Attempting to prove my family and friends wrong, who claim I can't shut up for more than five minutes, I embarked on a mission to find some inner peace at the local meditation centre. A new year, a new country a new me? I was determined to find out. Two local bus rides, some crafty sign language communication, and a few dodgy alley ways later I arrived at the centre. I wondered why I hadn't seen any other westerners and was the only white girl in the village for miles, well this is where they had been hiding. It was a cult of clichéd ;dread bearing poncho wearing hippies doing downward dog and drinking chai. After not seeing another white person for a month however, I was none the less intrigued and waltzed in bracing myself for welcoming smiles and some English language. Yet what an anti-climax it was! They hardly acknowledged my presence. Too Zen and at one with the world or just high as a kite? For a town that is practically famous for it's local hash 'Charis' I wouldn't be surprised.
Despite my modest welcome I remained the optimist and continued my quest to find inner peace. Now let me cut to the chase before you get bored, Meditation is no picnic! I went in a little too eager picturing myself as Julia Roberts sitting attractively in an Ashram but this was no Eat Pray Love. This was constant pins and needles from sitting cross legged for hours on end, smelly hippies who clearly use natural deodorant and planning my whole life in my head because I was bored out of my mind. "You must clear your mind, see visions and words of meaning they will come to you" Our instructor whispers. Easier said than done, I surmise! All I see when I close my eyes is black! Black, black and maybe the odd swirl but that's probably just because i'm going mad. After about 45 minutes more of this we are all invited to sit around the circle and share what we saw. You've got to be kidding me!
Circle sharing time was clearly the only time the mentees showed any emotion. One by one the comatose hippies suddenly came to life and the whole experience quickly became very overwhelming and rather dramatic. I have never been one to handle other peoples tears, growing up with three brothers and a feminist mother who's idea of a hug stems more closely to a pat on the back (love you mumsy) did not prepare me for this situation. It was one of those awkward affairs where you don't know whether to laugh or cry. Now I am open to a lot of things but having smelly, hairy hippies crying tears of joy after finding inner peace on my shoulder is not something I would generally choose to participate in on a daily basis.
Then the moment I had been dreading finally arrived it was my turn to share. Telling the instructor I saw nothing but black would be an insult to his livelihood, and my inner ego, yet considering more than 80% of the circle were clearly stoned I had some tough competition. I was way out of my league. I thought maybe being the new girl they would let me pass for someone more experienced but no everyone is equal in this place. So I cursed egalitarianism on the inside for the first time whilst attempting to come up with a plan. I had two options, get up and run away as fast as possible, or use my rusty drama skills and come up with some epic story about how I saw free spirits and crystals and whatever other hackneyed hippie words I could conjure up. So I chucked the biggest "when in Rome" of all time and went for it, I whipped out my uncanny bohemian vocabulary left right and centre. Yet surprisingly enough it became rather addictive like verbal diarrhoea. After mediating silently for hours the words kind of just flowed out despite their fabrication, and I enjoyed my role as the lead in the biggest bullshit play of all time. Next up was the man to my right he was clearly about 65 and dressed like a 25 year old junkie. I mean really if I told any average Joe that I saw visions of myself dancing around a fire on a mountain wearing crystals and talking to animals they would have me incarcerated yet for these people it was a daily routine.
No comments:
Post a Comment