Siddhartha has just arrived to a native land that he is completely unfamiliar with. Siddhartha and I were supposed to muster and coincide at Yosemite national park in California. Siddhartha is on his way from his country India and I had just departed from Bradley. Siddhartha told me he will meet me in the heart of the Yosemite Valley at three o’clock. I arrive at the park an hour prior to Siddhartha’s arrival and I begin to perambulate around the area taking in the natural beauty. I took an expeditious glimpse over the side of the cliff and while I was in complete awe I sat down and reminisced over the mind- blowing scenery. I was sitting dangling my feet over the edge zoning out and letting go of everything else, but what I was doing at that exact moment. I am listening to the sounds of the birds and the wind blowing creating a gentle melodious whistling noise; it is music to my ears. I see a small figure in the horizon that is moving in my direction I question whether it will be Siddhartha or not. Questions begin racing through my mind. Will I like him? What is he going to be like? What if we don’t get along with each other? This unknown figure is walking closer and about to approach me for the first time. We shake hands. He says to me, “It’s a pleasure to meet you finally. I am Siddhartha.” My response to him is the same. I thought to myself I think I will really be pleased by Siddhartha’s presence. We start concocting our plans and discussing what we are going to be doing while we are here at Yosemite national park. Siddhartha walks away from me and sits down on the rigid and rugged ground. I go over to talk to Siddhartha. He does not answer me with speech nor hand gestures. He is sitting with his legs crossed but not just crossed with one on top of each other as if he was made of rubber. He sits with immense posture while he is in deep meditation and this is an ideal environment to become one with you and the world around yourself.
The temperature is dropping rapidly. I am getting goose bumps on my neck and a chill down my spine. Siddhartha and I are freezing we have no blankets; no shelter just the clothes on our backs for warmth. I see the sun setting behind the tall snowy mountain tops. The sky is filled with shades of purple, blue, red, and orange I say to myself it’s a tangerine sky. The wind is blowing heavily against the tall green pine trees and carrying the prickly pine needles in my direction. I can feel these needles tickling Siddhartha and I while we are laying face up looking at the sky. I can notice Siddhartha rubbing off the pine needles and itching himself repeatedly. I now notice Siddhartha as he remained to lie inert on the forest floor. He’s complaining he cannot sleep as a result of the protruding roots from surrounding trees piercing and stabbing our backs. I say to myself this is going to be the most uncomfortable night sleep I will ever receive in my life.
As I wake up from a deep slumber and a horrible night sleep I roll over to glance at Siddhartha. I realize he is not there and I get up and pace around our camp where we slept. I do not see him anywhere. I start yelling “Siddhartha where are you” multiple times and I get no response. I know Siddhartha has a love for water and learns from it. So I have an idea to where he would be. I walk and pass by a massive oak tree. I see Siddhartha sitting near the stream behind the oak tree; he is telling me to listen to the sounds of the river. I stand in silence and all I can hear from the river is the sound of the water crashing and splashing from the nearby waterfall. Siddhartha says, “No listen to the river.” Siddhartha tells me, “Watch the continuous flow of water you will learn from this.” He wants to teach me what he had learned. He says,” this is the key to knowledge love this river, stay by it, learn from it.” I took Siddhartha’s advice and wisdom to heart and really thought about what he said to me. He opened my mind to whole different realm of thinking.
We had a great day and night at Yosemite national park. I learned so much from Siddhartha during this trip. Siddhartha had spread his wisdom and aptitude upon me. He shown me not to take my life or my belongings for granted. We decide after a long talk to leave Yosemite and descend to our next stop. We walk out of the forest with Siddhartha following right behind me. We meet with the taxi driver whose bringing us to the airport in Cheyenne, Wyoming.
