I feel like we had a tie for the best part of the day on our first day in Mumbai:
the Elephanta Caves on an island near Mumbia and our visit to the Ghandi museum. We almost didn't go to the caves because it's about a 5-hour trip and we had so little time in Mumbai. I am so glad we didn't skip it.
First of all we had the best guide in the world- it was like he took all we had been learning during our days in India and summarized them as he led us through the caves, describing the amazing carvings and the Hindu stories behind them. I wanted to record everything he said.
I wish i could capture all his comments and they we presented them. When he spoke, he reminded us of the ideas and concepts that we discussed each night as we shared what we learned about humanity as a result of our day's experience. The dicotomies of humility and confidence; unlearning to learn; belief and skeptism, fate and work, logic and mythology; progress and tradition; individuality and community; aggression and compassion; hope and despair... Actually the dicotomeies seem to exist within a framework of the trinity: the head, the heart and the hands; or the mind, the spirit and the will; or the creator (Brahma), the preserver (the Vishnu), and the destructor (Shiva); or the father, the son and the holy ghost.
Only at the end of the trip did we have a guide who explained to us what Namaste or Namaskaram or Namaskara means- "not me, but you." God, what a gorgeous sentiment to greet a guest or a stranger with. He talked about what it means to invite someone into your home and life without judgment. (i thought a lot about Jesus, saying that what you do for the least of these, you do to/for me). He talked about the prayer hands that are part of the namaste greeting- the hands are purposely placed between head and heart-to meditate between the two- the peace is in the middle. And the two hands meeting together in the middle as a way to bridge the right and left, reason and creativity, belief and skeptism, the ideas of balance and acceptance. He talked about how in the Western world we worship our intellect and neglect creativity and compassion. Amen! i thought; this is what i am always trying to explain to my folks in the law firm world. Our ability to conceive is so thwarted by this lack of balance, lack of cultivation of the right hemisphere, and of course the failure to invite love into our reasoning.
When you think about the creativity and imagination and faith it took for people in the 6th centurry to hewn these magnificent images and stories out of a big piece of rock, to insist their Gods loom large in their community, it is so inspiring and it sort of creates a resolve in you. By the way, the guide also spoke to us about the resource management, ecology of these storiesa and ways of living. What i also liked about the stories and manifestations of Shiva in this temple is that they speak honestly of the many manifestations of the human spirt, the good, the bad, and the ugly; the feminine and the masculine energies, righteousness and evil. They are all in us, but so is the divinity. These caves remind me that there are no limits, except the ones we imagine. Better to imagine the possibilities. yes?
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