travel update from here and now

Hello Everyone y Saludos a todos tambien, Well, I am still here in Vilcabamba now. From this particular point in the known universe, it appears I will be staying for a while. The Immigration authorities of La Republica del Ecuador have graciously consented to my request for a visa residencia, and I will soon have my ‘green card’ and be a permanent legal resident of this fine country. I will be required to vote or I’ll have to pay a fine. Well, my travels will be somewhat curtailed. I am required to reside in the country 9 months per year and if I am gone for more than 90 days, I must begin the process over, or get a note from the principle or something…I dunno what. This is the price one pays for living legally in the world of Mara. To be legal means to do what you are told. To be “free” means to consent to do what you are told. I try and try to listen but I never hear a word I’m told. Still, I feel good. That has to count for something; right? I remember one time when I was in Malaysia waiting for the train to go to Thailand. Thinking I am free, more free than I ever was before. I have a mental photo of me standing there waiting with my backpack leaning against the wall. I never have felt so free since or be-fore. The Indian monkey trap works like this: you put some mashed banana in a small gourd with a small round opening. Chain the gourd to a tree and wait. When the monkey smells the banana he will put his hand into the gourd to get the banana. When he closes his hand around the banana, it will not fit out the hole. If he does not let go of the banana mush, he will be captured. He will become frantic as people approach. He can of course get away…but only if he lets go the banana pulp. He can let go, but he can’t. He soon realizes what buddha had always held to be true. Grasping and clinging are the cause of all suffering. One can be free or one can be rich. Only a monkey thinks he can be both. The good news is that I like it here. I go through stages of feeling trapped or committed or attached and it is a sensation not unlike anxiety. I just live in this magic place. I sit in my garden, feet flat, thumb touching thumb, back strait, I just sit there and breathe in and out. Like Emperor Nero in a sudden downpour. What a great place this is to be right now. Nothing stays the same. One of the illusions of time is that things aren’t changing right now. But in actuality, right now is the only time anything ever changes, or ever has changed. So if your thing is how you like it, enjoy. If not, wait. Either way, it is not going be like this for long! I reckon I am doing more enjoying than waiting! I feel fit. I bought a new pair of blue jeans. My first Levi’s in 10 years. Size 32. Brand new Levi’s 550’s for $16.00 I am walking a lot and my old tired body is complaining about the past. It has issues of its own which the heart and mind have long ago forgotten. Suddenly I find myself thinking “Maybe I am an old Cowboy; cuz this sure as hell ain’t my first Rodeo”! I have been trying a new position for sitting meditation because my hip is painful. I do not want to pamper myself or turn my “old tuff guy” into a cushy-tushy marshmallow man, but my hip hurts when I meditate for an hour. I am still meditating but experimenting on other positions. So since last October I have only been in 2 countries, with no end to this drought in sight. Not travelling is a little like going on a si-lent retreat. Let me explain: whenever I go on a long retreat, about the 2nd until the 4th day, I get a lot of angry ego stuff in my head. I think the people in charge are fools. This is a stupid way to line up for meals. Why are we doing this? Why are we not doing that? And if one gets through all that without the display of unpleasant emotion, everything transforms, and becomes the light of wisdom. If the Mujahidin sur-renders to the “Will of Allah” and stays mindful and observes how God’s will unfolds he is transformed into “one who knows”. But if the Mujahidin surrenders, to the darkness, if one stamps ones feet and wants to leave, in the instant one forgets ones aim, that moment’s energy is never transformed. It is instead held in place to form a dark cloud like a bruise in an otherwise clear sky. A shadow falls over the land and the Jihad is lost. So…I am liking this guest house shtick more, as time goes by. Hmm “before” I didn’t like it, but “now” I do. I am not attached to the results like I was. I am convinced I am doing the best I can considering the circumstances and instead of being uptight, I am just accepting the way things are. The place is full for the first time. I like everyone here. The offices have a chiropractor and an Alternative Therapy MD. I cook and bake for the guests. For me, this is fun. I bake breads, rolls, granola, and empanadas. I like using ingredients I never used before. I am into camotes (purple sweet potatoes), whole wheat and barley for pilafs or in soups or salads, plantains and tons more stuff that I am unable to call to mind right now here. So we are now on the verge of the rainy season. It should soon be raining almost every day for a couple of hours. We must wait and see. Just because things have been this way, does not mean they will always be. One must wait and see. Wait and see. I am waiting as you can see…Trying to stay dry, trying to laugh at it all, and trying to get my hand out of this trap with a little banana to eat… Peace and Love to all of you, Roberto Mochilero “Laughter relieves us of superfluous energy, which, if it remained unused, might become negative, that is, poison. Laughter is the antidote.” George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff " I would say to my fellows, once for all, As long as possible live free and uncommitted. It makes but little difference whether you are com-mitted to a farm or the county jail.” Henry David Thoreau “A person who has good thoughts cannot ever be ugly. You can have a wonky nose and a crooked mouth and a double chin and stick-out teeth, but if you have good thoughts they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely.” Roald Dahl

travelupdate from VC

Hi, I am okay, hanging out here in Ecuador. About 2 degrees south of the ecuator, at an altitude of about 4,000 ft. (12 or 1300 meters) above sea level, I have been here a long time, by my standards and I am beginning to have that old feeling. I see myself morphing into a "householder" (can you just see my lip curl with disdain as I write the word?) Next think you know I will be buying a rug. I do not know if I like this. I don't know at all... So I seem to find myself in the unlikely position of running a boarding house, a guest house I call Pension Juan Montalvo, because we are on Calle Juan Montalvo (Juan Montalvo Street) with 3 bedrooms and a couple of offices for rent in it. I get to live here for free with my sweet heart Estelita and I get to cook for some extra people which I think I will like. Now I am beginning to allow a few folks I know, to ask a day ahead and have family style vegetarian meals with me and Estelita and the Boarding House Guests. They pay $4.00 for a 3 or 4 course vegetarian meal. So i am cooking for about 6 or 8 people. No menu. They eat what I make. I am enjoying this. I get to bake bread more often. I get restless cooking for only myself and Estelita... There is a mental disease I have discovered which i call "Nunca Bastante" it is not so different from consumerism and is probably caused by the same insecurity and fear of inadequacy. Nunca Bastante Desorden del Personalidad is easily recognizable. The poor victim always wants to improve things. Always to add to, to clarify, to enhance, to correct, to improve, to make better, to become. These are people who are never satisfied with the way things are now (the darma). They always feel that no matter what is happening, now mattter what they have, no matter what is being served, it can always be improved, por los esos pobrecitos, no hay nada que esta bastante (for these poor people, nothing is ever enough). I traveled the world from 1/10/03 until 3/10/11. First stop Tokyo Japan, last stop Colombo Sri Lanka. Not exactly every where but practically everywhere anybody ever heard of. 8 years on the road, on the oceans rivers lakes and seas, in the sky, on trains, on the backs of horses, mules, elephants and camels. From there to here and back again and again. I knew my way around. I had a favorite hotel in Quito, in Amsterdam, in Bangkok, in Malaka, in Jerusalem, in Corfu, in Istambul. Now I am a householder...and I aint so sure if I like it. In these last 8 years, I never stayed anywhere for 90 days. The only country I stayed in more than 90 days without leaving was India. But I never stayed anywhere in India more than the month in Benaulim Goa at Madonna Guest House (another of my favorites!). I miss India some days and Asia most days. I miss Europe when it is summer, I miss not knowing where I will go when my visa expires and not caring a hoot. "Intentional Suffering and Consious labors are the activities which generate the energy necessary to grow a soul" anonymous. Intentional suffering is how one accumulates "will" or "will power". It is taking a lot of will power for me to stay here. Of course this is all just my ego trying to make a mess of my life. There is nothing wrong with my circumstances. This is one of the 5 best places I have ever been! To suffer intentionally is all about struggling with the ego. I figure, this is as good a place as any to do that. My travels were about non attachment,about running away from the "the world" and running into my self. To continue now would be running away from my self and running into the world. I have come to a new place so I have to ask myself all over again "what time is it over here right now anyway?!!?" Uhh yeah or something like that... So thats all there is for now. Twice a week I am still at the Vilcabamba Meditation Center. I am teaching two classes, of 1 hour each on Monday and Friday. We meditate on our breath. I do it for free. I like it. Estelita has 2 cats. Adolfo and Mussolina. They are 11 months old, brother and sister. They come when I call and are always muy carinoso (when they are hungry!). I get their food. I am attached. I am a householder ...here now...breathing in "I am calm, breathing out, I am smiling"...again... Blessings and Light, Roberto Mochilero "Materialism is not unequivocally bad. It is like any other childishly destructive behavior. It can be accepted and understood as a stage toward higher development" Rav P S Berg "Just look at us. Everything is backwards; everything is upside down. Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, governments destroy freedom, the major media destroy information and religions destroy spirituality.” - Michael Ellner "Are you willing to be sponged out, erased, cancelled, made nothing? Are you willing to be made nothing? Dipped into oblivion? If not, you will never really change." DH Lawrence

