous saying "He who know others is wise. He who knows himself, is enlightened.”
I am a mere mortal, nor am I searching for a monastery and neither am I in search of enlightenment. Instead I am searching for some sanctity. And unfortunately, the chaotic, noisy life which I lead, prevents me in my search. And for that, I travel, away into lands, back in time, to practice a new way of life. Every year, for a few days.
These drifts, these pauses, help me discover the very reason I am alive, and enables me to move closer to the purpose of my life. Goes a saying, “Mountaineering is the most spiritual sport in the world”. I am not a mountaineer, never intend to become one – but the Himalayas have always been a state of my mind. And its spiritual presence in my journeys and thoughts, have always helped in my journey back to life. My yells, meditations, anger, joy and pain I throw everything that had accumulated in me. It is a home which I don’t have, and to which I return back for sanity. These pauses helps me remove the cloak that I had put on and unlearn everything all over again and taste life anew. They are my life. It is my energy. It is the reason I am alive. It releases my entrapped energy and helps me converse with nature and in the process I liberate myself.
I am a mere mortal, nor am I searching for a monastery and neither am I in search of enlightenment. Instead I am searching for some sanctity. And unfortunately, the chaotic, noisy life which I lead, prevents me in my search. And for that, I travel, away into lands, back in time, to practice a new way of life. Every year, for a few days.
These drifts, these pauses, help me discover the very reason I am alive, and enables me to move closer to the purpose of my life. Goes a saying, “Mountaineering is the most spiritual sport in the world”. I am not a mountaineer, never intend to become one – but the Himalayas have always been a state of my mind. And its spiritual presence in my journeys and thoughts, have always helped in my journey back to life. My yells, meditations, anger, joy and pain I throw everything that had accumulated in me. It is a home which I don’t have, and to which I return back for sanity. These pauses helps me remove the cloak that I had put on and unlearn everything all over again and taste life anew. They are my life. It is my energy. It is the reason I am alive. It releases my entrapped energy and helps me converse with nature and in the process I liberate myself.
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