A little boy and a buffalo

It is not big news if I tell you I am not much of a photographer. Sometimes I like to think I am and I enjoy making shots of faces and of sunsets, yet most of the time it is a frustration. Which gets worse when I enviously look at my daughter’s photos or photos that my blogging mate Razzbuffnik keeps producing. Damn Aussie!

Anyway, there are weird things that tend to happen with the help of internet and the blogosphere. You see, 24 years back when in India for the first time, on my search for enlightenment, I had a National (that’s how Panasonic was called long ago, kids) point-and-shoot little camera and I did some shots here and there. For the needs of this blog I scanned some of them with our simple office scanner.

So, about a year ago a reader from Canada contacted me, asking me whether he could use the photo of the a little boy leading a big buffalo (I still remember I took that one in Mathura). I was rather surprised, never thinking one could use my photos for anything at all… Anyway, to cut the story short, he did some editing and art work with the photo and it has already been printed in Canada as a greeting card!

Just imagine! I find this rather crazy, funny and very, very enjoyable. It is amazing how the internet connects the world, across the space and through the time.

The boy is, I guess, about thirty now, the buffalo has long been reincarnated (perhaps into our bossy cat), and the world keeps spinning round and round.

Proud not to know

Celebrating myself has always been a hard one for me. Through coping with circumstances in my childhood and teenage years I have developed a very disconnecting way of dialoguing with myself, putting myself down, evaluating, blaming… The diary that I was writing while on my first roaming around India at age 20, for example, is painfully full of my self-blaming, self-evaluating and putting myself down for every imperfect thought or action, for every unspiritual feeling. I was my own best enemy.

After this phase of a rather complete self-denial I went through the phase of starting to enjoy some parts of myself, but then when I was talking about them, sharing, presenting to others with a childish enthusiasm, it sometimes came across as bragging and I immediately felt even worse – I started to blame myself for this unspiritual and narcissistic behaviour.

But, as it happens when you chew things for a longer period of time, gradually the oscillation of the peaks was lessening and nowadays I don’t experience this as a problem or even an issue at all, it is not hindering me in anyway. But, to be honest, I still do notice some second thoughts when about to share a celebration about myself, when about to present to others something about myself that makes me feel joyful and happy. There is this bit of confusion somewhere in the back of my mind.

Anyway, when I was recapitulating the year 2009, I noticed there were many things I was happy about, but perhaps the most important celebration about myself came out of the observation that I am more and more, perhaps almost entirely, of a learner. I am so happy to see that the phase of “a teacher and a preacher wannabe” is long over. I guess that the knower/teacher phase of my life started to form sometime in the teenage years, when I longed to become somebody that knows what life is all about. I was forming – along with the zillions of other teenagers around the planet I guess – my identity around the idea that not only did I know what it was all about, but also that I knew better than the others. And so I was superior, right?  The world failed to recognize this advanced wisdom of mine, but I thought that since messiahs sometimes even got crucified, I was not doing too badly at all.

So, here I am, about to turn 44, and I am so happy to know that I don’t know much. I am so happy to not feel this urge to go out and teach and preach and to make other people change their perceptions and thoughts. Because I sincerely don’t care whether I know more than anybody else. I am so happy to feel humbled in my ignorance, less attached to the idea of knowing. And I am happy to be a curious and an eager learner.

I am actually celebrating that I hear myself saying “I don’t know” much more often than saying “I know”. I am also happy that right now I cannot remember when was the last time I tried to persuade anybody that I was more right than he or she.

Hey, it is such a relief really.

So, here’s to all the world’s happy learners. Whoopee!

Mildly anxious about Cairo

Tomorrow early morning I will be flying off to Cairo, Egypt, for a congress of interculturalists. And I am feeling a bit edgy about it. Not that the travelling itself causes that; there has been so much of travelling and flying here and there in the last years that the excitement has all gone and has been replaced by the irritation over being squeezed in the seats of the planes and over the endless security checks at the airports. The anxiousness is also not about having so many things to do before leaving, since basically everything has been done already – about nine hours before the departure from the house. So I will even get a proper sleep this night.

The nervousness has been building up during the last few weeks because I feel that this is going to be a trip into my past and into my long forgotten feelings.

