Dettagli
Scarica Docx
Leggi di più
“Not that I have magical power, but I could see through the walls and the roof, a lot, thousands of holes everywhere. I called it the five-thousand star hotel, and it was pretty cheap. That was in one of the houses, the mud houses that I stayed. Most of the time, I climbed up to the roof to sleep. We didn't have a staircase. You have to kind of climb the wall with your fingers in because the wall is mud, anyhow. Often the scorpions came up to the roof like me, doing yoga exercises and then meditating, like a big deal. In the morning when I woke up, I said, ‘What is that?’ And he raised his head and said, ‘It's me.’ ‘It's me, Scorpio!’ Before my ex-husband came, there was another friend who came. He brought there the trend, like, survival into 24th century, things like that, with the raw food, sprouts and wheat germ. And he said, ‘Oh, I don't have anywhere to go.’ So, I said to him, ‘You can use my room until you have the next room. I don't sleep here. And daytime, I'm gone. And at nighttime, I sleep on the roof.’ My ex-husband went to India to find me. Meanwhile he was miserable, and they tried to tell him that, ‘You should not worry about your wife. You should worry about your soul.’ And at that time, he already knew that I was in Rishikesh. So, he said to them, ‘My soul is in Rishikesh.’ And then the next morning, probably, my ex-husband came, But I said to him, ‘Well, this is the last day of my seven-day retreat in the middle of the Ganges River. So, would you please wait for me until the evening, and I’ll come back?’ But that day, I couldn't go by boat. There was so much wind and rain, the Ganges water became like an ocean. So I had to turn around and walk many miles upstream. It was about 7 o'clock or more when I reached my place, but my husband had already gone. I found my friend. I recognized there was a movie camera that belonged to me, before I left him. And I said, ‘What is that?’ He said, ‘Oh, he gave me this movie camera. Your husband asked me, “Where do I stay.” I said, “I stay here, in Your room and sleep in Your bed.”’ I ran to the bus stop to find him, but then he was gone. He left and I came, just like those sad, romantic movies. I went to the post office and tried to call him. But to call Delhi from there is like you contact the moon or Mars. And just, ‘Hallo? Hallo?’ and then, boop, cut! Finally, I got through the message: ‘You misunderstood. Please come back immediately.’ And I waited and waited and waited. I didn't see any reply. A few days later, I left. I went to a further higher region to go to visit those like Gangotri. And then suddenly, there were two big hands behind me, covered my face like this. And I was struggling to get free. And there was a voice, very familiar, saying ‘Happy Birthday...’ And I turned around, and there he was, my husband. We had the same birthday, yes. So, I said, ‘OK! Happy Birthday to you.’ And then, we traveled together up there. I didn't have to explain anymore, because he knew.”“When I was in the Himalayas, in India, I didn’t have much money. I had to stretch my money very long. So, I didn’t know how long I would stay there. Sometimes I just ate chapatti and peanut butter. And chapatti I made myself too, it’s even cheaper than buying it. I lived through like that many, many months. Sometimes ate only raw food, if I went to high altitude. The air is too thin or what, I don't know. Can't cook, you can but it takes half a day to boil a little two centimeters of water. It's OK. Even in winter you can pick some of the herbs, some of the wild plants in the Himalayas, and can eat them. As you know, I didn’t even have a tent. Can you imagine being in the Himalayas, with no tent? I couldn’t afford to carry so many things. I could hardly carry myself. The higher you go the heavier it becomes. The same luggage became heavier.”“And I was walking all by myself with a stick and with a sleeping bag on the stick. That’s all I had, with a pair of punjab clothes in there. It’s like a tunic with the trousers. That’s it.”“I used to have some kind of plate, to cook chapatti or to have rice on it. Later on, I threw it away too. I could not bear. Even very thin, aluminum-like, very thin and light, I could not have it even. And the spoon, it was made of, kind of stainless steel, and it was a little bit thick but small. But, later then I threw away also. And the knife, threw away. Everything. All day long, my feet were wet, because my walking shoes were kind of sports shoes like yours. And the snow melted inside and it was always wet and cold. When I opened it at the destination, it was swollen like that. And so cold, I could not even move. It was still there, but I could not move the toes.”“I wasn't equipped. I went all over the places, together with the bears, and snakes, and rattlesnakes and all that, and scorpions and all these. And I had only two pairs of clothes, thinner than this. I ran in the Himalayas, I didn’t catch cold ever. And the clothes were so wet. They didn’t dry, but I didn’t have money to buy even wood. I just stood around people who had fire, and hung my clothes with my hands. So a little heat would come, and the clothes would dry quicker - better than nothing. And meanwhile you keep a little bit warm.”“They would walk all over, 11,000 feet height, 20,000 feet height, sometimes above sea level, just to see the master, and maybe not easy to find. Many people would died on the road, because of the landslide, snowstorm, and road damage. Sometimes the whole bus just washed down together with the sudden flush of water or sudden fall of snow from the mountain. Nobody survived. I went one time with the bus and the mountain was collapsing in front of us and then covered our bus. It was very chaotic, about 60 people on the bus, and already the stones falling down, where can you go now? In front is stone, on top is stone, behind is stone and under here is the deep cliff. And if you run down there, you become sand, dust, yes, they cannot even find your bones, become dust. Truly it's so deep, so where can you go now? And everybody was panicking and tried to open the bus and run out. I said, ‘If you run out, you’ll die. Sit down and repeat the mantra, pray to your master, whoever it is.’ So, everybody did that, and then suddenly the mountain landslide stopped. It was supposed to be rushing down and it just suddenly stopped. So everybody came and thanked me.”“(We had breakfast in Cancun, and She [Supreme Master Ching Hai] was lovely. Revered as a living deity, She is quite human, and very charming. And She’s nice to hang with, and I liked Her. So seeing Her on the film today, She was just delightful. How could She be anything else? She’s a sweet, caring... She’s the person we portrayed in the musical. And, you know, so everybody should know that.)”
