Diving into Dharma

Bare with me.  For 3 weeks I've been trying to arrange my first attempt at blogging.  To say the least, it's been a challenge with my extremely limited grasp of computers to try getting my iPad connected with the PC's in the internet office conveniently located, moreover, in a spacious area of the exotic Old Temple.  Many have been sympathetic and helpful.  At least I figured out how to write and save the following on 'notes'.  Increasingly, however, a lot of words accumulated to suddenly release...whenever... into blog land.   Half my friends are under the age of 50 and comfortable with info bits.  My main concern is that, after I hit 'send' and re-read I'll roll my eyes at the indulgence.  If I have excuses it's that I'm a total beginner, I've been doing this with a fever, and my particular astrological chart easily gets pulled into superlatives and many directions.  I'm not sure of any outcome. It could all get erased at any moment by touching the wrong ikon. And I thought I had a list of who I wanted to share my blog with and that I could just hit send and it would go out to all.  I can't find the list.  If the background is still dingy black it's because I can't figure out how to change it, etc. etc. Who knows if anybody reads this anyway.  My sense is that writing is more for and about me, something I need to learn and do. 

In this light....

I arrived safely at Amma's huge ashram in Kerala Thurs. Dec. 6 for breakfast after a 36 hour flight including 8 hours with connections.  I learned from my seating companion just before getting off that last late 6 hour flight from Delhi to South that we were actually landing in another city than I'd intended....a two hour flight further south.  Booking from California it had a similar therefore confusing spelling.  So I landed at midnight on the far southern tip of India with a whole new perspective.  Definitely great fun when open to adventure!  There, almost midnight, a friendly taxi brother helped me find a small very basic room...not easy in Festival....off a dark alley in the heart of that ancient temple city.  I could have sprung for primitive AC but settled for the basic, essential fan.  It would not at all be to Western appeal...bare light bulb, even stale cigarette smell...but I found myself thoroughly rejoicing with other ancient, familiar scents and faces qof that night.  I felt at home and happy which probably grows out of my first year long meandering when I was young. Glad to be back home.

After a 4 hour jet-lagged sleep I got up to accompany pre dawn bus loads of barefoot painted pilgrims to a nearby ancient and revered temple devoted to basic pervasive Krishna worship.  With my hair tied up I was a curious interloper.  Later,  at first light,  I caught a scooter rickshaw ride to train station enjoying a commuter breakfast of rice cakes and curry before boarding a packed train heading north 3 hours thru the flat terrain of the endless horizontal palm waterways of Kerala. As Allison also says one asks numerous people on a train platform to be sure it's the right one and hasn't at the last moment been changed.  So when I reached my destination at least five different people reminded me to get off.

Eventually, with more vaguely familiar rides on narrow lanes up a long peninsula between river and ocean I arrived 'the back way' at Amma's huge ashram 45 hours from San Francisco.

I'd been here twice with 13 yr. old #1 son Nolan and his friend Myles 15 years ago to the week.  We'd traveled about India for 7 months.  But now it was with surprise and wonder to see how Amma's ashram has grown 50 times over.  Imagine accommodations built by hundreds and hundreds of 16 year old boys in Dottie's and flip flops cutting miles of rebar and hoisting buckets of concrete 16 stories high!  I watch amazed at how fast they shape and tie the 100 ft. long piles of rebar, form the columns and cross beams, pour and plaster floor by floor, all in one go. If ever I needed a lot of work done fast at home I imagined 40 Indians.  Now I'll ask for 50 fifteen year olds. These rivers of shouting, laughing bustling boys, seemingly incredibly self organized and motivated,  are swarming over a dozen different building projects.

From 16 stories high, one can look a mile or two across the river and see multi story complexes of schools...primary thru college... a hospital, and an orphanage, among other feely offered services, rising up thru a sea of cocoanut palms.  Red metal roofs cap beautiful pastel colored architecture.  As in the Ashram, adobe plastered over brick and block is finished with beautifully polished marble floors and verandas.  The whole, expressing a pervading feminine ambience, is as beautiful as the streams of smiling faces that pass and prosper with the provided clothes, food, shelter, and education.  

