“The shop in the hotel is nicer, Dad,” said Annie. “Are you sure he’s all right?”
“He seems nice,” said Kate. “Let’s see what he has to say.”
The tailor looked up and smiled as they approached. His English was good, obviously, like other traders in the town, tourism demanded a degree of bi-lingual proficiency.
“Abu,” he introduced himself. “I am at your service.”
Abu was thin and wiry and Paul learned he was originally from Mumbai but spent most of his time here in Goa. Kate and Annie looked at material, clucking over colours and textures. They talked to Abu about a riding outfit, trousers and jacket for Annie, an outfit for Kate and, almost as an afterthought, a couple of shirts for Paul.
Abu’s wife, small, very young with slightly protruding teeth, served sweet tea made with sterilized milk. They smiled as they sipped politely then put the cups down. Abu gave Paul a sample book of shirt material then turned his attention on to the main customers.
As Paul flicked through samples, he noticed Abu looking at him strangely. When the women were occupied with patterns and samples, Abu sidled over to Paul.
He looked up at him. “Tall,” he giggled.
“Yes,” said Paul. “Sorry, I have to duck to go inside so I’ll just stay here and take a look at these.”
“Not just shirts,” smiled Abu.
Paul wasn’t sure what the little man meant.
“You search for something,” said Abu. “Not shirts, no, truth.”
Paul experienced a tingling feeling. It felt like deja-vu but it couldn’t have been. He looked at the smiling Abu trying to discern something behind the expression, something hidden. There was nothing.
“We all search for truth,” Paul told him.
“But you,” Abu wagged his finger at him. “Different.” Abu glanced back at Kate and Annie as if to make sure they would not interrupt.
“I had dream,” he whispered to Paul with an air of confidentiality. “You, in my dream, yes, for shirts.”
Paul did not know how to take this. For a brief moment it all came back to him. The period in his life he thought was just an aberration was clicking into forward mode.
“You had a dream, about me?” Paul was incredulous. Was this a new kind of sales patter? Was he just being a cynical Westerner?
“Yes,” Abu breathed excitedly. “Two times. I saw Swami in dream also.”
“Swami?”
“Yes, Swami around corner.” Abu pointed off in the direction of a little dirt track across from them that disappeared into a bamboo grove.
“Swami knows all,” Abu explained. “He works for tourists, tells fortune, but that is just…” Abu shrugged expressively. “You must see Swami.” Abu motioned Paul should stand straight and hold his arms out. He began to measure Paul for his shirts.
“Give you very special price,” he promised with an air of secrecy, as though a casual passer-by might overhear.
“Tell me about the Swami,” Paul asked him.
“Swami is very old. He does massage and he reads your hand and he makes you safe from danger. But, not for you. No, no, no. Swami speaks good English. He will tell you secrets. It was in dream,” Abu giggled and Paul could not decide if it was with the sheer absurdity of the notion or with genuine amazement.
Paul looked over to where Kate and Annie had finished making their selections and he could see Kate cranking up into negotiation mode.
Paul took a back seat while Kate and Abu haggled. He had picked out a couple of material samples and tossed them into the mix of fabrics and let them get on with it.
The sun sizzled on the baked concrete road. A couple of watermelon hawkers lounged nearby in the shade of an acacia tree, waiting for passing trade. A lizard scuttled by near Paul’s feet, searching for a crevice.
He looked at Kate and Annie, enjoying the haggling process.
“We’ll be a little while yet,” said Kate. “We have to go through each garment and measure up, that’s if we can agree a price. Why don’t you go for a beer and come back, or we’ll find you?”
“Sure,” Paul replied. “There’s a bar just down the street.” He strolled off, adjusting his sun hat and slipping on his sunglasses. He crossed the road and found the track Abu had pointed out to him. He stood looking down the dusty dirt road and it was a moment or two before he noticed the Swami’s location. It was a single- storey building constructed of bamboo, darkened till it resembled mahogany. There were a couple of ramshackle tables and chairs outside under tattered sunshades and a blackboard with something written on it. The roof was thatched with reeds and there were brightly colored scarves and flags adorning the exterior. Some kind of sign had been clumsily erected above the entrance that was obscured by curtain of swaying beads.
