June 2009
To hope brings great fear.
To hope brings expectation
expectation brings desire
desire brings sorrow
and to live alone is
worse than any revelation
Kushi is so ridiculously
beautiful and I am such an anomaly, is it any wonder she likes me? Wait, don’t forget, it was just her job.
How much have I given her and
what do I have to show for it? A
throbbing cut above the right eye.
And it hurts the heart more
to think I’ll leave here without her but how can I reverse the aura of
inevitability? By being someone I am
not?
“sir, you are a gentleman.”
Andy: Ouch, What happened?
Jack: A woman did it.
Andy: What did you do to her?
Jack: I gave her my heart and
she took my soul.
Andy: Isn’t that a Kings of Leon song?
Jack: Yes, I exaggerated. I don’t know if she took my soul. She does take a lot of my money and jewelry,
though.
I am the way, the truth and the life. No man comes to the Father except through me. John 14:6
Before Abraham was, I am. John 8:58
Do you think Jesus was ever accused
of being a narcissist? He says God is the way and God has been around a while
and everyone going to God would have to go through him first.
But what about Rumi’s friend,
Sham? Is it possible that God has taken
refuge on earth in the form of humanity in other people to share the ultimate
reality.
Job in the 21st
century. Job, no animal sacrifices. Leave it to the Muslims and Hindus. Christians stopped the practice because Jesus
was once and for all the sacrifice.
I painted the apartment with
the help of a Bangladeshi for four days at $127 a day for eight hours a
day. I imagined the place would be
turned into a museum with former relatives managing it.
What validity is there to an
imagination where all men wear black and women white?
Druidism
Job, a High Priest, travels
on the Silk Road to India to obtain medicine.
On his return he hears of a new faith along the shores of the
Mediterranean, travels there and is converted and eventually so is his
house.
The atman, the enabling soul,
is the balance that your body needs.
Discover if you have such inclinations.
Is it God? Is it a parent, child,
yourself? There are souls in people’s
heads who don’t want to be there. Call
it a roll of the dice, there isn’t much time left.
Napolean Bonaparte sings “I
used to rule the world” and he knows he won’t make it to heaven because never
was there an honest word uttered when he ruled.
Can we light enough candles to get him in, if that is what he wants? I don’t think it’s for him to say at this
point though channeling through the band members the message of earth on the
cusp of a new world suggests maybe he can still make it in. I think this will be up to the French.
4 July 2009 Sarangkot
A steady rain and a candle in
the seashell flickers madly. Mosquito
coils worked until they went out and as if they were waiting, huge dive-bombers
buzzed kept me awake. Yesterday Laxman
gonged the gong obnoxiously loud and I felt this might be close to sacrilegious
then the children sang and played made up games with the instrument I used in
the purgation, now slightly out of tune.
I shipped two boxes of stuff
for the family on Sarangkot, carpets, cushion covers, clothes, mounted photos I
told Suman he could sell to save for school.
*
It hurts to think someone is
afraid of me. The green eye. It’s the last thing I saw of her. I don’t wish for her to be afraid because I am
full of remorse and am afraid to make her afraid. I danced with divinity and fear nothing
except a woman.
For $300.00 a month Laxman
let a telecommunication company install a tower on the roof of his
kitchen. Today I bought Tibetan prayer
flags and covered the beastly thing.
Cheers from somewhere on the mountain as they blew gracefully East.
I put away the gong and a
scrap it was with Suratachi, who being quite adorable was unrelentless in her
desire to find and bang the noisy thing.
Instead we took a walk through the village, past the large slum of a building
built by a former colleague for what might some day become a school, a bakery,
his retirement home, and then up to the lookout and down the stairways past the
woman who was a princess. Sumjana saw us
and scurried inside.
I swear an oath
take out my eye
and eat it raw.
If I bring up your past
so little I know
remind me how desperate I am
Suratachi is so sweet who
can’t do wrong in my book unless she is trying to bend a mounted photo. The mountain called Lamjung reveals herself
in a stunning evening. Such is a reward after a rainy and foggy day.
Ram-ro, says Laxman’s mother
when she sees the flags drape the big antenna.
All the family seems to approve of the home improvement.
The little princess sits
across from me, unwilling to eat any of the trailmix. I let her father know it was a good day and
her daughter was an adorable exhaust.
Did St. Francis tell me the
Augustinians were correct?
Amillennialism.
To the Chinese:
You can kill the body but you can’t kill the spirit and
that is why communism cannot deny humans 1) freedom of worship 2) freedom of
press 3) freedom from want 4) freedom from fear (FDR) because the spirit is
alive and we are telling you to return Tibet to the Tibetans. Pull out the missiles and your brothels and
your bars and restore Tibet to a fully autonomous land. Make peace and earn merit for your place in
the heavens before it’s too late.
July 6
There is no work to be done
when the rain falls hard and fog engulfs.
When it cleared Laxman and I went to the Tashi Palkhel camp to see Nyima
and his family. It was good timing
because it was the Dalai Lama’s birthday and the next day Tenzin left for school in Kathmandu. Living angels among us Tenzin is one. It was the second time I visited her father
whose puja helped pave the way for the spirit who goes by the name of Job to enter
into me with his bag of prophetic utterances.
