India with a Purpose?

It seems that most people who travel to India come with a purpose. Whether it be for the yoga, meditation, religion, trekking, tibetan language, hindi, or the food. Everyone seems to have a purpose to coming to India. Some are searching for something and it is really interesting to see people who come to India searching for answers or for some sort of meaning of life. I think many of these people really just need to look within, however, India seems to have that effect on them Others get so caught up in the buddhism as a way to answer whatever question it is that they have. Before coming here, I had thought about this. I was on the airplane from Chicago to Delhi and I remembered that when I used to read travel stories of India, it often seemed people were either looking for something, or escaping something. I thought hard; why am I going to India? I didn't really have an answer. I wasn't going with any purpose. I chose India because I had heard a lot about it and it was a place that just seemed like it would be interesting. Even while travelling through the first section of my trip, I wondered. Why here? what's here that has drawn me? Still no answer. I am simply here to experience. I am here to travel. I am here to see what happens. And having no plan and no purpose has been one of the very best things about my trip thus far. It has served me well and seems to me to be the BEST way to travel India (for me).

I got to Dharamsala ready for the Dalai Lama teachings. I didn't even know why I was going, simply because everyone seems to get so excited about him and so I felt like I should check it out. I had tickets to see him in Long Beach, but he got sick and I wasn't able to see him. I was disappointed but not devastated. Here, in Dharamsala people were REALLY excited to see him. Innitially, I'd decided to see his teachings because they ended the day I was going to start my Vipassana, so I might as well go early and try to see him speak. And so, I did.

The teachings were about achieving a state of Bodhiccita, a state of beings that kind of serves as a stepping stone to englightenment. Now, I'm no teacher, but what I got out of a lot of the teachings and the talks around the teachings is this:
people want to become the best person they can be. They want to refrain from hurting others, and reach a state of self-realization and truth. They want to create positive energy for the world and to create "good karma" for the benefit of "all sentient beings". Basically, everything that they work hard to achieve is for the greater good of all people and living things.

This, I understand.

However, I was having a hard time with this idea at the same time. I had a hard time understanding how meditation and creating a better self was going to solve many of the worlds problems. I know the buddhist answer to this. According to Buddhism, creating a better self will help you reincarnate into a better being, and if everyone would work on better theirself and releasing themselves and others from suffering, the worlds problems would eventually be fixed. The most basic causes of this suffering are attachment, ignorence, and desire. I could go on and on about this, but I'm not going to. Anyway, to me people seemed pretty "attached" to this "desire" to a achieve or work towards enlightenment. My social worker mind is of couse thinking about the other types of suffering; famine, abuse, and lack of resources. I know the two are intertwined, it's just figuring out how. If only, I could tell people to meditate and to learn to detach themselves from whatever it is that is causing their suffering. If only it were that easy. This thought process, along with a couple other experiences I have had in India (good and bad) have made me realize that India has turned me into a social worker. Through my two years of MSW education, I fought with myself over where I wanted to take it, and even if I was studying the right subject. I graduated and didn't know which direction I was headed. I've never been into planning things, so I was pretty comfortable with this. I headed to India with no particular purpose, but now I feel like India is giving me it's purpose. I am taking yoga and learning from many different experiences and it is helping me form. I don't know where it will take me, but I have realized that India has a lot to teach social workers. I almost consider this as a part of my social work education. For the first time ever, I actually WANT to take the things that I am learning and will continue to learn and use it in social work practice. For me, thats a BIG step in a new direction. There are tons of things to learn here and I will be making the most out of these opportunities. I'm not saying I'm on a quest to search for opportunities related to social work, but I will say that I have finally discovered that I am naturally inclined in that direction. Without even trying, I happen upon experiences that will help me to better serve others. In this way, my meditation and learning is benefiting "all sentient" beings, and I don't have to become a nun. I'm still figuring out all the details and inter-relatedness, but in due time, it will come. The other day, I had just finished my yoga lesson and I was just thinking about some things and I realized that for the first time, I KNOW that I got my masters degree in the right field.

I do not concentrate on the future, I only concentrate on the present, but I know that these experiences are shaping my future in a way that only time will show what is to come.

Additionally, I have decided to keep this blog up to date. I never really know what I'm going to write, but I have realized that the majority of people that I know will never make it to India. Because of this, I guess I feel a sense of responsibility to share my experiences. To give others a taste of India that they would otherwise not have. Though the people reading this are getting a taste of "my" India, it is a perspective that does not exist anywhere else and will never exist again. India is giving me it's gift and I am giving my gift.