After a period time of meditation and connecting with our inner being Siddhartha wanted to unleash and expose his other side. We were on our way to the airport in Cheyenne, Wyoming to catch our flight to Russia. The taxi cab driver dropped us off at the main entrance. We proceed to enter, and place our bags on an x- ray belt. We walk through security and waited for a couple seconds until our flight was called. Siddhartha says, “I am nervous to fly again Mike I hope everything will be ok”. I reply, “Everything will be fine I am sure nothing will happen”. Siddhartha sits down and crosses his legs right as we enter the jet way. While he is meditating I hear a low “um” sound coming from his mouth. Siddhartha finished without any disruption and continues to board the air craft. Our seats are right in the front near the pilot’s door, we are sitting first class. It is almost time for lift off. I hear the jet engines rumbling my seat beneath me. I feel a little tug, and then notice we are being pulled by a little truck and are going in reverse. I can feel Siddhartha’s heart beating out of his chest. The look on his face tells me he is apprehensive about flying this far. I know that he is indomitable and can be brave enough to make it through. The engines felt like they just had been turned up even higher. We are ready for lift off. Our plane is parked in line and we are waiting our turn to speed down the runway. The plane in front of us has just cleared, and we are minutes away from being air borne. I hear these loud after burners come on, and see the flaps on the wings lift up and were off. The wheels are still on the ground, and we approach the end of the runway. Siddhartha and I were so frightened that we wouldn’t get into the air. We are into the great blue yonder, and on our way to explore a brand new country. I notice Siddhartha’s eye lids shut. Soon after he fell asleep I did the same. I only woke up to go to the restroom, and then back to my seat. I hear an announcement on the intercom that we will be arriving in Moscow, Russia in ten minutes and get ready for landing. The twenty four hour flight has finally come to an end. I nudge Siddhartha’s shoulder a little, and he says, “Mike are we there yet”? I say, “Not quite yet buddy only about ten more minutes until Moscow. I hear the turbines on the airplanes wings starting to slow down. The stewardess on the airlines emptied the passengers with organization and uniform. As we are walking out of the airport a bus is parked in the main entrance, and is waiting for our presence. The bus driver takes us to our hotel which is in the center of Moscow. Siddhartha and I reach our hotel and give our bags to the kind, young bell boy. Siddhartha throws his bags on his bed and I do the same. It’s just about nightfall and Siddhartha says, “Mike I want to explore this city and go out tonight”. I agree with him and immediately we leave and lock the door. We end up searching the foreign Russia roads for some sort of night entertainment. Siddhartha points out a random door that he thinks leads to a subway station. I checked the door to see if it is unlocked or not, it was locked. As we kept walking past the door I said, “Siddhartha do you feel those vibrations underneath your feet”. Siddhartha replied, “Yes it seems like the bass from the incredibly loud music. As we continued past the strange door I heard a whistle, and thought to myself this is not going to be good something bad is definitely going to happen to us. The whistle caught Siddhartha’s and my attention, and we both look over our shoulders. I glanced back and I notice three Russian mobsters standing right in front of the door. They were guarding that door with their life. We decide to walk over to them and they speak upon themselves, but I quickly realize they are not fluent with the English language. They ask us some questions and invite us to this “rave” the mobsters told us about. But before we are allowed to enter they made us swear to keep our mouths shut. They did this by placing the barrel of 9mm glock to Siddhartha’s forehead. I say to myself I can even feel this ice cold barrel on his forehead and hope everything will go smooth. Everything went fine, and they opened this door for us. As we walk down the first stair I get nervous, but also extremely excited. The stairs are concrete, and are so filthy they are black in appearance. We heard incredibly loud, ear popping music. I saw complete darkness and the door shut behind us. As we get closer to the bottom I see beams and rays of different color lights flashing in then flashing out. I notice many colors of lights just shining into our eyes so vividly causing us to go blind until our eyes adapted to the high level of brightness. As I turn the corner I see teenagers and young adults dancing uncontrollably. They are exchanging circle shaped colored pills from mouth to mouth and tongue to tongue. Siddhartha asks, “What is this place?” I say back to him, “This is a dance party called a rave. It’s time for Siddhartha to get wild. He had the best time of his life. Siddhartha thanked me for this outstanding experience. I thanked him for Siddhartha opening my eyes to different ways of finding myself. I showed him how to have fun and how bring out that hidden side deep within him.
