Whereas in Asia Dragons could be either Good Dragons or Bad Dragons or even neutral Dragons but mostly were associated with Kings and spiritual Beings.
For example, you could say that Buddha and Jesus in this context were Dragon Souls or "Great Souls". So, in Asia Dragons became associated in those cultures with "Power" of all kinds both temporal and spiritual.
When I went on my vision quest I was as surprised as anyone could be to experience myself as a dragon and was completely unprepared for this experience in every way. Over time after meditating on what God and my soul were sharing with me I came to the conclusion that I had spent many lifetimes (through reincarnation) developing spiritually as a soul on various levels. A good way to put this would be if in a single lifetime someone got a lot of PHDs in various subjects. Then imagine that you could take all the knowledge and experience of all those PHDs in various lifetimes with you to the next lifetime and the next and the next.
So, when I stopped eating and drinking water for 4 days 96 hours I could have a vision while praying that was telling me who I was. At the time I couldn't believe I was having this vision during a Native American Vision quest. In fact, I'm not sure if Native Americans even have dragons in their culture at all?
So, this definitely was a sign direct from my soul of something more than I had realized before. Then when I had a vision of becoming a 50 to 100 foot tall dragon and breathing fire on everyone, thousands and thousands of people and they all smiling and being happy at the enlightenment this fire brought into their lives it put my life in a different context than I had seen it or myself before.
So, when this happened I (within a year) began meeting Tibetan Lamas in California and Oregon and being initiated by them (this was starting in 1983) and then by 1985 in December my family and I were flying to Thailand for a few weeks and then to Kathmandu, Nepal and then we drove by car and by bus to Bodhgaya, India where we thought we were going to meet a Tibetan Lama that we had met in Santa Cruz, California who had originally been in Santa Cruz to help Lama Yeshe pass over to the other side. A couple of years later we met Lama Yeshe's reincarnation who then was a boy of about 2 or 3 years of age while other Lamas including Geshe Lobsang Gyatso officiated at the dedication of a Stupa for Lama Yeshe in Boulder Creek, California.
When we arrived in Bodhgaya, India (my family and I) we were very surprised that there were also hundreds of thousands of people there for a Kalachakra Initiation from the Dalai Lama. Geshela told us we should receive this initiation so we signed up for it there in Bodhgaya, India near the Bodhi tree where Buddha became enlightened (one of the Bodhi Tree's descendants now).
Kalachakra Initiations by His Holiness the Dalai Lama | The ...
The entire meaning of the subject matter of the Kalachakra tantra is included within the three Kalachakras, or Wheels of Time: The Outer Wheel of Time, the Inner ...
At the time this was sort of like being on another planet than what life was like in the U.S. For example, we hired a horse cart to take us to where we were staying in Magadh University nearby. For example, people dressed in their local traditional dresses for this event so imagine hundreds of thousands of people dressed like Traditional Tibetans, traditional Bhutanese, traditional Sherpas etc. so there was this feeling of being 1000 years ago in both dress and actions in regard to Tibetan Buddhism. I met a man who had walked for 6 months to be there from Kham, Tibet knowing the Chinese wouldn't allow him to return there once he left and went to India. This was profound meeting people like this with this much dedication and devotion to their beliefs.
Magadh University - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Magadh University
is situated in Bihar state, India. It is recognized by the University
Grants Commission (UGC). The university is now governed by Bihar
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So, the driver of the horse cart showed up every day dressed like someone from 1000 years ago which was his tradition. One night on the way back several miles to our room at Magadh University he asked if he could stop and buy food for his family. It turned out that his town had no electricity and so as we drove up to it all light was by things that looked a lot like Aladdin's lamps and there were no street lights. We were amazed at a town that reminded us of how things had been 1000 years or more ago. As the stars came out on the way there while we listened to the clip clop of the horses gait we were transported to a world none of us had ever experienced before.
In some ways being in India for us as westerners was sort of like going to another planet not earth so it was a paradox of wondering how people like the ones we met could even be from earth at all.