Other than the requisite cell phones seen everywhere (as by everybody in every airport) no actual photos are allowed here.  But I saw parts of an Indian documentary and was amazed by the scale and scope of what's been and being built, perhaps impressed even more than an 8 year old seeing the scope and magic of Disneyland from on high.

More than 1000 devoted Westerner meditators have recently arrived upon Amma's return (from America, etc) three days ago with prospects to soon double over Christmas holidays.  My two roommates in one of the many clean, comfortable buildings are a father and son from southern France.  Couldn't ask for better.  At home he works developing organic vegetable gardens with prisoners on rehabilitation parole.  The tall, handsome, creative 22 year old son with dreads piled high,  is an amazing juggler...7 balls plus tricks, etc.  I'm grateful for the tangible heart connection with them.  

All ages of primarily gorgeous young people, some even with children, and us older folks in various retiring accomplishments come  from all over the planet.                                     Primarily French and American, with Australians, more than 100 of pthese amazing Finns who have a pretty language, and other Europeans, and Brazzilians, etc  (just a few Brits. who, because of their stiff old, Queen, may not feel comfortable embracing......(go figure with the Finns and German's!).  But where are the other Scandanavians?  Helena, born in Norway (a part of my ancestry) and who shares with Bodhi on Gidley Gardens, is from my experience, an ultimate hugger.   Young brothers look like Federer and Nadal.  The natural devotion and beauty of the Western and Indian women stand out as they must have with Mother Theresa.  Humbled by aging and waywardness, I realized I was in India in the 60's...far north then in Rishikesh with the Beetles....and then at other ashrams, before some of their parents were born! 

Looking around the ashram I realize I'm totally in the Tropics!  It's hot and very humid day and night and until winter decides to arrive lowering a few degrees.  No Eskimo devotees, no heated showers.

At least five different food venues offer choices from pizza, veggie burgers, mung bean sprouts, fresh yogurt, natural pan cakes, granola, sweets, etc.,with vegan and gluten free alternatives, etc.,to basic southern Indian.  I avoid the delicious Western treats.  In the outdoor canteen that I frequent where I select from four or five Westernized dishes it costs me about $1.50 without sweets.  Freshly squeezed juices (even Pomegranate), fruits, and coconuts for drinking, are in stalls around for modest sums.  Yesterday I also enjoyed a small, whole, sweet watermelon.  I've also discovered the clothing recycle store ..left behinds and donations...which offer up a steady flow of treasures, especially for the fair sex and older hippies.  I've made some fun scores.

Above all, service and devotion, chanting and hugs, from Amma pervade,  highlighted by enormous viewing screens and the most personal of contact. She is known as the, "hugging saint", giving same and with kisses to thousands in a  sitting including, lepers, hippies, and corporate heads alike for more than 24 hours non stop some days per week.   She of course is a phenomena...more than human in aspect and increasingly revered by millions here as around the world.  I hadn't realized but she's been seen on most European TV, NBC, Fox Channel, etc. "Religions" in the West can't blackball her for all her charity in the poorest countries around the world.   In India, Prime minsters, and other notables, personally dedicate her prodigious philanthropic work.  Her various schools offer intellectual vision and practical training such as sewing, mechanics, diet, health care training, service....

Mother Theresa on a massive scale, she builds and provides dozens of hospitals, schools, orphanages, infrastructure, and relief work. (More than 60 million for the latter alone!).  She feeds the indigent, cradles the homeless and helpless, while inspiring our sense of humanity.  She is all about love and compassion.  Increasingly human rights organizations, Nobel Prize winners, philanthropic causes and charities, advocates and leaders world wide  have also been inspired and galvanized by her presence applauding what's transpired by her pervasive compassion.  

During the massive Tsunami alone she donated $22,000,000 here in Kerala and surrounding areas plus massive aid to rescuing and rebuilding lives and infrastructure.  She did the same in Japan.  

