Sad little Safari and the "Moral of my story"

Oh boy. Sometimes, you just have to experience things in your life to teach you lessons.  Today was one of the most valuable learning experiences of my life. Truly saddened, I was blindsided by the hugest dose of reality today and realized this world is truly full of illusions.  The west is so blind.

Today we were carted to Rajaji national park, a popular place to safari in this country, everywhere you go in Rishikesh it's advertised as this 'Wildlife adventure', and everyone here wanted to go do it.  Today at the ashram was the bowel cleanse, where you actually drink glasess of salt water until you poop until "clear", again, another thing I can do when I go home by grabbing a 4 litre bottle of go lightly and chugging that.  Another pass on the body cleansing rituals, and no, I dont feel guilty. 

This is the second last weekend, so me and the Aussies decided to take full advantage of what we knew was going to be a sunny day to take some shots of the advertised "Tigers and Elephants".  After a half hour drive to the park, we were transferred to the most rickety jeep with no windows, no doors, and a driver who only spoke hindi.  Why I didnt review my animal species in hindi is beyond me, but it made our trip a silent and frustrating one with a lot of charades.  We were told not to throw garbage outside the jeep or we would be charged, and not to videotape until we got deep in the park.  Here is the entrance:

 So I'm sitting there and I have this eerie feeling we are entering what resembles Jurassic Park, with nothing but a frame to our jeep and big forboding gates.

So, we travel in about 4km, and it is exactly what it looks like from the outside, resembling a forest from home with a narrow path cut out and high bush on both sides.  We stop and the driver excitedly points to a deer on the side of the road, which scampers off as we ready our cameras into really thick foliage:

This is all we are seeing, termite mounds...this one is as big as a person.  They are about every 20 feet along the path, a truly majestic site...apparently the bugs are so smart they build them facing a certain direction so they get the least amoung of drying sun on them during the day.  Jed told me that one. Then, the jeep suddenly breaks down.   Anticipating Tigers and elephants, I start to feel very creepy.  Here we are in the wilds of India with no car protection and it's freezing cold and we are in the middle of some path with no cell phone and the jeep is not turning over.  What do we have to do? Get out and push the dam jeep for a run start:

I have this feeling we are not going to get our deposit for the jeep ride back anyways...and I am right.  No, a tiger didnt jump us. By the end of the tour, I kind of wished we had been for some excitement. So, then we go out into the open feilds and the landscape would be magnificent if there were elephants roaming out there:

Jed, Laura, Mo and I fill the time chatting about the scenery and snapping a billion photos. Jed and Laura are in the back fooling around having fun:

We gather that structure in the middle was an elephant watching tower but the hindi dude couldnt tell us what it was...but he did get quite thrilled when he could point out two parrots on a tree about 50 yards away:

 So, on we trekked for about an hour, we did see some monkeys on a cliff, and way far from the jeep and the closest one was caught on super zoom on my camera:

So, on to the area where the 1 tiger in the whole park resides: the driver was proud to show us these tracks in the sand:

Another reason we were not hopeful for tigers was because all the tiger food, aka deer and herbivores were not in the least apprehensive or nervous of an eminent attack.  No nervous animals means no tiger sightings i'm afraid. Jed's mom pointed that out and hope began to waver. Think positive thoughts, believe me, we were hoping alright: when we came out of that area we finally got a glimpse of a real elephant in the distance and we started to freak out with happiness. Until we got to it. The driver stops the car and we rush over and are wondering why it is streching so funny:

As we get closer we notice that the obviously miserable elephant is swaying back and forth, one chain attached to his back left and one chain attached tightly to his front right leg, both to trees:  This poor animal is so uncomfortable that he's swaying to alleviate the pain in his legs..it literally broke my heart. around the corner there are two more elephants, in an even worse situation: chained on three legs and four legs...the mood immediately shifts from excitement to pure depression. We tried to ask if they ever took them out of the chains, but no one responded to our questions.

My heart was broken. I snapped a few pics with incredible guilt, but felt I had a duty to show you the reality of tourism in India...hundres of  hectares of park, supposedly tons of elephants, and they have a chain a few up tightly in order to satisfy animal hungry, disillusioned tourists. Ever since I was a kid I wanted to go on a safari, and this was it.  I was truly devastated.  I thought about the exploitation of animals for profit the rest of the way back to the gate.  The mood in the car changed from joking and laughing to complete silence for miles. Not to mention the car broke down two more times and we had to get out to push:

The rest of the ride we just saw deer and a few warthogs.  After that, we chit chat on the way back to the ashram, but inside I am just feeling terrible...how do we do that to animals? How can these people have no compassion or empathy? How are tourists so stupid to think that these animals are going to approach our loud vehicles and dance and pose for our cameras?  I felt like a total asshole for my ignorance.

Today I was truly humbled.  So, after getting there at 7am, provided no food, we got home at noon and went out to eat at a restaurant.  I have been reflective all day. This trip is so profound.  The other day in philosophy Roshan asked us to write an essay on what we have learned here, the moral of our story, and I'll tell you...I have literally transformed into a different person, and I'm ony half way done here.

My therapist told me once that I have to rewire my thinking, to reprogram the way I interact with the world in order to get a different outcome than just dissapointment and resentment for being taken advantage of.   You get treated exactly the way you project to the world that you deserve to be treated, and I had no idea how warped my perception of myself was. I was wondering to myself, how the hell am I going to learn how to reprogram myself to think another way without compeletely changing who I am and wiping all the things about me that make me me?  Well, I have done it. In the last four weeks of this course,  I have learned who I really am, and so much about myself, that I am loved by so many people, and how I want to be in the future. I dont care what anyone else thinks anymore. I took all the external world out of the picture and asked myself what I really wanted for me and I have found the answer.  I have been making everyone else happy and ignoring what I really want, and it's not anything i ever expected.   Self love. 

Suddenly, with this major experience, my sense of anxiety has lifted, I have become extremely happy and making much better decisions for myself.  I have been tested, and I continue to choose things that are good for me, rather than self destructive. No doubt, the universe has provided me with a constant reminder of my weaknesess...and I'm finding myself deciding not to go down the same roads again.   We have been taught to be a little selfish for once, to look at situations as if we are witnessing them and not reacting, and that happiness is not a far off dream.  That, and always love unconditionally...give everything and expect nothing.  Forgive your past. Stop expecting too much from people.  Never give up, but always let go.

This is the main philosophy of yoga, and I think it's a pretty damn good view on the world. 

xoxoxoxo