The Practical Religion of Problem Solving.

Backpacking and wilderness survival, takes constant innovation and problem solving, creativity is the solution, which springs from a source, each person discovers and knows for himself. In fact backpacking is the spirituality of creative intelligence, in a much broader sense than defined by Mahrishi Mahesh Yogi, it is literally creative, and in transcendance of any mindful walking, breathing or transcendental meditation, it is constant meditation in the midst of nature, a part of your escapade, to the ionised air of the mountains, the million dollar views and of course the acclimatization of all those transits, a transcendance of all that up\’s and down\’s of life and its mobity. It is shedding off all that excess weight, the heavyness and its replace,ment with light creativeness.

Reliability is always an issue in the backcountry, watches fail and we need to know the time and direction from the Sun and stars, maps are lost, cellphones, radios fail, and we need to innovate.

When I was on the Ice Age trail, my propane stove broke, I had to discard it and use natural twigs and leaves, but then it often rained, so I needed to innovate, I found only toilet paper and edible oil enroute and so used it to cook, just paper dipped in oil, with baking foil pans, it worked great, lightened the load. I had forgotten exotherm, calcium oxide would have sufficed, I did not even need a fire.

Tents and backpacking equipment can give way, so it is a good idea to invest in sturdy equipment, and always innovate, using locally available solutions, with creativity, you will always succeed, this is a spirituality, of using natural law and intuition, creativity stems from a well developed intuition and there is the divine hand, prayer and meditation on your \’Ishta Devata\’ would bring you help, even in the hardest of situations.

Natural food always comes it\’s way , and when in the backcountry, it is helpful to know the edible and medicinal plants. I lived for weeks on wild apples, mushrooms and berries, they are abundant on the Ice Age Trail, and they are nutritious and healthy too, I liked it so much that I was looking for Grandpas and Grannies to join me to start a wild food kitchen on trail, but I found no volunteers.

When I was at the desk, for many years, I was inspired by Mick Dodge on National Geographic. I did live like him, for weeks on natural food, sometimes only on sunlight and water, till I reached Shawano, and there I was offered food by everyone, including the only shelter there. Help in terms of supplies is always available from the local churches, and the Lutheran Church had a food pantry, I forgot to thank the pastor before leaving, the other churches also had a combined pantry , and they were of great help too. Otherwise resources are far away and Uber is not available, innovation and local help are the only options.

The Ice Age trail, is a relatively developed trail, there are bridges across streams and crossings over swamps, it is easy trekking and I enjoyed the 45 days it took me to trek more than 500 miles. With the help of the elements, the climate and the rivers, I made it without so much as a scratch.

I was building endurance, and did so, enough for some serious wall face climbing and difficult mountain trails.

Wildflowers

Wildflowers: When I was a child, the biodiversity was much larger, and there still existed prairies of pasture grasses and wildflowers. I remember chasing butterflies, all day in the fields. This was the playful time of childhood, a memory that still exists today and lives in me, it is of a freedom, that I revisit every-time I backpack, one of rediscovered childhood, a lingering innocence, and that distant scent of wildflowers in bloom, it is said that if the scent is strong, one is forgetful, even of ones name and only has a vague sense of existence and a bliss, one can attain, only in the wilderness, far from a Boov bottle.

Watching UFOs at Bonn forest

The ice-age trail meanders around the Bonn lake from Greenwood, after a boring mile and a half trek on hot tar
country roads.

I found myself a comfortable place by the trail to spend the night watching the night sky for meteors, satellites
and UFOs.

The night sky is part of the backpacking religion, a guide and a spirituality in the sky. Stars have appeared, signifying
every important event in Earth\’s time, the birth of Christ, the coming of Maitreya Buddha. Star light or twilight is the religion of nature,
it keeps you connected. It is called \’Sandhya\’ in Hinduism, we worship it in a hymn everyday. When I discovered a rock version of that hymn,
is was enthralled, it was true devotion.

It reminds me of big bang theory, when Sheldon, Howard, Raj and Leonard went camping to watch the meteor
showers, they fell asleep though and missed the showers.

When I was younger, I had many voices, one was God, one Santa and his elves and another, a descriptive mid-westerner
somewhere in another Wisconsin, far away where they understand levitation, I am sitting here today hoping he will show-up
in his UFO and teach me the physics of levitation, especially photonic levitation.

The night-sky inspires much science fiction and more than fiction religions, very much real to me. I am Bajoran and feel Pagh, like the Qi
it is the force, that permeates all living matter. The wormhole sentience of acausal non-linear time appeals to me the most, as I comprehend
it in one moment meditation. I was hoping my future self would visit me when I have invented a levitation spacecraft myself.

It reminds me of how Luke mastered levitation using the force, from Yoda, he could even lift his space craft from the lake, that is where I would hide my spacecraft,
in the lake and cloak it too.

Back at Maharishi University Of Management, I could not learn TM Siddha, and levitate, but I designed several machines for that, that involved spinning wheels
and propellers, but could never get the propellers to spin using the force without a motor.

The maple seed is sacred to me and holds a vortex at its gliding tip, it forms a great propeller, a propeller machine balance by spinning wheels, forms a great
vimaan or ancient aircraft, I am going to build one soon.

May the force be with you.

