jedicist.org Blog

The first two days of being on the road were full, long, tiring days.  It feels wonderful to be on the road.  The reality: Kolkata is an intense place for me.  In reaction to the intensity, I developed some bad, unproductive habits (watching TV on the internet, etc), just to recover from the daily intensity of the city.  So stepping out of my apartment with a heavy bag on my back was a new beginning for me–came too late, as new beginnings tend to do.  But I still have three months to make the most of in this crazy country.

My backpack is about as heavy as it has ever been–I have with me about 20 books, the whole bottom section of my backpack is dedicated to library. I always travel too heavy.

I took the train to Bhubaneswar and arrived in the morning on Tuesday.  Found all guest houses full and booked up, had to settle with a room for rs 200- about twice what I like to pay per night, in the most busy, trafficky, dusty part of town.  Went in search of sights.  The temples at Bhubaneswar are incredible–but you will have to wait until I manage to post pictures, which might be a long time from now.  In the afternoon, I took an auto to the edge of town where there are two hills that have been carved (in 1st cen AD) out like the Anasazi carved cliffs by Jain aescetics.  Fantastic.

In the evening I met a poet named Basant Kumar Kar, and was fascinated by his story and personality.  He is truly a native Oriyan, though he lives now in Delhi to do his NGO work–it was raw luck that allowed us to be in the same city at the same time.  Obviously, I have a lot of writing to do about him, for my project, and can’t do it here in the cybercafe.  Sorry.

Then, wednesday morning I hefted my bag and set out for Puri.  I’m not interested in Puri for Puri’s sake, and now that I’m here, I’m less interested.  It’s a beach-tourist town with too many legalized drugs.  However, I was interested in this ashram in the older, dirtier part of the city.  It is an ashram founded by the guru of Parahamsa Yogananda (who wrote the book “Autobiography of a Yogi” which you should read if you have an open mind and any interest in the subject).  I wanted to begin to learn the type of yoga practiced by that line of gurus, called Kriya Yoga.  Everyone makes sweepingly grand claims about their own type of yoga, and I could repeat the claims and history claimed by Kriya yoga, but I won’t.  I arrived at the ashram at about 11 AM, carrying my big backpack, having been frustrated in my attempts to use the internet first.  The kid who answered the gate spoke nothing that I could communicate with.  He led me inside to a big empty room where I waited for the guru to come.  He advised me to collect some ceremonial things (flowers, candles, incense, sweets, fruit, money) and come back at 3.30.  I truly regret not asking him to take care of my big bag.  I guess I was feeling strong.  So I hefted my big bag and prepared to wile away some hours.  I didn’t think it would take so long to collect those things, because I figured I could just go to the temple and buy the prasad outside (non-hindus are not allowed into the temple at puri, which is another subject).  The beach was inevitably, obviously there, in front of me, and I was really hot.  My body gave me no option.  I carried my giant backpack across the beach to near the water, ignoring the symphony of stares of the bengali vacation-goers who crowded the beach.  Dropped my bag, stripped down to my shorts and ran into the ocean (backwards, so I didn’t have to break eye-contact with my bag).  It was a sign that I have finally managed to overcome the extreme self-consciousness generated by being constantly stared at in this country.  Of course, when I got out of the water, I was swarmed by vacationing families who wanted to take a picture with me in it.  I indulged them in return for faithful bag-guarding, and had a good twenty minutes of total shutter-snapping celebrity.  Such a moment: at once rebelling against India and the repression of the Stares and simultaneously utterly submitting to it, submitting to my strangeness and forgeiness, allowing myself to be an object of curiosity and wonder.

I hefted my bag again and set out to collect those Materials.  It was a LOT harder than I expected.  They don’t give the normal flower-incense-coconut prasad at the temple in Puri.  I couldn’t find a single fresh flower in the city.  I walked for a long time carrying my absurdly heavy bag.  I got ripped off terribly by autos taking me to another market, another market, and then back to the ashram.  I failed, in the end.  I came back to the ashram without the flowers, without the candles.  Of course, the swami shrugged off my faliure, and proceeded to perform the ceremony to induct me into his sect, with no knowledge of who I am, with no interview, though his English was good.  The ceremony was all ritual, meaningless and empty for me.  Then he gave me a quick run through of a few meditation practices and yoga postures for the Kriya yoga beginner.  The postures are really perfect for my body and current state.  Kriya yoga works on each chakra of the body (energy centers along the spine) beginning with the lowest and working upwards, to channel energy up the spine.  If this kind of talk sounds hokey to you, I’m right there with you.  However, I after observing my own body for a long time, I feel a kind of intensity, an undeniably physical, biological energy that I can move upwards with meditation, an energy that kriya yoga describes as light and sound, but for me is not so sense-driven.  Since i am a kriya yoga beginner, the postures start at the bottom, emphasizing flexability in the back of my legs and buttox, which I truly genuinely NEED in my body…the backs of my legs are insanely tight, often I cannot touch my own toes.  So-without the meaningless ritual which, for me, clouds my mind and my practice-it was a helpful encounter.  But the swamiji and the ashram and everything else are haunted by the same problems that haunt all yoga/spiritual investigation: severe institutionalization, silly dedication and suservience, and, that monster that clouds every interaction: money.  I thought I was going to spend 2 days at the ashram doing Yoga, but they don’t have a place to stay, and it’s far away from where I am staying now.