New, clean toilets are installed all over Kerala. (There is recycling around the ashram and worms are mixed with food waste for compost.).  Handkerchiefs are regularly and freely past out in schools on a vast scale bringing awareness to children toward stopping the endemic spitting.   She empowers women with micro loans, start up capitol, and vocational training, she's provided more than 70 million in health care services, and her community outreach programs provide life time aid for more than 60,000 widows and disabled.  From her orphanages more than 1 out of 3 go on to getting college degrees.  

Amma means Devine Mother and she truly serves tirelessly so that, as I witness, egos are not encouraged.  She clearly pervades.  I had a glimpse of awareness while navigating a public paperless latrine.  Squatting in the tiny cubicle I realized I wasn't much of what I cracked myself up to be.  

Growing up on these very premises in a very poor fishing family Amma was misunderstood and punished for her early on ecstatic and compassionate nature till she was eventually recognized as extraordinary.  I had a very dear friend, Federico Montoya,  from the 60's who found his way here in the early 70's, living under Amma in the first small building.  He was the first in a growing stream of Western devotees.  He recounted many miracles over the phone from his home in Santa Fe before his untimely passing about 5 years ago.  For 8 years he moved between 9 months with Amma to the likes of one on one pilgrimages with his Holiness the Dali Lama's teacher, the incomparable  Dilgo Khynse (sp.?) Rimpoche accompanying him to remote and intimate retreats in Nepal during the summer months.  He was my best man at first marriage, we lived together.  I fondly remember rescuing him from an acid spiced fruit drink trip and call for help from a creative party in posh Pacific Heights, SF.  Then mortified, he would go on to keep the company with what you or I can only dream of.  

Now on a mundane note, brothers in the internet office....(a rupee per min., with1/2 hour 50 cent max.)... are trying to help me interface my IPad with PC so that, after I laboriously write in my room via the 'notes' apt, as in the middle of the night under a mosquito net, I can eventually download for blogging.   A  sympathetic sister came up to me yesterday afternoon offering to re type a message of safe arrival for me on the PC keyboard this afternoon.  She may not know what she's in for so I'll wait for a possible tech solution.  Next time I visit India maybe I should bring an old PC  to download for blogging via those little memory things.

Fri. the 8th. I signed up for a two hour 'laughing' workshop on the roof top of the large, attractive Alternative Healing building a short walk away by the ocean beach. There are also many varieties of message, Hathaway yoga, Vedic astrology sessions, and other holistic therapies donated by westerners and Indians for a fee that goes toward supporting Amma's causes.   

All here contribute with seva (selfless service) work for 2 or 10 hours per day.  I need to enquire more but I'd say that Seva, more than meditation per say,  is Amma's main focus though I do see people sitting quietly on roof tops  and dozens at first light on the beach.  Many seem to be inaudibly reciting their mantra and I've heard there are diligent full on Western meditators....out of sight, out of mind.  My roommates slip regularly and quietly out of the room at 4:30 am to join many hundreds in Hatha Yoga practice,  the men in the huge open aired hall and women in the more intimate old one. 

A hundred or two Westerners devotedly live here for many months at a time, maybe 200 year round.  Marilyn, I keep seeing you!  I missed not responding to your kind, parting words.  You and other sisters might also be attracted to the 6 week full-on health spa rehabilitating aureovedic reatment offered  ("Panchit Kama (sp?)) which costs about $1,000 for all....  much less than elsewhere.  I'll check further.  I've also caught occasional sideways glimpses of you Allison as you reinvent yourself.

Sat.:  I shared lunch today with a women from Alameda who recognized me from when visiting Auroville in Tamil Nadu15 years ago. (Most Americans here come from California)  Later I had a wonderful visit with another women from Calif. who has lived here full time since 96'.  From her I glimpsed the deep and abiding benefit of true association.  Not airy fairy or seeking something more than what she truly is I was moved by her innate stillness and accessibility.  My memory will savor this unpretentious, soft spoken and kind sister.

