My eyes guided by my mind
neither are the responsibility
of anyone else.
Human beings are hard to adjust to.
i would share myself
If they would listen.
Children.
This is all a lie.

"the subject should understand himself to pervade the whole universe, which is the object of his perception"

--Sri Ananta speaking in the Srimad Bagavata
How to kill the self
and attain true unity of humanity
Even self realized humans reside inside
cannot merge minds
I want to be universal
to perceive from your eyes
to both write and read these words
and not need these words
to see through them uinto the Real
live in the Signified
and lose this shell
so heavy to carry around
that stops people from seeing me.

How strange it is that anyone random
can read this play-by-play account of my mind
know my thoughts
and the people around me have no idea at all.
Blessed are the readers
who know me better
than the livers.

Time

I want to elaborate a bit on what I said about Indian time yesterday. Ironically, I feel like Western intellectual and cultural history works in more of a cyclical way than the Indian; in the West, we are constantly having revolutions and reactions. Each generation defines itself in opposition to the last one. Dissent comes in waves and break in revolutions. Institutions tend to be conservative, and then are destroyed or altered by liberal movements which seek to break down something about that revolution., In indian intellectual history, I feel that both sides of the coin are usually represented in the same general epoch, and both the conservative and reactionary viewpoints can be seen within the very institution itself. I'll give examples from the chunk of India I know best: ancient hindu mythology and scripture. In the Gita, Krishna explicitly says that Caste is part of the natural rythem of life, and that out of His body came four Castes. However, in the Srimad Bagavata, Narada says that Caste is just a part of our material existance, that it is like our bodies, and thus the enlightened man seeks to transcend caste values. Actually, that is sort of a secondary example; this pattern of dogma and rebellion within the instituion itself can best be seen in the figure of Siva, who is one of the three most important Hindu gods and is revered by all Hindus. You see him worshipped much more than you see the other two; I don't think I've ever really seen Brahma worshipped. Siva is the rebel. He blatantly defies the idea of ritual purity that lies at the base of the caste system. He covers himself with ashes of dead bodies, has dreadlocks and takes a lot of mind altering drugs. All of that is in the scripture (he is allowed to take mind altering drugs because he has injested and digested Divine Poison. So don't do it at home, kids). The holy men of India, the Saddhus, look like the rasta or the hippy of the west, because they follow Shiva's path of shedding material purity in favor of inner purity. They all have dreadlocks and huge beards and cover themselves in ash. they beg for their food, they sleep on the ground, and before they eat, they have to dunk their food seven times in the Ganga. One of the most famous moments in the mythology of Shiv is when he rode an ass through the streets. Donkeys are the most low class animal, and are usually used only by Dalits, or untouchables. Yet Shiv is worshipped by all upstanding hindus, because they recognize that rules exist to be defied, and a thing does not exist without it's opposite. That's not right at all; they recognize that both the thing itself and it's negative are part of the same cohesive whole, and that neither of them truly exist, they are just part of the Lord's illusion. I think that this is why hindu theology and mythology has proved so timeless; it is flexable and allows expression of dualities and exceptions, and does not really depend on materialistic moral imperatives like western religions do.

Plans, God, and Time

I have a few hours to kill now before my tabla lesson, so I thought I'd write more on the blog.
A check up on my trip, my plans for the rest of my time:
So we're leaving Banares this saturday to head to Daramshala in Himachel Pradesh. I think the timing is just perfect--if I had much more time here, it wouldn't be productive at all, but I don't feel like we are leaving too early either. I am excited for the natural beauty of Himachel Pradesh; I have only ever seen one mountain range in my life, and this one will be good too. I am going to be less busy with acedemics, and I might not get a new tabla teacher there, in favor of just practicing and making music on my own. I will be doing a homestay with a tibetan buddhist family, and I am really interested in that part of it; it'll be great to get to know those people. I hope they speak english, because I don't know tibetan and my hindi is "tuti-fruti" (broken). So I sort of see my two and a half weeks in Daramsala as my own private meditation retreit involving walking in the mountains and playing music and hopefully writing. Of course, I don't know how it will actually be, that's just what I want. It will be whatever it is.
After that homestay, the group will go on a ten day long meditation retreat. I have told my program leaders that I don't want to do it, so hopefully they will let me off on my own for that period of time. My preliminary desire (having still done no research) is to go to Gangotri, which is the head of the ganga river and one of the most beautiful and sacred spots in India.
After that, the group will go on a trek in the himalayas. I hope to rejoin the group, and check back in to the program. If they say that I need to just leave the program in order to be free of the mediation retreit, I will do so. But the trek is what they call a 'cultural trek' where we hike from mountain village to mountain village meeting people. I think I like that idea, but the colorado boy in me says "let's go climb mountains!"
After that, the group goes back to Delhi, and then home. I think I will go with them to delhi, and try to stash my drums in a locker or something in Delhi, but spend as little time there as possible. Then, I want to go to Jaipur in Rajastan for a few days, see some temples, pick up some miniature paintings, then go to Mumbai for as little time as possible, then go to Goa for a day or two, maybe more if I like it, to rest, chill on the beach, and make fun of American people to myself. Then I want to go to Tamil Nadu where there are many huge famous temples and things that I want to see. Then I want to go to Kerela, spend a day or two in Cochin (which has a really interesting and ancient Jewish quarter), and spend a few days boating around the backwaters of Kerela. Then back through mumbai to agra (I guess I have to go to agra.) and then back to delhi and then back home.
So that's that. Timewise, I'm a bit less than halfway though my trip, but travelwise, I haven't even begun. As I begin to travel more, the blog entries will certainly drop off. sorry.

About Sarah's and my dialogue; I think that what I am trying to say is that we should call whatever is there, whatever is in front of our noses, devine. Both in the everyday sense--life is divine--and in the structure-of-matter way. It's not a matter of a 'hidden variable' it is just that whatever is there is there and that simple fact is absolutely amazing and awe inspiring. That fact alone allows us to be athiests because we don't have to beleive in anything that is not whatever it is, while understanding that there may well be things we cannot comprehend or understand. It would be arrogant of us to think that we can know everything. But what we can know is so beautiful and complex, it can be seen as a conciousness, and our own human conciousness is only a part of it. It's just wordgames that I am playing, choosing to define things as divine which my sister would define in much more precise terms. It's all just linguistic constructions.

