monkeys and temples

Thunderstorms. Loudest thunder I've ever heard. sounds like cannon fire.

rain stops.

Take a rickshaw to the metro. some lady choses to help me out and gets me a good deal (30 rupees) when some guy tried to charge me 120...which is absurd...

Get to the metro. Roll into Cannuaght place which is the more western shopping center. Eat chinese food. have a worthless milkshake costing 185 rupees. buzzkill is felt all around.

I suggest we check out two temples: Bangla Sahib Gurudwara

http://www.google.co.in/images?client=safari&rls=en&q=Bangla+Sahib+Gurudwara&oe=UTF-8&redir_esc=&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=univ&ei=6fOMTP6tI5CivgPosr3

cBw&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=1&ved=0CCAQsAQwAA&biw=1335&bih=709

and Lakshmi Narayan Mandir

http://www.google.co.in/images?client=safari&rls=en&q=Lakshmi%20Narayan%20Mandir&oe=UTF-8&redir_esc=&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=og&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wi&biw=1335&bih=709

Gurudawara is Delhi's largest Sikh temple. I really enjoyed visiting this place...

actually let me step back.

while we were walking there a homeless kid came up to us and his leg was all fucked up. he had a gnarly scab on it that was bleeding and it looked like he got the shit kicked out of him as his head appeared to be caked in dried blood. We didn't want to give him cash (as we were told this money doesn't go them but the person running them..kinda like a pimp) so we gave him our remaining chinese food and the kid just chucked it away and wouldn't leave us alone. we started walking away and he kept trying to grab our arms. to make an insensitive comment it was like the night of living dead cause this kid (13-15 yrs old) was all fucked up and limping and like grabbing us (not in a threatening way tho, just in a way to get attention) . after a few minutes he quit but it was like...man....what am i supposed to do about this? we gave you food and you threw it away and i cant give you money..

apparently one the girls said that she thought what he was trying to tell us was that this happened to him because he didnt have money to give his pimp guy. so i felt pretty terrible but samsara sucks, so yeah.

While walking to the temples we see lots of monkeys. first time seeing monkeys. i smile and pictures are taken by all.

when we reach the temple a husband asks if his wife can have a picture with us. she laughs and we happily accept. its fun being an attraction.

We get to the temple its pretty awesome. we remove our shoes cover our heads and head inside. While walking to the place where you drop your shoes off theres a dude with Korn t-shirt and I'm just like fuck yeah. but i was too self-conscious to say anything to him. I now regret not having my picture taken with him.

Theres a guard there dressed in robes and he has a spear and arabian dagger for security when we reach the door.

Its cool. Theres indian drum music playing everywhere and several tombs where people are kissing the floor and lots of people sitting around the main tomb praying.

There is something about being barefoot on a wet marble floor in an Indian temple that transports you to a higher spiritual level.

We get outside the temple and there's a courtyard where a giant pool is; people are gathering water, washing their hands, feet, and entire bodies. Very cool. Very India. More feels good man.

I dip my hands and feet in the water and notice that there are giant coy fish all over (like 3-4 feet). Pretty interesting place. A bunch of (presumably) naked guys wearing only turbans are bathing across the river.

As we head out some guy starts talking to me (this happens a lot) and I tell him all about what we're doing and I give my e-mail and he promises to email me some cool places to go in India. We namaste (indian version aloha) and peace out.

We head towards the Hindi temple Mandir. I enjoyed this temple in some ways more than the Sikh temple because they had tons of brilliant art work depicting the journey spiritual transcendence and the scripture was in both hindi and english so i could understand it all which was awesome. Talking about oneness, nirvana, and the divine nature of the self. all that cool stuff which I really enjoy.

I walked up to the priest, bowed and in return he did the red dot on my forehead symbolizing the recognition of the third eye. The third eye is a chakra (a chakra is an energy center in the human body) that exists right on the forehead. When you open you're third eye you no longer perceive the world as a place of subject (I) and object (it/them) rather, you see the universe as a collective, cohesive whole flowing through the self where everything is a boundless extension of the self.

The third is synonymous with awakening. Once opened, your mind/consciousness can travel through the third eye leaving through the crown chakra which exists outside of the body ( the only one to do so) where you become free of worldly attachments, time, space, form and ego (nirvana).

Western religion is linear. Time starts and has an end. Eastern religion is circular. Time is a single eternal moment and change occurs in cycles (from our perception). This means heaven is literally meant to be found in this moment and only in this moment (here n now). The idea of samsara is that your mind is attached to an endless cycle of incarnations and you are perpetual death and re-birth. Only by liberating your mind from the false illusion of ego and enter into nirvana where you eternally exist beyond time/space can you be free from samsara and thus suffering. God is within seems to be the message of eastern religion while Western religion loves to push god away from humans and turn "it" into a egotistical father figure which makes no sense.

I'm going to have to write a large ass post on my contempt for western religion...that will come soon... so im going to cut this part short on this post...

so the hindu temple was very cool. We went into the garden behind the temple and this was weird. it was like a religious garden combined with elements of a playground (big cartoonish animals in parts) and a flashing weight machine that looked like it belonged at a shitty carnival. Then there were monuments to religious figures and historical monuments...weird....

something also weird: every restaurant and coffee shop in Delhi plays intense house techno music....like shit you would here at a rave or a club. its really out of place. a coffee shop? really? aren't you only supposed to here douche bag acoustic guitarists complain about their lost love and broken down volvo in those places? instead I have paul oakenfold blasting hardcore bass and synths while I order a muffin.

After the hindu temple we visit the buddhist temple next door and meditate for 10-15 minutes on a really uncomfortable floor while a buddhist monk does some very heady chanting and blesses a shrine. My friend Kyle can get into full lotus. I'm impressed.

I open my eyes and turn around and a stray sheep-esque dog has decided to come into the temple (its one room, very small) and is rolling around on the floor on its back looking really fucking happy and just loving life. I laugh and make some clicking noises with my tongue towards him while i walk out and he starts rolling around again. hilarious.

I see another beggar who can't stand because his leg is so fucked up. He crawls on the muddy sidewalk with his hands asking for change. I am glad I have legs that work and money.

We get ice cream, again. It disappoints me, again. But I still have legs that work and money so i find a way to let it go without getting upset.

On the way out a man offers to sell me hashish. I turn it down. I quit smoking a while ago since marijuana makes me paranoid and the idea of smoking super potent THC oil seems like a really bad fucking idea. Especially in this country where everyone actually is staring at me.

Kurt Cobain said, just cause your paranoid don't mean there not after you. This would certainty be the case if i smoked weed over here and I enjoy whatever fragment of sanity i have left.

On the Metro ride home a guy starts up a conversation with me. We talk for a good while. Apparently he's 45 and still a student, going to London for business school. This relates back to my last post about indian cultural child raising stages.

side note: metaphors are worthless compared to the raw or maybe im just too lazy to write something with depth...

football tonight. hopefully i can watch it online as baltimore is looking to make a super bowl run.