Surrendering

I can finally sincerely say I love india. I am a flexible person, and usually open and good natured about what the universe sends my way. But I have to say, india has challenged even the parts in me that I thought were strong and flexible. I have enjoyed the peaceful and spiritual places I have been and learned a ton from them, but traveling around to get to them and trying to do a little sightseeing in the middle is so stressful and sucks the energy right out of me. And in these times, it is challenging to try to find my patience, my peace, my center. I realized I have to open up and embrace and even welcome the challenges to really take in all that this country has to offer. One could get off the plane, take personal taxis right to their ashram or spiritual place and completely avoid much of the actual life and chaos of india. They would have a spiritual experience and have pleasant thoughts about what india has to offer. I am not saying it is bad if they do this, but I think they would miss out on what there truly is to learn here. I have now found it really important to mix my spiritual learnings along with what I am learning about humanity and daily life of people here, this is where my biggest lessons have come in and where everything is being integrated. Beyond just spiritual traditions and practices, the nature of this country involves poverty, filth, chaos, sickness, undesirable elements of nature like mosquitos and snakes, people trying to cheat you, people staring at you wherever you go, children begging (some of them with wounds probably inflicted by their parents to hopefully get more money, this has been really hard to see), scary roads, and lots and lots of noise. But all of these are part of the true "spiritual India" in a different way. All of these challenges are thrown in my face daily when I have been anywhere other than the peaceful ashrams and the yoga hospital (which have been like my little bubbles in India). But upon leaving the bubbles, I have felt a bit crazed and frazzled. Finally, the word "surrender" has kept coming to me, and it is now an important little mantra in my head every time I walk out the door of wherever I am staying, whether it be a peaceful bubble or crazy city. When I arrived in in my first month, I initially thought I was letting go but now I realize I was only letting go halfway, and I really need to pretty much fully let go and surrender to deal with it here. This can be said about all of life, I think.  This felt scary and uncomfortable at first, but I am accepting this now and I feel stronger. I feel more free and certain that the world will take care of me and everything will be okay. I am alone but not really alone, and there is nothing to be afraid of that can not be handled in one way or another. And I feel like after I have experienced all of this here, I will be able to deal with so many other challenges that come my way at home. Realizing all of these lessons completly complements what I am learning in spiritual places and through my yoga studies. A huge part of the yogic and spiritual path is about letting go of attachments and ego, detaching from both pleasure and pain, letting go of the illusions, recognizing the truth, seeing beyond even what we consider is the self. Heavy stuff, and still I am only at the tip of the iceberg of all of this! And I have realized that expectations, which seem to come naturally to come to our minds and hearts, are what shapes how we percieve and deal with situations.  When I have had strong hopes or expectations that something will be one way and it turns out to be another, dissapointment comes.  And when I look to see if there is a person or object on which to place blame to get to the root of the dissapointment, it comes down to my own expectation that created the dissapointment.  I am not saying I will be able to stop having expectations completely, but I think I now better understand how these expectations affect my experiences, and this lesson can be applied in travel, in relationships, in daily life.

None of this is so profound, it is all simple little wisdom that is just making sense to me in a comforting way and really helping me right now in my journey so I thought I would share it here.  Anyway, I will keep surrendering and keep learning from everything India has to offer me. This is definitely a place to come and experience, not a place just to come and see!