Memories of India - (summer 07) Before my trip to India I felt overwhelmed by a huge reluctance to go. It was not until I landed that I realized why? It was because I intuitively knew it so well, that I mistakenly felt that it held no mystery for me.Truthfully there was nothing surprising about India, but there were deep revelations. Driving from the airport to the hotel in the middle of the night, the bus swerved constantly away from scrawny cows that lay lazily strewn across the highway knowing that no harm could come to them, from wild dogs who roamed wildly with fear in their eyes, and from strange vehicles that zigzagged randomly with shrill blasts of their horns. After the desolation of night drive, the bus turned off the littered highway onto a dirt road, at the end of which lay the promise of a five star hotel. My eyes, still blistering from too much poverty, were treated to lush vegetation and palm trees. The bungalow that my best friend Patsy and I were assigned, was set back from the ocean under a very tall and dense canopy of trees. In the distance I could hear the slow grind of the ocean. Not any ocean but that offered to us by the Bay of Bengal. The waves were not horses but leaping tigers. It was four O’clock in the morning and my senses were on fire. My nose had inhaled the acrid smells of India, my eyes were weary from the sight of too much squalor, and now, my ears were suddenly invaded by the sound of hundreds of screeching crows as they awoke to the first light of dawn. The squawking cacophony deafened me but it also alerted me to a completely different reality. The crow totem represents the universal Law of Karma. I was also aware that the crow is the bird most associated with the energy of the planet Saturn in Vedic Astrology. Saturn is represented as a stern disciplinarian who leads one through suffering to self-knowledge and spirituality. Saturn teaches us to face the challenges of life, its hardships, and overcome their relative effects in our lives so that we may embrace the bigger picture, reminding us that this can only happen when we accept that we are first and foremost spiritual beings. As I mused about the teachings of Saturn, I also realized that this land of India was Saturns land, that is to say a land of hardship and intense spirituality and this made me understand that for now I was where I needed to be. I had traveled 6000 miles to place myself in India’s lap and the crow was my first guru. Having given up on the idea of getting any sleep, I leaped out of bed and opened the door of the cottage to embrace the sunrise in the distance. As we stepped outside we were invaded with more sounds. This time, it was the pristine chants of morning mantras from the neighboring fishing village rising in melodious supplication to welcome the day. The incantations were transfiguring. They moved through me like rapturous waves, both cleansing and energizing. I felt transported by the “Sacred Sound” of the cacophony of crows, the roar of the Bengali ocean, the reverberating sacred mantras, and the Angelic voices of the village choir. This Indian symphony extracted me out of my body and finite time, into the bosom of eternity. Patsy and I grabbed our yoga mats and silently walked down to the beach to perform our own sun salutations…
Posted on: Tue, 11 Nov 2014 13:04:28 +0000
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