Enlightened or crazy?

I’m leaving Kasar Devi tomorrow, or today depending on when I get round to putting this up. In all fairness it could actually turn out to be that I left Kasar Devi yesterday, or maybe even a few days ago. I know what I am capable of so shall promise nothing. All I know for certain is that it’s Sunday night and I’m writing this with the intention of leaving on the six o’clock bus tomorrow evening.

It has been interesting. For those who’ve never been here I’ve already described the place but I would like to mention one particular thing again; the energy. Kasar Devi has energy, lots of it and you can feel it. It is powerful. A baba told me you either leave this place enlightened or crazy such is it’s power. Now I embraced this energy, but I don’t think I was ready for it. I didn’t give it respect and it came down hard on me.

I’m going to give you an insight into the workings of my brain.

I thought I was on the road to enlightenment. Everything was happening for a reason; everybody I met, every action I made, every route I took, everything, EVERYTHING. And I was analysing all that came before me and spending far too much time in my head thinking about why something happened or for what reason, and how it benefitted me, or how I could make it benefit me, and so on and so on, and there were signs and I tried to follow them and I was doing alright, and with the help of the universe guiding me; I was on the right path. Everything was good.

After a little while I came to the conclusion that it’s not just about reading the signs, but about feeling them too, and then I realised that what you’re feeling is your heart. Trust your heart, it understands you a lot more than you do, especially more than your head does, and it will lead you into some far more interesting places.

I went with my heart and I liked what it showed me, but then there was one thing I was ignoring, and that was what my heart was telling me about smoking and continuing to smoke. I had been smoking a lot these last few months and it had been great, but my heart was telling me to stop. I kept on coming up with excuses, or compromises I knew I would never stick to but I just didn’t want to stop smoking even though deep down that was exactly what I knew I wanted.

After about a week here I was sick. I hadn’t even smoked a lot but I was sick; I puked. Very rarely am I sick. I could probably recount ninety percent of the times in my life I have been. I realise now I had smoked too much over this time and my body simply couldn’t take it.

The thing was; it was as if a lot of negative energy had come up. It wasn’t just too much smoke induced dal in that toilet but a pile of negative crap my body had finally got rid of. For the next three days I didn’t smoke and didn’t want to. I felt good and I had the energy and the drive to go with it. But I’m weak, and in my weakness I invariably came to the conclusion not smoking while travelling, and especially through India, was just not feasible. So I was going to smoke in moderation. I did , for the next week or two that’s exactly how I smoked. Then I had an idea. As it grows wild here, like is natural, I decided if I wasn’t going to smoke it I should at least try to consume it another way.

I made a lot of tea and the other day after a little experimenting, my Swedish neighbour, Peter, came across with a little concoction he had made up. We drank and he was stoned but not too bad, but me, I was fucked. I actually went mad, I experienced insanity for an hour or so before I eventually succeeded in passing out. I was taken to the brink of madness and back again. It was like a bad trip but worse, I have never experienced anything like it. I saw everything in clarity. I saw how me being sick was Kasar Devi and it’s energy helping get all this badness out of me but by continuing to smoke I had simply fucked it in the arse. I’d embraced the energy but not respected it. I was going to be enlightened, but now nothing more than crazy, and there was absolutely nothing I could do about it. I had fucked up and I had to live with it. I had everything and I had lost it all and I had nobody to blame but myself. That’s what was going through my mind but at an intensity my words could not do justice.

On an amusing note though I did come to the conclusion my neighbour Alexa was an actual angel when she bought me a cup of tea, but after drinking half decided she was in fact a witch trying to poison me so refused the rest.

All in all it was the worst moment of my life, and I woke up depressed, really really depressed. I’ve never actually felt real depression before and this was too much. I still had the same thoughts from the night before and they had been in such clarity and so well thought out that there was an answer to every happy thing I tried to convince myself. It was so bad that for the first time in my life suicide became a genuine option. I had fucked everything up and now I had to deal with the fact nothing would be the same. I wasn’t going to find enlightenment, or be enlightened or even live a happy life, this was just the first step into the crazy; the start of the downward spiral.

It was a horrible day and this morning, the next day, didn’t feel much better. I decided to go for a walk down into the valley as I had heard there was a nice waterfall somewhere down there. After about an hour of fucking around trying to convince myself if I follow my heart I’ll find it, but in fact just getting lost and being inside my head too much, I actually stumbled upon a little waterfall. I stripped off desnudo and tied my headscarf around my head in classic Deer Hunter / Platoon mad man style before climbing some wet, slippy and dangerous rocks, and sitting under the little waterfall. It was great, and I screamed and shouted a little and let it all out. I then went and sat on a nearby rock and lay in the sun before falling asleep for an hour. There was one thing which struck me though as important. There was something a little different about my screams and laughter, and it wasn’t just because I was climbing rocks in true naked mad man style, but I could feel a bit of the crazy in there, as if a little had grabbed hold and wasn’t going to let go. I don’t know what it means and am aware I could even have been imagining it, but one thing I do know is I felt good afterwards and it brought me out of my depressed slumber.

I don’t know what the future holds. I’m not on the path to enlightenment anymore and I really struggled to cope with that for a day and a half, and still am a little sad about that fact, but now I’m onto something else. That something may be insanity but equally it may not be. My future is going to be different to what I had spent the last year imagining it would be. It took a bit of nudity and falling water to realise different doesn’t have to be a bad thing though. Whatever I make of it, and I will make something of it, it’ll be fun and interesting. One thing I do know for sure though is I’ve had enough of the smoking. I’ve reached my limit and I won’t risk experiencing thoughts like that again, enough is enough, it’s about time I started really listening to my heart. And although it might be a laugh, it’s probably best if I don’t feed the insanity further. Crazy or enlightened? Either way; I’m not leaving this place the same person who arrived