Around the world: Varanasi

March 26

It’s only been 3 days and I’ve already forgotten about time. At 100 INR per night at Kumiko’s Ghost house, Whether I stay or not doesn’t matter.

Alas, I got sick the day I arrived. Then I got food poisoning yesterday so I just spend today passed out. My guess is the lassi I ate. 

Met Celine a French woman and two Chinese girls. It feels good that the chinese girls helped me when I was sick. I’ve never had people cared on the road. I thoight that maybe I am going to die here in a delirious state.

 

 

 

 

  

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March 27

Be at one with everything or be miserable

Something I joked about, but is becoming more and more evident. 

I went to Celine’s healing meditation center. The guru always seems to know so much about a new comer, but I later found out that it is because Celine told him about me. Her needs for this guru to be an all knowing person has clouded her mind a lot on what we discussed. Because her guru said so, my wandering around the world is seen as a mess and my meditation is all over the place because i am going around learning all these meditation techniques. “But Celine, I know exactly where I am going and I’ve only ever learned one technique.” 

In any case, what was insignificant got blown out of proportion. The guru wanted to be more alphal. My gut feeling says this is not the right one for me. It’s not the exchange that made me feel this way, but the feeling of this person. I’ve met others who feels more enlightened than me. This person is not.

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March 28

I’ve been walking around and seeing a lot of western man and woman indoctrinated into the hindu culture. But in the way a hippie would, cause the local indians certainly don’t dress this way. It occurred to me that I did not like it at all. 

Just like Celine’s guru is in it to get the potential chance to fuck her. I read up on Indian holy man’s sexual exploitations and that was the feeling I get when compared to the felling from buddhist monks and nuns in Chinese buddhism. Even compared to Aldi, the ones I’ve met so far does not have the sense of a heightened enlightenment.

The old me would be a white knight and try to make sure Celine is safe, cause she’s a beautiful girl. The current me couldn’t give a fuck about anyone who hasn’t shown they give any fuck about me. As a good person, there’s danger in helping others. As an evil greedy person, my livelihood rests on helping others.

Then again, she is probably actively wanting something to happen. You never know. You cannot enslave someone if there isn’t something they deeply want first.

So it’s those who came to India and remained themselves that intrigued me so far. So what does that say about me? Whether or not I find enlightenment at Rishikesh or a big hoax, I will be able to learn a lesson from this.

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March 29

A lot of times I would ask: “Why don’t they clean this? It takes so little effort.” “Why is there a scam in everything? Isn’t it tiresome to be constantly on guard?” 

Then again, maybe this is the place to learn the “Disconnect” part of the meditation and let nothing phases me.

There is a saying that you either love India or you hate India. I used to look down on people who hates India. Now that I’ve been here, I wonder how anyone can love India knowing all the annoying things that happens constantly? Maybe the ones who love India are the ones who were scammed without knowing?

My bed is a mat on the ground. It reminded me of a conversation I had with an ex. She said I do not need to train to sleep on hardwood in a tone that seems to suggest I am childish. I look at my mat on the ground today and proudly realized “this is why, love”

Maybe India attracts the socially inept. The Chinese girl from Szechuan definitely did not know how to flirt. My alarm bell was on full swimg when she asked if I am married over dinner. The girl from Shanghai is more subtle and is the one who’ve been caring for me while I was sick. According to her, she was a 宅女. So not completely all together either.

Who am I to judge. We are all here on a soul searching mission. We all know that we lacked something I just turned out to be more well rounded because I’ve been through 1/5 of the world before coming here. Indian government knows they make lots of money from soul searching. So here we are.

I’ve met a few gurus so far. Sadly none of them appears to feel right. I looked into the history and it seems that most of them cannot escape the temptation of money and sex. I had a mini version of the temptation when Celine was asking about a few strange habit I mentioned about meditation. All goggle eyed and ready to take whatever I say at face value. It really takes a saintly man to be able to resist not taking advantage of this devotion. I do not think I can handle it.