Oh, I wanted to post a blog entry about the Indian idea of time. So if you've read all I've written so far, good work, and there's more. Indians beleive in a cyclical vision of time. Westerners tend to beleive in linear time, which is usually tied with an idea of progress, moving forward and building better things out of the past. For example, the idea of evolution has become fundamental to many liberal-minded westerners. Indians beleive the opposite--that the best, most pure time was the first age of humanity, a sort of golden age of wisdom and innosence. If you look at Indian ancient history, you may be convinced that they are right. The vedas, the oldest books of humanity, the first written words, are increadibly sophisticated and wise; the first written words of humanity weren't about how to farm or make fire, but about the nature and power of conciousness. The books I have been reading, which come much later but still way, way predate Homer, astound me in their sophistication, even their similarity to many very recent poststructuralist thinking. So the first humans may have been the smartest, most righteous. According to the Indian worldview , the four evils were not introduced until later on, when the population began to test the bounds of the available resources and people slowly became greedy and selfish. In every age since, we have been getting progressively worse. The current age, Kali Yug, is the last age, the shortest age, and the most immoral age. They beleive that we are in the process of driving ourselves to distruction so that creation can begin anew. Kali Yug began at the death of Krishna, which I roughly roughly estimate to be a really long time ago. Someone look it up and let me know.

This shift in worldview is really a fundamental difference. First of all, it makes Indians sort of dissociate from their lives a little bit--makes them think that the world actually is going down the shitter and there's nothing you can do about it, so they sort of hold themselves aloof. It affects their political views--as India has just gotten permission from the United States to have a nuclear arsenal, people just take it nonchalantly as another step towards the inevitable. It also makes them really proud of their ancestors, and the old stories are held in such high regard because they are proof that these people are descended from the first people, the greatist sages.

The word for yesterday is the same as the word for tomorrow. Kal. And when Indians use the word in a sentance, they actually don't bother to specify which one they are talking about. This is annoying, but interesting. They completely disregard the idea of a schedule, and are usually late. My teachers expect me to be on time, but then hold me much later than the time I was supposed to leave, thus making me late for my next lesson, saying something like "time is an illusion" or "indians don't care, your teacher won't mind."

Anyways, that's what I have to say today. Please leave a comment or shoot me an email or something if you want to.
peace

Mosquito Hunting:
In the small dark hours
After the power has died
Headlamp strapped on tight
Ripping small lives out of existance
The battle for a peaceful night's sleep
Their bites make me bloodthirsty
(Thirsty for my own blood stolen from me)
And so I rampage
The boundaries of my hole-infested mosquito net
becomes a battle cage
Clapping hands swipe
and the litle bastard escapes
again and again
and again, and now my hands
are schmeared with human blood
and I can regain
Blissful unconciousness.

That happens about three times a night.

Want to address the last post, and Sarah's great comment about it, which I appriciated a lot. What I said was not actually what I beleive; I think I am too quick to say that I beleive something. It's a theory--I'm looking for a way to incorporate spirituality into my worldview. What Sarah said actually convinced me a little more of the idea instead of less--It's not really a human conciousness at the base of matter, it would be more of a divine, eternal conciousness. In that context, it makes sense that no matter how hard we try, we can never actually see it or understand it. All religions consider God as unknowable by the human mind, even though it is within us. All we can do are see its effects. But by looking closely and scientifically at it's effects, we may understand a little more. At this point, the difference between my worldview and Sarah's is simply a matter of vocabulary--she is more highly and scientifically educated in the matter, so she can describe what she is seeing in her experiments with her vocabulary, and I can describe it as conciousness. One thing is sure--at that minute level of matter, it does not work according to Newton's hard-and-fast rules of objects, it works in a much more variable, unpredictable way, much like the way our minds work. Who knows.

By the way, I highly reccomend this book, the Srimad Bagavata. It's got a lot of philosophy along the same lines as the Bhagavat-Gita, but it's much more extensively explained, and less cryptic, and is also the repository of some of the best mythological stories in hinduism. This quote is from the Bagavata, when Bhrata says:

"Again, this earth is constituted of tiny particles of atoms, which are nothing but the beginningless creative energy (Maya) of the Lord, which makes all things to which we give names: gross and subtle elements, qualities, attributes, time, destiny, predispositions, nature, etc. All these things are produced by His power of Illusion. Conciousness alone is real, perfect, changeless, know as Vasudeva or Bhagavan."

Pretty sophisticated for a book written much much before the Odyssey or the Illaid was written, yes? Take it as whatever it is. I'm running out of internet time.
much love
jed

By the way, my email address is jed.bickman@gmail.com Feel free to email me any thoughts or ideas or questions instead of posting a comment on the board if you want.

My mind has been really active in persuit of philosophy and mythology recently, but I have not done a good job writing it all down, so I have not been putting it on the blog. Instead, I have been appeasing the blog gods with inane shit about pomegranites. But the task is so overwhelming. The only way to do it is to write a bit now, think about it, and write more and more entries. I was hoping to be able to write one big one that was just my personal dogma and get it out of the way so I could talk about india and things that people want to hear about. But this is what I am doing in India--just thinking a lot.

My Western education has done a very good job of teaching me to think critically about everything, and in some respects this is getting in my way. Also, my relationship to religion throughout my life has made it impossible for me to be anything but athiest. These two facts mean that I almost never just take the wisdom of my Guru and beleive it and love it--instead, I mangle it in my own head. I have none of the true faith or devotion that people here value so highly. I am, and probably will always be an athiest.

But I have been awakened to a spiritual feeling which was always lurking inside me, and I have been trying to form a view of reality that allows it. So, I beleive that everyone has a spark of the devine in them, an atman which is an infinite part of an infinite whole, as I wrote in an earlier entry. This spirit is not unique to humans or even to living beings, it is inherant and probably the foundation of matter. My sister can probably correct me on this point, but my impression is that physicists are still mystified about the fundamental nature of matter, they can continue dividing it into smaller parts, but have not reached the answer yet. The answer that I propose is that conciousness--awareness--is the fundamental foundation of matter. This sounds like god but it is not--clearly, it is not the type of god who could enforce any type of morality, and although it is unseen, it is also seen in every moment of every body's life. Also, I beleive that it is possible for physicists to discover this, to express it in their own scientific language, whether it be string theory or whatever better vocabulary my sister comes up with. This would be impossible in the traditional view of what God is.

So the larger god, the Brahm, is only what is the conglomeration of all the Atman in the universe--it is nothing outside of what simply is. But humans are in a unique position in all the world because we are self aware and have the capacity to engage with our own atman, to worship and be moved by it, and to allow it to guide us to our own dharma. Most people choose not to be, but through introspection, renunciation, and doing selfless noble deeds, we can become enlightened.

Although matter decays, this sould which is at the foundation of matter does not have to decay--it will always exist in some form, until it doesn't anymore (which could happen but is beyond the sphere of my knowing). In that way, I do beleive in transmigration as a possibility, but it is also possibility that the atman of our bodies simply goes on to be the atman of the earth or the ganga or wherever our bodies are deposited when we die.

