Adventures In India

 

Adventures in India

 

1  Hi Everybody.  This is Leo Volont.   Yes, I had promised you all an “Adventures In India” video, but, heck, it just got way too long.  Yeah, I had some stories I thought would be interesting, but each story introduced characters that I’d be leaving behind, and that’s just not good storytelling.  And then the larger Story of how that Indian Trip contextualized into my life, well, I went into some very great detail about all that, but then I wondered whether it was all worth your Time, and decided No, not really.  You don’t need to follow me step by step if the milestones will tell you which way I went, right?  So, yeah, I’ll just be presenting only the necessary outline of this chapter’s Autobiographical Information, and I think you’ll all be happy if I just tell the best one of my Indian Stories.  So, yes, let’s get started.

 

2  So, yeah, In 1988 I had gone to visit my Guru’s Ashram in India.  No, not my Kundalini Guru, but the other one, the Cult Guru.  This one was supposed to be the Avatar of the Age, you know, like God on Earth.  He called himself Sathya Sai Baba.  But, yeah, he turned out to be a fake.  So, yeah, this is basically the Story of me wising up, but, yeah, I’ll be making a few excuses for myself, and probably for the thousands of others much like myself who got caught up in one cult or another back then but eventually came crawling back to the World ready to fit back in again.

 

3   You see, I had gotten interested in this Sathya Sai Baba because he was purported to be the Reincarnation of Sai Baba of Shirdi (1838-1918), who was a very interesting example of a Modern Day Saint.   I had learned about Old Sai Baba at a pivotal moment in my life, that is, the summer before I’d go off to College.  Yeah, I had already started doing my Dream and Astral Work while I was still living at home, but Knowledge of this Old Sai Baba introduced me to both Indian Philosophy and the idea that Saints were probably more than historical fictions, and then I had the entire University’s infrastructure for digging up the details and talking about it with other like minded individuals.  I’ve been studying Saints ever since.   Anyway, when the same “Sai Baba” name came up again, in a book I found in a San Francisco book store just before going into the Army, well, while the same trick wouldn’t fool me today, it was enough to fool me back then.  Ooops. Live and Learn.

 

4  But, yeah, when I arrived at the Guru’s ashram, seeing him without all of his Public Relations and Marketing Filters and Packaging, well, I found the Imposter just too flawed, you know, even obnoxious by ordinary human standards. The ugly little creep was simply repugnant, even at a distance.   Yeah, whenever you find your Guru physically repulsive, that’s a warning sign that not all is well.   And there were moral ethical problems with him too.    Yeah, I had gotten lucky when I found a drunken Old Timer in the Swami’s Old Village who revealed over a few drinks that Sathya Sai had started out as a Scam Artist.   I’ll save you all the details there, because, well, that ‘Dirt’ was actually relatively minor compared to what came out when the newly invented Internet first took off and people found out how easy it would be to either Post anything or Search Up anything.  Yeah, those were some bad times for more than a few of the biggest money making Gurus.   Yeah, whoever would have thought that the Internet breaking down Trust in Society could be a good thing. 

 

5  But, yeah, my Blog would have been a lot shorter if I had just quit the Cult while I was still there in India, you know, the moment I found out about the Guru’s Dark Side.  But life’s complicated.  You see, back home the Cult was really just about showing up for weekly meetings where we’d do Bhajan Singing and Chanting.  Well, in that setting I was a kind of a local Superstar with my Stylized Singing Voice and Tabla Drum playing.  Then, from there, I’d been invited to sing with other groups that liked to do that same kind of Chanting.   So, yeah, while my Moral and Spiritual Convictions were highly offended with the Guru, well, his Cult had actually gotten me into a rather cozy Social Circle.  Yeah, I guess you could call it one of those Deal with the Devil kind of things, huh?

 

6  But the scandals were getting progressively worse and I eventually did quit the Cult.  The Precipitating Event occurred when a Lady I nominated for Center President was flagged by the ‘Fussy Old Married Couple Faction’ for violating a Morals Clause in the Center’s Bylaws.  Yeah, the Lady I put up for President was divorced and had been known to go out on dates.  But I never imagined that anybody in my Center would ever give voice to such an insult, and I couldn’t let it stand like that, and so I gave a Big Speech about “How If you Think that’s Bad, well, you all need to know what you’re Creepy Gurus been up to”, and then that was that, no more Social Circle.  After awhile I found another job and left town.   

