3 Gods of Columbian mountains

Have You ever thought in how many different belief blankets are we actually wrapped-in throughout the borders of this world?
Let’s be honest – I had a clue - that many, but I had never put my interest towards an action to explore it more.

Time to think - Tayrona National Park 

GOD Nr.1

My travel to Colombia was a random idea as the rest of the ideas in my life, so I was not surprised that my first stop where I stayed for more than a month was a Krishna Village in the mountains of Sierra Nevada.

Sierra Nevada - Gambira /Photo Liora/

Have I ever heard about this religion before? Yes’ Since childhood my mother was pulling my hand to cross the street to another side when the song of Hare Krishna would reach us close enough. And she would hold my hand so strong that I would without any questions believe that the poor ‘orange’ people with just a bit of hair on their head are victims of serious sect where people are mainly unconscious as they are under the drugs. That was always an explanation of their sun-shining eyes and smiles. And in that time if You would ask me a question, if I was open minded – my answer would be - 100 percent – YES’

So there I was with all my curiosity and willingness to change my own hypocrisy by settling myself down in the most beautiful mango garden in Colombian mountains – the garden of the Lord Krishna.

Mangos, mangos, mangos.... in Gambira /Photo Liora/

My eyes were burn. I saw the beauty I had never imagined before.
The way how devotees serve is unique – in its true manner – it requires only happiness. Songs, dances, yoga, incredible food, which is cooked without tasting [as the kitchen is a sacred place where no one eats or drinks] and philosophical teaching every night under the candle lights by reading their Sanskrit writings - Bagava-Gita. I was dragged in by it all, but even more - by the book, as it was the second book I had been reading, which similarly to Dostoyevsky’s “Crime and Punishment” finds the justice towards the act of killing. Bagava-Gita is a beautiful dialog between Krishna and a young warrior Arjuna, who refuses to kill his family. Believe me – I was shocked to get in my hand a sacred book and start to read it with a phrase, where God tries to convince the young man to do it – kill his family. But I passed my first prejudgments and my world spanned as I continued. 

The most beautiful way how to start the day  in  Gambira /Photo Lauren/

Honestly – before Baga-Gita I have never scaled the value of our body in relation to soul and I have never thought of the possibility that after our inherited mission is completed [I even didn’t think we have one], there is no more reason for this body to occupy space in this world.
So there I can follow the development of the thought - through the liberation of the ‘jail’, what captures by our overwhelmed importance towards the appearance of our shell, till the question of the reason towards its existence.

Goloka - The paradise in the heart of the Sierra Nevada /Photo Kate/

The visual aspect towards Vedic culture helped me to peak out of the little tiny cartoon box by pushing off its guard - old little man with a white dress, white hear and white long beard – and a given name - God. Now I saw an aquarium where was dreaming, enormously huge sleeping blue body in the infinity of ocean waters, where it was wrapped in the cradle made from the many headed snake. It was Vishnu which eyes for us are recognized as the sun and the moon, his veins are the rivers which struck our ability to be, and the bubbles he makes from his breath, are innumerable galaxies which are still on their way to be discovered.

Vishnu /Photo borrowed from internet/

If You ask, how far did it affect me? Yes, sometimes I woke up by singing Maha Mantra “Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna…”, but otherwise - no, I didn’t become a devotee in Krishna’s mango garden, as I could feel that there are more undiscovered guardians to be introduced, but Bagava-Gita found her place in my backpack for a prolonged period of time.

On the way to discoveries /Photo Jade/

GOD Nr.2

The mango garden indeed was a magical place for my acknowledgements. During my time there, I met many charming personalities who enriched my experience, by their presence - singing together in the night time; dreaming in a hammock under the stars; continuing never-ending philosophical discussions around the table and sharing everyday duties in the mango garden. But there was one very special person who left me speechless for a while, with a million questions – why?- inside my head.
It was an older man with a friendly sparkle in his eyes, charming tone of voice and most cozy grey beard all over his chin; he seemed to me like a storyteller from the legendary books.

My dear professor /Photo Lauren/

Once he said: “Those who believe that are coming from monkeys in real are evolved from them, but I believe that I am coming from the stars”.
This one sentence grabbed all my attention so my curiosity would not calm for as long as I sensed by the smell, that this man is carrying some secrets of the world. We passed many days together by sharing our work duties and it was the most interesting part, as the work was accompanied by captivating conversations. Most of them consisted from my nonstop questions and his monologue answers, but my ears were pleased to hear what I heard. 

Work /Photo Lauren/

Work /Photo Lauren/

Not for so long time after, I discovered that this man has his own God – the God one cannot touch, cannot see, the God one doesn’t need to cook for or pray for. His God was emptiness.
“What do You see? The piece or infinity?” – he once asked after putting the blank sheet of paper in front of me.
“This piece of paper is infinity of dots which you have ability to join” – he explained and added, that this was one of the most significant teachings he received from his teacher.
“Emptiness is a God” he continued and went to occupy a stone, which was his selected place for meditation or as he said – the practice of emptiness.

Abstraction by Professor 

The time went by and I continued to listen in the words of this man. It was interesting to hear his vision towards future, his explanation of the reality – how crucial for population’s development was the mixture of cultures in the past and present and how absorbent it becomes by transforming without any notice into superior specie of humanity. I was strongly against it, by feeling endangered my little country and its identity. But somehow his quite simple explanation that there is also a need for history calmed my spite and questions towards it. Yes, it thought, that it might be that, to conserve everything in the way it is would be stagnation, instead while mixing – the strongest will survive and the most valued will be absorbed for survival.
This man very soon earned his nickname - “Professor” and since then he stayed in this way for everyone who met him in the mango garden.

Lunch time in Gambira

But it was definitely not only his wisdom and intelligence which would capture my biggest “WHY?” and incomprehension. It was his own life, his own way of living.
Professor was more than 50 years old and he was passing his lifetime all alone. He had no children, and wasn't even thinking of one. But more - he had no woman. One would think – this charming adventure seeker probably by his way of speech has left quite a number of women waiting for him in all the places in the world where he lived, but not exactly. Since 22 years old, he hasn't had any physical relationship. “What??? How??? He is a man and all men are the same” I thought. “How is it possible? It does not fit the pattern.” And for real, I could not believe. Indeed I was amazed that there exists alive person who can prove that this over commercialized, bullshit - love story is not the only truth we need to follow. He proved that there is also a way to be yourself, to be your own, to be sufficient.  He has his best friends - books, which would not let him down in any possible place on the world. He who has been living in China for several years, isolated from society, so he can learn by living far away in the mountains. He understood the value of sexual energy which serves as the most powerful one the humans have, and which, without realizing, we continue to waste in every coming opportunity. He did not only learn it – he applied it for real. He applied it for its own life.

Abstraction by Professor 

He seemed for me almost like Helena Blavatsky in a male body, as she also needed to firm her celibate before she was accepted by Tibetan teachers. This man, my dear professor, – indeed shook my world and opened my eye range wider than it was.

“Emptiness is a God” I thought and followed him with my eyes, when he walked out of the Krishna gardens.

Abstraction by Professor 

Abstraction by Professor 

Abstraction by Professor 

God Nr.3

… there will be continue [as soon as I finish to put in the proper words]


With Love,
Anna