My thoughts are in constant flux, and I will probably not stick to this. Look for more entries later on. Now, I have to go bang on drums.
peace
jed

Pomegranites are delicious!

Pomegranites are delicious! i eat like five a day (small ones) or two big ones, and because they are so intricatly designed, that takes up much of my free time and I love it. Mango season is soon!

I went for an Indian shave by the ghat today, where you squat on a rock and a guy with a straight razor shaves yer face for ten ruppees. It felt very good and I was happy and now I'm shaved. I also got new pants which I am really excited about. And I did my laundry. So pretty much, I'm clean and well dressed. Life is good.

Later
peace
jed

My privilige

I am a member of the most priviliged group of humans on the planet. This is what I wrote about it in my notebook:

I am blessed. The amount of good fortuen and priviledge in my life is astounding.. To be able to travel here to this holy place is a privilege unimaginable to the masses who must spend their entire lives toiling in only one place, usually within kilometers of their birthplace. The people here dream of America--a trip to america for them would amount to many times their life savings. And I begin to understand why they dream of america. There is good reason for me to hate my country, particularly it's government, but my streets and water are immaculatly clean, I will be free to choose my own wife, my life's work will be done out of devotion, love and interest and not to make money to survive. I am blessed to be in a position where I can understand the unimportance of material objects--that I brought nothing with me into this world, and will take nothing with me when I leave. If I was daily struggling to survive, this attitude would be ludicrous, impossible.

A good Hindu would say that all this privilige that came from the circumstances of my birth and my parents came from the good Karma of a past life. However, this concept doesn't sit right with me, because it seems to release me from the responsibilities that I beleive come with privilige--if I actually earned the life I am living, then I am entitled just to enjoy it, and not feel duty bound to use my privilige to help other humans. But if I just am lucky, then I do beleive I have a duty to act morally. It's why Sartre provides the most firm basis for morality and responsiblility--if we are just flung into this life without rhyme or reason, then we have a responsibility to ourselves to live it.

I have been finding myself objecting more and more to the idea of Karma in general. Not because I don't beleive in reincarnation, because (and this came as a surprise to me) there's room in my worldview for reincarnation. But Karma is double edged--it does give us the responsiblility to act morally, but it also entitles us to take injustice as it is and leave it be. The caste system is built on Karma--if you are born in a low caste, it is because you had bad karma, and the only way to be released from that caste is to die and be reborn. Also, Karma depends on the type of authoritative external god which I will never beleive in--it depends on a God that much resembles the Christian or Jewish god that sits around and tallies up your good and bad actions. I will never beleive in absolute morality, I will only beleive in the spirit of things as they are.

I have posted already about hinduism. Expect some post soon about what my spiritual conciousness has lead me personally to beleive--I want to write it up and share it soon. But not now. I have to go bang on drums.

love
jed

another post

So I can't type much because my finger hurts from playing tabla. so it goes.

One thing that gave me pause this week: one of the boys on our group got sent home back to America. He didn't really break the rules, as such, he just didn't really want to integrate with the group. the program leaders made him sign a contract that said that he would try to integrate with the group or go home, and he felt like they were asking him to submit to their absolute authority (which they were) or go home. So he went home. This makes me stop and consider my place in this group and my reason for being in this group. Like him, it is unavoidable to consider that I am part of this group because I wanted to go to India and it was impractical for me to do it just alone--I don't have the travel experience or the common sense or the language or anything. But that makes it difficult to find value in the group as it is, for itself. I have not really had difficulty integrating into the group, but neither have I found intense close friendships. I think I am in a very different mental and emotional place from many people in the group--many of them are just finishing high school, and most of them haven't found acedemics to be a valuable focus of their lives, haven't been really turned on by learning. This is not a euphimism to mean that they are stupid or uneducated, they are pleanty smart, they just have a different life focus. But I have also not really given them a chance--my solution has been to make myself very busy with acedemics and music, and spend my free time immersing myself in India. So I will try to spend more time with them and connect with them on deeper levels. I am highly looking forward to my three weeks of independant travel in India after the program, however. I am also looking forward in the more short term to leaving Banaras and heading for the hills--I want mountains in my life, and it's getting hot and dirty here.
I left my notebook in my bag at program house, I had written a much more positive blog entry for today, so look forward to it tomorrow or later on.
Peace
jed

Holi

Yesterday was Holi, the Hindu new year. I heard that it's the root of the word holiday, but maybe not. It's a pretty insane holiday, in the morning, all the indians through colored water on each other. If you go out side, they will also gladly throw cowshit and drainwater at you. It can get pretty violent, too--there was a fight in the street outside my house and one guy ended up in the hospital. I stayed home from last night all day, and I "played holi" (IE through colors on eachother) with my homestay family--one of the brothers who lives in Delhi came in to play holi with us. THe thing is, these colors don't wash of your skin--I spent all afternoon scrubbing, and I'm still highly colored. It's a good holiday, but it was randomly raining and cold yesterday, which is really strange for India around Holitime, so it made the waterfight aspect less enjoyable. In the evening, everyone calms down and everyone dresses up in new clothes ( I got a new Corta for the occasion) and goes to visit their friends and family. I visited both of my gurus, mythology and tabla, and ate too many sweets. Everyone loving and friendly on Holi in the evening and devilish in the morning. I'm glad I was here on Holi, but it wasn't that exciting because I had to stay at home all day. Glad it's over.

more later. not too much to tell.
best
jed

Few things

Just a few random things

Tomorrow begins the festival of Holi, the hindu new year, which is insane and crazy, so much so that I'm not even supposed to leave the house for the next two days. I don't want to miss out on the fun, but my program leaders and host family insist that it is too dangerous. Whatever. Hopefully I'll have a fun experience despite being under house arrest.

I want to change what I said in each of the last two blog entries a little bit. SOmething my dad said in response to yesterday's entry that I really appriciated. Skip if you're not interested in these spiritual philosophical issues:

"I want to respond first to your blog on Shiva and how Hindu
mythology relates to its cosmology--you can put any of my response on your blog if you wish as a "comment." First, you explain this stuff very clearly, especially given its complexitity and its distance from western ways of thought. I did have one question about Hindus who pray for immortality--isn't the idea to get off the wheel of rebirth and become part of Brahman without even having an Atman--or is that too much a Buddhist spin on the thing? I really like what you said about finding salvation in the immediate, everyday--you sound very much like Walt Whitman here, or D. H. Lawrence trying to explain Walt Whitman.

