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Interview with Chris Guillebeau

Mariellen — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 15:56:48 +0000

Chris Guillebeau of The Art of Non-Conformity

Living a remarkable life in a conventional world

My interview with the charismatic Chris Guillebeau of The Art of Non-Conformity

In my Travel That Changes You e-newsletter, and on my blog, I try and encourage people to breathe, dream and go. So, I cannot imagine a more perfect person to feature than Chris Guillebeau. Chris is the bright light behind The Art of Non-Conformity (AONC), the Unconventional Guides, the The Art of Non-Conformity book, a blog and online community. A prolific writer, a gifted speaker and an obsessed world traveler, he seems to have boundless energy for encouraging people to get off the hamster wheel and live life their own way.

And he leads by example. After publishing his book, The Art of Non-Conformity, he organized a very unique (and grueling) book tour that took him to every USA state and every Canadian province. When he got to my province, and spoke at the Chapters/Indigo store at the Manulife Centre in downtown Toronto, I went to hear him and interviewed him afterwards. This was stop number 58 on his tour, and he must have been exhausted — though you wouldn’t know it from his funny, upbeat and inspiring presentation.

The unconventional book tour map: coloured in by audience members

Do what you want and do good, too

Chris is interested in the “convergence of highly personal goals and being of service to others” and he’s on a mission. He’s been to almost every country in the world (and he’s under 35), he’s published half-a-dozen or so Unconventional Guides and a book, and he’s amassed a huge Internet following.

Chris Guillebeau of The Art of Non-Conformity

Here is the essence of his philosophy, from his website:

You don’t have to live your life the way other people expect you to.
You can do good things for yourself and help other people at the same time.
If you don’t decide for yourself what you want to get out of life, someone else will probably end up deciding for you.
There is usually more than one way to accomplish something.

At the bookstore in Toronto, he stood up, rolled up his sleeves and spoke to a standing-room only crowd. I liked that he rolled up his sleeves, because that seems to be the way he approaches life. Chris is lean, intense and likeable. He speaks with passion and authenticity because he lives what he speaks.

A happiness first lifestyle

He talked about the importance of deciding for yourself what success looks like and using your feelings to guide you as you make decisions in life. He said that he tries to inspire action, to encourage readers to create positive change in their lives. The central question of his book is, how do you live a remarkable life in a conventional world. He speaks to the dissatisfied, for people who are looking for something different.

Chris offered the rapt audience several suggestions:

See change as positive and start by making small changes.
Consider that efficiency is over-rated; an alternative is to pursue meaningful adventure.
Recognize that we are privileged to be able to talk about having a meaningful life; and ask yourself how you can contribute to the world and make it a better place.
Ask yourself the two most important questions in the universe:

1. What do you want to get out of life?

2. What can you offer the world that no one else can?

Chris Guillebeau of The Art of Non-Conformity

Chris told the story of living in Sierre Leone and volunteering for four years, and pointed out how much he got from the experience, how much his life changed. He calls it selfish generosity. He encouraged people to ask good questions, embrace life as a meaningful adventure and think about your place in the world, your contribution. “What kind of legacy are we building?” he asked. Legacy is a question of influence and relationships. What will the ultimate impact of our lives be?

In spite of all his accomplishments, Chris also was careful to reassure people that his strategy has been a work-in-progress. “I began with the classic blogging strategy of making shit up.” Before taking questions from the audience, he addressed the most common concern he hears: “I want to do [blank] but I’m worried I’m too late.” His advice was to offer a quote: The best time to start was probably last year, but failing that, today will do.

After the question and answer period, I accompanied Chris and several of his Toronto-based friends to a pub in Yorkville, where I asked him several questions over a pint (Chris) and tea (me).

My top four questions, answered

Q. If you know anything about Chris, you will know he’s a very productive dynamo. My first question to him was: How do you do all the things you do?

Book launch cupcake

A. Most of the things I do, I really enjoy. That’s the key. If you can structure your life around things you really enjoy and derive energy from, it gets much easier. Almost everything I do, I find meaningful and purposeful. I get tired, but feel very fortunate and grateful. Along with this, comes a sense of responsibility. Even when I have downtime, I work, but that’s okay.

Q. What’s the underlying message; what’s motivating you?

A. The fundamental underlying message is that you don’t have to live life the way others want you to, or to expect you too. You can just ignore them. It’s okay to pursue a big dream, a passion, but you should also connect that passion to other people and find out what’s your place in the world. The goal is to help people live unconventional, remarkable lives. That’s a really strong motivation. When I meet people, and hear stories, it’s very motivating.

Chris relaxing with a pint after the book launch

Q. How do you, or can you, inspire people? Or is this something you have any control over?

A. I have learned that you don’t have influence over how people respond. People will relate to you for various reasons; they derive inspiration where they will. If you want to be an inspiration, the tone you use is important, as well the words, the attitude and the overall message. Be clear about your motivation and your intentions, figure it out, and then do something really great for yourself and the world.

Q. What has surprised you about your journey with AONC?

A. I was afraid I would get bored and move on. I’ve been surprised that I’m not bored at all, and that I’m extremely satisfied, and I’m more excited about what’s to come — and a lot of it is because of all the people who’ve joined the project and contributed their vision.

