A Vanished Road: travelling eastwards through distant lands now changed forever

• Publisher : CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform; 2nd edition (February 18, 2015)
• Language: : English
• Paperback : 138 pages
• ISBN-10 : 1505563984
• ISBN-13 : 978-1505563986
• Item Weight : 6.9 ounces
• Dimensions : 6 x 0.32 x 9 inches

A Vanished Road is a travel story. It is an account of a journey overland through Middle Eastern countries to India in 1971. The world then was a very different place to the one it is today. The countries I and five travelling companions travelled through – by train, boat, bus, local indescribable vehicles and sometimes on foot – were untouched and unspoilt by tourism and other international influences. Television was still a novelty in western countries; here it was unknown. For most of the local people, the hippies travelling through, breaking that later quite well-trodden trail, were the first westerners they had ever seen. There were no maps or guidebooks. The only guide was the hippie grapevine and the pointing of a local’s finger. Toby and Marianne Wheeler, founders of the famous Lonely Planet guidebooks, traversed this road a year later – a journey which provided the inspiration for the beginning of their venture. English was rare, other languages unknown, so communication took place on a different level – via the heart, via intuition. It was always a guessing game! Our experiences were varied and unique. Sometimes we were met by innocent interest and open-hearted generosity, sometimes by infuriatingly deliberate stonewalling, sometimes by suspicion and hostility. We needed to keep our wits about us and be very patient. It was usually a smile and a calm centeredness that got us through. The journey was physically and emotionally tough and demanding but the reward was a deeply touching and life-changing experience which cannot now be repeated. With the events of the last few decades – tragic in the case of Afghanistan – this road, with its unique flavour, has vanished forever.

About the Author

After completing her university studies in 1966 in South Africa, where she was born and brought up, Veena Schlegel left home to see the world. In 1971 she travelled overland on an epic journey through unknown lands to India where she met her spiritual master, the enlightened mystic, Osho, in Mumbai − and her life changed forever. This was a new and different journey. Until Osho died in 1991, she lived and worked in his various communes in India and around the world. After his death she travelled further east on her spiritual quest, first to Japan where she taught English and explored Zen, and more recently to China which she visits often to meditate on the sacred Song Mountain in Henan Province. She has discovered much of the historical and spiritual (particularly Zen) heritage of this area as well as learning in detail about local traditional customs and contemporary Chinese life. She has written about Osho and his life and work for many publications in paper or online and is now working on a trilogy of books detailing her travels on the path. The first book, 'A Vanished Road’ is an account of her overland journey to India. The second book, 'Glimpses of my Master' is an account of her life as a disciple of Osho. ((Both are available as ebooks and paperbacks on Amazon) Veena is now in China researching and writing the third book, 'A Mountain in China' (to be published shortly) which will tell of her journeys, physical and spiritual, in China. For more details please check out her website: www.3books.co.uk (no direct link so please cut and paste into the toolbar)

Biography

NEW BOOKS! The Trilogy! With the publication of her third book ‘A Mountain in China’ Veena Schlegel completes her trilogy about a life spent travelling on roads less travelled on.
Veena was born and brought up in South Africa. At the age of 16 she was awarded an international exchange student scholarship to study for a year in the USA. During this time she met people from all over the world and was consequently inspired to travel more, understand more, experience more.
After completing her university studies in 1966 she left South Africa to see the world.
In 1971 she travelled overland on an epic journey through unknown lands to India. This journey is the subject of her first book ‘A Vanished Road’. In India she met her spiritual Master, the enlightened mystic, Osho, in Mumbai - and her life changed forever. She now embarked on a new and different kind of journey: a journey inwards, a journey of meditation, a journey of a search for the unknown self. Until Osho died in 1991, she lived and worked in his various communes in India and around the world. Her life with Osho is the subject of her second book ‘Glimpses of my Master.’
After Osho’s death in 1990 she travelled further east on her spiritual quest, first to Japan where she taught English and explored Zen, and more recently to China which she visits often to meditate on the sacred Song Mountain in Henan Province. Living in a rural village called ShiLiPu in the foothills of this mountain, she has immersed herself in the heritage of Zen Buddhism which originated here when the Zen patriarch, Bodhidharma, sat meditating in a cave on this mountain for 9 years. As a result of his meditations he fused Taoism, Confucianism and Buddhism to create Chan or Zen, which the Chinese happily adopted. From the Song Mountain area, Zen then spread to Japan and the rest of the world.
Simultaneously Veena has come to know in detail a small slice of contemporary Chinese life − observing, with the help of young English-speaking university graduates, the breathtakingly fast-paced changes from old to new ways of living and the excitement and conflicts consequently arising.
Her experiences in China form the subject matter of her third book ‘A Mountain in China’.

All three books are available as paperbacks and ebooks.
For more details please check out her FB Page and blog: https://www.facebook.com/booksbyveena/ and https://3booksblog.wordpress.com/