Since midnight (Sat. Night) I fully and suddenly came down with aching, sore throat, running nose, high fever, and very sore, stiff neck...the whole enchilada.... from the plane travel probably caught from coughing Indian kids converging in Taipei from Vancouver, SF,  and LA for the packed flight to Delhi.  Too late now for homeopathic prevention so it's all a process of purification. The materialistic vibe of the Americanized Indian passengers, the turban wearing Punjabi Sikhs was especially evident showing prematurely furrowed and marked aging in the older ones. It was sad to see.  Compared to the flights thru Asia, toilets were clogged with tissue and the sweet China Air stewardesses were exasperated by their interpersonal and environmental insensitivety. 

 (Do I have a prejudice accentuated by fever with Punjabi men?  In my mid 20's I'd hitchhiked overland for The Magical Mystery Tour and after 10 (truly magical). months  landed desperately sick and welcome at a large and exceptionally organized spiritual ashram where well over 600,000 followers ( almost the population of San Franciscp!) would regularly gather to see and hear the Guru under a covered open air building that could hold 16  football fields. (The largest in Asia)  There were many more for sleeping, with designated spaces for whole villages, plus multi story ones providing private sleeping rooms for families, all built by dedicated, amazingly capable volunteers.  Even on regularly quiet week after week gathering times there would be one or two hundred thousand.  Always food, shelter, and medical was freely given....never a penny asked. A great place for the masses to have their spiritual holiday.  The hundreds of visiting Western Initiates could also freely stay up to 3 weeks (originally we'd stay for three months!) per year in relative garden luxury (organic salads, etc. and healthy sustainable food.  By contrast The food here doesn't provide the protein and fresh veges.  Though not exactly like the more fundamental Sikh Religion per say, the Guru was still seen as One With God.  (Guru is God in India, the idea that he opens the door to Awareness.)

Big Punjabi Turbans, now seeming contrived and unattractive to me, were everywhere. Though there was never $ or sexual transgression and their hospitality unparalleled that Path became increasingly like a religion of adoration to me....almost the Evangelical equivalent of US Evangelicals.  Punjabi society is very male.

Rarely do you see women in the grotty Punjabi towns.  (Imagine a chicken yard full of roosters!).  Over the decades the rose colored glasses slowly came off as they inevitably do with an ex Catholic or divorce.  

At the risk of turning this blog into social commentary,  it's sad that much of North India has increasingly changed so drastically toward the material rat race of the West over the last 40 years.  For example, farming went from bullock plows to $100,000 tractors.  (The Punjab is the agricultural equivalent to California which is why so many have immigrated there.). That being said I like to visit Dharmsala and Rishikesh and other more remote places in the Himalayan foothills but, still, in the future will want to avoid flying into Northern India.  Kerala, like most of Southern India by comparison, though less prosperous than the Punjab, seems light and personable.   Of all the Indian states it is known for advances in education and health care for the masses and women's rights are even championed.  It seems to be more politically responsible, less corrupt than other states. (There are many exceedingly poor, even semi arid, States).  By comparison, Christian Portuguese settled Goa on the coast just north of Kerala,  a favorite settling place of traveling Hippies for decades offers it's own unique and varied appeal to Travelers now from drugs, to creative and holistic expression such as music, dance, crafts, yoga, meditation....Clusters of pale Brits along one beach, Russians with dreads along another, and Californians offering wheat grass juice therapy, etc.

Monday:   With my sore throat and constricted chest for which a good doctor just confirmed lots of rest and electro lite liquids, I regrettably, postponed the laughing yoga session till next Sunday.  In it's place I'll sip a Sunday coconut in the shade as the electricity for the essential fan may be shut off in my sector again after lunch thereby excluding naps.  I' don't remember feeling so jet lagged.  I sleep no more than 4 hours per night, that also being the case the two nights before leaving so totaling now a week.

In spite of poor health my spirits are especially high and feel hugely fortunate to be in Amma's wonderfully feminine embrace.  Compared to my old Punjabi path where psychologically healthy young Western followers almost entirely fell away, this large ashram is thriving with Western youth.  Three cheers for following the bell weather feminine in spirituality.  And thank goodness for the fated ness of my mistaken flight south otherwise I would have entirely missed being here with Amma who is away on Indian tour Jan. and Feb.  

