Hurry Up and Wait—My Journey to the Himalayas

written by Lisa Gniady

Home of the heart
Home of the mind
In this place you will find
Devotion and love
And centuries fit tight like a glove

The power of prayer in this place 
is magnified as you search for a space
High up in the Himalayas 
On the holy hill
You will gain clarity and begin to fill
Your heart you see
Open now to your destiny 

My return home…This was my story.

Oct 11, 2017

A month has passed, but has it really? What truly is time? I sit on the airplane from Doha, Qatar, to Chicago, Illinois. I wonder, “am I different?” People said, you will return from India a different person. “Am I different?” I reflect for a moment on all that has occurred since I have left. All I have missed at home, in my children's life, in my husband's life, I question, “why did I come? And what did I learn? Why do people travel? Why do people study? Why are we always trying to have an experience different from the everyday norm?"

So again, I reflect. “Am I different than when I left?” I sit on the plane, alone. When I left the US, I shared the journey with my travel partner. She left early, it was not the experience she was expecting, she received her lessons and went home. I miss her, but her leaving was part of my journey too.  I had to be comfortable on my own. Let go of fear and know that all will work out as it is supposed to, trust.

So much has happened since I have come to India. I have met so many people, made new friends. Friendships that will last a lifetime. Others, that were just people you shared a common interest and journey with, and may never see again. People came from all over the world, gathering to learn from Yogi Amandeep. Yearning, searching for guidance, searching for wisdom, looking for a teacher who would connect them more to their internal truth. 

So many places we saw, so many experiences were had, so much has happened, how do I put it into words. Where do I start? 

I start with me...I guess.

My birthday is a few days away. I will be 54 years old. That is a 9 in numerology, completion.  I completed my journey, “what else is ending?”  But endings are beginnings. So maybe I am the "new me." “Am I different? Am I beginning a new chapter of life?”

I went to India in search of clarity. I went to India because I was called. I went to India because a yogi is one that is called to return home to the beginning of the teachings.

I sat in the Himalayas. I sat in ancient Monasteries, I walked on the land that the ancient teachers walked. I rode Camels in the desert, in the Nubra valley. Home of the Indus River. I took vows to myself where the three ancient rivers met. Promising myself to walk a path of greater goodness. One where I will become a better me, so I can help others. Isn't that what this journey is all about? Helping others? 

When you work on you, you become a better you, then you have the strength and wearwithal to help the human race. You can then become a role model for others on their individual journeys in life.  

During our burial ceremony

I buried my new friend, a wonderful woman from Germany. I wrote her Eulogy as I sat chanting over her grave. Knowing in the afternoon she would bury me. A German and a Jew. Our purpose was grander than our individual gains. We were also doing this for humanity. Letting go of the past. 

When I was buried. I gave back to the earth all my problems, my stories that didn't bring me to the highest light in this lifetime. With each shovel of dirt I thought of my own mortality. I thought about the fear of death, I thought that I will never get buried as I want to be cremated. I thought of the temperature, I thought of the earth encasing me. No separation. I thought of the oneness of all things..an awake dream, sleep in the arms of Mother Earth. I heard the chanting all around. The people there holding space for those of us being buried. I felt lucky, extremely lucky to have this experience. I arose from that experience different.  I had a vision of me in a different lifetime. I saw an image of me as a boy, my name was Koto,  he stood there in robes, a sheep herder holding his staff. He beckoned me, he was telling me something although what I don't know. I trust when the time is right the meaning of this image will become known. When I awoke I saw the world differently. I lay down when the sun was up, and arose when the moon was up. A new me? A new day. I know I am a child of the moon. The moon is my guide. The moon connects you with feminine energy. The divine feminine awoke within. This is a time for the women in this world to rise up and own their own power. Their own individuality. A time for women to know that we have the ability to do anything we set our minds too. 

I went to monastery after monastery. I listened to the Monks chanting, their ancient, melodic tones that shift the energetic vibration of humanity. For  thousands of years they have chanted the same mantras, over and over, to help themselves and to shift the vibration of all of humanity. Yet for me, when we happened upon a Nunnery, and we saw the women monks, chanting the same mantras, I had a huge realization. This is the time for women to stand up and own their own power and strength. Each repetition of mantra after mantra, followed by loud banging of the drums,  banging of the bells, a signal, a division before they again began chanting the next recitation. Using hand mudras to compliment the mantra, added additional power. They continued doing what has again been done for thousands of years, benefiting themselves, benefiting humanity.

The power behind the feminine voice, the power behind a group of women coming together, although there were fewer of them, the shift in the softness of their voices, the tone, made me realize that gentleness is often, more powerful than strength. And we "can be strong in our gentleness, our divine feminine energy." 

