Project Connect: India – Reflections
I have been back in the U.S. for a week now. Navigating each day, seeing everything through a different lens; home, family, friends, my cat Bia, play, work. Feeling out of my skin and on constant alert to where my thoughts are taking me…this has been the most tumultuous re-entry from a trip abroad. Being in a country with differing customs, beliefs, and mannerisms, and to close with a 10-day Vipassana retreat, is shaking some stuff up.
Now that I have had a week to reflect on the overall experience, it was indeed a once in a lifetime occurrence. I am not the same person I was when I departed for Mumbai, India on January 23. I suppose it was naïve of me to think I could simply pick up where I left off.
A good place to start my story is how I ended up going to India (my first).
Two years ago, I met Ramesh and his cousin Rakesh during a business dinner with a friend of mine in the textile industry who asked me to attend. He didn’t want to appear that he was a company of one. Rakesh is the owner of Rashab Apparel, a fourth generation textile company and was seeking a US business alliance. I was in my fourth year of practitioner studies in Science of Mind and we naturally gravitated toward topics of spirituality, mindfulness, and how we bring that to our daily lives. Ramesh made the invitation to come to India and stay with him and his family, and when I did, Vipassana would be on the agenda. (I had no idea what it was at the time.) I had a full time job and purchased a house a year later, so a trip to India was not on my radar.
That brings us to June 2013; I launched fully into building Where Life Works, my life coaching practice. I got the idea that I could work my schedule around a trip to India, so I emailed Ramesh to see if his invitation was still open. It was! I decided I could make it for the spring season (Jan-Feb), and there was a Vipassana course scheduled during that time too.
The purpose for the trip began to expand, birthing Project Connect. I decided that I would interview people I met along the way on how they communicate and connect with others. My new website was launched, and a Facebook page was created to host daily content and photos for others to follow the journey. Excitement!
Ramesh took personal responsibility for me and my India experience. He knew of Project Connect and went out of his way to create opportunities for it. The project was taking on a life of its own and I followed. I was exposed on a personal level to his employees, a family practice attorney, beloved family and friends, professional colleagues in the textile business, and their Jain spiritual leader. I was shown the slums, shipping docks, and abandoned textile mills. I was served local foods in tiny neighborhood eateries to street vendors of every variety and size. Ramesh’s wife, Kulpana, scolded him for taking me to such unsanitary places! I was grateful I escaped any unpleasant gastro incidents even with consuming shaved iced and numerous mysterious vegetable stews and patties served up from seasoned pots. I was driven to and from places, I had guides walk me through the streets, and was accompanied everywhere I went. In other words, I was spoiled!
In a change of plans, I was to make my 5-day northern India excursion on my own. Travel details were thrown together and I was on a plane to New Delhi early the next morning. In sharing with others along the way, comments bordering on the incredulous were spoken; “brave, courageous, adventurous” and “I would never take public transportation”, I saw that what I was experiencing was not typical, as a single white female “tourist”, traveling alone. Not once did I feel in danger or threatened, yet many times I felt overwhelmed, unconfident, and uncomfortable.
I saw many sad sights. Yet, I also saw children playing, people going about their lives with dignity and respect for others. Poverty and death is not hidden, the attitude of everything has a purpose; and life and death takes care of itself. Garbage from people is left on the streets for animals to eat. Their droppings are used for fuel to heat food, to create warmth for people. A stray dog dies, other animals consume the carcass. It is the cycle of life in full view.
I took all of this into Vipassana with me and went into the exploring the illusion of mind and through that, my reality and truth. I came to India to capture connection to the people of India and share it through my senses. I knew if I did not daily document my observations, the subtle experiences would be lost to me, and so I chose to keep a journal, and break one of the Course agreements.
What I came to understand, only upon returning to the US and back to my life here, is how deeply the illusion of the mind is in operation. Even with a committed awareness practice, there are mind patterns that are in play, constantly. While in India, I had assimilated a view of the circle of life, an openness to a deeper sense of the present moment. When I came back my mind was attempting to fit the old square block into the new round hole.
It became clearer that the work I do in service to others, life coaching, is actually transformational life coaching, to break free of the illusion. With the help of a few dear friends who are on the same path, I could see the old square block and loosen the grip.
We are to learn the Art of Living. To live happy, peace-filled lives, no matter the calm or fury of the waters around us.
Signing off…Older, Richer, and Wiser.
Sharon
In Dedication to the People of India
Namaskar’
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