Thanks to the blessing of couchsurfing.com, I found this small resturant and hotel in the middle of the forest between Puri and Konarak, far away from all the bullcrap (literally, of course) of Puri.  Since it’s couchsurfing, I’m staying there with a roomate for free, and I only pay for food, which is cheap.  The beach is a 1 km walk through a sandy, silent forest, and it is totally abandoned, in the middle of nowhere.  Yesterday I spent all day in poetry and writing and indulging in nature.  The two other guys that are staying there are true CHARACTERS, as travellers tend to be.  I went in the ocean naked, played football and frisbee, read poetry on the beach, did my new yoga, meditation, and work on project.

Too much time in cybercafe!

Tomorrow evening I’ll set out on a journey. I’m going to a few places in the southerly direction to encounter people, specifically writers and poets who have published with Writers Workshop. One of the things I’ve learned (or maybe reinforced) from Professor Lal is that literature is a human phenomonon–the creation of symbols for people to relate to, interact with, in order to be able to visualize a higher meaning that remains unspoken. Even (especially) holy texts. That’s why we should visualize publishing as the creation of a community.  Writers Workshop is an amazingly inclusive community–not selective, as mainstream publishers are, not ruled by market forces.  The idea of my trip is to go encounter that community around the country, to get a sense of people’s personalities, why they write, and how they interact with their own writing–what purpose poetry and fiction and translation serves in their lives.  Most of them are not full-time writers.  For example, two of the writers I will meet work in the NGO world of social development.  I want to know how they imagine their writing (in one case fiction, in another case poetry) is a part of their larger life’s work, their social committment.  I also want to use profiles of author’s personalities to talk about identities within Indian society.  For example, the housewife who writes voraciously against her husband’s wish that she give all of her undivided attention to the family.  I won’t end up wanting to write full profiles of everyone I meet–and I’m not trying to meet that many people, but rather form real connections with a few artists.

I hope that this same attitude will extend to the manner in which I travel.  I’m using couchsurfing and staying with friends-of-friends and writers to the greatest extent possible.  Although I am going to see a few places that history is written over the landscape of India, piles of rocks, really (Hampi, and the caves at Ajanta and Ellora), I imagine myself trying to interact with contemporary India to the greatest extent possible.  Those historical sites are simply opportunities too great to be missed; I don’t live in a country with a living three-thousand year old civilization. But also I think it’s significant that I’m hitting the two cities most closely associated with the tech boom and the “New India”–Hyderabad and Bangalore.  They are not cultural centers in the way that Calcutta is, but of course, there will be exciting cultural creation happening (in English) in the places where the educated middle-class gathers.  In 2006, I adventured through India, like a good American conqueror.  Now I’m just going to take it easy and have some good conversations.

I’ll update the blog as often as possible.

After Professor Lal almost lost his life in America, he wrote a book called “Lessons.”  The idea being: “Why do people come into your life?  To teach you a lesson.  Everyone has a lesson to teach.”  He pays homage to the people who taught him. But he is the ultimate teacher, a born sage now advanced, preserved through miracle and science, to continue to enlighten.

He has taught me more lessons than I can put into words.  I thought, though, that I’d offer a few of the most easily quotable ones here, and expand on it over time. My notes are woefully incomplete, and nothing can beat his subtle oratory.

“Have you ever seen an ugly tree?” he asks me.  He presses me on it, asks me to literally think hard over all the trees I have seen in my life.  I think of a tree in Providence that smells bad, but I of course, I can’t think of an ugly tree. “There are no ugly trees.  Do you know why?  Because they strive for the light.  You also strive for the light, and you will always be beautiful.”

“Why won’t Arjuna fight?”  It was to answer this question, this overlooked question, that he first decided to translate the entire Mahabharat, determining the next 35 years of his life’s work.  Of course, Arjuna ends up fighting, and killing, having been convinced by Krishna.  So why should a born warrior refuse to fight and a god of love convince him to?

“Why is Brahma never worshipped?”  There is a myth here, but that isn’t the point–that myth seems to have overtones of misogyny, anyway.  Hinduism is about putting a face upon the divine, so that you can visualize it and develop a personal relationship with it.  You can put plenty of faces upon life (Vishnu), because we know life.  Similarly, death, we are forced to interact with daily.  But Brahma is the space before birth and after death, the Infinite Being, and that is impossible to visualize, to relate to.

“Fundamentalism is the crime of taking the word for its own value.” He begs us every Sunday, “Always go for the deeper meaning!  Use your mythic imagination!”

“Do you know what the adjective form of ‘Peacock’ is?  Pavonian!”