I spent a few weeks in Cairo in 1983, on my hippy journey into the unknown, at 17. After hitching a free ride with a ship from Jordan across the Red Sea to Port Suez, I entered Cairo late at night, no money at all, no clue about whatever, no address to go to, no food, nothing. Somehow I managed to come down to Aswan a few days later, but my attempt to enter Sudan without a visa failed and after a week or so I was in Cairo again. Well, it is a pretty long story, but in the next weeks I befriended some Tanzanian guys with equally empty pockets, and one of them kicked me from the self-pitying state of mind into a pro-active one, telling me that if I ever wanted to get enough money together to buy a visa for Sudan, I needed to get on my feet and start doing something about it. So, there I was, for the start going from one church to another, trying out my luck. In one Coptic Orthodox church a priest with a long black beard and utterly shining eyes stood at the courtyard, smiling warmly at me. Before I could complete my lies about being robbed, he stopped me, squeezed some money in my pocket and told me: “You come to us. We will take care of you, feed you, host you and help you get whatever you need.” His eyes were lovingly smiling and sparkling, as if he knew me all the way down to the bottom. And so I came and was fully accepted and taken care of, for about a couple of weeks. The priest was one of the most gentle souls I have ever met, just being warm and supportive, never even attempted to convince me into his religion or anything. Finally I left, clean, well fed, with the Sudanese visa and a train ticket in my pocket. And with a very warm heart.

In 1986 I took my first trip to India. I flew from Europe via Cairo and experienced a nightmare at the airport, with my passport and tickets being temporarily lost because of some confusion of officials, then raced in a van toward the plane that was already standing on the runway ready to take off, racing back after a few minutes because I had failed to provide baksheesh that would actually get me on the plane, spent another few days losing my mind over illogical discussions with the airport officials and finally found myself in the Cairo city, having to get some senseless paperwork done in order to finally sit on my plane. And so I also paid a visit to the priest. It felt like coming home, to my old and dear friends that had accepted me in my dark times just the way I was, never questioning a thing, never asking for anything, just embracing and holding me…

Anyway, the fact that I am going to return to Cairo after so many years keeps resurrecting many memories and evoking a wide variety of feelings from deep within. I am not sure I will be able to find all the places, it’s been 26 years after all, but just thinking about it keeps bringing me in touch with the feelings of confusion and hopelessness of a lost teenager in a big wild world. I would love to find that little dodgy park where I was sitting under a tree, completely clueless, and was approached by Tanzanians, who soon in a way adopted me… And I certainly wish I will find the dearest priest in a good health and be able to express my gratitude for how deeply he had touched me.

Oh boy, it really feels like walking into a time machine, heading towards the distant past.

Just an ordinary guy

The extent to which we tend to be concerned with our own image, trying to place ourselves and our own worth somewhere on the scale, the amount of attention and energy we dedicate to the impression management, self-promotion…, it all seems pretty ridiculous to me. There are so many other things to worry about in this world of ours.

The tiny little good news – in regards to my tiny little unimportant existence – is that, as it seems to me, lately there has been less urge or even tendency to polish my self image and worry about it at all. To a great deal of relief, because the thing used to be darn exhausting. I used to really cherish this sweet hidden idea that I am special, very special. And that the world yet needs to recognize this. I remember the first cracks on this shiny little devil started with some heavy blows on my thick head long time ago, a sort of waking-up experiences.

One that I really love to remember and still find incredibly funny happened on my first trip to India. I went there, at the age of 20, for the enlightenment and total liberation, of course. I guess thousands of people went to India with the same goal. So, I was not so very special in this regard, but I did like the thought that I would definitely be the one who will actually attain enlightenment, not like the rest of losers who came home humiliated.

So, there I was in a search of a guru. I visited many and was not satisfied (this already sounds pretty stupid, doesn’t it?) and finally learned about a wise man in a small village up north in Uttar Pradesh, where the Himalayas begin. On my first visit to the village, despite the intense search, I did not find the man. I thought this actually was a good spiritual sign, showing that the path to enlightenment was damn thorny. I loved it. I felt I was ready for any sort of sacrifices, I believed I was ready to face all the tortures needed for the liberation, with a blessed smile of Buddha on my smart face.

Next week, after gathering more info, I returned to the village and finally found him; he was a simple, kind, shiny, skinny old man, with soft eyes, white beard and soft voice. Just what I was looking for. He looked just like Ramana Maharshi and I believed this was the perfect sign. He did not make a big fuzz about himself or his teachings, but invited me to come back in the afternoon, to his home, and to meditate a bit with his friends. I learned later that he did not call anybody a disciple or a student, but just simple friends with whom he liked to meditate. Another good sign for me. He modestly asked me whether I was able to sit down on the floor and meditate for a while and was then overwhelmed with my self-promotion about how well experienced in meditation I was, how I loved to meditate and so forth.

