*******
And there the text ends. Your forgetful mind races with questions. Was this something you wrote that reflects your actual life? Or is it some nonsense that another visitor to the hut left that reflects his journey of spirit and sacrilege? Reason indicates it is likely your composition yet none of its words, experiences, or ideas ring a bell.
A wave of frustration washes through you, anger at your forgetfulness and the helplessness that comes with it. You again feel trapped by the five hut walls, imprisoned by a memory whose core has drifted off to some other dimension leaving you in mindless exile. Enough of frittering away time in this confining room, you declare silently. You abruptly reach for the door, determined to find answers by penetrating the great unknown of the white buildings above the garden.
But wait, logic interjects. Pin the In Silence button to your chest and negate the need for identity, comprehension, or any normal form of social intercourse. In order to mask your amnesia, simply walk slowly, look contemplative, and give a papal gesture of dispensation to anyone encountered. Your fearful self agrees but chooses to reject the pope act. A safer option is to clasp hands behind the back and nod knowingly to camouflage your ignorance. So be it. You position the In Silence button on your shirt, square your shoulders, open the hut door, and depart for the mystery of forgotten terrain.
You walk slowly and deliberately up the path to the compound that is indeed a Hindu ashram. You are relieved to see no one else in the central courtyard as you search for anything of meaning or familiarity. You stare at the central statue of a stern deity shaded in blue. It rudely stares back. [Hey, you lookin’ at me?] Turning slowly 360 degrees, you note four signs posted in English: One designates an Office; the second indicates a spigot for Drinking Water; and the other signs are above doorways to the Meditation Hall and Dinning Room. [Doorways I can’t keep closed and spells that push me in. Not by the hair of my skinny chin-chin, but the skin of my teeth gnashing and dashing through the lies. What’s the next surprise, guys?]
The office feels like a good place to start, particularly as you stroll closer and spot information in English taped to the window. “Wellcome Foreign Visiters” lies genially if ineptly at the top of one page, followed by a typed list of rules (with number six added in pencil):
1. All visiters to Phool Chatti Ashram must check in with Guruji at the office.
2. No drugs or entoxicants allowed.
3. Do not pluck flowers.
4. Do not leave ashram grounds after dark, and no fratenizing after ten o’clock.
5. When outside the ashram, be prepared to shew your passport at any time upon police request.
6. No nude bathing in the Ganga!
So it is the mighty Ganges River that flows outside the hut, its blessed waters apparently having been desecrated by an enthusiastic nature buff. Squinting through the window for signs of the Guruji fellow mentioned in rule number one, you spy only an empty couch facing a vacant desk and chair. The ashram leader’s absence is irritating but you are also relieved not to confront a fellow human being who might detect your amnesia. You turn to the other posting that announces bus times: “Up bus to Neelkanth Village at 8:35 & 16:20. Down bus to Laxman Jhula Village and Rishikesh at 9:10 & 15:00. Catch the bus three hunderd metres down the driveway at the tea shop.”
More handy information, particularly if you wish to follow in the footsteps of the Beatles through Rishikesh. You feel agitated at being able to recall this useless trivia of the Fab Four’s past travels, without knowing a thing that really matters about yourself—like, for instance, the location of your passport so you can actually take a bus without fear of being stopped and arrested and God knows what else. [Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble beginning to strain at the lid. Hang on, Lucy in disguise with a passport to a velvety ‘V’ of red-haired ecstasy.] You feel blood rush to your face in frustration as you leave another nose print high on the office window while looking for evidence of a secure place in which your valuables might be stowed, knowing that no sane person would leave them in a weird, pentagonal garden hut without a lock.
But do you qualify in the category of sane persons? Are you going to find your identity or ever get out of this maddening predicament and place? Frustration builds along with a sense of helplessness as you stride towards the Dinning Hall sign, all pretense of contemplative calm cast to the wind. [A plot thickening, a pulse quickening, a volcano about to flow if I don’t go slow. Shirley can’t hold on against the mighty winds. Gale forces the temple door open. Heeeelp me, I’m meltinggggg!]
You stand at the dining hall entrance with fists clenched as if ready for a fight. For some reason, the misspelled dinning irritates you as does the fact that no tables or chairs are in the hall and it’s not even a hall but a crappy room with just a thin cloth to sit on with your back against the hard wall and they probably make you sit with legs crossed but won’t even give you a fork or spoon if you ask and your hands get all messy and you figure the local food will make you sick anyway and maybe last night’s dinner was so lousy that you got amnesia just to forget about it!
