I feel compelled to preface this blog with a warning of sorts. Quite often I begin writing a blog with one theme in mind and then something else captures my imagination so I end up going off on a tangent and ranting about something else, often entirely unrelated to the initial theme. This sometimes happens because I’m writing a blog over a period of days and during this period my interests and feelings change and consequently so does the tone of the blog.
I started writing this blog a couple of days after I arrived in McLeod Ganj. I did not complete it until two weeks later when I was a few hundred kilometres away in Manali. A lot happened in that two week period. Initially I was delighted to be back in McLeod Ganj, I felt inspired and was enthusiastic about the prospect of getting stuck into a five day yoga course – it was an opportunity to establish a daily routine of physical exercise, practice some meditation techniques and (perhaps most importantly) meet some people and make some friends.
When I started writing this blog it was going to be about my love of McLeod Ganj and my desire to start enjoying a healthier lifestyle there, a lifestyle which I could hopefully transfer back to England or wherever else my travels took me. As time progressed the theme began to evolve as I met people and became more involved in McLeod’s social scene. I began to make friends and spent evenings in restaurants talking about yoga and meditation and all the associated things that so many people in McLeod Ganj are interested in. To start with I was quite engaged, but I as time went on I became increasingly detached because, it seemed to me, I was always on the outside looking in.
In the end I was left feeling quite cynical about the nature of the place and some of the people I encountered. I had to leave in order to finish this blog because while I was there I was too close to my subject matter. I was too involved. I was emotional and subjective, and I was angry, which is a rather dangerous thing to be when you’re talking about religion and spirituality, where passions fly, enemies are made and battles are fought and won – or lost.
I was always on the outside looking in..? I was too close to my subject matter..?
Looking at the language in which I have chosen to express myself here, it would seem clear that I had trouble connecting with the people I met in McLeod Ganj. Perhaps that was because we had little common ground, or maybe it was because I was too circumspect - I maintained an almost professional distance from the people I came into contact with. After all, the reason I am ultimately here is to write, not make friends. Certainly I have to accept some responsibility for not fitting into the scene in McLeod, but that doesn’t mean the arguments I put forward in this blog are not valid.
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Until a couple of days ago I was chilling halfway up a mountain in the village of Bhagsu which is right next door to the small but well known town of McLeod Ganj in the state of Himachal Pradesh in the north west of India. McLeod Ganj (named after David McLeod and Forsyth Ganj, the British Colonial officers who chose the spot for their troops to settle in the 1850's) is 1700 metres above sea level and situated on steep hillsides on the south western edge of the Himalaya mountains. Every morning I look out of my window and take in the awesome spectacle of mighty Triund – at 2900 metres it’s a modest mountain in comparison to Everest (8900 metres) far to the east but nonetheless it’s still a thrill to see it’s snow-capped peak with sleepy eyes in the early morning light. It reminds me how lucky I am to be out here.
McLeod Ganj is famously the home of the top dog of Tibetan Buddhism - His Holiness the Fourteenth Dali Lama of Tibet, Tenzin Gyatso, and his entourage, which comprises hundreds of monks and thousands of refugees who have settled here. After China invaded Tibet in 1950 things got steadily worse for Tibetan Buddhism (and for Tibet in general, funnily enough) and eventually the Dali Lama had little choice but to flee into exile, or else face the the very real prospect of having his religion wiped out. So, in March of 1959, the Dali Lama snuck out of Lhasa in the dead of night and crossed the Himalaya mountains into India, arriving in McLeod Ganj fourteen days later. Here he has settled and here he fights in earnest for freedom to return to his homeland.
This part of India in particular is well known for attracting westerners on a spiritual trip. Rishikesh, which is only a few hundred kilometres to the south, is the place where the Beatles met their guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in 1967. The four of them hung out together in Rishikesh for a while, playing sitars, growing facial hair and receiving instruction from their guru (and in due course being manipulated by him). Paul and Ringo saw sense and went home, John and George stayed. Eventually the remaining Beatles and their wives fell out with Mahesh and joined their fellow band members in the Abbey Road studios where they recorded the self-titled LP which is popularly referred to as The White Album. The rest, as they say, is history.