I journeyed throughout the Ladakh region. Different groups of women exploring, sacred lands, sacred places, sacred times, sacred experiences. My guides spoke to me in the caves in the Himalayas. They spoke to me along the sacred waters of Lake Pang Gong. They spoke to me in the ancient monasteries. I heard them in my head. I wrote the messages they shared. I performed the meditations that were given to me. And I shared the rituals with my new friends. 

I taught my friends how to channel. I taught them how to trust in a power higher than ourselves. That when you believe, guidance will come. It is easy in sacred places. It is easier to connect. The air is thinner in the Himalayas. The mountains have called people there for thousands of years. To open, to believe, they come searching for answers. Just like me. And sometimes the answers that come, are not the ones you expect to hear but the ones you need to hear. Sometimes the guidance is subtle, feminine energy and not the kind that hits you over the head, masculine energy.

India is a place of so many colors.  The colors of pollution. It is everywhere, garbage on the roads. Dirt in the air. Makes you appreciate cleanliness. No matter how often you bathed and washed, you always found new dirt. The dust of the Himalayas blew everywhere. But even among the dirt was color. Color of the saris, majestic. You watched motor bike after motorbike ride by, with women riding sidesaddle, holding infants or children. Sometimes as many as 6 on one motorbike. You saw auto rickshaws carrying school children to school. You saw the inside of local hospitals, not something you were expecting. But even amongst the dirt in those places was love and caring. I watched a family camping out on the floor eating dahl and rice out of pots, keeping their family member company in the middle of the night. I saw the compassion of the local people as they supported me and my friend throughout the night. Even though it did not have the sterile environment of the US. The place was still a place of healing.

I watched with miraculous wonder how so many auto rickshaws, bicycle rickshaws, cars, tourist buses, buses with people riding on the roof, donkeys, cows, goats, and people walking all share the same thoroughfare and managed to all dissolve through on there way to their destinations.

I watched the devotion of the Sikhs at the Golden Temple, I watched the devotion of the Buddhist Monks and Nuns at the monasteries. I watched the devotion of the students to Yogi Amandeep at my yoga course. I went to India searching. I was searching for answers, I was searching for devotion.”Did I get it? Can I really bow down to external individuals for wisdom? Is it my way?” I bowed in respect of the teachings coming through. I bowed at the gurdwara in respect of the wisdom of the guru, I bowed at the monasteries to the buddhas in respect, again for what they represented. 

I do believe all the wisdom they represent is powerful, but I do not bow down with the same devotion, the same belief. 

I have never bowed so much in my life. But I do know now that when I return home I will continue to bow. I will bow to life. I will bow to understanding that everyday is an opportunity to show respect for others. I will bow to my own divinity as we are all worth bowing to. We all have wisdom within to share, we just need to believe it ourselves. I will bow to my ability to be kind, my ability to love, my ability to share the best of me with the world. I will bow to the goodness that all faiths teach. I will bow to the understanding that dropping my head below my heart brings me humbleness, something we all need. I went to India in search of answers.  I got one for me. You do not need to be devoted to something outside of you. You need to understand that we have all come to this earth with a mission. And that mission is something that unfolds on a daily basis. The people you meet are all part of your journey. The places you go all feed your soul. Every experience is a teacher. How do you react in different situations? Are you proud of your actions?

Live from a place of integrity and make your actions or words pure, and there will be no need to say your sorry if you act from this place of higher truth. 

So I began my journey a month ago. I did not have the usual excitement of a vacation. I knew this was not a vacation, but a pilgrimage to finding out more of me. How can you explain to others who were not there, so they understand? You truly cannot. It was not their experience. 

You feel blessed, you feel renewed, you feel at peace. You gained what you needed, not necessarily what you wanted. You wanted clarity of purpose, “what am I supposed to do with the gifts that have been given to me? Why can I channel? Why can I do intuitive readings? What direction do I go?  Do I just keep following the yellow brick road, meandering along helping in small ways? Or is there a bigger mission out there for me?” These answers I did not get. Was maybe my purpose to show me that I need to just share my gifts and teachings on a small scale? Each person you help then has the ability to help others and so on and so on. Each candle you light will light another. Is that how we light up this world?

You learned about trusting. The pendulum you brought to test your food did not let you down. You tested each item before you ate it. And when the pendulum showed yes, you ate and no you did not... the one time you forgot you got heartburn. But to make it through 30 days in India with no illness amazes even you...Your manifestation bracelet on health worked. Again you learned about trust. Isn't trusting in that which is outside you devotion? 

You trust your guides. They tell where to go, they give you insight when needed and they are there to assist you and others on their journey in life, isn't this devotion? Is devotion different from belief? Interesting thought.

Being in India taught you about food. You eat for strength and nourishment, so you have the ability to do those things you need to move along in life, not for enjoyment or not because it is meal time. If you are not hungry, don't eat. I never thought I could make it a month as a vegetarian. But I feel good, and didn't miss meat...pizza yes, not meat. So I will try, for a bit at least to see if I can continue what I started in India.