travelupdate from VC

Hi, I am okay, hanging out here in Ecuador. About 2 degrees south of the ecuator, at an altitude of about 4,000 ft. (12 or 1300 meters) above sea level, I have been here a long time, by my standards and I am beginning to have that old feeling. I see myself morphing into a "householder" (can you just see my lip curl with disdain as I write the word?) Next think you know I will be buying a rug. I do not know if I like this. I don't know at all... So I seem to find myself in the unlikely position of running a boarding house, a guest house I call Pension Juan Montalvo, because we are on Calle Juan Montalvo (Juan Montalvo Street) with 3 bedrooms and a couple of offices for rent in it. I get to live here for free with my sweet heart Estelita and I get to cook for some extra people which I think I will like. Now I am beginning to allow a few folks I know, to ask a day ahead and have family style vegetarian meals with me and Estelita and the Boarding House Guests. They pay $4.00 for a 3 or 4 course vegetarian meal. So i am cooking for about 6 or 8 people. No menu. They eat what I make. I am enjoying this. I get to bake bread more often. I get restless cooking for only myself and Estelita... There is a mental disease I have discovered which i call "Nunca Bastante" it is not so different from consumerism and is probably caused by the same insecurity and fear of inadequacy. Nunca Bastante Desorden del Personalidad is easily recognizable. The poor victim always wants to improve things. Always to add to, to clarify, to enhance, to correct, to improve, to make better, to become. These are people who are never satisfied with the way things are now (the darma). They always feel that no matter what is happening, now mattter what they have, no matter what is being served, it can always be improved, por los esos pobrecitos, no hay nada que esta bastante (for these poor people, nothing is ever enough). I traveled the world from 1/10/03 until 3/10/11. First stop Tokyo Japan, last stop Colombo Sri Lanka. Not exactly every where but practically everywhere anybody ever heard of. 8 years on the road, on the oceans rivers lakes and seas, in the sky, on trains, on the backs of horses, mules, elephants and camels. From there to here and back again and again. I knew my way around. I had a favorite hotel in Quito, in Amsterdam, in Bangkok, in Malaka, in Jerusalem, in Corfu, in Istambul. Now I am a householder...and I aint so sure if I like it. In these last 8 years, I never stayed anywhere for 90 days. The only country I stayed in more than 90 days without leaving was India. But I never stayed anywhere in India more than the month in Benaulim Goa at Madonna Guest House (another of my favorites!). I miss India some days and Asia most days. I miss Europe when it is summer, I miss not knowing where I will go when my visa expires and not caring a hoot. "Intentional Suffering and Consious labors are the activities which generate the energy necessary to grow a soul" anonymous. Intentional suffering is how one accumulates "will" or "will power". It is taking a lot of will power for me to stay here. Of course this is all just my ego trying to make a mess of my life. There is nothing wrong with my circumstances. This is one of the 5 best places I have ever been! To suffer intentionally is all about struggling with the ego. I figure, this is as good a place as any to do that. My travels were about non attachment,about running away from the "the world" and running into my self. To continue now would be running away from my self and running into the world. I have come to a new place so I have to ask myself all over again "what time is it over here right now anyway?!!?" Uhh yeah or something like that... So thats all there is for now. Twice a week I am still at the Vilcabamba Meditation Center. I am teaching two classes, of 1 hour each on Monday and Friday. We meditate on our breath. I do it for free. I like it. Estelita has 2 cats. Adolfo and Mussolina. They are 11 months old, brother and sister. They come when I call and are always muy carinoso (when they are hungry!). I get their food. I am attached. I am a householder ...here now...breathing in "I am calm, breathing out, I am smiling"...again... Blessings and Light, Roberto Mochilero "Materialism is not unequivocally bad. It is like any other childishly destructive behavior. It can be accepted and understood as a stage toward higher development" Rav P S Berg "Just look at us. Everything is backwards; everything is upside down. Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, governments destroy freedom, the major media destroy information and religions destroy spirituality.” - Michael Ellner "Are you willing to be sponged out, erased, cancelled, made nothing? Are you willing to be made nothing? Dipped into oblivion? If not, you will never really change." DH Lawrence

travel update from vilcabamba

Hola Amigos, I am here and now, in Ecuador S.A. In La Sagrado Huilcopampa (now called Vilcabamba). I am writing a travel update although the truth is I am not much of a traveler at this time. I have employed an attorney and will soon be an official resident of Ecuador and will be more or less staying here for the next couple of years Ojala (insh'Allah). Somehow, I have become a sort of partner in a management team with Estelita. We are basically running a guest house for an absentee Canadian owner. I am not 100% sure if this is my cup of Chai at all. It sort of, kind of, feels like, "working" a little. I think it is going to get better little by little. It is a very nice place if anyone ever comes out here I can rent you a room cheap! Hahh! Just Remember: " You have a friend in Ecuador" ! Seriously, I am still waiting for the Gov-vomit here to process my papers. It should be coming through soon, and since my application is accepted, my visa automatically extends till I am approved or denied. So when i get approved, i will have to go to Quito (12 or 14 hours in the bus), and register and be photographed in person to get my ID card which is called a "Censo" here. Mientras Tanto, I am baking my own bread in our kitchen, taking long walks every morning, teaching a couple of free meditation classes weekly, and generally leading a life of quiet contemplation, with a generous mixture of parties, and celebrations with old friends and conocidos nuevos. Mis Fiestas aren't as wild as the old days. Not so much boozin and druggin anymore. We had a nice Pot Luck (where everyone brings a dish of food to share) at the Vilcabamba Meditation Center, on May 6 the full moon, for Buddha's Birthday. We all lit incense sticks and sat quietly thinking of world peace and CJ stuck her Gong 49 times to represent the seven directions within the seven directions (the law of 7 vibrations). CJ has an absolutely amazing Gong! It is orchestra quality. What a crazy vibration! While we all sat silently meditating on Peace, and when the bell of mindfulness rang to end the meditation, the full moon had risen over the Sacred Mountain! Beautiful clear night perfect white cottony clouds. All along the watchtower (the horizon) the five planets had come into alignment and the Twinkling constant color changes were dazzling here at the equator at 1,300 meters above sea level. The dawning of the age of Aquarius! Just lately, a few extranjeros nuevos han llegado (new foreigners have arrived) who seem kind of interesting in an over all Vilcabamba sort of way. A new ex-pat called Paul, from U.S.A.merica, says he was a teacher of 4th way groups in USA in Asheville NC and New Mexico. He is sounding out people around here to see if he can begin a 'group' here. I am quite interested to become more actively involved in 'the work' so this is potential good news. There are two men from opposite ends of the known Universe here, who are disrobed buddhist monks. One is from Iraq called David and the other from New York City called Joseph. They seem as different as night and day (knight and dei). They do not know one another. As of now i am just barely acquainted with them. I intend to cultivate a friendship with them, as I feel there are often placed before me, little candles to light the way. So long a way, so little light, one should not waste too many opportunitys to advance on the path, no? But Wait! There's More! A german woman called Ika has also recently appeared upon the scene. She has spent several years in the Amazon Basin in Peru, studying with an Indigenous Shaman. Later, she traveled with the Shaman to Europe and toured with him as he performed ritual ceremonies in numerous countries in the E.U. for more than a year. She is an adept at mixing medicinal plants to produce visions and insights. I am also only slightly acquainted with her at this time. Though it seems she is going to stay here. She has become close with several of my inner circle of friends. Rumors and war clouds seem to be brewing over her presence and some of the established 'medicine men and women' in the vicinity and I may be witness to the 'battle of the magicians' some time soon. I can hardly wait!! I can't help but to remember an old story I first heard in Gilli Tra Wanga back in 2004. A student asked the master: "What does the world rest upon?" The master answered: "On the back of a huge turtle." The student asked: "And what does the turtle rest upon, oh wise one?" The master answered: "Upon another turtle." The student, yet again, asked: "And what does that turtle rest on?" The master, becoming annoyed, answered: "Don't you get it? It's turtles all the way down!" I expect to soon update my Couch surfing profile and accept CSers and any of you who wants to come and crash on the couch. I would love to see any of you and I love hearing from you. I will continue to write updates. If you want to be taken off the list write and let me know. If you want to check up on past travels go to www.robertstravels.blogspot.com I hope this letter finds you all happy healthy and consious of your breath! Just remember breath is the secret to life. Keep on breathing and you will live forever! Check out the quotes below... Peaced and loved, Blessed and lit, Roberto el Vagabundo (Rambling Robert) " I had this advantage, at least, in my mode of life, over those who were obliged to look abroad for amusement, to society and the theatre, that my life itself was become my amusement and never ceased to be novel. " H D Thoreau "Kabalah teaches that, in spiritual matters making a good beginning is not enough. The distance between the beginning and the end is often very great and always greater than we expect. True spiritual work requires maintaining our strength in order to manifest good in the end" Rav P.S. Berg "Undoubtedly philosophers are in the right, when they tell us that nothing is great or little otherwise than by comparison" Jonathan Swift