 

7  But, yeah, after quitting the Cult, I did have a good decade or two to rethink my Spirituality.  I believe it’s been the Fulfillment of that last Dream I mentioned in my video “Horse Dreams, where my Horse and I had been caught napping too long and were persuaded to recommence our Journey.  Also, I had had another dream a long time ago where I was told that I’d be enlightened when I was 43 years old, but that turned out to be exactly the year I Quit.   Ironic, huh?  Perhaps it was the first big Spiritual Paradox of all the Paradoxes I’d begin to see everywhere.  Yeah, here I think I was being shown that it had been my Spiritual Path itself that was keeping me in the Dark, but once rid of that, I was apparently out in the Light.  But, no, I didn’t consider myself “Enlightened”, but only took it as a hopeful sign that leaving the cult had been a positive step.  

 

8  Oh, but, yeah, I do hate the idea that the fake Sathya Sai Baba may have tarnished the good name of  Old Sai Baba of Shirdi(1838-1918), you know, with guilt by association.  But then I had a dream.  I found myself back in the front lobby of the Fake Guru’s residence where there was hung a large portrait of the Original Old Shirdi Sai Baba, and I reverentially bowed before it, touching one knee to the floor, the way the Catholics do.  They call that Genuflecting.   I had done the same in Real Life back in ’88 when I had gotten the House Tour, making the other Sathya Sai Devotees squirm uncomfortably in the presence of Real Devotion.  But here and now in the Dream, the Old Sai Baba stepped out from the canvas and down to the floor.  He then presented me with a small white marble statuette, just over a foot long, which was emanating fragrances that I could see as floral pastel colors wafting and shimmering through the air.   Azure Blues and Magentas, as always, seemed the most prominent.   He called that small statue “The Feet of the Guru”. Well, yes, that was a puzzling name for a statue that was the Representation of a Person, though the form was fluid and shifting, as objects in Dreams often are, and so I could recognize the likeness of no individual I knew, but it certainly wasn’t a statue of a pair of feet.  But now I wonder if it has anything to do with my eventually taking up the Study of Dance, you know, becoming what they used to call of “Hoofer” back in the old Vaudeville days.  And I’ve always respected the Sufi Religious Orders for thinking it more important to Dance than to Meditate.  But, yes, with this dream I realized that the Old Sai Baba was still in my Corner and that was a huge consolation for me.

 

9  So, yeah, that takes care of all the autobiographical details we need to know for this chapter.   So now we can get onto the Story I’ve promised.  And, yeah, I promised you Flower Girls and so we’re going to get Flower Girls.  But the Main Character here will be the most intelligently and psychically sensitive man I’d ever met either before or since.  Yes, up until then I had been troubled by the apparent Conundrum that all the Spiritual Paths seemed to be promising far more than they were delivering.  You see, of the Thousands of Seekers, and Devotees that I’d met, well, I really wasn’t finding them all that very much different from anybody else, and sometimes not even that good.  I was still waiting to meet my first Enlightened Man.  But now, here was this one Guy who, while not Perfect, well, he at least looked like he had a lot to show for all his Travels.   His Knowingness seemed to hit the level of Connectedness.   This guy really seemed Plugged In.  And It made him a lot of fun to be with. 

 

10  It was odd how we met.  You see, I was not carrying around a lot of cash on this Trip… I was using travelers checks, and while I had changed some of them out into Rupees back at the Hotel in Madras on the night we flew in, well, I was getting low on pocket money, but heard there was an Office somewhere down on the Low Side of  the Village where I could cash more of them out, but I didn’t know exactly where to find the Office.   But I saw this one Guy standing out on the Ashram Square, contemplating the morning ambiance of the place, and I remembered seeing him around before, and he looked like the type of guy that would know things, and so I thought it’d be convenient enough to just interrupt him to ask.  But, he said “No No No!  You don’t want to go there.  The real exchange rate’s 14 to the Dollar,  but they’re only giving out 12.   But the shops will change out all your Money Order Dollar Purchases in Rupees at the rate of 13.  So, yes, just buy something and then haggle over the change”. 

