The Interview.

both books are now on amazon.ca.

news: What inspired you to document your experiences in Unprotected Sects? 

Nathan: ‘Unprotected Sects’ is a book that just sort of demanded to be written. The idea for it had been in my head for a long long time. I really wanted to write about a tricky subject not written about and largely ignored: the sexual component to a spiritual life. And once I finally decided to begin it became very obvious that my personal experiences had to be its basis. 

News: Unprotected Sects is quite the explicit read, did you go into the project planning on being so honest or did you realize after starting that writing it like that was necessary? 

N: Yeah, I definitely went into the project wanting to be honest, even brutally honest. We’re always hearing about abuses by the clergy, gurus and others. We don’t hear about why. I wanted to describe the theory behind the practice of abstinence, celibacy. I wanted to describe the possible powerful benefits and the apparent great dangers. And whether as a feature-writer, in articles, books or my blog, I’ve always been careful. I simply didn’t wanna be careful this time.

News: How did it feel writing so explicitly? 

N: I’d like to offer you a very deep and insightful response to your valid question. Instead I’ll tell you the truth. I realized almost immediately that I really enjoyed writing explicitly, I enjoyed it quite a lot. 

News: I for one appreciate honesty in writing but not everyone does, so did the thought that some people would think its disgusting, or worse, pop into your head while writing Unprotected Sects? 

N: What’s worse than disgusting? Listen, I’m under no illusions about this book. People close to me will tell you that the idea many will not appreciate it, for various reasons, did not just pop into my head. I am very aware of it. However, I love it and I’m tremendously happy to have written it. 

News: How did you have time to write two books at once? What was that juggling process like? 

N: I drink a lot of coffee. Anyway, it’s what I do. I talk to people about meditation, I write, I watch Netflix.

News: Was it hard to switch in between writing fiction and writing an autobiography? 

N: Not at all. It was easy. In fact it was really fortunate that I got into writing those stories when I did. There’s just so much of me in ‘Unprotected Sects’. So much of it’s about me. Sometimes I get tired of me. I wanna leave me. That’s why I meditate. But ‘The Legend of Anson Minor’ also allowed me to step away, to escape. And I really love each of the stories in that book. I’m very proud of it. The fact is there’s a lot of me in there too. 

News: Do you run any workshops or guidance seminars around the Outaouais? 

N: Nice of you to ask. I teach meditation in my home, these days only two to four folks at a time upon request. And once in a while I’m asked to give a talk or hold sessions elsewhere, although not recently. I’m available for that.

the enflamed vowels.

there was a pretty aged naked fellow engaged in animated conversation near my gym-locker the other day. so of course i could’t help but over-hear. he was telling his equally aged and equally naked friend all about his enflamed bowels. the fact that he repeated the term over and over, and over, was off-putting for sure. but what really shocked me was that he’d apparently written an eight-hundred page book on the subject.

that may have been a real page-turner for his neighbours back in whatever retirement home the fellow lived. but i just kept thinking about something a teacher in college had once told me: writers often make the mistake of being too wordy. 

i’ve never been a particularly prolific writer and i’ve never been accused of being too wordy. years can go by in-between books and they’ve never been more than a couple hundred pages. my latest two: ‘the legend of anson minor’ and ‘unprotected sects’ are the result of a couple years worth of sporadic work. a friend recently asked how it felt upon their completion and i responded that it’s not like i now feel i could die happily. that’d be going too far and kinda stupid. but, i added, it’s on the spectrum. 

i’ve always written about what i know. just like the aged gentleman in the locker room, albeit four-hundred pages less so, my books are very personal to me. even the fictional short stories in ‘the legend of anson minor’ are personal, each in their own way. ‘unprotected sects’, however, is fiercely personal. and, while it has created a tremendously soothing sense of satisfaction deep down in me, i’m aware it will irritate the heck outta some others. some may even end up with enflamed lower extremities because of what i’ve written.

obviously i thought about that a lot, debated the pros and cons of it for ages. but, at the risk of sounding too new-agey, it was a book that positively demanded to be written. 

the secret.

the secret to a seriously successful spiritual life is to open oneself up, to allow oneself to become a weee bit snaky. and i mean that in the nicest possible way. 

