When I was there in 1985 and 1986 New Age ideas from the U.S. and Europe didn't exist IN India and Nepal

At least in the Tibetans I met. There was a non-dualistic point of view that was at first strange to me based upon compassion towards oneself and others. So, because Tibetan Buddhists were kind to both themselves and others generally speaking I found this superior in some ways to the more spacey new age way of thinking simply because it made more logical sense.

The situation in India, Nepal and Tibet had been life threatening in many ways for literally thousands of years without the Magna Carta or the Declaration of Independence and things we have had here. So, the U.S. when I got to India and Nepal (I never made it into Tibet because that was harder to do then with my family).

However, I met hundreds and in some ways thousands of Tibetans and found them all very kind and interesting and real survivors having survived things you wouldn't really believe if you hadn't met the ones I met.

My world viewpoint changed a lot in 1985 and 1986 changed a lot traveling in Japan, Thailand, India and Nepal because it was more like visiting an entire different planet than anything else at that time.

In some ways it might be that by now (40 years later) everything has changed so much in the U.S. that likely it has changed an equal amount in Japan, Thailand, India and Nepal as well. So, what I write here might not have the relevance it once did to me or maybe even to you.

However, I just wanted to say how very impressed I was with Tibetans and for that matter everyone I met in Asia at that time. Only the most vigilant of survivors remain there.

Whereas you meet people all the time in the U.S. who aren't really survivors because they don't have to be because someone is taking care of them whatever age they are from zero to 100.