A fundamental difference between Eastern and Western religion is the East’s easy acceptance of scientific truth.  We ought not to take anything on blind faith–blind faith, what is that?  Coercion.  For example, in the nine (or ten, or eleven) avataras of Vishnu, the drama of Evolution is played out.  First a fish, then a turtle, then a boar, a man-lion, Ram with Axe, Ram, Krishna, Buddha, and Kalke (the white horse that will come at the end of time).  We don’t worship the animal avataras, for we are in the age of men!  We are in the age of Buddha.  If I were not a Hindu, I would be a Buddhist.  Buddha is the perfect avatara for Kali Yug.  When he gave up his wife, civilization ends, there can be no reproduction. Get everyone to renounce their family, see how long things last! [And now, someone asks a question: "Sir, how is it that I read in some texts that Balram is an avatar?"] Look, Hinduism is a flexible religion.  We need not look for contradictions within the texts.  Some say that Balram is an avatara.  Some say that Buddha is.  It does not matter–an avatar can be anyone worthy of true respect, can be someone in your life. [And now, the lovely and witty Shymashree Lal, Sir's wife, pipes in, "Well, could we please reserve a spot for Mr. Karl Marx?"]

“I have never understood the Adam and Eve story.  Why should knowledge be forbidden by God? Jed, this is your tradition, will you please explain this to me?” No, I have no idea.

“Every culture has it’s fringe fanatics.  But yours, in America, those fanatics I am afraid of.”

“We are a pastorally sophisticated people, us Indians.  No matter how big our cities get, they remain villages.  We are not an urban people.

“Karma is always proportional and never tragic. We do not have tragedy in the Indian tradition.  It is one-to-one cause and effect.  Not callus, just unsentimental.  Karma is another word for time, Kala.  And so don’t ask me to forgive!  What is this nonsense, forgiveness?  One can atone, but one can not forgive.  You do your action, and accept your consequences.”

Yoga means effort.

Freedom implies dignity.

No war has ever been won by fair means.

Bengal is the only place in the world where a Mother Goddess is primarily worshipped.

Romantic love is an Islamic ideal, invented by the Sufi poets.  And it depends on the veil hiding the face–not out of shame, but so the feminine spirit itself can be worshipped, unhidden by the ego.

Vidura, whose name means incarnation of dharma, who occupies that position of wisdom within the Epic, was the “illegitimate” son of a ksatrya and an “unnamed lady of the palace.”  Children cannot be illegitimate, only parents.

As Sanjaya, the narrator of the Mahabharata, the War Correspondent, is taken prisoner of the enemy camp, who can save him?  Only Vyasa, the writer.

Enough for one night!  Many more exist.  My notes are woefully incomplete.

I just got back from Bangkok.  What a trip.  It’s a whole other world, that city.  I don’t even know what to say.  I met and had fun with a lot of excellent people from everywhere in the world.  Mexicans, Australians, Dutch, Isrealis, Thais, Indians, Italians, New Yorkers, and Liberians (africa) come to mind.  These photos really don’t capture anything about my experience, but they’re something to look at.

First day, I got in early in the morning, so I went sightseeing before the hippies at the place I was to stay woke up.

I climbed up it, but I wasn’t supposed to.  Oops.  But it was my first experience with how much nicer Thai people are–they were just workers working construction at the top, and instead of yelling at me or even saying anything, they just pointed downward and made sure I went.

From the top:

(this is in front of the golden palace, where the King lives)

A friend I made, australian.  Bell.  I liked her, it was very good to hang out and sightsee and do the Khao San Road thing.

inside the palace

Wandering aimlessly around Bangkok, which is always a thing I do in a new city:

I cannot remember where I took this picture.  I probably ought not to have.  But now I’m out of thailand with no immediate plans to go back, so I can put it online.  I actually don’t think it’s a big deal–it’s probably not actually a torture room, just a bad translation.

Oh, and I walked up the Golden Mount, which was pretty, but the temple at the top was closed to me.

This is the “democracy monument.”  I thought maybe it was significant that when I was there in 2006 there were pictures of people on it, and this time they were blank, but then on my way to the airport yesterday I saw that they had put pictures of the king and queen.

Mountain biking!  i went mountain biking in the foothills of the Thai mountains, which was really really fun!  But my pictures aren’t so good, I think.

http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e197/jedbickman/SANY0046-2.jpgHe’s welsh, my guide, has been living in BKK and leading biking trips for years.

http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e197/jedbickman/SANY0048-2.jpg

I just really really needed some nature in my conciousness.

You just don’t get this kind of thing in India

http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e197/jedbickman/SANY0071-2.jpgBack in Bangkok, I was trying to take a picture of the neon Star of David

In Wat Po, which is a really cool temple, and was the first place I was in Asia ever in 2006.  It was fun to go back alone and reflect on the changes of my perceptions.  I wasn’t planning on it, but I stumbled across it and so I went in

http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e197/jedbickman/SANY0098-1.jpg

that is a site in jed personal history: in 2006 the group took us to Wat Po, and it started raining, so we huddled in that porch and Bantuji taught us how to wipe our butts with water.

Giant reclining Bouddha

That tasty Thai iced tea

Some good people in Bangkok

Green Papaya Salad

I guess that’s it!