 

11  Well, if you hate haggling than you’d hate India’s Shops.  But then I thought of the Flower Girls.   But, yeah, here I should explain about the Flower Girls.  You see, you’d find the Flower Girls walking the Main Street festooned in Strings of Jasmine Blossoms that they’d tie off into Leis that people could wear around their necks.  Yeah, at a distance you’d wonder what the appeal is, because the Jasmine Flower isn’t really visually so impressive.  It’s just a small White Flower with a little Yellow dot in the center, you know, even the common Daisy has a bolder visual presence than the Jasmine.  But when you get up close you catch what’s really the thing going on with the Jasmines – it’s their Fragrance!  Really, the Jasmine’s scent is richer, deeper, and sweeter than even the Rose.  Then, on the commercial side, well, the Jasmine grows like a weed, and so it’d be perfect for India.   So, yeah, a single loop of jasmines was cheap enough, even after tipping the Flower Girl, but they would wilt overnight and so everyday I’d need a new one… but that’d give me something to do each morning, and one does need to have a Purpose in Life, even while on Vacation, right?    

 

12  So, yeah, when I suggested to the Guy that we check with a Flower Girl in regards to my High Finances, well, he just looked at me with a blank face, and so I felt I needed to explain.   Yeah, it might not seem intuitively obvious that simple Village Flower Girls would be set up for dealing with Money Orders and Financial Arbitrage, but we only had to look at the few girls in the Village who were Flower Girls, against all those who weren’t, and we could see that the Flower Girls had something a little extra – that along with being very pretty, they’d also each be ‘Bright Eyed’ in a mathematically astute kind of way, but with enough sly cunning to allow us to suppose they’d have good little heads for business. “Besides”, I said, “you know, those girls aren’t alone out there. No!  You can bet that some Beggar King has that whole Street wired up and in his pocket!”   So if the Girl can’t  handle a deal, she’d just wave in somebody who could.  Remember, that every businessman in India wants to put his savings into either Gold or US Dollars, and so with the Flower Girls’ Beggar King, why should he be any different.  Yeah, I’m ready to believe those girls are ready to do some business.

 

13  But then this Guy startled me with the comment “you know, they say the Flower Girls are Prostitutes.”   Well, I wondered whether he was deliberately trying to shock me, but I didn’t hesitate a second and fought right back with,  “Nooooo!  I don’t see that at all!”   And then it was like I suddenly had this Intuitive Vision, not of what the Reality necessarily was, but of what it very well might have been, and so I explained it to him, that those Flowers are an Industry, with growers producing a steady flow of product, which would then go to the Workshops for Stringing.  So these Flower Girls would only be the Tip of the Iceberg, you know, they’re just the Sales Department of a far greater Organization than just themselves, and so they’d need to keep their pretty little Butts out on Main Street and work off their quotas, right?  If they didn’t, the others would go hungry, right?  Yeah, the Flower Girls wouldn’t  have the time for the kind of back alley dallying he was suggesting.”  

 

14  But, yeah, I also got the glimpse of an understanding that separate Street Businesses may have integrated together for their mutual benefits.  So I told that Guy that where he might have made his ‘mistake’ was in supposing that the Flower Girls were the Prostitutes, when the truth was really that they were only the Fronts or first contacts to the Sex Trade, you know, the role that’s usually filled by Cab Drivers and Hotel Concierges when you ask them, “Where does a Guy find a good time in this Town”.  So, it was my guess that the Flower Girls would be directing a lot of the Sex Traffic, sort of like the Hostesses that greet you on your way into a Diner and point you to your table, or whatever.  Yeah, I had noticed that each Flower Girl was accompanied by several smaller urchins, and thought maybe they were there being apprenticed into the Flower Girl profession, but now it seemed likely that the little ones could serve as messengers or even as guides to the Back Alley Rendezvouses.      

 

15  But then I was wondering how I could prove my point.  Really, I had two favorite Flower Girls and I wasn’t going to insult either one by asking whether or not they were prostitutes.  A Gentleman always assumes that every Lady of his acquaintance has an impeccable Amateur Standing, especially when they’re still under the age of 16.

