June 11

Sitting in the back of the van on the World Harmony Run is a great time for haphazard reflections, and here are some of mine…

We are driving down the Great Ocean Road in Southern Victoria, where coast and countryside meet; cavorting together endlessly in a winding stream of green and blue, creating magnificence with reckless, dazzling abandon, and all a person must do is sit and watch it roll, roll, roll past the window…

You need to be able to watch Australia roll past your window for days on end to understand something about it. What that something is, I am still not fully sure. I only know it is something that is felt, and not something to be mindful of. I was born in Australia, and have lived here for most of my life, yet I feel as though it is only now that I am seeing Australia, really meeting it for the first time.

As we run around this great continent, it feels like we chip away a little more of Australia’s seemingly rough, impenetrable veneer every day, until finally we are realising the true Australia in all her glory and majesty, even though the landscape may remain unchanged. Here, it is a beauty of a different kind; an abundance that is not always perceivable to the eye. It is a beauty that is heard in the stillness of the bush; rises up from the dusty red earth; takes its place in the ocean. It is a beauty that camouflages itself, is utterly unexpected, surprises even itself and sneaks, sneaks, sneaks up on you until suddenly you stop, frozen in wonderment, and softly intone: “What a vast, unfathomable place this is.”

It is imbued in the hearts of the people, and is as indivisible from them as the sun from the sky.

Boom! Great walls of water clap against sheer, bush topped cliffs, and the scent of sea-salt mixes sharply with Eucalypt.

We are still winding our way down the coastline, great stretches of ocean playing backdrop to the thousands of bending gums that blur past our windows. A diamond sky benignly watches it all. Perhaps one day somebody will drop a pin and pierce the fluid, undulating body of sea and expose it for a shiny, buoyed piece of satin. People, houses, rocks, ocean spray fall straight into the pools of our eyes, spiral away and meet with lifetimes. Soon they are no more, and we look lazily to the next thing in this great, ancient land. Everything seems fleeting. Everything slides by...

It is not summer, and surf goers are scarce. Occasionally, there are fishermen on the beach. They stand with arms folded, chatting, backs to the ocean and faces turned away from their huge surf rods, seemingly dispassionate about that which casts their lot with the sea. They are relaxed, at home in the elements, and then gone the next moment. Where have they gone? For a moment I am taken with the idea that perhaps now they aren’t really anywhere at all; that they were only ever a small and fleeting part of some mighty stream of consciousness (is it Mother Nature’s?) that we seem to be swept up in; that pushes and pulls us along in our van every day, racing in torrents all around us. I wonder if it is all remembered, valued, stored in a vault for later. I hope for their sake it is.

Another day, another trickle of water and the dusty red earth softens a little. The people we meet often reflect the land: honest, generous and big hearted. Some are rough on the outside; all are true as steel. They are wonderful to talk to; true fellows. They are all sincerity; all well-wishing.

The landscape, while spectacular, is often repetitive, and you often find yourself listening to the land, trying to fathom what it all means. I’m sure each person will hear a different story.

You must listen…

The breath of millennia sweeps down the sunburnt planes of Australia. These I never saw. But I felt could hear that breath, suffused in ancient magic and dreamtime lore; it garners strength at the heart of Australia and bursts into cities, flies around the coast and nourishes, nourishes us all with that sweet, invisible something that is so Australian, though none can put a name to it. At best, it is described as a fragrant rose that is neither seen nor felt. Will that do?

What kind of country is it that bewitches us so gradually, yet so completely? What land could possibly induce prattling like this? It is one I was born in; grew up in, yet am only now beginning to know. Perhaps it was always this way, or maybe it is the Torch; the flame and the hearts that carry it that are waking it up, dreaming through it and watching it blossom.

It is a beautiful land; it is Australia.

May 8

I am sitting in a sturdy yet rustic wooden bench on top of Sydney's YHA backpackers’ hostel, a grand old building rising some nine storeys above street level in central Sydney city. 



Like an unrehearsed movie with great surround sound, there is Sydney, all about me, offering itself for observation, scrutiny, enjoyment. There is a glimpse of the harbour between high-rise office and luxury apartment buildings. Across the street, away from the dim yet popular strip of Vietnamese and Chinese restaurants is a park. Abandoning all pretence of blending into the grimy city beat, Mother Nature reclaims a mere block of busy street and reminds passers-by not to forget her. It's nice to see her message heeded; there are people trickling in and disappearing into her pockets of solitude as regularly as jaywalkers defy the bustling streets.



Then, of course, there is the rhythm of Sydney itself, the essence; that indefinable hum that every major city softly croons to its inhabitants. In Sydney, you can catch it the way the sunset creates an almost hazy, happy-yellow glow from skyline to skyscraper, the silhouettes of church spires in the distance, or the angle and splendour with which the great clock tower reflects off a nondescript stone-brown office building opposite my own, lending a whimsical charm to an otherwise forgettable structure. 



It is hard to remain one-pointed with gorgeous Sydney city spread out below and about me, but more often than not my gaze is drawn to that very same nondescript, forgettable office building standing opposite my own. It's windows declare it to be a filing-cabinet-and-fluorescent-lighting kind of place. Desk fans, ergonomic work lamps, stacks of unfilable files and, of course, numerous diligent (daydreaming?) employees. 



As bad as it sounds, people who don't know they are being watched are so ... well, watchable. It is their lack of suspicion, perhaps, that makes them so; you catch them in a moment when they are existing without the usual barriers. They are, shall we say, being themselves, and for precious instants we feel we catch rare glimpses 
of real human authenticity.



It has now occurred to me that as I sit here smugly philosophising about people-watching, there are potentially scores of people in the office building neglecting their duties and watching me! It begged the question: what or who would they see? A young girl, probably a 
tourist, checking out the view and writing up her diary for the day. 
They would almost be right. It occurs to me that as often as we look at people, we rarely see them for who and what they truly are.



Do these people who are supposedly watching me back know that I am a proud member of the Australian World Harmony Run Team? Do they know about my friends, the rest of the team, several of whom are running the entire circumference of our vast and precious continent? Can they imagine how eagerly we anticipate greeting their city? Would they catch a glimpse of the sublime vision endowed to us by founder Sri Chinmoy: to offer goodwill and harmony sleeplessly and breathlessly to the entire world? Would they laugh or wish us good luck if they knew of our mission to envelop Australia with promise and peace? 



The answer, of course, is that I have no idea. Now I can see a white-haired man dressed in an impeccable business suit with a very suave-looking pink tie. He's the ideal of the guy who holds the fate of the legal system or a nation's economy in his hands. Huge responsibilities. He looks my way, and I wonder what he sees. I have huge responsibilities too although, dressed in old sneakers and a bright yellow Sesame Street t-shirt, I hardly expect him to arrive at the same conclusion. I feel relief that he is there; that he is playing his role, and I mine, and that one day maybe we'll all see ourselves for what we are and perhaps we'll surprise each other with what we find.