February 17, 2025 • 14 mins
Each of us has a different idea of paradise—Is it on earth? Where does the concept come from? And how do we find peace in our own chaotic world? Renowned writer and thinker Pico Iyer brings together a lifetime of exploration for THE HALF KNOWN LIFE: IN SEARCH OF PARADISE. Pico Iyer is the acclaimed and bestselling author of more than a dozen books, which have been translated into twenty-three languages. His essays appear regularly in Time, The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, The Financial Times, and more than 250 other periodicals worldwide.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to get connected with Nina del Rio, a weekly
conversation about fitness, health and happenings in our community on
one oh six point seven Light FM.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Good morning and thanks for listening to get connected with
about fifteen minutes to wrap our heads around paradise, which
is not enough paradise. It is a concept we have
an idea of So many of us have different ideas.
Is it on earth? Is it somewhere we can't reach
until after our lives on Earth are over? Where does
the concept come from? And how do we find peace
(00:33):
in our own chaotic world. Our guest is renowned writer
Pico Iyer, who brings together a lifetime of exploration for
the half known life in search of Paradise. Pico ir
thank you for being on the show.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
I'm so delighted to be here.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Thank you. So you have traveled the world as a
travel writer, as the biographer of the Dalai Lama, to
the most remote places, monasteries, mountains, the banks of the Ganges.
This book is about paradise, and I think there's something
about that makes you think about the meaning of things.
When did you start thinking about paradise?
Speaker 3 (01:08):
Well, I think there's something about the pandemic that makes
one think about the meaning of things. And in fact,
this book came out of the pandemic. Twenty hours after
lockdown was announced here in California, my poor mother, who
is eighty eight, got rushed into the hospital in an ambulance.
She was losing blood very quickly. And I live in
a little apartment in Japan. That I took three flights
(01:28):
through ghost Town airports to be with her. And so
for the next six and a half months, as my
mother was wavering between life and death, I was trying
to think, how can I find calm and peace right
now in the middle of this difficulty, in the face
of death. And I'm guessing a lot of people during
the pandemic at that same thought, where can we get
strength and sustenance in a difficult situation? And probably life
(01:49):
is always going to be difficult, So how can we
find paradise in the midst of difficulty?
Speaker 2 (01:54):
In some ways, well, what is the half known life? Then?
Speaker 3 (01:58):
The half known life is two things. My sense that
in this age of information, we often know less about
the rest of the world than ever before. Especially we
know least of all about the places we hear most about,
whether it's Iran, or North Korea or Cuba. But in
a deeper way, I think our lives are determined by
things that we can't explain. Suddenly we fall in love,
(02:18):
Suddenly a pandemic halts the world. Suddenly you walk upstairs
and you find yourself surrounded by seventy foot wall of flames,
and you lose your house. Overnight has happened to me.
And really it's those moments we can't begin to anticipate
or control that form the main narrative of our lives.
(02:40):
We control our little things, but really were at the
mercy of much bigger things.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
I think so much of this book concerns religion, and
I do want to get into different places. You talk
about different places you've visited, But religion in itself, is
it not a sort of a roadmap for control and
release and control at the same time submission By the release,
I mean submission. I'm thinking of Islam in that sense. Right,
(03:04):
You're submitting to something, but there are rules that come
with that.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
Yes, And I think the surrender and submission and sense
of humility is a wonderful thing religion gives us, as
well as a sense of community. Sometimes the texts and theories, however,
divide us a lot. And as you know, at the
center of this book, I go to Jerusalem, and it's
really one of the most moving and magnetic places on Earth,
(03:29):
even though I'm not a Christian or a Muslim or
a Jew. And yet famously the city of Faith has
been a city of conflict. And I'm always stirred by
the fact that the Dalai Lama, probably one of the
most cherished and respected religious leaders on the earth, published
a book that was titled Beyond Religion just because he's seen,
as he said, that religion, which can unite us in
(03:50):
wonderful ways, often divides us.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
You begin the story your travels in this book in Iran,
is paradise an invention of Iran? Or just the word
paradise comes from Persia?
