Defining your nature

What does defining life mean?
Maybe it is something we learn from our surroundings.

You can always believe what your mother says and do as your parents told, but you don’t learn life in that way. It might be true what they say but once you explore and test your boundaries you realize there is so much more than what they taught you. It is like believing the first local person you meet in a new country. They only can offer their help from their own perspective, but if you don’t go and ask his neighbor you only see one ankle for the same situation. The best teacher in life as well as in traveling is you and your observations in life.

One of the best ways to break the rules is to do something completely different if there’s no harm in anyone else and if you do it within respect for the new culture. You never know for example if you can hitch-hike in India unless you have tried. Most of the people you meet don’t even understand what it means, but you can still try. I would try everything three times. That goes in hitch-hiking, eating three chocolate cakes in one night, smoking a joint even if it gave me headache in the first couple times, believing an Indian taxi driver and even dancing tango with Sikh (Sikh is a follower of Sikhinism).

Life should be enjoyable for all beings, but how do we know what we can have, be or do if we never gross the boarder. Though, there is really nothing we have to do or be to be loved and complete right now; still, just being is not of a active human nature. It is, though, highly appreciated, but modesty in all. That’s why we have so many extensions to try out all the great things in world.

Love, each moment. Love your neighbor’s point of views, love yours as well. And give space for others to be as they are.
After all, you define how you see things around and inside you. Some might need your help to see themselves in a better way. 

Once upon a time on a toilet seat of a three aisle-airplane to India--- A realization of life.

What bad can happen if you just trust yourself in the hands of the present moment? One may call it this trust as trusting to the Universe, to the God or to the faith. But something great is in that power.

One morning it just happened like some moments and days ago. It doesn’t matter that even after those moments I still had parts of the ego, parts of fear back, and it doesn’t matter if I occasionally still have those moments of ego back, but it has a huge importance in the life of a human that I really experienced what it is to see all the people in the world as my friends and feel love towards every being no matter how lost or mean they are. They are still a bit lost, but I do not worry. My job here in earth is to enjoy every moment of this life. And one morning couple days ago I really understood the meaning of it after reading the last chapter of Tomi Astikainen’s book Mind Your Elephant.
I went out having plans to go sightseeing, but I just started to cry in the metro or St. Petersburg, not out of sadness, but out of love. I couldn’t stop smiling. And I just decided to not stick with my plans because it seemed to be more important that day to ride in the metro and just smile to the people. So I did. I picked randomly a person and started following him to where ever he went. And when I finally lost sight of him I found myself somewhere in the outskirts of St. Petersburg taking photos and smiling to life, smiling to the moment that gave me the gift of life and love.

Few days after I realized just how much I had given up in order to give in to whatever happens. I took out of my laptop in the darkness of the falling night in the airplane that is on its way to India. I started to feel what the country is teaching to so many people even before I arrived to my destination.
Can you believe all the great things, all the small moment that you encounter if you just stop judging the situation and start being in the moment? Trust yourself a bit here. I found myself smiling thinking back to all those small signs universe gave me. I call them signs, because I choose to believe they are. Just like an atom that has been split but still rotating in the same direction with the other part. Isn’t that great! So I choose to believe in non accidents because of this particular scientific phenomenon.

I sat there in the toilet of the airplane and smiled to the current situation. Not long ago I was asking to myself in the lounge of the airport what more can I wish for but to feel this incredible freedom of not owning anything? It made me want cut my jeans, leave my backpack (which I still obviously not do because I love the laptop and I love to write and take photos to be able to share my happiness with all of you) and just yell out loud how much I loved life.

I know in India people are smiling and happy because one of the greatest Buddhist teachings are that whatever happens, it is in the arms of the Universe. So if we worry, it doesn’t help a thing because we all have a lesson to learn in life to be able to get closer to the Nirvana. Where ever we are heading to, I know the heaven is already here, on earth, in our hearts. And we learn it when we separate ourselves from our thoughts and start observing and taking in the current situation as it is, giving chance to the chance, giving chance to the moment giving chance to the person next to you as it was your best friend; to be there for him or her; to be totally honest in your mind and towards him, but also being polite enough to listen to his teachings even if you already understand them in your heart.

So, what more could I possibly wished for when I was totally free of my possessions and smiling to the realization of life? I found myself in the two aisle-airplane that I hadn’t been since 2002. And as I was taking a picture to my mom to send my greetings I found myself talking to my fellow traveler which is no by the way leaning on my shoulder and snoring. Few hours before he started to snore we were talking about the Great Spirit Indian people have. He started talking about his aerophobia and offered me some Ukrainian vodka and chocolate. I couldn’t refuse. I felt like he needed it as much as I needed him in my life to show me the incredibility of what more happiness can possibly happen. He turned out to be a Bollywood actor and a diplomat who was more than willing to invite me to Bollywood as his friend. Not that it has such a great meaning in life. I don’t care less if he’d be a millionaire or a normal business man as long as he was happy and as long as we realized to be friends. I don’t even care that what he spoke was just because he was afraid of the take off and had been drinking because of that. I don’t care the fact that most likely he wanted something more from me than friendship or even if his greatest fear of the airplane crash come true in this flight (which obviously didn’t happen) just as long as he is there on my side snoring and knowing we are here for each other. That is love.

