So when Michele, my wife, decided to bring 15 students to Kerala for a yoga retreat just after New Year, I decided to rent a Royal Enfield and find out what they were actually like to ride.

Couldn’t find anything online so I asked Sarah, the lady who ran the retreat centre if she knew of anyone renting bikes and the next day a bloke she knows called Anil shows up with three mates and the bike – which had been described as a nine month old model with electric start. They are lovely lads. I tower over them, looking incongruous and over-­‐dressed in my old hiking boots and off-­‐road gloves – no one that I ever encountered in India wears gloves when riding.

We are all standing on this dusty main road near the Kovalam Light House when I first see it. It doesn’t look 9 months old. It looks about forty-­‐five years old. There is no sign of the electric start either. Still on the bright side maybe Gandhi or Nehru had once ridden it. It has that feel. Oh, and there is no paperwork to worry about, no license check and no insurance. As long as I give Anil 450 Rupees a day (about 5 pounds) it is mine forever or as long as it lasts.

Okay, so it’s a 350 Bullet. Bottom of the range, and ancient. I want to ride it regardless. I’d ridden 350’s with kick-­‐starts before. Shouldn’t be too hard. Anil’s mates, Michele and Sarah all watch silently as I climb on, check the run button is on, turn the key in the ignition , slap it into Neutral and kick it – hard.

A thin compression sigh and nothing. I kick it again. Nothing. Again. It kicks back – with the force of a small puppy. Another sigh. Several more kicks. Silence. An old man in a Dhoti walks past us incuriously.

Dizzy, a friend of Anil’s, helpfully kicks it a couple of times. It fires up. British biker looks stupid in front of small crowd. I keep it revving as this specimen will only idle if it is being revved. Otherwise it dies every time – and that also means the lights die at night – no worse than that, the lights dim when I slow down – but that comes later.

We head off to the retreat centre. I discover that the front and rear drum brakes are not merely old and inefficient – they are practically gone. I imagine a few shreds of asbestos grazing against the drum when I yank the front brake or stamp on the rear. Or maybe they stopped making those calipers and just use a bit of melon rind instead – that’s how they feel. I soon learn that any kind of emergency braking is out of the question. By hauling with all my strength on both brakes at once I can slow down at something approaching a gentle brake on a more familiar bike, but that’s it. On the bright side it isn’t going to lock up on me too often.

Driving in India is a hallucinatory experience. It defies rationality completely. I thought I could handle riding on roads pretty much anywhere – but this is India. In the three weeks that we are here I find one bit of dual carriageway in Tamil Nadu. It lasts for about two minutes and there is some kind of toll taken by a nine year old boy and a bloke that might be police or not. Everywhere else it’s either a two lane black-­‐top or dirt.

The tarmac roads are pretty good actually, not too pot-­‐holed and with some lane-­‐ markings. It’s not the surface that’s the problem, it’s what drives around on top of the roads. Under completely ordinary circumstances it is normal for every vehicle, from a scooter carrying a family of four – with tiny baby – up to huge ancient trucks, to overtake on blind corners – always. On any given corner at all times someone is overtaking. Sometimes two vehicles are simultaneously overtaking from opposite directions on a road that can barely accommodate three vehicles. More rarely a third vehicle overtakes the overtaking vehicle on the blind corner. I did not see this happen in both directions at once, but I am sure it happens.

There are no traffic lights at all, but randomly and for no apparent reason, there are these quadruple road bumps that have a remarkable effect on all riders and drivers – It doesn’t matter how lethal the overtaking maneuver in progress, everyone slows to an agonizing crawl for these bumps – even while overtaking. It’s like everything just goes into hyper-­‐slow motion for a few seconds and then off we go again. Everyone seems to be terrified of these bumps – their suspension is obviously far more important to them than their lives and the lives of their children. Very odd.

So riding on my little piece of history with atrocious brakes in daylight – with Michele on the back, who does not like riding pillion, I can enjoy these endless overtaking dramas almost every minute. Add to this the other quirk the drivers have here of going as fast as they possibly can – usually 40 miles per hour is as fast as the traffic will allow – but not very consoling when every single car sits on my tail honking because I am there – unable to overtake the two or three overtaking cars in front of me or pull in enough to let the two overtaking cars behind me have a go themselves.

