Monday, 7th of March and back in Holland.

My last evening in Kathmandu was an evening full with suprises.

After dinner I went to one of the most bars in Thamel, Tom and Jerry. Maybe the guys of H.E. were coming to join for a drink, but I was not really counting on it. And I was right there, no one showed up. But I had a book with me, so I sat myself down at a table. But that was not for long.

A lady that was very loud and had already a few whiskeys came to me, dragged me with her to sit at the bar: no woman is allowed to sit on her own, it's Womens Day in Nepal, she said. So I took a barstool in a corner at the bar and watched this crazy woman dancing around, jumping around.

After not too long she grapped a man sitting by himself and dragged him also to the bar. He came to sit with me and we had a nice evening. His name was John, a photo journalist and many interesting stories to tell. Only around midnight I went finally back to my hotel, but not before I asked John if it was okay that I was joining him the next morning to Pashupathi, one of the most sacred places in Kathmandu. I have not been there before and John was going to meet some one there who would take him to the sadhus (holy men) to make pictures of them.

So, next morning after a coffee John and I got a taxi to Pashupathi. Walking over the local market we came at the square of the temple complex. There was a big crowd and we were going to check out what was going on. It proved that there was a Japanese woman who was burried alive for 33 days meditation and at 9.30 they were going to let her out. Her name is Yogmata keiko Aikawa.

Known as Ma Keladevi in India, Yogmata has got initiation from great living sage Sant Yogi Avtar Baba. To serve the world peace and humanity, she has taken five times underground 'Yog Samadhi '. She says Samadhi is a gateway to contentment. It is a result of Shunya and Chaitanya - of Emptiness and Consciousness. It is a stage which can be reached only through meditation.

Having become a realized one and an enlightened soul, she has attained ones with wholeness. She has acquired mystic healing powers and has cured many suffering souls through her hand power healing. She is a great master of rebalancing body and mind.Samadhi is the last limb of the yoga, which opens all the gates of supreme consciousness. When you reach in the samadhi, means you have traveled from beginning to the end, it means that you have enjoyed, you have entertained and you have experienced each and every act of life and every stage of this life age.
But when you reach beyond the death, it becomes a celebration. Now it is no more death, you have already experienced the death, so all the fears disappear. And whole space is open to you, all the distance disappears, there are no more directions of east, west, north, south, there are no more ups and downs and there is no more birth and death, the whole universe i.e. 'Brahammand' become home in the Samadhi.

Samadhi is a total liberation. When you experience the Samadhi it means that you have gone through the physical body experiences, astral body experiences, cozal body experiences and you have experienced the self also and you have become experience less also, it means you become the 'Brahamannd' i.e. the universe.

When you want to go through the Samadhi it means you have become oneness to your body, when you are oneness to your body it means you become a 'Siddha' of physical power. You can become the elephant power and then you can become very small fly power too because when once oneness to your body is completely in your control so all kind of physical power can be under your control. Once you become experienced of your astral body it means you are oneness to your mind, oneness to your 'Gyana' i.e. wisdom bodies and you are oneness to your 'Pranic' life force (vital energy), because astral body has three dimensional power, it has a pranic body that is called as pranmaya kosh, second is mental body called manomaya kosh and third is the vigyanmaya kosh which is the gyana body i.e. wisdom body, this is the most powerful and useful body. Physical body is dependent on this three-dimensional body. So when you are in the second stage of the samadhi that means you have siddhi of becoming highly intellectuals and you can fly, you can travel to the astral worlds, you can leave your physical bodies and can go anywhere in this universe and can come back as per your will.

As the philosophy of yoga says that it is a stage of 'Sampargat Samadhi' which is known as Savichar, Savikalpa, Ananda and Asmita samadhies. It is most useful to living a best life in this universe, with an objective and subjective realization, when you can go beyond your body and mind and you can go beyond gyana also and after all these experiences you can go totally beyond all these things and become a self, oneness to your karan i.e. kozal body, it has a memory of millions and millions of life travelling. It is your real house where you are residing. It is a house of the self and being known as being, which is known as atma.

Having all this experiences one can live with the earth energy. Living with earth energy means making oneness to the whole earth, that means a man who is in samadhi become oneness to everything that is created by the earthly energy, for that you have to sit inside the cave, in the underground pit and you have to become bodyless. You have to hand over your body to the earth. It means that you have become detached from your body, you have separated your physical body. In the modern age it is called as 'Bhoomigat Samadhi' i.e. under pit samadhi, it was known as samadhi in the caves in olden days. Everyone can do it because it is nature of every kind of jiva i.e. living being. It is just like sleeping experiences in everyday life and dreaming and then going beyond everything in deep sleep having no experiences of anything. If you can create yourself to be in deep sleep and becoming nobody and no mind that key should be in your hand, then it can be possible to go into underground samadhi for long days. It is a great 'Tapas' becoming a mantraless, kriyaless and pranaless, so the yogi only practices this.

Ice cave of Himalayas for 33 days.

While undertaking each samadhi, he gets a pit made of particular dimensions i.e. For preparation of underground Smadhi the various ratios for preparing a pit are taken into consideration.

9ft x 9ft x 9ft = which stands for unbreakable, infinite.
7ft x 7ft x 7ft = which stands for contact with Jupiter divine and compassionate energy
5ft X 5ft X 5ft =for Contact with Venus planet and moon, making the whole Humanity to come into one Heart.

