The Smell of My Father's Coat

9 a.m. and we are gratefully back in Delhi's Marina Hotel. The last twenty-four hours seems like a dream.

We had arrived in Gaya yesterday after a tearful farewell with the Lodge staff who had all lined up, including the manager's mother, to have their picture taken with us.  Gaya seemed even more filthy than it had before and the heat was so intense that we consumed 10 orange soda pops in the space of a half hour.  We couldn't bear to spend a night in what felt to us like a den of thieves, after our last experience and so using plenty of baksheesh to grease the wheels we obtained tickets for a 3 a.m. train to Delhi.

This meant a 12 hour wait in Gaya and we used it to explore and do a little shopping. We hired a bicycle rickshaw to ferry us through the street, all four of us piled on the torn plush of the seat and navigated through this area of intense poverty.   We purchased some scarves to wrap our newly shaved heads and protect our scalps from the sun and we felt quite rakish in them, looking perhaps like extras in "Lawrence of Arabia"  I thought or real life characters from "Journey to the East".

The hours dragged by and we spent the last of them waiting for the train, trying to sleep on benches in the station waiting areas with many other travelers who were also attempting a restless, uncomfortable sleep while awaiting the arrival of the midnight train.

We encountered a middle aged Indian couple, dressed in renunciant orange, their family duties complete, their children now grown and married, heading for the Khumba Mela in Hardwar.  They were kind and helpful with us and the children, explaining that their pilgrimage was a very natural event in the lives of many Hindus of their age.  "We will never return to the old patterns of our life," the husband explained to me.  "We have paid our dues in the world. We are only living for God now."

The last few hours in the darkened station seemed to drag interminably but by this time we are too eager to leave, to think about sleep. Even the children were wide awake and at last the familiar rocketing sound of an approaching train and the looming, steam-bellowing black engine plowing through the echoing silence brought us all to our feet, bags in hand, searching for the number of our coach.

This morning we will go to the British Airways office to check on the status of our airline tickets, but this is India and my hopes are not high.  Our spirits are high after the hot bath and a sumptuous meal last night in a good hotel and the walk to the office is only minutes from the hotel.

I am uncomfortable, however, at the thought of what might await us and when we arrive the sight of the now familiar and inevitable queue with a turbaned agent at the distant end does nothing to help buoy my spirits.  Karen sits with the children and I wait in line, about a half hour. Finally it is our turn.  I explain that we have not been able to confirm our flight but that we would like to depart April 1st as pre-arranged.  The agent does not seem interested in any of this, but says "Tickets, please." in a rather stone-faced manner.  I am not sure he heard any of what I said but I am astounded at what he says to me after punching a few computer keys.  "Yes sir, your flight is confirmed!"   Just like that.  A thrill runs through me and I turn to Karen with a broad smile.  "Good old British Airways.  We're on our way!"

Karen has some last minute shopping to do.  We leave tomorrow and there's no time to waste. She is determined to fill the suitcases we have purchased for the purpose to breaking point.  I too have a stop to make and so while Karen goes shopping with Shannon,  I bundle Nika into a rickshaw and we motor off through the dusty traffic toward the dargah, to see Ali Moosa.

It is 3:30 p.m. and I am sitting on the floor of  the little white-washed room off the courtyard where Ali Moosa and Margaret sleep.  Nika is sleeping peacefully at my side on one of the mats, her infected mosquito bites having been tenderly anointed with a white medical cream by Ali Moosa, as we talked.  This has been an incredible and memorable afternoon.  I am the same person who walked in here earlier today and yet I am not, for I am now also a Sufi.

I am stunned and did not expect this honor and in answer to my "whys", Ali Moosa said simply that "It's a gift of God".

While the actual initiation was going on there was powerful atmosphere in the room and we were both weeping.  I kept looking at Ali Moosa's overcoat hanging on the wall. My father had worn an overcoat like his in the cold and snowy days of Winnipeg winter. Now as I looked at the coat it seemed to me that my father's smell was coming from it, like a sweet and heavy incense, filled with love and tenderness.

I had come here without any expectations and only to say good-bye. Ali Moosa had met me in the courtyard of the dargah and was pleased and surprised at my appearance.  My head was completely shaved and I was dressed in a new blue kurta with a brown khadi vest and he exclaimed, "Now you look like an Indian.  I hardly recognized you. Where is your good wife?"

I explained she had gone shopping because we are leaving tomorrow.  "It's her duty," he replied smilingly, "but why are you going so soon?"

"How am I supposed to know?"  I laughed and he grabbed my hand in both of his, shaking it warmly, delighted at my answer.  I felt badly that Karen was not here with me but Ali Moosa seemed to think it perfectly normal, under the circumstances.  Right away, he excused himself from the dargah and invited me back to his home for tea.

I am now waiting for him to return from the market where he has gone to get me some books to take with me on my journey.  I am experiencing such a wonderful sense of peace and security right now that is beyond words.  There is nothing wrong in my life.  Even leaving India now is completely right.

Ali Moosa has given me some rather complicated prayers and breathing instructions instructions along with an initiation which was a simple verbal exchange followed by a blessing. At the end I asked "What is my sufi name?" Ali Moosa smiled and said "I will select one for you" and left the room.

In my thoughts, I had always wished my imagined sufi name might reflect my connection with Inayat Khan, and yet be something familiar and yet "exotic".  So I waited for Ali Moosa in eager anticipation.

When he returned, he sat down and said, "The sufi name I will call you by is Baba Farid."  For a moment, I confess I felt something like disappointment.  This was not the name I was expecting, although I have no idea what I was expecting. 

Ali Moosa's look was penetrating. "Do you like it?" he asked.  I swallowed and answered, "I don't like it and I don't not like it.  I just accept it.  Thank you."

I was still recovering but Ali Moosa was smiling.  He then told me that Hazrat Baba Farid, whose name he has given to me as my own sufi name, used to take the saliva from his own mouth and put it in the mouth of his disciples when they received their bayat or discipleship from his hand.  He demonstrated this by actually taking some saliva on his fingers and putting it toward my mouth.

I can't remember if I had ever discussed Baba Farid with him, or shown him the book I found in the bazaar.

I asked him, "What I will do now when I go back to the West?"  He laughed and said, "You will soon be a big Sufi man, six months from now and when she," and here he pointed to Nika, asleep on the mat, "is six years old, you will see your life."

He explained that I am to continue doing my music but that now I will be using it to teach in the Sufi way.  I had brought with me a little printed silk bandanna, whose color was a rich yellow gold and taking it in his hands he said that I must have a kurta made in this color, cut long, just past the knees in the Moslem fashion and wear this when I perform.

I asked Ali Moosa what, exactly I was supposed to teach and he confidently answered that he would send me books and would purchase some immediately to give to me. Years later, I have never received any more books from him but many books on the Sufi Way have come to me through other means.  I now see that there is more than one way for a Sufi teacher to "send" books.

Ali Moosa returns with the books he has promised me and I insist on paying him for them.  He asks me for my notebook and writes in it my given and my Sufi names, signing it and dating it by way of formal declaration of this meeting and exchange between us. 

I look into his eyes and I seem to see the gaze of Inayat Khan, that familiar look of strength and love mingled that had looked out at me from his photograph hung on the wall beside my sleeping platform on those many lonely nights of meditation in my mountainside cabin so many years ago. 

I do not know when we will meet again but this does not seem important to me now because I know we are connected in a way that is not subject to time and space.

I will never forget this meeting or this moment.

An Inside View

Karen is amazing. I return to the lodge to find that once again she has the whole staff in an uproar but this time they are moving furniture and cleaning.  First it was our room, where everything was shifted, swept, washed , disinfected and put back and now she has them in the kitchen doing the same thing. 