 

 16  But, yeah, let me describe my little Favorites for you – there was the one who was a Proud Little Queen of Sheba dressed in a Pure Red Sari that looked like a print of Rose Petals on the finest Silk, which was probably more valuable than she was, which made me suspect that she was the personal property of the Beggar King himself, maybe even a daughter.  Yeah, that would make her important, and she certainly acted important, and I like important people, which would account for why I’d be liking her.

 

17  And Then there was the Taller Girl, prettier and with a lighter complexion, wearing a sari with Blues and Magentas, which are the same colors I see cropping up all the time in auras, dreams and visions.  Yeah, while she may have just been only a single growth spurt ‘older’ than the Little Red Queen of Sheba, well, she seemed to be ‘ripe’ enough, in that Old World Matrimonial Sense, so that I’d need to be carefully discreet around her, which forced me to be coy, but then when I’d act coy, well, she’d see that it wouldn’t hurt if she were the Flirty One and so she’d lead off and we’d both have some fun bantering back and forth.  And her English was actually good enough to look forward to.   Heck, now that I think about it, she was probably looking forward to seeing me so she could practice her English, you know, with somebody who could speak it in more than just monosyllables.   But, yeah, perhaps the reason I was so adamant about the Flower Girls themselves not being the Prostitutes was because, well, the Blue Girl never crossed that line, and prostitutes typically aren’t that shy about pushing those kind of boundaries.  

 

18  But, then I worried about how to prove any of this while still preserving my own good reputation.  Really, I had never said “where does a guy find a good time in this Town?” ,no, not in my entire life and didn’t plan to start now.  But, then I got a cute idea – I’d use suggestive innuendo behind the shield of plausible deniability.  So I told the Guy that what might work would be to tell the Flower Girl that she’s Very Very Very Pretty, you know, with enough ‘verys’ to think that at least one of them would want to take it up to the next level, you know what I mean….and then I bet the Guy a crumpet with his tea that the comeback would be something like “My Sister is even Prettier.  Would you like to meet her?”   Well, that was the first time I got a smile out of him, and then he said “Bet’s On” and we shook on it.

 

19  So, off we went. When we got out the Gate we just had to scan the street for a second or two when our eyes alit upon the bright Red Little Queen of Sheba up the street by about half a block, and I told the Guy, “There! The Little Red One!”  Well, sure enough, first things first, she was able to handle the Arbitrage.   Really, she had more cash on her little 4 foot 3 Person than an ATM Machine.  Yeah, the folds of a Sari can probably fit some deep pockets, couldn’t they.   She even carried in her bag the necessary Rubber Stamps and Ink Pads for franking the Travelers Checks.  Yeah, I was waiting for the Guy to show some amazement so I could gloat, but, he deprived me of the satisfaction by appearing as though he expected as much.

 

20   But then came the Morally Decisive Moment for settling the Bet, and so I said, “Oh, and by the way, have I mentioned before how I think you’re the very very VERY Prettiest Flower Girl in the whole wide World?”… yes, ordinarily I would have included the word “Little”, in there, you know, to keep the whole situation safely in the Diminutive, but this needed to be racier in order to prove my point, but I wasn’t able to keep from blushing, and I could see that she saw it.  

 

 21  Well, even I was a bit surprised with what came next, because she responded word for word with, “My Sister is even prettier”, etc, etc.  But, yes, I thought this had all gone far enough and so I gave a reluctant shrug and said “Oh, I’m sorry. I’d ordinarily be delighted to meet your Sister, but it’s just that Mr. Smith and myself are so busy advising the Swami on Spiritual Matters and World Affairs that we simply wouldn’t have the time, but please take this twenty Rupee Note to buy a ribbon for your sister’s  hair to make her prettier even still!”, and then I finished up with a bow.  Well, that was enough to make the Proud Little Goddess in Red laugh and laugh and laugh, and then my new Friend, well, it made him laugh too.   Then I saw their eyes meet and they both decided to laugh at me together.  Well, I counted it as quite a victory, since I think that neither one of them was especially given to Laughter. 

