Lifers and Experiences

Got back from a fantastic trip to the mighty mountain chain called the Himalayas.

The sheer size of the mountains leaves those from the sea-side awe struck, they also help you in identifying the gaps in the self-inflicted view of your own ego.

This trip, we had a bird watcher and one day he came back all excited, we were curious as he had missed the summit due to ill-health, he said he had an amazing day, he had 8 lifers.

We were curious as our understanding of lifer was somehow related to life sentence ( mostly behind bars), but for birders it means something different.

The term lifer refers to a bird species when it is first seen and positively identified by an individual birder.

Lifer is a designation for a species that individual birder has never seen previously, not a returning migrant, new sighting for the year, or other repeat sighting.

We did not know that such a terminology existed, what he wanted to say was that he saw 8 bird species ?that he had never seen before.

If we were to draw a parallel of the terminology to us non-birders, every new place, every absolutely new experience would be a lifer.

This trek had quite a few lifers:

For some of us for whom the personal space is important, a trek with shared beds, washrooms, etc offers an opportunity to let someone in that personal space, when that someone locks the resources, you realize the significance of what you are so blessed to have and have no need to share.

After a long hike, we reached the highest Gurudwara in the world ( approx 15000 ft above sea level), Hemkund Sahab, ?when we were entering in, many of us had tears in our eyes, some like me were crying buckets but almost all of us did not know why.

We were swept with emotions that we were not able to understand completely, was it because of tiredness? ?was there something in the holy environment? ?was it due to reduction of oxygen at that altitude? We don’t know the answers but the experience was a LIFER.

Most of us have been to many religious places and heard many a wise man, the “Gyaniji” at this Gurudwara asked some basic questions on mindfulness, nothing to do with religion, He told the audience that you have climbed up to 15000 ft to come here, experience and live the moment, pictures are available on the internet and there are live streaming sites, don’t lose the moment to technology and the greed to capture the moment, this was the second LIFER.

The next day we went to see the cave where Vyas dictated the epic “Mahabharata” and Ganeshji wrote it non-stop, what we did not know what that Saraswatiji in the form of the river was flowing close to the cave and Ganeshji was getting disturbed by the noise of the flowing water, so he cursed her to flow underground, this was the third LIFER.

We were accompanied by a babaji on our last day of the trek and while he told us many stories about Nar and Narayan and how one day of penance in a place (badrinath) equals a 1000 years, how twins have a connection at the soul level, not completely explained by science yet, how all of this came together to break the 999 armours of Sahasra Kavach. He then went on to share a lesson on friendship, He said one should always have a friend – the friend should be like Karna, who will stand by you till his end, even though he knows you are wrong or he should be like Krishna – who will win the war for you without even raising his weapons. The lessons with Babaji was the fourth Lifer.

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What did the trek teach:

1. Enjoy the experiences, some of them can be lifers. Build your own collection of lifers.
2. Focus on the moment and not on capturing the moment.
3. Invest in friends and keep them close.
4. Go on a trek to the great mountains, no better detox for mind, body and soul.

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Thank you for reading and have a great weekend ahead.

rgds