I spent Christmas partly thinking about the long journey from Oxford to a resort in Greece. Over 15 hours of traveling gives many possibilities of things to go wrong. But, by the time I reached the hotel late in the evening, I already felt the old thought-patterns of last year fading away. Perhaps this is why my spiritual teacher Sri Chinmoy valued travel so much – the potential for newness and escaping the rut of the mind.
The next day, 95% of my friends went on a day trip to Sparta – a legendary historic site. I’m not a great tourist, easily becoming tired from looking at old rocks, so I stayed in the near empty hotel – with perhaps a nagging feeling it may have been more fun to go with the crowd.
On my own, I wandered into the nearby town. It was the off-season with a sense of the eerily quiet; shops and cafes in winter limbo, waiting for the sun-seeking tourists to return. Walking rather aimlessly up a long street, I was looking for a good cafe to imbibe the culture, atmosphere and coffee of the Mediterranean. When I saw a sign for ‘Joy Cafe’ I took this is an auspicious sign and went in without further evaluation.
The truth is that this ‘Joy Cafe’ was anything but. Dark, dingy, dodgy music and coffee that might have been served in Manchester circa 1953. Just when things couldn’t get any worse, the owner came and sat down next to me to smoke a cigarette, an unwelcome reminder of the days in England when smoking was permitted in public places.
Ironically, I had hoped a visit to a cafe might inspire a new writing inspiration. But, sometimes you have to quit whilst you’re behind, so I downed the weak coffee, closed the writing pad and trundled back to the hotel. But, even that was not straight forward – a pointless walk in the wrong direction, before a u-turn to see the ‘Joy Cafe’ for the third time of the day.
The reason I bother to write about such a negligible tale of woe is that it had every outer cause to make me a little frustrated and depressed, and in former years, that may have been exactly how I felt. But, I didn’t really mind; I just looked forward to the next meditation. Looking back it has a certain humour.
When I was young, I remember going to visit Paris. After months of excited expectation and planning, I became miserable when I finally arrived. It wasn’t the magic I hoped for. It was just a city of buildings like anywhere else.
Travel can be a catalyst for change, but it is only part of the story.
(*) Did you hear about the dog which took up meditation?
He was an aware-wolf.