We arrived by bus from the foul stench of Delhi, stepping out into the mountain air in the Himachal Pradesh. This is where the Tibetan government in exile, meditation centres and Buddhist philosophy schools are situated. The air is fresher here, sharp and clear. The mountain views stunning, peaks and valleys falling away in every direction as far as the eye can see.

My bags were lifted from the bus, and I followed the carrier to my lodgings running a frightening gauntlet of crippled beggars and dirty children who paw at you with their grubby hands. I didn’t know this at the time, but the beggar children installed there for the specific purpose of relieving newly arriving westerners of their money. One of the crippled men jumped out at me filling my vision with his twisted limbs, waiving his arms about as he smiled. Making me almost scream in shock as he looked back grinning at his beggar friends. I almost suffocated with fear. They all laughed at me as I cringed away. I kept my eyes down, away, keeping my attention anywhere but on these mangled people. I managed, somehow to stay calm though my heart was pounding wildly.

I had arrived in India.

Thankfully, I was immediately installed in the offices of the Tibetan charity I had volunteered for. I was ready to start teaching English and work on the rebuilding of their educative websites. It’s good to have somewhere to go and something to do when you travel alone.

I had already travelled a great deal on my own, but this was my first visit to India; I had decided to go somewhere considered easy by Indian standards, certainly for us cushioned pampered westerners. In the town of Dharamsala with it’s heavy Tibetan influence I thought I could get used to a culture very different from my own. India is traveling for the advanced. Luckily, I had a nice room booked with a Tibetan family overlooking the magnificent valley. Three Korean nuns shared the somewhat larger room next door to mine and we became good friends. Their English was already very good.

Dharamsala is very westernized, and also very Tibetan; it’s not at all like the rest of India, The golden sun bathes everything in a quiet warmth, the chanting of the monks and nuns wafts up from the monasteries and the Tibetan temple down the hill, the streets are full of bright market stalls, and there are several good bookshops crammed with spiritual books for those seeking enlightenment. Good hotels and fine clean restaurants. The whole town is geared towards spiritual Buddhist tourism, and those seeking the clear cool mountain air.

Like me

Every day I would walk from my lodgings up to the offices of the Tibet volunteers where I worked. Setting up the classrooms the student lists the curriculum and getting to know everyone else there. Working together is still the best way to get to know people and become part of a community. I would walk past the tiny grocery shop in the mornings and stop for an espresso and croissant at the Tibetan run European cafe where they do really good coffee. I’d walk past the first beggar, a young woman with a bandaged hand and up the hill warily past ‘the three musketeers’ as I named them. This a group of three slightly crippled men who always sat together. Then along the market and past ‘grandmother,’ an old woman with big glasses and no hands, who sat on the curb in front of a little Tibetan clothing store. She had leprosy.

For the first few days I could not bring myself to look at grandmother, or any of the beggars, I would not even glance at them. I kept them out of my field of vision, I was too afraid. I edited them out of existence, out of my awareness. I’d scurry up the steps to the offices to get on with teaching and computers, my comfort zone.

India really scared me. It was so different from anywhere else I had ever been, and I was threatened by this place on a very deep level – food for thought when you already believe yourself to be a seasoned traveller. It undid me, I frowned at myself constantly and watched my own behaviour in disappointment and puzzlement. Where was the I enlightened compassionate being I thought myself to be? What had happened to the bold traveller? Where, had my intelligence and my critical thinking gone, who was this unknown person I saw in my behaviour. It floored me. I didn’t know who I was anymore. I didn’t know how to be here. I watched myself and the strange world around me as daily life happened.

While walking to the office one day, I was able to not turn away but to turn towards the beggars and dare a glance at them, and later I was able to glance at the leper, at grandmother. She was always smiling her toothless smile and would nod at me and waive her wrist courteously while she sat on her curb. The clothing store owner, a Tibetan woman would feed her a bowl of rice every day – charity at its best. I felt deeply ashamed of my reactions and even more deeply threatened by her illness, her condition, though I knew she was probably no longer infectious.

I knew there was something in myself I had to bridge:- my high ideals and spiritual thoughts were wildly different from my negative reactions, my utter lack of compassion, my instant unthinking fear –  I was ashamed of myself for all the feelings of horror, of revulsion I felt; it shattered me.

