A Spiritual Journey in Bhutan

Oct 2nd 2023:

6 days ago, when someone asked what I was going to do in Nepal and Bhutan, I said out loud – I‘m looking to go on a spiritual journey.

I had no idea how I‘d achieve that. I didn‘t have anything spiritual planned.

Today, I hiked up to the Tiger‘s Nest – Bhutan‘s holiest spot.

There are many miracles as to what happened today. I later realised that had I woken up any earlier, started the hike any earlier or later, I would have completely missed the experience I had.

The Tiger‘s Nest consists of 8 temples. No pictures are allowed inside which makes the whole experience that much more incredible.

At Temple no:3, we (my guide and I) saw 3 monks wearing some colourful costumes. I chatted with them and learnt that it was a week of a special ceremony celebrating Guru Rinpoche who introduced and taught Vajrayana (a Buddhist tradition) in Bhutan at this spot.

We soon heard chantings and left Temple 4 to head to the fifth temple. It was filled with monks. There must have been 40-50 of them. A few lucky tourists (I was the second to enter) and guides sat in one little corner.

The vibration of the chants was deep and low. When they started to play music and the 3 monks started to dance, I suddenly started crying.

I felt the feelings I did at Vipassana (when I later checked at lunch, exactly a year ago, I was on my third day at Vipassana). I wasn‘t sad. I cannot explain my tears.

I meditated. My guide said to me, “Your tears are my spiritual joy. I appreciate you.”

That led to another round of tears – realising the only other person who has ever said the words “I appreciate you” to me is Aaron, the only person I know who has been to Tiger‘s Nest.

Another guide sat next to me gave me a spiritual blessing thread and told me to tie it around my neck.

I had two realisations.
1- This was why I‘m alive. To experience.
2- It isn‘t about happiness. It‘s about peace.

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I saw Mt Everest from the plane on the way back to Nepal afterwhich I headed straight up the mountains to Nagarkot, 40km east of Kathmandu.

The spiritual journey continued when I encountered the book “You are the World” by Krishnamurti and devoured its words the next 24 hours.

I share below his beautiful words on Beauty…

To meditate implies seeing very clearly and it is not possible to see clearly, or be totally involved in what is seen, when there is a space between the observer and the thing observed.

That is, when you see a flower, the beauty of a face, or the lovely sky of an evening, or a bird on the wing, there is space – not only physically but psychologically – between you and the flower, between you and the cloud which is full of light and glory; there is space – psychologically.

When there is that space, there is conflict, and that space is made by thought, which is the observer. Have you ever looked at a flower without space? Have you ever observed something very beautiful without the space between the observer and the thing observed, between you and the flower?

We look at a flower through a screen of words, through the screen of thought, of like and dislike, wishing that flower were in our own garden, or saying What a beautiful thing it is. In that observation, whilst you look, there is the division created by the word, by your feeling of liking, of pleasure, and so there is an inward division between you and the flower and there is no acute perception. But when there is no space, then you see the flower as you have never seen it before.

When there is no thought, when there is no botanical information about that flower, when there is no like or dislike but only complete attention, then you will see that the space disappears and therefore you will be in complete relationship with that flower, with that bird on the wing, with the cloud, or with that face.

And when there is such a quality of mind, in which the space between the observer and the thing observed disappears and therefore the thing is seen very clearly, passionately and intensely, then there is the quality of love; and with that love, there is beauty.