Thanks Chris, for inspiring me, and many thousands of other people, too. (and thanks to Janice Waugh of Solotraveler for telling me about Chris in the first place, back in August 2009.)

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Why I’m speaking at Meet, Plan, Go

Mariellen — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 14:45:56 +0000

Udaipur, Rajasthan, India

The power to make dreams come true

When I was 44 years old, I finally started pursuing my dreams. I had recently lost both my parents (mother to heart disease, father to cancer) and was floundering in a colourless depression. I threw myself into yoga as a way to recover, and the first dream I pursued was to become a yoga teacher — though I was the oldest and least flexible person in the training group. My second dream was to travel to India — to go on a real voyage of discovery, lasting six months, and with no real itinerary or expectations.

I had never really pursued my dreams before. I honestly didn’t know you could. It took years of therapy and yoga training and then a series of devastating losses (including the deaths of my parents) for me to finally wake up and realize: This is not a dress rehearsal. This is life. And life is meant to be lived, not feared.

So, deciding to go to India, and then going, completely changed my life. It started before I even left. The big change happened when I realized that anything in life is possible, including living your dreams; and that achieving them is based on making a decision and setting an intention. The power is not OUT THERE; it is within each of us.

Mysore Palace

Rediscovering a technicolour world

When I was a child, I use to practise sliding my neck from side-to-side, with my arms above my head, palms together, like an Indian dancer. I used to paint huge murals of maharajah palaces on my walls. I devoured books about mythology, especially the Arabian nights and anything from the East. I went out on Hallowe’en dressed as an Oriental princess, in flowing harem pants and a sequined top. I became a vegetarian in my teens, long before it was trendy. When I look back, I was drawn to the “mysterious East” basically from birth, and always wanted to go to India.

Dancer in Delhi

Somehow, though, I never thought it was possible. I never thought I could actually get on a plane and GO TO INDIA.

But then I did. And my life changed. And that’s why I’m speaking at Meet, Plan, Go. I want to tell people that you CAN live your dreams. It is possible to unearth them, dust them off, and manifest them.

The other reason I’m speaking at Meet, Plan, Go is because I think travel is a particularly good way to get to know yourself and the world better. On my first trip to India in 2005/6, I very quickly developed an uncanny affinity for the country, the people and the culture and was very lucky to have the opportunity to stay with an Indian family in Delhi. I made their home my base for the six months I was traveling from one end of the country to the other.

I loved being a solo traveler, and I immersed myself in the culture. I experienced the difference between being a tourist and a traveler, and being alone helped: I had to engage with my surroundings for all social contact. I spent far more time with locals than with other foreign tourists; bought an entire Indian wardrobe; and really tried to understand the culture. I practised what I call “respectful travel” — in other words, when in Rajasthan, do as the Rajasthanis do.

I studied yoga for a month in Chennai; I volunteered to work with Tibetan refugee children in Dharamsala; I spent two weeks undergoing treatment at a beach side Ayurvedic resort in Kerala; I celebrated holidays and pujas with the family in Delhi; and found my spiritual home, right at the end of the trip, at an ashram in north India, near Rishikesh.

Jaisalmer, Rajasthan

Finding inspiration and perspective

I had gone to India at the tail end of a lengthy depression and my engagement with the culture, and the way it stimulated my imagination, especially my writing, completely revived me. I was never lonely, I never felt unsafe. I grew as a person, as a world citizen, as a yoga student and as a writer.

I started blogging, and the confidence I got from it gave me the boost I needed to seriously pursue a travel writing career, to launch Breathedreamgo and to publish my first book, Song of India: Tales of Travel and Transformation.

Thar Desert

The challenges of travel in India — which are considerable — taught me to let go, to surrender the illusion of control. I learned to have trust, and my faith in both myself and the universe sky-rocketed. One day, after being in India for about five months, I was walking in Connaught Place, the commercial centre of Delhi, and realized I felt completely comfortable. I noticed the touts who prey on tourists were ignoring me. They took me for a local. I had attained my “India legs,” and felt it was one of the great accomplishments of my life.

I have learned so much from my travels. I have learned to see better — to see myself, the world, and my place in it, a lot more clearly — and I gained a perspective that I would never have developed if I’d stayed in my middle-class Canadian “bubble.” I have leanred to be grateful, less judgmental, and more humble. Perhaps most of all, I’ve learned that we each have a lot of power: we have the power to choose our response to life, and our experience of life. In other words, it’s up to each of us to decide if the glass is half full or half empty.

Since that first trip, I’ve been back to India four times, and I’ve spent now more than 14 months altogether traveling across the country and living in Delhi. To hear the rest of the story, and how I achieved my travel dreams — and crossed the cultural divide — come to the Meet, Plan, Go event in Toronto on October 18, 2011!

Meet, Plan, Go

Meet, Plan, Go is the leading career break movement in North America; encouraging and teaching others how to travel the world and have it be beneficial to your career. Each year, they hold events on the same day in numerous cities across North America; this year it is October 18, 2011. I will be speaking at the Toronto, Canada event. For more information and tickets, please visit the Meet, Plan, Go website.