In the center of the courtyard is a huge pile of refuse that has been cleaned out of the kitchen and they are still at it.  Karen is in there herself, with a hose, washing down the walls.  They are literally overhauling the kitchen. 

Karen comes outside for a moment to tell me, "There was a rat in there!  They are willing to clean but they don't know how to do it and so I'm showing them."  If what they suffer is a lack of motivation, then Karen is supplying the lion's share.  She is determined to clean the filth from the kitchen so that no one else will suffer the same fate as she did.

Despite my misgivings I return to the mosque at five, where I am immediately introduced to an elderly man who is the children's school teacher and who speaks excellent English.  We have an animated talk seated on the floor of the mosque and I am able to put my request to him in plain English, saying that I wish to learn to sing the azan.

'I hope I will not offend you,' he replies 'but you see in Islam, singing is not allowed.  Therefore, there can be no instruction.' As his earnest and compassionate gaze meets mine I am dumbfounded by his answer, for if no singing is allowed then what is the glorious sound coming out of the mouth of the muezzin.  I meekly accept my fate, deciding not to challenge the statement. 

Looking directly at me, the teacher, who has introduced himself as Manzoor Ahmad, then smiles warmly and informs me that the singer, however, will now come and speak the azan for me, line by line, so that I can follow. 

The young muezzin is then summoned to join us and he appears with the other young men who have followed events so far with much interest.  We are sitting in a circle and the singer not only speaks the words but he begins to sing them to me, line for line, me singing each line after him until I get it right.

Finally I demonstrate the result for them and everyone listens closely to my rather clumsy interpretation of what I have just heard.  To my surprise, however, my rendition is greeted with general excitement and the singer tells me that the others who are listening like my version of the azan very much!

When I return to the lodge it is already dark.  Unbelievably, Karen and the staff are still cleaning the kitchen!  She greets me with a broad smile, obviously in her element.  I can't believe her prodigious energy so soon after that severe illness.

I repair to my journal to sum up the events at the mosque:
"I talked with Manzoor and our topics ranged from the problems of organized religion to the concept of the omnipresence of God to the difficulties of ineffective meditation.  Finally we got onto the subject of the Koran which Manzoor says was given to the world by a djinn by the name of Jibrail.  Apparently there are good and bad djinns, the good ones angelic and the bad ones demonic.  Jibrail (or Gabriel) was God's messenger in this case, and Mazoor informed me that through this same messenger all the world's holy books have come."

Holi and the Azan

It's the evening before holi and in the surrounding fields, celebrations are already underway with the pounding of drums and the ululations of many voices.  It seems to me that we have come through a great ordeal successfully and the sounds of the coming celebration echo the feelings of happiness in my heart. Yesterday, for a while, I was afraid my wife might die.  Today, all that has vanished.

I am reading the booklet from the Ramakrishna Mission on "The Science of Mantra" and am having a few thoughts of my own.

In my journal I write:
"The idea is that a mantra is a Devata, or a form of the God-head which is invoked by its reciter.  And mantra also means "that which protects" a feeling I have often got while chanting as though it creates around one some kind of invisible shield which wards off negative influences. I prefer, rather than the imagery of a shield which might also block out other, more beneficial influences, the image of an electrical transformer that is able to step up or step down the power to the necessary strength of current and also literally to be able to transform negative influences into positive ones.  I am reminded, as I read, of my first discovery of the writings of Swami Yukteswar and the amazing sense of "discovery" that enveloped me when I first read them. I feel like a movie-goer who is spell-bound by the images on the screen but who has no idea of the workings of the machinery behind the film.  So, there is a great danger of taking fantasy for reality.  Maybe the touch of a passing swami will reveal to me some of the knowledge I crave.  I am quite convinced that it is even possible to be instructed in a dream by a teacher one has not yet met or by one who has been met.  Or that one may be instructed by a Being beyond the human state. As a poet and singer too, I feel that in order to deepen my craft and understanding, it is really up to me to try to fathom these mysteries, so that I may express them freely in my art. For what is art if it does not partake of the deeper mysteries of creation? I think that if I cannot evolve my knowledge to the level of the knowledge of a rishi, I have no business calling myself a singer.  There are too many people taking from life.  More need to learn how to give."

In the middle of this last sentence, the lights go out.  That's it for the evening power supply and so I turn in.

Today is holi,  the festival of the harvest and tomorrow also. One is taking a risk in walking in the streets with everyone flinging colored powders that stain the hair and clothing at neighbors and strangers alike.  Apparently there are three main days of celebrations during which the locals consume much home-made rice beer, sing and dance virtually non-stop and make up for a year of serious adult behavior.  Needless to say, by tonight things will be getting out of hand.

Yesterday afternoon, as I was walking in the park I heard the muezzin singing/calling from the local masjid , the praises of Allah.  The voice was so wonderfully sweet that I made up my mind to take a closer look at the setting.  So this morning, after we are all up, I go off to introduce myself to the folk at the mosque. It is a humble little structure, not much bigger than a house but with a bigger addition under construction that may become a school.

A young boy, standing at the gate, leads me into the central courtyard and what I had thought was the sound of mid-morning congregational prayer can now be seen to a children's Koran lesson in progress.  The children are seated in an uneven circle around the teacher, chanting passages.

A group of young men off to one side watch my approach with interest and finally a spokesman comes over, who speaks very little English.  I try to explain my mission to him, using a now-familiar mixture of English and sign language, telling how I have heard the mid-day call to prayer from the minaret loudspeakers and how I have come to speak with the singer, whose voice I admired so much.

At first I am not very successful, and the young listener simply shakes his head quite negatively, as though I am intruding in the wrong place, telling me more or less to mind my own business, that they are not interested in my interest.  But I persist, telling them that I am student of Ali Moosa, showing them my prayer beads and they soften their approach asking if I am a "Musselman". I shake my head and answer "No, I am a student who is learning about your religion."

Slowly, it becomes clear to me that they think I have been asking to sing from the loudspeaker!  Now they are understanding that I want to learn to sing, from the singer, in the way he is singing. I demonstrate by singing out Allah in a quavering voice which brings delighted and amused laughter from the group of young men.  At last my meaning is becoming clear and I am invited back at 1:30 in the afternoon to meet with the singer.

Back at the lodge, holi catches up with us, at least symbolically. The old lady who lives here at the lodge, who is the manager's mother, comes by our apartment door and gently rubs some deep lilac-colored powder on each of our foreheads, as though she is bestowing a blessing on us.   The staff members try to hide in the next room, but they too are summoned out and dutifully receive their "benediction".

In my journal, I enter a few more thoughts on the wherefores of our trip:
"It seems that this 'journey to the east' that the family has undertaken is a learning experience in which we are gaining knowledge and strength to live our future lives more fully, more successfully.  Also it seems that this is a time of personal withdrawal from purposeful activity in the 'marketplace', with any view to gaining name, fame or fortune. For what are these if the premises for success are not focused and right.  Surely, such success would only bring unhappiness in it's train. Despite my intense personal doubts and questionings I feel very good about the future for I feel my will to knowledge becoming firmer every day and it seems that a great discovery is just around the corner. Perhaps it will be in the sphere of meditative experiences but I can only guess.  However, I no longer feel my mission as an artist is simply to express a personal vision.  I am receiving "echoes" from the outside that are confirming what I am beginning to see as the task in my life. But I have to ask, 'Is all this a huge delusion?'.  If so, how am I to extricate myself? Simply put, what I am in search of then is 'the religious experience'."

