As It Is

I am sitting in my room and just over there is the garden bathing in the silver light of almost full-moon. A month after the monsoon started this country starts to look like a 'real land'. I mean the burned fields and pure hot rocks give place to life: the green color of life everywhere. Harsh sprawling green colors in various tones, calm the soul and says: We live again!

For days there is an impression growing in me; one serious difference between 'our' attitude and 'theirs' here. A fundamentally different approach to life. Certainly, this is generalization, and as such, it is oversimplification. Still...

Here they are opened up. Extremely social. We are more, much-much more individualist. We try to separate ourselves. In every level of our existence. Look at the cars, for example. Fancy design, luxurious interior which place of our body in full comfort. Perfect noise insulation. Soft music from the high quality sound system, and the car senses and judge by itself more and more situations (from the rain sensor to BLIPS) just to give us the illusion of separated perfect existence, the heaven. Everything goes as we would like to, and at last we believe for a moment that there is something eternal in this world. That this world is after all not a dark and cold vacuum, but a soft, warm home covered by beige leather on the seats and expensive wood on the dashboard. Or have a look to the shopping malls. Everything is carefully kept dust-free. They look pretty, harsh, and ever-new. Natural decay excluded... Brilliant lights, soft music, tons of goods to buy and finally you believe that you are happy. What do you really buy? Some stuff you need or satisfaction? To fill up something. Something that cannot be filled by this way...

Here the life and its tools are more rough. There is not enough resources to build up the illusion of everlasting goods. You feel the elements everywhere around: in cars, in homes. You are bound to encounter with masses of people everywhere again: at homes, while travelling, while working. The smells attacking you everywhere, too; smells of people, the heavy steam of trash water, and your own sweat. There is no illusion created. This is rough as life itself.

A sharp mirror. This roughness pushes you to face with reality. You are not separated, not alienated from the world, but deeply engaged with it. It is around and within you. In Europe you are bound to soften the environment otherwise you die. It led us to the creation of the illusion of security. What we are so stucked to. Here you can stay alive without altering the environment too much. For the price that within the natural tolerance of human body one has to deal with and accept much wider extremes. The roughness of life. No fancy car, no goretex cloth, no well insulated walls. You feel the cold of the winds, the wet of the rain, the burn of the sun, the ups-and-downs of existence. Hundreds of millions live like that.

But we humans do need some secureness, don't we? Where do they find it? Maybe inside? Inside... Beyond the complaining layer of personality in the layer of dreams and believes. And some special souls even deeper, beyond needs, beyond believes can face with what is there. The tranquil space of existence. Where everything is just as it is...

Brahmagiri

I am just walking towards a Shiva Temple by a lake. It would be nice-if it would not be so amazingly dirty... The bank of lake is full of trash, very distracting... People just come and through all kinds of trash over. This is one big minus: it seems to me that they do not even care at all about the close vicinity: if it is out of flat does not matter if there is fecal, rats, spoiled food, whatever. If it is under the window and you smell it all day, no problem-one can get used to it. :)

Suddenly I see an old couple just by the Temple. There is a huge park (not that dirty...) and roots of a big, old tree. Probably they were hired to dig it out. I sit down and watch them for about an hour, now. They are thin but determined. It is a melting hot day and they are full sweat. They are tired; it seems this tiredness has its roots in depth of decades... The man is angry with the wood, like he wanted to rip his all past out with it. They take a moment of brake-this is my chance: I jump and ask him for a photo. He tiredly agrees. His life-long fatigue burns into the film...

I thank him and give some bakshish, which I usually don't... As I turn back suddenly a Sadhu stands just in front of me by a holy tree. He has penetrating, deep eyes... Just out of instinct without thinking I show him the camera and 'asking' his permission for a photo. He nods. I watch into the viewfinder and I am almost blown away: his eyes are mesmerizing!

Then he calls me inside the deep garden of the Temple. We sit down by a huge tree giving deep refreshing shadow. I am a bit disturbed by the previous scene and do not look at him immediately. But I feel his gaze my side. I turn there and my suspicion was right: he has been watching me. His look is intense, deep, compassionate, caring. I calm down and the world opens; I feel the wind blowing the leaves of the tree, the rays of the Sun as fingers pointing the ground, and the beating flow of life.