Mariellen Ward in Karnal, Haryana, India in 2006

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Meeting the real Thelma and Louise

Mariellen — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 18:13:39 +0000

Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis: The patron saints of transformative travel

Years ago, during a dark time of my life, I spent a lot of time on the couch, with my tabby cat Sydney beside me, watching movies. I bought VHS copies of a few favourites that I watched over and over again, and they sat piled up beside my TV. Thelma and Louise was at the top of the pile. I watched the movie so many times I’ve lost count. I know every scene and every line.

Louise: “You’ve always been crazy, you’ve just never had a chance to express yourself before.”

Thelma: “Something’s changed in me and I can never go back.”

Thelma: “I feel so alive, I’ve never felt so alive, know what I mean?”

So when I got a chance to go to the Thelma and Louise 20th Anniversary Reunion Tour at Roy Thomson Hall in Toronto, I jumped at it. I watched Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis being interviewed on stage and had the good fortune to meet them afterward, thanks to tickets from the Fairmont Royal York Hotel, a sponsor of the event.

For women, there’s something very special about Thelma and Louise, and I wish a woman had interviewed them on stage, rather than theatre critic Richard Ouzounian. He liked the film, but he didn’t seem to FEEL it — not the way I did, and not the way many, many women did. However, both Susan and Geena came across as very real, down-to-earth and honest. They did not look or act like “movie stars,” but as real people, with children, who know they had a very special and significant experience in making Thelma and Louise. When I met them afterward, I genuinely liked them, and felt especially that I would love to go off on a wild adventure with Geena Davis. Or even just shopping!

During the on-stage interview, Geena Davis spoke about how the film changed her life; how it made her more aware of issues facing women, and, especially, the under-representation of women in film and the media. In fact, she founded an institution (The Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media) dedicated to redressing this imbalance. She spoke about how there is a lack of female perspective in the media; and a lack of imagination in creating female roles.

Geena also talked about having an epiphany when she was auditioning for The Accidental Tourist and felt everything was going wrong, until she realized that everything was actually evolving as it was supposed to — the make-up artist poked her in the eye with a comb, which upset her, but she was supposed to be upset in the scene she was auditioning. She realized everything works in your favour. And of course she got the part.

The best part was when women in the audience were invited to ask questions. Their questions were far more meaningful and Susan and Geena came alive answering them. I particularly liked Susan Sarandon’s answer to the question, “What have been your favourite mistakes?” She said, “I’m here because all my plans failed. Really, you learn the most from what goes wrong and what’s unpredictable. Success is not where you end up. Success is not a goal, it’s a muscle. You learn to use it. Success is really just having a life that’s joyful, and where you’re present and that’s authentic. And you can make tons of mistakes … that’s what makes life interesting. I like all of mistakes, I just wish I’d done them faster, but they’ve all been good.”

Geena Davis and I at the reception after the Thelma and Louise reunion

I enjoyed my evening, remembering while they showed scenes from the film, why I liked it so much; and remembering with bittersweet feelings those days before I got off the couch and started following my dream. When I met Geena Davis afterward, I found her to be very approachable and told her about how I used to watch that film over and over again — and about how I finally did get up and go. Perhaps watching Thelma and Louise planted a seed in me.

Watching Thelma and Louise, back in those dark days, did something very important for me. The movie made me feel validated and inspired and gave me hope. I loved watching Thelma transform from a shadow of herself into the full-blown version; and watching Louise come to terms with her past. I loved watching the two of them travel through changing landscapes, experiencing small poignant moments and large life-changing epiphanies.

But most of all I loved the satisfaction I felt from watching two women bond in friendship and “call the shots,” as my friend Mary Lynn said. Thelma and Louise is a very empowering film, in spite of the ending — in which they drive off a cliff into the gaping maw of the Grand Canyon. Unlike most films, these free, powerful and determined women go unpunished. It is one moment of satisfaction after another as they elude their pursuers, leaving them and and their lives of brittle disappointment in the dust, never giving up on their quest to gain and retain control over their lives and their power to choose — until the final moment of the film when Thelma beseeches Louise to “go, just go.”

I totally understand.

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Finding spirituality on trip to India

Mariellen — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 14:49:35 +0000

The soul of the world

I enjoyed reading Christine Garvin’s article, Can You Develop Your Spirituality Without Visiting India? on Brave New Traveler (part of the Matador Travel Network).Of course, I whole-heartedly agree that finding or increasing your spiritual awareness is not about location. Spirituality is an attitude and an understanding. You can find it, learn it or increase it anywhere and anytime. In fact, the lessons often come from the unlikeliest people and places. You don’t even have to go to a temple, church, mosque, gurdwara, mediation centre, ashram, monastery or what have you. Once you begin to see the world from a spiritual perspective, you may never need a formal teacher again.

Yoga is my spiritual path and my teacher, Swami Brahmdev (known to his students as Swamiji) of Aurovalley Ashram said there are two conceptions of yoga. The one that is popularized in the west is that yoga is something you do. According to Swamiji, however, “Yoga is established in your understanding and attitude; it is a way of life. Yoga is living with a yogic attitude – naturally and with simplicity. When that attitude is born, you are a yogi, no matter where you are.”