I have just finished reading in the little book on meditation published by the Ramakrishna Mission that "Vedanta consists in denying absolute existence of the body, mind and ego, as well as the universe. These are only relatively real.  What is sought is the arrival at the One Absolute Reality called Brahman with which the Self of man, the essence of his being, is identical."

Surely this is the religious experience I crave, so neatly conceptualized in these words. I go on to copy and then analyze the follow up to this in the pages of my journal.

Meanwhile, Karen, who has recovered from her ordeal has somehow got her hands on the colored holi powder.  She has told the staff that she wishes to make designs on her shirts and so they have given her some potatoes from which she is cutting 'potato wood block designs'  which, dipped these into the colored powder, will create the prints. But in a few moments she has the entire staff on the run.

They are in an uproar because she is chasing them around trying to stamp the designs on everyone's clothes and skin. It's as though the spirit of  holi has entered her bodily.  The sounds of laughter and running feet are echoing through the courtyard and everyone, even the staid head servant, is in stitches.  She's struck fear into their hearts and no one is safe from her.  It's hilarious!

In the afternoon, as arranged I return to the mosque. Once again I have to painstakingly formulate my original request and I feel I am treading on a very fine line between wasting their time and insulting them outright. As it turns out, one of the hotel staff members has arrived for his devotions and he helps me to clarify my request.

Finally, after a half hour wait,  the singer comes outside to meet me and piece by piece I am able to put together the words of the chant which is called the azan, or call to prayer.  The other young men have gathered to look on. Although he is willing to help me pronounce the words, he seems unwilling to sing them and soon excuses himself saying that it is time for prayer.  My prayer, however is being answered for he now goes directly to the minaret and begins the azan. As I listen, I am struck by the beauty and depth of the call and it seems to move into the very center of my nervous system, exercising a kind of magnetic pull in me. 

I am curious to know more, where he learned to sing, how long he has been singing but I don't think it will be possible to translate all this.  I still have the feeling that, despite the help I am being given, there is a general air of suspicion around my motives.  I am invited to come back at five o'clock but without the staff member to help translate I feel it's going to be difficult for me to ask anything else.

Black Bile (the practice of maturing wisdom)

At 9 a.m. the heat is already oppressive.  The Bodh Gaya mosquitoes have found a hole into our netting and hang bloated from the inside of the white curtain, their bodies glutted with fresh blood.  Perhaps the blood is not mine, though, as I can't remember being disturbed in my sleep.

This morning I feel the weight of the heat oppressing me. The air seems difficult to breathe and yet this is not the hottest part of the year.  Little wonder that the Lodge is nearly empty.

I muse on the purpose of our journey:

"The feeling of not being connected to any specific tradition leaves one at sea.  Sure, I can be an artist here in no-man's land (this land of the Intrepid Tourist, depending on your point of view) but where is the captive audience? And there's no sense thinking of myself as an artist explorer, since every tourist with a plane ticket has gone this route before me and probably much further into the mountains than I'll ever reach. So where are we exactly and of what possible interest could our location be to others?  Aha!  A dawn of light. Is not our position only relative to the position of others?  And have I not often gauged my own "location" in my meetings with other travelers on the road?  On the road to where is beside the point.  It's just that, from my point of view, being on the road, being fully present here, is the whole goal and object, not some specific or even undetermined destination, outwardly. And so the trip to Nepal could also be a trip to Disneyland, depending on the point of view."

With my newly shaved head and dressed in my bright colored Indian-made clothing I sit breathing and being, my journal poised on my lap, feeling the pull of gravity, dreaming, outlining imagined possibilities, appreciating, trying to define, listening, trying not to judge.  Dealing with my "bad mood".

My thoughts now turn to music.  We have been invited to a pot luck dinner tonight at the Kagyu Temple and I was asked to bring my "instruments".  However, I find I am hesitant to do so because the whole scene has the feel of a diversion and an entertainment.  What am I thinking?  I'll probably enjoy myself.  Yet the thought of sharing music just to "strut my stuff" does not appeal to me. I would rather the music be in a prayerful, meditative setting.

My conceptions are killing any sense of fun I might be having. My stuffed up head and congested nasal passages are also killing my sense of fun but this is not enough to stop me from enjoying a milky cup of mucous-producing coffee with my toast this morning.  My fear of others seeing my own shortcomings is killing my sense of fun.  Will they even like my music?  I don't want to be just another bored westerner, spending time with other bored westerners in India, yet here is my karma coming at me again.  Deal with it my son!

This morning I have been thinking of Nicholas Roerich.  "His life in India was heavily creative, mingling elements of art and religion.  I like to think that I am traveling here with similar motives and yet what kind of creative work am I actually doing? Roerich was connected to artistic and religious circles.  Who am I connected to?  What meaning does my interest in art have for others? What effect am I actually having on the world around me?  As far as I can see, none or very little.  Only my love of art and truth keep me playing this role in my life. And as I see it, most of the time it is a protection against a possible, less-idealistic life such as day-laborer, taxi-driver, civil servant, wage slave, etc.

I choose my own highest conception, happy in the ability to play the role of make-believe so well, while others are trapped in killing self-images which their lifestyles crystallize around them."

I find it interesting in talking to Karen later that she is also going through a similar period of self-doubt, sorting and processing things in her mind.  This bout of nagging thought and depression however is not isolated. It is connected with something that will soon follow.

Later that evening after our routine of circling the Mahabodhi Temple and praying we purchase a large quantity of fruit in the market and back at the lodge, concoct an enormous fruit salad in a borrowed stainless steel bowl.  Then, guitar in hand and kids in tow we wend our way under a waning moon to the Kagyu Temple for the pot luck.

To my surprise, when we arrive there is a already a large group of mostly unfamiliar people gathered out on the moonlit, candle-lit balcony, seated on mats around a central banquet of fruit and sandwiches.  They all seem genuinely glad to see us and we settle quickly into a pleasant and surprisingly easy, "judgementless" conversation.

After eating, I am asked to play and am accompanied by Marianne's husband David , who is ringing a Tibetan bell. This provides an interesting mix, the bell, although off-key from the guitar, falls together with it harmonically and rhythmically in places. The effect is hypnotic and meditative and I don't have to worry about the "entertainment" aspect of it at all, as it seems quite prayerful and genuine.

After a while, Marianne picks up my guitar and plays a lovely little song called "Waltzing on the Stars", singing in a beautiful, full voice and she follows this with "The Rose".  David then recites some poetry written by his Nyingmapa guru.  This was interesting especially since he'd just been showing me some ritual instruments, the bell, the vajra , the dagger that transmutes lust, ignorance and greed into their opposites by stabbing it into the sky and a little double-headed drum made of the tops of human skulls that is played right-handed while the bell is rung in the left.

Under the light of a three-quarter moon, the effect of the poem accompanied with these instruments is pleasing and I  recall hearing that Tantric practitioners meditate in graveyards at night as part of their personal confrontation with fear and that they actually conjure up spirits as part of their practice of maturing wisdom.

This gives depth to the poem being recited which read in part: "With the vajra thunderbolt in hand/I practice this black magic/If the spell succeeds that's okay/If it fails that's okay/Meanwhile I continue to practice the highest wisdom".  However, I still entertain the feeling that his guru is treading a very "fine line", for in my own mind, black magic is a poor substitute for the highest wisdom.

David asks me if I am working with any spiritual group and my self-questioning of earlier today floods back to me.  I admit that I am formally unaffiliated with any group.

Now, the evening gathering is drawing to a close and one of the girls present lends our family her waiting rickshaw.  We carry our now-sleeping children downstairs to the rickshaw and walk slowly home beside it.  My hand is in my pocket on my rosary and I am doing a silent japa.  My emotional and mental state is unstable tonight and I too appear to be treading a "fine line".  Small noises startle me, specters seem to be waiting around corners in the moonlight and I become the walking  image of Ichabod Crane, fearful to look behind lest some horrible apparition appear.

