I'm flying to India on Thursday evening and along with everything else I decided I wanted to get this website together before I went. So it's a rushed effort. One of my main incentives was to have something to show to Sai Baba believers. Not that it'll make much difference.
So, I'm flying to Bombay - Mumbai. I don't particularly want to spend much time there but I'll probably give it a few days and then take a train down to south Goa. There's a place down there called Palolem by the sea which sounds nice and dreamy. I'm hoping to do some yoga there and chill out big time. I'll stay as long as I like there.
Then I might visit Sathya Sai Baba's ashram. He was the reason that I went to India in the first place when I was in my twenties. He made a HUGE impression on me. It seems though that he's a fraudster and a paedophile. I'm still hooked into him a little on some level - maybe it's because I want to believe. Reality has a peculiar quality there and it's usually an interesting experience in some ways. There's nothing spiritual about it at all and I'm not too bothered about whether I go or not - I'll just see how things pan out.
I'm also hoping to go to Varanasi which is an ancient holy city of the Hindus. It's the place you always see in documentaries on India: scenes of people bathing in the ghats (stairways which go down into the river Ganges) and burning corpses. I might pop up to Dharamsala which is where the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government in exile reside. And then I'll go to Rishikesh, a holy place further up the Ganges which I've been to before. I'll maybe head up there in late April. It's in the foothills of the Himalayas and according to my guidebook the mountain valleys are filled with meadow flowers at this time. So, we'll see...
I've a notion that it should be possible to enter a state of consciousness which is independent of sleep. I'll probably look into this though it'll involve a degree of discomfort.
My flight is due back on the first of July, in time for some end of term celebrations I hope with my erstwhile colleagues at City of Westminster College.
It looks like maintaining a website isn't one of my top priorities but there we go. Here's some news. I'm 47 years old. A while back I came to the conclusion that there is no longer any excuse for not getting on with my life. It's strange that there should be excuses for not getting on with living but most of us seem to be tyrannised by them. Personally, I blame education - "What will you be when you grow up?". This question always induced some kind of existential dissonance in me. "You mean I'll have to be something different to what I am now? You mean that I'm not actually being until I grow up?" Somehow we're taught to work towards this future. The future will deliver the goods. It's a con, kids! Tomorrow never comes. But most people don't get it! When you "grow up" you have to start worrying about your pension and devoting your life to that. How about that? You can start looking forward to when you're 65. Hey, maybe that's when life really begins! So, kids, next time you're asked by an adult what you want to be when you grow up say, "The same as you - retired!" That's what we're all working towards.
Yuck.
Well, I've managed an uneasy comprimise. I've avoided kids, family, mortgage, etc. My lifestyle seems to change every three or four years after taking some time out. I've sold my soul in the workplace when I've had to though admittedly there have been a lot of benefits besides the financial reward in terms of meeting people and different experiences. For a few years I felt a degree of anxiety about not having enough money. Money seems to be the lifeblood of our society. It's strange that I felt so anxious about money because I now had more of it than I'd ever had before. I suppose the rate at which it seems to evaporate is alarming but I don't remember being bothered by it when I was younger. Maybe because I felt 'looked after', an after-effect of the home environment.
Anyway, as I said, I'm 47 and I'm no longer concerned with what I want to be when I grow up. The future has arrived. It's now! And what I do is what I want to do. I could work for world peace (pullease...) but instead I mosied around Morocco and indulged in India. I made a seismic shift from London at last and am now settled in a little flat in Scarborough. I'm a full-time student at the Scarborough campus of Hull University studying music. This provides me with a necessary external focus and a chance to interact with others. It's a bit strange being the oldest person around. I suspect I'm a lot older than the lecturers. How did I get to be this age? It's a laugh really. I can relax considerably because I now know that most of the things people worry about at different ages are not worth worrying about. There are still challenges to be met. There's a particular trauma (courtesy of my earlier education) that I wanted to overcome and that is being able to play in public. I'm playing bass in a rock band with three of my student colleagues. This has been extremely challenging and I want to thank Jim, Josh and Dave for taking me on board. I'm not at all confident that I'm going to get through this in one piece but there's nothing wrong with giving it a go.