But I take exception to the Brave New Traveler article subhead “Forget flying halfway around the world to find happiness.” I encourage you to fly to India — or sail or walk or go by camel if you must! — if you feel the urge. I felt a compelling desire to go to India about five years ago, and to say I’m glad I went is the biggest understatement of my life. Going to India was the best thing I ever did. I am writing a book about all the gifts I have received from three trips there.

Everyone’s path is different and for me, India is my spiritual home. The “advances” I made on my spiritual path while traveling and studying yoga in India for 11 months may have taken me a lifetime here in Canada. I recently wrote an article for a Canadian travel magazine, India is Yoga, that addresses the question: why go to India for yoga? I asked three Indian yoga teachers, including Swamiji, for their opinions, and their answers are worth reading if you are interested in the subject.

It is my experience that, generally, India has a milieu or energy that I find very spiritually conducive; whereas I feel the opposite is true in my home town, Toronto. I am not saying you can’t have a spiritual experience in Toronto or that you are guaranteed to have one in India, of course. As I said, a lot of it is attitude. I go to India with the attitude that I am going to learn, and I do. Just learning to go with the flow of train delays and crowds and sights of appalling poverty can really open you up, if you let it.

Until you experience India, and yoga in India, you probably won’t be able to understand just how different it is over there, as compared to here. God is ever-present in India. God is celebrated, worshipped and invoked in road-side shrines, massive temple complexes, at tiny altars in many stores and in the prayer rooms in most homes; and in the thousands of sacred places — rivers, mountains, tress — and places associated with sacred events, such as Krishna’s birth or the battle of Kurukshetra. All of India is a living, breathing sacred place that is alive with history, myth and the stories of the epics and the gods.

And of course it is not just that the people are religious. They are also, for the most part, very spiritual. My own experience is that the people of India are kind, helpful, open and much more content and — dare I say it? — happy than we are in the materially affluent west.

To people of a certain temperament, like me, all of this makes a big impact.

Joseph Campbell would say that if you are a seeker, if you are on a quest, at some point, you must leave your community. There are certain predictable steps or stages in the hero’s journey, and leaving your community to go in search of treasure — your holy grail — is one of them. It doesn’t mean you have to go to India, of course. A pilgrimage is a very personal thing.

But by going to India, you are at the very least bound to gain some perspective, which I think many westerners could benefit from — as only about 8% of the world lives as luxuriously as we middle-class westerners do. (I wrote more about this in my post, Life is perfect. Or, as the Globe and Mail ads say, “It’s not just news. It’s a wake up call from the other side of the world.”)

It probably all comes down to your attitude. I often say that India is like the cave that Yoda sends Luke into. Luke asks, “What will I find in there?” and Yoda answers, “Only what you bring with you.”

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India is Yoga

Mariellen — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 14:15:02 +0000

Originally published in Dreamscapes magazine.

View of the majestic Himalayas from Anand Prakash Yoga Ashram

As I sit writing this on the balcony of my room at the Anand Prakash Yoga Ashram in Rishikesh, India, the melodious sound of people singing kirtan (devotional songs and chants) floats up from the yoga hall below. From here, I have a breath-taking view of the imposing foothills of the Himalayas and I can feel the invigorating mountain air as it sweeps into this serene valley, through which the jewel-green Ganga (Ganges) River flows. It is easy to see why legend refers to the Himalaya range as Dev Bhoomi, land of the gods.

Rishikesh is a small and relatively (by Indian standards) peaceful town that meanders along the narrow valley on both sides of the Ganga, connected by two impressive suspension bridges, Laxman Jhula and Ram Jhula, which are open for pedestrian traffic, bicycles and motorcycles only. Seers – rishis – and sages have been gathering here, at this picturesque spot on the Ganges, since before recorded history to prayer, chant and meditate. Indian pilgrims and foreign yoga students alike flock here to stay in one of the town’s many ashrams and soak up the devotional vibes. It is often referred to as the yoga capital of the world.

“Yogis have been coming here for long time, and they created vibrations in their bodies that have gone into the Ganga water, trees, stones,” says Yogi Vishvketu (Vishva) who, along with his Canadian-born wife, Chetana Panwar, founded the Anand Prakash Yoga Ashram in Rishikesh two years ago. “People who come here feel it immediately. I have seen people coming here from all over the world. They experience immediate healing and they change on all levels, mental, physical, emotional and spiritual.”

To Vishva, who has trained since the age of eight to become a yogi, and who holds a Phd in yoga from the university in nearby Haridwar, this is one of the main reasons why yoga students are drawn to Rishikesh. The other is the opportunity to be exposed to the whole philosophy of yoga. “Our intention in creating this ashram is to give westerners a safe and clean environment in India to experience both the beautiful, magical energy of Rishikesh and to heal themselves by following the Indian yogic system. We chant, perform rituals, sing kirtan, observe yogic diet and lifestyle and give people the whole picture of yoga.”

For me, the highlight of staying at Anand Prakash is the 6 a.m. yoga class with Vishva in the rooftop yoga hall. As we move, chant and meditate under the guidance of this bliss-master (Vishva is the happiest person I have ever met!), the sun rises from behind the mountains and bathes the room in a golden glow.