travel update from vilcabamba

Hola a Todos!
This is ground control to Major Tom, do you read me? I am in orbit around Vilcabamba, a tiny fragment of a country (Ecuador) which is a tiny fragment of a continent (South America). I like being here now. So... most of you have not heard from me since I left Florida with my Dad to go to Ecuador. I appreciate the letters that a lot of people sent about my Mother Passing and my spiritual growth.
The trip down to Ecuador went smooth. Nice Plane, great price on LAN airways, Arrived right on time in Guayaquil and made it to the Bus terminal about 1 and a half hours early for our bus, bastante time to buy our tickets and eat a leisurely lunch.
The bus got us to Vilcabamba after a 9 hour drive with a dinner stop, a little tired, but excited and glad to be done with the "road" for the day...I don't know, but I am guessing the bus ride was the longest one my father ever experienced in his lifetime. His first taste of what it is to travel. I don't mean going on cruise ships or staying at club med, or going on a tour of china, no. Dad had done all that kinda stuff but honestly, I think my kind of travel is a little "pesado" for a man of his years.
Dad wanted to pass a couple of tranquil weeks in a nice out of the way sleepy town and he got what he bargained for! He met up with a lot of the local english speaking ex-pats and made friends quickly. It was fun for me to be with a person who has never been in a "developing" country. I think he was amazed at the markets, and the prices of things in a less regulated economy. He tried lots of foods for the first time, like yuca and plantains/maduros, tomate de arbol, mote, and lots of other stuff he had not been exposed to like empenadas de quso, horchata, humitas/tamales, pan de yuca.
In many ways he felt it reminded him of his childhood years. The people were more innocent then and there was so much more free enterprise. The kind of enterprise that supports "Mom and Pop" little shops.

Like people baking banana bread or cinnamon rolls in their home and strolling the streets with a basket selling them later. Little kids selling bags of coffee from their family garden or mora berries or avocados. Street vendors. Trucks or old toyota cars with loud speakers on top going through the neighborhood selling "Pescado Fresca! Hoy Mariscos!" "Leche! Leche de Vaca!" The morning music of Latin America! The little tune the Garbage Pick up truck plays so everyone will come out with their trash.
In this town, this little fragment of the known universe, at evening time, people hang out in front of their homes and passers by stop and chat, have a beer or a coffee. Kids play in the streets. Familys eat ice cream cones in the plaza in front of the little cathedral and the fountain. Estelita goes to Mass in the church 7 or 8 times a month and sits with the old women of the neighborhood in the back near the door.
Estelita is the "care taker" of a new guest house which is as yet not ready to have guests. The part of the house we live in is very nice. It is furnished with all Estelita's stuff, and the kitchen too with all her stuff. It is, by far, the Nicest place I have called home in a long long time!

It seems I will meet the owner, a Canadian woman soon. She is said to be coming here first week of April. Now that the guest house part of the place is all but complete, I reckon she wants to supervise the finishing and furnishing, and make her deal with Estelita ( and I ) clear.
I have been leading a class on "Breath Meditation" every Monday at the Vilcabamba Meditation Center. There is another person who leads a "Metta Meditation" on Fridays, but as she will be unavailable for March, I will lead two classes per week. This is the first time I have had anything like a schedule since I was in France in 2009. I was cooking at a meditation center there. Moulin au Chaves.
I used to have lots of responsibilities and a well planned day all the time when I was working. Now even a little schedule makes me somewhat un-easy, or should I say it gives me dis-ease. A full schedule is like a disease for me. But with my schedule of two meditation classes per week I do not suffer from it, I am not payed and I do this strictly for spiritual aims (here and now and while I was in France as well). I seem to suffer more when the schedule is "self" serving.
So I suppose this is one of the differences between mechanical suffering and intentional suffering.
I have been taught that in "Fourth Way" terms, consious labor and intentional suffering are the generators that give us the energy to self-evolve. Without this specific type of energy, we only hope and want and desire and would like to evolve. This alone is not enough. One must suffer intentionally and labor consiously so as to have the energy necessary to do the very suble work of self remembering and self observation.

Meditation is self observation. On a deep level, when I meditate when i silence the mind, the ego is still, The observer is now observing the observed in a most direct instantaneous way. The seperation between observer and the observed disapears during meditation. The many become one, Time disappears into Now, the solid becomes the space. I am swimming upstream in the River Universe. Life is suffering. To suffer intentionally is to be self directed.
"To be like the budda be you gotta do like the budda do". Observe the saints. Which ever saint you choose. Buddhist saint, Christian saint, Hindu saint, Saint Moses, Saint Jesus, Saint Ghandi, Saint Rumi...you choose, observe, they are all the same anyway! Observe. Did they not suffer intentionally and labor consiously?

Well, today is my birthday. I am 56. I probably only have about 14 more years to live, I want to make the most of the little time I have left so I am gonna end this update now and go back to my here and now. Some good quotes below this time!

Peace and love, Blessings and Light to you all

Roberto

"In Charity there is no excess " Francis Bacon
"Do not assume more causes for a phenomenon than are absolutely necessary to explain it " William Occam

" This spending of the best part of one's life earning money in order to enjoy a questionable liberty during the least valuable part of it, reminds me of the Eiiglishman who went to India to make a fortune first, in order that he might return to England and live the life of a poet. " Henry David Thoreau