In the distance, the low roar of a motor scooter sounds to me like the barking of a ferocious dog and I redouble my efforts at keeping my thoughts on my japa.  Suddenly, behind us, I hear the bark and then the growling of a real dog. Fear floods through my body and with a great effort I bring it under control.  It seems to me at this moment that to the degree I succeed, the growling of the dog subsides.

The next morning Karen wakes with a high fever and heavy diarrhea. The doctor visits and sends the hotel attendant into the village for some medicine.  She remains in bed and I have my hands full, nursing her and caring for the children.

By mid morning, her skin has turned yellow, her bowel movements and urine are both jet black and she is semi-comatose, either sleeping or murmuring in a half-awake state.  The anti-diarrhea pills prescribed by the doctor went through her system undissolved and came out whole, in her stool.

I am dosing her with Electrosol powder which is supposed to replace the body fluids and salts and with a vitamin supplement. I have this crazy notion that what she is going through is a kind of physical/psychic catharsis sand that the medication won't really help, that she just has to let it run its course. I don't say this to anyone of course and continue to do what the doctor has advised.

I am worried.  The girls have been feverish too and affected by their mother's "absence" are frustrated and incapable of enjoying themselves.  They are fighting, whining, asking for something to eat which they throw away the moment they get it, lying down, jumping up, scratching at mosquito bites and generally miserable.  I am trying to be helpful and caring but I am becoming more and more short-tempered with them.  I am disappointed in myself.  By late afternoon I find myself shouting at them to be quiet.  I am even starting to get angry with Karen.

In the middle of this ordeal, a staff member arrives with a lovely floral bouquet for Karen's bedside and I am touched and softened by the gesture. Another staff member comes to change the bed sheets and is constantly asking if I need anything.  I am buoyed by the feeling that somehow we are getting through this.

Finally, Karen's temperature breaks and she takes a turn for the better. Her skin color is returning to normal and she is now sleeping peacefully.  I sigh and sit down to write in my journal when Nika calls me from the bathroom.  Now she, too, has diarrhea and moments later it is Chaya's turn.

The thought now comes to me that they haven't been boiling the water enough, as we had originally asked them to do, to safeguard our health.  This morning, I now recall, Nika had been given a glass of water that hadn't been boiled at all but I'd been so busy I hadn't paid attention.

Karen asks for some clear soup to be prepared for her and I suggest they make enough for the children too.  Perhaps that will provide the nourishment they need right now.  During my reading, comparing notes from different travel books, I discover that the anti-diarrhea medication contains an ingredient that is purported to cause nerve damage and so, doctor or not, I decide to stop administering it to her or the children.

Late evening, and the kids are finally asleep.  Karen is awake enough now to read a book under the mosquito netting and I sit down to write:

"About 4:30 I dragged the kids off to the Mahabodhi Temple by way of a diversion. I promised them a nice soft drink when we returned to spur them on.  Nika of course floundered, whined and generally protested that she didn't want to go, while fussing to be carried and generally dragging ass. Magically, the back gate through the park to the temple, which is always locked,  was open, so we were able to go quickly there, avoiding the bustle of the streets and the market on the way."

"We made two or three difficult rounds, with the monks as usual joking with the kids, making passing remarks or just giving a good-natured smile.  At the main entrance to the temple a group of sadhus which looked like a guru and his disciples, although all of them were quite venerable-looking, were just emerging from inside. The one I noticed first seemed absolutely blissed out, looking a lot like Baba Ram Dass in his late sixties incarnation.  They took notice of us and stopped to ask where we were from.  There was a short exchange of pleasantries and then a really thrilling parting benediction. We saluted each other with joined palms, in the local fashion and I felt a slight chill pass through me or rather a warm tingling sensation accompanied by a feeling of goodness, as though they really did wish us well and really were happy to see us there. I can't help wondering whether this encounter will lead us to even deeper similar encounters, for I feel I have much to learn."

Two Shaved Heads

The day begins on an off note. We rise too late and I am grumbling because Karen won't get up.  I bathe and dress the children, order coffee, swallow my grouchiness, take a cup in to Karen and write a little in my journal.  I have a head cold that is causing me further discomfort and am becoming edgy and irritable with everyone.  Finally it is mutually agreed that I go off by myself for a little walk.

I head towards the Gelugpa Tibetan Temple, the one we visited the other day and it is still locked!  As I am turning away, I see Karen and the girls coming toward me in a bicycle rickshaw.  Both our moods have improved and Karen suggests that I wait with the girls while she checks around the back to see if anyone is there. Soon she is waving from the front gate, for me to go around the back and as I start around the side of the temple I am met by a monk who explains in fairly good English that the temple is closed because the maintenance staff are on strike! 

We all walk up to the road together and it becomes clear that he is not a Buddhist, but a monk of the Ramakrishna Order in Calcutta and I immediately suggest he come to meet our hotel manager who belongs to the Ramakrishna Mission.  However, there is some confusion in our schedules, we part company and the proposed meeting never happens.  I am disappointed because when I described the monk to the manager he became very excited and asked "Is Swamiji coming for lunch?", explaining to us that the man we met was a very senior monk in the order, whose lecture he had attended in Gaya only yesterday.

I muse on the fact of these many encounters we have had, so real at the moment and then evaporating like smoke or like the clouds in the thangka paintings we see later on at the Kagyupta Temple where the Australian nun has invited us. Robin is her name, and she is just leaving out the front gate as we arrive, going to check her mail.  She tells us to go ahead inside the main temple which is in a state of semi-completion with scaffolding and bare cement walls on all sides.

The first thing we notice is the traditional sumptuous and ornate decor on the ceilings with its heavy, scrolled, golden laminations and spinning energy wheels. Then, covering one entire wall and part of another behind us we see a mural, not traditional at all but very modern and gorgeous. It depicts scenes from the life of Buddha, beginning with the elephant that appears in his mother's dream, the infant boy in a halo of light and so on. The figures are all life size, the colors rich, plentiful and light-suffused so unlike the darker traditional Tibetan colors.

Finally, up on a scaffold in the corner, we see the artist herself working.  She's a Danish girl from Copenhagen, Marianne Rydvall.  She is a mother and the mother's energy is very evident in her work. In fact the first figure in the mural is the Buddha's mother, reclining on a bed of clouds and lotus, dreaming of a wonderful elephant, while the buddhas in the sky look on. The colors are pastel, vivid and light and there is a clarity and simplicity to the detail that gives one a sense of a marvelous balance and rhythm unfolding. I tell her this of course and hope that I am not "gushing" too much but she seems pleased by my interest and compliments.

Yesterday at the Barabar Caves Karen and I came up with a plan to do a recording there.  The hotel manager had encouraged this idea and said that he might even be able to get us government sponsorship for the project. Now the idea occurs to me that Marianne's artwork could appear on the cover and I suggest this to her.  She seems interested and invites us upstairs to meet her baby son Sky and her husband David, who we have already seen, doing "taking-refuge-in-the-Buddha-Dharma" prostrations outside the Mahabodhi Temple.

Robin, the nun, has hot lemon tea brought in for us all and we have a short conversation on the subject of travel to Katmandu.  Then Robin takes us to see the puja room, replete with 1000 bronze buddhas waiting to be  moved to their traditional showcase in the main temple.

She shows us a picture of Karmapa, the recently deceased head of the Kagyu lineage and another of her teacher, a disciple of Karmapa and also a tulku, named Benu Chentse Rinpoche, whose address in Katmandu she has already given us.