So I thought about false gurus and a few obvious things that they said which doesn’tpass mygut check. 

• The need to surrender and believe completely
• To get rid of all worldly possessions
• To pick one trait from me and says it is the cause of a huge mess. The trait is usually something generic amongst most people in a certain category. I usually let them k ow I used to be an engineer (truth) but they don’t know it was 10 years ago (hidden truth) to see how they try to dissassemble me.
• Boasting about knowledge and why he is better than us at it.
• Claims to be the god reincarnate or the only true one. A person on yhe eight path to enlightenment will be very afraid of taking on any students because of the temptation to abuse the relationship is another temptation too much.

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March 30

Getting girls to pay for things for me and offer me drinks. I wonder if it has anything to do with meditation. I am also very sick. A few of them did comment on the calmness and how zen I feel. So the transformation from meditation must’ve seeped out.

Celine wasn’t as naïve of a girl as I thought. She knew full well that the Chakra teacher was head over heels about her. She told me some of the private discussions that she’s had with this guru. It confirmed the gut feeling I had about him when we first met. 

What I was interested in was why she continued. Her reason was that she never runs away from things and wants to experience the full course. All I can think of is that she’s taking advantage of the Guru since he is teaching her for free. I never once thought of it as running away. In my mind, if something isn’t suitable, I don’t waste any more time on it. My time is more important than my pride.

One if the things that is happening with me and India is that it schools me on conflict. The scams are not as bad as I thought, but it is everywhere. In everything with any action I take. I’ve found a good medium between my Canadian values and the alpha within. Conflict is now a game to be embraced and even though I do not attack, I get a twisted sense of satisfaction in destroying those who are aggressive. Tit for tat all the way.

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March 31

The one with a bleeding heart is Mark and he is not with me right now. With no one to keep me grounded in Canadian values, I thrived in conflict and scams. Free to use dark tactics like anger and deceit to achieve my goals.

I would wait for them to start their scams and then pounce on them mercilessly with a smile if they do. For me, that’s my barrier. It’s how I explain away my evils. If they did not try to scam me, I’d have no justification to be evil.

Had a few discussion with ppl about india. Being Vegetarian and spiritual. I said that I do not fully believe it is the right way. India is the only country that’s almost 100% Vegetarian and the birthplace of the Hindu religion. But have you stepped back and looked at how the country turned out? Sure, correlation is not causation, but I can only be sure if there’s another similar vegetarian and religious country that turned out differently. Look at Norway and Canada. Non Vegetarian, non religious.

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April 1

We talked till the wee hours of the night. It’s the first time I get to really discuss the social construct of China with Chinese woman without any of the brainwashing getting in the way. These are rare finds whi’ve been away from China for 3 years and can’t get enough of the freedom.

They are not aware of how dating works in other cultures. For them, marriage equals a car and a house. 

I asked them why they think the Indians are happy. Their simple answer is that they always have a smile and do not care about gaining material possessikns. I told them this is how every country is like. What I wanted to ask them is if that is true happiness. A happiness born out of ignorance of what’s out there. But it seems that they are just happy with India’s happiness.

The Chinese government are not very protective of their own people in other countries. If you lose yor passport, you have to beg the embassy and still have no chance of getting another one issued. If you get kidnapped in another country? Good luck. I’ve never met a government where they don’t care about their citizens. If you treat your own kind like shit, no wonder everyone else in the world treat your kind like shit. I feel this complete and utter sadness for them.

From the cultural revolution started by Mao, everyone is still afraid of speaking up and fighting fir what’s right. Which is also part of the reason why people don’t help others. Even in strange lands, even in injustice. You raise your voice, you get mowed down.

I feels like I can love the Chinese now. It’ll take several generations to get their identity back. But I can love them NOW. I realized that it is their government that I hate. Not the people.