–So home I go, after, seeing the pink palaces of Jaipur and experiencing unrest.

–Internet shutdowns because of altercations between muslims and police.

–Bumping my head on the roof of the car as the driver went over a speed bump at 50 miles an hour on the way to Agra and the Taj Mahal.

–Seeing one of the wonders of the world, and the beauty of the symmetry of the building. 

–Going to the holy cities of Vrindavan and Mathura. Not connecting with the energy there, seeing the dirt, the aggressive begging and the harshness of the spiritual community. Feeling ill there and thinking I don't want to be ill in this dirty city. But still seeing the devotion of the followers. Trusting in a higher power. 

–Seeing the Monkeys in the monkey temple, feeling like I was back in a New York subway. Knowing this was not the place for me to find what I was looking for, the mountains were calling me..

–Spending the night in the hospital, getting a CT Scan in Delhi. Making sure I did not have a concussion as my crown hit the ceiling of the car. I did not want to go to higher elevation with a swollen brain…

Leh, Ladakh

I landed in Leh, Ladakh, feeling as if I wanted to cry. Not believing I could be so lucky to be able to come to the Himalayas. Last time I was in Nepal, trekking in the Himalayas, I was not on this spiritual journey. 

You definitely felt the difference in the altitude. Walking up two flights of steps every day to go to your room, felt like you just ran 5 miles. Watching the Garden of the Hotel transformed into a beautiful classroom. Stage, Buddhist symbols, tents to block the sun. The place you will spend the next 3 weeks studying and learning more about you...

But what you learned is the classroom is not the only place you learn. You learn from watching the interactions of others. You learn from your peers, you learn from the drama. When you get over 150 people together how can there not be drama? Trying to collect that many people for journeys and excursions was a challenge, they stayed at many hotels and banding them together took time and energy.  My phrase for the trip was "Hurry up and wait" a teaching in and of itself…

You look at the groups forming. You see some very dedicated to the teachings and others just there for the ride. All is good, you get what you came for. People dropped out that got ill, people dropped out that didn't get the experience they came for, people dropped out because they wanted to travel. For me, all added to the color, all added to the experience. 21 days of silence did not happen for me or many. Meeting like minded people was half of the fun. Talking and interacting was part of the journey. Meeting people from nations all over the world - Japanese, Chinese, Taiwanese, Swedish, Hungarian, Croatian, American, Australian, German, Canadian, French, Phillipino, to name some, all coming together as we were called to learn what we must, not necessarily what we wanted..

From watching the rituals of the monks who came to chant and do a fire puja for us, to Bangara dancing, whirling, meditating in monasteries in the dark, to burying ourselves, to driving over the highest motor-able highway in the world, 18500 feet, to chanting, to quiet our minds, to shopping, to meeting new cultures - you just can not come back the same.

Traveling from Leh to Amritsar was quite an experience. 

You realize how much you have let go of stress. 

–Waiting on line to board

–Getting charged overage

–Needed to go to pay, only to find out they only take rupees

–Needing to change money but need to leave secure area

–At money exchange you need the passport that is at the checkin counter 

so you have to go back in again, 

–Have to leave your purse on a table as you are not allowed to take back out of security. They say, not  to worry, it will be safe. 

So you trust... thinking, a bag left unattended in the US would cause a commotion. 

–You finally get money, go back to pay at the cashier

–Back to the counter with proof so you can get your boarding pass.

–Someone from your group looks at you and says, do you have any money? I don't have enough to pay for my luggage. So I proceed to lend him money. He said, "I will pay you back in a few months"..

– I then rush to the gate to again go through security.

–I realize even with all the craziness I was not stressed. 

It just was. What a great realization. 

–The women need to go in a curtained area and get patted down. 

–I forgot that my phone was in my pocket so I need to put that on the belt. Then when I was outside, ready to board the bus to the plane, I saw the gentlemen I lent the money too. I went to get my phone so I could get his contact information. I realized, I left it on the belt. 

–So again I went back in to retrieve it. If I didn't lend him money, I might have left my phone in Leh.  

See how all works out as it must? You just need to trust, all happens as it should...Looking back at the chaos in that airport makes me laugh and smile..

that is India.

So off to Amritsar I went.

As my new friend Dawn said to me, "we were on the step down plan." We spent all that time in a large group learning, exploring. Then we left in smaller groups to make different journeys on our journey home.  

I went to Amritsar with a smaller group, my new friends, walked barefoot where thousands of others walked before me.. wipes and thieves spray came out for me as I am a germaphobe. Woke up at 2:45 am two nights in a row to watch the ancient Sikh tradition of watching the Guru Granth Sahib wake up and be put into the golden temple. We sat on the island waiting for the Guru to come. We watched as seeker after seeker left the temple. I noticed all the small knives they all carried, the Karpas. Thinking in the US to be in a crowd with so many people walking around with knives would be scary. Yet look at the state of our country. As the Las Vegas shooting just occurred and over 60 people killed and hundreds of others injured, so are we really safer at home? 