We both like Robin and find her very clear and non-egocentric, freely letting us into her thoughts and lifestyle and thus opening up a line of inquiry into the Kagyu lineage for us. Karen and she relate beautifully to one another. 

Karen is describing a very painful past experience which she had while in meditation and begins to weep.  I watch Robin for a reaction. There is none.  Karen leaves for a moment to recover from the weeping and the conversation continues smoothly between us.  When Karen returns, there is no mention and no blame. Nothing happened but we all feel better! 

Robin explains how the new Karmapa will be the 16th or 17th in his lineage and how, before the old lama dies, he leaves a letter for the senior lamas to be opened only after his death, which names the location of his "new" birth and the names of his parents. They then go in search of the new tulku who they usually locate quite young, looking for signs in him of recognition of his previous life.

About her teacher she doesn't say much, except  that he will be happy to see us because it is his form of compassion that he has incarnated as a lama to help others toward liberation.  I don't get such a glowing recommendation of this teacher's compassion from Marianne, however, who relates to me the story of how she was commissioned to do this mural in the temple but has not received any money, as she was promised, nor materials nor even plane fare and that the Rinpoche, when it comes to matters of money, is far from fair-minded. 

Apparently a Moslem named Mohammad has put up the money for this Tibetan temple to be built! He also sent along an extra $100,000. for art materials for Marianne.  So far she hasn't seen a dime.  The Rinpoche had not told her anything about it and was meanwhile trying to whittle down their original agreement to "bed and breakfast", threatening her to bring in another artist to finish the job she started if she didn't agree.  She is only staying on because she is committed to the work itself and is hoping things will somehow right themselves.

We are also introduced to Tara, another Westerner staying at the temple, who suggests a trekking plan for the Katmandu area but tells us all manner of unpleasant things that might happen to us, enough to change our minds if we didn't already have visas. She also informs us that Lama Govinda has recently died in California and I am disappointed to learn that now I will never get to meet the illustrious Master whose words on art and religion have moved me so deeply through the years.

Back at the Lodge, Karen and I come to a decision.  Perhaps it's the influence of all these monks but we mutually agree that the time has come to have our heads shaven!  So, on our behalf, the manager summons a local barber and the staff gather around to watch the crazy foreigners have their heads shaved in the courtyard. 

The young barber upon his arrival wastes no time. After first consulting us to make sure that we want our heads completely shaved and perhaps slightly non-plussed at this request, he produces a straight razor and whetting it a bit, proceeds directly to his task. Great clumps of stripped hair cascade to the ground and in a matter of minutes Karen and I are completely bald.

How strange to see myself in a mirror.  I seem to recognize my face as belonging to some else but can't place who.  I suddenly feel very "Buddhist".  There is something of the feeling of a "spiritual confirmation" in this for both of us. 

The staff do not know quite what to say and one of them bursts out in an uncomfortable laugh at the sight of Karen being shaved.  The kids have their hair cropped close but not shaved and think the whole experience "neat" before forgetting it completely.  We then all set out for the Mahabodhi Temple to do our walking puja and are greeted with friendly smiles of delight by all the monks who meet us.

I pause to read the inscription on a mani stone which I think is the HUM symbol which I had seen in Lama Govinda's books.  Karen is standing alongside of me and suddenly exclaims that there is a hurt bird lying at my feet.  I look down and the bird begins fluttering along the ground, while another bird standing on a nearby railing, begins chirping loudly, as if in alarm.  Karen quickly picks up the bird and the same thought comes to both of us at once, of the stories I have told her of the several unusual experiences I have had, discovering a hurt or "dead" bird, picking it up and having it "come to life" in my hands and fly away healed. So she hands me the bird!

I see immediately that the whole tail-feather section is "on crooked", probably broken.  I cradle the bird in my palms until we reach a fairly secluded patch of green lawn and flowers, among the stupas and there lay the bird down with a silent prayer that God will help it.  I can't imagine trying to "doctor" the bird and feel suddenly quite helpless and unequal to this experience. The "magical" power to help the bird is nowhere in evidence now and a silent prayer on its behalf is clearly no help. 

As we walk away I am left with my conflicting emotions over this incident. I feel brought down to earth by it and yanked right out of the realm of my imagination and fantasy world of how things might be.  I spend the rest of the day wondering about this incident and about its significance to me.

If I have suddenly become more "Buddhist" by shaving my head and saying my prayers, this has not eased my responsibility in the material world in any visible sense.  I think of the Zen poem "I do nothing, yet the leaves fall and blossoms come into bloom" and my heart lifts slightly.

Bodh Gaya

This morning we purchase train tickets for Gaya, the jumping off point for Bodh Gaya, our destination.  This is the site where, as legend has it, Lord Buddha attained the state of enlightenment while sitting under the "Bo" tree.  We  return to our hotel to pack and once again our makeshift altar is bedecked with flowers and incense, the room scrupulously cleansed.  I express regret that we have to leave so soon but our journey calls us.  Karen has the hotel staff pack us a lunch of rice and chapatis for the train and we depart in style, ready for all contingencies.

We arrive in Gaya at 10 p.m. an hour behind schedule and take a bicycle rickshaw to what has been described as a good hotel. Children and luggage piled on the seat we walk through the filthy squalor of the streets toward our destination. We are shocked that this city looks so slum-like, even after dark. 

To our dismay the hotel is full and so we continue on down the line visiting various smaller, seedier-looking hotels and getting into arguments and even a shouting match with a hotel owner and with our rickshaw driver, who seems to be in league with the hoteliers. Tempers worn thin, we finally resolve to return to the railway station where we fall in with a band of intrepid travelers like ourselves, also heading to the same destination, who have run into the same problems this evening. Together, we resolve to rent a taxi and travel to Bodh Gaya this very night.

By now it is after midnight and the locals' advice about the dangers of being accosted by armed bandits along the country roads adds a sense of adventure we had not anticipated.  The taxi driver has taken another man along , who is presumably armed, for our protection.

We speed full-tilt through the dark countryside, the rubber blade of the upraised dagger hood ornament cleaving the highway center line and I fully expect a group of gun-toting thieves to leap from the bushes in the headlights' glow and take us all hostage, such is the atmosphere in the taxi.

I experience a great sense of relief as we pull up outside the darkened structure of the Ashok Traveler's Lodge, certain that this hotel, being part of a major Indian chain, will provide us with a clean room and good hot meal before bed.  To our dismay, however, the electrical power is out and so, aided by flashlight and candle, we sign the guest register and stow our luggage before joining the rest of the group around the dining room table for a welcome cup of hot tea.  There is no food at this hour but the electricity comes back on and we able to fall asleep to the cooling, soothing hum of an overhead fan.

The next morning we are out in the intense sunlight and dry heat making our rounds of the Buddhist temples in the area. Many Asian countries are represented here and there is even a mosque nearby, the azan, or call to prayer having reached our ears in the early morning, hauntingly and melodiously.

The main temple is the Mahabodhi Temple, dating from the 3rd century and restored from a state of almost complete ruin by the British in 1858.  The spiring, intricately carved structure strikes me as an ancient blueprint for a modern power generating station, complete with stupa-insulators. 

When we arrive, the place is packed with mostly Asian tourists and Buddhist monks from different countries wearing their brightly colored robes.  We pay our .50 paise admission and begin circulating through the grounds.

At the back of the temple is the "Bo" tree, a Pipal tree, actually, which was grown from a sapling sent back here from the original which has been replanted in Sri Lanka.  The "offspring" itself is now old and venerable looking, draped in colorful prayer flags and surrounded by monks who are meditating or lighting incense sticks under its branches.  The monks smile at our children as we pass and hand them incense sticks.

