how i lost my shirt.

after five years of my leaving india, i went back for a first visit, in 2003. stepping off the plane, just as all the other passengers realized they had made a horrible mistake and wanted to get back in the aircraft, i felt like kissing the ground. i don't really know why. i was tremendously happy with canada, quebec, with wakefield. it was, perhaps, a visceral reaction to the place i spent so many years of my life. india, almost against ones better judgment, gets under ones skin, not like a bad rash or a flesh-eating disease. it's like an acquired taste, a test perhaps, a testament to tenacity. i let the hot air, the smells and the noises wash over me.

the whole bunch of rickshaw and taxi drivers charged at me. i grabbed one old rickshaw wallah, typically emaciated and wearing pyjamas with only flip-flops on his calloused feet, and hugged him like he was my long-lost dad. as soon as the others heard me speak hindi they gave up, dispersed, seemed to dissolve as they looked for the next possibility. i got into the old guy's cycle rickshaw. for about twenty minutes i just let the fellow pedal away and i let myself re-adjust to that old familiar world until we reached an 'indian oil' station where i knew there'd be a taxi sitting. i over-paid the man before jumping into a car for the rest of the journey to new-delhi.

it was nearly two in the morning once i arrived at the 'jyoti mahal' guest-house in phar ganj. i had to wake up the chowkidar, but he smiled as he unlocked the gate. it isn't a great hotel. it's ok, convenient enough, cheap and clean enough, and the people are nice. the guest house tries and, except for its name, fails to be reminiscent of the famous 'jyoti mahal' temple in jaipur.

in the morning, walking through the market of phar ganj, a beggar on a make-shift rough skate-board approached for money, baksheesh. i handed him twenty rupees, but he said: "you usually give me thirty." i smiled down at the guy. "how do you know that? i haven't even been here in years." then the beggar smiled up at me: "you're hansraj. you always give me thirty." what could i do? he remembered my name. so i handed him thirty rupees, which meant that he had fifty. however, then he asked for my shirt! that was too much. so i said: "you want the shirt right off my back? even if i gave you this nice western shirt you would still have bent and withered legs." that was quite something to say, but he simply smiled again, a totally disarming toothy smile, and responded: "i'm not asking for your pants. i'm asking for your shirt." what could i do?

even at that early morning, i was surrounded by the busy, crowded mercantile world of a thick indian market-place readying itself for a day of hussle. nobody took the slightest notice of one pale, shirtless westerner wandering through. old ladies swept the streets kicking up the dust. dogs ran around in packs looking for scraps. shops were opening. 

there must be a god.

a friend of mine recently tried to correct me. fortunately or unfortunately, however, i am really quite incorrigible. i come from a long line of very incorrigible people.

in regard to my translation of the bhagavad gita's chapter 5, verse 16, in my posting of last time, you may recall that i loosely translated it as specifically forbidding the use of crack-cocaine or methamphetamine. he insists it should've read: 'those whose ignorance has been destroyed by the knowledge of the self, the knower, the real i, or God, shine like the sun with their realization. they are said to have attained God consciousness or supreme awareness.' some people are sooooo particular. i didn't want to make too fine a point of it at the time, but i am not comfortable with fundamentalists. they make me nervous. they give me the willies.

i was with someone last friday evening in ottawa who wanted to stop at the lcbo. what i saw there, as i waited in the lobby, actually felt shocking to me. it was a sobering experience. the amount of booze flowing out of that government-run establishment was phenomenal, and the average demographic was quite young. so excuse me if i take some small liberties with ancient outdated texts to suit our present-day societal issues.

what is the self anyway? really. what is God consciousness? what, for that matter, is God? i don't know and maybe i won't even be using capital 'G' any more either. i believe in meditation. my personal, direct experience has shown that it's a huge high, a real rush, a ballistic ball-busting buzz. i believe in meditation. i know how prodigious the practice can be, for relaxation, for a sense of over-all well-being. but, let's not get carried away.

meditation does lead to a direct cognition of the all-pervading one life. i get that. it leads to a direct experience of the water permeating all the waves, the sap running through the multitudinous leaves of a tree. i've got that. it's fabulous. but, i still wonder: where does that one life come from? i wonder where the water comes from, where the sap comes from. after so many years of meditation, i still wonder who was the first mother?

i've heard that people shine like the sun after smoking crack, at least for five minutes. of course, then they die early and badly. drunks at least get nice shiny noses on their way to a sad demise. so i am willing to compromise. i am not an unreasonable man. let's agree to translate that important verse this way: 'those whose ignorance has been partially destroyed by the knowledge of something we call the self, the knower, the real i or god, shine like the sun with their incomplete realization. they shine like people on crack or like drunks without any of the loathsome side-effects. they are said to have attained god consciousness or supreme awareness, even though they don't exactly know what that means.

kids' prayers to god, from 'beliefnet.com':
1. dear god; thank you for the baby brother, but what i prayed for was a puppy.
2. dear god; instead of letting people die and having to make new ones, why don't you just keep the ones you have?
3. dear god; my grandpa says you were around when he was a little boy. how far back do you go?

one more cup of coffee.

"a lovely neighbor of mine called and said i should go over to her place for a cup of coffee because nobody was home. so i went right over, and nobody was home." rodney dangerfield.

there are certain habits which are good for the practice of meditation and others not so good. truthfullness, non-violence, not stealing, forgiveness, compassion, the usual run-of-the-mill moral stuff: those are recommended. contentment, generosity and faith are thrown in for good measure. modesty is often mentioned as well, but one has to draw the line somewhere. on the other hand, the 'bhagavad gita', in chapter five, verse sixteen, specifically forbids the use of crack-cocaine or methamphetamine. thankfully, nowhere is there a mention against coffee in any text from the great world religions or philosophies.

coffee is my guilty pleasure. coffee is my big weakness. pathetic as that may sound, it's true. on a scale from one to ten, one being something like enjoying the odd chocolate bar, five being like dressing in diapers and ten being something unmentionable, a cup of coffee hardly seems worth mentioning. you may feel that dressing in diapers should be higher up on the weirdness scale. i used to feel that way too, but as i've gotten older i've begun to change my opinion.

coffee is my thing. i often have to wait impatiently until 5:00 a.m. for my first cup of the stuff. that's the earliest i allow myself to begin the caffeine intake. however, after i drink that first cup, the voices stop. i make it so strong it wakes up my neighbors. coffee is my rock-climbing, my wing-walking, my base-jumping, my heli-skiing. i happily read reports on its positive effects and studiously avoid those concerning its negative ones. and i happen to know it's extremely useful as an aid for meditation.

there is hardly any thing i like more than having a fierce cup of java and then sitting to meditate. a few of my most profound spiritual awakenings have come to me during those sessions. i've opened the mighty serpent power, the kundalini. i have astral travelled. one time i even talked to God. that was after a triple espresso of anne winship's 'bean-fair' coffee. at that time, God told me that i am very close to realizing the True Self, but that henceforth i should stick to the 'bean fair' smoother wakefield blend.

living a moral life is simply the best way to have a peaceful mind, a mind well suited for meditation. still, a little coffee can't hurt. just today, on january 9th, the 'huffington post' published an article listing eleven reasons why people should drink coffee. there were reasons listed such as: 'coffee drinkers are less likely to commit suicide, it can make you a better athlete, it can help you keep your brain healthier longer, make you more intelligent.' apparently, coffee can make you feel happier. you can imagine, in that case, how happy i am.