Karen, I hope you're enjoying the premises and that life takes kindly.  Thanks for looking after things. It was wonderful hearing your voice via my new Indian friend Chandra's spontaneously offering me his cell phone this Mon. morn. over rice cakes.  He is a long time devotee, deeply insightful and wonderfully articulate  as Indians can be regarding the spiritual way.  He's a refined international businessman from Bombay and felt a connection with me in spite of my hippie appearance.  I'm grateful for his friendship and, if ever in Bombay, have a standing invitation to stay with him and his wife.

Will you send me my forgotten....# so I can use the Debit?

Also, there are several apparently good Vedic Astrologers offering their services.  I'm going to one Wed. to check out.  Cost is $10 for 1/2 hour.  Send me your birth data if you want a reading.  My memory being over heated check to see if I was born at 9:42 am.

Ray, hopefully with the help of internet techies today, I'll be asking you about iPad to PC connecting.  Perhaps you will have already emailed me suggestions if you ever get this.  Again, if I'd known,  bringing Bodhi's old PC would have been much  more practical.

May these inadequate words about Amma offer a hint of what we as human beings are inherently capable of.  As a relatively casual visitor and long time lazy, errant seeker, I feel blessed to walk in the Living Presence on these premises in ever increasing wonder.    May these impressions find their home deeply within my outward meanderings.  And, as all Buddhists say, 'may all beings benefit.'

Love to all in our blessed life, your brother David.

Day four, Monday:  still down with head barely above the surface.  With high fever I went a  bit nuts last night as in legs screwed on backwards, etc. hence little sleep.  I hear Marilyn, Helena, Satya, Christina, David L,  and my sister, Patricia, say it's time to enquire about skilled and appropriate body work sessions focusing on taking care of myself.  That's the gift of traveling together.  Bodhi, last night you were putting John's doors in upside down.  How off can I be!

Napped several hours today for the first time and began feeling better but by evening could hardly hold my head up from a coughing chest infection.  I haven't been sick in India over the last 6 or 8 visits (even 7 months at a time) so this shred of pride has me now sympathetic to Karen who four years ago was sick the entire 7 week tour in the cold, wintery, polluted north.  Fortunately here and today I have the opportunity to begin cures freely available and of my choosing from Aereovedic to Western which alone is a nurturing experience.

Tues.:   Staggering out of my room and passing legions of  teenage boys mixing  and applying concrete,, most of them with cellphones  in their pockets.   (in  place of those horribly blasting transistor radios of yesteryear)., past the garden sanctuary,  I joined an older French women for breakfast who had recently completed the 6 week Panchet Kama cleansing to help her thru some cancer.   It was arduous but she looked radiant.

When she left I slid down the table to Elgin who just arrived from Munich.

Happily we shared a spontaneous, mutual rapore. She's a journalist, writing about classical music for various papers.  Growing up, whenever her family traveled, to avoid car sickness they sang,  she plays the cello and piano.

Afterwards we climbed to the second story veranda of the smaller original temple (which seemed large 15 yrs. ago) filled with gentle, devotional chanting.  We half thought Amma was arriving but an hour later everybody suddenly rose heading for the large open aired hall a short walk away.  There we  sat far forward on one side within 50 feet. Nobody rushes to get close and while generally the women are on the right and men the left, it's not strict with couples sitting together.  Whereas that old Punjabi path allows only Western and the privileged to sit within a hundred feet, with Amma the poorest of the poor can sit right up front and eat with Westerners if they desire.  

Afterwards tables filled with food and huge stalks of bananas (not the ubiquitous sweets ) were distributed into metal plates and passed along tables to Amma who past one to us as one or two thousand of us flowed by. 