There are lovely stretches of back road away from the main coast road where I am able to ride through jungle, over rivers, past herds of goats and sacred cows, in blissful peace for a few minutes – but as there is a village every few miles and traffic is heavy in all the villages – I never relax for long.

Instead of indicators or hand signals everyone just hoots – a lot – and in all situations. The horn does not mean we are about to crash or you are being stupid, it just means get out the way, I am here. I am here!! Move aside. Twenty times a minute. It does not matter if you have no way of moving aside, you get honked – over and over again. There is no road rage. Just this good-­‐hearted endless honking. After a few days of angry resistance I am doing it too. If I didn’t it would be even more insane trying to overtake or make a turn.

This chaos continues throughout the day, relentlessly, seven days a week. Adding to the stress are the massive sound-­‐systems blaring out Bangra music at impossible volumes as you pass through pretty much every village. Why these exist I never found out.

Then the sun sets and things get much, much worse. In the magic mad half hour as the streetlights start to come on, everyone seems to go completely crazy. Families weave and wobble around on scooters, cars and bikes shoot across main roads without looking. Pedestrians wander around in the road for no apparent reason. As they also work and often sleep on the street, this is no great surprise. There is no such thing as a kerb.

It is the end of the day and all these happy, fearless, exhausted people are heading home as fast as they can in every direction. Death seems inevitable from minute to minute, but I never see an accident. India does however have the highest road death rate in the world, so somewhere in this huge sub-­‐continent people are definitely dying – just not in my field of view.

Then night falls and the inadequate and patchy street-­‐lights prove almost useless. As soon as I have the bike we get an unseasonal monsoon and my first night ride – a ten kilometer commute from the centre to our hotel turns into a thirty kilometer hell-­‐ride on wet reflective roads, trying to find a narrow side turning in pitch darkness against endless oncoming trucks and cars all with full beams – no one even imagines that it is dangerous or rude to drive towards another vehicle with full beams – everybody always does it and that is that.

My own full beams seem to cancel out the dipped headlights, replacing their dim view of the road ahead with a dim view of the treetops. The haze in the air reflects light in interesting ways, creating halo and flare effects, which further reduce visibility. I have these red-­‐tinted night riding goggles which I carry everywhere but they are proving to be a liability in India. I opt for the clear half-­‐ visor in my helmet after some days of riding around like a human mole in a pea-­‐ soup fog.

As the Enfield’s lights dim and basically go out whenever I reduce revs, I find myself having to brake and rev at night just to see where I’m going – This has the effect of compromising my less than ideal brakes. Oh well.

Oh, did I mention that the kick-­‐start doesn’t? Dizzy had a fluke success with it that first day. My Enfield is the little bike that just won’t start. After days of endless kicking in 32 degrees of heat and massive humidity, I pretty much give up with the kick-­‐start and develop a brilliant new strategy – always park on a hill! The Enfield bump starts easily as long as it’s in neutral when I start the descent, then slap it into second and ease in the clutch. Works like a dream.

So I start looking for hills wherever I go, even if I don’t particularly want to go up the hill for any real reason, still – it’s a good hill, I think I’ll have some Chai up there. Good idea. The Chai is fantastic and addictive here, nothing like the
horrible crap the girls (it is always the girls, sorry) order in Starbucks. This is really spicy, intense, sweet stuff that comes in tiny little paper cups like espresso cups. I can’t get enough of it.

And wherever I leave the Enfield a crowd of lads tends to gather – they love the bike and want to know all about me, for no immediately obvious reason. “That is a good bike. My brother has one. A very strong bike. Very good” I agree. It would seem churlish to mention the brakes etc. They always assume I live in India, never that I am a tourist. I slowly realize that no one within at least 100 kilometres of here rents these bikes. A few tourists rent scooters. I think they are insane. Everyone else takes tuk-­‐tuks and cabs.

I also attract attention because I wear a helmet – although the law says everyone has to, very few people do. Also Michele does not ride side-­‐saddle like almost all the women here do. So we are an oddity.