Speaker 3 (04:02):
Good question. The word the paradiser does indeed come from
ancient Persia. But also in Iran they have created the
most bewitching heavens on Earth I've ever seen. If you
step outside your garden hotel in the desert city of
YaST after night has fallen, sweet smelling flowers everywhere, the
sand of running water, colored lights in the trees, you
(04:23):
get led to a divan you stretch out and a
smiling way that brings you slices of sweet watermelon and
strong tea, beautiful people murmuring all around you. It's really
one of the most ravishing sites I've ever been, though again,
of course, that's the place of conflict. And the main
reason I mentioned Iran is I had researched it for
thirty years before I ever set foot there, and I'd
(04:44):
even published a three hundred and fifty page novel partly
set there though I'd never been, And within four hours
of arriving, I saw I didn't know a thing. And
that's part of what the Half Known Life is about too.
Our notions of knowledge are what imprisoned us. And I'm
so glad be released from the illusion of knowledge when
I actually meet the world in the flesh.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
Because you're starting in Iran and Jerusalem and all these
places where religion sort of is defining people's ideas of paradise.
Is paradise inexplicably tied with religion.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
I don't think so. And I think one of the
reasons that religion sometimes cut us up is each has
its own vision of paradise. That's the tragedy of Jerusalem,
and I think paradise is really a way of seeing
and a way of being in the world, and therefore
available to all of us. I only trust the paradise
that everybody can enter, and that there's universal and human,
(05:38):
and I don't trust the many ways we try to
explain or label paradise.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Our guest is Pico Ayer. He is the acclaimed and
best selling author of more than a dozen books, of
which have been translated into twenty three languages. His essays
appear regularly in Time, The New York Times, The New
York Review of Books, and others. You're listening to get
connected on one oh six point seven Light FM. I'm
Mina del Rio. We're speaking about Pico's newest book, The
Half Known Life, in Search of Paradise. You did go
(06:06):
to one place that particularly terrified you, as you say,
because they the universal truth wasn't exactly there about perhaps paradise,
and that would be North Korea.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
Yes, which they call a people's paradise, and they call
a worker's paradise. But I think it's partly because people
barely feature in the government's plan of things. And yet
one reason I go there, and I've been there more
than once. Is just to put a face and a
voice to what otherwise is scary abstraction. If we're sitting
here in the US and we hear the word in
(06:39):
North Korea, we think of just one face, not twenty
five million others, and it's quite a tyrannical face. That's
just what that one face wants. So I go to
a place like that to remind myself how much I
don't know, and just to flesh out North Korea and
to remind them that an American may not be the
person in the white has, maybe just a typical, dark
skinned person such as myself.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Well after that, that was the same season you went
to Iran, you decided to go to Kashmir, both places
struggling to determine their version of religious rule. What was
one of the things that well, I think your mother's
from there. What's one of the things that really strikes
you about Kashmir?
Speaker 3 (07:18):
Like you're on it's one of the most beautiful places
I've been. I remember I was staying on a hospit
on dar Lake and there was no sound but the
whirr of Kingfisher's wings. There was a lotus pond outside
my window, little people would come paddling by, and little
birds selling fragrance spices and exquisite carved boxes. It was
really heaven on earth as long as I forgot that
(07:40):
ten minutes across the water there's a wall almost it's
an occupied place, with India and Pakistan both claiming it,
and tanks and army barracks and roadblocks, and so I
didn't want to claim a paradise. That just meant turning
away from the real world. I think Virginia Wolf said wonderfully,
you don't find peace by running away from real life.
(08:02):
And so I was in an unreal paradise. And the
traveler often finds that I've been to Bali and Tahiti
and the Seychels, and for me they're often paradises, but
probably not for the people living in them. So it's
just a reminder, you know, paradise is a projection in
that instance, and for the people living in Kashmir it's
a war zone.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
And you do talk about, you know, the British when
they occupied Kashmir, they created their own version of paradise,
which often happens with occupiers. You're at the top of
a food chain and you have sort of your serfs
underneath you. I find that really interesting exactly.
Speaker 3 (08:36):
It's brilliantly said, and it also reminds me that that's
the tragedy of places that are regarded as paradise, such
as Kashmir or Sri Lanka. Everybody wants a piece of them.
In Sri Lanka, the fact that was likened to the
Garden of Eden meant the Dutch came, the Portuguese, the
British came again, and millions of US tourists all wanting
to claim our little piece of paradise, which is why
(08:56):
so many beautiful places are paradise lost. I was also
thinking looking back to North Korea, and I think one
reason I wanted to go to a place like that
is I'll sit here in California and now'll talk about
universal values and human reality. Nothing I say here begins
to apply to life in that sort of separate planet
known as North Korea. So again it's a way of
humbling myself and reminding myself that the world is much
(09:19):
larger than my ideas of it.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
There's also these places, whether it's Iran, Kashmir, or Northern
Iland or Palestine in Israel, where there's an idea of paradise.