Last travel update from Florida USA

hello everyone!
It has been a very long time now since the last update. I sometimes question if anyone cares about my travels or my search for enlightenment or if I am just writing these letters for my own satisfaction. As I looked deeply into this question, I realized, I was always writing these letters for my own satisfaction! I suppose one could say I have been sharing my travel diary with everyone. Sharing is good so here we go:
First I feel like I want to vent a little anger. I arrived here in Florida on 6 October 2011 to assist my father to care for my mother who was gravelly ill with the lung cancer.
She smoked cigarettes for 60 years and was convinced there was no scientific proof that cigarettes caused cancer, she was also convinced that marijuana leads to heroin addiction. She passed from the material world to the spiritual on December 12. I am still here hanging out with my father. We have always been good friends and it is a pleasure to be with him.
We just got back from a road trip here in America. We drove his car to North Carolina ( about 1,100 kilometers or 800 miles) and spent 6 days visiting some of my dearest friends from my childhood. We were warmly received and we had a great time.
Driving in America is very scary. One must constantly be on the lookout for the "bankruptcy" police. The government (local and federal) , here are more or less bankrupt. Out of money and deeply in debt. Unable to pay their bills or even their own salaries.
Part of the plan to fix this madness is to pay cops $100,000 per year and post speed limits everywhere that are below the speed one would reasonably expect anyone to operate their car at. The result is that IF you drive at the posted limit, everyone passes you and you greatly anger the other drivers.
One spends as much time looking in your rear view mirror as you do driving because the police are always giving people fines for driving too fast! This way the cops justify their salaries and the bankrupt government finances itself!
The whole deal here with the hospice and the medicines and the pains my mother went through, as a result of her being tricked by the government (we have the best health care system in the world, what you really have to worry about is the Taliban, thats what will kill you!) and the cigarette companies (tobacco farmers are subsidized by the government , cigarette companies who claim their product is not addictive and MAY NOT cause illness as there has not been enough research to draw conclusions) , and most especially as a result of her own foolishness and weakness (inability to put down the monkey), was very depressing.
I found it all but impossible to be quiet, to meditate, to feel good or happy. I felt weak, fearful,depressed, anxious and impotent. Watching and waiting for your mother to die is not a pleasant experience! Nothing I could do but try to comfort my poor old mom.
Too bad nobody from hollywood has ever had the idea of a reality show. I almost wished that there were cameras here to illustrate to the fools who smoke what they are buying from the tobacco merchants...Now to move on...
This coming Monday, 16 January, I have a ticket to go to Ecuador. I have a new albeit temporary travelling mate: My dear old Father (he'll be 86 in April) is going with me!
We will go together to Vilcabamba. He will stay for a couple of weeks and then he will return here to Babylon without me. I am very glad that he will come with me. He has an opinion about the rest of the world, (the world outside USA) based on the "news and facts" presented to him by the American mass media.
Me? Well, I just do not know. I will try to go through the paperwork necessary to obtain a resident visa. I loathe speaking to lawyers or having anything to do with any governments. Yet, to accomplish my aim, I must employ an attorney and beg the government to let me stay. This is anathema to me.
I will try however to get it all done and then I am going to live with the lovely and talented Estelita. She loves me and I love her. Sadly, I am who I am, and everytime in the past, I have tried to live with a woman I loved it has ended in disaster. Still they tell me that past performance is no guarantee of future returns...So i will try.
As for staying in one place...well, I love Vilcabamba more than any other place I have stayed. I have stayed in many wonderful places and would seriously consider living in about a dozen of them but Estelita is the "tie breaker". I miss her a lot and want to be with her and so, and so, and so it goes.
I look at my back pack, my life in a canvas sack, and the thought of strapping it on my back and getting on the road again makes me so joyous I feel like I will burst, like a pupppy running in circles and sneezing with joy!
Will I stay "forever" In Vilcabamba? Will I be able and content to stop my travels? There are still so many places I want to go to that I have not yet been and many places in my heart, I hold so dear and wish to return to, I can only truthfully say I do not know the answer.
I know that I do not need to travel to continue my search for enlightenment. I have read enough. I have been to enough classes. I have met enough wise men and women who have taught me enough. I can stay in one place and do the essential self observation, and come to soul consciousness anywhere I am. I know for sure that I am.
I am that I am. I will begin again and continue to write these updates. I think they will start to take on more of a theme based on my inner journey than the external movements of my carcass. Below as usual are a few quotes from people I admire and whom have in their way, have helped me to find my "self"
Peace and love, Blessings and Light,
Robert
"Human beings are the only thing in nature that needs correction" Rabbi Michael Laitman

"When one is alone, totally alone, neither belonging to any family, though one may have a family, nor belonging to any nation, to any culture, to any particular commitment, there is the sense of being an outsider, outsider to every form of thought, action, family, nation. And it is only the one who is completely alone who is innocent. It is this innocency that frees the mind from sorrow." - J. Krishnamurti

" Humanity is the earth’s nerve-endings through which planetary vibrations are received for transmission." Gurdjieff

travel update from Babylon

Hello Everyone,

I want to thank those of you who have written to express concern over not hearing from me for such a long time. When I wrote last i was in Chitwan National Park in Nepal. It is said that Nepal gets its name from "Never Ending Peace And Love". I can see how the rumor got started. I really really enjoyed my stay in this fine country. Oh by the way the day after the last update, I did go out on elephant safari and I did see the rare and endagered one horn rhinocerous. The legendary unicorn of Asia.

That evening, I got word from my father that my mother was gravely ill and He wanted me to return to Florida (Babylon) USA and help him take care of her. She was a cigarette smoker for 60 years. She is suffering from fourth stage agressive lung cancer and her prognosis is very bleak indeed.

I will remain here in Florida as a care giver for as long as I am needed or until I totally freak out! I do not love it here. But I feel that this is the right thing to do and really from a moral point of view I feel like there is simply no other option. To put one's self in an uncomfortable place, or position, or especially into the company of unpleasant people for the sake of another or some other moral cause, is what Mr. Gurdjieff used to call "intentional suffering and conscious labor", the keys to enlightenment!

I have never before been in any kind of "hospice" situation, so this is all new for me. I would sure love to hear from anyone out there who has gone through this kind of thing with a mother father or some other loved one. I feel this is a time of spiritual growth for me and I am making the best of it. I am trying to ease my mothers passing into the next "World". Just trying to make her comfortable, cook her favorite foods, hold her hand and bake her brownies...

There will be few updatges until I begin travelling again. You can all check the blog

www.robertstravels.blogspot.com

and I will probably be making some occasional posts. Here then are a few quotes to say so long with.

Peace and love,

Robert

" We are sheep kept to provide wool for our masters who feed us and keep us as slaves of illusion. But we have a chance of escape and our masters are anxious to help us, but we like being sheep. It is comfortable." Gurdjieff

"I do not believe making money in order to consume goods is mankind's sole purpose on this planet. If you're wondering what I believe our purpose on this planet is, I'll give you a hint. It has to do with creating and sharing." Bill Hicks

"The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is at last to set foot on one's own country as a foreign land." Gilbert K. Chesterton

travel update from Nepal

Namaste!
I am going t write two updates within a few days of each other because I have not written in a while and there is a lot to cover. This first update will be the traveling adventure part and the next one will be the view from the spirit trail.
So there I was in Kunming china. I became buddies with Dror an Israeli former officer in army intelligence, and we were room mating and discovered we had the same airplane to go to Kathmandu together. We would share a taxi.
Everything went smooth until we got to Kathmandu. Drors credit card would not work at the airport. We finally disentangled money issues and met with the management of Jet Airways so I could be sure that I would not need a visa to change planes in India on my way to Sri Lanka.
So I finally arrived in Kathmandu and found my guest house. got into my room, nice room very big but they had no small rooms left so even though I booked a single I got a triple! Got settled in and then went for a walk about.
The tourist neighborhood, the back packer ghetto is called Thamel. My hotel was just outside this area but easy and close to walk into. Quiet at night yet close to all the "action". I went out exploring and found just what I was looking for. TOTAL CHAOS! the sheer madness of "exotic Asia" Finally, I was beyond the reach of globalization! Finally I am out of New Jersey!
So within an hour I had eaten an amazing " Veg Tali" lunch and obtained something local and fantastic to put into my pipe and went back to my room with a new box of Nga Champa incense, and a potato to sit on the couch with me!!
I passed a most pleasant week in Kathmandu. Stayed the whole time in Mountain Peace guest house and had No complaints at all. As good of a $3.50 USD room as anyone could ask for! As for Kathmandu, well all I can say is it is crowded, dirty, chaotic, confusing, mad, non sensible, as cheap as dirt, and the food is pretty good. Who could ask for anything more?
After a week, I took an early bus to Pokhara. famous for its beautiful lake and incomparable views of the mighty Annapurna range of the Himalaya mountains! I stayed there for a week to, quietly walking around the lake, doing some strolling in the old village and reading Tao De Ching, meditating and smoking the Kathmandu hash during lulls in my otherwise exhausting schedule!
After seeing photos of the views in Pokhara I was really excited to go. But unfortunately for me, the sky was almost always clouded and overcast while I was there. Nepal is experiencing a late monsoon season this year and it is still a lot of rain. So I did get to see some nice snow capped Himalayan peaks but not what I as expecting. One f the rare occasions of my travels where I have been somewhat disappointed. Perhaps it is an omen. What can the travel gods be trying to tell me?
Next on my tour of Nepal, was a real moving experience for me. I went to Lumbini. Birthplace of Gautama Siddhartha, the world honored one, the Buddha. On the full moon of May about 2552 years ago Maya Devi was on her way home when she realized the baby was coming. So she bathed in a pond and gave birth to Price Siddhartha. There is a big shrine and temple at the pond. Monasteries from a dozen Buddhist countries are all located there. There is a world peace pagoda. It was a very special spiritual place.
I stayed for 3 days and then came here, to Sauraha a village at the entrance to Chitwan National park. There are a lot of elephants in this village. There is elephant poop on all the roads. Every time you go walking around you see boys riding elephants. Chitwan is also famous for the rare one horn Rhinoceros. The Unicorn of Asia. Tomorrow I will go n aon an elephant safari trip to see the one horn Rino. I will write again soon.
Peace and Love,
Robert
"In life never do as others do…Either do nothing—just go to school—or do something nobody else does." Gurdjieff

