The end of my civil service was coming close. I had never desired a normal professional career. Money as such didn’t mean much to me. It could be there or not there, I didn’t care. I didn’t need much for living and I never really missed anything.
I needed to take off again. Had to be traveling. Away. Away from my eating- vomiting- disorder. Away from western culture and away from the world dominated by men.
What’s your name, what’s your country?
‘The Depth Is not in you, the Depth Is in Me.’
Adi Da
Although I had never read any books about India and its religions were alien to me, I was pulled to go exactly there. The people who have invented yoga could not be all bad. In preparation, I bought four maps of the entire Indian subcontinent, a Hindu dictionary, and in a lengthy procedure I sewed an outfit of a troubadour for myself. I composed my will in which I bequeathed my belongings to my friends. I took off in October 1987, shortly before my twenty-third birthday for Mumbai, back then called Bombay, with no particular destination in mind.
I landed at the airport in Mumbai, situated in the middle of the slums and there I experienced my first deep disappointment. Never before have I seen so much misery and suffering, so much grief crowded together in an apparent infinity of space. The impoverished and neglected looking children of the slums had their noses glued to the windows of the airport building, and the policemen were shooing them away with harsh words. All my co-travelers were telling me to leave the city as soon as possible and I took their advice and went on the same day by bus to Goa. There I acclimatized in a quiet, beautiful, paradise-like bay, which was still untouched by tourism and felt very dreamy, with a fresh water lake surrounded by a huge banyan tree right behind the beach. On my first walk on the beach I met an Indian man with the name of Kali. He was a follower of the guru Babaji from Haidakhan who had just passed away. He gave me some suggestions about holy Hindu pilgrimage places, all of which I visited within the next few weeks. He also invited me to come to Babaji’s ashram in the Himalayas. In the night he would often sit by the fire praying, he chanted in honor of his goddess Kali whose name he bore. He didn’t let the flames go out day and night.
During my further travels to Hindu places of pilgrimage I generally slept outside or in the temples. The sadhus I met in many cases looked sorrowful and sick, scarred by the asceticism, and only a few had happy eyes. The suffering of women and children in the villages was terrible and merciless. The Untouchables were sleeping everywhere, and everywhere one could see women and children doing the heaviest road construction or road repair work. The Indian society was alien to me. How could a religion allow something like this? And at the same time, I was meeting more laughing and happy people than I have ever seen before anywhere.
After four weeks of traveling around I arrived at a nature reserve in South India, feeling quite disillusioned. I found sleeping accommodation with a German guy whose name was Klaus and who had married an Indian woman. He lived from growing pepper and from renting to tourists who stayed with him.
Even in India, throughout the whole time my daily place of worship was still the toilet bowl. As my desperation grew, I was filling many pages with writing in my dairy, but I was living the same life as in Germany. There was no escape. I was not looking for an ashram, or a guru, I wanted to be free.
One night I was sitting on the porch in the full moon night, with the three-meter high pepper shrubs in front of me. Once again I was overcome by the almost compulsive desire to put an end to this life, to just go mad and leave the body. I just couldn’t stand it any more. Everything ached from the incessant overeating and throwing up, and I had an infection in my mouth, which I got from greedily eating unripe papayas. I wrote and pleaded imploringly, praying to the moon goddess, and I managed to survive yet another night.
The following morning Klaus told me about Vipassana, a Buddhist meditation technique that he had encountered in a meditation center in Igatpuri, a village near Mumbai. There, all of a sudden, was a way out. The same evening I packed my stuff and took off in a hurry. The journey took me more than 2000 kilometers from Kerala, a state in the south of India, all the way up north to the Indian state of Maharashtra and the small village of Igatpuri, some five hours east of Mumbay by bus. Day and night I was traveling by bus, and thanks
to the support of many friendly people I managed to arrive there in time for the beginning of the meditation course in the morning. The last part of the bus ride led through an extremely wide plain bordered by a very large mountain range. The sky was radiantly blue and clear. Sleeping Indian people surrounded me, wrapped up in their blankets and scarves, in order to protect themselves from the early morning chill while the bus went jolting along the ramshackle road. In a little town about two hours before my destination a young man got on the bus. He was dressed in dark red clothes. He set next to me. We started a conversation and he told me that he was on his way to Ganeshpuri (5) to the ashram of his guru, a woman whom he called Gurumayi. I couldn’t understand a thing he said. Ganeshpuri seemed to be a village that was only a few kilometers further than Igatpuri. He took out a picture album and showed me colored images of Gurumayi. She was also dressed all in red, and looked very beautiful, erotic and sublime. During the remainder of our conversation he begged me more and more imploringly to come along with him to Ganeshpuri to see his guru. I still couldn’t understand what he actually wanted from me, and I refused his pleas in a friendly but determined manner. As I was leaving the bus the man began to cry. Tears were flowing down his face. He looked at me with disappointment through the bus windows as the bus continued honking on its way.
I soon forgot the strange encounter on the bus and I rushed up to the meditation center, which was situated above the town. The streets and alleys were filled with the noise coming from the honking cars and many speakers playing Hindi popular music. A huge pagoda with a high golden spire dominated the Buddhist center. At that time the center could hold several hundred people in one meditation course. After registration I was asked in a friendly manner to change my clothes as I was dressed in my troubadour outfit, which was very extrovert. I was given a lunghi (6) and a simple T-shirt to wear for the duration of the course. This Vipassana course was taught in the tradition of Sayagyi U Ba Khin and his disciple Goenka, who had brought this forgotten meditation practice from Burma back to India. It took place over a period of ten days, in total silence. The participants sit in meditation in a special hall where they receive instruction from both men and women teachers, practicing from very early in the morning to late at night. Everything happens in silence and in a sitting position. The first three days of meditation consist of Anapana, the observation of the breath as it flows in and out. In this way the attention is sharpened and the mind becomes quieter. From the fourth day onwards the Vipassana technique is taught. The meditators begin to observe the body, the emotions and the thoughts in a certain manner that becomes increasingly finer. This is how Anicca (7) is revealed – the understanding that everything comes and goes.
I immediately felt at home. I no longer wanted to run away. My favorite part was the silence and the temporary freedom from the responsibility for my eating disorders. The meals were served in the morning and in the evening, in the afternoons there was only fruit available, and that was all. The meditation sittings started in the early morning hours, interrupted only by short breaks and meal times, and went on into the late evening. Then we were given instructions for the next day.
I followed the discipline and the rules exactly, and I even stepped it up by extending my sitting sessions. Through the application of my will I wanted to break through the limitations of physical pain and psychological despair.
On the fourth day the image that I have had of myself completely collapsed. I gave up my pointless self-flagellation. I recognized my deep contempt for human life. I clearly saw my impulse to self-destruction and