The western psychologist who helps the most in explaining mythologies is Carl Jung, although he was not that helpful in actually helping people, including himself. He posits that the psyche at the beginning is in a state of undifferentiated, unconsious unity, out of which all the opposites the conscious mind later creates as the ego grows--male/female, light/darkness, inner/outer, good/evil--split themselves off. We ourselves split ourselves off from the entire psychic whole by constructing an "ego"--a male or female identity that leaves behind in the unconscious its opposite--or "contrasexual"--aspects, and a "shadow" that contains its negative [or unacknowledged] aspects. The task of the second half of life--or in deep spiritual experiences in the first part of life--is to reunity with this psychological ground of our being, to recognize as our own and understand those previously unconscious parts of ourselves--it's like that moment in The Tempest, when Prospero says of Caliban--"This thing of darkness I acknowledge mine." So there's a basic unity-division-reintegration pattern, that in some ways is cyclical in smaller movements in our lives as well. It's present in the Hero Myth, when the hero leaves home, encounters figures like his shadow self, the anima [the princess to be rescued and married] the wise old man [like Tiresias he/she is often hermaphroditic] suggest the original unity of the psyche. I realize this is to psychologize and introject myths and cosmologies--like the alternate kalpa cycles of unmanifest-manifest, unmanifest, etc., or the garden of eden, expulsion and dispersion, and then the heavenly paradise. But that's also what you're doing when you identify your inner rage with Shiva. Can you say more about what you're discovering about yourself and how you might be dealing with it? "

That was good and I'll type a full response maybe tomorrow, or maybe after Holi. But one ammendment I wanted to make now:after thinking about it muchly, I've decided that I beleive something different than hindus: I beleive we all have an Atman, and the aggrigate of all those individual spirits constitutes the big Brahm, but there's no external god outside of life. This is how I can remain an athiest while awknoleging our spiritual nature. I see no need to actually beleive in an external Brahm. This is also one of the main ways I differ with Buddhist mythology. Buddhists beleive that there is only the brahm and the atman (self) is illusion. Although I can see myself beleiving that the self is an illusion, there is no brahm outside of it. At this point, it really becomes only a scemantic difference, but it comes up in almost every conversation about it.

Then, about music: there's no way that indian music could replace jazz in my life because it's a little too structured, they are too loyal to the tin/tal beat, and don't change the beat to the extent that jazz drummers do--they improvise, but they never actually turn the song into a different song, never turn the music on its head. I'm going to bring back CD's, but if you are impatient and want to spend too much money, I think there's a cd available online called something like "Sitar Masters of Banaras" that has my guru--Ramuji on tabla, and Swamiji on sitar. I'll bring back music, though.

More later.
best
jed

Few things

Just a few random things

Tomorrow begins the festival of Holi, the hindu new year, which is insane and crazy, so much so that I'm not even supposed to leave the house for the next two days. I don't want to miss out on the fun, but my program leaders and host family insist that it is too dangerous. Whatever. Hopefully I'll have a fun experience despite being under house arrest.

I want to change what I said in each of the last two blog entries a little bit. SOmething my dad said in response to yesterday's entry that I really appriciated. Skip if you're not interested in these spiritual philosophical issues:

"I want to respond first to your blog on Shiva and how Hindu
mythology relates to its cosmology--you can put any of my response on your blog if you wish as a "comment." First, you explain this stuff very clearly, especially given its complexitity and its distance from western ways of thought. I did have one question about Hindus who pray for immortality--isn't the idea to get off the wheel of rebirth and become part of Brahman without even having an Atman--or is that too much a Buddhist spin on the thing? I really like what you said about finding salvation in the immediate, everyday--you sound very much like Walt Whitman here, or D. H. Lawrence trying to explain Walt Whitman.

The western psychologist who helps the most in explaining mythologies is Carl Jung, although he was not that helpful in actually helping people, including himself. He posits that the psyche at the beginning is in a state of undifferentiated, unconsious unity, out of which all the opposites the conscious mind later creates as the ego grows--male/female, light/darkness, inner/outer, good/evil--split themselves off. We ourselves split ourselves off from the entire psychic whole by constructing an "ego"--a male or female identity that leaves behind in the unconscious its opposite--or "contrasexual"--aspects, and a "shadow" that contains its negative [or unacknowledged] aspects. The task of the second half of life--or in deep spiritual experiences in the first part of life--is to reunity with this psychological ground of our being, to recognize as our own and understand those previously unconscious parts of ourselves--it's like that moment in The Tempest, when Prospero says of Caliban--"This thing of darkness I acknowledge mine." So there's a basic unity-division-reintegration pattern, that in some ways is cyclical in smaller movements in our lives as well. It's present in the Hero Myth, when the hero leaves home, encounters figures like his shadow self, the anima [the princess to be rescued and married] the wise old man [like Tiresias he/she is often hermaphroditic] suggest the original unity of the psyche. I realize this is to psychologize and introject myths and cosmologies--like the alternate kalpa cycles of unmanifest-manifest, unmanifest, etc., or the garden of eden, expulsion and dispersion, and then the heavenly paradise. But that's also what you're doing when you identify your inner rage with Shiva. Can you say more about what you're discovering about yourself and how you might be dealing with it? "

That was good and I'll type a full response maybe tomorrow, or maybe after Holi. But one ammendment I wanted to make now:after thinking about it muchly, I've decided that I beleive something different than hindus: I beleive we all have an Atman, and the aggrigate of all those individual spirits constitutes the big Brahm, but there's no external god outside of life. This is how I can remain an athiest while awknoleging our spiritual nature. I see no need to actually beleive in an external Brahm. This is also one of the main ways I differ with Buddhist mythology. Buddhists beleive that there is only the brahm and the atman (self) is illusion. Although I can see myself beleiving that the self is an illusion, there is no brahm outside of it. At this point, it really becomes only a scemantic difference, but it comes up in almost every conversation about it.

Then, about music: there's no way that indian music could replace jazz in my life because it's a little too structured, they are too loyal to the tin/tal beat, and don't change the beat to the extent that jazz drummers do--they improvise, but they never actually turn the song into a different song, never turn the music on its head. I'm going to bring back CD's, but if you are impatient and want to spend too much money, I think there's a cd available online called something like "Sitar Masters of Banaras" that has my guru--Ramuji on tabla, and Swamiji on sitar. I'll bring back music, though.

More later.
best
jed

Few things

Just a few random things

Tomorrow begins the festival of Holi, the hindu new year, which is insane and crazy, so much so that I'm not even supposed to leave the house for the next two days. I don't want to miss out on the fun, but my program leaders and host family insist that it is too dangerous. Whatever. Hopefully I'll have a fun experience despite being under house arrest.

