"i believe i found a miracle in you"
this morning i took a bus from jamnagar back to ahmedaba, was woken up by military propoganda pelicula at two in the morning (no fat burger in sight; the other half of the films are dual love stories), fell black asleep and off the bus at nehunagar circle. a supplementary four hours of morning sleep ritual supplanted the atypical-typical yoga and meditation and i woke up talking to my mom.
my nice, minty, is in the evolving stages of an arranged marriage process. she is twenty and smart and pretty and has a shirt that says "denim beauty". a few days ago her family went to bhavanagar (city of love) to meet the diamond merchant family (same caste, even same last name, no relation in the narrow spectacular sense) and every body had a capital time. so now they're talking on the phone and it looks like she's a lucky girl and going to get married sometime soon.
this is interesting to me on a number of spaceship levels, most immediate of which is that i'm her mama (maternal uncle) and i volunteered some time ago (mr. anderson) to be the mama who gives her away and otherwise plays various important roles in the marriage. which i can't do from, say, brasil or the astral plane or whatnot. at this point.
on another level i'm kind of shocked that a young "denim beauty" jean-clad educating twenty-year old girl would be into the arrange ("introduced", better said) marriage idea. i would think the younger generation would be westernized enough to engage with (fall for) one of the primary application of the western myth/cult (i dont mean that in a pejorative sense, at all) of personal freedom: falling in love. as in, i will fall in love with The Right Person and it will be awesome.
my mom explained to me that India is much deeper than speaking english or wearing blue jeans and whatever westernizations and amerikanizations i see are primarily going to be superficial. these kids pick and choose: they eat shity pizza and curry on white bread (soak-toast/ed with lots of butter) but are still vegetarian, love their parents, etc. and introduced marriages are basically no work for the kids and gets rid of a lot of stress. dating seems to be the most stressful thing in india after school exams (which are tearing this country apart and together simultaneous: more on them later), i think because dating here is very largely in the shadow of marriage. there's no dating qua dating as such, just the young clueless bachelor's responsibility (instead of his clued-in family's) to get a wife who will satisfy The Royal Infinite Indian Everyone.
at some point the particularities broke down in my mind to the notion that whoever we are we tend to live within and follow our cultural norms. for the vast majority of people, how you're raised is you how you live and who you-in-the-world is (as opposed to the heading-towards-paramatan of the you-as-yourself). and for some reason the crystals hardened in my mind and i told my mind what i had never told myself before:
[something like...]
a: mom. i think this might help us understand what i'm doing. most people live their lives in obeyance of time and space, as a response to the accidents and contigencies of their existence. i ...
mom: don't give me your mumbo-jumbo
a: um, okay.
[pause]
a: mom. i'm trying to live outside of spacetime.
the conversation slightly improved from their and we got to a point where she kind of acknowledged i would never "shape-up" and the i that i am was going to be the i that i would be. she accepted it to a degree and spent a good amount of time complaining about my "filthy appearance" and how i should shave and how i never washed my clothes. so i tried to tell her that i washed my clothes every day, just not with any kind of skill, but there's really no point in justifying anyhow. still learning that.
at least or myself, i realized that what i'm trying to do -- and i know and i fucking LOVE knowing i am not alone in this, that i have friends and brothers and lovers and sisters who are on this path, and perhaps even BESTER, that i have friends and brothers and lovers and sisters who are NOT -- is trying to live outside the accidents of my existence. describing this simple truth is fraught with metaphysical dangers and i know i'm not clear or precise enough to avoid them all. but whatever. there is a one love truth manifest in myriad form. there have been heroes and heroines throughout recorded and mythical history who have transcended their societies' social norms and particularities towards the apprenhension of the one love. each states it differently according to their residual self-image: those aspects of their incarnation, selfhood, ego, or history they chose to retain.
one of the lovely aspects of all this for me is the incredible compassion of the Teachers. imagine that jesus buddha ken wilber osho whoever acheives enlightenment for a moment. enlightenment as i understand it -- from the accidents of my education -- is a probability space and doesn't imply one is there all the time or is above owning a rolex watch here and there. somehow. so maybe they have this decision to play in the noumenal realm for another moment (all the yugas) or to back, to descend, and to teach and to demonstrate for the love of the masses. and its only this magnificent compassion that brings buddha back to the ficus tree, that keeps his smile on and his skin dark. its only this magnificent compassion that allows us to differentiate osho from krishnamurti and distinguish the enlightened masters from eachother (jesus is more loving than osho, osho is smarter than jesus). they have to choose some form to reenter the matrix and so they do knowing its all illusion but accepting out of love for you and me. its like the whole "dude, they died for your sins" argument except its "dude, they relived for your sins". either way, respect.
and maybe -- this is pure judgement and speculation now because i dont truly amazon-style understand any of what i'm talking about -- its this decision of descent and compassion which allows them to fall prey to the pitfalls of the spectacle, the love of the money and the weird collections of rolls royces that sai baba had and krishnamurti's affair and all of it. or maybe nothing is a sin or "wrong" anyhow and once you're There you can see that and have as much orange marmelade in the morning as you Damn Well Please.
the point is that the last three days since coming back from malavika in bangalore have been fraught with magical coincidence revolving around meditation its various shapes and colors. i have seen the future and manifested it. i have consistently had dreams that came true, whims that were immeditately gratified, and random people approach me and tell me i was on the right path.
even my family has been somewhat supportive. naturally after i made a conscious decision and meditation to give up all expectation of being understood -- as malavika and st. francis recommend -- and focus instead on understanding. my uncle told me when i came to india i looked like a hippie, now he feels i have learned something and look like a seeker of truth. my aunt says i look like a rishi and have finally come to the right track. they like the cookbook. they want the cocktail version (its all you, uz and kevin). my flute guru told me something very special and kind (in a language i didn't quite understand) and basically everything i'm here for is coming together like that brasilian tapioca breakfast.
it involves the thread from cooking through ayurved through reiki back to dungeons and dragons and the paladin curing two hit points per level with his hands. that's basically what i'm headed towards and the two primary methodologies are quite obviously the flute and the mediation. both are based in the breath -- this tenuous and permanent connection across time and space, across will and reflex, bridging the narrow and broad versions of the 'i'.
okay i ate a couple of neilu's usa-mailed cookies an hour ago and lunch will shortly be served. thank you neilu. thank you krishna. most of all, thank you to the dolphins. one day i'll meet k+d and i can thank them as well.
i'm doing well.
love
ankur
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