October 23, 2010

I thought my adventures in Nepal were over, but Umesh showed up bright and early with a special plan for my last day. First, we went for a pot of chai tea at my favorite restaurant, Moon Dance. Then, we went up in the mountains to visit the Peace Pagoda. After the nuclear bombs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a Japanese Buddhist made a plan to build 100 Peace Pagodas all over the world. Siddhartha was born in Nepal, and he wanted to build one in Pokhara to honor his beginning. They began construction in 1973, but the government came and destroyed it. For 18 years, the Buddhist kept a vigil and, finally, in 1992, they began again with the help of a new prime minister who came to lay the first stones. They completed it in 1999. Because I always make the peace sign in photos, Umesh wanted to take me to pray for world peace. I chanted one hundred and eight Om Padme Hum Rei, the chant of the Dalai Lama. Then, I sang three songs of peace and meditated for a little while. 

As a child, we would close every mass with “Let there be Peace on earth.” The Vietnam War was raging in my youth and in the first grade, I thought that if we sang the song with enough conviction it would end the war. By the time I was in the third grade, I did not understand why it had not worked. I felt discouraged until, when I was 13, the war finally ended and the soldiers returned. The song has always been near to my heart and all these years later, here at the 71st pagoda, I felt the same conviction that if we could all find peace in our hearts the end of all wars and strife would happen in my lifetime. In Nepal, peace seems attainable, and I have learned to find true stillness in meditation. 

I thought about the fast pace of the modern world and how being driven for the sake of money adds to the chaos that lends energy to the momentum of war. I thought about the observations that Havani shared yesterday about how television fuels the fear of Americans. So my meditation went very deep. So many people come to this place to sightsee. Everyone stops to take a picture but never stops to pray. I believe in the power of prayer and felt that my stillness in this place could magnify my prayers. My personal conviction to hold the lessons of Nepal when I return to America is my way of honoring this dream of worldwide peace, compassion and kindness.

One of my wishes here in Nepal was to connect with the Pan Era of Earth Honoring ways. Umesh delivered the answer to that prayer when we stopped at the most famous waterfall in the area, called Patale Chango. Here the veneration of Shiva is animistic. There were several ancient shrines made by the first people. We visited a cave called Gupteshwor where the waterfall descends 500 meters into the earth. Here in the womb of Mother Earth, I felt the deep reverence for life. We were not allowed to take photos of the massive shrine for Shiva. The 5-headed snake named Nag wrapped itself around the symbol of the Phallus and the Yoni that tells the story of saving the earth from annihilation. My research about the symbolism of Shiva gave me a deeper understanding as I noted all of the symbols depicted in the many shrines in this wonderful natural space. I tossed a coin into the wishing well of Manakamana, the Goddess that fulfills wishes and desires. I felt the sincerity of my actions as I watched my coin drift down to the bottom of the well. Something in my soul stirs at the sight of the beginnings of conscious awareness. 

Returning to these early understandings of cosmology is a way of coming full circle. As we sit perched on the leafing edge of the dawning of a New Age, what we think, how we feel and what we do to expand our own awareness matters. The level of conscious awareness that each individual attains is how we make the shift. It is not in the doing, it is in simply becoming aware of the fullness of life in every action. Learning to meditate in the midst of every day life is what liberates our consciousness. What a precious gift it is to be here at this time in history as humanity prepares to take this leap in our evolution. Like the shifts that have preceded, time factors in the process. Gradually, people moved from foraging to cultivation. From agriculture to industrialization and the development of technologies that free us from manual labor to Globalization. Surely, the fruit of having machines that do the work for us is to create more time and space for consciousness to evolve. It is as simple as becoming aware that we are aware.

Shiva has been known from the beginning of the beginning. He is an avatar returning to the Earth to help us come to the great understanding that we are more than our mind and the thoughts that litter it. Are we willing to lose the attachment to the concept of self as separate? Are we prepared to embrace wholeness and our place within it? The gift of traveling to other cultures is the vantage point it gives us on our own. Finding a little distance gives us new perspectives. I remember seeing the first pictures taken from the vantage point of the moon. It was my first insight into this sense of Oneness. One beautiful round jewel spinning through space.  The view of consciousness is beyond gravity, galaxies and the many universes. It is the power of Om creating itself in every direction to infinity. Each of us has the capacity to know the all that is when we connect to the gestalt found in the intelligence of the heart.