At the beginning...

I am notoriously bad with medication, and Diamox is no exception. Tingly limbs and extremities, and a kind of dozy headachy feeling. Well, it was good to take a day off and just chill and prepare mentally and physically for the journey that begins in just a few hours.

I went to the Jet Airways office with Nivvi, and came back, stepped out of the cab, totally ready to just roll into bed, and see a grinning white man waving excitedly at me. PRIMOZ?!? This lovely Slovenian man had been in my Inner Engineering in January!! Huh?!? So big hugs, laughter (too much noise, as usual) and an introduction to his gorgeous wife. It was SO NICE to catch up with someone who had been there at the very beginning with me on this psychedelic journey. Thank you.

I had a wonderful conversation with Linda over lunch, talking about how I ended up on this Kailash trip in the first place…and took it easy for a few hours before sathsang.

Sadhguru came in to give us our abhaey sutra – Nathalie from Lebanon was one of the women tying the string on the ladies – as the string was looped around my wrist, I could feel this electric charge emanating from it. We went up to him and bowed to him as he handed us a marigold…oddly enough, leading up to it I had strong energy movements but when it was my turn to be directly in front of him, everything stopped and I couldn’t really respond to the situation. Probably not a bad thing. We were in his presence for nearly 2 hours, and it was really powerful. It was like he was creating the energy of linga bhairavi in that room – he started off with the mantras associated with Devi, and it was so powerful, it was the same as being in that temple. He spoke about how this abhaey sutra would give us fearlessness, not directly, but because we would become less attached to the physical dimension, thus losing fear that we normally have in association with the body…and it was like you could feel the fear melting away by the second. I don’t know, it’s just too outrageous, this man, this being, this thing in front of us.

I headed to dinner, and was getting second servings of amazing falafel and vegetable shawarma which was pretty much paneer shawarma…mmm!! With babaghanoush and lovely hummus…and I hear a voice behind me say, shawarma..? I turn around while simultaneously saying it’s so deli..cious! (the … is when I realize it’s him)…how fitting…the first words I ever directly speak to my guru are it’s so delicious. Anyone that knows me knows why this is so hilarious. So we laugh and grin at each other, I am instantly re-falling in love with him, and I head back to my table, a bit spellbound and speechless. He sits down at Rathika and Linda’s table, which has now fallen completely silent (what do you say to him? Good palak paneer eh?) and I’m sort of jealous but think, well, I wouldn’t say anything anyway. But Rathika, always gracious, gets up and gives her seat to Manjiri who is another of the group for our Land Cruiser. And within minutes Manjiri gets us and beckons me over telling me to sit. So I sit empty-handed, no plate, no food, no words. And he smiles, looks directly at me and says don’t you need more food? And I just don’t know how to react and nervously pick a piece of fried okra off of Michelle’s plate. Yup. Awkward. And then there’s a random chitchat of Japanese and Chinese and how Japanese can’t say l and stupid stupid stuff…I’m basically relieved when he leaves, but am electrified at having spoken to him and being so near him.

After a few minutes Linda says, why don’t you go sit in his chair for awhile…and I do, and it is positively vibrating. Wow.

So we have our wakeup call in less than 5 hours – tomorrow we head to the Friendship Bridge on the China border. Oh, it’s on. Challoh yaar?