I soon noticed how the locals would deal with this. To them it was normal daily life and had always been this way, or they would do what I did and simply edit it out of their reality, till the moment they gave something, the locals were generous to the beggars, I saw it, yet, we as tourists had been told not to give them anything or they would only pester us more. I no longer knew what to do, how to behave. It’s all the same on the wheel of karma. It might be you on the next round of the wheel.

But I couldn’t reconcile myself to this. I was on this round of the wheel.

Something fundamental had to change in me. I overrode the negative reactions and taught myself bit by bit to look at everything around me, to be in this place, in Dharamsala, In India, on this street, to look at the beggars. Especially to allow the beggars to exist in my reality. To acknowledge existence as it is, here, now, all of it.

One day I was finally able to look straight at grandmother and see her as another human being. See her without recoiling in fear and revulsion. I noticed for the first time the genuine smile in her eyes, the true warmth of it. She was human, just like me.

It threw me into turmoil. My mind stopped and I drifted a while as I walked to work.

How could she be so happy, so cheerful, so joyous, when to me her life looked like horror itself? How could this be when she looked so abhorrent to others, To me? She must get this reaction from people every day, she must know how we see her. How could she live? It took me weeks to even be able to look her in the eyes. How could she be so happy about herself when it took all my self-control to look calmly at that disease-ravaged face and those utterly crippled limbs?

It stunned me.

I hunted down my emotions and made them look at me. I looked at myself – where was this compassionate being I thought myself to be? Where was the teacher? Where was the generous charity worker?
I was a spoiled, bigoted little western brat looking real life in the face for the first time ever, and I couldn’t handle it. This really forced me to look at deeply at myself. I did not like the reflection I saw; I did not like me.

Weeks went by, the students learned English, the weather was glorious, the views magnificent. I joined one of the many yoga classes, and ate wonderful curries on rooftop restaurants, where the food was good and the standards high. I went to Tushita, a lovely place high in the forest to study Buddhist meditation. I studied Tibetan philosophy and visited the library often. I visited the mountain waterfalls with friends and listened to lectures by the Dalai Lama. We prayed at the Tibetan temples, turned prayer wheels, and meditated. We drank kingfisher beer in the hotel lounge after work and walked miles in the surrounding countryside together. I accepted India, as we all do when we travel there. We relaxed, I relaxed.

And still every day I would walk past the girl with the crippled hand, the three beggar men I had dubbed the three musketeers and of course past grandmother, I got to know all the people, including the beggars of Dharamsala really well as I was there for months on the teaching project. They were not the least bit threatening and never had been. I lost my fear; we smiled and waved to each other. There was a sense of community; they are part of this town. They live here.

In India, begging is a profession like any other as I found out, they were just out there doing their jobs like everyone else. I could let my terror go, and I could finally forgive myself for my initial shock and fear.

Then one night I dreamed.

I was standing in front of grandmother. She was looking up at me from her perch on the curb, with her big smile and her gentle eyes. Her eyes were brimming with the light of joy, it poured out of her eyes like the sun. Then as I watched she became transparent, and I could see straight into her heart.
And her heart was filled with brilliant white light, it shone out in all directions and bathed the world in joy. She shone like the sun.

I looked up into her eyes, which glowed with love and compassion and such brightness it filled the world, and I exclaimed to her, in dreaming surprise.

“Grandmother, you have the heart of an angel!”

This reverberated through me with such force that I sat up in bed wide awake and knew it to be true.

She had transformed me. This was an angel; Finally, I knew who the real teacher here was, and it was not me.

That very morning, I walked up to grandmother and told her my dream. She nodded and smiled as she always does, as if she had just been waiting for me to say this, she already knew, knew she had the heart of an angel, the light from her eyes was extraordinary. I saw it as I stood there, I was not dreaming, she shone. I felt at peace with myself at last; there was acceptance, I was free. The brimming light stayed with me all day.

Soon thereafter it was time to leave. I had in all the time I lived there never given any money to any of the beggars. They leave you alone if they know they can’t get anything from you, I remembered I had been told this, but on the last day I went up to grandmother and gave her some – I put it in her hand, well not her hand exactly – but you know what I mean; I smiled at her heart, and she smiled at mine.

I could finally see who she really was. An angel

Now I know what an angel looks like.