"Nepal in times of demonstration.." a Nepal Travel Page by gyanacita

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My Russian and Nepali friends..

meditating in the forest

After I said goodbye to India I was one month in Nepal, which was very interesting and inspiring.
In short. Because the trouble and demonstrations and strikes in Nepal were reaching a climax just in that month that I flew there, I stayed in a meditationcenter much longer then I perceived I would be in the beginning..; and this was actually amazing because I also went much deeper this way... The only effect we felt from the demonstrations was a lack of transport to Katmandu and after some time less fruit and vegetables... in other places people were on a so called “hungerstrike”, but it was imposed on them by others because there was no business possible..
The whole center in Nepal is in the middle of the Nagarjunhills, virginlike forests where Nagarjun reached enlightenment and because of property of the king very much unspoiled.
It was so powerfull to do meditations while seeing monkeys and birds ands squirls at play in the trees but at first unusual with all the people around (and there are no tissues for example during a dynamic meditation! people just open the window and clear throat and noses the natural way! You can imagine I had a bit of a cultureshock that first week if you compare this to the strict hygienic rules people lived by in the Multiversity in Poona, India... Also the food was touched by every-one..).
I arrived in a meditationweek and though there are usually only about 20, 3O people in the center, that week there were about 100, most of them Nepalese men and women..
A funny thing in the center was that there was an inscription above the meditationhall which said that as a sannyasin you could not enter it without a mala. I told swami Arun (who had been appointed by Osho twenty years before to raise the center in nepal), that in Poona mala's are even hard to find these days, and that I did not even get one when I took sannyas. result: he said I should join for the sannyascelebration by the end of the week and that I could then also get a mala. Yes, I took sannyas, but now really with my full heart undergoing a powerfull celebration (which was a unique cultural experience in its own..) during which swami Arun gave sannyas the way Osho did, by "making a window in your aura". I also took the opportunity to choose the name that suits me better.. JSwami arun was a bit confused because "jana" does not exist in sanskriet, so turned it into Gyana and gave me Prem as a prefix. Together it means love wisdom, and what do we need more...
I shared my room with a Russian girl. Because the center is for one or other reason maintaining good contacts with Russia, there were about ten Russians there during the week of silence. Otherweise one French and a Spanish guy, a Denish older couple and a Japanese boy, that was it. And after that week most of the Nepalese visitors were gone and I got to know one of the Russian men in the center with which I had a very beautiful contact. The night before flying off to India I had a dream in which I got to know "love that needs no words" and that was the moment, I realised after coming back home, that I got to know this kind of love..
Darshan, did not speak one word of English, and me, no Russian, but we made such amazing and wonderfull walks, about six of them, to the Katmandu-valley and through the forest and panoramic walks to a hill past a village.. and we laughed so much because we wanted sometimes to tell something by playing a bit of theatre, but of course many times the other understood "wrong" and it was hilaric and we found out we did not even need to understand, to be able to feel good together...
I am very gratefull for the experience I had..

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Katmandu under siege.. My Swedish Friends' pic

Katmandu in times of civil war..

After having spent most of my time in the safe environment of a meditationcenter, I could no longer keep myself from being in the long expected mountains and so i took the risk to move to Katmandu while the demonstrations were still going for a climax... (As you maybe remember from the news that reached the “worldheadlines”, the original 5day strike that started beginning of April, turned out to be a three week one in which King Gyanendra was forced to let go of his autharctic power and to install a government again, to put ministers back into power!)
Though I could not move freely, It was actually quiete thrilling to be part of this all. One night also we tourists wanted to demonstrate but the police said they would beat us down just as they were doing with some Nepali people and the demonstration did not happen. But we were supportive of the Nepali people, and when Renee, a Dutch friend living in Katmandu heard that the people were going to get the king out of his palace after some of them were killed again in the demonstrations, and after the burning down of two policestations, he jumped on his bycicle and there we went, me on the back; to be able to be part of that what would be happening...
It was alienating, the whole amosphere. Thousands of people were somewhere in one place and elsewhere orange light was shining on empty streets... All the entrance ways to the palace were blocked by trucks full of soldiers and Rene just cycled by with me on the back of the bike and did not stop when the soldiers asked where we were going. He just said"airport"! (Haha, without any luggage or anything!) They shouted that we had to stop and Rene didn't!! That moment I just jumped from the bike, because, really... the soldiers were tense and very much in arms, and who knows what could happen at such a moment..., and what did we have to go and see anyway... I did not understand Renee there...
A bit later the soldiers became more friendly and even agreed to be on the picture with them so that was ok..; Yes at frst the soldiers did not want to be on the pictures, but by the end of the demonstrations they sometimes even waved to the people to show there sympathy...
Other exciting moments were when I joined Darshan, the Russian sannyasin to the airport from Kathmandu center. The only transport on the big Katmandu-roads was this one touristbus to the airport that was driving with broken windows because it was getting stoned!
We did not get "stoned" that day, but almost some days later, when I joined Renee on his motorbike. Against all plans I could not go and finally meet up again with my Nepali friends in Pokhara that I met ten years before, this for the simple reason that I would have to be back in ten days time in Katmandu to take the plane back to Brussels while there was most of the time still no transport available. What I could do was join Renee on his motorbike in the early morning and visit the place where an orphanage was going to be raised on the border with Tibet, after which I could start walking on my own in the valley and find my way back on foor to Katmandu airport if need be..
Renee planned to take me out of Katmandu before 9am (before the daily curfew started and no transport was allowed anymore), but he started only driving at ten to nine and said not to worry because we were white, but by the time we were driving over a big bridge to get into the Katmanduvalley it was 2past nine and we drove only two meters away from angry, shouting people that had just stopped a car to our left and were stoning the driver!! Sigh.. sometimes I think Renee has a deathwish. I believe it is not good to act different because you are white. We should not be "priviliged" because of that and I very much believe many Nepali people in that situation, were thinking the same thing..; And even if not so, I just didn't want to enjot privileges that were nbot necessary
Not my style.
For a while we drove behind a jeep from the Red Cross and after having passed some more roadblocks and fires we reached more quiete places.