Walking Meditation

Walking is a meditation, in many cultures, there is yogic walking, mindful walking , walking with Christ and of course the Bajoran, Walking with the prophets. When I hike on forest trails, I alternate breathing, with the steps I take, as I have discovered, waking with its gait is a natural language, a language that speaks metaphors, a meditation and an inner journey.
My feet have a mind of their own, they take me to my destination, on a metaphorical journey, to my destination, like mindful walking, the journey is an end in itself, not the thoughts of the destination, or memories of where I began, I meditate in the present, a moment that is time, not a memory of it or the sensory perception of it, but that moment. The one moment meditation is also true of walking meditation. It is when your perception of all space time, all your trajectories in the universe or classical, Lagrangian and beyond, beyond counting, all of space time, in one moment of mindful contemplation. It is a transcendence of a journey, with no ups and downs , steady in the path, one with it.

The Forest and the Views.

Beauty is part of the moment, it is immortalized in the perception of it and transcends all persistence of it, it is relived at its source every time you remember it from a photograph or memory, the universe discovers itself through our perception, it is human, wildlife live with it all the time, they \’be\’ it, but we must develop an appreciation for it, if we are not already born with it. People who live in the mountains live with it all the time and often wonder why we urban naturalists are so enthralled about it, the reason is that we are stuck in \’Boov bottles\’, a biosphere of canned naturals, of development and seek true nature, away from our polluted biospheres, a release and a return to nature, a call of the wild. This is sacred to us, something we cherish more than any concept of God we can come up with.

The forest \’moves\’ with us on the trail, each tree remembering its place in a much larger reality, all interconnected in their roots to a gigantic intelligence, much like the Navi, in the fictional planet Pandora, the trees form a collective intelligence. In walking meditation, you are part of this intelligence, with flowing water, tall up to the clouds and sky, with eagles hovering around to remind you of the heights, and rocks silent, observers of millennium passing by.

Yogic meditation is of the rhythm of walking, once you get into the rhythm, it is hard to stop, your breath is synchronized with your footsteps and you are unmindful of the weight you are carrying, maybe you transcend gravity, and the load becomes lighter, you believe you are floating on top of the world. You look down with a global view, on how the entire creation unfolds around you, how the trees grew from seeds, the wildlife scattered them , how all the flora and fauna find their place in the circle of time, you too must, the Kala-Chakra.

I was initiated into the Kala-Chakra a decade ago, and since then have been liberated, to a point where I can comprehend all religions and cultures, actually you transcend it, when I hike, I am with the protectors, the wind whistles a strange language, but if you listen, you realize it is the same language it speaks, anywhere in the world, so do the mountains an drivers and rocks, it is a universal language, the same language spoken by Christ , Buddha, the Prophets of Bajor and the Pagans. The same Universal Truth. Many who do not understand, wait for an interpreter, a messiah who would lead them to it, many are waiting for their messiah, it be Christ again, or Maitreya Buddha or Kalki.

The book Cover

Mindful Backpacking.

Wilderness hiking as mindful eating, sitting and walking.

Add quote by Buddha from Backpacking with the saints.

The glaciers of Wisconsin, mark the coherence of the north american continent. The retreating glaciers, from the ice age, sculpted the varying geologies of present day Wisconsin, a 1000 mile trail, called the Ice Age Trail, runs across Wisconsin.

The trail lay before me, an invitation to the Pagan, to cross to the spiritual side, a call of the wild. In a mindful practice of the knowledge of gravity and levitation, I packed a backpack with bare essentials and marched to Kettle Moraine.

UFO sighting is a religion, the flying objects with their vanishing lights carry something of everyone beyond the mundane habits of their existence. The aliens represent their mysterious side, completing their lesser halves. It is something far beyond their comprehension, grapes so high that the fox thinks it is sour, but for the few, it is a spirituality, a religion of space, that they someday want to embrace and belong.

Kettle Moraine, has a huge crowd of these spirituals, the pity is the commercialization. All state parks are occupied by a gang of pseudo rule maniacs, who market canned naturals, at atrocious prices, the bio-diversity has vanished in these places, many a pristine place was lost in wrong pricing, and they have dare attempted to price a sanctuary, and have lost it all in a meek attempt at \’scientific\’ forest management, of what is left is the science and not the spirituality, it remaining with the last bunch of backpackers, a vanishing tribe.

While science is only of counting, I left behind greed and moved on to the boundaries of civilization, to the wild, in search of the natural genome of wildflower prairies and wild trees, a canopy of sacred spaces, totems and metaphorical waters. In my backpack I had the saints, my MUSE headset and a vacuum cup. I was reminded of my religion of vacuum and vortexes.

Would I chance by a tornado, a current in the stream, while I stopped to hug trees, worship the rivers, the dream weaver screensaver on my cellphone reminded me of my reflections in the puddles.

A primate, tall dark and handsome, reminded me of the wild side in me. Could it be Sasquatch? Is he attractive to women? I often wondered if I had a girlfriend, a spiritual partner, would she be more attracted to the Sasquatch in me? or would she be with me in the void of Shunyata, in mindful awareness of my breath?

As I hiked on the trail, in mindful walking, the known, knower and knowledge in me , in unison. I had entered the trail in the map, going simultaneously in all branches, in space-time. The cartographers world was a portal to reach the sky, and the zeniths of the horizon, that was the prayer, I made everyday, the Gayatri, the five headed mother goddess of light and knowledge, of the five elements.

Whenever I sit, by cute little benches, by the trail,I am reminded of the Buddha, in me, in everything, the stone that has been here for a millennium, carried by the glaciers, witnessing quietly the demise of the human race, in the food I eat, in my stride, my walk, the hiking, the experience, all soaking in the Buddha nature, like a sponge, till I am saturated.

So full of the essential nature of reality, my mind jumps from the relative to the absolute, maybe far beyond causality, somewhere in the wormhole of Bajor, where time is non-linear.