Laxman returned home and I stayed the night in their home, sleeping
comfortably on an elevated bed covered with a thick carpet. In the morning we carried her big metal chest
to a waiting car and off she went. The
rain fell again and I wished her father well.
Maya washes my clothes while
I write. She sports the beautiful
Japanese pearl necklace that was bought with Sumjana in mind but I am happy this
woman wears it while she cleans my Obama ‘hope’ t-shirt. What hope can I give to anyone other than not
to fear the change that will take all who believe to a better life, one without
fear and pain and suffering. “Brother,
take me please, to America.
Brother.”
I hung a few more ropes of
prayer flags over the tower and explain to Subash how the spirit who dwells in
the 14th Dalai Lama has been in the 13 previous Lamas and the spirit
who descended into my life came the same way.
Overcast and breezy, the
little princess receives from mother one of the roughest mountain baths a kid
can endure when she doesn’t want her hair washed with cold water. A clap to the ear, whack, whack, to the left,
to the right, pull her hair, Yikes. For
such a cleansing my heart went out to her and later gave her a pair of peacock
earrings. In the guest room where I drew
mountains and trails on the walls with the same energy I used during the
purgation Suratachi wrote Jon Chapati a half dozen times, I love you too much
while she gonged the gong a little too close.
“I love you too much” I haven’t
the heart to tell them too much becomes a problem.
8 July
A full golden moon, o Lord
what does this mean. Does anyone else
see this. The children are more excited
with my whistle and a green laser light.
A gold moon. Surat-cha.
She’ll steal your heart and then your bubble-wrap, pop them in your ear
to no one’s delight but her own. Shanti shanti.
Outside she is with her new
pearl necklace prancing about in the clothes she’s worn for the last two
days. Isn’t it wonderful to wake up in
the morning already dressed for school and she’s got the drum, the gong, and
bangs away, a sound the entire mountain community must hear, and with Bishal,
Nisha, and a few other snotty nose kids, they follow her cadence:
hands up gong gong
hands down gong gong
right foot up clang clang
right foot down bang bang
eyes close, bang clang gong
eyes open gong bang clang
Maya feeds a crew of 20 who
have come today to pour the roof. The
rain has stayed away so far. Dahl Baht.
The women sit on the grass and a few of the boys sit at the table. The oldest boy, about 17, asks for a hot
pepper and Maya places it on the table.
Then a lady asks for one and Maya put the pepper on the ground and then
on the table where the boy took the pepper and gave it to the woman. I commented on this strange custom to which
Laxman said it was to show respect when someone asks for something extra
without charge.
Skilled labourers earned
500rs a day plus a meal. Non-skilled
labourers, mostly women who carried rocks and crushed them, 150rs a day plus a
meal.
And then the rain came. The children played in the dining room with
the packets of origami I gave them, Maya washed clothes and a pile of dishes and
was assisted by another woman, Laxman wandered off with an umbrella and Sumjana
raced down the steps, looking for the first time and did not look pretty at
all. It saddened.
11 July
Contemplative, according to
Thomas Aquinas, is a simple enjoyment of the truth, and what do you do when you
look at the Himalayans in your backyard?
Today though the rain never stopped and it didn’t stop anyone on the
mountain. Suman blew the whistle to no
obnoxious end and banged the out of tune gong driving away Subash and his
mother with a steely stare and no warmth.
By afternoon a thick fog and
the rain was unmercifully depressing.
Suratchai and Suman crashed in my room.
I felt a tremendous sadness about leaving them, precious life so innocent
and unaware how ugly the world down below often is.
The little princess took my
last three pieces of Gatorade gum, stuffing all of them in her mouth as if she
knew she wasn’t getting anymore or afraid she’d have to share it with her
brother, though she was really good at sharing when there was plenty to go
around, like chocolate and sweets I gave them every time I returned from a trek
to Pokhara.
Before seven Sumjana’s sister
Premia pulls up the rolling shutters of her shop and home and looks out over
the mountain. With four daughters and a
husband in Iraq sending home plenty of money and a big antenna sitting on her
property, I wonder how lonely she gets.
You are rich, I tell Maya and
Laxman, you have two beautiful children, you have a roof over your heads, you
have extended families here, you never see hunger, you work hard, sometimes
your water supply runs out, but you are rich.
What do I have, you say I am rich. I have nothing. I have money but that will soon run out and
then without a family, without a wife, I am nothing.
We hiked down to the road,
past the hang glider pad, to the waiting taxi.
Maya’s pearls matched her teeth.
I told them I’d be back in six months but that came and went. Money out, a spirit possessed me and while I
can find the depths of emptiness easily
in mediation, it feels as if something was removed to get there.
JFK dies in November 1963 and
the spirit who goes by the name of Job jumps to another John, only nine months
on earth. Why is this impossible to
prove? Because I am no JFK?
What cannot be denied: the Arabs
knew exactly what was going on. They
believe in the spirits unseen unlike the damn west.