Paul noted that the bar was not far along the main road and decided to just investigate the Swami’s operation before heading for a shady spot and an ice-cold beer. He strolled up to the building and saw that the blackboard announced yoga and meditation lessons as well as herbal medicine and Indian massage. The place appeared to be empty. The beads clacked in the slight breeze. Inside it was dark. The only sign of life was a couple of incense sticks burning on the cheap, white plastic tables. There was also a strong scent of basil mixed with coconut oil.
Ridiculous, thought Paul. How can some Indian tailor I’ve never met before dream about me and about my being here. He decided to head for the bar. Just as he had turned away a thin voice piped from the interior.
“Yes sir. Wait for me, sir. One moment please.” Paul took a step back as a heavily decorated old man pushed the bead curtain to one side and stepped out into the sunlight. He was of indeterminate age but he had a gray stubbly hair and beard. He was naked apart from a loincloth and a display of painted symbols that covered his body and he jangled from an assortment of bangles, necklaces and little bells. His expression was wise but neutral. Paul thought, this is just for the tourists who want to see a genuine Indian holy man.
“Come, come inside,” the Swami beckoned Paul.
“No, not right now. I have to get back.”
“No, no, you are supposed to be here.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Oh yes. Understanding is something you have been given. I have much to tell you.”
Paul glanced back down the track. He could just make out Kate and Annie coming to a conclusion with Abu.
“Look,” said Paul. “If this is what I think it might be I will need time. Right now, I am with my wife and daughter.”
The Swami seemed to understand. He laughed to himself. “Wife and daughter. Yes. And son also you have. But he is far away.”
“Do you know Rory, my son?” Paul quizzed him. “Was he here? Did you meet him? How would you have known?”
“You make booking for tomorrow, this time,” the old man stated in a matter-of-fact way. “Not for tourist massage. No cost you. Not for knowledge of spirit. Your coming here was prophesied.” The Swami lapsed into incomprehensible dialect, probably Konkani, thought Paul.
“All right, I’ll be here tomorrow,” Paul told him, feeling a little foolish. But memories had begun to invade his mind. Prophecies and predictions had been made during, what he had now come to regard as, his weird lapse period. Could he afford not to listen?
The Swami came over to him. He was tiny but he seemed larger than his physical frame. In Paul’s eyes he appeared to grow until he was the same height as he was. He took Paul’s hand and pressed something small and smooth into his palm. Then he glanced at his Rolex and wagged his finger at Paul. “This time tomorrow you come.” He sounded serious.
“Yes, yes, I’ll be here,” Paul promised.
With a rattle and a jangle the old man turned and walked slowly back into his sanctum.
Paul walked back up the track, scuffing sand and earth with his sandals. He opened his
fist and inside found a perfectly formed crystal. It was black with pinpricks of silver.
CHAPTER THI
RTEEN
Full moon existence
Kate and Annie just wanted to chill out around the hotel pool next morning after breakfast. Paul suggested they take a cab to Anjuna after lunch and spend the afternoon there. He prowled around the pool and then said: “I’m not in the mood for lounging around. I think I might walk up to the lighthouse or just wander.”
“Okay, darling,” mumbled Kate as she settled herself on a lounger and sunshade. “Off you go then.”
Pleased at this reaction, Paul waved to Annie who was about to dive from the high board and headed back up the beach. When he reached the Swami’s shack he found a notice announcing that the place was closed until the afternoon.
Paul shuffled his feet uncertainly, sweating in the unmerciful sun and was about to turn on his heel when the Swami emerged, this time dressed in a cool saffron robe. He beckoned to Paul and went back inside.