But at best in those places you live in a
stalemate situation. There is the possibility, but mostly it delivers something.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
Else exactly so, and that so often paradise actually, unfortunately
is associated with martyrdom. In Iran, there's a place called
Zahra's Paradise and it's the largest graveyard, or one of
the largest cemeteries on Earth. One point five million people
are buried there. So the ruling clerics say, paradise is
what awaits you in the afterlife for the faithful. But
(09:58):
I want to find a paradise right here. And actually
I remember during the pandemic, because I couldn't travel as
much as I normally would to health club was closed,
I take walks on the road behind my mother's house.
Early in the morning. The sun was showing up over
a ridge. The mountains were flooded with golden light. I'd
turn around, I'd see the Pacific Ocean in the distance,
and I think, my goodness, this is as beautiful as
(10:20):
anything I would see on the other side of the world.
And it's right here in my backyard. And my parents
have lived in that property more than fifty years. I'd
never walked to the end of the road twenty minutes
away till lockdown precipitated it. And I'm guessing a lot
of people had that experience of being stuck at home.
Suddenly their eyes are open to things around them and
(10:41):
they realize this beauty here, had this inspiration here. I
don't have to go to Tibet to be uplifted. There's
more in even my neighborhood than I imagined.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
That reminds me of something you said in the book
about Aboriginal people in Australia converts to Christianity. They could
not understand that Christians had to go to a building.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
Yes, yes, And that reminds me of one of the
other challenges of paradise, because, as you say, for the
Aboriginal people in Australia, the whole land is a sacred scripture,
It's a holy text. So what do I have to
offer as a visitor. I'm trampling over their holy land.
And if I go to a place that feels really
calm and self contained, that paradise, the only thing I
(11:20):
can bring to it is corruption. I am the serpent
in the garden. So it kind of reminds you that
a traveler shouldn't seek out paradise, but nonetheless can find
it if only he or she can bring the right
eyes to maybe everything around.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
But is there are you guilty just by seeking it
someplace else? I mean, I understand what you're saying about.
It is where we are, But to be an intruder
in someone else's paradise that seems a little bit harsh.
Speaker 3 (11:46):
Perhaps I don't think one should seek paradise, so that
the subtitle in my book is in search of paradise.
But my original subtitle was finding paradise in a divided world.
And so I think we can find it, but not
necessarily by seeking it, Just as with happiness or love,
seeking love is often doomed to failure. But all of
(12:08):
us one hopes find love and find happiness. But it's
more to do, I think, with attention and open eyes
than with the actual quest.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
Is there one particular place where you felt perhaps a
vibration of something mystical? You talk in the book you're
not a follower of the three main religions, and you
know you were raised in one religion and perhaps practice
to something else now. But is there still all these
places in the world that are revered by different religions?
Is there one that sort of had a feeling that
(12:39):
might be the real thing.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
I think many real things. Jerusalem is such so charismatic,
it's like a charismatic person. You can't turn away from
Varanasi in India, which is almost the eastern Jerusalem the same.
And I remember one day, so I am Hindu, and
both my parents from India, and I'm in the holy
city of Hinduism, Varanasi in Iistan along the river, and
there are dead bodies floating paths, and there are flames
(13:04):
on north and south, turning dead bodies into ash. And
there are naked ascetics walking around, living in graveyards and
drinking in scars. It's a very intense place. And I,
as an Indian, was freaked out. And suddenly I heard
somebody call my name, and it was two Tibetan Buddhist monks,
one of them an older Tibetan, one a young American.
And he came up and he surveyed this scene of
(13:26):
great intensity and confusion. Look at this isn't this glorious.
This is reality. This is birth and death and everything
in between. This is what we have to embrace. Basically,
this is our paradise. It's right in the heart of
real life and in the midst of death. And I thought,
I'm sure he's right to answer your question. Varanasi is
an unusually vibrant, powerful place. But I think he might
(13:48):
have said the same thing in Santa Barbara, California, where
I'm sitting, or in New York City, and he'd have
been right. In every case, even in the midst of
the confusion. There's always the chance to find what you
need right there.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Our guest is Pico Iyer. His book is The Half
Known Life in Search of Paradise. Thank you for being
on Get Connected. It was a pleasure.