The first time I visited Aurovalley Ashram, about 10 kilometres south of Rishikesh, I took a short nap soon after arriving and fell into the most restful sleep of my life. I felt the profoundly peaceful energy of this garden ashram almost immediately and knew it was my spiritual home.

Several hand-painted signs on the ashram grounds proclaim, “All life is yoga.” This is the philosophy of Sri Aurobindo, one of the great Indian thinkers of the 20th century, reduced to its essence. Aurovalley was founded 30 years ago by Swami Brahmdev (Swamiji), a disciple of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother’s teachings. It is a garden ashram, surrounded immediately by meadows and, in the distance, by the mist-covered hills of Rajaji National Park. Nature is ever-present at Aurovalley in the form of fragrant tropical flowers, fluttering butterflies, colourful songbirds, fruit-laden trees, gardens and glorious sunsets. Regular visitors extol the ashram’s healing benefits.

Swamiji explains there are two conceptions of yoga. The one that is popularized in the west is that yoga is something you do. According to Swamiji, however, “Yoga is established in your understanding and attitude; it is a way of life. Yoga is living with a yogic attitude – naturally and with simplicity. When that attitude is born, you are a yogi, no matter where you are.”

Swamiji doesn’t lecture or teach. Every day he sits outside the ashram library building, under a mango tree, and people gather to ask questions. Does one need to go to India to learn to be a yogi? “If you want to buy vegetables where will you go,” he answers, with lightness, and a twinkle in his eye. “India is a university for the world to understand more and collect more information on this subject.”

The International Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Centers is a nonprofit organization founded by Swami Vishnu-devananda. He established the first Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Center in Montreal, Canada, in 1959 and there are now close to 80 Sivananda ashrams and yoga centres around the world. Mani Chaitanya, director of the Sivananda centre in New Delhi is a tall, slim soft-spoken man who chooses his words very carefully. The Sivananda centre is an oasis of calm in a very hectic city, and it is where I practice yoga when I am in New Delhi.

“Yoga practitioners are naturally curious to discover the roots of yoga,” he says. “In India, people can discover a spiritual way of understanding life. They can experience a new lifestyle and incorporate it into their own practice.”

Mani explains that Sivananda offers westerners a systematic method for learning the traditional yogic lifestyle and balancing it with the demands of modern life. “It’s a unique structure that is easy and effective to practice in daily life. You can learn to manage a spiritual life that doesn’t take you away from where you are.”

Sivananda is a worldwide network, a gateway to yoga for westerners, and the same method is followed in all locations. One its main attractions is that the ashrams are located in peaceful places, away from city life. The Neyyar Dam location in Kerala, south India, for example, is set in a lush tropical paradise surrounded by sacred mountains. The ashram offers yoga holidays as well as various levels of teacher training programs.

Many people come from all over the world to study and practice yoga in India. And while there are countless methods and styles; teachers and ashrams, they are all streams leading to and from the same ocean of yogic wisdom.

Navjeet Kaur Mackie is a yoga teacher from Mississauga, currently living in Nova Scotia. She studied yoga in North America before heading off to India in 2007 to deepen her practice and understanding of this ancient tradition.

“India is yoga,” Navjeet says. “India is where I found the very essence of yoga, and discovered that yoga is not only a practice on the mat, but a way of life. Even though yoga is everywhere in India, Rishikesh is where I practiced my physical yoga the most. The feeling that you get when you visit Rishikesh is one of peace and serenity, but still infused with the typical Indian charm. I would recommend India to anyone and everyone who has found themselves on the yoga path.”

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Jai Ganga Mata: Hymn to the Ganges River

Mariellen — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 14:54:39 +0000

The Ganges River is the Mother of India

The River speaks in many voices as she travels from the high Himalayas to the Bay of Bengal.

Through Rishikesh, Ganga sings as she passes through the enchanted valley ringing with bells. Her song is joyous, full of the the jubilance of youth, the rush of fresh mountain streams, the sincere chanting of pilgrims who wish her well and the excitement of the onward journey. Ganga is gorgeous in Rishikesh, jewel-green, opaque and sparkling. A beauty for the ages, decorated with flower-and-light filled offerings.

At Rishidwar, she slows a little to enjoy the mist-covered mountains, tulsi-filled meadows, low flying birds and grazing cattle. The languid movement of the surface of the water belies the depth and strength of her current and hints at a sonorous voice. Here, her deep, quiet power is felt more than heard and she imbues the surrounding countryside with sacred serenity.

Before Haridwar, she splits. One wide, shallow stream provides respite to sadhus, villagers and pilgrims. She creates a beautiful, natural habitat for people, animals, birds and fish, and speaks to them of contemplation and bounty. She offers her love in her voice and the people rejoice.

A narrower stream gathers the force of Shiva and races through the sacred city of Haridwar. At Hari-Ki-Pari, Shiva’s spirit infuses Ganga and together they shout out to the devoted their call of redemption and hope. The very air boils with unseen demons, drawn from the sky, the underworld and impure hearts, to be cleansed by the sacred river of India. In Haridwar, Ganga partakes of the ancient rituals, receives the blessings and begins her work in earnest, with a renewed devotion, as she enters the plains.

