You Said It, Mirabai

To continue where we last left off, our hapless Heroine is exhausted and wondering, in the words of her beloved Swamiji "What do, what do?"

I wanted to let you know how easily my dark, dark places can emerge in broad desert day light.

The fire that Swamiji was talking about when I had my meltdown was also him telling me "bring this all to the light." He's said it before. The light is God. "God is love, love is God." We are all souls. We are not this history of bad feelings and memories, we are not this past pain and not this future fear, not these samskaras. We are not this body.

Thank God, because this body is having a lot of difficulty doing what Swamiji calls the "basic postures of yoga. Look, what happens to human being? You young and body so old, so weak! This is your temple. This is your mosque. This is your church. Understand? Not be abusing this!"

No one has to be around for the drama to unfold. And at times I'm alone and thrilled, but more times I'm alone and lonely. I'm alone and worried. I'm alone feeling unworthy, unconnected, completely incapable of contributing to society on any level because I just feel raw. Raw grief, raw anger. And I'm not alone that often. But there's these times in the day, when maybe I'm not busy, maybe there's too much time on my hands, even though I've done my best to keep busy. Then, because I have no distractions, I start to think. I think about everything and everyone I have ever loved and disappointed. I think about everything and everyone I have ever loved and then said "I hate you!" to, and meant it.

I think about everyone and everything and wonder how to function in the world. How to cause less suffering, how to be strong and soft, how to be able to hold the pain and grief and simply witness it. How to hold the rage? How? When does this fire burn out? What then? Because I don't think it's the life-force fire, I think it's toxic contaminated Chernobyl fire.

Somedays, I just feel the raw, raw, grasping neediness that I used to fill with a Soy Matcha Latte. With books. With food. With new clothes. With stuff.

Yesterday, when I thought about my Aunt, and the many millions of thoughts I had about her, the grossest, most despicable thought that kept running through my mind was "Please God, save me from the same fate."

So now you know. It is a far, far uglier thing I think than I ever hoped to admit, it is a far, far darker place I dwell in for days at a time.

At yoga I can only think about trying to balance, and a lot of the thoughts that come up are all about what I cannot do. The balancing poses. The standing postures, the sitting postures, the lying down postures. Crikey, the lying down postures! How hard is it to lie down?

There's more to it than that. I am completely immersed in the collective culture community here, they're not so big on the individual. There is no individual life or pursuits for women. This atmosphere is reminding me, big time, of how I felt when I was little, how often I felt like I would never fit in in the Italian-Canadian community back home. How I didn't fit in with Italians. How I didn't fit in with Canadians. How this meant, this means, I always feel slightly anchor-less, unmoored, able to drift out with the tide and overwhelmed by my fear of drowning.

I should say here too, that when I say I feel alone, and all is darkness, I know it's a lie. Just some days, it's a very convincing lie. And I practiced yoga yesterday not only feeling supported by the core group in Pushkar, but by many hearts I have known and been blessed and touched by back home. I could feel the strength coming from Canada, (and various other global spots but truly Go Team Canada!) and I'm sure that strength, that support, those moments of shared tears and mirth from our past phone calls and times together, that's what helped me balance for 2 seconds in crow pose. So maybe let's pick a time where we can all focus/harness that energy and I'll try staying up for 5 seconds, is it a deal?

So thank you all, each and every. I have my many moments of doubt that I deserve the friendship, kindness & love that has been extended to me, but like the song goes: Somewhere in my wicked, miserable past life, I must have done something good. There must have been a moment of truth. That's karma, right?

I did manage to get out of town on Sunday. I wanted to go see where Mirabai, a medieval Rajputani princess who abandoned court life to seek the company of saints, was from and because I was helping Rakesh with some stuff on his computer, he agreed to take me. He had to lie, and pretend he was going back to his other job in Ajmer, and I had to walk to some place on the edge of town to get picked up by him. I was totally stressed by the fact that I wasn't sure I understood the meeting point. Then of course, we went by motorcycle. No camels, it would take too long. But just getting out of Pushkar felt like a blessing. This state is beautiful. I even got to eat at a roadside "diner" where I was the live reality TV show.