As the Guru makes its progression towards the temple, the pushing and shoving started. We got squashed against the fence. I called it a mosh pit...We just smiled and said part of the experience. When the Guru made its way into the Temple the pushing stopped and the crowd dissipated. We walked three times around the temple with thousands of others in the wee hours of the morning and watched as the sun arose. I kept saying pinch me. “Am I really here?” I put my feet in the water but did not take the full dip which is a tradition at the golden temple, a sip and a dip.. I dipped my finger in and placed the sacred water on my head...All around the square were people praying, sleeping, feeling the sacred energy of the place. The temple feeds over 200,000 people daily and we joined in the "langer" and sat with the locals in this daily tradition. As you walk the promenade, you pass different shrines all representing Sikh History, you pass the areas upstairs where all the gurus are kept. All around you, devotion, all around you faith...

As we encircled the golden temple, everyone wanted to take a "selfie" with us. We were a "hit". There are not many tourists here. So being American brought us lots of attention. A group of school girls became our friends and took picture after picture. 

As we were walking around the Golden temple we looked up on the balcony and I saw a fellow Yoga teacher friend from the U.S. with a group of trainees. Small world, it was so exciting to see the smiling face of someone you know when traveling in a foreign land.

Then as we continued our pilgrimage around the Golden Temple we bumped into Yogi Amandeep and some of the people from our training. We joined them as they visited the ashram of Yogi Amandeep’s teacher. The learning never stops. 

Hopping into an auto rickshaw riding around town was quite an experience and a favorite for one of the women I traveled with. It felt like we were on a Disneyland ride, and the area around the Golden temple felt like Disneyland too, buildings lit up with lights, and the streets blocked off from cars. 

Staying in the cleanliness of the Hyatt was such a contrast to the dirt and squalor of the rest of Amritsar. For me, it was a refuge as I was finally able to get gluten free food! I had risotto and it was fantastic. Living on eggs and trail mix bars sustained me but was not very satisfying.

So, the step down program continued and I made my way to the airport with another of my new friends. The two of us coincidentally sat next to each other on our first flight to Leh. Now, we were traveling together again to Delhi, to complete our trip. We hired a driver and went to the Bahai Lotus Temple, a modern structure, such a sharp contrast to the ancient beauty of the old monasteries. It was a beautiful piece of architecture, but not much of a spiritual feeling...we then shopped in Kahn market in Delhi, not like I had any room to buy anything in my luggage, but still nice to see another city. Unfortunately I did not make it to the older parts of Delhi as time didn't allow it.

So then at the airport I said goodbye to my new friend.  "And then there was one." I spent a few hours at the airport Holiday Inn to get some sleep and then off to Qatar. As I sit on the plane alone among strangers. First time alone in 30 days. Gives me time to ponder, gives me time to process all I have gone through..

30 days in India.  I meditated, I was blindfolded, I was silent, I was buried, I experienced new cultures and old. Made new friends, learned new things, maybe lost some weight. “Am I less of me? Or more of me? Am I different? Will anyone notice? Or was this my own spiritual journey?” 

Well I know I am different. I have become more of me. I am more aware of my thoughts, I am more aware of my vulnerabilities and of life's gifts. I "am" more of me. And “isn't that why I went?” The subtle changes that will seep into my life in the next few weeks or months will be there, I am sure. 

I am on a journey as we all are. It is called the journey of life.

And I feel so thankful for the opportunity to participate.

I thank India for the experience, I thank my husband for holding down the fort and my children for being understanding of mom's need to go.  I am sorry for the experiences in their lives I missed when I was gone. I thank the Making of Yogi team for offering this excursion, because without it, I may not have made the journey at this time. I got what I needed, even though I am not quite sure what that is at this junction. And most of all, I am grateful. I am grateful to the Himalayas, I am grateful to the new friends I made, I am grateful for the new found knowledge and I truly am grateful to be alive.

Thank you all for sharing my journey with me.

Interesting Tidbit

I was hit on the crown chakra of the head three times on this journey

–Once on the way to Agra when the car went over the speed bump

–Once on the way to the dark retreat, a piece of luggage fell off the overhead rack and hit me on the crown

–Once when I was being buried, a chunk of dried earth hit me on the crown. 

–Three times to get my attention 

–Three times to pay attention

–Three times to open the crown chakra, the connection to all that is. 

They got my attention...

When the world knocks, listen, sometimes it takes a few times to notice...

–The final hit was in my grave.

When the world knocks, listen, sometimes it takes a few times to notice...