There are ashrams all over India which are frequented by westerners, Rishikesh is particularly well known for it’s yoga schools and McLeod Ganj in particular is a focal point for spiritual and philosophical activity – for obvious reasons; Buddhism is becoming increasingly popular among individuals disillusioned with the empty materialism of western culture and this relatively small town is now the (temporary) home of Tibetan Buddhism – which, you may already know, is only one denomination of the Buddhist faith which is paracticed widely throughout Asia. Thailand is predominantly Buddhist but the particular version of the faith practiced by the Thai people does not recognise the sanctity of the Dali Lama.
I don’t know why. If I’m being entirely honest with you, I don’t much care. I could do the research, but research has never been my strong point, you should be grateful I bothered looking up the name of The Beatles’ guru. I hope I spelt it right. Just look at it this way, The Church of England doesn’t rate The Pope because, among other things, he doesn’t rate contraception. I’m sure it’s a similar deal with Tibetan Buddhism and Thai Buddhism, though it’s unlikely that this particular scism relates to birth control.
While I’m perhaps more interested in spiritual matters than a lot of my friends, I do not share the intense, sometimes almost pathological interest exhibited by so many of the people I’ve come into contact with recently. Basically, it’s all a bit mad and I’m starting to feel a bit out of place here. It’s strange and it’s difficult to explain. I also know that in attempting to I will be treading on dangerous ground because, in expressing my point of view, I’m bound to upset a few people. I wouldn’t have a problem with that if I wasn’t still quite confused about the whole thing myself, but despite this concern I’m going to go ahead and say what I want to say – there’s nothing wrong with stimulating a healthy debate is there?
Well, I think I’d better start at the beginning.
I was in McLeod Ganj last year, but only for a short time because I was coming towards the end of my time in India and I still had quite a lot of places I wanted to visit - Rajisthan for example, which is not to be missed! I was here then in the month of March, when the Dali Lama was concluding two weeks of annual public discourses. I was profoundly affected by the place. It seemed to me as though the town and the surrounding villages and countryside was charged with a powerful and palpable energy. I made connections here within myself and with other people. The vague philosophy which I had been gradually inventing for myself during months in India and Nepal suddenly took form and solidified. I perceived the hand of fate in everything. Magic seemed to shroud the entire valley and when I left I felt that I had to return no matter what.
With some regret I confess that I now have a much more rational take on things. I did return to McLeod Ganj in hope that the place would give me a spiritual boost but unfortunately it hasn’t and my feeling about the place has become much more cynical – not because I didn’t get what I came for but because it seems to me now that the place could never have given me what I needed in the first place, which begs the question, what exactly was I feeling the last time I was here?
I had been in India for three months. I felt like I was in tune with the country – if only on a relatively superficial level - but that’s enough I think, it’s enough to begin to sense the steady rhythm of India’s heartbeat, to start to understand what makes the country’s spirit tick. When one billion souls crammed into one country all believe in one god or another, when one billion prayers settle on the psychic plane that surrounds you every single day, then you feel it. There is an energy here that I haven’t experienced anywhere else. It’s irrefutable. But then, I did not take into account my own energy at the point I arrived in McLeod Ganj last year. After a tough season in India and particularly after a week alone in Kashmir - a week spent desperately trying to avoid a sense of crushing loneliness and fear, a week where faith was the only thing I had to hold on to - arriving in a place as warm, friendly and secure as McLeod Ganj was inevitably a profound, healing experience.
I’m not in that place now. I have spent the last two and half months cruising around Australia, Thailand and Goa. The toughest journey I’ve taken in all that time I was lying down in a spacious sleeper compartment for twelve hours, feeling sorry for myself because I had a headache and my painkillers were in my big bag, inacessible on the roof. India has not worn me down. It has not made me vulnerable and insecure. But look at it from another point of view – I have not been here long enough for India to open me up. I have not had enough time to adjust to it, to allow my heart to start ruling my head and to go totally with the flow… perhaps this is the reason I eventually found myself running into trouble in McLeod Ganj.