The tisbeh or rosary given to me by Ali Moosa is in the pocket of my vest and as I circumambulate the temple in the company of the monks, the tourists and my family, I chant my silent zikr, bringing Islam and Buddhism together in the moment, unknown to any of my fellow pilgrims.

Finally, we enter the dim-lit, candle-flickering interior which is nearly empty and we meditate under the serene golden gazes of the huge bronze buddhas sitting silently within.

Karen is a good barometer of the energy around places we visit and here she is quite chipper, happily enjoying herself and browsing through the souvenir stands nearby.  This is an unusual temple as it is also sacred to Hindus and there is a section near the main entrance in which all the statuary is of Hindu origin. I had not realized until now that Lord Buddha is also sacred to the Hindus and they have there very own version of him represented here.

At lunch the same day, the hotel manager stops by our table to introduce himself and the subject of the nearby Barabar Caves comes up. He dissuades us from going on our own due to the presence of those ubiquitous local dacoits and insists on driving us himself the next morning.  His only condition is that we go in the company of a police escort and since the chief of police in Gaya is his personal friend, this should pose no problem. "Just tip the captain 100 rupees and buy them a bottle of whiskey and everything will be okay", he suggests.

Later on in the day the manager notices me reading a booklet on mediation published by the Ramakrishna Mission and informs me that he is associated with this Mission and would love my family to meet his wife and daughter over tea that evening. The walls of his small apartment are decorated with pictures of Sri Ramakrishna and his consort, Sara Devi, the Holy Mother, as she is called. He plays us a recording of some devotional music from the mission, some Ravi Shankar and also some music by a nephew of Shankar who has composed it for a travel seminar, commissioned by the hotel chain he works for, in 1978. Then he plays us some of Ghalib's ghazzals sung by a 65 year old woman with an incredibly powerful voice whose name I neglect to write down and thus can not  remember.

My oldest daughter Chaya who is four years old had a fever earlier on in the afternoon which has by bed time risen to 104 degrees and we are worried.  The local doctor is called and pronounces it a "light" stomach infection for which some medication is prescribed, dispensed and given on the spot.  We stay up late, talking with an English couple who had accompanied us from Gaya and then, just as we are preparing for bed Nika, who is two,  wakes up and has a crying bout that lasts an hour or so.

We get about an hour's sleep and are up at 4:30 a.m. for the journey to the caves. To our surprise, the police "escort" is a military truck full of police, who in this part of the country look , dress and feel like the army. With us on the trip is a young English girl who we have come to know recently and we fill the manager's tiny car as we rocket and buffet over the bumpy country roads, through a landscape that is flat, arid and stony. I can't imagine where thieves would hide here.  However, as we approach the caves, the area becomes more hilly, with large outcroppings of huge rocks and finally we arrive, piling out of the car in the dusty heat.

At first glance it is obvious that this is not the site that was used in the filming of "Passage to India".  These hills and caves are much smaller, but far more mysterious looking once one gets up close. Dating from the 3rd century BC, the caves are formed into the solid rock by what looks to be a combination of natural and human forces. Perhaps the original caves had been formed by volcanic action, creating  huge "bubbles" in the rocks as they were cooling. 

The interior walls of the caves seem "finished" or polished to a high, reflective gloss and which, seen from the entrance, appear to be a mixture of marble and gold shining richly in the natural light.  The first cave we enter has an intricate lintel carved into the rock above the entrance containing a frieze of elephants and script in what we are told is Pali, the ancient language of Buddhism.  These caves were used, it is said, by highly evolved monks to meditate and work in.

The next thing we notice as we enter is that the caves are natural sound amplifiers, and our voices, even when we are speaking in low tones, resonate powerfully. Any chanting done in these caves would undoubtedly have a deep psychological and even physical effect on the person chanting.  I experiment by singing a few tones and the entire cave seems to ring like a gigantic bell in response to every note. Later I will write in my journal "Its like talking in a glass cathedral, so delicate is the balance of sound. And should a vigorously chanting person sit inside these caves for an hour or more doing japa, I should think that the sound would mystically transform and perfect their physical body."  Our police guards seem as excited as our children to hear the sounds of their voices in these caves!

I also note that "the caves were swept perfectly clean and we were informed that they are, even at night, totally devoid of damp or cold.  They were as comfortable inside as any thermostatically controlled Western living space, more so perhaps, as the heat is natural and not artificially produced.  It's as though the sun stores up energy in the rock all day to keep the caves warm at night."

After visiting four of these caves, our guide suggests we visit a Shiva Temple, perched atop a nearby hill, a small mountain really, in our children's' eyes.  So up we all hike, a 40 minutes climb to the whitewashed little temple at the top, which from the distance looks quite magical.  However, at the top, I feel that familiar old Shiva-energy dancing around and repulsing me and I will not go inside, despite being invited by the priests who are chanting in there. There is a lifeless, dark feel about the place and I don't want to drink that air inside. 

I walk around the hilltop admiring the wonderful view of the landscape all around when out from under a rock crawls a mangy, half-starved looking little puppy (typical bloody Shiva energy, I think) and I feed him a biscuit and silently pray to God to save his life.

On the way down, as in Forester's novel, our party and it's police escort become separated and there is a minor panic on their part, even though we are quite clearly wending our way down to the bottom.  There seems to be a pervasive fear that something can easily happen to us, even though they are nearby. 

An old woman, carrying a bundle on her back and another in her arms passes us on the path, heading up towards the temple.  She casts a glance at me that seems in the moment strangely dark and malevolent. Or is that my imagination too?  This place has got us all seeing things.

The journey back in this heat seems at least twice or even three times as long and as grueling.  However, back at the Lodge a hearty, spicy Indian rice, dal and subji await us and we are well content with the day's events.

The evening brings with it more magic.  We set out for the village, just before sundown, to buy fruit and come across a deer park, where the deer, called cheetel, male and female alike, approach us and lick our hands with tender gentleness, making us feel like living embodiments of Buddha himself.

We had planned to stop at the Tibetan Temple but the gates are locked and so we go instead to make a circuit of the Mahabodhi Temple, joining the monks and pilgrims in their walking meditations around it.

Even the children are having a delightful time of it, Chaya chanting on her miniature mala and Nika playing tag with young novice monks who can not be more that ten years old, if that.

Karen enters into a conversation with an Australian Buddhist nun.  She has been ordained since 1976.  She invites us to visit a second Tibetan Temple which we had at first thought was under construction but which, she informs us, houses monks and nuns of the Kagyupta order. She tells us there's a girl there who has spent a lot of time in Katmandu and who may be able to give us more information on traveling to Nepal.

I am intrigued because of the connection of this sect with Lama Govinda, whose books I have read and admired for many years now. The nun tells us that her teacher is a 39 year old real life tulku although why that should make a difference I don't know. I guess I am fascinated by the romance of being initiated into a religious sect as old as this one.  The question comes to my mind, "Could this be why I am here?", always that lingering question, fueled by the idea that this journey to India has somehow been preordained.

I recall years ago having a beer in a Vancouver pub and meeting a Rosicrucian couple there with whom I became friends. At one of their dinner parties, I was introduced to an elderly gentlemen, also a Rosicrucian, who looked at my friends conspiratorially and said "Do you think he is connected with India?  I do. I think there's a relationship there."  My youthful mind scoffed at the idea and at the old man for spouting such obvious bunk.  Years later, however, I look at his comment with a new respect, and cringe at my own "posings" in those days. What have I been dreaming about, studying and finally experiencing after all these years, if not traditions that spring from the soil of India?

