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