From here she makes her way a thousand miles or more to the sea. Along the way, she provides bounty to fully one-tenth of the world’s humanity in the form of water, silt, fish and the other animals drawn to her shores and depths. As she rolls like thunder through the great expanse of the heartland of India, she collects the stories of the people on her banks. Her voice is ancient, maternal and mighty; she speaks of livelihood, duty and family; the cycles of life and death, the seasons, the inevitable, the timeless.

At the sangam in Allahabad, where three rivers meet, the Ganga, the Jamuna and the mythical Saraswati, her powerful chant draws millions to her. Ganga is in her full glory, blessing the millions and reminding them of their source and their truth.

When she reaches Benares, Ganga’s roiling waters are dark shades of slate. This is the only place in her 1,500 mile journey where Ganga chooses to flow north, back towards her birthplace in the Himalayas. At this place — Benares, Varanasi, Kashi, the City of Light — Ganga takes us on a journey through the underworld and gives us the opportunity to experience the dark side of the duality of life. For this place is a Mahashamshana, a great cremation ground; a place where souls cross over.

Here, Ganga’s voice is soul-shaking; it shatters the veil. She gathers up the ashes and corpses of the devoted; and blesses those with the courage to immerse themselves in her murky waters. In her honour, the Benares aarti is a sun-burst of light and hymn; a glorious evocation of all the souls through all the ages who have crossed over here.

Below Benares, Ganga continues her long journey. She fans out in an enormous watery delta before joining the sea in many places.

Ganga’s waters feed the bodies and her voice feeds the souls of millions. She is indeed the lifeline of India’s culture.

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Butterflies are free : volunteering in India

Mariellen — Sun, 31 May 2009 19:55:09 +0000

Lhamo and Ama Adhe at Art Refuge

Volunteering in India

It was the love that got me. Ironically, I wasn’t prepared for it. I landed my volunteer job as an Assistant Art Therapist with Art Refuge more than a year before I actually arrived in Dharamsala, India to begin. To get the coveted position, I had to fill out an extensive application form, write copious answers to numerous essay questions, supply several references and have a long-distance telephone interview with the volunteer coordinator, located in the U.K. It was a long process!

Then, on my birthday in March I got the news – I was accepted, and scheduled to start the following April. I felt elated, both because I had a wonderful adventure to look forward to and because I felt honoured: I would be working alongside program manager Ama Adhe to help newly arrived Tibetan refugee children acclimatize to their home in India.

Ama Adhe and I at Art Refuge

Ama Adhe is a hero to Tibetan people. She survived 27 years in a Chinese prison for helping Tibetan freedom fighters and, after escaping from Tibet on her release, traveled with the Dalai Lama, speaking up about her ordeal, and on behalf of Tibet’s struggle, at every opportunity. She also wrote an inspiring book called The Voice That Remembers. From her home on the rooftop of the Tibetan refugee reception centre in Dharamsala, she runs the Art Refuge program for children. Her warm, compassionate and feisty spirit was never broken; not even dented. I was (and remain) in awe.

So, I had a year to prepare myself for this prestigious assignment. I talked to teachers and children’s therapists, read books, copied lesson plans and brainstormed ideas for art therapy games and exercises. I was a trained Gestalt Therapist, a creative person (writer), yoga teacher and former art student, but I had never worked with children. I was nervous. Would the children like me? Would I know what to do? What if a difficult emotional situation arose, would I handle it well?

Finally, the day came when I was to report in at the Tibetan reception centre in Dharamsala. I laboriously climbed the four flights of stairs to the rooftop. I had been sick and was also unused to the thin air at this altitude – Dharmasala is several thousand feet above sea level, high up on a mountain in the foothills of the Himalayas in north India. It was a hard climb, past cavernous, bleak dormitory rooms, towards the unknown.

When I got to the rooftop terrace, I sat down, winded. Immediately, two tiny Tibetan girls, sisters, ran towards me, jumped on me and started hugging and kissing me. They spent the entire morning draped over me, allowing love to flow openly, generously and completely. I had prepared myself for difficulty, not for love. In the face of this outpouring, I simply melted. And by softening, I knew what to do.

I spent the next month, each morning and afternoon at the reception centre, playing with the children, loving them, allowing them to love me and just being there for them. It was love they needed – not art, not therapy. They had been ripped from their homes and families in Chinese-occupied Tibet, and sent to live in exile, in India, in hopes of a better life – a life where they would get an education, opportunity and the chance to openly live their Tibetan culture and religion.

But first, they needed love to set them right.

The children seem shell-shocked and unwell, when they first arrive in Dharamsala. They often have bad colds and skin sores. And it’s no wonder. To escape from Tibet, they have to walk for many days through vast mountain passes, facing cold, starvation and gun fire from armed border guards. They arrive first in Kathmandu, Nepal; and from Kathmandu, they are sent to Dharmasala.

When I started volunteering at Art Refuge, there were about 20 children in the program. I remember one boy, about 12 years old, who seemed vague and a little angry – a rare emotion among peace-loving Tibetans. His skin was red, sore and peeling from the change in climate and he was sick. He didn’t really engage in any of the activities and seemed to lack confidence. I felt worried about him, but one day Lhamo and I sat with him and helped him to write his story. Lhamo is a young Tibetan woman who helps run the program and acts as translator between the children and the volunteers.