Geezus. You stop and rub your face in your hands. What the hell is happening, you wonder? Are you always this short fused or is it just the strain of the day? You take a deep breath and a moment to gather yourself. [Out with the bad air, in with the good. Duality plays its accordion tune, good and evil in every breath. Asp in my gasp and ants in the pants ruining a teddy bear’s picnic.] “Mealtimes at noon and 18:00,” you read on a sign posted by the door. “Guests are kindly asked to respect our polecy of silence at meals.”
Silence is fine, just fine, you think as you stride towards the drinking water sign, ready to find the next cause for irritation. A quick twist of the spigot, however, demonstrates that you can refill your water bottle, and you gladly accept this small victory. More good news greets you at the meditation hall that helps allay your agitation. Despite an odor of mildew, the unoccupied hall has a pleasant atmosphere and scattered cushions on which to meditate. You take advantage of this simple luxury as you assume a comfortable sitting posture to calm yourself.
Without thinking, you observe the breath as it passes through your nose, feeling the warmth of each exhalation against your upper lip. You relax with the rhythm of the breath, gradually becoming aware of sensations. Effortlessly, but with keen inner focus, you silently witness all the itches, tingles, knots, aches, throbs, and other sensations of your body; not responding to them but calmly observing. You neither remember that you have attempted this Vipassana meditation technique in silence for ten days at a stretch, nor that it ostensibly brought Buddha to his enlightenment. You just relax, reacting neither to pleasant sensations nor to pain, simply breathing and being, losing track of time as well as your anxiety over forgetfulness.
Reality intrudes sharply with the clanging of a bell. Like Pavlov’s dog, you know this sound means chow. A glance at your watch—a few minutes past noon—confirms that salivation is the appropriate response. You note with irony that you can easily remember Pavlov’s dog, Avogadro’s number, Murphy’s law, Planck’s constant, and the Oedipus complex, but recall neither your name nor mother. You remain calm, however, standing to give your legs a stretch in anticipation that they will soon refold in the dining hall. A hundred questions arise in your mind about what lies ahead, but no answers are found within—only the burning desire to keep your amnesia a secret from those whom you will momentarily face.
You readjust the In Silence lapel button, clasp hands firmly behind the back, inhale a final deep breath, and take slow, contemplative steps towards the dining facility. Upon arrival, you pause in the doorway and look around at the setting and fellow diners. A bearded smile from the elderly man sitting nearest the kitchen door greets you as he waves you to your place—you are the lone guest along the wall to his left where a solitary steel plate, cup, and spoon await your arrival. You sit. You sigh.
A young couple who apparently cooked the food emerges from the kitchen to serve
it. They go first to your bearded greeter who obviously wields local authority, probably the Guruji fellow mentioned in the rules by the office. Next served are two subordinate swamis on his immediate right including the thin man who delivered your morning chapati and tea. The couple then moves their serving pots to a line of six sadhus sitting against the wall opposite your position. From somewhere you know the Hindi word, sadhu, [seven points in Scrabble but hardly worth wasting the ‘s’] and it is clear that these men qualify as wandering renunciants. Their orange clothes and tousled hair carry remnants of the places they have walked, prayed, meditated, and taken charity to survive. The sadhus occasionally glance your way, but no one seems to pay you special notice.
When the couple arrives at your plate they heap it full of rice, a lentil concoction, chapati, and an unidentified green vegetable with potato chunks. The other men in the room make deft movements with their fingers to mix and consume their portions, while you raise the spoon to your mouth and are pleasantly surprised by all that happens. Much like the morning spent on the roof, lunch brings your forgetful self a symphony of first-time experiences. You chew slowly as if you had never before tasted food, taking note of the subtle flavors and aromas. The morsels taste and smell, even feel delicious in your mouth as the cooks circle again to refill plates. You continue chewing, absorbed in the experience as the pile of food slowly dwindles.
The elderly Guruji is the first to depart the dining hall. You are pleased to be among the men to whom he nods a subtle farewell. You note that he has left his plate on the floor but that the other diners carry their dirty dishes with them as they retire through the door. They all turn to the right upon egress but then what? Anxiety detracts from your pleasure in the remaining food. Can you fake it and figure out what you should already know about cleaning the dishes? You have likely done it many times; perhaps your body-knowledge will take over and carry you unconsciously through the right movements as it did during this morning’s exercise routine. Chew, swallow, finish, stand, walk out door, take a right, and then…nothing. You see nothing that looks like a sink, no dishes, no one carrying plates. And no automatic impulses arise from the subconscious. [Sorry, Charlie, I ain’t biting no bait from a dirty plate that might dredge up canned memories.]
