When I decided that i had gone far enough and spent enough time in the place you call Tibet, this place in the northern realms of India in the Himalaya Mountains, I was twenty-six years old. It was time to return home, and I began that long journey back. I knew I could find my way. I had indelibly imprinted each part of my journey in my mind and would return quickly, stopping less frequently and for shorter periods. The trip home is always half as long as the trip out; I was eager to return. This is not unusual on a trip. You have experienced this yourself: There is a wonderful, invigorating feeling when you leave your home and you feel as if you could drive or walk forever. Then there comes a time when you have slept on enough rough floors and you have slept on enough strange beaches, and you wish to go home. It is natural for humans to want to be where they were born or with the group of people to whom they are attached. And so I will speak about this a little bit, for many of you in the Western world have this idea of relentless travel as a way to entertain yourselves, and it is detrimental in some ways that you are using it.

Take Note: Travel to Overcome Your Cultural Mindset

Let us talk a little about the rite-of-passage journey. This is the kind of journey you take after you leave school or university, when you leave the financial security of your parents’ safe nest and the faces you have known for many years and go, perhaps, to a part of the world where you have never been. Many of you have done this or are doing this now. These kinds of journeys are magnificent for the mind, for you do not realize what your conditioning has done to you until you step into a town where people have a completely different set of values or until you see people living below standards that you are used to or above standards that you are used to in some cases (although Westerners generally do not experience this). It is not until you encounter these diverse manifestations of life experiences that you begin to see where you fit in the puzzle. And many beings who stay in their Western world, tucked into their expensive houses with nice cars, do not understand how they are conditioned.