I took my lunch to an intimate outdoor, shaded pavilion and sat with six other Westerners.  Someone commented that I looked an old time Indian traveler.  And that's when I met Carl, an American Jewish tax specialist lawyer professor on my left who began eloquently speakinging to me of the old law compared to Christ's according to John who came for truth and love.  We agreed this was Amma's universal way.  This brother had a friend who looked a slightly younger and shorter version of me and he asked if I'd met the legendary Neem Karolli Babba...Ram Dass's guru from the 60's?  When I said I'd had the great good fortune to have met him one on one in a tiny hut up in the Himallays, he told me the story of Amma going to Taos to visit a shrine that his followers had erected and spontaneously going into ecstasy.  

They then had to excuse themselves as the lawyer brother needed to teach a class on civil rights.  Which leeds me to Ulie from Finland..  I found myself instantly swept up in his gaze from across the table. His face, especially his dancing eyes, were wonderfully familiar (a sort of Steve Saroff look) and embraced me with unspoken humor flickering like the aurora borealis itself.  Afterwards I slowly moved to a nearby garden shaded with giant leafed plants, ferns, and palms to quietly savor the wonder of what had just come into my life.  Ravens, parrots,  and so much chattering color flitted about above.

On the one hand the body is aching sick, on the other it's filled with wonderment.

After awhile I withdrew my IPad from my old shoulder bag and kissed it for allowing me to open to the 'notes' apt and share.

Behind me thru the giant ferns sweetly feminine American voices blended with guitar and devotion to Amma. I had discovered a sanctuary.  I could have said to my brothers at lunch that while I explored some of India over decades it'd been like circling the mountain.  Now, from my own perception of both Neem Karolli Babba and Amma magically uniting in time it may be time to lift my eyes.   While I realize that my Buddhist friends and dedicated practitioners might role their eyes at my Bhakti sentiments, we'd agree that it's whatever floats ones boat to across the river.  Personally, I've always been drawn to Bhakti and the subcontinent.  Marilyn, Bodhi, and Allison, having lived and spoken Hindi, are a bridge to this reality.

Satya, my dear friend and consummate astrologer urged me to land in India the first week of Dec. because a favorable 29 yr. cycle begins over these next months that touching my heart and sense of self.  (Transiting Saturn, according to our Tropical, Western astrology is crossing my Venus in Scorpio which is on my Ascendent).  I'm not saying that Amma is my "Guru" but being in her presence is essentially about the heart opening in a very big way and ultimately more than confined to one on one male female romants.  When I wavered leaving my beautiful Mendocino home she insisted I must go.....now!

  Speaking of astrology, this Wed. morning at 11 I go for my Vedic interpretation.  The entire fabric of Indian life for thousands of years has been based on astrology.  Every wedding for over a billion Indians is timed according to the stars. 

This evening I went to a very old Aureovedic doctor.  He looked at tongue, took pulse and listened with stethoscope, mumbling a lot while writing out a page full of prescriptions while telling me I had pains in stomach and trouble sleeping which I do.  Then, taking his notes to the busy nearby pharmacy,  $15 and a 5lb. biodegradable bag full of various medicines later I find myself on a 40 day cure.  Surprised, by night I already felt on the mend.  But how many times before have I tried this ancient healing medicine while traveling in India only to abandon the bulky systematic blending of pills, liquids, and pastes?   Being here, however, presents a great opportunity to stick to the regime for the duration of treatment to perhaps intrinsically improve the health.

I realized I've been brushing my teeth with powdered herbal shampoo and trying to wash my hair with exotic herbal toothpaste that I got at the Nature Store.  

Comfortably slept 5 hours.  

We'd. Dec. 11:     

While waiting for pancakes at the cafe this morning I sat next to an unusually round jolly fellow who looked at me and began laughing and giggling.  I joined in, thru my arms around him and off we went to our own laughing yoga land.  We'd stop for a spell then one of us would break out all over again, the other jumbling right in, for minutes over and over with little kids gathering round.  What a merry, merry man.  What a kick.  Beyond Disney!  Later he passed me in his wonderfully colorful garb and necklaces gave me a sideways glance and burst into giggles and mirth.  My heart is open.