A few sadhus watch you stroll by in false calm holding your soiled plate, cup, and spoon in hand. You casually nod in greeting as your shifty eyes surreptitiously probe the nooks and crannies of the compound. You pause and lean over in pretense of smelling some flowers, giving a sidelong glance down a path running by what looks to be a structure with overnight rooms. Just stay calm, the inner voice cautions. Now walk this path.
At trail’s end, you are grateful to discover a stack of plates drying by three sinks tucked behind the building. A quick wash of the dishes precedes your scurry back to the garden hut as fast as possible without drawing further attention. You close the hut door behind you, collapse on the bed, and notice with a twinge of shame that your body is trembling.
What a day and it is only half done. The desire to stay hidden from people is strong. You get up from the bed with a quick kick of your legs, turn to the shelf with cassette tapes, and select one entitled, Instrumental Sweetness. From the handwritten summary on the cover it looks to be a soothing compilation of your favorite instrumental pieces. It is. You are soothed. Strains of orchestra, harp, and piano weave their magic upon your virgin ears as one short-and-sweet piece follows another until the final composition.
Your forgotten tears have seeped before under the spell of this final canon in ‘D’, although never so profusely as today. The beauty of the moment and the loss of the past flow together like violin and bow. Your mind drifts with the strains of music, strains of heartstrings drawn taut against the weight of the ages. A sense of loss more ancient than the Ganga rumbles to the fore as the river adds her rhythm to your call to remembrance, to memories so deep, so old that they crack with the striking of notes against them, shattered like the mind that once held them dear. Your steady tears wash away the dust, the fragments of song and sorrow that have been handed from generation to generation, leaving you with no recall, no past, but only the moment of the now that must be, since nothing else remains. The now or never. A choice, an offering, a process has begun. The tape ends with a click.
You lie in silence trying to become conscious of the unspoken words beneath the melody. Perhaps a walk and a bath in the holy Ganga would cleanse the musty lanes leading to message and memory. You retrieve the daypack from under the bed and load it with a towel, a pair of briefs, and waterproof moccasins in case sharp rocks are part of the sacred experience. You have little hint of what lies outside the ashram gate but, unlike meeting people in your state of amnesia, you welcome the adventure of exploring the Ganga and its natural surroundings. The bright December afternoon is beautiful and just warm enough to brave the chilly waters.
You decide to head upriver away from buildings, away from the road, and far from people. A bridge of old planks atop boulders carries you over the small tributary as you follow a sandy trail running parallel to the Ganga’s rocky shore. You notice numerous footprints that match your over-sized shoe, a further indication that you have been at the ashram for some time. You let the tracks be your guide, feeling comforted by this subtle communion with your past. Your recent footprints continue upriver for several hundred yards then drop steeply to a secluded stretch of sand upon which rhythmic ripples of the Ganga are lapping. Perfect.
Water-water everywhere and perhaps plenty to drink if what you seem to know about the purity of the Ganga headwaters is true. So much information fills your brain about water and flow. You watch the whorls on the river’s surface, understanding that they reflect a three-dimensional dance of deep spirals and twisting currents that overcome gravity’s desire for linear motion. Nothing about a river and its flow is straight. A headlong dive into the interplay of forces brings you bobbing to the surface with a gasp as the chilly current carries you swiftly downstream towards the rapids. But your previous self knew what he was doing in choosing this spot for bathing, for a couple of quick strokes toward shore bring you into the reverse flow of a huge, slow eddy in which you effortlessly drift back upshore.
You fall onto the beach, for the moment calmly accepting your predicament of amnesia. This is where you belong, it seems, by a river in harmony with warming sand, a gentle breeze, and the nourishing sun. Water, earth, air, and fire. Nature’s elements welcome their son, a lump of clay brought to consciousness by sacred breath, honed through flames of purification and baptized in the water of life. Spirit, the fifth sacred element, wells up in your heart in gratitude for this blessing, this gift of life and breath and beauty and pain.
How long can a heart endure this journey of today’s extremes without bursting? You can only hope that you find your memory before confronting the answer to this question. After a half hour of basking in the elements, you take a second quick dip, rinse the sand from its hiding places in your briefs, and head back to the ashram as the sun descends toward the crest of the western foothills.
