(Written in 2002)

Writing memoires wasn't something I'd bargained for. not yet.
Still a bit busy doing stuff, not at all clear about what happened to get
me this far but it's still happening and still a lot to do.

Several of you web browser geeks have been getting into
http://www.friendsreunited.co.uk
and I find I must make an effort to report.

I'm 55 in March, I'm healthy (apart from a few re-worked teeth)
I still go running a three times a week but have not bothered doing
any marathons for 10 years. At 2 bottles of wine a week I drink more
than I should, but I feel Ok. No major vices - apart from poor at looking
after money - never been good at that and spent my life as a result ever
running ahead of debt, mortgages, loans, credit cards. Not to say I haven∂t
earned 100's of 1000's but always managed to spend that sad McCawber penny
too much. Result, ...stress and not enough peace at the time of life when
really I should be relaxing and enjoying it all more fully.

Looking back what have I achieved? - Loads ... really!

Graphic Designer Qualifications, Travel, great fulfilment learning
meditation in India, starting a family with Anne Cornelius (2 boys : Aoin 30
and Bruno 29), successfully building up my business Tantra Designs - 16
staff at one time, then evolving into an Apple Computer Reseller - Tantra
Computers (Bristol).

Where did it all start?

Well, after school at cardinal Allen in Liverpool I applied to do Art
/Graphic Design. Pre-Diploma at Chester Poly, then on to Liverpool Art
College. (this was just 3 years after the Beatles had been there - good
time) Spent one year as the President of the Students union doing no work
and having a big blitz to catch up last year with the Student uprisings in
Paris, Berkeley and Liverpool going on in the background.

Time of flower-power and much taking of illicit drugs, including Acid and
Marijuana - (more than was good for me in light of events 5 years later but
normal enough for the time)

Got married to my childhood first love Anne and we moved into a flat in
Percy Street in very Bohemian and red light 'Liverpool 8'- just round the
corner from the Art College. Anne had just qualified as a teacher and had
started teaching in Scotty Road at the school Cilla Black went to.

Qualified and then for Post graduate got into Birmingham Poly for Graphic
Design /Film making.
Relatively miserable time there in a small flat in an industrial city
relieved only by visits out to the Licky Hills near Redditch - a Pine forest
miles wide and redolent of JRR Tolkien who lived not far from there -
regular reading of his Trilogy populating the forest with his creatures.

At Birmingham (Aston University) my tutor Suresh Sharma was a film maker in
India and he invited us to work in a film he was working on in India.

The following year we set off for the Orient - Overland, hitching with all
our savings (£500) and a couple of Carpet bags we had sewn together, long
hair, Pink grandfather shirt and red gussets sewn into the flairs (Oh dear)

Hitched across Europe making friends everywhere, down through N.Italy
Yugoslavia, Dubrovnik and Montenegro when it was idylic and untouched.
Greece and across to Istanbul -our first taste of the Mystic East.

After staying there for a few days we met a person who was to slightly alter
the course of our lives - Peter Wilcock. He had been travelling for two or
three successive years around the globe (Europe, India, South East Asia,
Australia, USA and round again) and he sort of 'took charge' of a collection
of motley hippies. An improbable leader of men - also from Liverpool. Always
ready with the appropriate word when times were rough, when we got ill,
lost, tired or incapable.

We were now a band of about 12 heading overland, an international
fellowship, Americans, Germans, Canadians, English, by Bus, Train, Ferry,
taxi and Riskshaw and the whole trip to New Delhi cost just $12 for tickets..
We went through Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan (before any wars), Pakistan and
across Rajestan to Delhi.

Here we left the party and settled down for the first time to really Œstart∂
our lives in the womb-like Peace of India. (After all I had been conceived
there - my parents having met while serving in the Army Hospitals in Quetta
and Rawalpindi towards the end of the war). We found a little garden room in
Jangpura extension next door to our contact Yogi Suresh's uncle and an
assistant minister for Education in the Indian Government. He taught us a
great deal about Yoga and meditation, Indian singing, dancing, theatre and
an amazing respect for the minutia of life. He had a trainee student living
with him Graham Gambie - an Australian ex-boutique owner who had set his
heart on becoming a pukka saffron robed and beaded Yogi. Graham although a
complete nutter at this time in his life was to be very influential as he
took us for the first time to track down and later study with S.N.Goenka - A
Burmese teacher of Vipassana meditation - the form of mediation that I feel
is closest to that taught by the historical Buddha.