The underground samadhi depicts the earth energy. We have emerged from earth, so the underground samadhi is taken to be in contact with the whole existence through each atom of ourselves. One cannot reach to different planets physically, but by being in Samadhi, through your subtle body you can.

While we were trying to get a glimpse of the place where she was burried, people of the organisation took us and let us inside. We were allowed to go even inside the fence to make pictures. They knew John as a photographer, he has been almost every day at the temple complex, so that made it very easy to get close. John was standing right on top of it when they opened the çhamber' in which Yogmata has been meditating. I also was able to have a look inside, she was standing on her head. First some people went inside to check if she was alright and to help her washing and get clean clothes out. Finally she came above the ground and the crowd was going mad, trying to touch her. By that time I already stepped back in the background, it was a bit scary with this huge moving crowd of people. Again a man of the organization helped me through a quite length to get away from this all and I could walk from the backside away from the crowd, seeing John inn the middle of them with his camera hold up high. I saw he was trying to locate me; and when he finally got out of the crowd I was standing just behind him.

You could say that this was perfect timing, I hope John managed to get great shots of the happening, I will have to wait for him to sent some pictures.

After this we finally went to meet the Nepali men inside the temple complex. We passed the bridge over the Bagmati river, where the cremations are being held.

Pashupatinath is one of the most important Hindu temples in Nepal and is located near the Bagmati River. At the ghats (stairs where you can descend to the river), plateaus are made that are used for the open air cremations that take place on a daily basis. The Pashupatinath temple is not accessible for non-Hindus but it is the cremations that attract many visitors, both Nepalese and foreign visitors.

In Nepal, also the death people are not equal. There are several cremation places, one for the royal family, one for rich families with prestige and several others for the ‘normal' people. The cremation places for the ‘normal' people are located on the other side of the bridge, out of sight from the places that are used by the royals and the rich. From the other side of the river you can observe all the activities that are going on.

Pashupatinath attracts as a holy place a lot of sadhus (holy men). These men with their colourful painted faces and their long Rasta hair know that they are very photogenic. If somebody takes a picture of them, they immediately beg for alms. Sadhus do officially depend on gifts, but posing for pictures seems to be big business for them too.

Walking inside the temple complex we hear a man calling for John. This man was sitting in the middle of sadhus. Normally as a tourist I would never even think of going inside the fence, to get near to the sadhus, but now we were invited inside, one of the sadhus placed a mat for me, told me to come and sit and offered some water. A once in a lifetime experience for me, to sit side by side with the sadhus. Of course at this moment I would not even think of getting my camera out, so I have to keep this 'picture'only in my memory. My 'back to earth'thinking said that even I could meditate for hours, even days, this way: the sadhus were passing around a hashpipe and they were soooo high, after about 10 minutes it was time for us to go, otherwise only from the smoke hanging around us I could have get high as well.

The man was going to take us to another place of meditation, but I had to be sensible and take a taxi back to the hotel. I still had to get my luggage from my room, have a lunch and then it would be time for me to go to the airport. So, after they walked me down to the taxis it was time to say goodbye. We exchanged email addresses and said weare going tokeep in touch. As soon as I have received some pictures John made of the underground meditation I will put them on this site.

Back at the hotel I packed my gear, had something to eat, still very impressed of the happenings this morning.

Around 14.30 I walked to Himalayan Encounters and there yet another nice surprise. Toni, the owner of the company (English) just came back from India and we had a nice chat for about half an hour (my taxi was already waiting). He told me that next time I will visit Nepal I have to go to Nuwarkot, a remote village in the mountains of Kathmandu where H.E. has a guesthouse. He also told me that H.E. is sponsoring solely (till now) 14 deaf and dumb children. At the moment they are still eating and sleeping in the classrooms of the school, but H.E. is renovating one of the old houses there, to make a home for 20 deaf and dumb children. Oh, how I wished I could stay a bit longer in Nepal. then I could have travelled around a bit accompanying John and to go indeed to Nuwargot. But, that all has to wait till next time.

At the airport everything went smoothly and around 18.00 we were in the air. This time we were not allowed to get off the plane in Bahrain, so it was a long sit for about 16 hours.

Arriving at Schiphol airport at 3.30 in the morning, I had to wait until 7 oçlock, before the first train to Zutphen was going. I went to have a coffee and there I sat down next to a lady. She also came from Kathmandu and we got into conversation. On her question if I was waiting for someone I told her I was waiting for my train. Where are you going to? Zutphen, I said.

And there was my last nice surprise on this journey. She was waiting for her husband and..... they were living in Zutphen. So, around 5.30 I was sitting in their car on my way to Zutphen, where I arrived at 6.30. (It proved they were just living around the corner from Ineke's house, it is a small world, isn't it?). I had to call Ineke out of bed and there I was: back home having a coffee with Ineke.

And now I have a busy 2 weeks ahead, before I am off to Italy on the 21st of March for another season at C'era una Volta.

Thank you all for following me on my trip to Nepal and if you also would be a 'drop in the ocean' to help the children of Nepal U Can! You can have a look at the website of Starchildren: www.starchildren.nl (also available in English) or at www.ucaninfo.org.

I am going to try very hard to make it possible to go back to my beloved Nepal next February again and if you like to also have a short encounter (3 weeks) with Nepal, I am willing to set up a 3 weeks program to travel with you.

For this moment, I will say: Namaste, wishing you all a happy and healthy life and I will be back on this site soon.

Namaste, Dhanyabad Rita Sanghita