I want to change what I said in each of the last two blog entries a little bit. SOmething my dad said in response to yesterday's entry that I really appriciated. Skip if you're not interested in these spiritual philosophical issues:

"I want to respond first to your blog on Shiva and how Hindu
mythology relates to its cosmology--you can put any of my response on your blog if you wish as a "comment." First, you explain this stuff very clearly, especially given its complexitity and its distance from western ways of thought. I did have one question about Hindus who pray for immortality--isn't the idea to get off the wheel of rebirth and become part of Brahman without even having an Atman--or is that too much a Buddhist spin on the thing? I really like what you said about finding salvation in the immediate, everyday--you sound very much like Walt Whitman here, or D. H. Lawrence trying to explain Walt Whitman.

The western psychologist who helps the most in explaining mythologies is Carl Jung, although he was not that helpful in actually helping people, including himself. He posits that the psyche at the beginning is in a state of undifferentiated, unconsious unity, out of which all the opposites the conscious mind later creates as the ego grows--male/female, light/darkness, inner/outer, good/evil--split themselves off. We ourselves split ourselves off from the entire psychic whole by constructing an "ego"--a male or female identity that leaves behind in the unconscious its opposite--or "contrasexual"--aspects, and a "shadow" that contains its negative [or unacknowledged] aspects. The task of the second half of life--or in deep spiritual experiences in the first part of life--is to reunity with this psychological ground of our being, to recognize as our own and understand those previously unconscious parts of ourselves--it's like that moment in The Tempest, when Prospero says of Caliban--"This thing of darkness I acknowledge mine." So there's a basic unity-division-reintegration pattern, that in some ways is cyclical in smaller movements in our lives as well. It's present in the Hero Myth, when the hero leaves home, encounters figures like his shadow self, the anima [the princess to be rescued and married] the wise old man [like Tiresias he/she is often hermaphroditic] suggest the original unity of the psyche. I realize this is to psychologize and introject myths and cosmologies--like the alternate kalpa cycles of unmanifest-manifest, unmanifest, etc., or the garden of eden, expulsion and dispersion, and then the heavenly paradise. But that's also what you're doing when you identify your inner rage with Shiva. Can you say more about what you're discovering about yourself and how you might be dealing with it? "

That was good and I'll type a full response maybe tomorrow, or maybe after Holi. But one ammendment I wanted to make now:after thinking about it muchly, I've decided that I beleive something different than hindus: I beleive we all have an Atman, and the aggrigate of all those individual spirits constitutes the big Brahm, but there's no external god outside of life. This is how I can remain an athiest while awknoleging our spiritual nature. I see no need to actually beleive in an external Brahm. This is also one of the main ways I differ with Buddhist mythology. Buddhists beleive that there is only the brahm and the atman (self) is illusion. Although I can see myself beleiving that the self is an illusion, there is no brahm outside of it. At this point, it really becomes only a scemantic difference, but it comes up in almost every conversation about it.

Then, about music: there's no way that indian music could replace jazz in my life because it's a little too structured, they are too loyal to the tin/tal beat, and don't change the beat to the extent that jazz drummers do--they improvise, but they never actually turn the song into a different song, never turn the music on its head. I'm going to bring back CD's, but if you are impatient and want to spend too much money, I think there's a cd available online called something like "Sitar Masters of Banaras" that has my guru--Ramuji on tabla, and Swamiji on sitar. I'll bring back music, though.

More later.
best
jed

Few things

Just a few random things

Tomorrow begins the festival of Holi, the hindu new year, which is insane and crazy, so much so that I'm not even supposed to leave the house for the next two days. I don't want to miss out on the fun, but my program leaders and host family insist that it is too dangerous. Whatever. Hopefully I'll have a fun experience despite being under house arrest.

I want to change what I said in each of the last two blog entries a little bit. SOmething my dad said in response to yesterday's entry that I really appriciated. Skip if you're not interested in these spiritual philosophical issues:

"I want to respond first to your blog on Shiva and how Hindu
mythology relates to its cosmology--you can put any of my response on your blog if you wish as a "comment." First, you explain this stuff very clearly, especially given its complexitity and its distance from western ways of thought. I did have one question about Hindus who pray for immortality--isn't the idea to get off the wheel of rebirth and become part of Brahman without even having an Atman--or is that too much a Buddhist spin on the thing? I really like what you said about finding salvation in the immediate, everyday--you sound very much like Walt Whitman here, or D. H. Lawrence trying to explain Walt Whitman.

The western psychologist who helps the most in explaining mythologies is Carl Jung, although he was not that helpful in actually helping people, including himself. He posits that the psyche at the beginning is in a state of undifferentiated, unconsious unity, out of which all the opposites the conscious mind later creates as the ego grows--male/female, light/darkness, inner/outer, good/evil--split themselves off. We ourselves split ourselves off from the entire psychic whole by constructing an "ego"--a male or female identity that leaves behind in the unconscious its opposite--or "contrasexual"--aspects, and a "shadow" that contains its negative [or unacknowledged] aspects. The task of the second half of life--or in deep spiritual experiences in the first part of life--is to reunity with this psychological ground of our being, to recognize as our own and understand those previously unconscious parts of ourselves--it's like that moment in The Tempest, when Prospero says of Caliban--"This thing of darkness I acknowledge mine." So there's a basic unity-division-reintegration pattern, that in some ways is cyclical in smaller movements in our lives as well. It's present in the Hero Myth, when the hero leaves home, encounters figures like his shadow self, the anima [the princess to be rescued and married] the wise old man [like Tiresias he/she is often hermaphroditic] suggest the original unity of the psyche. I realize this is to psychologize and introject myths and cosmologies--like the alternate kalpa cycles of unmanifest-manifest, unmanifest, etc., or the garden of eden, expulsion and dispersion, and then the heavenly paradise. But that's also what you're doing when you identify your inner rage with Shiva. Can you say more about what you're discovering about yourself and how you might be dealing with it? "

That was good and I'll type a full response maybe tomorrow, or maybe after Holi. But one ammendment I wanted to make now:after thinking about it muchly, I've decided that I beleive something different than hindus: I beleive we all have an Atman, and the aggrigate of all those individual spirits constitutes the big Brahm, but there's no external god outside of life. This is how I can remain an athiest while awknoleging our spiritual nature. I see no need to actually beleive in an external Brahm. This is also one of the main ways I differ with Buddhist mythology. Buddhists beleive that there is only the brahm and the atman (self) is illusion. Although I can see myself beleiving that the self is an illusion, there is no brahm outside of it. At this point, it really becomes only a scemantic difference, but it comes up in almost every conversation about it.