On the back of a drawing he had done, we helped him write about his family, his journey and his feelings. In the days afterwards I noticed that he began to smile, to play and to enjoy himself for the first. By the time I left at the end of the month, he seemed like a normal boy, and was ready to go to school at the Tibetan Children’s Village on the outskirts of Dharamsala. He just needed someone who cared enough to hear him. He needed to feel loved.

We tried to do this with all the children who arrived from Kathmandu. To be able to express themselves freely, with love and support, helps them to emotionally adjust, and gets them ready for school, the next step. That’s the mandate of the Art Refuge program, and it works.

While I was there, it was butterfly season in Dharamsala. Suddenly, the fresh mountain air filled with all sorts of butterflies. Hundreds of tiny white ones twirled by, like clouds, and large colourful ones floated up from the valley below. Shira, the other volunteer, and I taught all the children to make butterflies out of coloured paper and pipe cleaners. They really enjoyed themselves, and it was fun to watch them, as each decorated their butterfly in their own unique and creative way.

When they went for lunch, Shira and I hung all the butterflies from the ceiling. The children’s eyes lit up with excitement when they came back and saw their butterflies dancing in the breeze. Reborn, free and happy.

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Catch this point!

Mariellen — Fri, 22 May 2009 16:57:36 +0000

When my teacher, Swamiji (Swami Brahmdev of Aurovalley Ashram, Rishidwar, India), says something during satsang that he wants to underline, he says, “catch this point.” It’s a great example of a non-native English speaker using the language in a particularly creative and effective way.

I have been back in Canada about six weeks since my latest trip to India, where, among other things, I spent time at Aurovalley Ashram — my favourite place on earth — learning the wisdom of integral yoga and feeling inspired by Swamiji’s complete commitment to transformation of consciousness.

So I am now home, facing a difficult life situation, and trying to “catch this point.” I am trying to process, integrate and put it into action everything I learned from my recent two-and-half-months in India. In some ways the journey begins when you get home. You realize what you’ve learned, how much you’ve changed, and how differently you now see the world.

The main points I am trying to catch are;
1. I am largely, if not exclusively, the creator of the difficult situation I now find myself in. The fact that some of the decisions I made that led me to this place were largely unconscious, and driven by fear and/or grief, does not let me off the hook. I am responsible for my life.
2. The “answer” to my dilemma will not come from outside; it must come from within, from an increase in my conscious awareness.
3. This situation, though it is causing me to suffer, is a gift; it is a chance to learn, to grow to become more aware. The appropriate — and most positive, useful — response is to be grateful for this opportunity.

In other words, instead of buying and downing the expensive ice cream bar last night, I came home and lay on the floor and did some deep, conscious breathing. I allowed myself to breathe into my fear and anxiety. Then I fell asleep and dreamt I was trying to cross a busy street with no streetlights or barriers of any kind, and cars were rushing towards me in the gathering dark with their headlights off. Almost halfway across, I ran back to the safety of the curb. It seems like as good a metaphor for the activities of the subconscious as any!

Awareness is the key

Every good teacher I have ever known teaches awareness. Last night I saw a man wearing a T-shirt that read “There is nothing that beer can’t fix.” My T-shirt would read, “There is nothing that awareness can’t fix.”

As always, I did a lot of healing and becoming more aware when I was in India. For one thing, I have a new awareness of myself as a middle-class person. I realize I was born a card-carrying member of middle-class Canada. It’s like being in an exclusive club — a bubble. You get a lot of benefits along with a deeply etched worldview about how things should be. You expect a lot from society and the world at large, and use your status as bubble insider to protect you from the harsh realities of life.

But my travels in India, the recession and my own current life situation have served to pop the bubble — or at least, make it a lot more transparent. It’s very hard for me to actually imagine what it’s like to face the world without a family, three good meals a day, a safe and comfortable home, a credit line, a university degree — all of the props of middle-class life. Like so many others, I have been essentially living beyond my means, certain in the assumption that my middle-class world will support and rescue me. And this is something I now have to face.

Life outside the bubble

But what do people do when they don’t carry the middle-class card and don’t have all of its exclusive privileges? How do they live with no recourse to credit or hope of landing a well-paying job?

It’s not easy to travel in a place like India where you have to confront poverty, social inequality and disparity. It’s not easy to be a “conscious tourist.” It’s not easy to not let it affect you. In fact, I would feel a lot worse if it DIDN’T affect me. I am glad it is changing me and making me more conscious and I hope more compassionate, empathetic and responsible. That’s the reason I go to India, really. I learn as much about the process of self-discovery from travel in India as I do from studying yoga at the ashram with my guru. And that’s as it should be.

And I’m not the only one who thinks awareness is the key.

I am looking forward to reading a new book by Austin, Texas-based author Shelley Seale called The Weight of Silence: The Invisible Children of India. Shelley and I met online, and I participated in an online Q&A she did last week with the Voluntary Traveler on Facebook. You can read the transcript here.

