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INDIA...................................SINGAPORE
+ 
TOKYO....................................LOS ANGELES
+ 
SEATTLE.......................................NEW YEAR'S EVE
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This is the recipe for making your New Year's Eve day the longest ever.
Although our flight is scheduled to leave Ahmedabad at 1145pm on the 30th I suspect we'll still be touching India soil past midnight.
I started the slow process of packing yesterday and realized I was more than half way done when I started. Three months anywhere threatens to send one home with more items than can possibly be allowed on the flight, but I spent months leading up to the trip prepping myself to be a strategic shopper and constantly reminded myself of my space and weight allowance.
As it is I'll still have to leave behind a few items for the next visit Surnish's folks make to the States, but they were unexpected add-ons anyways so I shouldn't miss them for a year or so.
I've been thinking a lot about life in general and am continually discussing these matters with Surnish.
After this experience I can't go back to life as normal for me or even back to the track I thought I was on before I left.
I had this vision of spiritual awakening whilst in India that had some semi-predefined result in my mind.
I thought I would never want to touch alcohol again. I thought that I wouldn't want to eat any kind of junky foods anymore. I thought I'd shun coffee and tea. I thought that I'd become more judgmental of others, in an all knowing way. I thought that I'd be more cynical of Western societies, especially America. I thought that India would present itself as some kind of quasi-utopian bliss to my modern American cultural heritage of over-consumption of everything that leaves you craving more and fasting from those things which would actually leave one feeling fulfilled...and I mean really fulfilled.
NONE of it happened. Well not that way at any rate.
Oh I did have my spiritual awakening, and it did put me in my place. I just don't think I can ever take for granted what it is I think I know of the world or the extent of my knowledge.
I suppose some may read these words and say: "Yeah well I could have told you that you didn't need to go to the other side of the world to figure this out."
And to this I'd say: "You're right, if only it were that easy!"
It just isn't the same to have some one tell you how you should feel or respond to a situation as it is to going out there and actually feeling or responding to that situation.
Sometimes the lives of two people can look identical on the outside, but what informs them on the inside is what makes them unique. If I use the knowledge I've tapped into to live my life in a more 'responsible' way while not letting the pressures of society dictate my internal drives, then I could be as happy living as a middle class American as I could living a life as a missionary of charity...as long as I embraced the choice peacefully as my own (which I did many years back).
My realization from recent times is that I am not inherently better or worse of a person for having chosen one of these over the other, even if the world at large would otherwise value the decision.
This knowledge I've tapped into isn't exclusive to me, but rather it is a universal knowledge. In this all humans have the ability to tap into the same knowing as any other being. But that's where it stops. We all have to go about it in our own ways (that whole free-will concept). I'd like to think that I dream of doing things because my doing them satisfies my curiousities of life rather than leaves me scratching my head. To be sure many things are still a mystery to me, but I have finally seen a general pattern emerging.
I don't take for granted the HUGE leg up I have having been born in the US, being Anglo, being from a decent working class family.
Good GOD, NO that doesn't make me better as a person in any way, but I was born into a situation that allowed a great deal more freedom to explore my mind and existence.
Despite the trials I have personally endured, I've never had to worry about racial prejudice, my family never told me 'no you can't, you're a girl', I've not gone to bed hungry ever, I never worried about where I'd live, I've never listened to guns and bombs as I try to sleep at night. There is no doubt in my mind that having a life free of regular onslaughts on one's mortality and self-dignity are the bedrock for human evolution as a species. Seriously, without them even the most adept sage could not attain nirvana. How can anyone under such circumstances contemplate ideas beyond societally assigned 'self-worth' or mere survival?
For me I'm still letting my mind fathom the fortune I feel for my existence. I don't know that I'll be able to do more than wonder at the circumstances of my life that have brought me to each moment I experience from this point on. As I said in the Kolkata post, all the good and all the bad were necessary.
One thing I feel more strongly about is the value of everyone's existence and the potential for personal development we each uniquely posses. I hope that this knowledge makes me more compassionate as I continue on with all the days of this lifetime.
And now that I've reached the end-game of my dreams till now and feel more satisfied than ever with the key decisions of my life-path, I feel so completely open to pursuing the next big adventure: parenthood. Trust me, when the time comes, I'll probably write extensively about that too.
I know this is a few days shy of the end of my trip, but I feel that given two more days I won't come to any greater conclusions than I have right now.
THANK YOU ALL, for tagging along throughout this adventure. I hope that some of my experiences inspire some of yours.
Any further correspondence, comments, feedback or photo requests should be directed to: jaruciaj@yahoo.com.