Then, about music: there's no way that indian music could replace jazz in my life because it's a little too structured, they are too loyal to the tin/tal beat, and don't change the beat to the extent that jazz drummers do--they improvise, but they never actually turn the song into a different song, never turn the music on its head. I'm going to bring back CD's, but if you are impatient and want to spend too much money, I think there's a cd available online called something like "Sitar Masters of Banaras" that has my guru--Ramuji on tabla, and Swamiji on sitar. I'll bring back music, though.

More later.
best
jed

Shiva

Shiva (Rudra, Shakti) is the third god of the Hindu trinity: Brahma is the creator, the grandfather, Vishnu is the presever, and Shiva occupies the place of the destroyer, and thus completes the cycle of existance. This city is devoted to Shiva, and Shiv is quickly becoming the hindu god that has the most meaning to me.

Remember that for Hindus, all gods represent aspects of the singular divine concept, the Brahm, which is indescribable and infinate. The Atman is the peice of the brahm that is inside all of us. The Atman is not smaller than the Brahm, because they are both infinite. The Vedas say:
Om Parnamadah Purnamidam
Purnat Purnamudacchyatee
Purnasaya Purnamadaya
Purnameva Vashityate
Om Shanti, Shanti, Shantini
--From Isopanishad
"That" (Purnamadah) is Infinite and Complete (the Microcosm, the Big God, the Brahm.)
"This" (Purmamidam) is also Infinite and Complete (Ourselves, humans, the Atman)
From Infinity comes Infinity. If you Subtract Infinity from Infinity, it is still Infinite. OM peace peace peace.
So, although our Atman is a peice of the larger divinity, it is infinite and complete. That means that all the 3500 gods of the Hindu pantheon, which each represent a different aspect of the Divine presence, are inside each of us. Thus, it is up to each of us to decide which god or gods to focus on in ourselves, to find within ourselves and meditate upon.

I respond to shiva because I have been confronting an aspect of myself which only a short time ago seemed like an alien being, a parasite inhabiting my personality: that randomly I am consumed with intense rage which clouds my sight and my ability to operate in the world. In my life I have valued peace and nonviolence as central tenants of my worldview, so I trained myself to suppress this violence because it did not fit in with my view of myself.

When I meditate upon this presence inside me, I realize how linked it is with my view of my own masculinity, and that in relation to sexuality in general. It is tied in with aloneness and solitude, manhood and violence. It is a disturbing reality that the masculine sex drive is inherantly tied to some innate sense of violence and power, that the two drives are inherantly linked.

These are aspects of Shiva. He is often depicted as half man and half woman because he literally is his wife, Parvati (Shakti was his first wife, she was reincarnated as Parvati). In this city, Shiva is worshipped in the form of a linga, which is a phallus set in a base which represents a vagina. It is not overly sexualized, but it is impossible to ignore the fundamental sexuality that lies at the base of the worship of Shiva. It is shiva's destructive capability that continues the cycle of death and birth, and it is through meditation of shiva that we realize that life comes from death--the destruction of material objects (including our bodies) is not in itself an end, but a continuation of the cycle. Therefore, shiva's rage is not negative, but is a manifestation of an integral part of the universe--just like everything else, it is neither good nor bad, but it just is. It is the beginning and ending of the cycle. Mediating on this aspect of shiva allows me to put into words the indescribable passion which I feel in myself, which I assume everyone feels in themselves.

Hindus worship Shiva because it is said that only he can grant immortality. Hindus always have a selfish reason to worship, and I have trouble coming to terms with that.

This is what I wrote about shiva in my notebook. I wouldn't have written all that except as an introduction. This would probably deeply offend many hindus, because I do not worship shiva, I use him as a method of talking, and probably in ways that are disrespectful.

Shiv, the beginning and the end, complete cycle, why would you spare me? Me who is and will be you? I feel your dance in my veins, my cells breaking dow, my blood becomes fire. I feel your dance at the meeting of my legs, the drive which overpowers my mind. Shiv who is also shakti, man who is woman, why would you complete me? Will you leave me forever in half? All selves within me,crying for unity, dying for to complete [a little bit of Indian-english] striving for humanity. Will you ever bring me into myself, will you ever let me exist? Oh, destroyer of Maya (illusion), may you lead me to death of truth and teach me to deal with the appearances of things? Shiv, will you lie in my bed, will you teach me to meditate, will you show me eternal rythems? Cover the sun, let my lungs drink your darnkess and fall in love with light.
Shiv who is whole and complete in yourself, in distruction and love and death, are you in me? I feel you sometimes bubbling forward, but you hide your face. You hide the big peace that you are. Because in this continuous cycle of death and love, of passion and desire and humanity, ther is peace and there is much beauty. Peace is not to be found in the cessation of reality, the end of samsara, in nirvana or salvation. Peace is within our daily lives, within the dust and shit and food, and peace is at the place where you reside, Rudra, the place at the beginning and the end, and in the journey inbetween. Shif, can you show me life? Can you teach me to find solace in humanity?


Not to get too intense on you guys. This experience sort of brings out the intensity in me, what can I say.
much love
jed

In praise of Indian classical music

Firstly, I want to mention that people who are so inclined can leave comments on this blog, and that way it can be more of a dialogue.

Music has blissfully enveloped my life here. I am learning tabla slowly by my standards, but my Guruji doesn't seem worried. I've been getting a bit frustrated by it, but that's the wrong response.

Indian classical music is the ideal form of music--it is pure, ideal, precise, and purely improvizational. The best American jazz only begins to touch the communication of the spirit that happens in Indian music. It is the origin of all music, in its primordial form, passed down to us from the golden age of truth, the Tretayog.

(In contrast to our western sense of evolution, Indians beleive that the best time was the first age of humanity, when there was no sin and everyone was a sage. Things have been going downhill since. This is a major difference in the Indian and Western worldview, and it changes everything)

Here is the set up of Indian music. In the background is a constant drone which serves as a metronome, but sounds like OM chanting, but done by strings. Either they use an electronic box that produces the drone, or they have someone playing the Tambora. The tambora has four strings, and is usually played by a woman or a white guy sitting in back, dragging his or her fingers across the open strings, in order, to create the drone. They are not really creating the music, they are providing the structure for the music to take place. This allows all the other instruments to play lead--even the percussion instruments can play and improvise with the beat, they are not responsible for maintaining the rythem the way western drummers are.

The sitar is the star of the show. It is the most intricate and demanding stringed instrument available to humanity. I'm sure the readers of this blog know what is sounds like, even if you have not had the privilige of seeing it in concert. It has five main strings which are played, and underneath them are thirteen supporting strings, which are tuned to resonate when certain notes are played. This gives the sitar immense depth of sound.