My journal from this time continues, "And so, in the softly settling twilight, round and round we walked, chanting, talking, reflecting on the gilt Buddhas seated in meditation, row on row, the lotus framed elfin faces on the ancient stone rail fence, the flickering oil lamps lit under the Bo tree and the rapt group of seated pilgrims below it,  listening to the slow-spoken lecture of a yellow-robed monk, expounding on the life of the Buddha in way that has been done on this spot for centuries now."

Varanasi (Benares)

As usual, buying train tickets takes nearly a full day but at the end of it we have four, first class, air-conditioned coach, train tickets to Varanasi.  Expensive tickets to be sure, but we are all feeling out-of-sorts and rather unwell in the past 24 hours. We can't face up to another grueling journey and we want to pamper ourselves.

Varanasi, or as it was formerly known, Benares, is one of the most legendary of the holy cities of India.  The line in Yoganada's autobiography , "We entrained for Benares..." leaps into my mind as I am holding the tickets.  New Delhi has been a wonderful introduction but now we are finally heading for the "heart " of India, home of sadhus, holy men and the Great Mother Ganges.  If there is to be a spiritual revelation for us, it is surely to be found there.

The train journey is 16 hours from Delhi.  We depart at 1:30 the next day and are due to arrive at 6 a.m. the following morning. On board, I have a wonderful conversation with a wood craftsman and furniture maker from Lucknow, the kind of conversation that is now becoming common-place here in this land of the living spirit.  He is young, my age, but with a wisdom and world-perspective far beyond my years and such an elegant speaker!  To listen to him is to become enchanted and entranced.  Yet, he is confused.

Here in the river of India's purely spiritual traditions, he is a man in search of water. The best he can manage when it comes to the subject of god is,  "I think there may be something there..." but he reluctantly admits this amidst scathing criticism of religions, gurus and the "tom-foolery of the business of saving souls"!

I like to think I understand his dismay and disdain for all that he considers false and hypocritical, holding his people and his country "back" and down, in terms of modern progress.   He is a great admirer of the Sikhs, although himself a Hindu by birth and speaks knowledgeably about the friction between Moslems, Hindus and Sikhs.

We talk well into the night until he reaches his stop.  Before leaving he asks me what I have thought about his comments.  I sum it up by saying that I hope he will somehow reach a state of inner certainty and faith, (for I sense he would be a marvelous "spiritual" man) but I have the distinct impression that he feels I have missed his point. Our handshake at the very end though, is warm and firm.

He is replaced in our compartment by a rather noisy and restless individual who upsets the cozy ambiance we have thus far achieved and we are not able to get to sleep until the wee hours.

We are wakened by the familiar strains of the chai wallah and by a sound that makes the hair on the back of my neck tingle. We have been used to hearing Western-style music everywhere with its heavy production and techno-sounds but what more perfect welcoming into Benares than the haunting, mystical music of the sitar, amplified throughout the train station.  I can scarcely believe my ears, it sounds like Ravi Shankar.

The feelings this evokes in me are those of high romance.  Here we are in the holiest of the holy cities and finally, Indian music!  I am  reminded again of how much the Western world has intruded into this country.  The music seems somehow a blessing, a benediction and a good omen for our stay here.

A dusty wind is blowing and we are sitting in the courtyard of the elegant old Hotel de Paris on old rattan lounge chairs.  Karen says she is reminded of a scene from the film "A Passage to India" based on the book by E.M. Forester.

Only that afternoon I had been browsing through our "Lonely Planet" travel guide and happened to notice that 20 km to the north of the city of Gaya, very close to here, are the Barabar Caves, dating back to 200 B.C.  The guide suggested that these are the historical setting of Forester's "Marabar Caves" in his novel.

We decide that since we will be going on to Bodh Ghaya we will probably visit this site, famous in the book for the atmosphere it evokes and its inexplicable effect on Western travelers.

I seem to be more and more susceptible to the subtle effects of atmosphere since coming to India, or perhaps more aware of its effect on me.  This afternoon, Karen decides that we should visit the Monkey Temple described in our guide, mainly because she is fond of monkeys.  I had read in the guide book that the temple was sacred to Durga, "...a terrible form of Shiva's consort, Parvati, so at festivals there are sacrifices of goats." and it added that the temple was closed to unbelievers.

I assume, wrongly, that this means "closed to foreigners" because when we arrive there, we are welcomed directly inside.  Nothing would have prepared me for what we experience that afternoon.

After a 20 minute scooter ride through the narrow, dense Benares lanes we arrive at the 18th century "Bengali Temple" sitting alongside its huge rectangular pool of water.  The guidebook said it was stained red with ochre but actually the whole temple seems to be the color of dried blood, a dark, dense, opaque, reddish-brown hue and in an advanced state of dilapidation.  The walls and niches are peopled by monkeys of assorted sizes and shapes.

I had expected something quaint-looking but the moment we get out of the scooter I experience or sense something "namelessly oppressive" in the atmosphere. Where we approach the temple there are the traditional sellers of floral garlands, mostly marigolds but I do not feel in the least festive, or inclined to buy.  I feel a twinge of the same repulsion I felt with Arvind at the Hanuman Temple and experience a reluctance to go inside.  However, this time Karen and the kids are eager. There are monkeys here, after all!

When I enter the temple I am further surprised at my reaction, for where in most temples I feel an immediate inclination to bow and worship, the last thing I feel like doing here is bowing to what feels like an essentially negative, fearful Deity.

After removing our shoes we are allowed inside but even the stones under my feet feel  somehow unclean and there is the smell of monkey dung everywhere.  Yet, at the top of the steps there is an orange-robed priest motioning us up towards an altar and we follow his direction obediently.  The priest drops marigold garlands around the children's heads and motions me to make a donation to an attendant priest who is sitting nearby looking thoroughly bored.  The faces of both these men are not pleasant, there is a hardness and coldness about them and I immediately think of the sacrificial goats being led up to the altar.

I lay a single rupee note, almost in defiance, on the altar. I cannot bow. The priest then steps forward with some ash and places tikas on our foreheads, all except for Karen who, never one to bow to social obligation, has beaten a hasty retreat and is already well out of reach. This is probably just as well, for even the priest's touch fills me with revulsion.

We all walk around the central shrine surrounding the altar. Into the outer walls are built small, barred cells in and out of which the monkeys seem to roam freely. At this point, a mean, ferocious-looking monkey approaches the children and the priest who has been observing us, leaps into action, waving the monkey back and motioning to us that he is dangerous.

We immediately begin to leave the grounds but the priest confronts at the exit with his hand out for a donation. I hesitate and he looks at me sternly, making eating motions with his hands and mouth.  I give him nothing and at last as we are leaving he positions himself one more time with his hand outstretched and an angry expression that reads,  "What kind of cheap pilgrim are you?"

After we pick up our shoes I look back at the priest whose eyes are as white and abstract as flashing knives.  Then he turns away and I am left wondering whether I am imagining all of this. Yet as we walk away, the feeling of disgust persists and all I can think about is finding some water to wash the ash from our faces, throw the garlands away and cleanse myself and the children from whatever impurities, physical or otherwise, we may have picked up there.  My mind is filled with the images of those ghoulish-colored walls emblazoned with swastikas and the temple's colony of demon-monkeys.

On the way we pass another temple but when I see Shiva's trident atop it I say to myself, "No more Lord Shiva thank you, not if he hangs out with women like Durga" and as if in reaction to my mood I am met on all sides by hostile stares and even the rickshaw drivers pass us by until we are some distance from the Monkey Temple.

We finally hail a rickshaw driver who stops and takes us to the Ganges embankment where we hire, or are hired by (I'm not sure which) a boatman who takes us out on the river.  The impression of the Durga temple still upon me, I wash off the last traces of the red ash from our faces in the river water.  The boatman smiles at our ablutions, commenting "Ganja",  knowingly, kindly, although initially he too had seemed distant, even hostile to us.

