The Beginning of Understanding...

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OK so where are we, aah yes, I'm 35 and I've just had a major stroke during surgery for a right hemisphere brain aneurysm. I use the words "had a stroke" rather than the usual "suffered a stroke" purposely because although it took the wind out of my sails it was what was meant to be. There was no point in suffering though I did go into a deep and quite unyielding depression for a year or so.

Katrina and I had been having difficulties in our marriage and my stroke didn't help any, I was paralysed down my left side and having regular seizures for which I needed often to spend up to a week in hospital recovering.

I couldn't walk and I was unable to do anything to support my family or even entertain myself, so I dropped into a kind of denial and sadness, I felt like my life was over. We couldn't stay in our home because it was completely unsuitable for my condition so we decided to sell it.

At the same time we applied for government assistance in acquiring a house that was safe and easy for me to live in. I must say the Australian Government are incredible when it comes to serving the disabled, nothing was available in our town so they bought an almost new house in Byron Bay (a beautiful coastal town in New South Wales) and converted the master bed & bathroom, kitchen and doorways to accommodate my wheelchair and safety needs.

We all moved in, it was a kind of reprieve in an otherwise depressing situation, things between Katrina and I seem to improve. The kids loved living at the beach and I had a 4 wheel drive, all terrain chair with huge fat tires so I could go with them, and anywhere else I wanted.

Then once I had settled in my new, rather magnificent home Katrina decided to end our marriage, it was no great surprise really and we both agreed that it was pointless to go on. She moved out to a house on the other side of town and the kids kept rooms in both places. I felt myself to be really loosing it by this time so I made a decision to learn to walk again. I was alone for long periods and suicide had entered the equation as a possible alternative. I realized I needed to get my life back or I would end it.

At about this time I met a wonderful therapist, she was hard on me, she would take me to the beach and dump me out onto the sand, then move my chair out of reach and tell me to get back to it by my self. I wasn't completely left to my own devices, she taught me to walk first on my knees in the warm sand, it was excruciatingly painful for a long time but eventually I was up on my feet again. (I never walked on my feet on sand and still to this day, I won't)

Once I was walking on solid ground my courage quickly returned, I decided that I would go to India and visit the Ashram of the great Spiritual teacher, Osho. It was a tall order, I was still seizing and could only just barely walk with the assistance of a sturdy cane. But I was determined, there was a new sense of purpose in me, I had played the fashion of a Spiritual life until now but everything had changed, I wanted real substantial answers.

I wanted to understand, I wanted to know what God was, what death was, and who the fu*k I was, India seemed to be a traditional place for finding the answers to life's big questions and so I went. I was in culture shock for the first week I was at the Ashram, nothing was easy, the pavements, when there were pavements, were uneven, the toilets were impossible for me to use (India still uses the traditional squat toilet very widely).

There were so many negatives but they were all outweighed by the sense of freedom and accomplishment I felt at just being in this strange land, at having once again had the courage to venture out of my safety zone. I attended classes and sat at the feet of the master in Buddha Hall, though Osho had left his body the year before, he was still there and we listened to him talk on a huge video screen every day. I am smitten by his sublime teachings to this day...

I fell in with some Iranians, they introduced me to the seedier side of life in India, they were wonderful people who frequented the Opium dens of Poona. They had fine features and exquisite manners, I quickly became close friends with one of them, because he spoke perfect English and several other languages as well. Hamid was his name and he offered to help me travel, I could not have done it without him. Hamid helped me with dressing, he assisted me in the bathroom and when I had a shower it was incredible, he washed me as he had been taught to do in Iran. You haven't really been clean until you have showered with and Iranian.

Many of my western inhibitions and prejudice's had to be done away with, I had to live like a native and accept help in ways that tested my overt sense of personal modesty. I am grateful I was given the opportunity to break down those traditional, very isolating barriers that we western men encase ourselves within. We really are not aware of how desperately lonely we are for male company until we look at ourselves from the opposite perspective our breeding has ordained. Males in the East are close, it is not homosexual nor homophobic, it is an honour and a great blessing to have been included as a brother into their unique intimacy.

We left the Ashram and the city of Poona behind, Hamid and I were off to visit India's great cities, Bombay, Calcutta, Deli etc... I realised and I was humbled by the great poverty and sickness in the world, what had happened to me was a minor inconvenience compared to the mass misery I saw in India. I was seeking answers to some fundamental questions but I was not seeing the greater problem that needed answering. I needed to approach this whole Spiritual thing, differently.

I realized that God could only truly be understood to the degree I opened my heart compassionately to His children. I wasn't going to find my answers in Ashrams, but in the streets, where real people lived real, sometimes horrific lives. I decided I wanted to journey to the foot hills of the Himalayas, to a small town called Rishikesh that was at the head of the Ganges just below the glacier that fed this most glorious of rivers...    More Soon....

Part 1. | Part 2. | Part 3. | Part 4.| Part 5. | Part 6. | Part 7.