True Tales

It’s your eyes that are with me, Babaji; those deep, fiery, dark and passion-filled, or depending on your mood; merry and dancing eyes, that bore through me and touched my soul when first we meet.  I am another shell-shocked refugee of the mighty 8.1 earthquake that rocked El Distrito Federal who end up on your doorstep. Sure we have room for her, put her in the closet, er… the room where Har Har sleeps.  El maestro has spoken…

At first, I don’t think I’m going to like you, Babaji. You live upstairs, one of the fair-complexioned landed gentry. The teeming masses, dark-skinned serfs and that lost Yanqui, fill the downstairs shoulder to shoulder. They work in your factory, eat your yoghurt and granola and cook for you. You’ve cast your spell on them. Babaji says, Babaji does, Babaji knows. I never ever see you, but I hear your television behind your closed door. I see the people who get escorted to your suite upstairs. I hear Guruka running and yelling through the house, the wild offspring of the powerful, proud and haughty ruler, head, of this most feudal-style ashram.

I start to see. You are the teacher, par excellence, with more charisma and energy and information packed into a single class than is humanly possible.  Even though your mother tongue is so limited for me at that time, I remember the long stories in beautiful eloquent Spanish that flowed from you, punctuated by sin embargo, sin embargo, an expression that always catches my ear, yet I don’t understand. I wish I could have held my own in Spanish with you. You are a different creature when you speak it, so articulate, so knowledgeable, so supremely captivating. Your classes are jammed with people from all walks and all ages, who flock to hear your wisdom – grandmothers and babies, middle agers and disaffected youth, all hanging on your every word. This is how we get connected. I sit in your class and soak it all up. I get invited upstairs. You want to hear everything about me, my sordid past, my expected screwed-up American sensibilities. You’ve heard it all before, probe with precision. It all comes spilling out of me. I feel I can trust you.

You become my guide, my mentor. You observe me and give me lots of freedom. After all, I’m the unruly American. You don’t think you can control me the way you do everyone else…I probably would have done anything you asked me to, but I have to learn the hard way. I fall flat on my face and you pick me up. Of course, this was expected. You put me back together. And then when it’s the right time, you tell me, “Why don’t you put on a turban? You know you’ve never made a commitment to anything in your life. Why don’t you do it now?” Magic, spoken by the true magician. How did you know it was just the right time to say this?

I put on a turban. My life changes instantly. I lose my job. You didn’t tell me there was a law against wearing religious garb in Mexico; a law stemming from the revolution, back when the Catholic Church was the bad guy.  Even priests don’t wear their collars in public. You certainly give my friend Father Sal a hard time when he comes to visit me, like he is responsible for all the evils of the Catholic Church. But he is also captivated and fascinated by you. You weave your sorcery over everyone and no one can resist.

What stays in my heart forever is your sponsorship of my ill-fated relationship with the Englishman, Philip, aka Hari Das Singh. You support us, you counsel us and in the end when my heart is left in tatters, your practical compassion carries me where I need to go.  The diet, the sadhana, it all stays with me. I’m sorry that I didn’t see you the last time I was in Mexico City. I allowed myself to be sidetracked…limited time and limited funds. I went somewhere else. Maybe I was afraid to see you. It’s been so many years. But what a similar thread runs through our lives. I freaked out in the nineties and left. You freaked out in the nineties and left. You came back. I came back. I will always feel our connection. God bless you dear soul. Rest easy. You did your work. Relax, and go Home with peace.