Paul followed him and entered a small office-type section beyond which was a room decorated with images of Hindu deities, silk fabrics and with cushions all spread around a central area upon which was spread a prayer mat and a yoga exercise mat. Incense burned in each corner, candles flickered from alcoves and there was an elusive perfume present, a mixture of basil, coriander and something Paul could not place. It was a heady mixture. The Swami pointed to a pile of cushions and sat down opposite folding his feet under him.
“Welcome, welcome,” whispered the old man. Paul sat and made himself comfortable. He did not know what to say or how to broach the questions that were on his mind. He realized with a shock that his head was full of questions. He had thought he had put the angel experience and its prophecies behind him, pigeon-holed into a section labeled unexplainable experiences, but instead, he knew that this was not the case. Had he been chosen? Did this person known as Ru-Ah actually exist? Were the revelations about the destiny of mankind accurate? What did the transformation of the human race mean in practice? What insights and mystical experiences would this non-reading or writing sage impart to him? Was any of it real? The questions echoed on and on down into his subconscious.
Paul waited expectantly as the Swami settled himself and appeared to close his eyes. His lips moved silently and his fingers played with each other. Paul was reminded suddenly of Ebenezer Nuttley.
The silence continued to the point where Paul thought he had better say something. But, he found he had nothing to say. He could not think of one question to ask. It was as if his questions had been answered in some telepathic fashion. The non-verbal communication continued and Paul found himself in a meditative state. He had tried various forms of meditation including transcendental meditation and he found himself automatically falling into a state of quietude, stillness and receptivity.
“Happiness,” said the Swami suddenly with laughter at the edge of his voice. “That is what human beings seek. If we dream pleasant dreams we do not wake up but nightmares force us to wake. Nothing we do brings happiness and we are disappointed. Always there is disappointment, sometimes grief, often pain. Happiness is constant, unchanging. What is transient is pleasure – entirely different to happiness – and we assume if we have constant pleasure we shall be constantly happy.”
“Yes,” agreed Paul. “But what is happiness?”
“I will answer with a question,” replied the Swami. “What are you the most subject to?”
Paul remembered Romy’s little psychoanalytical technique. “In my case it’s fear and envy,” he told him. Paul had extreme difficulty in making this confession. He had never told anyone about it. He had kept these revelations to himself and had not been back to see Romy.
“Your envy is the result of desire which is a bottomless pit which you will never fill. Fear tells us to fear without end. As long as they are your masters you will never know happiness.”
“I know,” Paul admitted.
“Religions cannot provide the answer to the problems of mankind,” said the Swami. “Knowledge of science, astronomy, physics, history, philosophy and even what is called metaphysics have not led to an increase in human happiness. This knowledge and the mastery of nature are in the hands of the few. The majority suffers as a result. Science has reached a state where the very existence of the human race can be extinguished and, at the same time, discovered cures for diseases to ease mankind’s suffering. You will learn that in the new age about to dawn only knowledge that brings happiness will prosper.”
“You know about Ru-Ah?” said Paul.
“This is part of your progress,” explained the Swami. Paul watched the old man opposite and his figure appeared to fade and glow brightly alternately in the candlelight. He also became convinced that the Swami was not actually speaking to him in English but that his words were somehow being translated by some arcane method.
“The Light is here,” said the Swami. “You must remember this. There is only the Self, which is eternal. Only our ego tells us we have a life span. We have direct experience of the Self through our bodies. And we treat the mind as the Self. In the new age, mankind will learn to look inside for the true Self to be revealed. It does not reside in knowledge. It does not reside in books. It does not reside in self-delusion.”
“What then is my part in all this?” asked Paul.
“The right kind of philosophy, the philosophy of the new age will be an impartial criticism of all our present notions about three things: the world, the soul and God. Philosophies whose aims are to confirm these notions as inimical to success in the Quest are to be avoided.
