“Live as if you were to die tomorrow."

by Janine de Campos (Brazil)

A leap into the unknown India

"Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever”. Mahatma Gandhi Have you ever experienced the feeling of gratitude exploding in your heart? This is how I feel about my trip to India. I arrived there unpretentious and with an open heart, ready to learn everything I could. I agreed that I would say YES to every opportunity. In this search for self-knowledge I dicovered that if you shut down your ego, your judgments, your laziness, your control, your... your... your... life can surprise you! Every day, there were a new revelation, a new moment, a new sensation. Every day it was like a leap into the unknown! The future and the past did not matter, I just had the present. Time has become a great master of life. Speaking of time, 3 months for some can be long or short, for me, were 3 months of intense life! The Indian time is very different from the "other times"! Everything has its own time. The people respects the natural time of things: the time to eat was the time of hunger, to sleep, the time of sleepiness, the time of our human nature. Human, we are human, not machines which are controlled by other machines. Humans, with our best complement: Nature. I discovered there how good it is to live surrounded by nature, even if from time to time it surprises me with a giant spider that jumps or with tiny hairy bugs. I've found that living with my foot on the ground is one of the best things in the world. The beauty of the palm trees, the starry night sky, birds that do not stop singing, butterflies carrying the message that the change makes us better, the rain that washes our souls, the river that carries all the negative energies, and so many other phenomena that only nature can provide us were part of the discoveries of my journey, the discovery of a new conscience. A dive into conscience, I will never forget the spirituality that these people emanate. To live in the country that yoga was born, with gurus, there is no way to return from this journay without a little extra step in my elevation. I visited Sikh temples, Muslim mosques, Hindu temples and I left there with the conclusion that there is something in common with all of them: love. I think if love were our greatest guide, would not it be easier? I saw how the people connect with their Gods and how happy they are in this devotion. A big learning for me! I must share that I have never received so many smiles in my life! I think it was because I looked in the eyes of each person that passed. Every time I was on the streets I received countless smiles! And if 1 smile can already make a difference in the day, imagine many of them! And sometimes the smiles came with a conversation or an invitation to a tea. How can I not love live like this? One of the issues that has bothered me most in the world is that people do not like to listen anymore, they just want to talk, tell their stories, their problems, seems like sharing is out of fashion nowadays. I confess that it was strange to hear "I love you" from my new friends, but that's right, it was love! You could be asking: "Wow! But there was nothing wrong on this trip?” Yes, of course, I had diarrhea, fever, I saw abandoned dogs, abandoned people, a lot of dirt, a lot of poverty, places even inhuman. Everything made me reflect, to question, so if I look at it from another point of view, I only had gains: artistic, professional, personal, spiritual and mental gains. My journey has come to an end, but my learning does not, it keeps reverberating in my heart ! My next trips will not be the same, my life is no longer the same, my heart for sure not! I closed this cycle and I still listen the words in my mind and heart: Nandi, Namaste, Dhanyavaad, Thanks!