Timing is Everything

My first morning is Delhi, if it is to be seen as a sign of something beautiful, something karmic was beyond all expectation…I was supposed to be picked up in front of my hotel, The Taj Mahal at 9:30. I am a punctual person, always too early for everything, I get to the airport 3 hours early, I arrive at parties at an unfashionably early time, I cannot help it.

That morning I recited to my myself my latest favorite Mantra….Buddha says “disobey yourself”…I was giving myself permission to leave my hotel room and head for the elevator at 9:29, to live wild and free in India and NOT be downstairs too early.

It didn’t work. I boarded the elevator at 9:24 and when the doors opened in the lobby, I was greeted with loud chatter, flashing lights and a rear view of the Dalai Lama and his entourage from about 2 feet away. It seems his Holiness had just gotten off the elevator before me and was about to turn into the lobby.

That same little voice that told me to leave early also said to me “that’s the Dalai Lama, do you fucking believe it, is anyone gonna believe it?”

His entourage gestured for me to squeeze by him and go around him…as if? He then slightly turned and gave a little nod, I am assuming to me, but my thoughts were all over the place. I gestured that I would wait but they insisted so I walked around the elevator bank and into the lobby to the crowd that was waiting for a glimpse.

I pulled out my phone to document the moment, as did everyone else. The pictures I took are not so great, I was so busy “fanning” myself in disbelief, and I couldn’t focus. I looked at the people around me and saw that some of them were crying, and of course that made me cry. You could feel his kindness, you could feel his happiness and you could feel his love for everyone in the room and you could feel everyone else feeling it too.

By 9:30 he was gone, he stepped into his armored jeep with armed guards in front and in back and he rode off into the streets of Delhi. I wish everyone I knew could feel what I felt....

#dream