Speaker 3 (14:08):
Thank you so much, and thank you for reading the
book with such care and attention. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
This has been Get Connected with Nina del Rio on
one oh six point seven light Fm. The views and
opinions of our guests do not necessarily reflect the views
of the station. If you missed any part of our
show or want to share it, visit our website for
downloads and podcasts at one oh six to seven lightfm
dot com. Thanks for listening.
Welcome to get connected with Nina del Rio, a weekly
conversation about fitness, health and happenings in our community on
one oh six point seven Light FM.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Good morning and thanks for listening to get connected with
about fifteen minutes to wrap our heads around paradise, which
is not enough paradise. It is a concept we have
an idea of So many of us have different ideas.
Is it on earth? Is it somewhere we can't reach
until after our lives on Earth are over? Where does
the concept come from? And how do we find peace
(00:33):
in our own chaotic world. Our guest is renowned writer
Pico Iyer, who brings together a lifetime of exploration for
the half known life in search of Paradise. Pico ir
thank you for being on the show.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
I'm so delighted to be here.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Thank you. So you have traveled the world as a
travel writer, as the biographer of the Dalai Lama, to
the most remote places, monasteries, mountains, the banks of the Ganges.
This book is about paradise, and I think there's something
about that makes you think about the meaning of things.
When did you start thinking about paradise?
Speaker 3 (01:08):
Well, I think there's something about the pandemic that makes
one think about the meaning of things. And in fact,
this book came out of the pandemic. Twenty hours after
lockdown was announced here in California, my poor mother, who
is eighty eight, got rushed into the hospital in an ambulance.
She was losing blood very quickly. And I live in
a little apartment in Japan. That I took three flights
(01:28):
through ghost Town airports to be with her. And so
for the next six and a half months, as my
mother was wavering between life and death, I was trying
to think, how can I find calm and peace right
now in the middle of this difficulty, in the face
of death. And I'm guessing a lot of people during
the pandemic at that same thought, where can we get
strength and sustenance in a difficult situation? And probably life
(01:49):
is always going to be difficult, So how can we
find paradise in the midst of difficulty?
Speaker 2 (01:54):
In some ways, well, what is the half known life? Then?
Speaker 3 (01:58):
The half known life is two things. My sense that
in this age of information, we often know less about
the rest of the world than ever before. Especially we
know least of all about the places we hear most about,
whether it's Iran, or North Korea or Cuba. But in
a deeper way, I think our lives are determined by
things that we can't explain. Suddenly we fall in love,
(02:18):
Suddenly a pandemic halts the world. Suddenly you walk upstairs
and you find yourself surrounded by seventy foot wall of flames,
and you lose your house. Overnight has happened to me.
And really it's those moments we can't begin to anticipate
or control that form the main narrative of our lives.
(02:40):
We control our little things, but really were at the
mercy of much bigger things.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
I think so much of this book concerns religion, and
I do want to get into different places. You talk
about different places you've visited, But religion in itself, is
it not a sort of a roadmap for control and
release and control at the same time submission By the release,
I mean submission. I'm thinking of Islam in that sense. Right,
(03:04):
You're submitting to something, but there are rules that come
with that.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
Yes, And I think the surrender and submission and sense
of humility is a wonderful thing religion gives us, as
well as a sense of community. Sometimes the texts and theories, however,
divide us a lot. And as you know, at the
center of this book, I go to Jerusalem, and it's
really one of the most moving and magnetic places on Earth,
(03:29):
even though I'm not a Christian or a Muslim or
a Jew. And yet famously the city of Faith has
been a city of conflict. And I'm always stirred by
the fact that the Dalai Lama, probably one of the
most cherished and respected religious leaders on the earth, published
a book that was titled Beyond Religion just because he's seen,
as he said, that religion, which can unite us in
(03:50):
wonderful ways, often divides us.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
You begin the story your travels in this book in Iran,
is paradise an invention of Iran? Or just the word
paradise comes from Persia?
Speaker 3 (04:02):
Good question. The word the paradiser does indeed come from
ancient Persia. But also in Iran they have created the
most bewitching heavens on Earth I've ever seen. If you
step outside your garden hotel in the desert city of
YaST after night has fallen, sweet smelling flowers everywhere, the
sand of running water, colored lights in the trees, you
(04:23):
get led to a divan you stretch out and a
smiling way that brings you slices of sweet watermelon and
strong tea, beautiful people murmuring all around you. It's really
one of the most ravishing sites I've ever been, though again,
of course, that's the place of conflict. And the main
reason I mentioned Iran is I had researched it for
thirty years before I ever set foot there, and I'd
(04:44):
even published a three hundred and fifty page novel partly
set there though I'd never been, And within four hours
of arriving, I saw I didn't know a thing. And
that's part of what the Half Known Life is about too.