The only downside to my excellent hill strategy is that the retreat centre is in a flat valley floor. So after the token five minutes of trying to kick-­‐start the un-­‐kick-­‐ startable, I usually require Michele to give me a push, something she looks forward to all day, enjoys immensely, and never complains about even once.

The accident comes on the fourth day of riding. It is morning. I am ridng through a busy village at about twenty miles an hour when a bald middle-­‐aged man on a grey plastic scooter of some sort decides to simply drive right across me without a glance. I am on the main road. He is crossing two lanes very slowly without looking – on a blind corner of course. I roar at him to get out of the way as I brake or should I say “brake”. He takes no notice. He may have hearing problems as well as no road sense at all.

You know how in an accident everything seems to happen very slowly. It’s just like that – except everything is actually happening very slowly.

The Enfield slows gracefully – at about the speed the Titanic slowed as it approached the iceberg. Now I am doing ten mph. Now five. He is doing about two. Still yelling with murderous outrage I tap him with my front wheel. A bit of the grey plastic cracks off his scooter. He seems not to notice. I lean over him and treat him to a minute of my own brand of London style testosterone-­‐fuelled rage.

I tell him he is a bloody idiot and many other things. He stares fixedly ahead, seemingly unaware that a very angry man that outweighs him by about a hundred pounds is screaming into his face. He slowly continues towards the kerb
– I mean where the kerb would be if kerbs existed here. He is not bothered about
the damage to his bike. I learn a lesson. India is not concerned with the righteous objections of one angry Brit. Never was and never will be. We continue on as though nothing has happened.

At some point in our time in Kerala, I realize I really like this bike. It’s absurd, prehistoric and incredibly difficult in so many ways, but it really is a good bike. It deals with dirt roads easily – the soft suspension eats up ruts, sand and mud with
no problem. A few times I have to really push it to get out of soft, slushy places and it is a piece of cake. The 350 pulls up hills nicely even with 350 pounds of us on the back – most of that weight is me, by the way. Going down really steep tracks with bad traction is also fine, as long as I lean hard over the bars and let the engine braking do the work instead of the brakes.

And there is that feeling – I’m riding through that exotic jungle landscape on a Royal Enfield, with the sound track blaring out from those village speakers – it is a timeless, romantic experience. It is just exactly what I imagined it would be. If you can do this and love it, against all sane reasoning and discomfort, you can ride anywhere – at least on a road. I think every mile ridden here is equivalent to about fifty in Europe or the States. Hard to explain why. It’s like the tea – intense.

Funny -­‐ the same thing happened to me in Kenya a couple of years ago. Resistance. Refusal to accept things as they are. And then you either just want to escape or you fall in love with the place. It’s not logical It just happens. Maybe there is one reason that is so obvious you don’t notice it straight away. Amidst all the poverty and the difficulty and the suffering, there is so much happiness and plain friendliness. It is irresistible.

The last day I have the Enfield I am sitting on a wall – on a hill of course – chatting with a bloke called Ravi, whose brother has one of those 500 Electras with the military paint job. We agree that it is a very nice bike indeed. Ravi says he would like to own one sometime. I agree again. They creep up on you those Enfields and the next thing you know .  .  .

Terence Gross is a director and screenwriter. He can be contacted through his production company, The Wild Night Company . His life partner, Michele Pernetta, has developed a new, extremely effective form of hatha yoga called “Fierce Grace”

COCK           cobalt bloom to code word

    Cock-
crow of the poem, and cock
is its doodling, cock-
eyed,
opening, dawning idea,
dreams done, erection gone and pen in hand,
his masturbating poetaster’s verse
cocky, of course, his cock-
alorum’s little heart
cockled
by the same warm, hardly blood
that cocks
his cock.
     The cock-
atrice is his relentless, tricky muse,
thoughts of its glance
turning a man so chicken that he must
walk cock
like a dog across and through these cocka-
hoop phrases, tease
the consummating reader with a cock-
tail’s therein lies,
not as dry
as dust, which the feathered basilisk
scratches,
snatching worms.
    Worms.
    Hmm.
Definition 5.a. says that cock
is vulgar slang for penis;
did his vane, stiff wind
blow the weathercock
in a cold direction, cocks-
comb cap in hand
begging death’s pardon
for a jester’s courting hard-on?
     Is cock
a half-cocked code name for the noc-
turnal creature crawling in the Kaf-
kaesque cerebrum’s cockamamie plots,
coccus-slicked antennae cocked to lock
on you
or any food
for its bugged and crazy thought: cock-
roach, the sucker’s cock-
sure coda?
     Or is every story—
a comedy, a tragedy—a cock-
and-bull
with big,
reproductive
cod,
seeds like words,
like gods?
 
