Going toward the Light
“So how do you know if you’re making the right choice?”
a woman asked me one day. “And what if you don’t make the right one?”“If we’re on our path, we’ll know,” I said. “And even the wrong choices will eventually take us back to where we belong.”“Oh, I get it,” she said. “All roads lead home.”It felt like coming home when we pulled into the village where Amada ran her guest house. I tried to hide the stagger in my walk as I made my way up to the patio and eating area overlooking the parking lot. I didn’t want to worry Lami. I was feeling better, but I was still weak. I knew I had been very sick.It was a quiet moment. I doubt that anyone who looked at me knew what I was doing. It looked like I was just sitting there, staring into space. I was actually praying and doing my best to surrender to God.
There is a peace that comes when we say Thy will be done and mean it. But I also made it clear to God what I would like—to go to the mountain and complete this trip.I had met and talked with a woman when we were at Amada’s earlier, when we stopped for lunch. The woman was from San Francisco; she and her group had stopped there to eat on their way back from Kailash on their way to Nepal. I had asked her if she had a problem with the altitude.“Not a bit,” she said. “I took Diamox.”If I could get my hands on some Diamox—a Western medication for altitude sickness—and my body reacted positively to the medication, maybe I could complete this trip. If not, I’d give up, do some sightseeing, write it off to experience, and just go home.I sat on the patio for a while. Then I went inside to talk to Amada.“I would like to buy some clothing from you,” I said. (Her daughter translated for us.) “I have been wearing hiking clothes for almost a week. It doesn’t work well for women in this part of the world.”There were few rest room facilities around. Long skirts were a practical matter in Tibet.
It was an easy way for women to create a rest room anywhere they went—a matter of survival here. I was weary from walking and walking, looking for privacy everywhere I went.Amada smiled, then opened a big dresser drawer on the back wall in the dining room. Within minutes, I was wearing a shimmering pink blouse and a long dress.Sometimes doing the little things that make us more comfortable and relieve stress can make a big difference in how we feel.I went back to the patio and waited to see what would take place next.Within an hour, a tour bus heading from Mount Kailash back to Nepal stopped at Amada’s. I pulled the driver aside. “I need some help,” I said.I had read about Diamox in the travel guide before the woman from San Francisco had told me about it. Some people who took Diamox had no problems with the medicine, or with high altitudes once the medicine was in their bloodstream. Others had adverse effects: the medication didn’t help with the altitude; instead, the medicine made them sick. I didn’t like the idea of taking medicine without a doctor’s prescription, but I knew that some of the tour guides carried it in case of emergency.
This was an emergency, as far as I was concerned.After bartering with the tour guide for a while, I purchased enough Diamox to get me through the journey to Kailash—and a case of oxygen.If the medication worked, all I had to do was convince Lami that it was okay for us to slowly make our way back. I took a small amount, my first dose. It seemed to help.I told Lami I was feeling better, and that if the medicine continued to work, I wanted to try traveling to Kailash again. “We can spend the night here tonight and I’ll rest. Then we can leave in the morning. We can take it slowly,” I said. “The altitude at the river will be our test. If I can make it through the night there, we’ll proceed. If not, we’ll come back. I’ll concede.”Lami agreed.“Meldid, I believe the mountain wants you to visit it,” he said. “Going back also feels right to me.”That night, before we went to sleep, Amada and Lami entered my room in the guest house. A yak-dung fire was burning in the potbelly stove. Incense gently perfumed the room. I felt as at home and comfortable as I did anywhere in the world. It still surprises me how all you need to make a home is a feeling of safety and love.They sat down, said they had something to ask.“Sure,” I said. “Ask away.”
“A monk has made his way here from eastern Tibet. It has taken him over a year to get here. He has been hiding out here for months, waiting for the right person to come along. It is his life’s dream to make the pilgrimage all the way to Kailash,” Lami said. “It is very dangerous for him to travel; the Chinese government would arrest him and put him in jail. Would you be willing to hide him in the back of your truck and take him as far as you could?” . I said yes.People say everything happens for a reason and things work out for good. But I still like it when I get to see a piece or a bit of what that reason is.The next day we headed back to the river, the monk tucked safely away. Before we reached the border check, we stopped and let him out of the truck. If he scurried behind the mountains and walked fast, he could pass the checkpoint, make it to the next village, catch another ride there, and be at Kailash by the end of the week.We made camp at the river that evening. I was skittish about going to sleep, remembering how ill and panicked I had become the last time I was here. I tried to stay calm. I lay down. Closed my eyes. When I woke up, it was morning.I felt fine.Well, not fine. I still wasn’t up to par.