Kathmandu 13 July
A strong rain in the early
morning leaves the ancient dirty city refreshingly clean. Where does all the pollution go? On top of the Tibet Guest House roof white
egrets fly by at eye level, the valley chirps with activity, mostly women
washing and making chai. Within an hour
horns and humans compete with gawks and yacks for attention. Then straight ahead a black crow comes right
at me and I stand up and shoo it where it lands ten feet away, takes a big shat
and crows loudly.
Where’s the land God promised
Hagar? In my day dreams during the
purgation I imagined in my living room Mitch Albom, Morrie Schwartz, Dr. Laura, to examine and
analyze and attempt to extract a dead Jew from my neighbor’s head. I emailed Mr. Albom and asked him if he
wanted to report on one of the greatest stories he’d ever stumble onto, a
wedding on top of a mountain. In the fog
and fury of entheogens heaven seemed to
be so real and so clear.
One wishes the aura of
inevitability would end.
The crow returned, right
behind me on the roof and cawed, looking at me.
What, what the hell am I supposed to do?
In a café in Thamel Aleesha
from Melbourne and Viscelli from Russia know all about the realms of heaven
when I mention seeing people in each after I explained synchronicity and persuaded
the Russian who was in the middle of a summer long meditation to switch to
cannabis from the dirty nasty cigarettes he said he needed to calm down,
ironically after a day of meditating.
And I am going to take a
guess and suggest Barak Obama is the reincarnation of Jesus Christ. Aleesha arrived in town a few hours ago and
wanted to wake up early for a sunrise, but now she had to go. Imagine being
told in the ancient city by an American that the new heavens were just around
the corner and a black dude was Jesus.
The anti-christ who graduated
from Yale. We use drugs and drink to
escape until they are in a place comfortably numb. Freddy sings I want to break free…will
America be a serious wake up call?
17 July
Another night drinking alone,
Kathmandu’s nightclubs are filled with squeaky fearful kids clean of
cannabis. A pretty blond ties up the
long hair of her male friend who doesn’t seem particularly interested in her
but they laugh in unison to something the band plays. Two gay American men wearing the same
shimmering black shirts and earrings clap excitedly when another boring
rendition of Cocaine is played. I finish
a plate of veggie momos, two beers and enough is enough. I am quite afraid to speak with people
because of what I say. I test the limits
of being in control.
Christians, Muslims,
Hindus. It doesn’t matter, convert the
poor to a religion and guess what, the poor will always be with us.
So let’s have it:
Universal Liberation,
Universal Enlightenment. Is this a new
idea in our impermanent world? What would happen?
Eschatologically
deconstructing the answers to the end or beginning, depending on how you
believe. Isn’t this fun?
“curses to be broken, ghost
towns under the ocean.”
I tried this pick up line,
unsuccessfully, with a mortal women: Would you let a 2700-year-old man buy you
a drink? Back up, silence and what kind of crazy fuck are you look before she
scurries out.
Lumbini: A man after me orders the same meal I
ordered.
I buy an orange Fanta and an
entire family rushes up to the shop, father orders five orange Fantas. Another two people order orange Fantas after
him.
I hit the drum three times at
Wat Po, and turning around, there is a string of ladies out of nowhere to hit
the drum three times.
All easily explained
coincidences I am sure.
Everything is impermanent
including this world we have today, and there is nothing to suggest that a
universal enlightenment cannot happen and this earthly experiment is done.
Why God had this idea in the
first place only to call it a wrap is troubling. What did you have to learn from the human
race if you already knew what was going to happen?
Free will.
Predestination. Together it makes
sense.
The Nepalese bookseller isn’t
surprised 2012 is going to change things.
What can he do about it anyways?
Will all the poor become rich?
Why not? Generations after
generations have suffered with never a hope.
For crying out loud, isn’t that a good enough reason to pull the plug
God? Om? Allah?
I asked the man for his
definition of heaven and he didn’t have one.
Some people just can’t believe it will ever happen in their lifetime. I have doubts about who made contact with me
but I can’t get past Job. How much of
the story is true and how much is historical fiction. Salvation history opens the door to numerous
end time possibilities. I feel greedy at
the thought of selling the story. Surely Job or anyone else who’s been dead for
2700 years has a story to tell. And who
else is better to share good news than Job, who suffered because of a bet. No one on earth is worthy? I am not worthy. Grind the man into the ground like pulp, and
restore him at the end of the wager only to see him drift to China and die in
the desert. If he really wants this
story told he should have synchronized with someone else.
22 July
A total solar eclipse came
and went under the clouds. In Varanasi
it was full and the people were out for the auspicious event. Diamond rings, the weight of the sky. Any curses to be broken here? Any curses to be uttered here? A perfect one is seen in China. How can Beijing be so ignorant? Return Tibet to earn merit. Let the Dalai Lama and his people return, no
conditions.
How is it possible I have no
opposite, no one to make me equal.
When the Tibetan Shaman told
me to remember the spirit I bought a Dorje, unaware then of its significance
. Thunderbolts splayed out, the
Buddhists closed it and made it their own.
Vajaryana. The tantric Buddhist
isn’t one to mess with when you get close to Om.
Born and raised today’s County
Galway in a small village to nobles under the service of Kings, mediators and priests
of the Celtic Druids.
