The first workshop on the Art & Science of Being Human is over. Hurray, and what an amazingly wonderful experience. You see the problem with running a workshop called Being Human is that it really removes all your excuses. You have no where to hide, no where to run. You are face to face with yourself every step of the journey… and smiling all the way. I’m not going to talk about the workshop itself, except to say that it far out passed my expectations, and I’ll leave it to others to give their feedback, however the journey there an back is a different story.. almost like a chapter from an adventure story.
Let me share. If you have every experienced lateness with cheap-thrills (sic) airlines, you will know that sigh of relief when you enter your flight reference to the kiosk and get your boarding card. However it now seems that this does not mean you are here on time, or that you will be let on the plane. A system glitch meant that 1000 people who already had boarding passes could not drop off their luggage, and hundreds missed their flights, including as you might guess, the Be Human trinity: myself, Amir and Jym.
Directed back to the ticket desk we were told to queue up to get alternative flights (which we would have to pay for, because it wasn’t the airline’s fault that we could not check in our baggage, were were obviously late). 2 hours of disorderly queuing and lots of very upset people filed pased the mincing machine to find every possible let down and grievance. The airport police wandered around the edges of the 1000 long queue, subtly exposing their full armament machines guns, designed for battle in Afghanistan… just to remind us who is in charge. One poor customer (!) started to rebel. “This is not good enough” he started to chant, encouraging a mini revolution. He was quickly ejected from the building by the gun-wielding officers.
Finally got to head of queue (I believe humans are not designed for queuing, however that’s a story for another day), built lots of rapport with the ticket desk attendant.She was great. “I don’t actually work for ryanair, she tells me, I just have to wear this Ryanir uniform because they make us”. I chuckle inside and a line from the Bill Hicks comedy comes to mind “You keep telling yourself that, babe”. Anyways seems the root cause of the problem is that Ryaair let go of 66% of their staff that week, and they had no contingecy for handline overspill. basically leaving it to BAA and the police to sort out any problems. I asked who we can complain to, I was given a PO Box number in Dublin, Ireland. Nice.
So, anyways, we continue our we chat with the smiling blue eyed ticket attendent (yes, she is smiling now) The next flight to Sweden is thursday, so we choose a flight to Oslo, Norway, and we’ll train it instead. We just have to queue up once more to get our bags, then queue up again to check in that afternoon and finally queue up to drop off our baggage. But despire a 4am start, we are all solid, grounded calm and having fun, anyway it’s only lunchtime, does it really matter that we are still in London? Our fun attitude is noticed. It’s start to calm the people around us too. Jym breaks out the guitar and we (quitely) sing a few Reggae songs, you can probably guess the theme, Freedom from Babylon. lol.
We arrive in Oslo that evening. Really cool snow, I think I have a picture somewhere on my iPhone, so I’ll dig it up later and add it to this post. Oops, I forgot that this was a cheap-thrills airline, so we are actually in Oslo TORPS, which is 2.5 hours by train to Oslo, oh yeah, and the last train to Oslo left 15 minutes ago. Nice. several calm conversations with information desks and mobile calls and we have a plan. We sleep in the airport, and take a train at 4:40am down to Olso, get the train to Gotenburg at 7:00am and we can start after lunch. I ring Guru Dharam Kaur, and she is happy to open the training, with an alternative theme, so all is fine.
10pm, we find some nice sheets of solid brown cardboard from the shop, and lay down our bed. I’m sure it was quite a sight, 3 pilgrims sleeping on their white skeepskins, covered with their white meditation blankets. Anyways, 1.30 am security wake us up. We have to move on, as they are closing this part of the airport. We settle to another part. It’s dark in the airport and fall off to sleep again. Probably the best and deepest sleep of years. 3.30am floodlights power up and the generators start up. It’s like a scene from terminator. Jym looks at me in disbelief, and we shrug our shoulders. May as well start sadhana. a few bemused early arrivals glance across at the trio from time to time.
After a nice breakfast in Oslo, the rest of the journey is pretty uneventful… the retreat will continue after lunch as planned and all is well. No frustration, no explosive arguments, no plane rage. nothing. Just balanced calm and neutral minded. But I wonder, if I hadn’t called the training “The Art & Science of Being Human” would I really have acted in such a neutral way to the events of the day.
Fast forward ahead to the return trip. Got to the airport on time. about to board plane we think. Announcement over the Public address system. “Passengers on Ryanair Flight XXX, your flight has been canceled due to an act of God. Incoming flights have been rediverted to Stockholm”. Lol, here we go again. The Journey to and from paradise seems to be crossed with 108 disasters. Now, this is becoming a little trickier.We are pretty sure we can’t get back to London the next day (about 200 people before us in the queue), so Jym and I are expected to fly from London to Cologne in Germany the next day. looks like that’s not going to happen now.
I have a plan. Facebook it, Tweet it. within 15 minutes, I have emails, sms txt and calls coming in from my closest and dearest friends. electronic devices across europe light up and burn into overdrive with google power searchs, train time tables cross references and google maps lookups. a new plan. We all fly to Bremen, Amir gets a connecting flight back to london next day, and we train it to Cologen. Jym and I are still on track for Jyms star performance for Siri Datta in Cologne. We head back to Gotenburn and book into a great hotel and meet up with the others from the training (who are heading back next morning). I look at the key to the room. Room Number 108. God it seems is not without a sense of humor. Up for sadhana at 6am, great breakfast and a wonderful rest of the journey.
Lessons learned, no matter how resourceful and flexible you are at solving problems, don’t be afraid to lean on your nearest and dearest to help solve the problem of now. many minds make life easier. Share the experience.
Sat nam.
Navdeep
P.s.
You can imagine how funny I found the following image so, when Paddy Doherty tweeted this after my return.
(funny)
