Meeting Shiva: Falling and Rising in Love in the Indian Himalayas - Softcover

Stupia, Tiziana

Softcover

ISBN 10: 178099916X ISBN 13: 9781780999166

Verlag: John Hunt Publishing, 2013

Inhaltsangabe

Meeting Shiva is a spiritual memoir. Tiziana, a single woman in her mid-thirties, is at the end of an adventurous overland trip through the Himalayas, which she embarked on to search for her tantric soul mate. When the soul mate hasn’t materialized after eight months of wandering through Tibet, Nepal, Pakistan and India, she decides to go home. Before her departure, she sets out on a final mountain trip. It is here that she meets Rudra, the man she has been waiting for all her life. But there is a catch: Rudra is a sannyasi, a celibate Hindu monk who lives in an austere ashram in the remote Himalayas. The two get drawn into an intense, romantic relationship that soon spirals out of control as Tiziana is drawn into a past long forgotten that ultimately leads her through pain and misery to healing and transformation.
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Über die Autorinnen und Autoren

Tiziana Stupia is a writer, yoga teacher, ayurvedic consultant, vedic fire ceremonies practitioner, and traveller. She publishes widely on the topics of spirituality, travel, health and personal growth. She lives in Leamington Spa, UK.
,

Tiziana Stupia is a writer, yoga teacher, ayurvedic consultant, vedic fire ceremonies practitioner, and traveller. She publishes widely on the topics of spirituality, travel, health and personal growth. She lives in Leamington Spa, UK.
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Meeting Shiva

Falling and Rising in Love in the Indian Himalayas

By Tiziana Stupia

John Hunt Publishing Ltd.

Copyright © 2012 Tiziana Stupia
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-78099-916-6

CHAPTER 1

Part 1

Somewhere inthe Himalayas

But now the destined spot and hour were close;Unknowing she had neared her nameless goal.For though a dress of blind and devious chanceIs laid upon the work of all-wise Fate,Our acts interpret an omniscient ForceThat dwells in the compelling stuff of things,And nothing happens in the cosmic playBut at its time and in its foreseen place.

From 'Savitri', Sri Aurobindo

1.1: The Flip of the Coin

On a stifling hot morning in May, I stood on the dusty balcony ofa yoga ashram in Rishikesh and shielded my eyes against theintense sun. My friend MJ leaned against the railing next to mewith a glass of sweet, milky chai in her hand. We had spent thelast four months in this small Himalayan town by the Ganga,studying yoga under the guidance of a young bearded yogi who,with his long black hair and white robes, looked like an Indianversion of Jesus.

'Do you think they will come?' I asked and craned my neck.We were about to leave the ashram for the wilderness of theHimalayas and were waiting for a driver to collect us. Before MJcould answer me, a weathered VW crawled down the dirt paththat connected the main road with the ashram, leaving a cloud ofdust in its wake. When the car had come to a halt, a wiry youngman with a goatee beard, an Italian flat-cap and trendysunglasses jumped out of the car and waved at us vigorously. Wegrabbed our backpacks and ran out to meet him.

'Sanjay!' he beamed. 'Welcome! I am your guide.' He heavedour backpacks onto the roof of the car and strapped them onto aluggage rack that was already packed with tents and sleepingbags.

'Chalo!' he hollered, 'Let's go!', and ushered us into the back ofthe car. With a final wave of goodbyes and 'Namaste's to Mata-ji,the yogi's imposing mother, who had come to see us off with theashram's cooks, we set off on our trip: towards the Himalayas,and into the Unknown. I watched with quiet excitement as weedged out of Rishikesh, past the little chai stalls, German bakeriesand internet cafés, the stoned and dreadlocked sadhus in theShiva temple, the Western tourists clad in hippy clothes with redtilaks on their foreheads, obese cows, beggars and street children.With all of its contradictions, I had grown fond of Rishikesh – alively mix of East and West, with more yoga schools, ashrams,temples and spiritual bookshops than you could care to imagine.

Guide Sanjay, whose ear was glued to his constantly ringingmobile phone, had a look and demeanor so Sicilian that wenamed him Al Pacino before we reached our first stop. Incontrast, the driver, Ram, was of stocky build. Clad in a blue-greydriver's uniform, he sported a thick bush of shiny blackhair, a black stubbly beard and even blacker circles beneath hiseyes. Eyebrows furrowed and knuckles white, his speedydriving style consisted of leaning over the stirring wheel whilelaughing hysterically from time to time. Consequently, hisnickname could be no other than Maniac.

