This is an account of a journey taken in India. The destination is the source of the Ganges, the holy and most famous of Indian rivers. It is a physical journey, involving train rides across the vast plains and passages on foot far into snow-covered valleys and mountains. It is also a spiritual journey, taking a man deep into the heart and soul of the ancient religious culture of India.

Stephen Alter, who was born in the Himalayan foothills, crosses many miles, and several millennia, to search for the source of Indian religion. Along the way, as he reaches one holy spot after another, meeting grounds for pilgrims, remote towns, and forgotten temples, he delves into the myths and traditions of an antique land. He explores the tales of heroic derring-do, evil and good, and recounts the great stories of death, warfare, passions, and sacred wisdom that animate the vibrant history and religious traditions of India. As every pilgrim learns, a spiritual search involves travel but ultimately returns to the inner self. Sacred Waters is a richly told narrative of a beautiful land and of a man's interior journey, and is for readers everywhere who seek to plumb their own spiritual sources.

Stephen Alter was born and raised in the Garhwal Himalayas. "From childhood I have had a fascination for these mountains and for the flora and fauna of this region. Hindu mythology associated with the river Ganga has always held a personal significance for me," Alter explains. "The mountainous landscape of Garhwal is rich in lore and legend, just as its lush forests are full of animals, reptiles, birds, and insects. In this presentation I will discuss the many ways in which this natural world and the world of spiritual imagination are entwined."

From Publishers Weekly

In his latest travel memoir, Alter (Amritsar to Lahore) tracks the inexorable path of "progress" and various human responses to it. Progress is embodied in the roads and new dams that exist where before there were only footpaths for Hindus traveling to the "four main sources of the Ganga a journey known as the Char Dham Yatra." The once arduous mountain pilgrimage used to take devout Hindus up to four months, but now, in public buses or air-conditioned coaches, it might take a couple of weeks. Alter begins his journey on foot, traveling through the Himalayas, in whose foothills he was born. Seeing himself not as a mountaineer but as a pilgrim who "becomes one with this terrain," undertaking "tapasya," Hindu for surviving on "whatever the forest provides," Alter, writer-in-residence at MIT, describes political, socioeconomic and ecological changes in the terrain and people he encounters. One man calls a series of dams in Tehri "temples of the future," while another describes the same as "sacrilege, modern technology obstructing the inexorable current of a holy river." Well-versed in Hindu mythology, Alter (an atheist, himself) infuses the book with spiritual tales. It was the author's goal to evoke a fast disappearing way of life and topography, to show spiritual interests eclipsed by material ones. With vivid descriptions of the many people, villages, dharamshalas, shrines, ashrams and Indian customs so foreign and seemingly inaccessible to most Westerners, Alter achieves this end, portraying a landscape before it is effectively trampled by what is called "progress."

In his 20s and on the verge of suicide, Eckhart Tolle had an awakening that changed his life (and the lives of many others) forever. Hopefully we don’t have to get to that point before we experience such an awakening. Reading author and spiritual teacher Tolle’s A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose is surely a step in the right direction.

The main purpose of the book is to bring about a shift in consciousness in the reader, an inner flowering, an awakening that largely centers on transcending the ego. A shift in collective consciousness, which builds bit by bit as each individual’s consciousness shifts, is more critical now than ever because science and technology have allowed the destructive impact that our human dysfunction has on the planet to become perilously dangerous. Unfortunately, you can’t just will yourself into changing. Tolle points out that ‘You do not become good by trying to be good, but by finding the goodness that is already within you, and allowing that goodness to emerge.”

If you read the book with an open mind and heart, and if you are ready to face the truth, it will have a profound effect on you. Tolle uses many stories from his own experiences to highlight the points he is trying to make, which helps to make his ideas more concrete. The author himself admits, however, that for some, the book will be meaningless. If that is the case he says, then you are not ready to make the shift….put it on a shelf and maybe in a few years you will be ready.

Most of Tolle’s ideas are not really new. The astute yogi will recognize many of the concepts and ideas from ancient yogic and Tantric philosophy. Tolle’s gift seems to be his ability to take those concepts and relate them to our world today, in a brutally honest fashion that makes them understandable and accessible.

Check out Oprah’s series of 10 podcasts where she and Tolle discuss the 10 chapters of A New Earth. Download them free from Oprah.com’s Spirit Channel in iTunes.

Namaste

Mark Barone

A ten series course on how to live more fully present, each part an hour and a half long. Oprah has made this series available for free and thus making it accessible to millions of people all around the world. The words of wisdom conveyed and the fact that people from Russia, to New Zealand, to China, to Iceland have listened and continue to listen and learn how to live more peaceful and loving lives is awe inspiring. You can go to Itunes

This is the direct link. http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=275144300

or Oprah’s website.

http://www.oprah.com/article/oprahsbookclub/anewearth/pkganewearthwebcast/20080130_obc_webcast_download

“The One Thing”

by Eckhart Tolle

In the Gospel story of Mary and Martha, Jesus says to Martha, “You are anxious and troubled about many things, but only one thing is needful.” (Luke 10:41)

As I was writing A New Earth, people would sometimes ask me, “What is the new book about?”  And invariably, my answer would be, “I only ever write or speak about one thing.”  What is that one thing?  Spiritual awakening.  Can a person be awakened spiritually by a book?  Yes, if three conditions are met:

Firstly, there must be a readiness on the part of the reader, an openness, a receptivity to spiritual truth, which is to say, a readiness to awaken.  For the first time in history of humanity, large numbers of people have reached that point of readiness, which explains why millions have responded so deeply to The Power of Now.

Secondly, the text must have transformative power.  This means the words must have come out of the awakened consciousness rather than the accumulated knowledge of a person’s mind.  Only then will a text be charged with that power, a power that goes far beyond the informational value of the words.  That is why such a book can be read again and again and lose none of its aliveness.

Thirdly, the terminology used needs to be as neutral as possible so that it transcends the confines of any one culture, religion, or spiritual tradition.  Only then will it be accessible to a broad range of readers world-wide, regardless of cultural background.

All these conditions were met in The Power of Now, which is why the book has had such an impact on the collective consciousness.

Why write another book?

Since the publication of The Power of Now, I have given hundreds of talks and teaching sessions all over the world, and in the course of those seven years, the teaching evolved.  While the essence remained the same (The Truth is timeless.), new perspectives arose, new signposts, alternative approaches to the Truth, as well as an added sense of urgency.  A New Earth reflects this evolution and this urgency.

If The Power of Now worked for you and changed your life – as it did for countless people all over the world – there is no need for you to read A New Earth (although you may enjoy reading it and may find some of it helpful in recognizing the ego and thus sustaining the state of Presence).

My feeling is that A New Earth will make the teaching (the one thing) accessible to an even wider audience, including people who perhaps would not have dreamt of reading a “spiritual” book but have within them a hitherto unrecognized longing for spiritual awakening.

A New Earth will also be extremely helpful for those who read The Power of Now, found it interesting, but somehow missed the essence of it.  It presents them with new perspectives on the same truth, new signposts, pointers towards Presence.  Different pointers work for different people.

Millions are now ready to awaken because spiritual awakening is not an option anymore, but a necessity if humanity and the planet are to survive.  Everything is speeding up – the madness, the collective egoic dysfunction, as well as the arising of the new consciousness, the awakening.

We are running out of time.  From the perspective of the ego, that’s bad news and will give rise to fear.  From a higher perspective, the running out of time is exactly what is needed for the new consciousness to come into this world.

In The Art of Joyful Living, Swami Rama imparts a message of inspiration and optimism: that you are responsible for making your life happy and emanating that happiness to others. This book shows you how to maintain a joyful view of life even in difficult times.

Contains sections on transforming habit patterns, working with negative emotions, developing strength and willpower, developing intuition, spirituality in loving relationships, learning to be your own therapist, understanding the process of meditation, and more!

Excerpt:
"Your culture teaches you to smile at others, but such smiles are only momentary and do not reflect your real feelings. Actually, there should be a perennial and real smile on your face all the time. To achieve that, you should have a clear concept of the meaning of life, and the philosophy of life. Then, you will start to live on a deeper level, and will begin to enjoy your life…When you understand your real responsibility in life, you'll know that every human being is responsible to make his life happy, and then to emanate that happiness to others…"

From Mark…

I picked up a copy of The Art of Joyful Living by Swami Rama in a little bookstall in Rishikesh⎯the town in Northern India that is often called the world yoga capital. It sat on my bookshelf for some long while, until one day I started reading it….and I have not really stopped since. It is the kind of book you can just pick up, flip randomly to any page, and come away with something useful in life, just by reading a few paragraphs. The book is, as the title suggests, all about the art of joyful living, and like mastering any craft, living joyfully takes some time, effort, tools, and practice. In this little book, Swami Rama covers a wide array of topics, including emotions, desires, willpower, wisdom, and the spirituality of loving relationships, and provides us with tools that can help us to live more joyfully.

Tantra teaches us to live in the world, but not to be of the world, in other words, to enjoy life, but at the same time not be attached to all that is worldly. Most of us are taught about, and spend our lives dealing with the external world, but few devote much time to thinking about or working to understand their internal reality. This is where Swami Rama⎯one of the greatest Tantric sages of our time⎯takes us, and this book helps us to explore that inner reality. Swami Rama tells use that happiness is our own creation, that each and every one of us is responsible for making our own life happy, and that we are all capable of being joyful, no matter what circumstances we find ourselves in. In fact, everything we need is already inside of us…that is what he helps us to discover in this book.

If you are interested in learning to lead a happier and more peaceful and joyous life, then The Art of Joyful Living is a book for you. Don’t be discouraged by the occasional passage that is difficult to read or hard to understand. There are plenty of things that will make sense to anyone who reads this book, and if you are like me, the more you read the more you will understand.

Namaste
Mark Barone
 

A Study of the Ramayana and Shantaram

How does someone write about a country of one billion people speaking hundreds of languages, practicing all of the world’s major religions? How does someone write about a people that in the words of Thomas Friedman, “Hold regular free and fair elections and despite massive poverty, still produce generations of doctors and engineers who help make the world a more productive peaceful place.”