DIS           disremption to distain

     Dis is the god to dig,
the god of dirt,
the god no body dares to disobey.
His foreplay lasts a lifetime.
Then he squirts
you with the big dissolving O, the come
to nothing,
to dust,
to an underworld of earth.

Talk dirty to me, Dis.
Dis hisses this:

Playing dirty is my dirty work,
turning a dirty looker into tricks
dirty as my laundry, full of shit.
All are old and dirty when they kick, dis-
integrating, getting the dirty joke
exposing what was nixed under my coat.

And every word is dirty in the end.
Truth is a hole, nothing, a swearing butt.
So help me, Dis, to tell it like it is:

We mortals moan with making till we’re fucked.

LOVE       lorn to loving       “Love’s Radiant Wound”: Adi Da Samraj

i.

     Love—
from the perspective
of the lotus position,
dick in
an anchoring, anchorite trick,
head a legend of urgeless languor—
is a louse,
the soul’s louche lizard lornly lounging in
crotches sucking potions up mouthparts, is
parasitic,
making you
lovesick,
making you take
the lover’s leap
of faith
in bull,
in genital-
studded reproduction,
not the Original.
     The ascetic says:
Get the fuck out
of bed
and get
good
Godhead
instead.

ii.

     Love is a countenance
in a cave of velvet,
a loup—
a French kiss of a word rhyming with you;
literally, wolf,
your better or worse half.
For a loup masks
one side
of a lover’s face,
is a disguise
for one of a lover’s eyes,
is a day,
is a night,
Space’s
pretense of two.
     In the guest’s undraped sight
is a loupe
to magnify
the favor, the gift, the surprise:
red, adamantine crystals set in white
quartz,
love arrows,
the fine and shining blood of the Body
where
red fruits follow the white flowers
of the love apple
and love-entangle
slowly soften the stones and amidst
the leaves of love-in-a-mist
blue cups rest
and love-lies-bleeding
is crimson as a cosmic sacrifice
where even lice—
plant lice, aphids—
are enfolded and fed
by strange, spiked, inescapable love.
    The True Lover Says:
Worship,
in joy, My
Radiant Wound.
Die
for, of
Love.

“Until your heart opens, you cannot digest a single drop of water”
          Zen Master Seung Sahn

  “The chicken on the egg is dedicated. The chicken in the oven is committed”
          Traditional

Petaluma is only one of the places
I always seem to be

forced to pass
through

me
where in

one egg ‘factory”
they feed rooster
fetuses
to their mother
hens and say its better

that way
if the color, taste, and consistency
of your yokes
is of singular
importance to you

and if you happen to be
concerned at all
about that which binds

best in powdered cake
mixes—- and other things you don’t even know
matter to you.

When you develop a tolerance
for a substance before you
know it
you are craving
more of it
while, all the while,
it does less and less

except murder
alternatives
in their sleep.

Even salvation is known
to be like that.

In Petaluma,
the excuse is foolproof:

“the meal is so ground up
that even their own mothers
wouldn’t recognize them”.

I can’t speak for you but here
all a thing need do
is taste sweet
and its down
the hatch.

Even when Petaluma becomes only a vague memory,
a trail of exhaust on the freeway south,
its famously ambiguous scent,
lingers in the manner

it is famous for.

And sometimes I can get so stuffed up with it
that I can hardly breathe,
let alone conceive

the difference I imagine
could be made
if things were
even significantly
otherwise—-

What was that? Did you catch that?
Thank-you sweetheart for that,
thank-you for taking me
outside—- you truly are—- a good egg.