"Ram Tzu believes In the law Of cause and effect. He just doesn’t know Which is which" Ram Tzu

"Meditation is the dissolution of thoughts in eternal awareness or Pure consciousness without objectification, knowing without thinking, merging finitude in infinity." Voltaire

"This is universal. You sit and observe your breath. You can't say this is Hindu breath or Christian breath or Muslim breath." Charles Johnson

Last update from China

September 2, 2011 Ni Hao Everyone,
I am beginning this letter from Chengdu a city in Sezuan province of China. Tonite I will take an overnight train to Kunming, where I will finish this letter before I leave China and go to Kathmandu Nepal on September 6.
Since my last update I left Ping yao after 5 days there. The time spent there was uneventful but It was there that my interest in the writings the Tao de Ching were renewed. I read a nice book there called the Tao of Pooh and the Te of Piglet, which seeks to explain "The Way" of Lao Tzu in terms of Winnie the Pooh characters. Here in Chengdu I traded up my copy of Norman Mailers classic war story "the Naked and the Dead" for the penguin classic edition of The Tao De Ching and I have been reading it ever since.
Its funny how on the surface I think of my time in Ping Yao as having little significance but on the other hand it may be that one is quietly, gently guided through life to find what one needs as one needs it. In Ping Yao the Dao came alive for me! I met a Chinese hotel manager there who is a taoist, and we read a chapter of the Tao de Ching together every day.
From Ping Yao, I traveled by over night train to Xi An and couch surfed with a Scots man called Ali and his chinese girlfriend called Joy. Ali has a degree in Philosophy from somewhere in Britain and studies Kung Fu and teaches English in Xi An. He and I had a lot of totally cool talks about the nature of reality and the philosophy of Kung fu and Tai Chi.
We went to some great restaurants near his apartment and generally hung around drinking tea and talking and going for walks in the evening. During the days i hung around the Buddha gardens near the Wild Goose Pagoda and just relaxed my mind.
China, like everywhere else I have been, is a lot different than I expected! There is plenty of religious freedom here. There is a booming economy and there seems to be none of the usual signs of urban decay, like public drunkenness and drug abuse, there are almost no beggars and I have no fear of violence, there are certainly enough police but most of them carry no weapons. Buddhist and taoist monks walk freely in the streets un molested by the government.
That being said, this is certainly NOT a democracy, and there is a great deal of political repression. The great wall has been replaced by the great firewall. I can not read my blog, or post anything on it here in China. Google searches and wikipedia topics are censored. On an everyday kind of walking around life, it is just like anywhere else I have been but beneath the surface...it can be quite repressive, though most chinese will (just like everywhere else in the world) never have a run in with the police or the government.The days of "the Great Leap Forward" and the "Cultural Revolution" are over.For most practicl purposes this is a capitalist country with an oligarchy running the government.
I think that most people dont give a hoot about politics or really even political freedoms. Most of us do not want to run for office or change the government. I think it is fari to say that in my own country most of us do not feel our government cares about what they want, or does what they want, or spends their taxes on what they want them to spend them on.
So I think that in this respect China is no different from most western countries. they have an admitted one party system, while my country has a one party system which it claims is a two party system. both countries put lots of people in prison and even execute people they feel have lost their right to live...Barbarians both. I feel both are more oligarchy than democracy and I base this on the fact that 95% of the people who get elected are actually getting re-elected!
These things are of little importance to me. All I get from my government is a valid passport so i can come and go as I please. Of course I want more but I wont likely get it. What is really important in life, A person must get for himself.
The reason we are here is to raise our consciousness and I do not think your government can help or hinder you in this. Their power, their authority is all just illusion. Their rules are just that! Rules, not laws. Man makes rules God makes laws. It is easy to tell which is which, you can break the rules but not the laws! So before leaving Cheng du, I managed to trade my copy of Norman Mailer's "The Naked and the Dead" for Lao Tzu's The Dao De Ching.
I am now in Hunnan provence, in Kun Ming after a very pleasant overnight train from Cheng Du. I fly to Nepal in 3 days where i will write another update.Until then I urge all of you to continue breathing and being where you are!
Peace and Love to you all,
Robert
" Sincerity is the key to self-knowledge and to be sincere with oneself brings great suffering." Gurdjieff

"Concepts can at best only serve to negate one another, as one thorn is used to remove another, and then be thrown away. Only in deep silence do we leave concepts behind. Words and language deal only with concepts, and cannot approach Reality."Ramesh Balsekar

"You are Timelessness in which no death can enter, for where there is no time there is no death. That Timelessness is Now, and that is Being. Being is always shining. I AM is the Light of Being. This Diamond cannot hide and can never be hidden." Sri H. W. L. Poonja

Tavel update from Beijing

August 18, 2011 Nei hao
I am in China. I was in Beijing for 7 nights and it was a very nice experience. At first Beijing is very difficult for the independent traveler who does not speak chinese. I arrived by train to Er Lian from Mongolia. My last memory of Mongolia is getting taken by the ticket office at the international train sales window. I bought a combination train/bus ticket. The train part went smoothly enough. I was told when I bought my ticket that a person would be waiting at the train station with a sign with the name of the bus company on it and I would be taken to the bus and taken to Beijing to arrive at 7or 7:30 am. Well what a line of bullshit!
There was no one there to meet me! I showed my bus ticket to some taxi drivers and they said they knew where the bus was and they would take me. Now remember I speak no chinese and the taxistas speak no english. This is all done in charades, grunts and gestures.
I felt i was being cheated again but was at a loss as to what else to do so I went with the most persistent driver and he took me to the bus station and a little shop where a woman immediately got out her calculator and started screaming " Change money! Change money! " This turned out to be her only english!! I showed her my ticket and she took out a stack of identical tickets so i knew I was in the right place and paid my taxdriver.
She in turn walked over to the bus station and bought me a ticket on the next (the only!) bus to Beijing which was at 4:30 pm so I had to wait 5 hours and paid about 3 times what i would have paid if I had done all this on my own. Just shows that even an old road dog like me can get ripped off!! Ah hahh well what is traveling for if not to learn? huh?
So the real shit was that I would now have to arrive in Beijing at 4am not 7:30 and as any experienced traveller knows that really sucks! It is never good to arrive in a strange city where you do not speak the language and do not know where you are going in the middle of the night.
I had a reservation at a hostel and had instructions from the bus station to the hostel by public bus but the public bus and metro do not begin service until 5:30 and check-in time at my hostel was 12 noon. So I finally took a taxi 5 kilometers to the hotel and paid more than the price of the bed for the ride.
I have had a fine and interesting first week in China. Beijing is a fantastic city. An excellent example of all man can create by using his mind. Lots of noise, traffic, pollution, art, beautiful old architecture, FABULOUS indescribable foods, beautiful new architecture, all the latest fashions and McDonalds! It just may be possible that the air quality here is even worse than Los Angeles. I aint sure. The sky is always grey. It is amazingly dirty air i am breathing!
I did the tourist stuff, went to the great wall and the forbidden city. What a bunch of hoooey. Crowds and touts and tour operators with their silly little flags and... well if any of you want to know more about it you can look it up on google!! As for the great wall...Well here I go kids...
The wall is just another example of the minds unwillingness to accept impermanence. In mankinds history, we create false ideas like countries and religions and artificial groupings of humans like tribes and clans and races, and try to maintain these artificial notions through propaganda if possible and through force if not.
The wall did not work. It never works. Millions of chinese peasants were conscripted to do the work. More than a million ( I am told ) died of starvation exposure and exhaustion and OF COURSE it did not work. Just like all the walled cities that fell under seige in all the wars in history did not work. Just like the Maginot line did not work. Just like Stalin's iron curtain did not work, or the Berlin wall or the DMZ between north and south Viet Nam. None of them worked none will ever work. Stalin could not keep out McDonalds, Coca Cola and Christian D'Orr.The Chinese could not keep out the barbarians.
I come from a country (USA) where millions of retards think we should construct a 2000 kilometer wall on our border with Mexico at a cost of trillions of dollars and then to patrol it at a cost of trillions more. This is a bankrupt country mind you, that can not possibly pay for this any way other than to borrow the money and increase the national deficit!! When it will not, can not possibly work!!
After all the pain and money the emperors spent on the wall, Ghengis Khan came to it and looked up and saw it and called out to the guards and gave them bribe of a basket of gold coins and they opened the doors to the gate and... he...just...waltzed...in!
The mind wants to make permanent that which was never real (an empire, a country) to begin with. The mind wants security when there is no sescurity. All things must pass. All times are local. At the end of the game, the king and the pawn go into the same box.
So now I am here and here it is now and I am in Yao Ping. It is an ancient walled city in central China. Things here are as they were 300 years ago. It is like being in a different century. Some times it is hard to say just what time it really is, what century we are all living in. All times truly are local!! If things go as planned (hahhh!!) I will be here for 4 more nights and then go to Xi'An. I am in the process now of getting a train ticket. Travel in China is almost as difficult as Russia. It is very frustrating because I have been to so many countries where things are so much easier.
Xi'An is famous for Noodles. it is said to be the place whrerr noodles were invented. I am stoked to go and try some of the best noodles in the world. Chinese food here in China is fantastic, delicious, awesome, radical, and ten times better than the chinese food one gets in Chinese restaurants in other places in the world.
I am reading and discussing Chinese spiritual teachings with the locals when I get the chance. I am learning a lot about the Tao (the way) as taught by Lao-tse and Chuang-tse. I am having fun in a chinese kind of way. i am happy to be alive, I am happy to be here and I am happy it is still now.
Peace and love to all of you,
Rambling Robert