 

22 Yeah, I know that the Guy doesn’t appear all that spiritually impressive in this first story, but, honestly, looking back, I think he was just putting me through my paces, you know, testing me for my character.  Just as I’d been testing him.  Honestly, I think I would have taken my leave of him, politely, of course, if he hadn’t shared a laugh with my little Favorite, you know, after he implied in dark tones that she was a Prostitute.  It wouldn’t have been quite Gentlemanly, if I hadn’t, would it?   But in only a few hours more my New Friend would orchestrate an event which would cause my respect for his spiritual powers to sky rocket.   

 

23  This Story begins as we were standing in line for the Guru’s Darshan, you know, his Daily Appearance.  Then it was like my Friend suddenly became preoccupied and he took me by the arm and told me we had something more important to do.  Okay.  How could I argue with that.  So, again, out the Ashram Gate we went, and then we took a Right, and up the hill past the Village, and then about 100 meters off to the Left of the Road, we crossed a scrubby field to a broad shade tree.  There we found an Ox who had been staked out to keep him from wondering off.   He had really long curled horns.  As the Crow Flies, it was probably a bit more than a quarter of a mile from where we had started.   Looking around, my friend pointed and said “There!  He must have knocked over his Water, and now he’s really thirsty”.   Yeah, it looked like they’d put his bucket too far inside the sweep of his chain.   So we took the bucket to the closest Communal Water Spout and filled it up and carried it back together, both of us with our inside hands down on the handle and our outside hands thrust out to the side for balance, with our feet pressing into the ground against the weight of all that water.  It must’ve looked like we were a very wide 4 legged bird spreading its wings to fly.     

 

24  No, I didn’t ask him how he knew the Ox had knocked over his Bucket, but that didn’t keep me from wondering about it.  Yeah, we had been together most of the morning and then through Lunch, and it was clear that the bucket had only been knocked over within the hour or two of our arrival.  Also, well, my Friend didn’t have the servants he’d need to deploy in order to set up a deception.   And so it is that the Thirsty Ox’s Spilled Water Bucket Incident remains a mystery to me even to this day.  But whatever it was, well, look at the interesting Picture this makes with all its Symbolisms – Yeah, Picture This: He and I together were both Aquarius the Water Bearer and also Gemini the Twins, and we were serving a thirsty Taurus the Bull under the Tree of Life.   Yeah, after more than a decade of Dream Work, I was pretty much used to seeing even Real Life Events in terms of their Symbols.  But you’d have to ask an Astrologer what any of this stuff means.  But, yeah, it also gave me a Feeling, and the feeling was like I had just gone through some kind of a Sacred Ritual.  And That might explain why I had kept quiet the whole time… yeah, me being quiet.  

 

25  The second thing this Guy did which impressed me was, well, the next day we were actually going to stay for the Guru’s Darshan, and were sitting on our mats out on the sand waiting with hundreds of other people, all placed in well formed lines, when an Old Sadhu, you know, with leathered skin under cracked and fading Blue Face Paint, with tangled matted hair and beard, and wearing just a few tattered rags, barely enough to preserve decency, sparse even by Indian Standards, and he was also really tall for an Indian, maybe 6 foot 4.   But, yeah, he was standing up, shouting and gesturing wildly.  Well, Old Sadhus like that are famous for being crazy, and nobody of the hundreds of people around, official or otherwise,  knew what to do about it, and many of us, I supposed, were getting really nervous about it.

 

26   So, my New Friend, nonplussed as always, just serenely gets up and excuses himself through about the seven rows of Devotees between us and the much distraught Old Sadhu, and putting his hand on the his bare shoulder; he stood up on tiptoe and whispered something into his ear, and, whatever it was he told him, well, the Old Sadhu immediately shut up and sat down.  Well, then, the whole crowd emitted a hushed murmur of amazement.   My friend, still nonchalantly as ever, excuses his way back and just sits down next to me as though nothing at all just happened.  But I’m curious and so I quietly ask “What did you whisper to that Guy?”  Well, he looks at me as though I’m really obtuse and says, “I told him to shut up and sit down!”  Then it was I who caused the next scene when I yelped out a spontaneous  “HA!”, you know, before I was able to bite off the rest of the laugh.  You see, I had thought of telling the Old Sadhu the very same thing myself, but then hesitated over the uncertainty of the results I might expect.  But apparently my Friend enjoyed a Universe where the consequences of his calculations would always break in his favor.    

