Archive for the ‘Excerpts’ Category
INITIATION BY THE FIVE GURUS
Initiation by the Five Gurus
Guru Dattatreya
A small troop of children followed me to a shaded area in the rocks where the barber would practice his art on my scalp as I considered my options. Should I make break for it and run? How far was it to the main road? How could I escape?
But, hold on. I wasn’t a condemned man walking slowly towards the gallows clinging to his one hopeless fantasy of freedom. It was only a haircut. Drop your attachments, I said to myself.
The barber handed me a small mirror in a rusty frame so that I could watch the clumps of hair fall from my head. The children giggled as they watched him shave my beard and then my scalp with his open blade. He smiled as I felt my smooth cranium, with one short tuft of hair remaining on the top back of my head. “Guru Ji,” he said, giving it a slight tug.
Hari Puri Baba had assembled four other sadhus in the ashram’s puja room. The room was dark and it took a few moments for my eyes to adjust. The walls were covered with rotting photos of awe-inspiring sadhus and posters of Indian gods and goddesses. Straw mats were spread on the floor and a few sticks of incense burned on an altar housing several deities and a few small Shiva lingas. Amar Puri Baba placed a bundle in front of Hari Puri Baba consisting of an ochre dhoti, a coconut, a rudraksha seed strung on the janeu string of the twice born, and two strips of white cloth that serve as a lingoti. Raghunath Puri, Silverbeard, a tall sadhu with long arms, directed me to sit down facing Hari Puri Baba.
Pandit Shesh Narayan entered the room with a brazier burning with red coals from the havan between two iron tongs. The pandit, Hari Puri Baba and I formed a triangle, with the brazier in the middle and the room started to fill with smoke.
With his eyes turned upward, the pandit intoned a river of mantra, magic syllables that flowed out of his mouth. I understood that he was invoking the great powers of the universe. At the end of each verse, each vedic sloka, he would toss fragrant powders onto the glowing coals, pronouncing “Svaha!” consecrating the offerings in the name of the fire deity’s wife.
I watched the white smoke rise from the coals, carrying the sacrifice of these sacred syllables to the gods. He dripped holy water into my right hand, then rice, flower petals, and more water, all the while intoning mantras. When he had completed the ritual, he took a large brass bowl, a katori, from the altar and commanded me in English to drink from it. The greenish liquid looked and smelled very strange. continue reading…
Take a look at Orientalist paintings of late 19th. It’s a fantasy world, like our fantasy comics today. It didn’t exist in the “Orient” but only in the imagination of the “Occidental.” Yet, the imaginary Orient of writers and artists, became the “real” Orient that Imperial culture sought to essentialize, and represent, as its agent. Those among the colonized who could perceive the value in providing this essentialized “real thing” to the Imperium were well rewarded and became a model for others to follow.
“I Dream India into Existence”
Le Marchand d'eau - Ludwig Deutch, 1891
Autobiography of a Sadhu, a Journey into Mystic India
Chapter 2: “I Dream India into Existence”
I dreamed India into existence. Not that it was my personal private dream, but a believable movie reasonably constructed from the group psyche. It was comforting this dream, cushioned, as it were, with familiarity. It tamed the wild profusion of things, using the sights, sounds, and faces of India as its raw material. Everything might appear different from my ordinary world back home, but I knew that this was the way it was supposed to be. It was a good dream, it made me feel happy.
I recognized India immediately, like meeting a blood relative for the first time, because I carried with me, deep inside, images corresponding to what I saw on the outside. Later I realized that these images resembled Orientalist paintings of 19th-century Europe. I saw that same domed dwelling as the artist Delamain. I learned to label it a dargah, the tomb of a Sufi saint. I searched the back streets of the Muslim Quarter looking for Deutsch’s water seller, knowing full well I would never drink that water. Guaranteed dysentery. But I would enter into his doorways. continue reading…