At one point, passing the ghats, we see two bodies being cremated, red fires leaping high among the logs and two more shrouded bodies at the river's edge, being readied for cremation.  Near the fire, a little girl is gathering ashes into a sack.  She can't be more than seven.  Earlier we had seen two dead dogs lying in the street, abuzz with flies.  This has been a day for our encounter with the dark side of India.

Even as we are leaving, the boatman begins haranguing us for an extra five rupees and as we walk up the steps of the ghat into the teeming streets full of hawkers and vendors and buyers and pushers and beggars and cripples, it seems we are entering a city of tortured souls and I feel like Dante without a Virgil to guide me, only my dear family to give me a sense of sacred tenderness and protection which makes my fear and unease seem small in comparison.

An image from the Durga temple returns to me.  As we were leaving, a group of three or four men entered the temple carrying an orange-clad yogi whose legs were permanently fixed in a full lotus but crippled and deformed. They set him erectly at the altar where he performed a reverent puja, like a living stone Buddha. Then, he turned himself fully on his hands to face our direction but his face was not the shining face of an enlightened one but rather one full of misery and suffering.

We are walking through the teeming streets and I notice another face, this time in a group of old men sitting by the roadside.  This face is a venerable one with white, white eyebrows and hair, a rugged, browned, serene and handsome face with eyes that look like they have been through hell and yet come out the other side, to paradise.  There is an effulgence in them that is not so much benign as completely unworldly. The lines from Coleridge spring to mind..."For he on honey-dew hath fed, and drunk the milk of paradise."  However, the strength in his face belies the poetic utterance the sight of his eyes gives voice to.

The city of Benares we pass through on a bicycle rickshaw, returning to the hotel, is not the sentimentally spiritual city I had pictured reading Yogananda.  Neither is it the romantic place of beauty the early morning's sitar music had conjured up.  Rather it seems a place of great suffering, poverty beyond imagination and above all, confusion, wearing the mask of religion.  I begin to understand in more depth the comments of the young furniture maker on our way here.

How brilliant the light of the Buddha must have been to shine through all this suffering and darkness!  Although I hate to admit it, I can easily imagine both Moslem and Christian, in a holy zeal, laying waste to this apparent Hindu desolation and desecration of the spirit.  I could never have imagined myself savoring a bad taste around the mantra Om Namah Shivayah but there it is.  How Western I am, after all!

We arrange with the same rickshaw driver to pick us up before sunrise the next day to take us to the Ganges for an early morning boat-ride. As I am paying my fare, he suggests that I pay a little more and I refuse.  His face is hard and pocked marked, the face of  a seasoned convict and yet he grins at me, bows and says ironically, "You are an old soul, Sahib."

My spirits are immediately lifted when we walk into our hotel room.  The room has been completely cleaned, beds made and around our little wooden Buddha, a carving I have brought with us from Delhi and placed on a table by the bed, someone has arranged an impressive and colorful offering of flowers.

The next morning our Rickshaw driver is waiting for us at the gates of the hotel, patiently certain that we will keep our appointment.  He is smiling and friendly and dutifully pedals us off to our "Holy Mother Ganges Sunrise Darshan".

Our family puja is completed successfully as we sail past the ghats, navigating carefully among the little lighted floral offerings floating on the river's surface, observing the hundreds of pilgrims performing their daily ritual ablutions in the filthy water and offering our own largely silent, unspoken prayers of thanks to the Universe for giving us the gift of this experience.

Back at the hotel after a nap, we take tea on the front lawn while the children bathe naked in a sprinkler hose under what appears to be a huge eucalyptus tree.  If this is paradise, we are suddenly and gratefully in it again.

I am now reading Sayyed Hussein Nasr's "Living Sufism".  I find that this extreme Shiva business we have experienced has caused some commotion inside of me and I am retreating favorably into the writings on a tradition that arises from the same soil as Christianity, the familiar religion I was born into.  This cut and dried sacredness, at least in the academic atmosphere of a book, seems worlds away from "blood-stained temples".  Of course, one look into history would quickly blow that notion to the winds like so much dandelion fluff.  For the moment however, I am comforted.  The author is discussing how modern man has lost his sense of the "permanent" in the wake of his preoccupation with the "ever-changing".  I am forced to concentrate deeply to follow the author's thought and that too is comforting to someone like me who is, metaphysically, at sea.

The next day we take a trip to Sarnath to visit the fabled "Deer Park" where the Buddha first preached his sermon on enlightenment and in doing so "turned the dharma wheel of the law".  Also, I still have that little postcard of the Buddha in the museum there and intend see it for myself, to touch it if possible as a kind of pilgrimage and grounding in a new reality that I had once only dreamed about.

Sarnath is now a children's park, a huge Buddhist temple and a wildlife park complete with deer, storks, peacocks and other assorted exotic wild birds whose names I do not learn.  The day is very hot.  Nika and I wander among the ruins while Karen disappears and later informs me she has taught a classroom full of young students an English lesson and has the photographs to prove it.

I find the museum and touch the silken, smooth carved feet of the little Buddha who visited me in the Oakridge Library so many years before. We meet with and talk briefly to some Tibetan monks who are also there on a pilgrimage.  I take a photo of Nika approaching them along the dirt road, their maroon robes brilliant against a flowering roadside shrub of a similar hue.  They are very friendly and familiar to us.

On the way home, we pass a road crew, sweating  in the hot sun.  They all stop working, standing as a group in their khaki work clothes, smiling beatifically, to have their photo taken by us.  "Would a Canadian road crew do the same?" I can't help but wonder.

Back at the hotel, we find a fresh offering of flowers and incense around the little Buddha in our room, which is once again, scrupulously cleansed.

That night we take a trip down to the main ghats after dark, to see the city at night. Our rickshaw driver waits over 2 and a half hours for us while we disappear into the bowels of the market en route to the Golden Temple,  whose dome is reputed to be comprised of 80 kilos of gold.  There are armed guards in and around the temple. It  is dedicated to Vishveswara, Shiva as Lord of the Universe and was rebuilt in 1776.  Non-Hindus are not allowed inside but as I gaze through the dimly illuminated splendor of the open doorway a voice behind me shouts a hearty "welcome" and as I turn toward it I am garlanded with marigolds.  The priest bestowing this blessing clasps my hands firmly in his, wishes me a long life and then, of course, demands money.  I refuse, which now an immediate reaction and he waves the whole matter away with a magnanimous sweep of his hand.  This endears him instantly to me and I dig in my pocket for a few rupees.

An old man steps forward from the crowd around the temple and introducing himself familiarly, becomes our impromptu guide.  Deeper and deeper into the labyrinth we go, past older and more venerable and ancient temples and into the holy of holies, the house of his brother-in-law, a rug merchant. We don't escape until we have had tea and viewed the samples.

On the way back a group of six or seven orange-robed and giggling nuns stop to take our picture and we theirs.  They pose proudly with our children and then with us, linking arms as though we have all been out on the same pub-crawl.  By now we do feel slightly intoxicated and the atmosphere is close to hallucinogenic.

Finally we emerge from the market and find our trustworthy rickshaw driver still awaiting us.  It is already late but a 25 minute ride takes us back to the Cantonment area, our hotel and the more familiar world of "our reality".

The kids take full advantage of this breather to blow off a little steam, resorting to tears and bedtime mischief which tax our tired patience a little more.  I build up a head of steam, wind up shouting and this sets the kids off for another half hour of tears.  This too is familiar territory and we indulge in it, as if to counter the effects of our other-worldly journey into a reality so different from the one we have known.