Our notions of knowledge are what imprisoned us. And I'm
so glad be released from the illusion of knowledge when
I actually meet the world in the flesh.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
Because you're starting in Iran and Jerusalem and all these
places where religion sort of is defining people's ideas of paradise.
Is paradise inexplicably tied with religion.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
I don't think so. And I think one of the
reasons that religion sometimes cut us up is each has
its own vision of paradise. That's the tragedy of Jerusalem,
and I think paradise is really a way of seeing
and a way of being in the world, and therefore
available to all of us. I only trust the paradise
that everybody can enter, and that there's universal and human,
(05:38):
and I don't trust the many ways we try to
explain or label paradise.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Our guest is Pico Ayer. He is the acclaimed and
best selling author of more than a dozen books, of
which have been translated into twenty three languages. His essays
appear regularly in Time, The New York Times, The New
York Review of Books, and others. You're listening to get
connected on one oh six point seven Light FM. I'm
Mina del Rio. We're speaking about Pico's newest book, The
Half Known Life, in Search of Paradise. You did go
(06:06):
to one place that particularly terrified you, as you say,
because they the universal truth wasn't exactly there about perhaps paradise,
and that would be North Korea.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
Yes, which they call a people's paradise, and they call
a worker's paradise. But I think it's partly because people
barely feature in the government's plan of things. And yet
one reason I go there, and I've been there more
than once. Is just to put a face and a
voice to what otherwise is scary abstraction. If we're sitting
here in the US and we hear the word in
(06:39):
North Korea, we think of just one face, not twenty
five million others, and it's quite a tyrannical face. That's
just what that one face wants. So I go to
a place like that to remind myself how much I
don't know, and just to flesh out North Korea and
to remind them that an American may not be the
person in the white has, maybe just a typical, dark
skinned person such as myself.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Well after that, that was the same season you went
to Iran, you decided to go to Kashmir, both places
struggling to determine their version of religious rule. What was
one of the things that well, I think your mother's
from there. What's one of the things that really strikes
you about Kashmir?
Speaker 3 (07:18):
Like you're on it's one of the most beautiful places
I've been. I remember I was staying on a hospit
on dar Lake and there was no sound but the
whirr of Kingfisher's wings. There was a lotus pond outside
my window, little people would come paddling by, and little
birds selling fragrance spices and exquisite carved boxes. It was
really heaven on earth as long as I forgot that
(07:40):
ten minutes across the water there's a wall almost it's
an occupied place, with India and Pakistan both claiming it,
and tanks and army barracks and roadblocks, and so I
didn't want to claim a paradise. That just meant turning
away from the real world. I think Virginia Wolf said wonderfully,
you don't find peace by running away from real life.
(08:02):
And so I was in an unreal paradise. And the
traveler often finds that I've been to Bali and Tahiti
and the Seychels, and for me they're often paradises, but
probably not for the people living in them. So it's
just a reminder, you know, paradise is a projection in
that instance, and for the people living in Kashmir it's
a war zone.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
And you do talk about, you know, the British when
they occupied Kashmir, they created their own version of paradise,
which often happens with occupiers. You're at the top of
a food chain and you have sort of your serfs
underneath you. I find that really interesting exactly.
Speaker 3 (08:36):
It's brilliantly said, and it also reminds me that that's
the tragedy of places that are regarded as paradise, such
as Kashmir or Sri Lanka. Everybody wants a piece of them.
In Sri Lanka, the fact that was likened to the
Garden of Eden meant the Dutch came, the Portuguese, the
British came again, and millions of US tourists all wanting
to claim our little piece of paradise, which is why
(08:56):
so many beautiful places are paradise lost. I was also
thinking looking back to North Korea, and I think one
reason I wanted to go to a place like that
is I'll sit here in California and now'll talk about
universal values and human reality. Nothing I say here begins
to apply to life in that sort of separate planet
known as North Korea. So again it's a way of
humbling myself and reminding myself that the world is much
(09:19):
larger than my ideas of it.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
There's also these places, whether it's Iran, Kashmir, or Northern
Iland or Palestine in Israel, where there's an idea of paradise.