Shelley has traveled extensively in India, researching her book and volunteering at orphanages run by The Miracle Foundation. With this book, she hopes to give voice to the many children in India who are homeless, abandoned, orphaned, poor or in some other way lost between the cracks of society.

Someone asked Shelley what can we do? She answered: “There are many things that people can do, from really small and easy to the big things. I think sometimes these problems seem overwhelming, insurmountable really, because they seem so huge and anything we could do seems a drop in the bucket. But Mother Theresa once said that each of us might just be one drop in the ocean, but if that one drop wasn’t there, it would be missed.

We can’t all abandon our entire lives to go work in the slums of Calcutta, but there are lots of little things that are easy to do, and if enough people did them, would make an incredible difference.

The first step is awareness, and everyone who is on this discussion or reads it is already there, and I thank you. It’s a huge thing, just right off the bat, for ordinary people who aren’t affected by these things directly to simply CARE. And spread that awareness on to other people.”

Another project I learned about recently on the Internet that also stresses awareness was started by Amanda Koster. Salaam Garage “leads trips that combine cultural immersion travel with citizen journalists (that means you) collaborating with NGOs around the world.” She is leading a trip to Jaipur, Rajasthan, India in September. It’s a great idea.

Thank you for reading. Please visit Breathedreamgo or stop by my Facebook page at Breathedreamgo.

Sharing India’s wisdom with the world

Mariellen — Sat, 02 May 2009 22:40:21 +0000

Dr. Deepak Chopra

While I was in India this winter, I read an article by Dr. Deepak Chopra in the Times of India (March 29, 2009) entitled “Over to India,” about what India can teach the west. In it, he says that the modern era is characterized by “a headlong rush into the arms of science and materialism.” Both, he says, are deeply flawed for solving the human dilemma. “The late Robert F. Kennedy put it pithily when he said that the gross national product measures everything except that which makes life worthwhile.”

The human dilemma — which is really about the path to happiness society, and each individual in it, takes — will not be solved by external means, e.g. more oil , a better missile defence system. “If the path to happiness is external, disaster will eventually ensue. This is what Indian spirituality discovered thousands of of years ago.”

Dr. Chopra believes that in spite of India’s infatuation with the west, India “possess the seeds of a viable answer to the human dilemma. A single concept plucked from the the teaching of yoga, ahimsa, fueled massive political change in the Gandhian era.”

He says that “for 20 years, I have sustained myself on the belief that that the ancient rishis were the Einsteins of consciousness. This shift in perception implies a revolution in how we live our lives.”

“Whoever shapes reality shapes the future. What India offers is the breakthrough idea that reality is shaped in the mind… Aham Brahmo Asmi means I am a cell in the body of the universe… The universe thinks, acts and perceives itself through me… It responds to my intentions. Could any concept be more radical, more Indian?”

In the article, Dr. Chopra explained that any form of constraint can be overcome through inner transformation. “To be transformed, you must extricate yourself from the idea that externals define you. You are defined by who you are inside, by your level of awareness.”

Chopra believes that the world could be transformed if people followed the ancient wisdom of India, the teachings on inner transformation. “India reigns supreme in the area of consciousness. It holds out the best hope for reinventing the world by reinventing our inner aspirations.”

I completely agree with him. This is the premise of yoga, the reason I go to India and what I want to dedicate my life to understanding and sharing. Each of us is much more powerful than we realize. We can change the world by looking inside and changing ourselves.

The Indian masters have long known that we, each of us, manifest our life and our destiny largely through our thoughts, words and deeds. It is indeed worthwhile to bring more awareness and consciousness to what we think, say and do.

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To Jaisalmer

Mariellen — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 02:08:46 +0000

When I was a child I painted huge colourful murals on my walls – always something I considered exotic and oriental like genies coming out of bottles and turret-topped palaces and stone fortress-like cityscapes. Imagination was more important than reality, and I stoked the fires of my imagination with fabulous tales from the Arabian Nights, incredible stories from the Greek Myths and any other magical tales I could get my hands on.

I sensed there were worlds hidden within the known world; things were not as they seemed. I stared beneath the surface of the lake at the cottage and watched the swaying seaweed and the crayfish swimming backwards and the choreographed schools of small fish. In those moments I felt I disappeared, and only my attention on the secret underwater world was real.

Road sign to Bikaner, top, and Jaisalmer, bottom

Real life has its allure and can trap even the hardiest seer with distractions, heart break, loss, struggle. But what happens when you look up; when you look beyond. You can see the world as you did, if you’re lucky, when you had the innocence to see clearly.

You can find a place that, impossibly, looks like your bedroom walls. A place with stone turrets, an ancient fort and a wide open expanse of desert that contains worlds within worlds. Barren beauty is perhaps the most beautiful of all because you have to actively look for it. It draws you in with its subtlety and suggestions, it’s quiet power; and it rewards you with a jeweled night sky beaming love and life.

With the right sight you can see the beauty around you, the face of God in nature, in an elephant-headed diety, and the golden eyes of the sun reflecting back towards you. And for some short time you can feel the truth of love, that we are in nature’s embrace, we are all connected, all one. Imagination and the right attitude can open up the world, open up your heart, and let you see with the heart’s eyes.

And when you see with the heart’s eyes, you will again see like a child.

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