As to everything else, I shit you
not - that this is anything
like some joke
or just another lame excuse
to watch you choke.

A choke hold is only an embrace
in the most dire
of circumstances.

So, don’t worry about a thing
any more than you would
about anything that must be

ground up before it’s fed,

if there is to be any hope
of your digesting it—-

Evaporation Versus Evapotranspiration

“I have a fifteen-year old’s craving to deeply explore
the places I hope will always remain secret”
Jack Prescott

Pulled up off the ground
or otherwise sucked out
from lying in wait bodies

of water, both fresh and salty,
the rain makes its way back
to where it was presumed to

have begun. Most everyone who’s
ever known a morning, also knows
the dew that clings to everything.
Not talking about those dews. She

does have subtler ways, you
know, the rain does of drawing
what she needs from inside of
what she is hunting for, down
here. As much moisture is being

lifted out of leaves and from
inside the earth as is otherwise
scooped off the surface of things.

Evapotranspiration is easy
to imagine when we realize
that everything naturally
green or earthen—breathes
out CO2 and in H20.

Nature craves far and away above
all, subtlety and unseen transactions,
which is my love, my way of thanking you
for not having showered for days before

you see me. Ozone, yours, is in the air
and thus in me. Effervescence, your scent
is so much more than whatever will be
familiar to me.

I have been especially taken by
it’s precision. Can you be more
empirical? Have you not shown me
how it is only within a degree or

two, where the dew inside the leaf dares elect
to leave it’s more stately green for the wild blue?

Today, the sky is being doused from below
so I turn my head and look up from here and
still welcome, with neither song nor dance,
how both lovely and inevitable it all is

that our roles will invariably reverse and I will
find myself torrented as you fall and fall and fall
and fall, as if you hadn’t been secretly planning
all the fine details, in a way best suits your taste.

there’s only one of. So the mirror is
amazing, and you find yourself inside it
to be deep. If you had another
fifty years, you’d feel no less

this wonderment at being—
framed in a standstill, your head
in the clouds (your likeness in mind),
you’d fall in love with reason. This

is the mistake. You think too much
of your life, far from oceans, far
from rivers, far from streaming. You think,
death I could bear, if it’s anything like

this self in the calm of a held pail.
But the catch in the clarity comes then.
To look like this, you mustn’t ever
be touched or moved again . . .

Well

I swear affective life is water
variously formed and regulated,
curiously colored and abounded,
but at heart
always the same
wet element. And we

are made of it.

No single thing, or unremitting motion,
it can fall (as joy) in flashes
from high rocks, in sprays
of spectra (by its virtue,
sun can be broadcast); or rise

as sorrow, once and for all,
to muddy the living room, rob
the lover of her breathing space . . . Sometimes

its affect is half-bred: a trickle on
a cobblestone, a swamp with flesh-colored
flowers in it,
ice from an eave . . .  What

ranges of ringing,
of whoosing and whisking it makes.
Inside our heads (the experts say) there’s
nonstop noise: what we call
silence, it’s our grounds for sound . . .

Maybe it’s water, what broke
so we’d be born; maybe it bore

and goes on bearing us,
till humankind and animals and
gods themselves are swept up
in its school of thought,
till the exploding stars are only
quiet points, afloat. I tell you, even

anaesthesia’s a feeling.
(It’s the feeling we forgot.)