He is Brahmagiri, a holy person since his age of 8yrs. Now he is just as old as myself. He studied English when he was a young child. He says that he will go to visit some Temple and he invites me. I ask him:
-Do you often go to distant temples?
He is silent for a while.
-No;
He looks around pointing the Temple, the tree, and his own body and says:
-Temple, Temple, Temple. Why travel?
...

-You know, I have come to India to learn yoga.
He keeps, staring at me, with not a single word.
-Would you teach me yoga? Asanas, you know...
-Yes, yes I do. Come with me tonight.
-Do you keep some class? -I am wondering.
-No. I have to go to Mumbai. I travel. Travel yoga.
He loughs full heartily. He stands up and mimics how one travels on bus, grasping the handles and fighting to keep balance on the moving bus.
-Keeping balance; yoga. You see? Everything is yoga! Bus yoga.
And smiles again.

Slums, slums, slums...

Wherever I go there are slums everywhere... Shocking? Thought awakening? Maybe both. I just pass by one, now. It is by a fairly big swamp. Although it is the dry season now, the swamp is still filled with water, and... with mosquitoes. The bank of it, however, is covered by stone-hard soil and dust. There where they are living. The floor is pure dust, the cover is whatever they have found: paper, plastic, for the luckier tin.

I was wondering around this camp for quite a while in the past weeks, but somehow I never had the a courage to enter... How would they greet me? Like a stupid foreigner who comes here to enjoy their poverty? But suddenly I see a man who draws my attention-and he looks back and smiles. The first contact has been made, and is positive! I already know how much it means in photojournalism; if there is some mutual interest arise before even taking the camera for shooting, then there is every chance for a good shot; Then already some unexplainable has happened: a link was built up between two human souls. Two souls are connected, who are often separated by wast distances from one and other all in space, hopes, fears, chances, talents, and so on.

I catch the moment and enter the slums. I take the camera and show it to the man asking him with my eyes whether I can take his picture. He nodes as a sign of acceptance. Soon I see old people playing cards, some 20m from me. They are not happy and start to shout. Damn...

One of them calls me with his hand. I go there and in a few moments many things run through my mind: this camera worth that much as about one year salary of these people; I am getting farther from the road deep into the slums... On the other hand without risk there is no success; there was no point coming to India if I fear to take my chances-so, I approach.

A younger guy speaks some English.
-What want?
-I'd just like to take some pictures -and I show the camera and smile
-Newspaper?
Should I say yes? Maybe they'd like to be there...
-No. I am an amateur photographer from Europe (I bet they don't know Hungary). I shoot interesting people. Whom I am interested in...
They start to talk in Marathi amoung them, then the young guy say:

-All right; You photo young people, not us. and people over there.

-Thank you! (big smile)

I'd start to leave when one of the card players calls me back: he would like to be photographed, but not the others.

-That OK, I say and I use shallow dof to blur the other players. Play honest-a voice tells in me...

Silly Little Bird...

We are sitting every evening with my close friend, Vinod, in the garden of the Institute during twilight; drinking our evening chai, and discussing about everything: from the sunset to the meaning of the life...

Once while sitting there, he says
There was a forest which was about to be destroyed by a huge fire surrounding it. Only the birds could escape. There was a little bird about to fly away, when it saw the other animals dying on the ground. It felt deep sorrow about them and turned back, flew to a lake, and carried water in its feather, then dropped it to the fire. It restlessly went to the lake,then to the fire, then to the lake again, when God appeared and asked it: you silly little bird, why don't you escape? You cannot even delay the fire. The little bird became angry and replied: You are God; You could do anything; But You will not save them. So, go away and let me do my job! Then it started to keep carry the water in its small feathers and spread it over the forest-fire...

a Whole New World

Simply shocking... I will work for the Indian Institute of Geomagnetism in the following few years. They sent a fancy jeep for me to the airport. Now we are on way back to the Institute, through the city. City... For a long time I was keep thinking that we are passing through some kind of ghetto or slum - but now, this is the city... Dust, trash everywhere; people are by the road sitting around fires on dust; chaos everywhere: in the traffic, among the buildings; shops in such huts which look dirty and like to be abandoned for ages. I have the very strong impression that the whole city was left behind by people hundreds of years ago and they just came back yesterday and started to occupy it again and rebuild from the ruins to match to human condition. This poverty is simply unthinkable for us in the west - at least it was for me.

