Sunday, November 13, 2005
I’m glad my trusty Timex watch tells me the day and date as well as the time. Otherwise it is disorienting to be on a totally different schedule, in a different place. That has been the case this past week, spent with the incoming volunteers in Morogoro, and it can only get worse as I leave Africa for a month in India.
I’ve been looking at my India guidebook a lot. I now think I will spend less time in individual cities than I had thought earlier, and I’ve scratched Varanasi on the Ganges from my plans. But that leaves time to go on from Amritsar to Dharamsala, up north near Kashmir. D. is the residence in exile of the Dalai Lama and many Tibetan refugees. They seem to have a very well developed system of instruction, study, courses and instruction in everything from Tibetan Buddhism, language, and meditation to yoga and philosophy. That, plus the mountain scenery seems well worth the effort, even though I will probably have to buy warm clothing on the spot to survive the climate there. Dharamsala feels a little like a throwback to the ‘60s fascination with Eastern religions, but on the other hand I don’t know that that is necessarily a bad thing.
Christianity. Unitarianism. Sikhism. Buddhism. Judaism, Islam. What strikes me from my small knowledge of all these as I live, travel and make friends is that all of them celebrate the best of humanity and at their heart are concerned with peace and love for others. But I find absolutely no rationality to any of them. They cannot be explained or proven, and must be accepted either by faith or by adherence to the culture into which one is born. I just wish they were all willing to accept and incorporate the scientific knowledge we have and will achieve, and were willing to peacefully accept the validity of other people’s approaches to God and/or universal truth.
As for me, I will continue to pick and choose, study and learn, and make up my own personal, changeable set of beliefs and values as I go along, enjoying and celebrating the beauty and diversity of this my earth and universe, and to try to stay in harmony with it all.
Oh my. Did I write that? I am afraid having a relaxing week in beautiful surroundings before I leave Africa may be making me a bit maudlin. Oh well, so it goes. But, in the end, it ain’t a bad state of mind to be in!