So it seemed by finally realizing that there is nothing to hold us back, but our thoughts of being separate from others, I found was able to see the signs of the life I was living in. I saw everybody as my friends, and if there was money before to count my experiences and the cost of them, there were no numbers anymore. No age and no time. Like there is no time and no money in India =D Everything just happens and you start seeing signs and opportunities everywhere even if you had been robbed and had no money. Because if we’d all be friend no matter what we’d believe in would money really make a difference? I know it’s a fact that we’d only start appreciating all life around s and start finally doing something that we love doing and also helping others to find their calling in life. There would be no enemies, no boundaries, no poverty, and there could be enough for everybody because then everybody would see that the amount of things (like money) would not bring happiness but to find the happiness in that moment would suddenly make all the sense, since all the people would be in our side to help us, to love us.

And that is what I realized while walking to the airplane toilet with a huge smile on my face while looking at all the people smiling and hugging their spouses, their kids and mothers or even when they were looking at somewhere in the future as if they’d be waiting to the life to finally start in India after this flight. I even said a compliment about the great food they offered in the airplane to another fellow traveler who looked at me in astonishment. Airplane food good? I love what has been given. I love the food in hospitals, in development countries. Yes, it might not have been made with love but still, I appreciate it. I even found out a new taste combination while spreading jam on the fried potato slices while assuming it was herring. With a hint of pepper and salt I, by accidentally, found out something quite interesting that I will try again! Why not. It is all in our imagination and in our body what we like and can create! How can you say if you like it or not if you’ve never tasted!

I found incredible peace in this single moment of taking a deep breath and listening to what my body is telling. It is a feeling of peace that so many people find in church, in their relatives, during Christmas, when looking at the stars… And I, I know I can even find it while sitting in a toilet seat or an airplane!

How to lose weight, get sick and alienate yourself to be unhappy

I had a friend back in Turkey at the English course where I worked. She was an elderly, well eaten Turkish wife with a lot of bread behind her bellybutton. She saw me drinking my own herbal teas every day between the teaching hours. She asked me what is it that I drink and would it help to lose weight since I was in such a good shape. I replied I drink some peppermint teas sometimes to have a healthy digest. One day she came to me proudly showing the peppermint tea she bought and said she’d start a diet. All I could do was to knock my head for her encouragement.

I used to eat a lot of candy with a tv show on the background on a comfortable couch instead of a healthy breakfast with that morning tea. One can imagine that it’ll lead to a lot of problems in years, to a lot of doctor visits who’ll write you a lot of medicine’s to cure your body from flu’s, women problems and allergies you developed. This evening I consciously decided to return to my old habits of eating 100grams of candy. I did not have a craving for the sweets, but I wanted to remember the good old times when we used to sit with my mom on a Saturday evening with a bag full of candy watching tv. What used to be my normal doze of sweets followed by lying down in the couch and drinking coke now seemed like a self torture. After a half bag of candy I felt terrible. Drinking water and lying down in the couch did not take away the bad feeling that I sometimes had after a long bar night. With that amount of sugar at 1am I felt like running around in circle until throwing up.

One can now easily say it’s not that I need any more described or unsubscribed drugs in my body, but a chance of lifestyle. That’s something doctors never tell you. Instead we search help from the world outside, from self help books, and from the therapist office. We develop diets; ways of thinking that if I eat a candy I will get sick, if I eat bread I gain weight; so I should not eat them, but instead eat what they tell us in the guide book. Then one only see things that are forbidden and start graving them even more. One needs to see the whole picture and listen to his or her body. A healthy mind is a healthy body because healthy mind has no addictions to some foods and old styles of living. Changing the way you eat can help you chance yourself, or the other way around.

Before I could not tell the difference between what my body needs and my mind wants. Now it is somewhat obvious that it was my mind eating, watching telly and drinking the way it was. I have no wish to return to the old. And I had to prove my point by doing so. Now one piece of chocolate is more than enough sweets to threat myself sometimes.

I drink my morning tea every morning when I have the chance. But I know it is just a part of my healthy life. I never had diets before nor do I have one now. I just had an incredibly unhealthy way of eating which came from being sort of really disconnected from my body. It is obvious one cannot be cured from all illnesses by a miracle tea or a miracle medicine or a miracle died, but by the miracle of truly discovering what your body and mind needs to be healthy.