MY LIFE IN PHOTOS - INDIA
Me at the Taj Mahal in 1966. These were guys I met along the way. There is a lot of unexpected camaraderie on a journey into the unknown. I loved that aspect of it. I am in the middle of the back row.
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Me posing alone at the Taj Mahal. These photos were all taken by Jacques Darmon, a photographer for UNICEF who I traveled with from Iran to Kathmandu over a period of a couple of months. He was from Morocco. I had no camera with me on this journey, only my eyes and memory. Jacques was the one person who made these images possible. He spoke no English. I was grateful for my high school French.
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Three of the guys I traveled with in the early days of India including Jacques Darmon who is sitting in the middle. This is us preparing a New Years Eve dinner in Kathmandu. I took this photo with Jacque’s camera.
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Me shortly after I arrived in Nepal.
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Me in Kathmandu with a new friend and protector.
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In the central village square of Kathmandu.
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Outside a Nepalese temple in Kathmandu.
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More temples. More Kathmandu.
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And more. I think this photo captures how happy I was.
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Me pointing at the stupa (a Tibetan shrine) in the village of Boudhanath about a mile away from where I’m standing and three miles from Kathmandu. I lived right next door to the stupa in the Tibetan monastery there. The village surrounded the stupa. Buddhist devotees walked around the stupa spinning prayer wheels day and night. It was a holy spot.
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A close up of me and the stupa.
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Lobsang Chonjor, a young monk who took me under his wing, gave me his bed in a room he shared with an older monk, and guided and supported me during my stay at the monastery.
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Me at the monastery wearing a cap and jacket that Lobsang found for me.
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Me, Lobsang and other monks who befriended me in the monastery.
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A large group of monks all posing for my friend Jacques Darmon as he visited me in the monastery. Without Jacques there would have been no photographic record of my Asian journey.
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Me and my fellow monks. I am the one wearing the hat. Lobsang is beside me. The short older monk, second from the left, was my roommate.
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This is Anandamayi Ma, a great Indian saint posing here as a young girl. I met her as an old woman in an Indian city called Rajpur. I consider her my first teacher.
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The ancient city of Benares in India now called Varanasi, on the banks of the Ganges River. It is one of the great holy cities in India and perhaps the oldest still inhabited city on the planet. It is said that people whose bodies are cremated on the burning ghats that line the shore will have a higher birth in their next incarnation. I lived on a boat much like the one on the bottom of this photo. I watched bodies burning day and night. It was a remarkable place to be.
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I stumbled into a group known as the Divine Light Mission. India is full of such “spiritual” communities. I lived with them for two weeks. They wanted me to bring their young guru to America. I declined.
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Charles Deltour, a friend I had met in Kabul, Afghanistan reappeared in my life as another visitor with the Divine Light Mission. He is sitting on the left. The mother of the young guru sits between us. That’s me on the right. We are in a massive tent with literally tens of thousands of people in front of us. We are the only non-Indians there.
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This is me addressing the massive crowds gathered for this event. They wanted me to talk about the young guru. I spoke about LSD.
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Charles and I were asked to dance in celebration of the child guru. We left days later.
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Toward the end of my travels I ended up in Japan. This is the Buddha of Kamakura. I hid in the park overnight and tried to sleep in his folded hands. They were full of protruding metal. There was no sleep or peace to be found.
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A fuzzy photo of me in Japan. I hitchhiked throughout the country. I rarely knew where I was but I was in love with being there.
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A rainy day in Japan.
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Me in the last days of my spiritual odyssey.
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This is the photo of me that best captures the person who returned to America after nearly a year and half hitchhiking around the world. It is August of 1967 and although I didn’t realize it yet, my journey was just beginning.
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