So, I came back later that afternoon and we all sat down, about 6 or so of us, in this little meditation room. The old man lit a candle, explained the form of meditation he was inviting me to practice, and just before we closed our eyes he said that I did not need to worry about time at all since he was going to announce the end of the meditation with a bell, after 4 hours.

What??????? Four hours? Four hours of sitting in lotus, not moving, just meditating?

I did manage to maintain the enlightened smile of a Buddha, but my mind exploded. I never ever did more than 40 minutes in a row, and here I was, on bare concrete floor, with this weird man and his weird friends, to sit for four hours???

It was a 4-hour-torture, to my body as well as to my mind. I did manage to maintain my image, my dignity, my ego, but that was definitely not a meditation.

So, the horrible 4 hours passed, the little bell rung, I slowly started to stretch my burning legs, atempting to preserve my blessed smile. And the old man, with some curious sparks in his eyes and a tiny smile on his face, turned to me and said: “I apologize for being so short with time today and so we were only able to do this much. But tomorrow you are invited to come at 8 in the morning and we will do a longer and more deep meditation, I was thinking about doing an eight-hour stretch.”

This time I was ready and I did not blink: “Great, I will be delighted to come, thank you for inviting me.” I had a plan in my mind already (I had plenty of time in the past four hours to develop a plan, you see) and next morning I caught the first bus out of the village, before 6 AM and oh, boy, was I happy to be on that bus. I did save what was left of my dignity by not showing up, well, sort of, , but my self image was not idealized anymore. Reality started to knock on the door.

So, it indeed is a relief to notice, after a couple of decades, to be less burdened by my own image, not evaluating or comparing myself with others too much anymore, in other words, not taking myself too seriously.

This indeed is how I understand the concept of personal growth: not necessarily seeing chakras all over the place and remembering past lives, but acting out the role of a victim less and be fully responsible in relationships, being aware of my own very human needs, humbly being aware of my own limitations, developing genuine empathy for other people’s needs, overcoming fear of stepping into the unknown… simple things like that.

So, perhaps the fact that I don’t think anymore that I am anything special and the fact that I almost don’t spend any time in front of the mirror – perhaps this is a sign of some improvements.

Some crazy weeks ahead

Ok, this is going to be some interesting our-of-routine time in the next few weeks.

• Tomorrow morning my wife flies away to North Ossetia on a humanitarian mission, for ten days. Cat, mice…
• And tomorrow afternoon my dear friend Anne-Claire and her husband Ludo will finally reach our town – they are on their three-month walking tour across Central and Eastern Europe – have a look at their blog. I have met Anne-Claire through interculturalist circles a couple of years ago and we grew into becoming true friends. She is a sunshine! Such a beautiful, pure and shining person and I am really looking forward to see her again, meet her husband and host them in our house for a week or so.
• Just about when my wife comes back another sunshine will come, this time a double feature. My two dearest NVC friends, crazy ladies from Sweden, will arrive to stay with us for a week and do some NVC work together. And to have a lot of laughs. I sense The Force hinting me this is going to be insane.
• Then my wife will be off to North Ossetia again. Cat, mice…
• Soon after she comes back my dear friend from Belgrade, Serbia will come with his family to stay with us for almost a week. I have met him 22 years ago in the military service (along with Nado we were inseparable) and we have been great friends since. They hosted us, for instance, when we were coming, dirty and tired, from our overland journey to India and also this year when me and my wife were driving back from Albania. This dear family of musicians and artists always enriches us with their beautiful spirit, openness and love, and I am so happy we will spend this time together.
• Oh, I almost forgot to mention it; I will be giving trainings and seminars across these times almost non-stop. So, long days, short nights, I guess.

Who cares. I’ll sleep when I am dead. YIPPEEEEE!

And for all my dear friends, those I will meet soon and those I will, hopefully, meet some time later…

The refugees are us

Today is the Bloggers Unite for Refugees day and here are my two little stories that helped me see who and what refugees really are.

1983, Sudan.

I was 17, no money, no direction, no goal, basically just following my own nose, running away from life that I found intolerable, hoping to find a meaning down the road. Alone, an alien in an alien land. I was a refugee of a sort. My second initiation into the adult life. I was already quite a few months on the journey and I found myself in Wau, a village in the forests of SouthWest Sudan. There were not many ways leading to or from Wau and I thought, having travelled to Wau on the roof of the train from the North, that the logical direction to proceed would be south, to Juba. The only way was the jungle track and the only means of transport were occasional trucks. I managed to get on the UNICEF truck driving refugees to Juba. So there were 45 of us, for five days on this truck through the jungle, sweating together and chasing away the tsetse flies during the days and sitting around fires, fighting mosquitoes and sleeping on the bare ground somewhere in the wilderness during nights. We were all without belongings, with our hopes only. Me, a young confused hippie wannabe and them, children, mothers, fathers, old people, youth, literate and illiterate, healthy and sick, merry and sad. We were all together in this. No difference at all. We were all in troubles and we were breathing as one. A community indeed. And this community took a good and loving care of me, the bewildered outsider with pale skin, long blondish hair, silently gazing somewhere distant.