*
The taxi driver took me as
far as he could. “bus strike”. The road to the Pakistani embassy was full of
empty cars so I walked to the intersection to find the crowds and the military
at a standoff. I squeezed through the
throngs when a soldier bolted from his position, his baton raised high, and
came right towards me, a woman laughed helplessly next to me knowing I guess he
wasn’t coming after her but a man not as fast took the whack to the back.
After I paid for the visa, a
consulate inquired of my travels in his country and when I told him it would
only be for a few days, as long as it took to cross the Karoakam Highway into
China, he beseeched me to stay longer.
All the staff at the Bakery Restaurant are deaf and it has never been
difficult to order food that is on the menu.
Maybe Job was Russian, but
why me? I see nothing there. Ireland, Scotland, Britain? The Celtics of Northern England had their
Druids, and St. Patrick was himself born in Britain.
Two weeks in Kathmandu is too
long.
Coughing up a big mouthful of
phlegm I’d like to hoark out is not an option on an airplane. Civility calls. A young Indian lady in front of me orders a
gin and seven up, we’re so adult like, but wait honey, it’s only ten in the
morning.
Delhi 24 July
Bahar Ganj is dirtier than
usual, the flies, the rain and aggressive beggars and temps above a hundred,
let’s stay inside. Wearing an Obama
t-shirt around Connaught Circle last night caused a few “Obama” calls but not
from any women.
The Chinese Zodiac
4683 4783
2012 Dragon …
2011 Rabbit Job
/?
2010 Tiger Barak
/?
I went to the wrong train
station but with plenty of time paid 350 for a tuktuk and went to the Old Delhi
Station. Six years earlier I headed to
Dharamsala and shared a berth in third class with about twenty people, all
sitting or laying on each other. A second-class
berth this time is spacious.
I hoped to meet the Dalai
Lama but in truth was quite afraid. This
story is just too crazy though I speak with so much confidence.
The Chonor House is
full. Summer time and people escape the
heat. The rain falls hard and long. The monsoon Kathmandu didn’t see too much of
is here. I was lucky to have escaped a
soaking, but a stuffed nose, scratchy throat, headache and I am glad to breathe
clean air. The rain, the Dalai Lama, ok,
can you tap into his thoughts and throw the reincarnation of Job at him?
The man in the tomb couldn’t
be Job because of the timeline. The book
that bears his name was in print before 754 BC?
In Tibet the 33rd King, Songtesen Gampo, ruled
649-609BC. The 37th King was
Trisong Detsen, who ruled from 798-741BC.
At this time it is believed that Mahayana Buddhists arrived, replacing
the Bon religion. Other significant
events at this time: the division of Israel, 733BC.
*
I may not see the Dalai Lama
but four hours in his temple was worth it.
A lid full of delicious dal baht with a big piece of Tibetan bread given
by the nice lady and her little boy who thanked me for the wooden camel. Temples
without thieves is always a better temple to hang out in. The Tibetan community is strong here. Today, a feast of praying and socializing. The rain falls harder and we move in closer,
away from the railing.
Outside a young boy from Rajasthan
wants me to buy him food. Gladly. A bag of powder milk. Then he asks for a bag of rice. There is no harm in asking and talking about
the obligatory nature of giving and receiving.
Can a beggar ever be guilty of greed?
Indians may be the most
spiritual country but when you are born into a religion that is swallowed by
the oppressive demands of life, it is easy to see how many sway, but the
Tibetans here are in a community where the practice of the faith is natural and
in public. I can’t help but think of Christians
who have no such public displays of faith in practice, at least in
America. Anywhere else?
A nice lady walked through
the faithful with a big metal pot of hot butter tea and offered me a bowl full
to the rim. How gracious they are, to
offer a stranger food which cut the cold edge that came with the rain and
wind.
I think the Dalai Lama left
for Germany today. The aura of
inevitability says nothing about not getting married. Oh to die if it is true.
Who will hear, who will
listen? Who will believe?
A car stuck in Dharamsala
traffic, a car full of Punjabs rocking to Bollywood. I show an interest in the music, showing the
beat and a youth yells to me: “what country?” A pause to reply…we’re in? India I think.
To be in Lumbini during the
Buddhist’s birthday was meaningful.
Listen…hum and listen, leave
‘cryptic’ notes in cafes announcing an arrival.
Question. How do you remove the Han Chinese from
Tibet? Answer. Scientific
Reincarnation.
Tiger eating moon, black hole
sun. Beijing should be worried.
The oldest manuscripts of
Job, none older than 754BC, and you’re not who you say you are. It’s just a name. No one famous is necessary. Job.
Omigod.
What books were used in the
temples? The five books of Moses, the
Psalms and Proverbs. I can settle for a
Druid shaman. You didn’t have a first
name but you were named by your occupation?
Shams? You’re not a sham, are
you? I hope not.
You were nobility, recognized
by those in power who were?
If the world doesn’t end in
2012 does this mean the Carl Jung coincidence I blogged and photoed is
wrong? Look what I was doing. Am I being epistemologically modest?
Revelation 22, finished on
page 1076. Page 1077: The commentaries
of the 13th Apostle, Paul.