As I am sure is true with many people, I have a certain duality in my character. On the one hand I’m interested in spirituality, in philosophy, in furthering my understanding of myself and the world in which I live and I desire purity in my mind, body and soul. On the other hand I’m cynical and ignorant, shallow and debaucherous, I seek immediate gratification and tend towards self-destruction through the pleasures of the flesh. Mostly I balance these two aspects but every once in a while I go from one extreme to the other.
After a week in McLeod Ganj I found that I had come to a new balance – I had achieved (temporarily, at least) some measure of purity in my mind and body through yoga practice and abstinence from cigarettes, alchohol, meat and cannabis. I felt more perceptive, creative and clear-headed than I had been in a long time, and yet I still maintained my cynical attitude, an attitude which manifested itself as an increasingly vocal scepticism in direct proportion to the amount of new age philosophy I was having to listen to.
As well as being a popular place for westerners looking to discover some measure of truth and a sense of identity amidst the confusing myriad of alternative philosophical and spirital practices which are becoming increasingly popular in modern society, McLeod Ganj is also a favourite for those wanting to get high all day on cheap, strong hashish. Many combine both pastimes – their journey to spiritual enlightenment is often much quicker, in every sense: once they’ve arrived I suspect it doesn’t take very long for them to lose their way again. In my experience smoking cannabis can offer incredible insights – unfortunately the following day what you can remember in invariably nonsense.
The majority of travellers here smoke hashish - or charris, as it’s more commonly called. This puts me in a position which is unique in my experience – I am a non-smoker in a minority amongst smokers. I quit smoking cigarettes three weeks ago, and while I have no violent objections to cannabis in principle, I see little point in quitting one carcinogenic inhalent and not another. I know I’m in danger of becoming one of those despicable ex-smoker hypocrites, but despite that, I can’t help being a bit sceptical of individuals who are searching for truth while at the same time reaching for a spliff.
You could argue that drugs like cannabis and mushrooms enhance our experience of reality - they help to pull down the curtain between our conscious and unconscious minds and increase our awareness to the extent that we can begin to see beyond the limited spectrum of normal human perception… alternatively you could argue that they just twist your brain and make you see crazy shit. I’m on the fence in this debate. I experiment with drugs as a means to expand my mind but I also do it because it’s a lot of fun and I like getting twisted. I am, in my own way, searching for cosmic truth, but I’m not teaching others how to find it, and I know enough to realise that cannabis is at best a distraction, at worst a psychologically damaging addiction. To be frank I find it absurd that a supposed spiritual teacher can justify being stoned all the time, or advocate getting high as a means to attain enlightment – that sounds to me suspiciously like a drug addict in denial bordering on a drug pusher.
This sounds quite harsh I know, but when you’re surrounded by stoned hippies judging that there’s something wrong with you because you dress like a normal human being, that you’re too intellectual and should therefore engage in any one of a dozen meditative practices, then I think harshness is kind of justified. Too intellectual? What does that mean? Too clever to sit around all day getting stoned? Intelligent enough to embrace soap rather than persistently dodge it?
I am prepared to accept the possibility that all this self-righteous anger is fuelled by insecurity because I know deep down that I will find some greater truth inside myself if I embark on a ten day meditation retreat. If that’s the case then when my eyes are finally opened I will eat my words and promptly pack myself off to Vipassana.
For those that don’t know, Vipassana is the most extreme method of meditation that I’ve encountered, requiring that you spend ten days in a meditation centre without talking, reading, writing or engaging in any other pastime other than contemplation and only meditation which is based on the methods taught in the centre. People rave about it. Someone I met even did three courses in a row. Thirty days of silence and meditation - think of that the next time you get bored in the supermarket checkout queue! Even Jesus struggled with that kind of isolation!