Imagine a place where in 1985 and 1986 60% of the people have never been to school. This puts anyone with a high school or college education from the western world in a place of power that they never expected in a culture like this just like every other person in India with a High School or College education. Just because we were white and westerners we were treated like Upper class people everywhere we went possibly partly because we were traveling as a family and so were always given a lot of respect wherever we went compared to the average person in India. This was both a good thing and an embarrassing thing in some ways because as Americans equality is very important to us. So, getting too much attention we found embarrassing in many ways that we didn't really know how to deal with especially when hundreds or thousands of uneducated people would gather around us in a circle and stare at us as that was what people do in that culture.
At one point a lot of westerners and middle to upper class people of India and surrounding areas were traveling with us in an air conditioned bus (which was exceptional at that time for India) from New Delhi to Kathmandu, Nepal when the bus (because it was overloaded with goods on the roof broke a leaf spring out in the sticks somewhere that westerner usually don't go except to travel through. Hundreds and then thousands of people came to look at us that don't usually get to see westerners or upper class people from their own culture. Then police showed up because of this many people gathering and looking at us all and the police told us to get back in the bus even though it was close to 90 or 100 degree out. This was unbearable at first and people in the bus were going to start passing out from the heat. But, the driver started up the diesel engine to the bus so we could have air conditioning while we watched men beat out with sledge hammers the right curve on a piece of metal to make a new leaf spring for the bus. Rather than send someone for a part we watched them custom make one by 5 or 10 men beating on a piece of metal while they hit it right to curve it to the right shape which was pretty amazing for an American and his family to witness.
Before this when we landed in Nepal and hired a car to take us to the Indian Border we saw elephants and camels and men with what looked like wooden rollers the kind you flatten dough with in the kitchen rolling asphalt onto roads with their bare hands. Next to them, people (without eye protection) were breaking rocks with hammers into smaller rocks to use as roadbed under the asphalt. Their heavy equipment wasn't there western style. Their heavy equipment building one lane paved roads was always elephants, camels, and men with hammers, hammering rocks with rolling pins rolling out the asphalt on top of the broken rocks.
Amazing things were happening all the time during the 4 months we were in India and Nepal.
Even in Thailand things were always amazing and unexpected. We first flew into Tokyo, Japan but when I was told it would cost 300 dollars to get my family one way into the City of Tokyo by bullet train (less than a 30 minute ride from Narito Airport) I realized Tokyo was too expensive for our budget as a family traveling in Asia then. So, we hopped on another plane to Bangkok, Thailand. We arrived about 1 am local time and were whisked at about 90 mph across town in two taxis to Sweety's Guest House. Luckily there was someone there that spoke English because Thailand at that time at least was really a problem in finding enough people who actually spoke English there in the 1980s. We were very frustrated the next day even finding our way to the Nepali Embassy to get a Visa for Nepal which was the next place we were flying to then a few weeks away. It was very hot and loud and noisy and smoggy in Bangkok then (there were no mufflers on cars or trucks then so about 5 am the noise started of all the cars, trucks and motorcycles going to work at once so it woke us up and we then looked out our 2nd story veranda at all the noisy noisy traffic that was deafening without mufflers or catalytic converters and at the air which was brown from all the smoke out of all the vehicles. This was our first day time experience with Bangkok. It was then a week before Christmas or so and the temperature even then in Bangkok never went below about 75 or 80 degrees Fahrenheit all night long. So, ceiling fans went all night long and it was too hot to wear anything or even to have sheets over you on the bed at night.
We decided we didn't need to be in Bangkok after spending a day finding the Nepalese Embassy to get a Visa for all of us for Nepal and we met a couple that was traveling together they were young in their early 20s and schooled us about traveling the way we all were sort of out of the Lonely Planet Travel Guide. They said that the first week you get somewhere you will be taken advantage of by locals the most until you learn what prices to pay for things. Nothing then had price tags on it so basically they might get you to pay anything you were willing to pay for anything. When we learned this we hired a young man to be our guide to bargain for us so we could get good prices for anything we did. He traveled to Ko Samet Island in the ocean off of Bangkok (which I found was completely washed away and everyone died there on the island in the 2004 Indonesian Earthquake and Tsunami). However, when we were there was 1985 in December because it isn't very high. So, if you weren't on a boat out to sea you died there then in 2004 if you were there.
