Stuck in the mandala

This is my final paper for the course. I still have to write my 35 page ISP paper on Buddhist pilgrimage which begins next week. But this is the final for the classes I've been taking here. It just so happened that the topic was "What have you learned about India and yourself in this semester that you might put into the context of a pilgrimage quest"...word, thats right up my ISP topic's alley...There was a little more to the question but that should provide enough context for you to know what I'm talking about in the paper.

If you find any errors feel free to send me an e-mail. I'm going to proof read it again tomorrow cause its not due until 5 p.m.

Sidenote: Its diwali here (well, its pre-diwali, starts on friday) and those big aerial firecrackers we call "mortars" back in the states are legal in delhi and indians seem to love them. it sounded like a war zone outside our program house today. I went outside to leave and one was so loud it set a car alarm off. The holiday is still two days away and I literally, in the middle of this sentence just heard another one go off...Storm-ji said you won't believe the amount of smoke...

cool. Despite accidentally lighting myself on fire with gasoline and going to the hospital in 6th grade my inner pyromaniac has yet to be suppressed.

here's my paper:

Jerry Walsh

India: National Identity & the Arts

Dr. Mary Storm

Final Paper

The Way Out is Through

The combination of an intense anxiety disorder and existential angst exacerbated by years of an Occidental perspective left me feeling hopeless in America. After several failed attempts, I finally found an anxiety medication that worked. I began to feel as if my sanity was returning after a year and a half of being strung out, paranoid, and socially inept. An uncomfortable but consistent balance gradually replaced the incessant gnawing caused by tension and stress. However, the inner transformation that occurred from being claustrophobically locked in my head led me to seek out the freedom and adventure I had long associated with the Far East. The pilgrim on a spiritual quest navigating through a labyrinth parallels my experience in India. However, I do not feel as if I entered into the maze upon arriving in Delhi. Rather, coming to India felt as if I had rediscovered what Phil Cousineau in The Art of Pilgrimage describes as, “the clew…that thin string we follow into the darkness—our intuition, our hunches, our dreams” which leads us through the labyrinth back into the essence of being.

I came to India on a leap of faith. I went off my medication at the beginning of the summer and felt more normal with my natural chemical structure than I had in years. However, I was still dealing with an enormous amount of stress and inner conflict. The first weekend in India I found myself aimlessly wandering and I stumbled across Deer Park near Hauz Khaus. A torrential downpour came and I took refuge under a gazebo with several Delhi students my age. They approached me with curiosity and I was forced to socialize for what was going to be an undisclosed amount of time due to the rain. Social interaction had been my greatest stress primer for the past two years due to anxiety and as we began to talk I felt that familiar tension rise up. However, as I awkwardly stuttered and chocked on my words I could see nothing in their faces reminiscent of judgment or even an awareness of my fear. In fact, they did not even react, presumably due to the cultural gap. They continued to ask me questions after several uncomfortable silences and it was then a wave of emotional acceptance came over me as I let go of the fear of rejection I had been holding onto. We talked for nearly two hours and by the end I found myself genuinely laughing for the first time in what felt like years. The rain came to a halt and I returned to the Ashram feeling as if I had confronted and conquered a personal fear that had been consuming me. Now, two months later, only a fraction of that anxiety remains due to the momentum I was able to gain after that initial catalyst in Deer Park.

The mid-semester excursion provided me with another opportunity to confront myself. Being stuck with the entire group on an intimate level for ten days pushed my patience up against the wall. There were several times I wanted to explode on a particular person because I felt as if they were needlessly stressing over a situation that was insignificant. However, their irrational fears reminded me of the countless times I had unnecessarily panicked due to anxiety. As a result, I found myself attempting to communicate with the person, understand why they felt that fear, and then attempt to find a solution to the problem. I believe I simply would have disregarded, criticized, or judged that person for their feelings had I never dealt with anxiety in the past. Pema Chodron states that suffering can lead to a compassionate transformation, “Instead of the evil of more neurosis and harshness, adversity can bring about humility and empathy…more capable of reaching out to others.” This passage has allowed for me to understand my own internal conflict with a clearer perspective. I will be better equipped in finding peace in the moment if I can see my own strife not as an unjust curse, but as sandpaper molding me into a more compassionate person.