2003, Iran.

On our way back from our magical overland family journey from Europe to India, me, my wife and our three kids stopped, for the second time, in the desert town Bam in the eastern Iran, at the beginning of the Baluchistan desert. We already knew the place and we enjoyed stocking up on yummy local cookies with dates (best cookies on the planet!), strolling around, talking to locals… We knew Bam and we liked it, although we have had a traffic accident there a few months before and our van finally lost it’s European shiny virginity. It was sad to know that this was our last time in this lovely and hospitable place.

After many weeks and many kilometres we finally arrived home and only a few days subsequent to our arrival, we woke up one morning in our warm and cosy apartment, and learned the shocking news: a massive earthquake devastated the city of Bam. 40.000 people died. 40.000!

Tears started to roll down our cheeks, hearts were pounding, we were crying. For us this was suddenly not only a number, one of the many numbers we hear on the news all the time: 15.000 died over there, 25.000 left without shelter on the other continent, 100.000 dying of hunger yet on another one… No. This was real for us, no way of shrugging with our shoulders and denying it. Yet, nobody else understood. For our friends here in Europe, the 40.000 killed people of Bam was just an abstract number. For us it was pain, sadness, awareness of our city being demolished, our people being killed.

After these and other personal experiences that have widened my horizons, I want to scream out into the world: “The refugees are us!” It is not them somewhere over there, it is us. It is our mothers, it is our fathers, it is our sisters and our brothers, it is our children… And yes, it is ourselves.

Refugees can not be disconnected from us, the lucky ones. They are us. How can we sleep peacefully and happily, knowing they are out there?

So, my question is: what do I do about that?

Freedom from and freedom to

Last year was a somewhat weird one. On the outside things were seemingly progressing perfectly, but I was struggling on the inside. Not really in a heavy-duty manner, but I was facing certain void that I have briefly described in my personal history.

As Fromm has beautifully explained in his book The Fear of Freedom, there seem to be two types of freedom that we individuals struggle with and try to obtain; namely the freedom from (external or inner pressures) and the freedom to (do, create, move, be…). I guess a large portion of my life was about attempting to finally become free from – mainly personal and cultural patterns of thinking, neurotic feelings etc. In the course of all those years I somehow got used to live with these inner companions and felt quite comfortable and natural not feeling free from…

In the last few years this has shifted and I have started to not only feel free from, but also to feel free to. Now, the problem was that I did not really know what to use this new freedom for, so to say. What did I want – besides all that I already had? About 20 years ago a palm-reader somewhere in South India assured me (and so this must be 100 % certain) that I would live 80 years. Sharp! So last year I was a bit horrified about the fact that there were still roughly 38 years ahead of me – of being free to not know what to do and why to do it.

So I guess I was making everybody around me rather depressive last year, talking about this lack of motivation and meaning etc. I have noticed that friends actually ceased asking me how I was. However, in August things started to unfold and I feel in a completely different shape nowadays.

I have attended an International Intensive Training in Switzerland, lead by Marshall Rosenberg and the Centre for Nonviolent Communication. I guess if I haven’t had 12 years of experience of practicing psychotherapy, this could have been just another communication training, an excellent one of course, but I doubt it would have sparked inside of me what it actually did. Somehow things came together – what I have experienced as a psychotherapist as being the eternal and always present core of all our psychological and relational problems, namely our inability to realize and express our true inner feelings and needs to each other, proved to be the very core of Marshall Rosenberg method of Nonviolent Communication. If you are not familiar with the NVC approach, I am very much inviting you to have look at a short film (in three parts) of Marshall describing it and to therefore hear some of it from the source.

It took me couple of months to realize what actually happened there. At first I was completely overwhelmed with all the beautiful people I have met there and all the great things I have realized about communication and about my life and about, you know, everything… And than, just a month or two ago, I started to realize the depth of it, the dimension of the breakthrough. Many things got together and the void was just not there anymore. The meaning was coming back and now I feel if I can devote my energy to teach people to speak this language, the true language of heart, if I can mediate and use that language to help people relate in a more pristine way, get together, commune…, well than I am back on the track again. On the track of my life.

And, after 38 years, while entering the tunnel and looking back, I will feel content.