      Heather McHugh

But the Apocalypse shows, by its very resistance, the things that the human heart secretly years after. By the very frenzy with which the Apocalypse destroys the sun and the stars, the world, and all kings and all rulers, all scarlet and purple and cinnamon, all harlots, finally all men together who are not ‘sealed’, we can see how deeply the apocalyptists are yearning for the sun and the stars and the earth and the waters of the earth, for nobility and lordship and might, and scarlet and gold splendour, for passionate love, and a proper unison with men, apart from this sealing business. What man most passionately wants is his living wholeness and his living unison, not his own isolate salvation of his ‘soul’. Man wants his physical fulfillment first and foremost, since now, once and once only, he is in the flesh and potent. For man, the vast marvel is to be alive. For man, as for flower and beast and bird, the supreme triumph is to be most vividly, most perfectly alive. Whatever the unborn and the dead may know, they cannot know the beauty, the marvel of being alive in the flesh. The dead may look after the afterwards. But the magnificent here and now of life in the flesh is ours, and ours alone, and ours only for a time. We ought to dance with rapture that we should be alive and in the flesh, and part of the living, incarnate cosmos. I am part of the sun as my eye is part of me. That I am part of the earth my feet know perfectly, and my blood is part of the sea. My soul knows that I am part of the human race, my soul is an organic part of the great human soul, as my spirit is part of my nation. In my own very self, I am part of my family. There is nothing of me that is alone and absolute except my mind, and we shall find that the mind has no existence by itself, it is only the glitter of the sun on the surface of the waters.

So that my individualism is really an illusion. I am a part of the great whole, and I can never escape. But I can deny my connections, break them, and become a fragment. Then I am wretched.

What we want is to destroy our false, inorganic connections, especially those related to money, and re-establish the living organic connections, with the cosmos, the sun and earth, with mankind and nation and family. Start with the sun, and the rest will slowly, slowly happen.

Our Global Wisdom teaches that there is an Infinite Force that is the ground and source of all life and existence, whether we call IT- Tao, Aum, Yahweh, Allah, Christ, Sunyata, Brahman, Energy, Cosmos, God, Nature, Universe…This Wisdom shows us that whether we believe in “God” or not, every human, all beings, are inherently situated within the Holistic Unified Field of this sacred Energy, and when we are cut off from IT we are invariably lodged in all kinds of individual and collective pathologies and dysfunctions. 

By contrast, when we rise into a more mature and awakened pattern of integral, holistic and dialogic global consciousness we flourish in well being and realize our true awakened sacred individuality and connection with others and with the ecology.  The contrast between these two technologies of consciousness needs to be explicitly marked to constantly teach and remind us whether we are in the egomental mind or crossing into the awakened integral and holistic practice of consciousness. 

And this is the key to releasing the higher global power of Prayer:  when we are in the /egomental/ pattern of mind let us mark it with /…/ quotes, and when we cross into the awakened sacred space of ((integral consciousness)) let us mark it with ((…)) – holistic quotes. This helps us to see the difference between /Prayer/  and ((Prayer)). 
So “who” is praying and the quality of ((consciousness)) and ((speech)) is all-important in releasing the true ((power of Prayer)) – when we pray from the /egomental self/ and use /egomental speech/ we are not engaging in genuine ((Prayer));
but when we mindfully cross into the ((awakened mind)) and engage in the higher transformative power of ((Prayer)) we come into deep connectivity and communion with the Infinite Presence that always surrounds us.  There is a world of difference between /Prayer/  and ((Prayer))

When we enter ((Prayer)) we transform our Self and our Ecology- we transform our world.  This is because everything is deeply inter-connected in the Holistic Field of Presence.  So genuine ((Prayer)) taps the boundless Power of this Unified Field and each of us comes to full empowerment – the ((butterfly cause)) – and can make a profound difference in healing our Selves, Others, and the Planet.  Entering this awakened and mindful ((Speech)) is the key to the emerging global civilization and rising together in a compassionate Culture of Peace wherein the entire ((human family)) may flourish together with ((Sacred Earth)).  This is the ((Global Power of Prayer)).

II) My message to all global citizens is that as we now enter this great evolutionary shift and mature as ((Humans)) it is vital to become mindful of the difference between /Prayer/ and ((Prayer)), and to realize that as we rise together into a mindful and awakened ((Life)), every act, every breath is a ((Prayer)).  And we can ((heal the world)).  Thus entering into mindful ((Prayer)) is powerfully ((transformative)) as it lifts us from /egomental life/ into awakened ((Self)) realization.

Ashok Gangadean is a Professor and Chair of Philosophy, Haverford College.
He is the Founder-Director of the Global Dialogue Institute and Co-Convenor of the World Commission on Global Consciousness and Spirituality. You can learn more about him and his work at: http://www.awakeningmind.org.

