Walking Along...

As I walk along on this journey, many things are starting to come up to the surface, many long-held beliefs are being challenged, and many new ones haven’t quite sunk in yet.

This trip is nothing at all what I expected.

The biggest commodities these days are water and shade from the sun. Living with three pairs of clothes seems over-indulgent. Not because people in India don’t have a lot of clothes, but more so because they don’t have to carry them around for miles every day. What we consider poor in the U.S. is absurd in India as well as what we consider rich. People in the villages can live a really good life on couple of dollars a day. While to the rich in the cities, our dollars are nothing compared to how much wealth they have. I realize that we always judge other countries by our own scale which is just really naive since every country is so unique.

I learned about the value of America from a Saint. At times, when we’re so close to the windshield we only see the dirty spots, and all the clean surfaces go unnoticed...the spaces between the defilements.

The lessons are just starting to reveal themselves. Keeping an open mind is the most valuable tool at the moment.

(We’re in a town called Petlad in Gujarat and met with Sajjaad Hussein, Swami Satchidananda, and Harisevak das.)