"A well frog cannot imagine the ocean, nor can a summer insect conceive of ice. How then cn a scholar understand the Tao? He is restricted by his own learning."Chuang-tse

"Fine weapons are instruments of evil. All Creatures hate them. Therefore followers of the way do not use them..To rejoice over victory by violence is to rejoice over slaughter. He who rejoices over slaughter cannot unite within the empire ... the wise ruler sees military triumph as a funeral. " Lao Tse (from Tao Te Ching)


"If you compare the city to the forest, you begin to wonder why it is that man considers himself superior to the animals" Benjamin Hoff

travel update: leaving Mongolia

Hello Everyone,
Well i am just about ready to get back on a train. This time i will be going from ulaan Baatar to Erhan China. I will only be in Erhan long enough to catch a bus to Beijing. I have been staying here In Ulaan Baatar for the last 5 days and once again i have retured to stay at mongolian steppes guest house. When I got back here, the two French artists (Mario and Mathieu) and the American Marathon runner( Herb from Minnesota) were also back at the Hostel! All had been out tramping around the countryside and we are all back now. So we have been kind of hanging around together having a few beers at anight and sharing a dormitory and even cooking a few dinners together.
I split from Ulaan Baatar for a week and went to Harkhoran. This is the ancient capital of mongolia. It is where Ghengis Khan made his capital and remaind the capital for a long time like 40 or 50 years, until his son moved the capital to present day Beijing. Kharkorum is also the home of mongolias first and oldest Budhist monastery.
Today it is a rather ugly little city of 10,000 people in a rather beautiful location. It is far from anywhere and not so easy to get to. There is one bus per day to U.B. and no bus to anywhere else! if you want to go somewhere else, you can take a horse or hitch hike. I spent a day exploring the budhist ruins with Alex, a traveler from Roumania whom i met on the bus going there and the rest of the time I spent by myself. The first day there it rained like crazy. After this, ther river overflowed ant my Ger ( a big round tent, like a Yurt ) camp was flooded. There was no electricity for a day and it was rather drizzling and miserable.
The owners of the camp, performed quite a civil engineering miracle by putting a dam between the camp and the overflowing river, and then using an gasoline powered pump to drain the camp of the flood waters. The waters had gotten up to my Ger and I had repacked my backpack and was all ready to move to higher ground somewhere when Suvd and her family stemmed the tide of the flooding river and I was able to remain there. I was the only guest for the next 4 nights and it was very tranquil. I spent my time reading and meditating and taking long walks out on the (still soggy) steppe.
Suvd's (the Ger Camp owner) brother is a Shaman of the old Mongolian religion, which is similar to BON religion from Tibet. He was there in town to do some ceremonies and to bring luck to the "faithful" . I tried to arrange a meeting or at least to be allowed to sit in on a ceremony but alas, it was not to be... I was a little disappointed but I respect the fact that they do not want their religious beliefs to be a spectacle or a tourist attraction. A source of "amussement" for foreigners.
So I returned to Ulaan Baatar, and it is from here that I am writing this. Tomorrow, August 8, I will take a night train to China. I have a ticket to take an over night bus from the border to the capital and I should arrive in Beijing on the morning of August 10. I am going to stay at Hostel Leo where I will meet Mario and Mathieu, two French artists that I know from here in Mongolia. I expect to be in Beijing at least a week, so I will write the next update from there.
Peace and love to all of you,
Robert

"There is an 'I', a potential soul. If we can say with the same simplicity 'I have a body' as we say 'I have a car' we can begin to realize that this body is a transforming machine which 'I' have. 'I' have a machine to use, does not mean 'I' am a machine. 'I' have a body, a mechanical organism whose function it is to transform substances and energies."
A.R. Orage
" We attract forces according to our being." Gurdjieff
"I believe that our Heavenly Father invented man because he was disappointed in the monkey." Mark Twain

travel update from outer mongolia

Hello from Ulaan Baatar,
I am in Ulaan Baatar the capitol of Mongolia. Mongolia is a country of less than 3 million people, mostly nomadic herdsmen. Modern day Mongolia was called outer Mongolia when i was a child. It was deeply under the sway of the Soviet Union, but it did maintain its independence, at least on paper. Though in fact, Stalin and his boys were calling the shots, so to speak. Today it is a parliamentary democracy and the people seem pretty happy. they are part of the global community and tourism is beginning to reach them, although it is NOT an easy country for the independent traveler. Inner Mongolia is part of the Democratic Peoples Republic of China. I will pass through Inner Mongolia on my way to Beijing, soon. I expect to be in Beijing on August 10.
After a few days in Irkutsk Russian Siberaia, I went with Tom to visit Lake Baikal. It is 1,600 meters deep. So that makes Lake Baikal the deepest lake in the world. It is said to contain 20% of all the un-frozen fresh water in the world, More water than the Great lakes of USA and Canada (Erie, Huron, Michigan, Superior, and Ontario ) combined! I find that hard to believe but you can look it up! It is truyly a beautiful sight to see. A vast in-land sea that stretches for as far as the eye can see. Very cold and crystal clear waters. The following day we got back on the trans siberian rail road and left Russia and 36 hours later, entered Mongolia.
I have been here in Mongolia since 18 July. I arrived in the capital city and the following day took off for Terelj National Park. I stayed there for a couple of nights in an "eco camp" owned and run by Bert, who is a Dutch expat and crazy as a loon!! On the other hand, he is a hobby cheese maker and he makes most excellent Gouda cheeses. I watched and learned a lot from him. All the milk he uses come from his own free ranging grass eating cows. Happy cows make happy cheese! Most of the deal is in control of the temperature, and the process of separating the curds from the whey. After this it is all about aging. In the end I bought a quarter kilo of some excellent home made cheese from him and I enjoyed the last of it in a grilled cheese sandwich this afternoon, accompanied by a couple of eggs over easy.
I am not exactly sure what an eco camp is, even after staying in one. I was going to ask Bert but he is so crazy that it seemed not a good idea to risk further agitating the man. He needs an anger management course...I can not for the life of me decide why he should be so angry. he lives in one of the most beautiful and tranquil places I have ever seen on this lovely green planet of ours. Beautiful green valleys of grass called steppes for as far as the eye can see. lovely gentle hills surround his lush beautiful valley. herds of free ranging livestock Yaks, cows, horses, sheep, goats go slowly grazing by,...
The Mongolian cowboys go galloping along and their dogs kind of keep the animals in a group. the cowboys sing as they ride! Serious!! You can hear them singing to themselves out loud as they go by on their ponies.
The lodging is rather primitive in a fun way. I stayed in what is called in Mongolian a "Ger". In Khazakistan, it is called a "yurt". It is a circular shaped tent. It is semi permanent structure. you can take one down or put one up in an hour if you are experienced. There is a wood stove in the middle and there is a little chimney so it is warm at night. Our Ger had 5 beds in it. there are bigger ones and also smaller ones.
Near our camp is a lovely little river with crystal clear rather cold water. I took a very brief dip but did not swim. My two travelling companions Mathew from Denmark and Florian from Germany did , but they did not stay in the water for very long. Next day I took a long walk around the steppe and gathered mushrooms with Nellie, which Bert inspected to be sure we would not poison ourselves and after his approval we sauteed them in olive oil and served them on toast. Very nice indeed. We cooked in the Ger of Nellie a german woman who was there at the same time as us and she had brought a camp stove and some frying pans. We all had dinners together while we were there and left together as well.
During my long walks and solitary sitting time out there on the Mongolian steppes I found myself contemplating the Sourse of my "self". My "being" or my "essence" as it were. Many of you have heard me speak of the line of being and the line of doing. I often say I am a human being not a human doing. Many of you also have heard me speak of the inevitable law of karma, of cause and effect, action and reaction. The problem is like the chicken and the egg, where does one begin and the other end? What comes first? is not every action merely a reaction?
Well I believe I have come to a new understanding. A man's being is the cause, and his doing is the effect. That is why one works on ones being. because all your doing is a result of your being. If one can perfect or at least improve ones being, his doing, that is to say, his actions, will also change in corresponding fashion.
It has been said that in order for a man to "do" first he must truly "be". I have pondered this riddle for decades. Mr. Gurdjieff was said to have told his pupils that a man, such as he is, can "do" Nothing. for Man in his present state things just happen, that doing is illusion. Last week on the steppes of outer Mongolia this idea truly made sense to me for the first time. I have been working on my being for a long time now. Working on my ewssense by observiong my "self" ...Observing my breath, my fantasies and daydreams, my body at rest. Not doing, just observing. It is the observing that brings about a change.
In quantum mechanics it is said that the observation of the experiment changes the experiment. That there is no line of separation between observer and observed. To observe the experiment is to change the experiment, so I reckon that to observe ones self is to change ones self.
Below are some quotes to think about until my next update. I hope this letter finds all of you well and peaceful.
Peace and love to you all,
Robert

