Simple living high thinking

I've been dreaming of downshifting for some few good years now: living outside on a sustainable farm, having goats and growing sunflowers, making my own bread and jams, being dependent on seasons, listening to the Moon and just connecting to the roots (our gramma was from a village in Southern Russia and I still remember the taste of fresh figues, smell of real tomatoes and the pain in my hands beating butter). Simple living - easy thinking, right? Total locavoring, not asking for more than you need, being grateful for every small thing coming from the Earth to your table, feeling the tastes and the smells right in their origins... And do you know what? I happened to spend one night in such a place here in India. A little paradise between Rerih's fields, a small settlement with ten clay houses with members of one clan-family living there (hm, though they were around fifty if you count all the aunties and all the kids!). Ananda, my friend from vipassana center in Dharamkot, invited me to his place after my vipassana-sitting in Dehradun and I managed to make my way through the mountains (3 hours on a jeep) to spend one eve in this beautiful, full of love house. 

During the monsoon they grow corn, potatoes and even their own dhal (lentils). They have 7 cows (read milk, curd, butter, lassi), no running water, one bed for 5 family members and they live totally with the sun. They also treat their guests like gods - hm, add to that the fact that I was the first foreigner to visit the house! The whole family followed me around the settlement and children would stare at me and laugh hiding behind their fathers if I'd look at them, oh, and one poor little boy cried of fear just because I wanted to talk to him! 

The food was the yammiest here in India, because it was ALL (except some potatoes) grown with their own hands and prepared in a very simple way on the open fire - no gaz!: rice, dhal, curd, veggies, lassi, corn chapaties... I left the house blissed and all melted, thinking of how peaceful and happy the whole family was - four generations living together (and special topic is children - I don't think that things like "terrible twos" or "sensitive child" or tantrums or any kind of disrespect towards parents or each other exist - seriously, this could be a separate discussion...). 

So now thinking of THE place for my dreams to come true...

Tibet in India... again

Sitanshu The Great took me to the Mindrolling Monastery - a Tibetan settlement in the suburbs of Dehradun.
I feel so happy and balanced in places like this. It's a different universe - with stupas, monks, quiet and friendly people, no trash and no honking, noone staring at you cause you're "Yellow hair". Everywhere flowers, flags, prayer drums, and it's CLEAN :)

I could walk around there for hours, would sooo much like to stay for some days, but one of the guys whom we asked about accommodation for outsiders rolled his eyes saying "not possible". Well, not everything is possible in the land of Buddha...

Here are some pics

Sitanshu The Great

India, finally!

People have been asking me about India... I remember I was always answering "got no idea, I haven't seen India yet, I've been in Tibet so far", and that was true until three days ago, when I left Dharamsala for Dehradun on a public super-jumping bus. The trip itself was fascinating, we passed by the smallest villages, through corn fields, through cities with big commercial centers. And everywhere I was staring at people (and haha they were staring at me - "yellow hair, yellow hair") - on the bus stop going to the bathroom (sorry, but there were NO bathrooms, all natural and around you))), through the window passing by some school children, some women washing clothes literally on the road, some cows steeling chapatis from a street kitchen, some markets with loads of mangoes and papayas. It was a great thing to do - to take a simple local bus, not the fancy Volvo with going- down sits and nice smell. I was shoulder to shoulder to the Indian People, felt oneness with an old man snoring in my ear and leaning on me until 5 AM, absorbed with my whole being the smells of the road, the dust, the farts of neighboring passengers. LIFE! :)

So, now I am in Dehradun, in a wonderful place called Vipassana house, where I got through www.wwoof.in, I very much wanted to do some farming, but somehow managed to come here instead :) there's no farm here, just a beautiful big house belonging to Swami Aman who is right now in the South (cold here))), taken care of by a nice-nice family of Master Ankit, 13 y.o., his mother Mrs Rupa and her husband. 

One doesn't have to do anything just to be with the float, there are no obligatory works, you do smth when you feel it has to be done. There is a meditation room, where we do group sittings every evening, a kitchen, where I make my fruit salad with pomelos and papayas taken down from the tree (one of my moments of ecstasy today, when Sitanshu told me to go and get a banana...from the palm-tree, my first picked-up banana!). 

Another miracle that happened here were two friends from McLeod that I literally bumped in in the house - by a miracle they came to the same place - we had no idea we would meet here! So Nina and Daniel made my first two days even more home-like. Now there are gone and I'm the only guest here.

What do I do here? Today I finished my 2-days Pranic Healing with Guru-ji. It's a system of healing similar to Reiki, here we use Prana, the universal energy, getting it from the air, ground, trees, and being a channel on the way to the patient. I had some great experiences like seeing the aura, feeling the chakras and being healed from smaller ailments like my T7, that was disturbing me during meditation sometimes. So now I'm going to practice and later take more advanced course! Guru-ji told me it could be very effective on autistic children, as their aura is usually disturbed and I can help them to fill in the gaps or take away some symptoms. Great! Feel very inspired and motivating, and apparently my hands are rather strong. So if any of you would like to be a Giney Piggy for me, you're mostly welcome, we just need to fix the time and I'll tell you what to do!

Oh, and so... about India. Dehradun seems to be a typical North Indian city with markets on the streets, crazy traffic, men selling coconuts along the roads, big shopping centers with Reebok, Adidas and LG adds, fine sweet shops (oooh, you haven't seen those halawas!), chai stand and holy white cows all around. Since I arrived I was taken around by Sitanshu on his scooter, driving here seems to be nuts, but when you're inside, you see everybody is respecting everybody (though without rules))), and there are no accidents at all on the roads, just crazy honking! Today I took a bus  to go to Guru-ji's place and it was also funny - they have special men hanging out from the front door and while the bus moves he is announcing its number and where it is going as well as telling the driver where to stop and if everybody who wanted to squeeze in succeeded. Oh, and one ticket (around 7 kilometers trip) was 7 rupees - around 9 cents...

Ok, tomorrow I'm chilling down and doing lots of small things like starting my brown rice diet and giving Tibetan massage to Sitanshu...