My path and my journey consisted of totally facing myself and passing through the unknown. As this inner pilgrimage continued, one day the mystery of life suddenly and unexpectedly struck like a lightning bolt!

Around noon, I cooked my rice as usual and put out the wood fire. Although the rice was ready, I decided to wait a few minutes for it to cool before eating. I drew back a little and sat casually on my mat, with my mind completely at rest.

Suddenly, in that quiet and inadvertent moment, totally unanticipated, a mysterious action struck.

Something inside me literally exploded, giving me the shock of my life.

In a split second a fountain of unknown energy sprang forth from within. This surprising energy flow was of a truly new kind, different from anything I had ever sensed or experienced before. It felt soft, sensitive, joyful and dynamic yet peaceful. It filled me with profound reverence, deep awe and love. Such a mystical and powerful explosion in my inner domain was a miraculous event.

This explosion affected and transformed my entire personality. In this dramatic breakthrough in consciousness, the whole crystallized structure of the ego/mind got literally shattered. This opened up an energy flow of a totally new kind. No mind - no thinker or I - remained while this was happening. A dynamic, intuitive state came into existence, where the past in the form of memories and the future in the form of desires were not there. This brought in a flow of total now-ness.

I did not know where this flow of new and different energy came from or how all this had occurred. The whole experience happened very suddenly and unexpectedly, and was extremely pleasant and deeply blissful. I never had experienced such a flow of all-powerful energy in my life. It swept me off my feet and took charge of me completely. I was steeped in joy, dynamicity and ecstasy, reeling a real freedom and inner tranquility. Everything inside and out became intensely alive, giving me a taste of the vibrant present. A celestial shower drenched my whole being, submerging me in serenity.

Something unknown and mysterious had taken place! I was overflowing with happiness, and in that excitement I got up and even danced around the room in total abandonment. I was the most ecstatic person on earth at that moment. My life had been touched by the sublime and sacred.

How long I remained in this state I do not know. Eventually, the upsurge of ecstasy subsided, but thought activity was still entirely absent, not even lurking in the corners to come creeping in stealthily. Instead, I experienced profound quietude. The flow of this fountain of new energy slowly diminished, leaving behind deep feelings of humility and reverence. For the first time I vividly experienced a totally serene state in my whole being. I sat down on the floor and immediately became engrossed in an intense inwardness with profound silence.

From this point onward my meditation took a different form. It became a play of this new internal energy. I could sense only the flow, a glow within, of this new energy moving quietly. A momentum of twinkling energy, this fountain of intuitive flow initiated the beginning of a totally new life experience.

After a period of deep silence I fell asleep. However, my experience of sleep was now completely different as well. It became a time of internal dynamicity, without the play of the mind as dreamer. I experienced sleep as a state of serene internal existence out of which I emerged very fresh and vibrantly alive.

Later that day, afte a short rest I went out of the hut. The whole scene before me shone with new depth and clarity. The horizon appeared absolutely boundless, giving the experience of infinity. It touched me to the depth of my being, intensifying the taste of timelessness. No center or ‘I’ as perceiver existed. Instead, the act of perceiving was itself an internal experience of the panorama from inside out. This new way of perceiving or experiencing a landscape which I had seen many times before overwhelmed me.

I sat down upon a wooden log, wondering about this unique internal explosion that had occurred. There came a profound sense of gratitude and fulfillment. As I pondered this unusual experience, I slipped into a deep internal silence. In this silence, I became aware of the same movement of glimmering energy.

I do not know exactly how long it worked upon me that day. Slowly the flow subsided, leaving me joyous and deeply contented.

That evening I had a strong urge to inform my mother about this mind-quake, this shattering of the ego-mind. It was so mysterious and exciting, a first-time, first-hand revelation! I realized that my mother, living so far away from me, still remained the closest person to me, and I wanted to share it with her only. I felt like going to the edge of the mountain to announce to her at the top of my voice about the amazing breakthrough that took place. This is like a new birth! Surprisingly, quite spontaneously, a message to my mother came forth in poetic form, in Marathi, my mother tongue.

I had never before written poetry. In this new expression of life, the words came out spontaneously in a meaningful way. Thereafter, for a while every day, I wrote a poem to describe this new energy and its unusual play within me.