Ko Samet - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ko_Samet
Ko Samet is one of the Eastern Seaboard Islands of Thailand. It is located in the Gulf of Thailand off the coastline of the Thai province of Rayong, approximately ...
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At that time in 1985 it was a hangout for Europeans especially Germans and you could rent a grass hut to sleep in for about $2.50 a day and there were restaurants there also. There was also more advanced and expensive accommodations on the island too in addition to places to rent masks, snorkels, and wind surfers at very reasonable prices too. So, we did this too. However, you had to be very aware of giant clams and rock fish and sea snakes. Because the rock fish if you stepped on them you might die from their spines and the sea snakes were also fatal and the giant clams 3 feet or more across would close suddenly if you stuck your feet, head or arms into them and you would drown. So, being aware of all this sort of put us all on guard our first day there while snorkeling. But, other than that imagine snorkeling someplace in Hawaii with crystal clear water with 50 to 100 feet visibility and coconut palms where our bargaining college student guide climbed a coconut tree after asking the owners if we could have some coconuts and they said yes. So, since he could do this he climbed a coconut palm with a knife in his teeth and cut us down some wonderful coconuts that day. So, it was quite an adventure.
However, to make sense of this 4 month adventure in Japan, Thailand, India and Nepal it all goes back to a vision quest of no water and no food 2 years before on the Trinity River in Northern California.
Later: I was talking to a man from Thailand who goes back there every year or every other year to visit his friends and relatives and to buy Thai dishes and bowls and stuff for his restaurant. He was saying that though it was likely that everyone might have died there in 2004 during the Earthquake and Tsunami that he thought the island accommodations had bee rebuilt and tourists were going there again. It is a lot like other tropical places like Hawaii and Tahiti in the tropical fish and life there as long as you watch out for the giant clams, don't step on the rock fish either and watch out for sea snakes which are small but fatal if they bite you. Other than that the place is a paradise to visit.
At that time we got to the Ko Samet Island by a wooden fishing type of boat that had diesel engine. It seemed like about 20 minutes to 1/2 hour to get there from the mainland. Maybe something like going to Catalina from Los Angeles or Long Beach but I think it was closer than that. There were no piers there then and so the boat was driven up on the beach. My oldest stepson was 14 and so jumped into up to his knees in the water and waded ashore. My younger son wasn't as lucky and where he jumped off the boat he was up to almost his neck. Then I piggy backed my wife and 12 year old daughter one at a time ashore so they didn't have to get wet. We also brought all our gear along with us the same way. It was just after dark at this point so we smelled the garlic smell of garlic fried shrimp caught there locally so we went over first and had a great dinner. The temperature here was still at least 75 degrees even at night. So, we kept cool by wading in the ocean or snorkeling during the next day as the temperatures rose and rented a small hut on stilts that slept all of us with an outdoor bathroom and toilet facilities. We had a really great time there sailboarding, snorkeling and exploring the island for a few days. Then we returned to Sweety's Guest House to stay a couple more days before we hopped on a plane to Kathmandu, Nepal.
I think everything mostly has been rebuilt on Ko Samet Island park. Here is a page about it:
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Obviously the prices have skyrocketed from when we were there. For example, you could rent a grass shack that slept two for $2.50 a day and a small house on stilts without electricity or running water fro $4 day when we were there in 1985 in December. Even in December the weather was hot when we were there to the point where the only relief was getting into the ocean but the snorkeling was divine as long as you were careful of the rock fish, giant clams and sea snakes. But, the tropical fish there in 1985 were absolutely amazing. (However, that is almost 30 years ago now).
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