But now it seems like magic happens every time I open my eyes.  For example, I was upstairs in the old temple waiting again for a knowledgeable man about PC connection when I looked up for a moment as the most beautiful young women in the world past smiling deeply into my eyes with her hand touching her heart in salutation.  I think of The Celtic David White poem that Marilyn taught me about, 'looking sideways into the Light'.  How can one look at such beauty full on?  Glimpse and be grateful. Walk in wonder among these beautiful people, looking sideways into the Light.  Smile inwardly.  As she told me later, I looked and acted like a very dear teacher friend of his who had a retreat center in the Pyranees, on the very north and west part of Spain near the ancient pilgrimage town of Santiago.  The area resembles the Mendocino Coast.

Birth, Old Age, Sickness, and Death:  The beauty of each of these young women raises the bar for the next towards attracting a mate to reproduce.  But in time will he disappoint,  will children be a burden, and divorce inevitable?  Bodies will wrinkle and sag as younger ones blossom.  I feel it, of course.  And I see these handsome  Krishna youths rising up.  And I see them mingle.  And I see tthe flashing eyes and smiles of the dancing milk maid Gopis.  And the Wheel turns.

Mick and Jill with their 8 yr. old Will from Down Under,  jumped out as in the face kindred spirits from the get go.  They've been on the road for 1&1/2 years.  25 years ago Jill was the premier women's race walker in the world.  Mick is Capricornian reserve, capable, with a gorgeous 45 yr. old surfers body.  Will, on his smaller IPad is doing his patient best to teach me functions and navigation.  We've enjoyed being together since the get go, always seeming to bump into one other and hang.  Only last night before retiring did I finally tell them of my cyber trials.  Only last night all three of them looked at me like I was a frog trying to get out of a bathtub.  All three carry with them four Apples, including 2 IPads.  All three spoke at once.  They examined my version and suggested that Glenn needs to continue with generously supporting upgrades if I'm to be taken seriously.  All reached out to hold my hand.  They DID!  

All along the Way, the Truth, and the Light had been walking with me.  My buddies.

Damn if my eyes didn't fill with tears and the temple grounds fall silent, and a chorus of gratitude follow me all the way home to my mosquito net. Damn if I don't have tears in my eyes just now.  And today, soon, after lunch, Mick and Will and I are crossing the big new foot bridge put in for future Tsunamis, to find WiFi. which does not, not, not exist on this other side of Creation.  If successful....

But, I'm jumping ahead.   Back to yesterday when, at the appropriate time my Vedic Chart was opened.  I'd practiced how to record on the IPad but when the session started he corrected my procedure which, in the end, and as Fate would have it, turned out to be a bust.  As exceptionally informative and accurate as the reading was it was not meant to be cast in stone.  I'm not disappointed because the spirit of it went deep.

Without any words from me, he said that with these weeks I've begun an auspicious and enduring cycle of openness and happiness.  That, since 05, my heart had increasingly grown heavy, this last year breaking.  He said that I was creative like an architect conceptualizing and forming, that I was remarkable as a people person and living thru inspiration.  He said not ever to worry about anything.  That I don't have to think about what I say.  And he even said to write and a lot more that felt good and true.  I got my money's worth. 

Thurs.  12/12 Maharaji's birthday.

My Seva is to serve toast and idli's for breakfast in the canteen between 8 and 10:30.  Young Jimmy from Omaha is the leader.  All 6 of the others are French and he speaks fluently with all the peculiar facial expression, pursed lips, shrugs, etc.  To my right stands Sham bow (sp?), a friendly traveler and good with English, serving curry sauce.  When signing up on arrival I was told it takes an hour for serving.  We stand for two then there's the set up and clean up.

Just imagine all the nationalities of individuals flowing past I get to meet and observe.  For example, there are the streams of renunciates, mostly women, draped in white,  who know precisely how many idli's they want.  I try to guess.  Jimmy gave me that certain French look when I asked one what she was renunciating.  But when he went to get more hot milk and a short, pretty, blond from Tennessee caught my eye I couldn't help myself.  With a twinkle she stepped to the plate saying something like, ' denunciating renunciation'.  Actually what she said was so much, much better.  Never took her eye off the ball.  An outta the park home run with bases loaded.  Those lucky Tennessee studs!  I'm not letting go of that question with her but I've got my homework.