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Lama Pemba and his eternal smile..

The blessing...

We got to the border with Tibet, despite the roadblocks (with a motorbike you can still drive next to the stones or cut down trees), but in returning from the Tibetan border we had to wait for some Nepali men to carry the bike over an enormous tree..,
That day I started walking on my own..
That day I started enjoying walking on my own..
It was at first a bit creepy, cos i did not know how my body would react, doing this for the first time in seven years again (since I had had a car-accident in South Africa) and I did not want to get stuck somewhere, but the first day I walked I had such an amazing contact again with somebody, that I felt blessed for the rest of my stay in Nepal and even now still...
My goal was to reach a buddhist gompa (meditation center with school and temple) at about 3000meters and try to sleep there, that first day, but without realising it I did not reach Namo Buddha, but a buddhist retreatcenter that was one hill closer. While walking towards this definately buddhist place (all this flags and entrance gate behind which lay many stone buildings on the hill), Lama Pemba started walking with me and that was actually the second time I discovered love with no words (I realise only now, while writing this...)
Lama Pemba understood that I asked for a place to sleep and offered me a beautiful room in a beautiful peacefull house. The panorama... and all was so quiete...
He also understood I wanted to join people for meditations (I knew that in Nammo Buddha evening-meditation started at six, so I was happy to be in time for that..)
He understood, somehow, and made a gesture to follow him, and he reached for my hand when I needed help (how strange to hold a monks hand..) and took me to the most beautiful hill, with the most beautiful tree and panorama and then pointed to another hill and said "Nammo Buddha".
I now realised that I would not be in time for the meditation in Nammo Buddha that night, but I felt at the same time so blessed to be there and nowhere else...
Lama Pemba and me sat together in silence overlooking the hills around Katmandu (without clouds you can see the whole Everest mountainrange from there!) and then walked back to the center again. He invited me for dinner and gave me in the maintime a project-description to read, through which I found out that I was staying in a retreatcenter where monks go in retreat for three years! Lama Pemba is the only one speaking sometimes some words, because he is in charge of the provision and the mail and arranges this by driving with his jeep back and forth to katmandu every second day...
I realised now that the energy I was feeling was the energy of monks sitting in silence and meditating in the small houses on the hills, and this for three years...
The blessing...
My heart filled with warmth and joy and does again now, just by "going back" there...
The rest of the week flew by as in a dream.
The only thing I remember well is that after I had finally reached Nammo Buddha the next day, everything became more noisy. Something that I perceive now as "coming back to earth after having been in heaven". (well… something like that… ;-)
Young monks there came just out of a six month retreat and were playing basketball (!). One in five kids at least are sent to buddhist monestries because then at least they have food and schooling. The place was under construction and the news came to us that Katmandu was liberated and cars started driving again. All was alive again... and after some walking I took a bus to Nagarkot from where you sometimes have a beautiful view of the Everest...
In Nagarkot I spent morning after morning walking up the mountain at six and watching the sunrise above the Everest..
And the blessing continued...
Right through the lovely summer at my place with english friends that I happend to meet at the festival in Ghent, and with a sufi and writing course in September elsewhere in this beautiful world.
But more about this next time, Nepal has been enough for now..