"The man who carries a cat by the tail learns something that can be learned in no other way." Mark Twain

"Man [has] always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much-the wheel, New York, wars and so on-while all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man-for precisely the same reason." Douglas Adams

"The greatest barrier to consciousness is the belief that one is already conscious." PD Ouspensky

travel update from Siberia Russia

Previet Everyone,
Moscow was a good city. It is not so different from St. Petersburg. The population is of course much larger. Both cities have a lot of foreign visitors. Foreigners do not stand out very much there. It is easy to find helpful people who speak english, especially among the younger folks I am meeting. Even the police were helpful if you are a foreigner looking for directions or asking questions.
Globalization has come to Russia. Everywhere one looks it is all the same as other countries. McDonalds, Subway Sandwich, Starbucks. Tuborg, Heineken, Budweiser, Johnny Walker, and Jack Daniels. People dressed in the same fashions as in the west, reebock shoes, Dolce and Gabbano, Christian D'or. Young people with tatoos, American and British rock and roll music in the air. Bob Marley playing on the stereo in my hostel...BMW, Toyota, Chevrolet, Mercedes Benz cars...I am a little disappointed. I was hoping to drink tea prepared in a samovar. No deal. Plastic electric tea kettles have taken over the world!
Well, I suppose this is what some would call "progress". I am not so sure about that. It seems to be a lack of character and an overdose of uniformity. In Thailand they have an expression...they say "Same, same but different". I am not saying that it is completely characterless. People still eat Blini, Pierogi, and lots of different kinds of caviar. Lovely breads and interesting cheeses. If you all are planning to travel to see how the different cultures differ one from another, I suggest you not waste too much time. The forces of mass marketing is bringing the east to the west, the north to the south and turning everything inside out! Just my opinion but, based on my first hand observations...
Trying to buy our train tickets in St.Petersburg or Moscow at the train stations was a horror show! Long lines and ticket counter sales people who did not speak anything but Russian and were not in the mood to try to help at all. People who were behind in the line volunteered to help by translating, (so friendly, so helpful, so sweet) but most of the trains are crowded or sold out. We had to take a bus to Moscow and from there trying to buy tickets for trans siberian rail road trains was all but impossible. Finally in desperation we bought them on the internet from RealRussia.com and paid the extra commisions. Ahhh, What the wahh hay! it was worth the price for the added convenience and security of knowing we would be able to get on the train! The first leg of my great trans siberian rail road journey is done. 56 hours from Moscow to Tomsk.
The train was modern and very comfortable. We had cheapest tickets, in third class. People were super friendly! We were the only not Russian people in our car! There were a couple of teenagers who were travelling with grown-ups who translated for us. We played checkers with them and Rummy and 17 matches. They invited us to play chess but we both do not play. Pity it looks like fun...
Everyone brings their own food. There is not much to do so everyone is eating all the time! Like a big camping trip. The train has a big samovar so there is boiling water any time ( I finally got to use a samovar! ) you want to make tea or coffee or cup of instant noodles or instant mashed potatoes or soup in an envelope. They also had a microwave oven you can use.
Most of the people bring bread and make sandwiches of hard cooked egg or salami or cheeses smoked or canned fish. Lots of fresh fruit like cucumbers, apples, bananas, cherries and strawberries. Lots of pastries and sweets. Everyone was offering us stuff to taste or to eat. There is not much to do so everyone is eating all the time. It is like a big camping trip! I loved it, so much fun.
There are many stops and you can get out on the platforms and stretch your legs and of course all kinds of stuff are available to buy. After 56 hours, however, I was about ready to get off and stay in a town for a couple of days and take a shower. Which is what we did.
So we stopped in Tomsk a city of 500,000 people built along the Tom River in South Central Siberia. Tom and I are the first Americans to stay at the Eighth Floor Hostel. It is a nice hostel and the staff is friendly. It is rather new and everything is very clean. It is a converted apartment. The city population is about 50% university students they say. There are many XVIII century old wood buildings, actually more like giant log cabins. Very beautiful and interesting. It is obviouse they do not get many foreign travellers here! After 3 days and 2 nights we got back on the train to go to Irkutsk.
Once again we had the third class cheap tickets but this was an older train and it was not as nice as the earlier train. lucky for Tom and me we only had to stay on for 36 hours. It was very hot and uncomfortable. The people were great very friendly and there were two French men on the train with us so we were not the only foreigners.
I am writing from Irkutsk. Irkutsk is famous for lake Baikal. It is said to be the deepest lake in the world. 1.6 km deep at the deepest point. Irkutsk is not exactly on the lake but rather about 60km from the lake. We will go tomorrow to the lake and to Taltsy.
Taltsy is a big outdoor museum, actually a rebuilt replica of a siberian village from the eighteenth century.It is about half way between here and the lake so we will go there first and then continue on to the lake. We will stay for the day and return to Irkutsk.
Here in Irkutsk we are staying in a 101 year old home made of logs. It is way cool and the owner Igor, is a gem of a man. He is a director and producer of theater plays. he has done a great deal of the work on the home himself. Restoring here and refinishing there. The place is totally unique. i am loving it!!
Well thats all for now. Next update from Mongolia!
peace and love to all of you
Robert

"Mona Lisa must have had the highway blues; you can tell by the way she smiles."Bob Dylan
"Your life feels different on you, once you greet death and understand your heart's position. You wear your life like a garment from the mission bundle sale ever after -- lightly because you realize you never paid nothing for it, cherishing because you know you won't ever come by such a bargain again." Louise Erdrich