I feel I was taught to be appreciative of what I have and understand how lucky I am to be born under the circumstances I was, especially considering the poverty of the world. However, during the trip I have found myself silently complaining over having to wake up early, not having certain food or hot water, and other insignificant issues. I saw a beggar who had lost both his hands when we came back from Kolkata. He walked through the traffic with a tin cup hanging off one of his stumps. Seeing the Taj Mahal or the Ghats of Varanasi are obviously profound experiences and they will be the first things on my list when I tell people of what I saw in India. However, I have found that the seemingly minor things that remain left out of conversations such as the handless beggar have had the largest impact in shaping my perspective. I now try, although not always successfully, to remember that regardless of the difficulty I am facing, I at least am healthy and have all my limbs. Pema Chodron and Shantideva preach rejoicing in what you have when a situation is difficult rather than being swallowed by the negativity. Chodron also suggests that another great practice is to rejoice in the good fortune of others to get out of a negative hole. I thought back on the countless times I have wallowed in self-misery when I read that passage and after several attempts at the practice I can say with confidence it is a better solution than self-loathing.

I chose this program for a number of reasons and Indian architecture was certainly not at the top of the list. However, I surprisingly found myself fascinated with the meaning behind the structural design of Indian temples. The lecture at Khajuraho discussing how the exterior of the temple represents the conscious mind while the interior represents the unconscious mind revolutionized how I perceive architecture. I finally understood the purpose of the temple was to visually convey that one must travel inwards to experience God, which is why the shrine of the deity exists in the dark and tiny temple interior, while the vibrant exterior was plastered in human figures engaging in sexual activity as a surface level attempt of achieving spiritual unity. I also learned to see the internal structure of temples as an attempt to recreate the fluid oneness of the womblike state. Before, I had viewed temples merely as a place of aesthetic worship that only attempted to convey a sense of power and domination over the individual, manipulating the masses to adopt a specific religious narrative as “truth”. I see now that the temple serves more as a tool or road map to enlightenment, encouraging to the individual to seek divinity within themselves.

Phil Cousineau speaks of pilgrimage as being entrenched in archetypal mythology. The mythology surrounding the self and the journey back to the center of creation has been a subject of great interest to me. I remember being intrigued when I heard that every culture has a flood story as depicted on the temple exterior at Khajuraho. The flood symbolizes humanity’s, or the self’s, faulty ways catching up in the form of self-destruction—reap what you sow. As a result, the mind is forced to turn inwards back to God or the center to seek redemption.

This flood story struck a particularly deep cord with me because I could see a parallel between the myth depicted on the temple and my own life. Before I developed an anxiety disorder I was utterly certain I understood life and everything one needed to know. Subsequently, I treated other people as a means to an end and replaced my humanity with judgment a significant portion of the time. When my anxiety began to come on full force the words best used to describe it were suffocating and drowning. It was as if all the judgment I had previously projected outwards could no longer be pushed away and it consumed me. As a result, I found myself being almost involuntarily channeled into Buddhism, Easter philosophy, and spiritual teachings in attempts to alleviate the inner anguish I had caused myself. When I heard that the concept of a flood was present in all cultures it led me to view my anxiety in a different light. The unfolding of the mind is often caused by an erratic disruption of the self and I can now see that my stress served to drive me into what Buddhism refers to as the eternal present which lies deep in the unconscious mind as reflected by the temple’s architecture.

The second element of temple architecture that caught my interest was discussed in the article, The Temple as a Link Between Gods and Man distributed during workshop in Orissa. The article explained how the small entrance of the temple is meant to represent a cave while the large pillar that covers the shrine is seen as a mountain. My subjective interpretation of this is that the cave is a metaphor for the heart chakra, which is often discussed as, “the heart cave” in spiritual texts. The mountain metaphor instantly reminded me of Kundalini yoga and the spinal cord which rests directly behind the heart. The seven chakras run vertically up the spine. It is said that you must first enter your heart chakra to find God and then the activated Kundalini energy explodes from the base of your spine liberating your awareness out through the crown chakra into infinite existence.

My exploration through the internal labyrinth is far from complete. I am ignorant as to where it ends but I am certain that my next great turn in the maze will occur during my Buddhist pilgrimage on ISP. I have found that through the sensory overload of India, emotional stress, and the perpetual re-analysis of my identity that I feel less an American, or a student, or a white male than I do a human being. That identification has facilitated a powerful feeling of connection to people and places that I previously would have labeled as foreign or alien. I could probably write two books, one on what I have seen in India and another on how those experiences have altered my perspective. I have only been here for two months and I am not set to head home to America for another ten months. Phil Cousineau states that the final element in the archetypal quest through the labyrinth once the seeker has found the truth is to “bring back the boon” or wisdom from the experience to give to others. I am oblivious as to what I will be bringing back when I return home but I am confident that it will be something worth sharing.