I turned to look at MJ, who shook her head and smirked as weflew through a precarious bend with screeching wheels. Ilaughed. MJ was a tall woman with piercing sky-blue eyes andshoulder-length blonde hair. We had met at the ashram, and Iliked her for her complex nature. Generally lively and emotional,she had a wry sense of humor and was prone to frequentoutbursts of 'Tabernac!' and other religiously inspired swearwordswhen things didn't go as planned. There was also a deep,thoughtful and vulnerable side to her. We were on a similarwavelength and often enjoyed long, intense conversations aboutthings that mattered to us. I was looking forward to going on thisadventure with her. What a fantastic way to end my epic journeyto the East.

Accompanied by an abundant diet of high-pitched Hindidisco music, we drove for hours through lush wooded,mountainous landscapes, and occasionally sighted the sparklingGanga in the desolate valleys beneath us. Absorbed in thescenery, we didn't speak much. It was strange, I mused as wepassed a small shrine dedicated to the Hindu elephant godGanesh, that I ended up in India. And even stranger that I likedit so much. When I was younger, I'd never wanted to go to India.Ever. Since I could remember, I had harbored a strong, irrationalaversion to this vast, bewildering country of holy cows, mousta-chioedmen and haloed Gurus. There was a time when even thesmell of Indian food would make me feel sick.

My hippie friend Kassandra, on the other hand, loved India.While I spent my early twenties running a record label inEngland, she repeatedly pilgrimaged to the Holy Land, as shecalled it, in search of spiritual enlightenment. I would receive aflood of letters and postcards bearing vivid descriptions of life inIndia from her, bursting with tales of crazy tuk-tuk rides, gawkingcrowds, silent mountain monasteries and ominous Gurus withnames like Sai Baba and Osho. These Gurus, she said, couldmagically produce sacred ash and wristwatches out of thin airand sometimes appeared in your dreams to grant you boons, ifyou recited the right mantras.

Kassandra's quest was unfathomable to me. 'Why are yougoing to this crazy Third World country?' I would question herdismissively. 'Why?'

I don't know where my aversion to India came from. I hadnever been there and knew preciously little about the country. Ijust knew I hated it. And now, through an odd series of circumstances,I was here and had completely, irrevocably fallen in lovewith the country. How interesting and contradictory life could besometimes.

We stopped in a small town to buy supplies for the weekahead. The place bustled with market stalls, cows and donkeys.As so often in India, I was mesmerized by the colorful mix ofhuman beings, deities and animals, the traders and their strangewares on offer. A young girl, sitting in the back of her parents'four-wheel drive, threw up through the open window all over theroad with a woeful expression on her face in near proximity toour car. I watched her with a mixture of sympathy and curiosity,while MJ groaned in disgust. The girl shot me a 'What?!' look,and I pondered the 'sick women on Asian buses' phenomenon.

It was a sight that I'd grown accustomed to all over Asia:women with green faces and suffering expressions leaning out ofbuses, long black hair fluttering in the wind, throwing up whilesympathetic relatives patted their hands. Invariably, the victimswere women, while cheerfully chattering men leant back in theirseats and smoked. One time, when I was returning from a templein Tibet, the bus stopped en route and we were treated to thesight of a long line of women who all leant against a wall andpurged their stomachs in unison. Why was it only women whogot sick? I wondered.

Maniac inhaled some lunch at one of the roadside stalls; MJand I followed Al Pacino through the afternoon heat downcobbled alleyways to the vegetable market, where he barteredwith different traders. Meanwhile, MJ and I were befriended bya group of young Muslim vegetable sellers in blue shalwar kameezoutfits who enthusiastically fed us cucumber slices and involvedus in a fervent discussion about Allah. I was in a good mood,excited to be on the road again.

Al Pacino signaled that he had finished his purchases, and weheaded back to the car to continue our drive. That night, we weresupposed to stay in a 'beautiful and remote wooden...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: John Hunt Publishing
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2013
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 178099916X
• ISBN 13: 9781780999166
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 327
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar