Predestined: Vancouver to the Valley of Gods

By Chaytna Feinstein

We may think we are writing the script moment to moment, but there may already be a whole story written for us.

Predestined is a true account journaled by Chaytna Feinstein as she braved the overland route across Asia in 1977. In Part One, with only a vague plan and little money, Chaytna felt compelled to reach India. Part Two describes her meeting with a remarkable being in the Valley of Gods, India, that changed the course of her life. This book is a trip worth taking!

"Predestined presents two remarkable journeys in the 1970s that could not easily happen in this day and age. Both journeys, the physical and
truth-seeking one, were riveting and fascinating! This book impacted me and 'stays with me,' as all good stories do."
Siri Yardumian Hurst, educator, art promoter, PA, USA

"Through this book I visited another, more innocent world. Though the adventures make this book a travelogue, it is also a love story, ending with the greatest story of all, the love for truth. It is a page turner and at the same time is deep and profound."
Ellen Rosenberg, Professor Emerita, University of British Columbia

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tellwell Talent
• Release date: Jan 31, 2022
• ISBN: 9780228868415

Chaytna Feinstein

Chaytna, born Canadian, has lived in the Himalayas, India, since 1977, teaching, studying, meditating, and writing about the local life around her. She is also the author of the acclaimed language text, Let's Learn Hindi.

Book preview

Predestined

Vancouver to the Valley of Gods

Chaytna Feinstein

little box

Predestined

The

events and conversations in this book have been set down to the best of the author’s ability, although some names and details have been changed. The views expressed herein are the opinions and observations of the author. The descriptions of certain characters, places and incidents are the sole outcome of the author’s perspective and are not based on any historical, political or social events.

All rights reserved. The author retains copyright. No part of this book may be scanned, photocopied, uploaded, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, stored in a data base, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews or certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. Thank you for supporting the author’s rights.

© Chaytna Feinstein 2021

Self published 2021 by Chaytna Feinstein

Design by Superfein Creative Consultants

Cover Image © 2021 by Stephen Aitken

Illustrations © 2021 Sarah Feinstein

First printing edition 2021

ISBN

978-0-2288-6840-8 (Hardcover)

978-0-2288-6839-2 (Paperback)

978-0-2288-6841-5 (eBook)

To Swami-ji, the source of destiny.

Contents

acknowledgments

foreword

Prologue

Part I

1 - Vancouver

2 - Israel

3 - Zma-ilu

Peloponnese, Greece

4 - Velika

Peloponnese, Greece

5 - Athens

6 - Train to Turkey

7 - Istanbul

8 - Ankara and Urgup

Turkey

9 - Ezerum

Turkey

10 - Tehran

Iran

11 - Mashad

Iran

12 - Into Afghanistan

13 - Herat

Afghanistan

14 - Burqas, Kajal, and Henna

15 - Farewell Herat

16 - Qala-e-Naw

Afghanistan

17 - Bala Murghab

Afghanistan

18 - Sickness to Bliss

19 - My Gifts

20 - River’s Side

21 - Maimana

Afghanistan

22 - Mazar-i-Sharif

Afghanistan

23 - Kabul

Afghanistan

24 - Smokey Hotel

25 - Kabul, Last Days

26 - Pakistan

27 - Amritsar

India

28 - Second Day in India

29 - Chandigarh

India

30 - Journey to the Valley of Gods

Part II

31 - Kullu

Valley of Gods

32 - A Trip into Kullu Town

33 - Domestic Life in Kullu

34 - First Meeting with the Swami

35 - Trouble in Paradise

36 - Learning to Meditate

37 - Meditating with the Swami

38 - Our New Home

39 - Manali

40 - Little Box

41 - Divine Experience

42 - The Birth of Chaytna

43 - Gods and Goddesses

44 - Heaven is in the Air

45 - Autumn Meditations

46 - Dussehra Festival

47 - Magical Moonlit Night

48 - On my Own

49 - One with the Storm

50 - Jewels for Traveling

51 - Song of Freedom

52 - The Decision

53 - Rob Leaves

54 - Divali Night

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

An amazing group of people gave their time and energy to help bring this work to the light of day.

First and foremost, I owe a great deal to Ellen Rosenberg for reading this book in its rough and original state and believing that it was worth sharing with the world. To get it refined enough for professional editing, she read it aloud to me once a week for almost two years. She was my constant support and inspiration and I thank her profusely.

I was lucky to have an accomplished editor, Heather Sickels, living right next door, who also believed in this book. She worked outside in my garden with me almost every day, rain or sun. My team of impeccable and generous proof-readers, Susan Randall and Elaine Desmarais were also invaluable to me. I am very grateful to them both.

I immensely appreciate my imaginative, talented niece, Sarah Feinstein for her vision that this book could also be a work of art. After reading each chapter, she drew something perfect to illustrate it. I also want to thank her team at www.superfein.design, Zachary Miller and Jonty Hayes for their input and advice. Extra thanks also go to Jonty for pulling together all the text, artwork and photos for the final act of publishing.

The watercolor on the cover was created by my friend, the talented artist Stephen Aitken (www.stephenaitken.com).

Foreword

This book is a gently edited tale of original handwritten entries pieced together from the notebooks of a young woman who journeyed overland to India in 1977. It is a true story that begins in Vancouver, Canada with her traveling companion Rob Stone and ends by meeting a remarkable being in India. The story retains its youth, intentionally preserving the author’s original voice; the language, thoughts and feelings of her early 20’s. In the telling of this tale over 40 years later, some of the tenses had to be changed and a few notes were inserted to help explain details but most of the text is her untouched expression from 1977.

Chaytna’s compassionate, intelligent, and inquiring spirit floats in and out of the pages as she describes the exotic countries she goes through. She writes about the hardships of traveling and offers insight into a young woman’s view of the different cultural experiences that she underwent as a foreigner in a new, unfamiliar and sometimes, scary world. (It is not a political commentary at all.) It is also a story about love, though not just romantic love. Though all these aspects play as side notes along her path, the author was also clearly led by an inner calling towards self discovery and her own freedom. The reader gets the opportunity to watch as Chaytna slips the western bindings off her ankles as she stubbornly and bravely keeps to her course.

So, Predestined is not just another traveler’s account. It is also a story about freedom. Even today, Chaytna offers a glimpse of liberation to those lucky enough to cross her path—those aware enough to take notice of her light. She often describes people as being bright and lit; it indeed takes one to know one. Many can attest to her wisdom and unique way of ‘flowing’ while at the same time self-directing her life. She likes to say that human existence is a series of moments in a life current that we are all intrinsically a part of.

The name Chaytna means consciousness in Hindi and was given to her by her teacher in 1977. She has turned her head in answer to the name Chaytna twice as long as her given name. She was deeply inspired by the name’s meaning to try and acknowledge all life as the very same consciousness. Perhaps it also contributes to her gift of giving an unending, ever regenerating stream of sincere compassion to all beings that are suffering, especially animals.

Chaytna was born in 1955 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada—the middle daughter amongst four brothers. Surrounded by a loving Dad, rowdy brothers, and a powerful, animal-loving Mom, she seems to have always been a unique person as well as a dreamer. Her defiance of what was normal, safe, or wise is what gave her the strength to be the character she is. She is ultimately not afraid!

The late 1970’s marked the last breaths of the old world ways before technology altered that. It was a time when thousands of western travelers made their way along the Hippie Trail; an overland route from Europe through Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. This was the route the author herself undertook in 1977. Compared to the millions of continental hippies settled back at home with western conveniences, those who made it all the way to India on the Hippie Trail were a rare, brave few. The author mentioned that shortly after her time in Afghanistan an explosive period of political turmoil erupted in the country. Chaytna witnessed the last gasps of Afghani civil freedom. She writes of her reluctance to leave Afghanistan and that like other instances in this book, her premonitions, intuitions, or whatever one wants to call flashes of knowing, told her that she was witnessing a magnificent, soon-to-be lost world.

How many incredible experiences happen throughout a lifetime? How many are lost without noted words or some form of art to express them? During the editing process Chaytna wondered out loud if she actually had anything to offer people by publishing this story. Humble people are in many ways the most interesting and often the most noteworthy. Luckily for the reader, with the encouragement of friends and her own inner knowing, Chaytna decided to finally give printed ink to these valuable experiences.

This led to the process of editing, which took place during the worldwide Covid-19 pandemic of 2020. While the entire India was in full lock down, Chaytna and I worked, talked, and laughed (at a 6-foot distance) during a chilly Himalayan spring and summertime in Northern India. The setting was Chaytna’s ever-yielding vegetable gardens, lined with slate-covered trails and flowerbeds. She offered a steady supply of chai from her little mud house situated on the steep mountainside, hundreds of feet above the strangely quiet Indian road running along the roaring Beas River. It was a peaceful, creative and deeply meditative time and turned out to be the perfect situation for the editing and artistic components to finally come together.

In this book you will follow the sometimes profound, yet joyous and sincere reflections of a person who discovered a rareness in life and eventually came to know, through the example of an amazing teacher, how to live this life to the highest and fullest potential.

Heather Sickels

Kullu, India

12 June 2020

Prologue

This book begins in 1977 in Vancouver, Canada and culminates in India many months later. During that year, four notebooks were compiled that became the backbone of Predestined. They were my most treasured possessions and over forty years later they are coming to life. They hold the words and thoughts that recorded the tales of my travels as I sorted through the new and strange experiences and ideas I encountered.

In the 1970’s, many young people, some with very little money, took to the road in personal vehicles or public buses and trains to discover the continent of Asia. It was often referred to as the Hippie Trail though not everyone on the trail was a hippy. Some people were in search of adventure and new cultural experiences. Some went in search of drugs. Some went to develop new and expanded perspectives. I believe, I fell into the last category, though I was unaware of it when I first stepped onto the trail.

As it turned out, 1977 was one of the last years the overland route to India and the Hippie Trail was a feasible endeavor. It was the year before the Shah of Iran was overthrown by the Islamic Revolution, led by Ayatollah Khomeini. It was months before the Russians invaded Afghanistan, plummeting Afghanistan into years of bloody war and strife, making it unwise to travel in that magnificent country. It was the last year young people felt comfortable moving overland in Pakistan, though traveling through Pakistan could hardly be considered comfortable. In short, it was the last safe year to attempt this wild and intrepid route.

My journey began in Israel, then continued overland through Greece, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India. At the start, I was completely uncertain where destiny would lead me, yet I had an ongoing, inexplicable sense that my itinerary had already been planned and written, predestined even. Eventually, I arrived in a magical valley in the Himalayas of India, where my life took a dramatic 180° turn into enchantment. Now, many years later, I am still living in that remarkable place.

One spring morning in India in 2013, I looked out my little mud-house window. Seeing the fruit trees in bloom, I realized it was once again time to clean out my cupboards. Time for winter apparel to be stored in trunks to make room for summer items. I started with my shawl cupboard, which was also home to my old, well-worn notebooks. I was going to shift them from one side of the cupboard to the other, as I did every year, when I noticed the silverfish (tiny wriggling bugs that love paper) had been even hungrier this year. They had eaten into the main body of text rather than dining on the paper edges as they usually did. I also saw that the ink was fading on many of the pages. I faced the inevitable; these tattered but precious records from 1977 might not survive another year in the cupboard. It was time to enter the words into the computer, where other types of bugs might get them, but at least they would be backed up. I owe the silverfish many thanks. I thought they would be the demise of my books but the following summer of 2014, while I was away from home, a fire burst out in the electrical box of my house. The house burned to the ground, taking everything with it including my precious dog Willie, which was by far the most devastating loss from the fire. The second most crushing loss would have been the notebooks. Thanks to the silverfish threat, they had already been digitized. I have been kinder to silverfish ever since.

Part I

1

Vancouver

A remarkable person named Rob played one of the most important roles in my life. He escorted me to my happiness, protecting and caring for me along the way. He had such a strong impact on my young life.

In 1977, he was twenty-two years old. He was kind and caring, fiercely independent, adventurous and sometimes outrageous. He was also handsome, no, gorgeous, with long, beautiful hair and sparkling, blue-green magical eyes, set perfectly in a unique face. He had a happy go-lucky, charismatic personality with a very sensitive, creative and spiritual flare. He hand-embroidered the flowers, birds, and butterflies on his jeans and jacket. He braided his own hair into a half pigtail that fell half way down his back. Aside from his adorable dimples, the most attractive thing about Rob was his incredible, powerful, yet sweet singing voice. He could sing almost anything and often accompanied his voice with his hand-painted guitar and a harmonica. This musical talent, combined with his ability to perform and his charm, made it easy for him to capture and hold any audience. He could hold any girl’s attention in a crowd with one glimpse and flash of his gorgeous eyes. They all turned into the proverbial deer in the headlights when Rob shone his eyes on them. One day I wrote a poem about Rob’s eyes, to which he later put a sweet tune and sang often:

Your Eyes

Your eyes

the multitude of color

the spectrum of your mind

the labyrinth of your mystery

the records of your history

Your eyes

a delicately tinted island of glass

a mirror reflecting the sky

a smoldering ash in a raging fire

a sparkling globe of desire

Your eyes

my close friends

They have often whispered my name

so tender, so sincere

speaking so softly

only I could hear

Your eyes

the crystal ball into your soul

the story of your life

Rob and I had known each for a long time, having both been born and raised in Montreal. Though I had not known him that well in Montreal, I had heard a lot about him from my good friend Lori, who went out with him for many years. She talked about him constantly. Everything we would do, see, eat, or hear would be compared to what Rob would think, do, or feel. Even before I met him, I had a solid archive of facts about his preferences, tastes, and habits and I was prepared to dislike him. It was hard to believe that anyone could be that wonderful. So when I finally met him in person I was pleasantly disappointed to find that I instantly liked him. I learned over the years it was impossible not to like Rob.

However, when I moved to Vancouver a few years later I lost track of him. One day, I was strolling down one of the streets of Gastown, the older and then funkier part of the city, when I saw a crowd of mostly young women in long skirts tossing fruit and flowers lovingly at a street musician who was passionately performing Bob Dylan’s Like a Rolling Stone. Even though I could not see the musician through the throng of people dancing and swaying, I was impressed by what I heard and a vague sense of recognition stirred inside my head. I muscled my way up to the front of the crowd and saw that it was, in fact, none other than Rob. I didn’t think he would notice me or even recognize me through the herd of adoring deer, but he did. He threw me that flash from his gorgeous eyes, which didn’t daze me, though I did feel a bit dizzy. Also, it was so great to see an old friend, especially since I didn’t have any friends in Vancouver. I waved at him and while he was still blowing into his harmonica and singing, he bent down, picked up one of the oranges at his feet and threw it to me. What a ham! I waited till his set was over and went up to hug him and he invited me to join him. Though I tried not to give in to the ego of it, I tossed a victory glance at the gawking girls and walked smugly away with my prize, carrying his embroidered bag of gifts.

Rob was living in a very run down but happy communal hippie style house close to the downtown area of Vancouver. Of course, he was the darling of his house. His roommates loved his music and he was treated like royalty, served constantly. I was living not too far away in the Chinatown end of downtown but my house was much different. I shared an equally run down type of place with a few somewhat unsavory characters, more drug addict types than hippie types. I rented it because it suited my budget. It was very cheap. But, one evening, after I left my kitchen, some very drugged out guy broke the glass of the kitchen window in an attempt to unlatch the lock. I screamed and ran out and went straight to Rob’s house. After that, I started spending more and more time with Rob.

A few weeks later, Rob and I realized that since we were spending so much time together, we should rent our own house in a quieter, less shady district, away from the downtown core. We found an adorable little cottage off Commercial Drive in Vancouver, an area, which at the time was inhabited mostly by Italians and Greeks. It was a very colorful and happy neighborhood and we fit right in! We lived together there for almost three years. Those were extremely happy years for me. Here was this gorgeous, happy, talented young man who serenaded and wrote songs just for me. We became quite a good musical team. I wrote poetry and lyrics and he composed the melodies. He would then sing our creations in the streets of Vancouver and I would stand in the crowd, adoring him.

Wandering Minstrel

A wandering minstrel caught hold of my heart

And gave his pure blessings to me

He strolled into my dreams

Using verses as his means

Blowing songs and sweet melodies

It’s a mystical type of feeling

One that I’d like to explore

It never occurred to me before

That something like him could exist

behind my own front door

A King long removed from his past

A soul to whom nothing offends

Accepts any and all who cross his path

All strangers become his best friends

He speaks to all with his smile

He calls to me with his eyes

He tells me willingly

That love and life are no surprise

He is keeper of the key

That sets all spirits free

Releasing a magical, fanciful harmony

Despite the excitement and joy of living with a musician and traveling in our painted Volkswagen van with our two German Shepherd dogs, first around British Columbia and then other parts of Canada and the US, I started getting a very strange feeling. An inexplicable restlessness and a vague sense of dissatisfaction began to creep into my mind. Nothing was wrong, everything seemed perfect, yet this nagging inner itch was there, insisting that something was missing, though I had absolutely no clue what that was.

I grew up in a very loving family. My Dad was a highly intelligent, quiet, cultured man who took me to art galleries and inspired me to read great books. My Mom was a fun-loving, dynamic character who was more unique than almost anyone I have ever met, even to this day. My friends always wanted to come to my house and hang out with my Mom because she said and did the most outrageous things. Plus, she was a kind person who loved children and animals. We always had a lot of dogs and other strange pets to add to our already small, full house. Chickens, rabbits, whatever animal or bird looked like it was stranded or needed help ended up in our house. My four brothers and I got along very well and played happily together most of the time. Although we were already our own gang, we had no problem fitting in with the other kids our age in the area. I did well in school, though I usually sabotaged opportunities that would have led towards success. Still, looking back at my life, I couldn’t blame the growing feeling of dissatisfaction on my childhood or youth.

Then one day an unexpected event, a mini-life change came to pass. I was driving through an intersection in Burnaby, a suburb of Vancouver, when a little old lady who could barely see over her dashboard ran a stop sign and crashed into me, totaling my Volkswagen Bug. Because it was not my fault and my car was considered a write-off, I received $800 from the insurance company, which was then considered a lot of money. Suddenly I began to wonder if exploring other parts of the world could cure my inexplicable uneasy feeling. Perhaps there was something out there waiting for me and this windfall was my means to go and look for it.

2

Israel

I decided to start my quest somewhere familiar; I went back to Israel. I had been there many times as a child and teenager to visit my grandparents in Herzliya, just north of Tel Aviv. I loved visiting my family there. My grandpa was a French military officer who fought in World War II. After the war, in 1947 he joined Israel’s War of Independence. He was one of the funniest men I ever knew. When he entered a room, within moments the whole room would be filled with laughter. His wife, my grandmother, was a beautiful, petite, and elegant Canadian. She went to Palestine in 1947 to work as a volunteer in the war effort. She told me that when she first saw my grandpa riding on a big white horse into the compound where she worked, she instantly fell in love with him and knew he would be her husband. They did fall madly in love with each other and remained so until they both passed away in their nineties! I was always touched to see how much my Grandpa adored and doted over her. I never forget the image of them sitting together every afternoon on their couch, reading their newspapers, holding hands the whole time. Their love for each other inspired me my whole life.

I was not only looking forward to seeing my grandparents but also my Uncle Dov Yosef (born Bernard Joseph in Montreal, Canada in 1899). It turned out that my visit in 1977 was the last time I would see him. He died in 1980. Aside from other Knesset (Israeli parliament) positions he had held through the years, he had been the military governor of Jerusalem during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. He lived alone in a huge, stately house on an old Jerusalem street. I loved his old-fashioned dumbwaiter (a small lift for carrying things between the floors of his house). It brought food which we ate at the overly large dining room table, a table that had been used over the years to host grand, stately dinners. Whenever I visited him, it would only be he and I sitting at that enormous table. He would tell amazing stories about his government positions and the formation of Israel from the 1940’s to the 1960’s. He read passages out loud from his book The Faithful City, an autobiographical account (published in 1960) of the 1948 siege of Jerusalem marking the last years the British were in Israel. To me he looked like Charlie Chaplin, yet he lived such a serious and important life. Still, I loved listening to him.

I had not returned to Israel since my teenage years and I was very excited to see Israel again as an older and wiser person of twenty. I had also hoped to introduce Rob to my family and to Israel. But since he earned the majority of his income by playing music on the streets, he did not have enough money for the trip. I offered to share my money with him but he wouldn’t accept. He knew it would cut my trip short by several months and he didn’t feel right about it. Though I was sad to say goodbye to Rob and my Vancouver family, I excitedly headed off on my own to Israel.

My grandpa picked me up at Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv, and I spent the next few weeks living in their beautiful house by the Mediterranean Sea. I spent great times with my grandparents and their interesting, cultured friends. I also often lounged in the sun in their backyard. One such day, a poisonous, white scorpion crawled up the lawn chair I was sunning myself on. My grandpa spotted him, and with an extremely serene voice, said to me, Don’t move even one muscle. There is a scorpion near your arm. I looked down and froze. My grandpa softly approached and trapped him under a drinking glass. After that, I realized this scorpion was a messenger to wake me up from the lazy, though happy, daydream I had fallen into. It was time to do something else. After all, I could have just stayed in Canada with my beloved Rob if I was only going to doze on lawn chairs in the sun.

Later that night, I told my grandparents I was feeling the need to do something more with my life. My grandpa suggested I go visit a kibbutz in the Negev Desert. Prime Minister Golda Meir’s daughter, whom he knew, lived in a kibbutz in that desert. He thought I would like the experience and perhaps I could learn some Hebrew through the language training program they offered there. I did have a passion for language so this idea seemed attractive.

The next morning I hopped on a bus to Ber Sheva, the closest large town to the kibbutz, and then took a small transport vehicle to the kibbutz. As soon as I walked through the front gate, I knew I was going to love being there. The grounds looked like a cross between a five star resort and a rustic farm; just my style of elegant funkiness. I signed in as a volunteer and was immediately given a little cabin to share with a lovely girl from Australia and a sweet American girl.

The next morning I was assigned my job. Every volunteer was obliged to work and since I was a new volunteer, I was given one of the jobs more senior volunteers or residents didn’t want; work the chicken coops! My job was to collect early morning eggs and clean the chicken runs. I loved animals, so I actually didn’t mind too much. After a few weeks I had given all the chickens names and personalities. They had their own distinct traits—George, one of the few roosters on site, knew he was gorgeous and strutted like the good-looking cock he was. Bella was a pretty, though submissive hen who lacked confidence. Suzie was overanxious to please. It felt like I was their mother hen.

I started work at 5:00 am, a beautiful time to be with the rising sun. The silent stillness was only disturbed by chickens clucking loudly in the distance. One morning I was walking to work and was very perturbed by the absence of the usual distant chicken clucking sounds. It was an eery silence. When I got to the coop, most of the stalls were empty. No one was home. I freaked out and went to the supervisor’s house to find an explanation. He was usually a very nice man, but understandably, was displeased about being disturbed so early in the morning. He merely said, Go look in the dump beyond the kibbutz gates. I ran as fast as I could to the dump, thinking perhaps the staff had let the chickens graze in the fields at night and forgot to bring them home. However, when I reached there, to my absolute horror, I saw many chicken heads lying there—George, Suzie, Bella! I almost fainted into the pile of chicken carcasses.

After learning they had been decapitated for a big upcoming kibbutz dinner, I never touched a piece of meat again and made sure everyone around me knew how upset and angry I was. I also refused to work in the chicken coop again or with any other kind of animal. I was transferred to the peach orchard, to pick peaches. I ate so many delicious peaches in the next couple of months that I actually started to turn orange! At least that’s what my roommate Allison