God lives in a bus

How can it be that I experienced my happiest moment in Jakarta when I was crammed on a hot and sweaty rush-hour bus?

Today, coming back from my muscle work-out at the gym, I was standing alongside the street waiting for the 605a bus back home. It was dark already, since it gets dark around 6.30 pm here, and traffic was crazy again but there was a nice breeze and I was waiting together with an Indonesian woman and managed to have some sort of broken conversation in Bahasa.

Then the bus shows up and is just packed with people, and I mean PACKED. So I jump into the (as always slowly driving) bus and hold on tight because the door is open and I am standing on the rim of this door opening. The street flashes by, lights and cars and people and it is pretty exciting. After two stops - mind you this bus just stops wherever people want to get out, which they announce by banging against the roof with a ring or coin, there are no formal stops – there is some space and I get pulled inside by some people and the women sitting on the back bench manage to cram me in between them.

Here I am, sitting like a sardine in a can, and just looking and smiling at all these bodies and faces and people holding on to each other and to the bus in any way they can. I feel this rush of joy and love rise inside me and I have to laugh out loud and people are just laughing with me and I suddenly feel so grateful and happy to be here. To experience these moments, to feel connected without words and language barriers, to belong….

I get up early every morning to do my yoga and meditations, and sometimes it just feels a bit dry, like a routine, I can not find the beauty. Still, I keep doing it, since I am devoted to it and it keeps me clear, stable and healthy, but it is not always that rewarding. How surprising and beautiful it is to find this deep spiritual awareness, this heart-felt joy, in the mundane things of life. To find it on a simple trip to the gym. To find God in the bus…