the kundalini, often known as the serpent power, needs be unleashed, released, freed. it’s always been there of course. it’s just apparently been dormant, trapped, waiting for the time it might escape, rise up. it would certainly leave a person amazed and inspired, with an unshakable belief that he or she could or even should found a new religion. but that’s really just the beginning, of a tremendous journey with no apparent end, one that many have gone on before. and, while the imagery of a dangerous cobra intertwining itself along the spine leads to the pervasive concept of it being fabulously dramatic or even violent, nothing could be further from the truth. 

as a matter of fact, as powerful as it is, the actual happening is profoundly relaxing, a spectacular unfoldment, a wondrous flowering. and while gross methods such as the use of drugs, jumping around madly or self-mortification may open ones kundalini, the only real sustainable method is actually to purify ones body and mind, to become more and more, and still more, subtle. 

dhyaan yog, the meditative lifestyle, is in fact the practice of going toward that subtlety in body, mind and spirit, so to speak. it’s the practice of creating an environment in which the kundalini might make its escape. the meditative lifestyle is the culturing of oneself such that one is capable of perceiving the release and the power of the kundalini when it is arisen. 

the question then begs asking: what helps that process? of course a meditation practice, alone time and good company, a more plant-based diet, the letting go of vices, not squandering ones sexual energy uselessly, and one more thing: it’s quite useful to sit close to one whose gone before. and that shouldn’t be someone who has only experienced the opening of the kundalini. that should be someone who knows kundalini intimately. somebody who is more than just a weee bit snaky.     

ps: ultimately, having said all that, i must add something the dalai lama once wrote: ‘the secret to a successful spiritual life is kindness.’

the apple-sauce.

usually i get off the highway and head for ’moca loca’ for a coffee. sometimes i go to ’aladdin.’ today my kundalini rose a bit before st. joseph boulevard so i kept on going, just to enjoy for a while. that may seem odd, almost certainly curious, but it’s why i ended up with a killer cappuccino and a muffin at ‘robo cafe’ on somerset street before heading to the gym.

there was an ancient-looking guy in there with a coffee in front of him and a tiffin full of what from a distance looked like apple sauce. it might’ve been anything but i imagined apple sauce. because the fellow did not seem overly pleased, reminded me of my old dad during his final few days and how a simple bowl of apple sauce made him crazy.

i’d walked in to his hospital room only to find five people surrounding his bed. there were two frightened-looking nurses, a concerned-looking social worker, a sincere-looking chaplain and a physician who was hard to read. They were collectively trying to settle him down. My dad was lucid up until the end, only as cranky as all get-out. And he was certainly cranky that morning. There was a tray of barely-eaten food discarded on a small table that he’d pushed aside. there was a tension in the room you could’ve cut with the plastic knife.

“what do you want judge vanek?,” the social worker was asking. “tell us what you want and we’ll do our very best to get it for you.” there was a momentary silence during which i could see dad was considering the question. then he looked up and in a most authoritarian tone he barked: “i want an apple!” for whatever reason, that made the whole group laugh uproariously. and at the same time, perhaps because i had arrived, they all filed out.

as i watched the old man in ‘robo cafe’ scowl down at what i imagined was apple-sauce, the young attractive barista went over, sat down across and took his hand. his whole expression changed as the girl spoke. his whole demeanour lightened, brightened as she smiled lovingly and i wondered if i’d had anything close to that effect on my old guy.

i sat down on his bed that morning curious why he’d been so upset. his whole expression did not change. his whole demeanour did not lighten, brighten, not that i recall. but then i never held his hand. perhaps i should’ve. he just muttered something about the rotten food and demanded the ‘globe and mail’ newspaper i always brought.

the paper was a little scrunched up from having been in the bottom of my sack. he shot me a disapproving glance but didn’t say anything as he opened up the first page. at that moment, however, one of the nurses came in tentatively with a small tray. she did not look relaxed as we watched her clear away dad’s breakfast and replace it with what she’d brought. on that tray was one bowl, of apple-sauce.

“what the hell is that?!,” dad hollered.
“sir that is apple-sauce.”
“did i ask for goddamn apple-sauce?!”
“sir you can’t eat an apple,” the nurse said in self-defence.
“how do you know i wanted to eat it!?,” he hollered loud enough to wake the dead. “maybe i just wanted to lick it or sniff it!”

the nurse quickly began to snatch up her tray before dad, rather softly, put his hand over hers and asked her to leave it. he actually thanked her as she left and the old bugger winked over at me: “cute aye. you know, she’s east indian. you should ask her out.”