As you approach its five awkward walls, the familiar hut greets you like a kindly grandparent bent at strange angles from age, yet with a welcoming embrace and wisdom to share. The hut refuses, however, to yield the secret that you desire most to learn, even though it knows your identity down to the deepest dream. Perhaps that is the greatest kindness of all—to allow one to remain forgetful of himself? This thought brings on a spinal shiver as you hang your towel to dry in the garden. Is it possible you do not want to remember your past?
The old stone hut remains mum, like the grandparent whose mind is drifting away into another world and cannot be bothered by a persistent child. But persist you must in search of answers—that much you have come to know about yourself today, or at least about your conscious self. You acknowledge that what lies beneath the shallows of your mind is proving elusive to discover. But as you open the hut door your gaze immediately falls upon the source of
clues to the veiled psyche. More lessons of the spiral await, this time in notebook form of your dream journals.
A quick scan shows the top two notebooks to be filled with transcripts of your dreams dated September through November. The third journal is half full with December’s current dream entries, and the bottom notebook appears empty at first glance. It takes you a moment to get oriented in opening the dream journals since identical bare front and back covers make it impossible to know from the outside which is the notebook’s beginning and which is its end. You consider this an appropriate anomaly for a dream log since some researchers claim that dreams oft run backwards through time—a fact your brain retrieves from its voluminous, if sterile, data bank.
After transcribing the tape of your morning dream of I Love Lucy, you retrieve the earliest dream journal that begins with an introductory entry dated September 12. You feel disoriented reading your own words without a whit of recall of having written them:
DREAMTIME, SCHEME TIME on the roof of my world. Two rivers converging, beauty emerging amidst jungle flowers and tropical birds. Color and sound in reception, ready for conception to give birth to the total Mind.
Dreams are the key to the gestation period, hopefully not requiring a full term of nine months to deliver. Just stop, look, and listen in the night, then in daytime to write to begin the integration process, the reformation of Mind.
In order to listen to the subtle nocturnal messages from the dreamtime mind, I returned yesterday to beloved Phool Chatti Ashram as a refuge from the chaos of urban India and was rewarded last night with an explosion of numerous dreams; yet only two are remembered now. (I’ve got to get a cassette player for some nighttime dictation to improve recall of the dreams.) The first dream was filled with Native Peoples of many lands, all joining to help me go forward as I was having trouble driving my motor scooter up a dirt path. I arrived at an area of shops where a large, jolly woman jumped on the back of the scooter. The path turned rough so we headed down another lane into the shadows.
In the second dream I met a child of perfection, a small boy with features like a little Buddha sitting peacefully on a ship in which we voyaged. He was absolutely centered with brilliant kindness in his face, his body draped in intricate Tibetan clothing and decorations. As we parted, he tossed me one of five red beads in his delicate hand. I snatched the bead from the air with a smooth, lightning-fast motion. ‘Four plus one’ came to mind and I awoke.
Four plus one; four and one; for-eign one. What clues does this hold? To explore this question, just let my writing hand fly guided on the sly by the intuitive mind: Five beads to lead, a high five tossed into the salad to mix with the rest of the fixings. Fixings and faxings, messages from beyond given to the foreign one. One that doesn’t quite belong in the bowl but then what is the goal? To ride on a ship with this child who seems to have answers in a tiny hand with lines that show the way to the meeting of past and future, to that ultimate destination of the now, the present gift that keeps on giving if one stays aware in each moment.
Ah, there is the key: Awareness of the mind. Do four-plus-one pieces of my mind float in time and space, while a journey in dreamtime unfolds to reclaim and mold this scattered quartet back into the One?
“Indeed they do, lad,” replies the inner professor, taking over from the intuitive flying hand. He queries, “And what, pray tell, are the four scattered components of the mind, of your consciousness?”
Little Stevie, always eager to please and ready with an answer, waves his arm in the air. “186,000 miles per second,” he blurts with pride. Right answer, wrong question, kid. Next.
Okay, it seems like the four pieces of the mind might be, 1) the awake, daytime consciousness, the ‘me’ that I think of as myself; 2) the sleeping consciousness that is acting and feeling during dreamtime, thinking its dreams are real; 3) the subconscious mind which bubbles unbidden from the shadows; and 4) the observing awareness that watches over the shoulder as life unfolds.
“Good hypothesis for the four,” the inner professor concludes approvingly. “And number five, the ‘plus one’ piece of the mind?”
Maybe that peace of mind is the surprise punch line when I finally bridge the other four parts of consciousness.
Maybe so. Class dismissed.
The Nyxall Chronicles: The Now or Never Page 4