Spiritual Sweets in India

Yes, I am still pondering India. And, more than that, I wrote somewhat critically relating some of the core concepts of Hinduism to India as a society, meaning to come back and address those ideas in a more complex way, and I have not done it, thus doing verbal injustice to India.

I felt a kind of spiritual sweetness, even in very troubled places, marked by humor and kindness especially. As there is seemingly always someone ready to assault, there is also someone ready to rescue, and there is a gentle humor and tolerance about the predicaments of human beings that seems foundational; it’s right under the hurry, agitation, and shouting, as though this tolerance for the foibles of humanity is what allows the world to continue functioning in India. This, too, might easily be related to that same basic Hinduism that tolerates intolerable suffering, the concept that we will each be liberated, given enough lifetimes and all the chances needed to burn up our karmic debts. So, while we live the drama, we also can see it from the perspective of great stretches of time, many, many lifetimes.

My first morning in Rishikesh I walked down steep cement steps to the Ganges River, the clean and beautiful Ganga, at dawn. There was only one other person there, a man dressed as a sadhu and bearing the marked forehead of a Sadhu. We passed in silence. I stepped into the river, brought hands full of water up and let them spill back, giving thanks for the spiritual wisdom and riches of India, and chanting the Gayatri mantra. I could hear chanting from the monasteries and temples and also from the cds in the marketplace. On my return up the steps, I greeted the Sadhu and we had a conversation in mixta, using words from different languages as best we could to convey our thoughts. He and his wife had moved to Rishikesh from Delhi five years before. She lived across the river, sleeping out under the stars at a women’s place, while he lived in the ashram a couple of kilometers up the hill. He was happy for the clean air and water and the search for holiness in place of his former rat-race; me, too. As we moved towards a natural pause—especially natural given the strain of trying to find words we both understood!—he reached into a pouch for some of the same ash that he wore on his forehead and offered me a blessing, which I gladly accepted. He said it was a prayer for prosperity in this life, and then gently suggested that a cup of tea would be a nice reciprocation. But I had come to the river with empty pockets that I dramatized for his benefit and suggested that ours would have to remain a purely spiritual relationship. He laughed with understanding and ease, called his puppy over for me to play with, and then let me take their photograph. The thing is… it would have been one more con and one more cup of tea from our respective positions if I had had money in my pocket, but it was a blessing that stayed with each of us, and perhaps the puppy, too, especially because there was no money in the mix. I love him truly in my memory, and the puppy on the pink ribbon leash, too.

Rishikesh is lined with market stalls, selling fabrics and religious artifacts for the most part, and the hawking, while constant, is of a gentle quality. I walked into a jewelry shop and perused earrings unmolested before hearing a man’s voice say from a back room, “If you would like help, I am here, just let me know.” It was so refreshing to be allowed to browse entirely unmolested. I saw a silver spider with movable legs that I liked; it reminded me of the native American symbolism of the spider as creator of the world, weaver of realities. When the man from the back emerged in response to my question about the spider, he said that he would like to give me a gift and offered me a small smooth stone, which I accepted; I believed that it was not a ploy but sincerely offered.

He told me that the spider represents the consciousness out of which we spin our stories and into which we digest them, maker and destroyer of universes. As we conversed, I could see the genuine calm and deep clarity of his eyes. I trusted him and so relaxed into a memorable conversation of such simple and direct mutual pleasure. In some way we recognized one another—even articulating it at the same instant--and I was aware of the fact that the truth of which we spoke is the very same truth which I was so recently seeing as causal of undue suffering in the human lives of Indian people. We talked for a while about the way that the spirit is awake and aware and the secret of living is to stay close enough to it to remain in the happiness of the eternal present, even while participating in the ‘story’ of our lives with all its dimensions of pleasure and pain. His name is Punit, and it is a name that comes with me halfway around the world, wrapped with a smooth stone and a silver spider in a red silk bag.

So I made two spiritual friendships in India, both with men of Rishikesh, and these treasures I carry away with me in that timeless place to which India always refers. India, place of paradox, gems amidst the rubble.