When I first arrived in Kathmandu, a few passing conversations all mentioned I should visit the Swayambhunath Temple (aka The Monkey Temple). Their most recognised temple(s) is a space where both Hindu and Buddhism are side by side with one voice of unity. I heard a lot of different variations on how people saw this site. Still, nonetheless, I was interested in being present and open to learning about what people saw, felt, and understood in that moment.
It was about a 20-minute walk from where I was lodging, a road that would take me to the bottom of the stairs at the lower entrance. When I asked how many stairs led up to the top platform, the response was 365, and even though I wasn't going to count them, I felt everyone, especially when I found myself climbing them at the peak of the day when the sun was the hottest. The climb up to the top was broken down into different stages, or terrace levels, with small resting places as the final stretch was steep and mostly in direct sunlight.
The energy of the bottom was not what I was expecting, commercialised and full of deceit. You had souvenirs harassing you everywhere you went, whether it was a small girl with a baby asking for food, a person with a stall trying to sell you a flag, or singing bowling. It felt like every step you took, another person wanted something. Usually, I would walk peacefully in the direction I was heading, but I had time to sit and listen to the energy obverse the working on what was happening on the steps that led up to the temple. The removal of boundaries, overstepping the mark with zero respect for the individual or the pathway of the journey they were about to undertake to reach the top.
As the saying goes, 'Everything happens for a reason,' and this was no exception. Our whole life, we are constantly exchanging energies, anything from a simple conversation to the food you eat or the amount of people that have slept in the hotel bed before you. We are constantly digesting various amounts of interchangeable energies that can instantly affect our mental status.
The journey to the top was never about feeling sorry for every person who saw a weakness in you, as they would only ever target tourists or travelers, but it's a divine understanding of self-awareness, the steps to acknowledgment. A reality that was no different from the amount of overreach you face from advertising, political agendas, or evening passive-aggressive opinions. Apart from when you got to the top, it held the potential of gratitude if your state of mind came from an internal light. A true test of one's self-love for each individual's life and the world we live in.
For years, I could see the layers of energy that were present in every moment, unknowingly, and lack of awareness. It brought me high volumes of anxiety and stress—seeing a different story to what people were teaching or telling me but trying to work out what was happening. It created a theme that ended up being more devastating than ignoring the energies and closing down your mind like most people do today. Adding one + one together and never getting two. It was not until I went to a genuine place of awareness and removed the working of society that I finally understood the underlying energy that was present before the clouded reality of control.
As I walked up those stairs, the first layer of energy was never about the temples, what they represented, or what they meant for the area. A dog-eat-dog world where people would sacrifice their freedom in the motion to try and take control of others. A spiraling circle that closed down any link to a higher consciousness as the transfer of energy would only ever drive people to fail. True awareness is the ability to see the person for who they are and not what their ego wants the world to see, layers upon layers of energies, looking within someone to see what potential they promised to uphold within this lifetime, a journey of a soul attaching to an embodiment. A connection that accountability and responsibility will only ever be obtained from an internal source.
Life is always what we make it, and this definitely applies to the temples at the top. If you walk those steps of judgment and absorbed everything reality with each individual step, you will be facing a challenge of your time life, especially when it comes to self-care and self-love. A true test of one's connection to their divine purpose within this lifetime and the next.
At the top held a space for all those who have traveled and believe in hope and harmony, a place of gratitude and understanding that life is much greater and bigger than we will ever know. A select few individuals were present to see those values, a state of honour that brought harmony to their life and the people close to them.
Those who could not see those energies and continued as the steps tried to remove boundaries and influence their reality are left with limited realities of understanding, a story only the individual can tell.
It was never about the temples, a journey of judgement for ones identity.
A journey I was grateful to walk and be part of,
Until next time........