From Brahma to Buddha, Fall 2010

For our last month in India were staying with Indian family's for the first time. It's a joke in our group that though our program is supposed to be in India but most of our time is spent in Tibet since Ledakh and Dharmasala is more culturally Tibetan then Indian. But now were getting into the thick of the culture that has been hinted at for the previous two months. The indecipherable social interactions, the in your face honesty and straight forwardness, and a culture that is permeated by spirituality the way a gulab jamin is permeated by sugar. My Bapa(father) does yoga every morning and it looks very different from yoga we think of in the USA. He sits, has me join in if I wake up early enough, and sings, prays, does light stretching, and reads me the bhavida gita. If I don't wake up early enough he just reads it to me during my breakfast. He says that one should always think of God before starting the day. Bapa's always adding spiritual commentary on life which can sometimes be the something I feel is mundane repeated to me multiple times and other times be something very beautiful. At night Mataji(mother) does a puja(fire ritual) in front of the family alter were lord Sree Krishanam and other gods sit. Though my family is Hindu and has many different pictures and representations of gods around the house my father often tells me that god is one. Just as I am a part of god and he is a part of God the gods are all aspects of the same thing. All religions, "He says" worship the same God but call it by different names.