This Trip Has Suddenly Become Really Spiritual?
So this weekend wasn’t really much work (there’s not too much to do on weekends besides answer a few e-mails). So what we did yesterday was drive out to see Bala’s family in a nearby town. I need to remember that whenever Bala says we’ll be back by a particular time I should add about 50% onto that duration to approximate how long it will actually take. So we took off in the morning on a two hour car ride and stopped at about 3 different houses containing about 4 generations of direct and extended family. It was insane. I’m pretty sure they were all talking about me the entire time and asking why I was there… which I myself couldn’t really answer if they’d asked me.
After we visited every member of his family in the town and picked up a few of them we headed to the families local Hindu temple. The coolest part of my day was talking with Bala’s wifes’ sister who was in the process of getting her PhD in Archaeology, specializing in the writings on the walls of the ancient buildings in this part of India. She came with us to the temple and basically answered every question I had about Hinduism, their beliefs, how they worship and everything. The most interesting part to me was that she told me what she believed about why Hinduism has a positive benefit. She went over the social history of what temples were in ancient times. People would gather at the temple whenever there was an important event and if someone ever had a problem they would come to the temple and ring this bell. After ringing the bell everyone would come nearby and ask what the problem was, even the ruler of that area would come to find out.
Beyond that, their religion involves a lot of meditation and focusing on one object. She explained that the true value in this is the meditation and focusing on something for a long period of time, not in the gods themselves. I thought this was interesting because that had been my theory about other religions as well. I think it gives people time to reflect on themselves, their problems, and their lives that they wouldn’t ordinarily take time to do without religion. For whatever reason I felt really peaceful after this talk and everything, it was cool to see how the family all came together for this special day. I couldn’t help thinking that I hoped that she shared her thoughts about the true benefits of religion with her kids and family instead of just me.
Today I found out James won his fight on the ultimate fighter finale. So now he’ll be in UFC and be all rich and hopefully it’ll get our new school some good press for free. I guess I lucked out on that one?
I went running and did yoga again today with the guy I’m staying with. He’s a nice guy, he barely speaks any english but whenever I ask him something he will smile and somehow convey his answer in a way I can understand. When we do yoga he says simple stuff like “you watch, they you can try” or “slow breathing” or “relaxxxx”. Its pretty cool. I admire the way he lives his live, every morning he takes time to go do his walking and yoga, only then will he go to his shop and begin work.
Anyways, woah, big tangent. I meant to get to the part where we went to Bala’s wife’s cousin’s house for a special Sunday lunch, FINALLY MEAT. Yeah so I ate good today, I was stoked. Also we stopped by a bakery where I bought some stuff I’m DEF going to scarf down later. Back to the point, at the house I met the husband and Bala pointed out to me that he was really into meditation. So naturally I’m interested and start asking about it. He explained that unlike what most people practice, the type of meditation he is into has nothing to do with religion and can be practiced by anybody. So by now I’m REALLY interested. He gave a book called “The Art Of Living” and I started reading it immediately and its very interesting. I love the idea of being a spiritual person without being religious. I’ve always felt like there is so much to know about this world and the answers aren’t in books.
I also keep thinking back to my childhood and being told by my religion that the end of spirituality was me accepting Jesus Christ as my savior. I always felt there was something wrong, that couldn’t be the end result of spirituality, that’s far too easy to be considered salvation. Now something you have to work for in order to better yourself and attain truth, that makes sense to me. I don’t think truth can be the same for every person and I think people should always be questioning things written down, things change, we are constantly discovering new things about our world and about ourselves, why should we be following what’s written by people who may have known less than we do?
I think the best thing I could have done here is spend time meeting all of Bala’s friends and relatives. We just got back from a neighbors house who made me french fries and something that kinda tasted like fried zuchini, so bomb, my stomach feels pretty normal for the first time in a week. We also discussed the differences between American and Indian culture. They came out and asked me “so when do you plan to get married”. I laughed, I said, “well my parents aren’t trying to find me a wife and I’m not really working that hard at it so… not anytime soon”. It’s cool comparing and contrasting different cultures with different people. Its kind of weird to have people be facinated with what seems like my average life. What are your hobbies? “Well… I enjoy fighting?” *they freak out* So do you have any siblings? “Uh well I have 3 half siblings, my dad was previously married.” This of course leads into talking about a divorce rate of 50% compared to 10%.
I’m having a good time, now if only my stomach would stop being such a bitch I’d be stoked.