It is very easy to mythologize about India. I’ve been there four times and it’s the only place that I know of where around every corner, something magical is happening. At 636 pages and 933 pages respectively, the Ramayana and “Shantaram” by Gregory David Roberts are two heroic tales wrought in the language of love. Judging from these two texts, I’d say that perhaps the only way to really write about India is to open your heart and take your time.

Thousands of years old, the Ramayana is an ageless cultural map of India/ nothing in that country today could exist without it. Even though today’s Westerners can look to Shantaram as a key to unlock some of India’s secrets (and if they choose, take a peak at some of their own!) billions of spiritual aspirants through history have sought out the Ramayana as a sacred blueprint of God.

Shantaram is a loosely autobiographical story of a man that escapes jail in Australia and opens a free clinic in a Bombay slum. Along the way he manages to fall in love, serve in the Indian mafia, run guns to Afghanistan, and at the novel’s finish, own the name given to him, “Shantaram, Man of Peace.”  While the subject matter may differ, for example, in the Ramayana, we encounter the majesty of King Rama, and in Shantaram, we almost taste the city of Bombay, reading each, I was taken on a trip, transported out of my everyday experience and shot into the fantastic. Whether I was reading an invocation to Ayodhya in the Ramayana, or a love letter to a Bombay slum in Shantaram, I felt as if I was being taken on a pilgrimage.

To be clear, the Ramayana isn’t really about India. It is about King Rama and the world of Dharma. And Shantaram isn’t really about Bombay. It is about the self-realization of the man known as Shantaram. Yet, ultimately, both works describe and are about a state of mind. Both works open doors to a place that a reader can enter. Because the Ramayana and Shantaram portray soul-felt ideals that are deeply desired, their pull is magnetic. While Shantaram is a person on a path (with the novel’s Karla, he even as his Sita!), make no bones about it, RAMA IS THE PATH!

Although both texts present the world supposedly, “As it is.” The Ramayana leaves no doubt that God exists. It is a Divine transmission. God breathes light into its every word. How different then is, Shantaram, a book written centuries later, by an Australian! Instead of the word of God, we’re given a reasonable facsimile. What makes Shantaram so real, I believe is its “truthiness.” As Stephen Colbert says, “If I feel something is true, then that feeling is more important than what the facts may support.”

In the Ramayana, King Rama graces each page as the personification of Goodness. In Shantaram, the character Shantaram moves through the story as an imperfect outsider. He does not nobly go into the forest like King Rama. He escapes to the slum. He runs for his life and not because he is afraid to die. This is an important distinction. On an unconscious level, he escapes his old way of being to learn how to live. He lets himself evolve. The beauty of Shantaram is that after being thrown into the river, he learns how to swim. At his core, he is a yogi.

The character Shantaram is an anti-hero and frankly, it is his awkwardness, his inability to relax, that make him so affecting. In these post-James Frey times, I personally have a hard time trusting the veracity of author Gregory David Robert’s life story. At times, his thinly disguised autobiographical novel feels too much. Thus, I appreciate the fact that the character Shantaram must undergo such a thorough transformation. And of course it doesn’t hurt that the story takes place in India, a place where I myself have felt awkward, India, a country where everyone knows people go to wake up. That aside, taken on its own terms, Shantaram presents several very persuasive arguments.

On Love,

“Sometimes we love with nothing more than hope. Sometimes we cry with everything except tears. In the end that’s all there is: love and its duty, sorrow, and its truth. In the end, that’s all we have.” P. 346

On India,

“That’s how we keep this crazy place together – with the HEART. Two hundred fuckin languages, and a billion people. India is the heart. It’s the HEART that keeps us together.” P. 455

On Life,

“Sooner or later, fate puts us together with all the people, one by one, who show us what we could, shouldn’t let ourselves become.” P. 471

On God,

“The universe has a NATURE … and it’s nature is to combine, and to build, and to become more complex.” P. 479.

On Good and Evil,

“Anything that enhances, promotes, or accelerates this movement toward the Ultimate Complexity is GOOD…anything that inhibits, impedes, or prevents this Ultimate Complexity is EVIL.” P. 482

Even here in the West, Whether we know it or not, I believe that we share many of our core beliefs with the ancient wisdom of the Ramayana. Reality is not fixed. Everything that we think is real has to do with past associations. As human beings, what we attend to, perceive and retain, has to do with what has gone before. This is both a blessing and a curse. At times it feels that we as a civilization will never be able to move forward. In spite of, or rather because of that, I find these words of Shantaram very hopeful,

“For this is what we do. Put one foot in front of the other. Lift our eyes to the snarl and smile of the world once more. Think. Act. Feel. Add our little consequence to the tides of good and evil that flood and drain the world. Drag our shadowed crosses into the hope of another night. Push our brave hearts into the promise of a new day. With love: the passionate search for a truth other than our own. With longing: the pure ineffable yearning to be saved. For so long as fate keeps waiting, we live on God help us. God forgive us. We live on.” P. 933

Not in a long time have I enjoyed a book as much as Shantaram. In its way, it has inspired me choose my own unique destiny.

Jai Ram!

Deko