Anyone using Paul’s letters
to argue a point can be dismissed because it was his opinions, not Gospel. I know Catholics wouldn’t like this but he
wrote from an experience.
What about the Jewish messiah
thing? Barak Obama has no Jewish
blood. Jews will never accept this just
like they never accepted the first Messiah who had plenty of Jewish blood.
Will B.O. have to perform
miracles to demonstrate Jesus incarnate?
I’d rather not see it, to be honest.
The spirit who goes by the
name of Job and the beginnings of Buddhism in Tibet has no coincidental
relationship I know about.
The years of the kings in Israel,
800-580BC includes David, Solomon, Saul as did the king of Babylon,
Nebuchadnezzar. Daniel and Isaiah also
lived then. Did Isaiah write the book of
Job when Israel was dividing? Would his
book for the people have been a sort of wake up call of some kind?
Four days in Dharamsala,
tomorrow Manali and then Leh in two days.
Hezekiah was king when Job
lived in the early seventh century? The
book was written before the Israelites went into exile.
I have no doubt that St.
Francis Xavier heard my prayers as did Om and they had a chat.
I wrote a letter and mailed
it to the Dalai Lama. I don’t know who
reads his mail but I guess he never got it, but really who would take it
seriously? Who could take it
seriously?
Walking around the Dalai
Lama’s temple with a vajra and humming what?
Be thou my vision. Inheriting an
island would give some credibility, as would getting a letter from the office
of H.H. the Dalai Lama.
I don’t think the Tibetan
people want sympathy.
Six hours to Manali. A six dollar room that has a funny butter nausea
smell to it, but there’s a large balcony overlooking a loud river unseen below. A seat booked for Leh on August 1st.
Lots of displaced looking people here,
including the ubiquitous Israeli and Italian.
Job, were you a desert
dweller? Ah,no? Turpan is desert. The Gobi Desert is your backyard. Why were you there? I know you had a vineyard. But why there?
Well, the story doesn’t say I
stayed in Israel. I left, not back to
Ireland, but to India and then to east Turkistan, when 2700 years ago was a
pretty nice looking place.
The story was written prior
to the exile, another warning to the Israelites before they were driven
out.
Do people think I have gone
mad? Do you think anyone I tried to
connect actually connected? How will you
see anyone in heaven? You wish to see
her in heaven and you told her to believe, right, pass the baton, and let’s do
a test.
31 July
Truth is God, God is
truth. What is truth? Empirically tested truth. What has happened in your life will be
tested. The unseen power, the 4th
element, Gandhi calls love. I call it a mystery
that will answer all questions. But is
it love? That sounds so limiting and inconclusive. Love is truth? Finding truth requires the
utmost humility and being humble makes it impossible to tell people.
Dig deeper into Buddhism and
Christianity and its theology and the greater there is for confusion and
misinterpretations, dependent origination-the cessation of suffering happens if
you accept emptiness as a detachment from cause and effect.
*
A river meditates, providing
the hum to your meditation but walking the walk and spinning the wheels has
something to it. Thunder rattles above,
showers come and go. A morning walk
through Manali’s thick forest, fresh green pine. Nature provides what you need to believe in
God.
A 2700 year old shaman shares
his thoughts. What an incredibly
outlandish thing to say and yet I feel if someone calls me on it what can I
say? I saw him for a fleeting glimpse
behind me, he took that broken red marker cap I threw at the wall and took it
all the way over to China’s place on the floor.
I never considered monsoon
and mountains together but of course.
The cessation of all suffering begins when heaven comes to an
impermanent world. Here we go.
Leh
Gandhi said everything I was
saying. The name of God is too
impossible to identify but Om seems to cover the most. Gandhi, Buddha, the Dalai Lama, all sing the
same song of renunciation of sexual desire to come closer to God-Om. For crying out loud, a desire to love a woman
trumps this and will always prevent me from attaining the highest good.
“People come here to get in
touch with their inner selves.” A
British woman speaks cynically and her company sits behind me at a rooftop
restaurant overlooking the ancient city and the Leh Palace. She must have found herself and is therefore
completely confident the arrogance she espouses is completely normal.
After a plate of mutton momos
I meet Karma who sold me an auspicious necklace. The symbol is the same as the
one on my leg. And I showed Karma my
tattoo. “The unending rope.” That’s right, it never ends and it is the
same as this. “ok, maybe…” Maybe?
Before Buddhism was Bon. And
before Catholicism there were the Celtics.
“The Celtics, I have heard of them.”
And the body of people who managed the people of Ireland were known as
Druids. Do you think the unending rope
came from the Druids or the Bon? We
don’t know and I order another chai. I
asked Karma for his definition of heaven and he didn’t have one. Tenzin, the Shaman’s lovely daughter said
heaven was already full of too many gods, but what about a new heaven, here on
earth?
Ten nights at the Ashoka
Guest House, 300rs a night, six bucks.
The air is dry, a cool breeze, hot sun, a few stray clouds. Shanti please.
In a quiet setting, achieving
emptiness without the resource of medicine is easy, but is there a right kind of
emptiness you wish to achieve? Take
something and turn it around. Take
suffering and use it to eliminate the change and attitude of reality.
How is it possible to tie St.