But at least I could breathe.We made a decision to proceed to Kailash. It was a calculated risk. We were all aware of that. If I got sick now, help would be two days away. But I appeared to be holding my own.That evening as we neared the mountain, Lami turned to me with a serious look on his face.“Meldid, you’ve made it this far. I’m sorry to say this and it causes me pain, but I cannot allow you to walk around the mountain. It is a hard trail. Many people die making that pilgrimage. It would be dangerous for all of us if anything happened to you.”I felt instantly sad. I knew Lami was right. But at least I could go to the mountain, I thought. That’s mostly my dream. We drove for another hour or so. When we approached the mountain, the car stalled. Lami and the driver got out to tinker with the carburetor. Joe turned to me.“I have something to tell you, too,” he said. “And I feel awkward saying it. I can’t tell you exactly why this happened. But for the past hour I’ve been feeling it so strongly I know it’s true.
You know I’m not a particularly spiritual guy. I’m a mountain climber, a camper.” He held out his wrist bearing his expensive, trendy watch. “And I’m a yuppie, too.”Joe stopped talking and just stared at me. He was at a loss for words.“So what’s the point?” I finally said.“I know in my heart that the reason we made this trip together is because I’m supposed to make the pilgrimage around Kailash for you. I don’t know about all this karma jazz. And I don’t have any beliefs one way or another about past lives. Maybe the past-life thing is real; maybe not. Maybe I owe you this for something I did to you in another life. Or maybe karma works another way. Maybe it’s like a big universal bank. And it doesn’t really matter who owes what to whom: if you’ve got it coming, you’re going to be paid. And the universe will put the person in your life they can use to pay you with.
“So when we get to that mountain, I want you to focus on the mountain, your life, and the blessings you want to receive while I walk around it. And any merit that can be obtained from the pilgrimage, I dedicate to you.”Well, I started crying. For a second I thought Joe did, too. But it was hard to tell. He was that kind of a guy.I started to protest, but Joe stood firm.This wasn’t exactly what I had planned, but it felt really good.It took Joe two days of walking, but he made it around that mountain—trendy hiking boots, camping gear, and all.The two men driving the trucks decided to circumnavigate the mountain, too, as long as we were there. Lami urged them to do it. Said it would be good for their souls. They scurried around it in one day.When they returned, they were smiling. They pointed to their feet. We looked down. They had worn bedroom slippers around that treacherous trail. They had holes in the bottom of their slippers.“It was good,” they said. “But now we need new shoes.
”The lesson from Kailash was clear. It’s been said by many experts, teachers, and religions. Everything will be okay in the end. And if things aren’t okay, it’s not over yet.“What’s the most important thing I can do for my spiritual growth once I return home?” I asked Lami on the way back to Lhasa.“Meldid, if someone can just spend five or ten minutes a day praying and meditating, it will change that person’s life,” he said. “And when you pray, don’t just say fearfully please give me this or that, thinking I’ll never get it anyway.
It’s important that at least a little bit, you believe you’ll receive what you ask.”I chuckled at Lami’s answer. Here I was, expecting all this magic, mystery, and wisdom from Tibet. And he told me something that Twelve-Step programs had been telling people for a long time: meditate and pray a little each day.Remember the Butterfly Effect? One choice with enough butterflies flapping their wings thrown in can be the gateway to heaven or hell? In this section we’ll look at some stories about how we can throw in a few butterflies of our own. The secret is believing that everything—every single thing in our lives—happens for a reason. There are no wasted events. But there’s more to life than meets the eye. That means we don’t always get to see what that reason is.Maybe the Golden Rule still does work, after all.
From the book: Choices: Taking Control of Your Life and Making It Matter