Some of you will already know that during the months leading up to my arrival in India I spent some quite considerable time thinking about going on a Vipassana meditation retreat. Not long after arriving in McLeod Ganj I decided that it wasn’t for me. The longer I spent there, the more secure I felt in my decision, simply because I didn’t get the right vibes from the people I spoke to who had already done one. Now my opinon has been concreted. No – I take that back, I’m open to the possibility that my opinion may change, but right now this is what I think: I accept that after ten days existing in those kinds of solitary conditions I am going to feel pretty fucking amazing returning to the real world. What I don’t accept is that the experience will ultimately leave me much changed, although when it comes to a practice as extreme as this, I cannot judge – I have no basis for comparison. Certainly the people I met who had done a Vipassana did not seem any more enlightened than anyone else with a reasonable level of intelligence and an interest in philosophy.
However, everyone is different. We all benefit from different experiences. I have no doubt that this kind of meditation helps a lot of people. I have simply made the informed decision not to do it because I don’t think it will particularly benefit me. For this reason I feel utterly patronised by people who insist otherwise. I am on my own peculiar journey towards self-realisation, as is every other human being on the planet. Some are actively persuing it, devoting all their energies to experiencing enlightenment as soon as possible. Others are content to live their lives in the persuit of simple happiness without asking of themselves any complicated or challenging questions. Some go to church on a Sunday, a synagogue on a Saturday, a mosque five times a day every day. Others, like me, are on their own journey, one that requires no influence from anything or anyone, save God alone.
I meditate in the sunshine, in the forest, in the embrace of the ocean. I contemplate in the pub, in the office, in the bedroom. I need no method, no ideology, no guru in order to experience peace and perspective. I exist in my heart and my head in equal balance as do we all – like many people I’m just better at communicating with one rather than the other. I am in no particular hurry to discover the meaning of life – I figure it’s a lifetime’s persuit and I hope I have many years of growth in wisdom and maturity in order to get a little closer to an understanding of my place in the universe. I’ll settle for that.
I’ll finish with a conversation I overheard in an internet café. This sort of sums up what I mean when I say I’m sceptical about the kind of spirituality that is practiced in McLeod Ganj. So, a woman walks into the cafe and the Indian managing the place says…
- Hi, how are you?
- Not good. I’m leaving.
- Leaving? Why?
- People here don’t take my [insert name of alternative spiritual practice here] seriously. It’s like beating my head against a brick wall.
- Oh. I’m sorry to hear that.
- Yes. I’m going home. The energy in New York is so much more positive.
- Um, New York..?
People here are always talking about energy - this place has good energy or this person has bad energy, this crystal energises this chakra or this position energises that one. I’ve talked about it already in this blog. It strikes me that it’s all relative. Positive and negative, like good and bad, are relative concepts. I’m sure New York, in it’s own way, has powerful energy! But is that energy any better or worse than that which you would find in Leamington Spa, for example? Or McLeod Ganj or Mecca or Jerusalem? In the end, this relativity means that none of us can judge another, we’re all unique and special little flowers, islands incomprehensible to each other.
I know I’m going on a bit now but I find this very interesting - what does it mean, not to judge? I felt judged by hippies when I was in McLeod Ganj. At times I felt written off by people in an instant – and I confess I did the same thing myself. There was one occasion when a chap lost interest in me as soon as I said I had only just started practicing yoga. I asked him what he thought of McLeod Ganj and he said it was like paradise. I had to stop myself from asking him if he had noticed the rivers of shit running down the mountainside.
I’ve also done my fair share of hippie judging here in this blog. It’s in our nature to judge, how else can we make decisions about people? If we don’t judge the people we meet how can we contextualise them? How can we relate to them and enable them to relate to us in a way we can both understand? The problem is that we judge and then we stop. We don’t go back and re-assess. It happens all the time, based on our first impressions we put people we don’t understand into a little box with a neat little label and then we immediately forget about them. Loathe though I am to keep coming back to the hippies, in the course of the last four decades they have been judged by the mainstream as much as any subculture. I guess I thought this would mean that they would be more open-minded.
I guess I thought I was more open-minded, but what does open-minded mean anyway? Open to new ideas? Open to influence? Open to possibility? It’s another relative concept, isn’t it? An open mind isn’t necessarily a healthy mind. A closed mind isn’t necessarily an ignorant one.
View my McLeod Ganj photographs
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