Francis Xavier and the Buddha? Do you
think getting stoned at 11,000 feet will increase my chances of a heart attack
if I climb this path to the palace?
Let’s find out, shall we?
The big experiment.
How did humans fare? In my opinion we did better than average,
though there were moments where faith is at a loss. Catholics in Detroit ebbed ever so low in
April.
You see, here returns a 2700
year old running around the house like nobility without a horse, swinging a
sword through the village yelling the Second Coming is here. Why would anyone believe?
The sins of the world will be
absolved when it is time. Everyone of
faith will be saved and hell will no longer be necessary. Is this the logic of God and is it in the
letter of the law? I Timothy, all will
be saved, especially those who are saved.
But where is Mao? Stalin? Hitler?
How will you deal with the evil?
Where will the unjust finally go?
Annihilation doesn’t seem fair for it is a license for evil today to go
amok.
How do you reconcile the
Christian-Islamic eschatological view with Hinduism’s cycle? Has hell been on earth all along? For many, absolutely. All the spirits who came through my apartment
attest energy is alive but many will not
be permitted into heaven unless they become the animals or the ground upon that
we will walk on.
A full moon, bright and thank
God, it is uneventful. There’s evil in
the world, some because of cause and effect, the rest coming directly from
Satan, a fallen angel.
Am I a defender of the faith,
a new faith revealed to me, not new in the original sense of the meaning, but
putting all three together.
It isn’t that it is hard to
meet people, it is just the crashing in I was never good at. Sometimes it is welcome and even necessary
but most of the time it isn’t necessary.
The problem with restaurants
in Leh are the 14-20 year olds who run the places. One second they’re cooking you an omelet the
next minute they’re unemployed on the street.
A second cup of Masala tea
was worthy and thinking like a crazy man is so ridiculous. Give me truth but not a woman. Why? Job had a family. Yours was taken away and you
suffered like no other and your faith wavered but never broke. I suffer because I made a mistake and I can’t
get over that awful hump. The audible no
on the Hong Kong pier was you? I am
sorry I didn’t pay heed, but for crying out loud how couldn’t there have been a
better way?
Did Job deserve the
test? Is this just a story and there
never was a real Job? No, he’s real and
the incredible suffering he went through, ya had to wonder what he did wrong,
but he did nothing wrong and that angers me.
He lost everything to Satan and remained faithful to God. Why? He had no choice because he didn’t do
anything wrong.
The story came to
Isaiah. He knew Job. The three friends, the loss, all true.
Job, born 753 BC, died 708
BC. The spirit followed the clanging
bell from the Kali Temple in Varanasi because he knew what he would find. Medicine.
I arrived as soon as the kid finished ringing it, as if he were ringing
it for Job to come.
How I wept for China. So much more than anyone else. Why? I
didn’t know when I lived in Tianjin in 1990 that my Grandmother and father
supported a Chinese mission. Sixty years
earlier. Is this a coincidence of any
kind?
From an acceleration of time
to Leh, time is crawling slow. A Druidic
Jew. From Ireland to Israel to India to China.
August 7
I asked a very pretty French
woman and her boyfriend if Napolean Bonaparte was going to be in heaven. “Pardon, such a question before
breakfast.”
Almost half the world doesn’t
believe Israel are the chosen ones.
Why?
Lord, I don’t want to go to China to bang a drum
for a dead dude who is freaking me out.
What am I doing? Please help
me. I smoke to find you or has it become
a vice to distract? Did I insult the
French somehow? I thought they enjoyed
being insulted.
Neema sold me another
gong. I told her the first one I bought
from her in Goa was out of tune because I banged it really hard. She sat under the hot tent amongst others who
sat with no customers. She didn’t
believe in me when I told her the story or she didn’t understand what I was saying.
Francois, Juliet, and
Audette, the pretty French gal listen to me.
Barak Obama is not who he says he is, but maybe he doesn’t know. We ride down the Zanskar River, the sun is hot
but the water is cold and when clouds cover the cold we are all cold. “Dees is madness”, Audette is so sweet, the
kind of woman a French woman ought to be, unpretentious with a scattering of
freckles. Sa-vo, Sa-vee!!
Everything I learn I learn
from the French. Give me liberty or give
me death.
The Dalai Lama comes
tomorrow. He has a place here and comes
frequently. Francis Xavier and Om know
each other, if that is Om is someone to know like Om knows you.
Somewhere in the town of
27,000 is a man who is an incarnation of a spirit who was in 13 previous
men. This isn’t ordinary. This isn’t something we can grasp because we
can’t see the transfer of energy, but look at the coincidences, the Dalai Lama
had the marks that identified him to his predecessor and he knew people before
they were introduced to him. There was
proof.
I missed the Dalai Lama’s six
am arrival and head out to his compound seven kilometers away. A guard politely tells me to proceed no
more. I was close. Less than a quarter mile the man sleeps and I
sit across the road and think. How can
anything I have said be true? There is
no way to measure such dreams and flights of fancy. And do I have hope some day I will understand
all of it?
The Ladakhs wear long brown
coats down to their ankles.
Leaving India without even a
nibble of meeting someone to marry. This
was inevitable? And the same will be
said of China and America and everywhere else?