Rakesh tried to get me to try the water, after he'd already spit it out. ("too salty" "then thanks but no thanks.") I had fun, which was surprising considering I was still feeling blue. You know, Caroline, good thing you warned me. People don't cry in India, no they don't like that at all. There's really a sense of "What do you have to be upset about? That's life, life is life." In fact, I think Rakesh said "That's life-" a few times until I said "I'm not always upset, I've just been upset this last week. And, hello, I'm getting upset again now." Rakesh is the younger, stricter Hindu brother I never had and possibly always wanted. (There's some question about what I wanted in a brother but I did want one, when I was a kid. Always thought it would make me feel less alone.)

I was only at the temple for 5 minutes tops, and I think I was the first foreigner in town for quite a while as I got stared at by all the men, women, children and monkeys. I have to tell you too, there was no helmet provided for me. Helmet? Please, they laugh about that kind of thing. Sure, Rakesh had one, but he only wore it as a disguise. No joke. So that when we were on the periphery of Pushkar, no one would recognise him and he wouldn't have any problems back at the Hotel.

My reputation, however, forget it. It's in the squat toliet. And I was doing so well here! For my two witnesses I put forth Natasha, who said Aryan at Funky Monkey referred to me as "the writer from Canada who speaks Hindi." Another time, Jessie was at the same internet place as me but in a different room and the guy tells her "Your friend who speaks very good Hindi is here." Jessie said I was 'getting a reputation' and I thought, 'Well Thank Shiva I've left the one in Bihar behind me.'

Because let me tell you, if you're on the back of a motorbike and you're not Indian, it's over. Everything nasty and unpleasant is assumed about you. The stares I got were mostly downright digust, with some curiousity mixed in. At one point Rakesh even said to me "Don't speak Hindi now." Oh, right, because that would tarnish my reputation further. I bit my tongue several times, 13 if you want to know the exact count. Because I have learned the Hindi for "What are you looking at?" and my attitude and vocal inflection implies the "jerk" at the end of the sentence, but decided I best be on my best behaviour.

Then he took me into the town of Ajmer, where there was this park on a lake complete with kids playing area! (Eufemia: You have a park here? There are parks in India? This is the first park I've seen! Canada has lots of parks, lots! Big ones too!) Then requests for photos started up again. I ignored almost everyone, then some kids said "helloooooo" and I said "hellooooo" back, and then the kids followed me and start asking for baksheesh. THE KIDS ARE ASKING ME TO PAY THEM AND FOR WHAT? They're not that cute.

Then a little crowd of 14 year old boys has to follow me. And so Rakesh says "Don't speak to everyone," as in don't engage with everyone who speaks to you. (Hello? Was he paying attention to the times I said nada? Clearly not. 13, I tell you, 13!) To which I nearly said, "the problem does not lie within my reply, dost, it lies somewhere in between them saying something, and me thinking I'm tired of "ignoring" all the attention." Yes, where I come from, I like to think of myself as a "I give as good as I get" type, so really these kids, these people should get out of my way. Samastay? (Understand)

I'm sure Rakesh figured it out when he just plain had to swear at someone in Hindi to get the man to leave me alone and walk away from me. I was not amused. And then I had to sit and wait by myself for a while, while Rakesh ran a business errand, so that once again, his reputation would not be questioned by the people who know him. Good times, good times.

Yep, relaxing. Sure took my mind of my worries.

It did make me think twice about whether I'd follow up with Krishna, the best German Baker and Ayurvedic Trained Masseuse in town, about teaching me Hindi. Most everything I know I was getting from a book and asking questions. But what's the point? I nearly said "Thank you" to someone giving us directions and that's when Rakesh said "Don't speak Hindi now." Okay, then, Esperanto it is. See how you like them guavas.

Sigh. Let's end on a positive this time, shall we? What follows is a song written by Mirabai, translated by Paramahansa Yogananda:

If by bathing daily God could be realised

sooner would I be a whale in the deep;

If by eating roots and fruits He could be known

gladly I would choose the form of a goat;

If the counting of rosaries uncovered Him

I would say my prayers on mammoth beads;

If bowing before stone images unveiled Him

A flinty mountain I would humbly worship;

If by drinking milk the Lord could be imbibed

many calves and children would know Him;

If abandoning one's wife could summon God

would not thousands be eunuchs?

Mirabai knows that to find the Divine One

the only indispensable is Love