But at best in those places you live in a
stalemate situation. There is the possibility, but mostly it delivers something.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
Else exactly so, and that so often paradise actually, unfortunately
is associated with martyrdom. In Iran, there's a place called
Zahra's Paradise and it's the largest graveyard, or one of
the largest cemeteries on Earth. One point five million people
are buried there. So the ruling clerics say, paradise is
what awaits you in the afterlife for the faithful. But
(09:58):
I want to find a paradise right here. And actually
I remember during the pandemic, because I couldn't travel as
much as I normally would to health club was closed,
I take walks on the road behind my mother's house.
Early in the morning. The sun was showing up over
a ridge. The mountains were flooded with golden light. I'd
turn around, I'd see the Pacific Ocean in the distance,
and I think, my goodness, this is as beautiful as
(10:20):
anything I would see on the other side of the world.
And it's right here in my backyard. And my parents
have lived in that property more than fifty years. I'd
never walked to the end of the road twenty minutes
away till lockdown precipitated it. And I'm guessing a lot
of people had that experience of being stuck at home.
Suddenly their eyes are open to things around them and
(10:41):
they realize this beauty here, had this inspiration here. I
don't have to go to Tibet to be uplifted. There's
more in even my neighborhood than I imagined.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
That reminds me of something you said in the book
about Aboriginal people in Australia converts to Christianity. They could
not understand that Christians had to go to a building.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
Yes, yes, And that reminds me of one of the
other challenges of paradise, because, as you say, for the
Aboriginal people in Australia, the whole land is a sacred scripture,
It's a holy text. So what do I have to
offer as a visitor. I'm trampling over their holy land.
And if I go to a place that feels really
calm and self contained, that paradise, the only thing I
(11:20):
can bring to it is corruption. I am the serpent
in the garden. So it kind of reminds you that
a traveler shouldn't seek out paradise, but nonetheless can find
it if only he or she can bring the right
eyes to maybe everything around.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
But is there are you guilty just by seeking it
someplace else? I mean, I understand what you're saying about.
It is where we are, But to be an intruder
in someone else's paradise that seems a little bit harsh.
Speaker 3 (11:46):
Perhaps I don't think one should seek paradise, so that
the subtitle in my book is in search of paradise.
But my original subtitle was finding paradise in a divided world.
And so I think we can find it, but not
necessarily by seeking it, Just as with happiness or love,
seeking love is often doomed to failure. But all of
(12:08):
us one hopes find love and find happiness. But it's
more to do, I think, with attention and open eyes
than with the actual quest.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
Is there one particular place where you felt perhaps a
vibration of something mystical? You talk in the book you're
not a follower of the three main religions, and you
know you were raised in one religion and perhaps practice
to something else now. But is there still all these
places in the world that are revered by different religions?
Is there one that sort of had a feeling that
(12:39):
might be the real thing.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
I think many real things. Jerusalem is such so charismatic,
it's like a charismatic person. You can't turn away from
Varanasi in India, which is almost the eastern Jerusalem the same.
And I remember one day, so I am Hindu, and
both my parents from India, and I'm in the holy
city of Hinduism, Varanasi in Iistan along the river, and
there are dead bodies floating paths, and there are flames
(13:04):
on north and south, turning dead bodies into ash. And
there are naked ascetics walking around, living in graveyards and
drinking in scars. It's a very intense place. And I,
as an Indian, was freaked out. And suddenly I heard
somebody call my name, and it was two Tibetan Buddhist monks,
one of them an older Tibetan, one a young American.
And he came up and he surveyed this scene of
(13:26):
great intensity and confusion. Look at this isn't this glorious.
This is reality. This is birth and death and everything
in between. This is what we have to embrace. Basically,
this is our paradise. It's right in the heart of
real life and in the midst of death. And I thought,
I'm sure he's right to answer your question. Varanasi is
an unusually vibrant, powerful place. But I think he might
(13:48):
have said the same thing in Santa Barbara, California, where
I'm sitting, or in New York City, and he'd have
been right. In every case, even in the midst of
the confusion. There's always the chance to find what you
need right there.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Our guest is Pico Iyer. His book is The Half
Known Life in Search of Paradise. Thank you for being
on Get Connected. It was a pleasure.
Speaker 3 (14:08):
Thank you so much, and thank you for reading the
book with such care and attention. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
This has been Get Connected with Nina del Rio on
one oh six point seven light Fm. The views and
opinions of our guests do not necessarily reflect the views
of the station. If you missed any part of our
show or want to share it, visit our website for
downloads and podcasts at one oh six to seven lightfm
dot com. Thanks for listening.
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