I did imagine meeting the
Dalai Lama, especially with an ancient shaman to drag around. One assumed they’d have plenty to talk
about. But it wasn’t meant to be.
I have no proof of anything I
say yet I cannot deny the experience and the information that came to me. Only time will tell I am afraid to say.
*
To His Holiness The 14th Dalai Lama and the Tibetan Government
in Exile
An impermanent world we live in, change comes to
everything. Through the spirit of a 2700
year old shaman, in the year 2012, earth will change. Heaven will come and a cessation of all
suffering and death will be universal.
The spirit also wishes to inform the Tibetan
government in exile and H.H. The Dalai Lama that Beijing will believe in
scientific reincarnation and in order to receive merit for the afterlife must
return Tibet to the Tibetans, and allow H.H. The Dalai Lama, the government in
exile, and the Tibetan Diaspora to return to Llasa, and to accept all
conditions offered by H.H. The Dalai Lama, including the removal of all nuclear
missiles from Tibet.
NymaLlamo Dhondrup, a shaman in the Tashi Palkhal
Camp in Pokhara, Nepal, and his daughter helped me complete the synchronization
of the ancient spirit with my own after experiencing an acceleration into the
future by way of coincidences. I hope
you will consider the advice of the shaman, for his presence and this
remarkable message are unmistakably clear.
8 August
A cup of tea with
Francois. I can’t imagine telling people
Barak Obama is the scientific reincarnation of Jesus Christ. Thinking it saddens me because I believe I’ve
gone over the edge, but telling people, yourself, is madness.
Francois: Yes, deeses crazy.
Merci Boo-co, French
man.
Half the world doesn’t
believe or care that a group of people say they are the chosen ones. They are not the only chosen people. All who believe in one God are chosen. The Israelites were chosen to introduce
salvation for those who believed, but such suffering produced an unfortunate
relationship with the Jewish people and God and their first messiah. Throw out
the interpretations of end times for nothing appears as it seems.
*
An early morning on Leh’s
main street and a Punjabi man doting a pink turban jumps out of a car followed
by two men with sub-machine guns who looked like they’ve shot others for less
than a cup of chai, and into a building they went looking for someone and
thankfully didn’t find. Police officers
across the street look up and pay no mind, as if this is a landlord simply
collecting rent.
The aura of inevitability
sucks.
It would be a sad truth if
the world never changed and all the religions were wrong.
11 August
On the road to Srinagar,
after ten days in Leh, there is no straight route to the Khunjerab Pass that
takes you up to the Chinese border, uncertainty and fatigue overwhelm my
thoughts. How long can I wander. Going to visit the shaman’s tomb is the only
reason now to go to China and for what reason, more information of who he is
and if my illusion is real.
The road through
Jammu-Kashmir is an endless tie up. My
driver and hero deserved a big tip. A
truck heading the opposite direction cannot climb the soft dusty hill with a
load of rebar so he is sticking rocks under the wheels while the truck belches
black smoke right into his face until the truck who no one offered to help is
able to move.
A treacherous yet stunning drive
through the mountains with no room for error, my driver asks me as he backs up
to let someone pass how much space he has before we all go over the edge and
opening my door I see no ground, I am thankful I had something to smoke, numb
reality when you go over.
Seventeen hours and caked in black
soot the self appointed River King rat tries to lead me to a houseboat on a
filthy lake in Srinagar but the Basher Hotel far away from water suffices.
*
The only way to reach Kashgar
is to go south to Islamabad, hire a driver and go up. After six weeks in the mountains I am in full
retreat. So I flew to Delhi and headed
east to Thailand, south to Hong Kong and from there flew to Xi’an where I took
the train to Urumuqi.
Wulumuqi
The Bogda Hotel goes for
200RMB a night compared to the Hong Kong managed Hoi Kan Hotel room at
800. I went to the latter first, hoping
that despite the hotel being run by Hong Kong they’d be reasonably priced
because of its location. The downtown was
empty when a taxi driver dropped me off at 7 in the morning, except for the
soldiers. I forgot, China is celebrating
60 years of communism.
In the minority district,
where you can find authentic Uygher roasted lamb kebabs and wide noodle soup
there are swat forces on every corner.
Riot police ready to do something.
A few days earlier someone attacked Han citizens with syringes. Tanks and troops in battle ready positions
make this fight fair, indeed. Renmi
Square was the military’s base of operation, closed off for thousands of troops
massed.
Turpan
My body, soul, spirit has
come back. Wulumuqi is Han.
Aren’t there a million places
you’d rather be than in a military owned three star hotel in this dirty
place? I would like to see Ireland
again. I would like to see San Francisco
again.
I am very restless and would
like to get this over with, ok? I will
be bummed if you don’t get me there.
Who’s speaking? Good
question. Why can’t I be where I want to
be? And that is? I don’t know.
Somewhere else. Canada. I’m ready, let’s go…
John noted ten coincidentals
he shares with the spirit: blue eyes,
blond-brown hair, age, religiously trained/ heritage, harp, left leg wound,
used cannabis, celtic, oasis dweller, and shaman, when felt like he could have
been one.