I wrote a few poems in Hindi and even in the English language. I discovered that language was no barrier and I used to be filled with wonder at the way the words would all fall in line. On completing each verse, I would take a look at it, only to marvel at its neat rhythmic pattern and its well-integrated theme and structure:

SURPRISE VISITOR

When all wanderings and searchings came to an end
Mind realized there is nowhere for him to go.
I sat then alone, in utter humility and anonymity
Oh, then you came to visit me uninvited!

Thereafter, the nature and style of sitting with myself changed. It became a spontaneous expression of this new energy. I passed my days in the hut with absolutely no discipline of any kind, no expectation, and no hope about anything. I remained receptive, allowing the new energy to come and to work in its own way, and that took different forms. It started touching various regions inside my body, gathering around one part for a moment and then shifting to another part. It stimulated one particular area for a time and then disappeared. Like a game of touch-and-go, it was a kind of play of that amazing, glowing energy.

I had to stay quiet and empty for it to appear again to carry out its plans within me. The energy would appear - unpredictably, unpretentiously, quietly - work for a while in its mysterious way within, and then leave silently. All its movements were unanticipated, almost secret, deeply sacred. Sometimes my mind would visualize and anticipate the direction, but the energy never obliged my mind. In this way the secret inner activity went on, keeping me innocent, empty and almost dumb. It alone directed the show! Any activity of my mind would hinder the movement of the energy. Nevertheless, the energy always remained untouchable and uninfluenced by the mind.

From these months of watching the movement of thought, of seeing the mind in its intricacies and its whole structure, I had begun to realize how every idea is programmed in our brain cells from which it springs. In fact every idea, every thought, has a biological counterpart in each cell of the brain.

But now, after this explosion, I saw that no idea entered my mind inciting action. Instead an intuitive flow - that new energy - worked instantaneously and spontaneously. The new intelligence does not function through the vehicle of thought or memory, so it has no contact with the regular active brain.
 
I began to see, and have since understood more fully, that the brain and nervous system, as they have evolved to this point, are not capable of receiving and cooperating with this unique energy flow. They are not able to be the right instrument or medium for the expression of the new-dimensional energy. It has a different source and a new quality all its own. The nervous system and brain have developed over time, in cooperation with the mind, to be an instrument for the expression of thought/emotion activity only. Nature has helped to evolve the central nervous system as a means for the smooth functioning of the mind as a thinking, reacting mechanism.

However, this new energy, which resides beyond the border of the mind, needs a new or modified instrument for its functioning and expression. This new energy is a momentum of the present and acts spontaneously, independently and intelligently. The brain, on the other hand, functions through thoughts, calculations, memories, and the past. This new energy has nothing to do with thought, and does not use the regular active brain. Thus the brain is basically laid to rest, and a profound peace comes into existence as a natural phenomenon. This peace becomes the natural state of the whole being.

Oh My Mother

Dear Mother . . .
I am born again – a new born babe
Celebrating my new birth on this earth.
But Mom, how can a son describe to his Mother
The events of his mysterious rebirth?
You gave me the mortal birth
That brought me into this world.
But now this new birth has granted
The touch of immortality!
Oh, dear Mother, it’s an actual happening,
And I am so happy and joyful here today.
But how can I convey to you the news
About the rebirth of your son?
I feel so thankful to you
For bringing me into this mortal world.
Now I have discovered for myself
The beauty of that which is imperishable.
Oh my Mother, I am very happy
And safe on this solitary mountain.
Finally I have sought and discovered
That which was hiding in me only!

Oh my Mother,
I love you dear
How I wish you were here
To see this mysterious affair!

Don Rendell

Classical musicians tend to dismiss jazz performances. I don’t know why. Because the great improvisations contain everything that any composer would be proud to have written—a melodic statement like a clarion call—development. The only time I heard Coltrane live it was the ultimate. I just can’t see farther than that. I listened about twenty minutes. Then I had to go out and walk around the block—it was too much for me. And I play the saxophone.  Then I dcame back in. And it was still going on. At that level. Amazing.

Ronnie Scott