The music is created by a dailogue with (usually) two musicians, the sitar and tabla players. They literally talk to each other with their instruments, and they feed off of each other's energy. They tell musical jokes, play with the rythem, push eachother to play at insane speeds, etc. This is a true dialogue of the spirit, communication unencumbered by language. You can hear the fingers driven by their own gods. It's really indescribable. Because there are so few musicians, they can really focus on the simple dialogue, rather than having to coordinate a whole band.

The tabla is it's own thing, which I posted about earlier. It is the most amazing percussion instrument, and I love it to death. To see a great tabla player in action is dazzling--they can create a mountain of sound with only their fingertips.

If there is a third instrument, it is usually the Serengay, which is a traditional string instrument that sounds sort of like the violin, and is played with a bow. My tabla teacher founded an institute to save the Serangay, because fewer and fewer people are playing it in Banaras. When played well, it sounds like the true OM, not just the human chant over and over again, but with variety and peace and the universe in it.

Music here is a form of worship, but it is almost never dedicated to an external god--to Ganesha or Siva or anything. It is worship of the god-within-man, the Atman of the musicians and the audience. I often close my eyes and meditate on the music when I am listening to an Indian concert, and it is during these times when I feel the most spiritually fufilled. Not to get too cheesy on you.

peace
jed

Arranged marrages and other stuff

It's raining here. Indian people are baffled by this--rain in the middle of the dry season? Unheard of. It's a little chilly too. A nice break from the heat, which is about to come and kick my ass. But it is increasingly clear to me that human activities on this earth are messing with the weather patterns in a much more dramatic, noticable way than is comfortable to think about. Since I know people read this blog, let me just say that I think in another 20 years, a huge chunk of the earth (the part near the middle) will be uninhabitable, due to extreme heat and wild, intense hurricanes. Instead of a major bird flu epidemic, the earth itself is going to put our population back in check.

There are three students my age living in the room next to me in my home stay--they are tenants of my host family. However, I am forbidden from going in their room and hanging out because of the overly-strict rules governing discourse between the sexes here (two of them are girls). My auntie (host mom) hates the girls, apparantly because they were friends with her son, who was then living in the room I am living in, and has since gone to Delhi. It is quite uncouth and unseemly for unmarried youth of opposite sexes to spend much time together. On May 11, this girl who lives next to me will have an arranged marrage to a policeman from Delhi. She is terrified of it, and I am sad about it because I know the extraordinary prevalance of domestic violence in this society. I don't know that he will beat her, but he's a cop in delhi. He will be rich, because policemen make a lot of money on bribes, but she hates that idea. Of course she has never met him, and will not until she marries him. It's her dream to be financially independant (actually, to get rich) and to move to America, and I've never felt so strongly that someone's dream to get rich was increadibly noble.

I think that this system which governs sexual conduct here inherantly encourages violence against women, for many reasons. Women are quite literally property, especially in light of the dowry, which is supposed to give the man financial incentive for taking on a wife as a dependant--of course she will not make any money. If the dowry isn't big enough, she will not find a husband, no matter how wonderful she is as a human. Also, because of these social moreys that forbid men from being friends with women, women are completely alien to them; the only vocabulary for social interaction is masculine, and steeped in testosterone and violence. They have no means of communicating with each other. Because divorce is not an option, Indian women continue to bear immense amounts of violence every day in silence.

I came here full of reasons to dislike my own culture, and there are many many ways in which our culture could and should learn from traditional Indian culture. Everyone should study hindu philosophy, for example. And clearly, instead of using paper and styrofoam cups for our Starbucks coffee, we should use those little clay cups that you can just throw on the ground. They get re-fired every day. amazing. And Neem sticks are amazing to clean your teeth. But I could never ever imagine having an arranged marrage looming in my future. It would suck the life out of life. I don't even understand why my host brother tries to look handsome all the time and lift weights--he's not allowed to have a girlfriend, and he'll have his wife chosen for him, so why bother being attractive?

Mary and Fred asked me how India smells, which is absolutely the right question to ask and I haven't posted about it. I thought maybe everyone would like to know how India smells. It actually smells good, which is bizzarre becuase it smells like burning trash and cowdung. (that's how they deal with trash here. Throw it in the street and set it on fire). BUt all the smells converge and smell good in an indescribable way, it smells like India--sort of an acrid, baking smell. ALso, street cooking. It's like if you took all the sound in the universe and put it in the same place, it wouldn't be a cacophany, it would be OM. If you took all the smells and stuck them together, it would smell like India. But I've never smelt anything in the States that could compare to it.

Peace
Jed

Still safe

Hi all

I got a lot of concerned response about the bombings, and I feel well looked-after and taken care of. Thank you all for your concern. The city is back to normal today, and feels just as safe as it usually does, crazy, but normal. The experience really wasn't that traumatic for me--I was safely at home when it happened, and the reaction of the indians around me was so nonchalant I couldn't find myself more upset than they were, who were more directly affected. THe response here is not like it would be in America for something like this--either you don't really show much emotion, or you go out and kill some muslims. I'm glad that there was no killing of muslims, and people were very calm and accepting about it. No retaliation or riots or anything. I feel very safe walking around the city.

More later. I have a long post in me about arranged marrages, but I have no time to write it now.
Best
jed

Still safe

Hi all

I got a lot of concerned response about the bombings, and I feel well looked-after and taken care of. Thank you all for your concern. The city is back to normal today, and feels just as safe as it usually does, crazy, but normal. The experience really wasn't that traumatic for me--I was safely at home when it happened, and the reaction of the indians around me was so nonchalant I couldn't find myself more upset than they were, who were more directly affected. THe response here is not like it would be in America for something like this--either you don't really show much emotion, or you go out and kill some muslims. I'm glad that there was no killing of muslims, and people were very calm and accepting about it. No retaliation or riots or anything. I feel very safe walking around the city.

More later. I have a long post in me about arranged marrages, but I have no time to write it now.
Best
jed

Bombings

Hello everyone

I just wanted to post that I am safe and healthy here. Last night, two bombs went off in the temple of Hanumaun (the monkey temple, indians call it), and two bombs went off in the railway station, and two were disarmed in Godolia, which is the downtown shopping district here. What to say about something like this...Although the bombs hit the religious center of the community that I am living in, all the Indians are being really laid-back about it. the monkey temple is the temple that my host family goes to regularly, and where the wedding was. Although they were disturbed by it, by the time I went to bed, their reactions were "koibatne. It is a part of the life." All the indian people around us are being very protective of us, in a sweet kind of way--although our program leaders assured us it was safe to be out, my mythology guruji, who is an old, old, man almost insisted on escorting me back to the program house when I visited him this morning. It makes me sad and angry, though--these people do not diserve this violence in their lives. Although this is the first time this has happened here, their reactions are those of people who have lived through much violence and are hardened to it--throughout india, there is daily violence between hindus and muslims, and this is something of an extension of it.