Take care in all your travels. Whether to your own back yard or around the world, the potential is...the same!
Peace,
A Pink American
Although our flight is scheduled to leave Ahmedabad at 1145pm on the 30th I suspect we'll still be touching India soil past midnight.
I started the slow process of packing yesterday and realized I was more than half way done when I started. Three months anywhere threatens to send one home with more items than can possibly be allowed on the flight, but I spent months leading up to the trip prepping myself to be a strategic shopper and constantly reminded myself of my space and weight allowance.
As it is I'll still have to leave behind a few items for the next visit Surnish's folks make to the States, but they were unexpected add-ons anyways so I shouldn't miss them for a year or so.
I've been thinking a lot about life in general and am continually discussing these matters with Surnish.
After this experience I can't go back to life as normal for me or even back to the track I thought I was on before I left.
I had this vision of spiritual awakening whilst in India that had some semi-predefined result in my mind.
I thought I would never want to touch alcohol again. I thought that I wouldn't want to eat any kind of junky foods anymore. I thought I'd shun coffee and tea. I thought that I'd become more judgmental of others, in an all knowing way. I thought that I'd be more cynical of Western societies, especially America. I thought that India would present itself as some kind of quasi-utopian bliss to my modern American cultural heritage of over-consumption of everything that leaves you craving more and fasting from those things which would actually leave one feeling fulfilled...and I mean really fulfilled.
NONE of it happened. Well not that way at any rate.
Oh I did have my spiritual awakening, and it did put me in my place. I just don't think I can ever take for granted what it is I think I know of the world or the extent of my knowledge.
I suppose some may read these words and say: "Yeah well I could have told you that you didn't need to go to the other side of the world to figure this out."
And to this I'd say: "You're right, if only it were that easy!"
It just isn't the same to have some one tell you how you should feel or respond to a situation as it is to going out there and actually feeling or responding to that situation.
Sometimes the lives of two people can look identical on the outside, but what informs them on the inside is what makes them unique. If I use the knowledge I've tapped into to live my life in a more 'responsible' way while not letting the pressures of society dictate my internal drives, then I could be as happy living as a middle class American as I could living a life as a missionary of charity...as long as I embraced the choice peacefully as my own (which I did many years back).
My realization from recent times is that I am not inherently better or worse of a person for having chosen one of these over the other, even if the world at large would otherwise value the decision.
This knowledge I've tapped into isn't exclusive to me, but rather it is a universal knowledge. In this all humans have the ability to tap into the same knowing as any other being. But that's where it stops. We all have to go about it in our own ways (that whole free-will concept). I'd like to think that I dream of doing things because my doing them satisfies my curiousities of life rather than leaves me scratching my head. To be sure many things are still a mystery to me, but I have finally seen a general pattern emerging.
I don't take for granted the HUGE leg up I have having been born in the US, being Anglo, being from a decent working class family.
Good GOD, NO that doesn't make me better as a person in any way, but I was born into a situation that allowed a great deal more freedom to explore my mind and existence.
Despite the trials I have personally endured, I've never had to worry about racial prejudice, my family never told me 'no you can't, you're a girl', I've not gone to bed hungry ever, I never worried about where I'd live, I've never listened to guns and bombs as I try to sleep at night. There is no doubt in my mind that having a life free of regular onslaughts on one's mortality and self-dignity are the bedrock for human evolution as a species. Seriously, without them even the most adept sage could not attain nirvana. How can anyone under such circumstances contemplate ideas beyond societally assigned 'self-worth' or mere survival?
For me I'm still letting my mind fathom the fortune I feel for my existence. I don't know that I'll be able to do more than wonder at the circumstances of my life that have brought me to each moment I experience from this point on. As I said in the Kolkata post, all the good and all the bad were necessary.
One thing I feel more strongly about is the value of everyone's existence and the potential for personal development we each uniquely posses. I hope that this knowledge makes me more compassionate as I continue on with all the days of this lifetime.
And now that I've reached the end-game of my dreams till now and feel more satisfied than ever with the key decisions of my life-path, I feel so completely open to pursuing the next big adventure: parenthood. Trust me, when the time comes, I'll probably write extensively about that too.
I know this is a few days shy of the end of my trip, but I feel that given two more days I won't come to any greater conclusions than I have right now.
THANK YOU ALL, for tagging along throughout this adventure. I hope that some of my experiences inspire some of yours.
Any further correspondence, comments, feedback or photo requests should be directed to: jaruciaj@yahoo.com.
Take care in all your travels. Whether to your own back yard or around the world, the potential is...the same!
Peace,
A Pink American