“There do exist enquiring minds, which long for the truth of the heart, seek it, strive to solve the problems set by life, try to penetrate to the essence of things and phenomena and to penetrate into themselves. If a man reasons and thinks soundly, no matter which path he follows in solving these problems, he must inevitably arrive back at himself, and begin with the solution of the problem of what he is himself and what his place is in the world around him.” G.I.Gurdjieff

travel update from Moscow

Provyet,
Well now I am here. Here I am now. Uuhhh, wow wait let me start over. I am in Moscow.
The capital of Russia. I arrived here on the morning of 4 July. Independence Day in USA. To what Ronald Reagan once called the black heart of the dark empire. He of course was stuck in time. I am a A Eulipian...a time traveller. A journey agent...I know everything is in a constant state of change. I know that "This too shall pass" There is no need to annihilate one another if one is patient...
"I hung around St. Petersburg until I saw it was a time for a change" Mick Jagger "Sympathy for the Devil"
I was in St Petersburg for 4 days haunted by that line from an old Rolling Stones song. St P. is a beautiful and vibrant city full of friendly and helpful people. I am walking in history. Staring in open eyed wonder at the Hermitage, the old summer palace of the Czars since the time of Peter the Great until the Bolshevik Revolution. Wow those folks were awfully good at spending other peoples money. The architecture and art and just sheer beauty of the old imperial city are in a word, breathtaking. Truly one of the worlds most magnificent cities.
My first day in St P. however was another one of those travel days in... HELL!! Murphy was watching and guiding me from on high. Anything that could go wrong did go wrong. It started out fine, our bus from Helsinki was on time and going through customs was a breeze. A nice girl on the bus offered to walk us right to the front door of the hostel we reserved as she was walking that way herself. So it was easy to find. Then the fun began.
We arrive and it is too early to check in. We must wait until 1pm. The receiving agent at the desk speaks no English or Spanish only Russian. The place looks like a real dump! She will not let us look around. She does not want us to leave our stuff there so we can go out and walk around.Okay, so we pantomime and get directions to the bank machine so I can get some Russian money. Tom stays behind with our stuff. I get the money count it up and go have a walk about.
When I return I am going to sort my cash and notice that somewhere along the way, I lost a 500 ruble note and a pair of 100ruble notes. I can not believe it. I withdrew 7000 (about 250 or 270 dollars) and somehow, lost 700 (about 25 or 30 dollars). I counted it all at the bank machine, so I know the bank did not short me. I lost it. I do not know where or how...I feel like such a fool. I realize that I am not breathing with awareness so I watch my breath and immediately feel better, even if I do not feel richer! It is only money why let it molest me?
Now Christina the owner of the hostel comes and tells us she is over booked and has no room for us. I am breathing with awareness. I smile at her. She says "I can take you to another hostel close by". "Let me call" she says. I am breathing like a Buddha and things are improving. She says she can get us in, and she can walk us over there in a few minutes. I ask if I can use the toilet and she says " It is for guest only, do you really need to go?"...I smile with my out breath. It is better than telling her she is a 3 holed ass!
After I get back from the toilet, I feel better and ask her if she can register us with the police. All tourists who stay in Russia more than 7 days must register with the police. She says yes it will cost 3600rubles. I will think about it I say. She says well...I can do it for 2800. Okay I say let me think about it some more. She goes down to 2100 for us both. The girl who walked us there from the bus had told us it should cost about 300 each.
We get to the new hostel. It is cleaner, brighter , friendlier, and just all in all much better. We get into our dormitory and I need a nap. I have been traveling all night and did not sleep well on the bus. I am asleep when our new administrator wakes me and says I must change rooms because Christina is back and she has more guests whom she over booked and...I am angry. I am not breathing with awareness, I am pissed off. I am tired. i am an important person. I demand respect and to be treated kindly I am an ego machine and I want to scream, I breath in calm and give her a smile on the out breath and move my shit. What else could I do? She is grateful for my understanding. I am glad. I am really tired but I am happy.
Christina wants us to commit to letting her register us. I breathe calmly. I tell her go ahead, I will pay her tomorrow when we go to the ATM. I am clever. I know it costs her nothing to register me and after she has done the work she will accept the normal fee. If not, we can register in Moscow. I smile knowing this, while I breathe out. I am a New Jersey Buddha. Two days later after more of her belly aching we pay her 300 each.
Moscow. Red Square. The Kremlin. St. Basil's cathedral. It is like a dream. I am walking in history. It is 4th of July 2011. I am in front of Lenin's tomb. Standing on the exact spot that 20 minute man ICBMs used to be pointed. Ground ZERO of the nuclear nightmare. Only that was then and this is now. That too has passed. It is peace. We are friends. I am at peace. I watch as the thing I call "me" breathes in calmly and breathes out smilingly and i am loving life, right here right now in Moscow!
Tom asks the desk clerk of our Moscow hostel, The Comrade Hostel, how much it costs to register a guest with the police? She says 900 each. Tom smiles and breathes with calmness.
Peace and love to all of you
Robert
"What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?" Mohandas K. Gandhi
"Travel teaches toleration."Benjamin Disraeli
"The test of an adventure is that when you're in the middle of it, you say to yourself, "Oh, now I've got myself into an awful mess I wish I were sitting quietly at home." And the sign that something's wrong with you is when you sit quietly at home wishing you were out having lots of adventure."Thornton

travel update finland

Greetings from St Petersburg Russia,
I arrived in St Petersburg (SP) from Helsinki on 29 June at 7am. After a marvellous week in Finland, visiting with my good time friend and travelling mate, Samuel. After Sam met me at the Ferry station from Estonia, we went and got Tom at the Airport. Sam took us to an apartment of his friend Harry, who was going to allow us to stay there and use the flat for the duration of our visit in Helsinki. The flat was nice modern rather large one room studio, with a kitchenette. Harry had been in some kind of accident and his face was badly bruised. He was going to stay with his sister and therefore we had the place to ourselves.
For the first two days Samuel took us all around Helsinki and one of the islands in the harbor called Suomenlinna. This island had been a fortress island to protect the city against marauding Vikings, and invading Germans, Danes, and Swedes. There are lots of old fortifications and it is generally a beautiful green island with lots of birds and flowers. The weather was warm and the sky was blue and we had a great time there.
In Helsinki, we looked at all the old historic buildings and statues. Now, I enjoy this kind of thing. and truly, Europe is the best place to look at such stuff, but I get a little tired of it. We bought some beer and hung out at a lovely park where lots of people stroll down the center lane and sun bath. There was a jazz saxophone player who was very good and he was blowing that horn for free and we sat in the grass and listened to the sounds of the city with jazz in the air.
After two fine days in beautiful Helsinki, Tom and I went with Samuel and 4 of his friends, Sami, Katia, Ryah, and bruised face Harry, to the summer cottage of Katia, who is a work mate of Sami and Ryah. The cottage turns out to be more like a stunning compound of several cottages and a smokey sauna on Finlands third largest lake. We stayed there for 4 days, to celebrate the Summer festival called Jaunas Which means White Nights. The principle form that this celebration takes is drinking alcohol and eating way too much food!
The lake had stunning views. We got to experience the midnight sun, that is to say, The sun never really sets. Finland is on the same lattitude as Alaska USA. It is the farthest north I have ever been on planet Earth. The lake is only about 200 kilometers from the artctic circle. For 3 months per year it never actually gets what one would call dark. We had a great albeit drunken 4 days there.
The Finnish Smokey Sauna, is a Small well insulated room with a fire box and on top of the fire box a big pile of volcanic stones. They fill the box with wood and close the doors and open a small vent and the place gets very hot inside. The fire is smokey as can be, and after 2or 3 hours they open the doors and vent out the smoke and we get in and sweat. the aromas of wood smoke and the heat are fabulous together. I felt like a giant smoked salmon! While you are in there, you beat yourself with bunches of leafy birch branches. these branches and especially the leaves have a kind of oil in them and it feels and smells wonderful.
Ah yes and it is so and so it goes. Finally we drove back to Helsinki for more of the same Jazz in the park, but a different band. Actually I heard 3 very good jazz performances for free in the parks of Helsinki. It is a great place for people watching, ice cream eating and beer drinking. Samuel showed us all the best stuff, and translated everything we were interested in. Finally, our time there was done and now I am in Holy Mother Russia.
I will go to Moscow in 2 more days, and for now, i am just enjoying St.Petersburg, though Russia is already proving to be as difficult as the rumors from other travelers have told us. Enough for now.
Peace and love to all of you
Robert
"What would our world be like if we ceased to worry about "right" and "wrong," or "good" and "evil," and simply acted so as to maximize well-being, our own and that of others? Would we lose anything important?" Sam Harris
"Only the gentle are ever really strong." James Dean
"Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better."Albert Einstein