THere was some fear of communal violence, or retaliation, but the city is calm and peaceful today. Many shops are closed, but some are open even though the goverment said that they should not be. The political talk is reconciliatory.

I think that my program leaders have been handling it well--they are concerned but not hysterical. Unless something bad happens, we will stay here in Banares until we planned to leave on April 3rd or whatever.
peace
jed

update

Hello all,

what to say, what to say...

My tabla teacher just told me to get rest and come back in the morning because I was playing so poorly. It will be difficult for me to learn in instrument that requires me to be relaxed to play it, especially when just biking to my guruji's house I have approximatly ten near death experiences, from being hit by rickshaws to having rabid dogs chase me to stampeding cows. Until today, I've never seen Indian cows stampede, and now I have seen a whole gaggle of them tearing down a busy ally (narrow ally) at full tilt, and I thought that was the end. what a way to go. Better than shitting yourself to death, which I also am in danger of doing. That's an exaggeration, don't worry about my health, I will definatly survive this trip.

OK. I'm done bitching. Physically, this is a pretty intense experience, and I try to mentally rise above it, but sometimes it just catches up to me.

I've gotten a lot of very thoughtful responses to the post I made about buddhism a while back. To clairify, I really do find a lot of value in buddhism, especially their methods of worship, which are peaceful and beautiful and nonviolent and do not involve sacrifice. I also find the philosophy (the four noble truths) absolutely dead-on and beautiful. But it is also true that you could never enumerate the infinite universe of hindu philosophy and mythology, and so naturally my mind is more drawn to the more complex system, with more narrative elements. ALso, almost all spiritual persons hate and dismiss the dogmas of organized religion, for many good reasons, and it's important to realize how many of those reasons are present in buddhism--the tibetan buddhist church is a seat of wealth and power that does make its followers feel that they cannot reach enlightenment unless they have the luxury to give up their day jobs. THere are degrees, and many working people do find solace in buddhism. Hinduism escapes all this, because, in characteristic Indian style, it is a highly disorganized relgiion. It's crazy and chaotic and all over the place. Until you've engaged with hinduism on the practical level in India, and seen how absolutely infinite it is in it's random-ass practices and beleifs, it's absolute lack of central authority, you cannot argue that Buddhism is as variagated and diverse as hinduism. As soon as you have a hierarchy like and you're saying things like "his holiness the dalai lama" I have a problem. Much better to worship a noble monkey because he has super powers--it's so cool. Hanumaun can grow to a billion times his size and then shrink again to mosquito instintaneously, he can fly, and he's immortal, and he's a monkey. it's like worshipping the X-Men, (which I've often wanted to do), except cooler. It also gets points for being the oldest religion of man. Not all hindus are truly spiritual, most aren't--most worship so they can gain health or happiness or wealth--but I've met so many here who are so wise and truly spiritual that it's impossible to dismiss.

I cut my hair. I still have hair, but it's pretty short. I'd say three inches on the top. Indian-style hair cut. I did it because I thoght it was the culturally sensitive thing to do--it makes me less of a freak when I'm seen on the street. Plus, my host brother bothered me incessantly about it every night. It doesn't look as good, by my standards, but there's no point to looking good here.
peace
jed

Siva and Kaamdeo

This is a good story.
After losing his first wife, Shakti (I'm not sure how she died), the god Shiva sat deep in sorrowful meditation for many days. The king of Gods Indra, who was given to jealosy, thought that he was meditating to earn the Brahm's favor to take Indra's kingdom away from him. So he became jealous and sent Kaamdeo, the God of Sex, to distract Shiv from his mediation. Kaamdeo was afraid because he knew of Shiva's strength, but went anyway. He failed to distract shiva with all his beautiful women and pleasures. So he used his ultimate weapon: an arrow of flowers. When Kaamdeo hit Shiva with his arrow of flowers, Shiva was distracted--his semen flowed throughout the heavens and began to rain upon the earth. Vishnu was afraid, because he knew that the semen of Shiva would burn the earth and destroy all creation, so he sent his servant to collect the semen in a bannana leaf. He (I forgot who actually did this part) did so, and saw that Andati was doing penance in the river Ganga, and so he blew the semen from the leaf into her ear, where it travelled into her stomach and became the monkey god Hanumaun. This is how Hanumaun was born. Meanwhile, transport yourself back to the instant when Shiva was distracted from his meditation. As soon as he opened his third eye, he burt Kaamdeo with his anger. The result of this defeat of Kaamdeo was that all the sages stopped having sex and the human race stopped being able to procreate itself. So, again, Vishnu was afraid that creation was in danger. So he asked Kaamdeo's wife, Rati, to go in front of Shiva and beg that he rescutate Kaamdeo. She did so, throwing herself upon Shiva's feet and begging him to bring her husband back to life. As soon as he saw her distress, his anger dissapeard, and he said "I will bring your husband back to life, but he will be reborn in each human individually, so all humanity will carry a part of him." and this is why we all have sex drives.

And then later the sage Narood thouht he also defeated Kaamdeo, but that's a whole nother story.

Tabla

Hi

So, I'm still here and alive and everything. My digestive system is a great devotee of siva, and it destroys itself, liquifies itself, prostrates itself, and is reborn every week. Probiotics are good, they saved me this time.

I've started intensive lessons on the Tabla drums. The tabla is perhaps the most beautiful and intricate percussion instrument ever invented. It consists of two drums, which you play with your fingertips. the left hand drum is the bass, and you can play a scale of seven bass notes, as well as that whump sound (the bass note bending) that everyone associates with Indian music, and the right hand drum is the treble, and can play sixty different notes (not that I can play all those notes). The left hand drum is Shakti, the right hand is Siva; the left is feminine and the right masculine, and the music cannot exist without either one. In indian music, the tabla serves the role of both the drum and the bass in western music. It is played in a 16 beat cycle, four parts of four beats each, which symbolizes the four parts of time: Shanti Yoga, Treta, Duapur, and KaliYoga. My teacher is one of the best musicians in India, also a scholar of philosophy (as everyone here is). He frequently goes on tours of the US playing tabla, and he is very familiar to the western mindset and way of learning. He tells me that tabla is yoga, because in order to play it, you have to relax your entire arm between every beat, that the important part is between the beat, when the hand's job is done and the muscle releases. THis produces a much louder, crisper sound. This takes much practice--usually when I am trying to do something well, I get real tense about it. So it's a good learning process as well as a beautiful result (I hope. It's a hard instrument.)

Anyway, I love india. This place is crazy and amazing, every day it blows my mind anew.