“All the present ideas of man are suspect and most are based on ignorance. When this ignorance is swept away, evidence of the truth of the new philosophy will be found, not in the experience of men, which is flawed and based on ignorance, but in the evidence of sages who will start to appear on the Earth in the new age. Beware also of intellect. There is no intellect in dreamless sleep. There is none in a child. Intellect cannot transcend ignorance. Perfection is the egoless state which has its human parallel in dreamless sleep.”
Paul could hear the sub-textual messages in the Swami’s words. They echoed the angels’ revelations about energy and the endless present moment, of time and space and of the path that mankind must tread. This was a variant on the same theme.
The Swami laughed then. “There is only one unchanging reality, which in man’s ignorance, he regards as the world. Just as when a rope is mistaken for a snake, the snake obscures the rope, so the world obscures the Self. When we experience the truth we find that what now appears to us as the multitudinous world of names and forms in time and space is just the real Self, indivisible reality, nameless, formless, timeless, spaceless and changeless.”
Paul had realized during this audience or discourse that this event was an intrinsic part of the predictions made by the angel group. You will meet people, he had been told, that will help to prepare you. So he could expect to come into contact with many different people, some of whom would be aware of who he really was, or was supposed to be, and others who would not.
“What about the mind and the soul,” Paul prompted the Swami.
“The little self,” he responded, “is a mere chimera of the mind. The mind is like a knot that binds between consciousness and the inert body. The body does not say ‘I’. Just as the sun shines constantly and the Earth moves, so does reality shine and the ego rises and sets, shining during waking and dreaming and discontinuing during dreamless sleep.
“The little self, the ‘us’ we think of as ourselves, is a hypothetical being compounded of the light of consciousness and the body. These two utterly unlike things are confused together and the result is this incongruous being called the individual soul that says: ‘I am so and so.’ Because the light of consciousness is associated with it, it appears conscious; but at the same time it is indistinguishable from the body, which has no consciousness of its own. This is how the ego sense is manifested.”
“And what about God?” asked Paul, now content to just absorb as much information as he could. He rea
lized that he was being taught only a fraction of the wisdom the Swami represented. Whether he could retain any of it was another matter. A heavy atmosphere had descended within the little room. The Swami appeared as a vague figure in a gathering darkness, shifting his shape in the candlelight. Paul felt his head swimming with incense, perfume and knowledge.
“God,” said the Swami, “ is nothing more than the undifferentiated Self, pure consciousness, timeless in that there is only the eternal now. God is not related to the world of persons or things in any way and is not a he or a she or a person of any kind.”
Paul waited but the old man had lapsed into silence. He appeared to be dozing. Surreptitiously Paul glanced at his watch. He had been here for an hour but if felt like ten minutes. He shifted his weight on the cushions. This appeared to stir the Swami into action.
“You have many questions,” he laughed.
“So many and yet so few,” said Paul.
“Yes, that is as it should be.”
“I went through an experience where it seemed that angels had made contact with me. There appeared to be millions of beings existing outside human life in spirit form – what people have called heaven, nirvana, the spirit world. Was any of this true?”
“The truth is within you. The Self has many manifestations and does not rely on coarse matter, human beings I may say, as its only form of existence. So those who exist in a closer relationship with the Self in terms of their understanding can make up the worlds of angels and demons and individualities. But the Self is the real heaven. All spiritual beings and universes of the dead and departed are higher forms of the same illusion. On death of the body the ego searches for another. In that sense there is reincarnation. But the real truth is still the Self that is above and beyond all worlds, physical and spiritual.”
“What about the differences between religions,” Paul asked.
“The real aim of all religions is to awaken the knowledge of the Self, which is always there. But men do not wish to contemplate a simple truth. They need mystery and magic – heaven, hell, reincarnation and so on. Religions humour them. Why not seek the Self directly? Discords between different creeds cannot be got rid of by discussion. Creeds are mental; they exist in the mind alone. Truth is beyond the mind.”
An Angel on My Shoulder Page 19