Problems in Paradise:  Soon I had a Meeting By The River (my favorite Ry Cooder piece)  with Mick and Will and wanted to check my blog for readiness.  I was stunned to find it scrambled and with pieces randomly duplicated.  With a chorus of 2,000 devotees behind me I began to shuffle and delete and just as I'd get back to what I thought it was, scrambled eggs all over again.  For an hour at lunch Mick tried to figure it out finally settling for putting the pieces from 'notes' into 'documents' with back ups leaving me to rearrange them.  We missed our Meeting By The River but no matter, I've enjoyed that music a hundred times and there's always more to write about.

Then I met Elgin again.  I'd been looking for her for two days. We strolled through the crowds together and climbed to a secluded balcony in the Old Temple and talked.  A couple of months ago I told Satya I wanted to meet women without having a romantic agenda. Just being present with my feelings.  For three hours, till the rosy hues of dusk gave way to the fires of Puja below, we opened our hearts and our lives.  Kindred spirits from different worlds meeting by the river.

Later we took our bland, monotonous meal at the back of the teaming hall with a full chorus of Bhajans and Amma still hugging on the giant video screens .

When we finished Elgin guided me up past the rows of Westerners waiting in chairs for their turn to be hugged,  Many had flowers or bowls of fruit to offer.  Further, along side the high stage there were 20 or so people quietly sitting for their turn to go up and, for just a few minutes, be the person passing to Amma bits of Prashad for the stream of devotees.  For those who know, touching hand to hand like that is beyond special.

Suddenly exhausted however, I though I'd take this rare opportunity another night.

On the way out,  past the outdoor Western Canteen, Mick spotted me and called me over to a table where he was viewing photos on his Apple.  An hour later, after hiking the Anapurna Circuit, exploring the back country and waterways of Cambodia and Viet Nam, and the colorful geology of Iceland thru the eye of this creative artist/perfectionist I staggered up and off after begging for more tomorrow night.  Till then Ray's rare and exquisite photos of his unique and daring Chinese boarder violating treks throughout Tibet taken over several years from his loaded bicycle which often had to be inched over 17,000 ft passes.... had been the high water mark.    Mick, the unassuming Capricorn, now joined him with $7,000 worth of lenses.

Got antibiotics for chest cough on way home.

Friday the 13th:

The seam of my new high tech thermarest split open silently settling me on the marble about midnight.

Stepped into a cooler morning from a few showers last night.

As a people person serving on the breakfast line gives a lot of food for thought.  Candidly, I see that women change their minds on how many samosas (rice/lentils pancakes ) they want 88% more often than men.  Some want two then three then two.  I can slightly influence them 12% of the time but am firmly,and sometimes politely, waived off 69%.  The other 42% smile.  This predominantly applies to the Renunciate's which consistently mess with anybody's figuring.  Similar percentages apply to selection of pale versus well done, the one wanted being at the bottom of the stack about a third of the time.  Shambo, the brother serving curd on my right (this name from Amma means All Compassionate and Auspicious One; the Joy of Shiva and Benevolent One,) says I charm the ladies. Who is he to talk.  I don't know how to take this coming from a Frenchman and we haven't the opportunity in the serving qaction to compare perspectives but I'm definitely intrigued.

In mid morning I spotted David from Nelson, B.C on an IPod.  Instant attraction.  I'd been told that any other Apple will provide something called a 'hot spot'.  Because he has a later version set up to transmit with a certain sim card....then I can remotely send thru him.  Three of us worked at it for an hour.  Cosmo the idea man, new David implementing, and I praying.  We're 95% there.

We'll meet Mick at lunch.  

I want to gratefully acknowledge Glenn who gave me my IPod.  All these relationships throughout all these days in the sublime atmosphere of Amma's ashram would not have been possible without his generosity.  On some level he knows.

I always feel close to my sister Patricia, and to my nephew Scott living in New Zealand.  There is no separation.

Love you all.