Flotsam and Jetsam

The sixties flower power poet Allan Ginsberg talks of his first experience of attending a meditation retreat in one of the Tibetan traditions. He had managed to smuggle in a sheet of paper and some pencils, and, as the teacher was going round at the start of the course, the teacher saw the contraband items. With a smile he walked up to Allan and asked him to hand them over. When Allan hesitated the teacher asked him, eyes brimming with compassion, as Allan says, "Why do you need them, my son ?" Allan replied, "To note down a beautiful thought that comes..." Pulling the pencils out of his hands and breaking them into two, the teacher said, "...and it is the flotsam and jetsam of these thoughts that will keep dragging you back into the whirlpool...just focus on your breath..."

So, as I sat this morning, the flotsam and jetsam of thoughts surfaced creating their frothy attractiveness...like the froth on the top of a cup of Madras coffee...attractive yet devoid of flavour or anything...

Thinking of Allan Ginsberg my mind went back to the senior citizen who had helped me at the library yesterday. I could imagine her at one of Allan's rock concerts of the mid '60s, perhaps with a flower garland around her neck...what struck me about her was that she had not coloured her hair, and, as I looked around the library which is staffed largely by women who are in their golden years, I noticed that none of them had coloured their hair. Made me wonder whether it was a conditon of employment...

Now, I have tremendous regard, bordering on reverence, for a woman who does not colour her hair. The male world is somewhat different, and, we guys can let it all hang out since there isn't much to show in any case. (Actually, men have different issues. The success of erectile dysfunction drugs on the pretext of creating a better quality of life should give you an indicator.) At one time I attended a course for hospice workers, and, one of our 'field trips' was to a funeral parlour where they showed us how bodies were 'dressed' up before a funeral. I remember one of my co-volunteers, a woman in her fifties saying, "I must make sure in my will to clearly state that they should colour my hair before the visitation..." That sort of indicates the criticality of hair colouring to women. So, when you see a woman somewhere around the sixty mark not colouring her hair you say, "Wow, that requires some courage...for what you see is what you get..."

And then the mind wandered further.

Swami Chinmayananda was a religious teacher of some note in the '60s, '70s and '80s in India. The same attraction that would take me to watch the Washington Redskin cheerleaders took me to Swamiji's meetings in the '60s. I used to be fascinated by the attractive women who sang the invocatory prayers at his meetings. I remember Swamiji once opening a Bhagavad Gita class with the opening dhyana (invocatory) verse, "...parthaya prati bodhitaam bhagavatam narayanena swayam..." And then the chant would be taken up by this bevy of attractive women in white blouses and saris. There was a strange wild attraction that the ascetic Swamiji held for them that bordered on the erotic.

Anyway, in those days I had just been introduced to the thought or lack thereof of some atheists. And, in a free question and answer session, I decided to confront the Swamiji. "If all bodily and mental activity is caused by electrical impulses that emerges from the brain, and, death is defined as the cessation of such electrical activity, how can there be a life after death ?" I asked the question in one breath...Swamiji did not answer my question at that point...I was thrilled. I had scored a point...

As we were having lunch, Swamiji actually made his way to me. "What is your name ?" he asked, adding, "You asked a good question. I did not reply to you because I wanted to talk to you..." And then he sat down next to me and said, "Your question is very logical and perhaps correct. However, you cannot understand these matters with logic. It is a matter of experiencing it. When you were just a day old, all you could see was a mass of light with some sounds emerging from this mass of light. Then slowly some figures started becoming clear...one of those figures fed you, made you go to sleep and rocked you when you cried...and as your pupils started functioning better you gave a name and shape to that being...your mother...your brilliant logic is the all enveloping light that you see, nothing is clear...slowly, your pupils will start digesting all that light and clarity will emerge...let it be...someday the clarity that is not born of logic will emerge..." Swamiji did not wait for my response, he just continued on.

The clarity has not emerged, some forty years later. I still struggle with logic and purposiveness. Some years ago, I asked a Vipassana teacher, "If you say that nothing is permanent and that everything just arises and dissolves what is it that reincarnates, if there is no soul..." In the mould of Swami Chinmayananda she looked at me and said, "Just continue your practice. It will all become clear..."

And, as I struggle with maintaining my fledgling practice in the midst of all these non-issues that thought creates, the reality of what the teacher told Allan Ginsberg comes through loud and clear, "...and this is the flotsam and jetsam that will keep pulling you back into the whirlpool..." For, as Krishna says at the end of Chapter 10 in the Bhagavad Gita

athava bahunai tena
kim jnatena tav'a'rjuna
vishtabhyaham idam sarvam
ekam sena's stitho jagat

Of what use is all this (intellectual) knowledge to you Arjuna ? All you need to know is that in a fraction of Myself I sustain the whole Universe...