I watch the news and wonder
what the world would do if they knew without a doubt that 2012 was certainly
the end of the world as we know it?
Is that my intention? And what if I am wrong? Ha, mother#@%, brain clutter, meaningful
coincidences, an acceleration in time.
All brain clutter.
A simple plan for the evening: go downstairs and get a bus ticket to Turpan
and drink beer in the hotel bar. The
travel agent was closed and when I went into the bar, the lady who ran it was
going out. Mayo no beer. A small supermarket carries semi-cold cans of
Sinkiang and bags of cookies and shrimp crackers.
In the days of April and
March, the music, the people coming and going, everything happening was in sync.
Tell me 2012 is only for me
and not for the entire planet. The
coincidences and the surreal arrival of a shaman is only for my
edification? Ya? Well %@#$ you.
While in altered states of
consciousness I found certain voices, friends, relatives, to bring great
comfort, something in the suprasegmentals which brought forth truth and
decency. On one occasion I felt an
overwhelming openness like a spring shower when I listened to Bach, it was as
if melodious strings soared to divinity and my ears soaked it up for days.
*
Two months on the road. I can’t see how much longer before I can
sleep in a bed in Pittsburgh. Will I
make it to Pittsburgh? Why wouldn’t
I? A woman ahead? I doubt it.
A job and an island offer in you know where? What a hoot.
Sigh. Turpan seems far every
hour. Where is the world tonite?
That would be a nice gift, a
beautiful dark-skinned woman between rows of white grapes waits for me. She knew you’d be back, Job, eh? Who is it?
Who was the woman in the tomb with you?
Your wife, daughter, sibling, helper?
You didn’t live alone. Do you want to introduce me to the woman who
was the love of your life?
To tell people the 2nd
coming has arrived in the form of reincarnation is a beautiful blend of beliefs
and it makes perfect sense.
And if the president has to
be told or reminded what’s in store for him, will he believe except until it happens
or doesn’t happen. Maybe we will all see
2013 and 2014 and on and on…and I will be, what? What a fool.
It was the drugs, simple.
September 2 2009
On the road to Tulufan with a
group of Chinese tourists who speak not a lick of English and we stop in one of
many tourist emporiums of jade and food and sharp knives. Look how to peel and chop a turnip. Outside the cool desert wind is nice, it
feels as if autumn is close.
Outside the Turpan Hotel I
met Mohamajohn. John, that is my second
name. He agrees to take me to the Yang
Hai tombs. I show him a copy of the
shaman’s tomb and tell him we met a few months earlier and I wanted to pay my
respects and maybe learn something more about him. Somehow.
*
What were you doing in the
mountains when you died? Grazing, I
see. Sheep? Cattle?
Hairy camels?
Another museum at the base of
the Flaming Mountains, a late afternoon sun turns the rock red and I show a few
other locals the photo of the shaman and said I died here 2700 years ago.
It is extremely windy but
inside the Chinese restaurant, beer is cold and baked lamb dumplings are spicy
hot. The Uygher woman sometimes resemble
the Pakistanis skin tone or the Greeks with long noses and dark eyes.
9.3.09 Thursday
Clear skies, the A/C
sputtered warm air and open windows let in the cool air. Two incense sticks, a candle, my drum, at the
foot of the tomb or as close as possible, this is where the shaman who goes by
the name of Job lived to the end. Hard to
freaking believe.
Mohamajohn drives a black
Russian vehicle with red interior. He
tells me he wanted to become a shaman but realized he didn’t have the gift but
it also conflicted with his Muslim faith.
“So many shamans here before, yes people here believe but you know we
shouldn’t, but how can we not?”
Tell me Mohamajohn, do the
Uygher Muslims visit the tombs of relatives?
Yes, on Thursdays they visit. And
you know what today is? A pause…it is
Thursday. And who am I visiting? I pull out the photo again. Am I related to this man? Ha. Is
this a coincidence? Musadifa?
We drove to the gate and
Mohamajohn told me to wait at the car and he walked about a mile away to the
station. I had a quick smoke and got out
the gong and gonged it loud and long. I
had a feeling this was going to be as close as I was going to get since I
didn’t have permission to enter the site.
Near the entrance to the house a family lived and three men hooted and
hollered when I gonged the gong, why I don’t know.
*
The famous tomb mentioned in
the Koran’s Surat 18, has strips of garland tied at an old entrance and in the
front, a practice unlike the Buddhists.
It is very easy to see Job
the Druid convert to Job the Israelite to Job the man. Buried with the royalty, among Kings and
Queens, among the grapes of the gods, the eternal waters.
It seems like I didn’t have a
last four years. Such an exit,
frightening everyone away while I danced with divinity and what is there to
show for it? Alone in the second lowest
place on earth. The shaman is with me, I
know and that’s why I don’t give up.
*
You see if you believe you’ll
still get into heaven but you’ll be dirt, so if you know you’re gonna be dirt
and you choose to behave even worse in these last days like killing, would you
still make it into heaven, even as dirt?
conscious dirt
To live alone without
something to mind the time until 2012 will be very difficult and
depressing.
Spirit jumping
omigod Job’s a flying, Job’s
a stoned.
Grounded….