We stops by a bodega to take a chai (Indian tea with milk). A few people are sitting/standing around. They are smiling from heart and the whites of their teeth brilliantly radiates out from their dark skin (except those who chew bethel; they teeth are strongly reddish). I smile back from my heart, too, and spontaneously realize that even in this dusty, chaotic environment all depth and richness of human emotions, ups-and-downs, understanding and experiences exists. Then a sudden flash strikes through me: I and actually we (generally us middle class people in Europe) have everything what we could or should have to live a happy and balanced life. And in this very moment some deep strain releases; I had to travel thousands of miles to understand that it does not matter where I am. Wherever I am I do have everything I'd need - within me...

Prologue II.

...a strong push draws me back to reality. We started to descend towards Mumbai and just passed a turbulent layer of air; Pearls of light here and there-but nothing spectacular. Where could this city be hiding? I would expect something more from a mega-polis whose population is nearly double of my home country, Hungary, and almost four times as much as that is of whole Finland, where I lived my past 4 years.

For a long time after that incident I did not try to find and follow any organized religion or consistent philosophical view. I felt some intimate relation with the reality, nature, or God if you like it, and that was all. But from time to time an urge came. I knew, or rather felt unconsciousnessly that there are much disturbance, unbalance in my mind-and they should be settled in some way. But decision did not arise until my MSc years. I was in the mountains for several days. When going downhill on one of the last days, suddenly everything was so clear: It's high time to start to consistently walk on a path. I also felt problem with my body: somehow there was not a smooth connection between 'me' and 'him'. I always used to live in my thoughts, in my mind. So, the path should be something which works with the body, which goes beyond the body through the body. It was settled then.

I knew only two of such ways: the far-east martial arts and yoga. I started with Tai Chi. After one year of practice I felt the on physical level this was exactly the one thing that I was seeking, but on philosophical level -I am sorry to say, but- the two teachers I found were not a match to my requirements. So, around 1996 I sifted to yoga. Ever since I have been practicing...

And at the moment the final result of this practice is that I am sitting here, 6000km from my home and five km above my destination, in the air. I am moving to India permanently, to a continent from which I know literary nothing, but some nice, deep philosophical/spiritual insights.

Prologue I.

So, it comes... The plane is approaching Mumbai (Bombay) airport after a roughly seven hours flight. In some sense my long-lasting dream has come true. All in my life I have been deeply interested in the so called 'deeper meaning of existence'-whatever it really means... As young child I got familiar with Christianity. I had studied the Bible, and try to understand its meaning through various churches and sects. I did not work out in quite that way; I remember when I used to arrive to 'Bible discussion' with questions filling both sides of an A4 sheet. They were really kind people. Really. But they answers did not satisfy me. In them there was always some kind of clear personal inclination: fears, hopes, anger, unhappines, etc. I felt less understanding, least facing with reality as it was than some dreamy hopes.

My last such talk happened when when we were discussing about the 'end of the world' which approaching soon and the lost paradise will return. We had a long discussion how peacefully we all will live there, easily harvesting on days, and happily singing by camp fires at twilights. And how happily the lion would lay by a sheep (this was especially one scene I could not grasp; I even discussed with my biology teacher whether it would be possible for a lion to live on grass-diet, but it seemed hopeless. And what about poor grass, anyway?!). Then he said:
-we will live a simple peaceful life. No rich and poor anymore, no useless goods.
-all right, I thought, it really sounds like a nice 'back to nature' dream...
-but I hope, he said, that God will not destroy everything right at armageddon. I hope He will let me try for some years driving those good cars, like Ferrari, Porsche. It would be foolish to destroy them immediately.

My God...

At that evening I told them that this all stuff is not for me. The world changes but we do not-it does not make any sense to me.