For now in Delhi a while, I painted and sold portraits and taught drawing at
the University. We appeared in the Hindi movie my tutor had invited us for,
spending our days at an all expenses paid hotel in idyllic surroundings,
riding horses, walking in the forests of the Himalayan foothills and
occasionally appearing on set dresses in saffron robes playing the typical
western follower of mysticism 'bit'. My head was almost shaved at the time
and I looked every inch the part - much healthier than the matted locks of
my shoulder-length I'd left England with. Life really was healthy there -
with daily yoga and meditation - not that I knew a proper way of doing it -
but it felt good. Yogi had taught me a way of doing eye excercises daily
focussing from near to far and back until the muscles hurt). When I went for
an eye test I found my prescription had had reduced in strength by about
25%. I had a pair of small round (John Lennon style) glasses made to
celebrate.

We were invited by our Hosts extended family to move to Benares (Varanasi)
to stay at a Commune of flats owned by a Hindu Temple in Asi-Ghat and
settled here for 9 months. I painted often all night and was still taking
drugs. I left behind a group portrait of the local characters of Asi Ghat
which was seen by travellers for many years after hanging in the local Chi
Baba∂s Shop/restaurant under the tree where you had to guard your food
constantly from marrauding monkeys.

We travelled to Nepal and went trekking to the Langtang valley at 15,000
feet - 12 days walk. I got very ill one day, either from lack of food, food
poisoning or bad water and collapsed on the narrow mountain path (on my own
- my companions being some distance ahead as I was walking so slowly). I was
completely out and came to in a small Nepali village hut being looked over
by an elder (or was he a Medecine man) he was rubbing herbal paste on my
forehead and burning incense, chanting over me all the while. In a day or
two I was greatly recovered and able to continue down the valley 10 miles
away to meet the little post office truck with its collection of people and
animals that went daily over to Khatmandu. I think the Hepatitis I had
picked up had not gone away and was to return in full force a few weeks
later.

We returned to India and heard that Goenkaji was now giving Vipassana
meditaion courses at Bodh Gaya - the place of Buddhas enlightenment under
the Bodhi Tree.
The 10 day intensive course was a revelation. starting at 4am and meditating
in 1 hour sessions till 9pm at night - and this time with precise
instructions about what I was supposed to be doing. Not that I always
managed to actually do what I was supposed to be doing - but at least I was
getting the odd few moments of real concentration and things really were
starting to feel right. At the end of a week I was blissful and could sit
for 2 and even 3 hours at a stretch without moving. The gathering of monks
and students at this time - when Goenkaji had just started giving courses
was exceptional. Nearly a hundred people crammed in a tiny hall every
cushion or space so tightly interlocked that every knee almost touched. It
was hard work too - the project of training my monkey mind was a daunting
task. (still is)

At the end of the course I became very emotional - slightly unstable - I
would be blissfully happy one momemt and tears running down my face the next
- certainly not the impartial and equanemous we were being taught. I woke up that
last night thinking I was about to die - the knot in my heart was so great
and being assured by the teacher that I would be allright. In a strange
sense it was as if a stage of me had passed on to something different - I
felt so different.

The next day we travelled back to Benares by train, We arrived and said hello to Anne - she had not wanted to do this first course. That night was very stormy and I slept fitfully, very nervous and
still unstable. I tried sitting up to meditate but every time I calmed down and lifted my consciousness to my head there was a crash of lightning directly overhead and an instant crash of thunder. I would cower and feel sad that I was doing this in some way and my tears were echoed by torrential rain outside. Again I would try to calm myself and again more lightning, then tears and rain. It went on and on. I could hear a metal object (like a metal cigarette ash holder the sort on a stalk with a weighted base that you see in hotels) rolling around on the floor above and my struggles seem to disturb it and the rolling was coincidental with my movements.

About 3 or 4 in the morning I noticed a faint crack in the cement of the rooms floor and through it water was starting to seep through. The Ganges - which was only a few hundred yards away- was starting to flood. I mopped the water and woke Anne but it kept coming. By 6 o'clock it was about 6" deep by 10am over 18" and by late in the afternoon about 4 feet deep. We had moved our few possessions out first thing, The Saddhus in the Temple across the road (our landlords in fact) invited us (and our friends in the adjacent basement flats) to move into the gate house room of the temple. This room was an amazing quadratically symetrical room -a 'mandala room' with a door in the middle of each wall and a window on each side of each door. Quite ornate and the doors led out onto the battlement-like walkway round the walls of the Temple enclosure. This was to be our home for the next few weeks along with Jayant, Ishwar and Chakra

My mental state continued to be emotional and I felt I needed to do another mediation course to try to make more sense of it and somehow calm myself and stabalise my practise. This time it meant travelling to Bombay a 2 day train journey where the next course was being held. At last I was starting to do the technique more accurately according to the instructions I was given. I made a little progress and felt a lot of tension starting to fall away from me in rolls. I wasn't so unstable emotionally and following precise instructions probing and feeling the sensations in my body was the most fascinating experience of my life.

Pete Douglas