The "Happening". What is life's meaning?

When I started my "conversation" on Skype with my friend in Vietnam this morning, I saw that she had shared with me yesterday some thoughts that helped make sense of the deep meaning of the teachings of Ramesh (see website, where the adage is "Consciousness is all there is"), regarding the meaning "the happening". She had just got back from a long day of "social mobilization" meetings, trying to solve problems about health insurance for the poor in a rural part of the country. In the taxi back home she had some awkward thoughts: that she would never actually see the inside of her own body; that none of what she is physically is known to her; that her body is there totally beyond her willingness and control. She reeled with the overwhelming understanding, then the next question came "What is the purpose?".

When I saw her comments, I made a chance remark that unearthed a wealth of peculiar things that she has done. It all started simply enough with my throw away remark about trying to fly my kite yesterday. She let loose that she loved flying kites too. If I had asked her the question "What did you want to be when you were young?" I would have been surprised to learn that she wanted to be a jet pilot. She did not make that level but is a qualified hot air balloon pilot, she told me. So when she expanded on her aerial adventures, my kite flying exploits were soon deflated. So what has she done?

Flying under a "Cody" kite [invented by Samuel Franklin Cody, a former cowboy and gold prospector, who made the first powered flight in Great Britain in his British Army aeroplane and invented his "man lifting system" about 100 years ago]; climbing up their ropes and doing aerial acrobatics ... in the deserts of Egypt

Hang gliding ... in Albania

Motorbiking ... in the hills of Vietnam

Creating a distance record ... flying in a small balloon

Deepest balloon flight ... in a cave in Borneo

First and probably only hot air balloon flight ... over the city of Istanbul (training the first two Turkish balloon pilots, who were jet pilots of the army), and not getting her balloon burst by the minaret spikes. The plan had been to cross the Bosphorus river but the wind was wrong so the balloon landed on a strip of 3 meters of sand, with the basket in the sand and the entire balloon in the Marmara sea.


As I tell her often, we all have great stories to tell. While in retrospect she and her ballooning companions were "scared to death" as they soared above the sights of Turkey's old capital the memory and they lived on.

She has lived beyond the limits of most people's consciousness, having exhilerating experiences, which individually are spectacular enough, but collectively, soar beyond many wild dreams.