 

27  The third thing my new friend did was, well, it was getting time to set up traveling arrangements for our departure, as he was planning to leave the Ashram on the same day as my Group, and so we were out in the mid-day sun, like Mad Dogs or Englishmen, and he was quarrelling with Abdul the Cab Driver over the fare back to the Big City.   Yeah, Abdul was speaking for all the other cabbies who were standing out there behind him, and my friend had a specific figure in mind that he remembered being told was the going rate, but Abdul would explain that their new Taxis ran on Gas, not Diesel like before, and gasoline costs extra.  But my Friend wouldn’t budge, and so it was just back and forth with the same circling arguments, all while I was growing more and more delirious from the Heat, where the only shade from the burning Equatorial Sun, was apparently beneath my feet.

 

 28 Well, remember the “Drunken Old Timer”, of whom I had spoken of previously (Hat #4).  Yeah, he had been the Old Guy I had been buying shots for while he was telling me what a Scam Artist the Young Swami had been.  Well, that Old Drunk was Abdul himself.  Yeah, Small World, isn’t it?   So, yeah, Abdul and myself had already developed a certain rapport, and so standing back behind my Friend, I gave Abdul some secret hand signals telling him to just say “Yes Sahib” to my Friend,  and then I’d slip him the extra money he wanted later; really, just the Rupee equivalent of less than twenty bucks, which I thought well worth the cost if it could save me from suffering a bout of Sun Stroke.  So, with the bargaining session behind us, my Friend says, “Good we can get some Tea now and get out of this sun”.  So we stepped over to the Canteen and got our tea and some toast and were speaking of other subjects for about 10 minutes, probably about Going Home, when it was like he was jarred by a sudden impulsive thought and he barked out at me “Did you somehow signal Abdul for a pay off?”

 

29  Yeah, that took me aback because I’d been careful not to show any signs of gloating.  Heck, I even looked around to make sure nobody was signaling from behind my back.  But, yeah, I had to answer quick or he’d think I was making up a story and so I replied with  “Oh, Jesus! We’d still be out there broiling in the noon day heat if I hadn’t, wouldn’t we?  So, yeah, a few Rupees in your pocket and out of mine, and so, really, I guess I need to say ‘You’re Welcome!’, and then I smirked.   So, yeah, my Friend shared back the smirk, which seemed to have as much of a hint of a ‘thank you’ in it as I was ever likely to get, and then he appeared to shrug it all off, and we moved onto just the usual small talk. 

 

30  But, yes, for my own part I wish I had had greater discernment back at that time.  You see, I think I missed on picking up what his play had been.  Think about it – That Guy wasn’t so poor that he needed to squabble over not much more than pocket change.  So why would he pick a fight with all the Cabbies?  Was he setting it up so that Abdul would be honor bound to walk away and leave us to find Cabbies that were running Diesels?  But there were no Diesels, and that would make us miss our flight, forfeiting our unrefundable tickets.  Yeah, we’d have to bum around India together while we figured out how to get back Home. So maybe that was his Play.  Well, think of the Adventures we might have had!  In a situation like that my Spiritual Development might have been greatly accelerated.  I also thought we probably would have become best friends.  Heck, we already were Best Friends, and it ended too soon.

 

31   But, yes, this seemed to be the one Situation that didn’t break his way, and it was my fault that it didn’t.   Well, that could account for the shocked expression on his face the moment he discerned what my Play had been.   It must have seemed like a betrayal, a stab from really behind his back.  Now I only wish I could apologize.  But I don’t even know who he is.   You see, we’d never bothered introducing ourselves, or if we had, well, I’ve always been horrible with names.   And now I wish I knew what happened with him.  34 years is a lot of water under the Bridge.  Really, I can’t explain why such a man isn’t the Maitreya Buddha by now.  But he seemed like only a few years older than I and he’d be the healthy sort.  Perhaps he’ll still turn up yet.  You know, He never had a problem with the Heat and so times such as these may be what he could thrive on.