Smoke Gets in Your (Third) Eye

Jan 4. Tired, sore, dirty.

Sunday morning satsang involves a roughly 1.5 mile walk into the village, over the dam and arriving at the lake. We settle in for lakeside meditation, with a beautiful view of the sunrise over the mountains. After a few moments of silence, I hear voices and the unmistakable squeal of children. Peering in the direction of the noise, I notice a man and three of his young children bathing in the lake. It was a cool morning; too cool for a bath, but the kids were playing, swimming, laughing nonetheless. My meditation was shot, I couldn't take my eyes off of this gorgeous scene. Or maybe it became a different sort of meditation. My heart groaned for a moment and thought of Noah and Arj.

It would soon come to my attention that there were two very young children at the ashram with their parents, and it was pure heartache to hear their voices and watch them romp about. I even wished them gone several times. But it was pure heaven when I could interact with them, touch a little foot, tickle a sweet tummy to produce a smile!

Sunday morning satsang was a fire ritual, a puja dedicated to Ganesha. Appropriate enough for the official day of initiation. We were settling in, when one of the teaching staff approached the girl next to me, thwacked her outstretched legs and whispered menacingly into her ear. Poor girl explained to me as she meekly tucked her feet cross-legged: "Apparently, it's highly disrespectful to show one's feet in the direction of the altar." I made a mental note; as I wasn't prepared to be made an example of - at least not yet. Om Gam Ganapatiye Namaha...

The swamis and teaching staff initiated us at that evening's satsang and bestowed upon us our fine uniforms ("yellow is the color of learning, white the color of purity!"), our textbooks and a composition book. We were to immediately retreat to the dorms, change into uniforms and return without delay. That may have been the only time during the entire 4 weeks that anyone there was excited about wearing that fine ensemble; but let me not cheapen the moment here - it was a beautiful evening, full of hope, excitement, anticipation. Maybe dread, too, but that's beside the point...

I've made some fast friends already, as you can imagine in such a pressure-cooker environment. Many are travelers without a concrete plan; it surprised me, I guess. My beautiful amiga Margaret taught in Tibet, trekked/hitchiked across Mongolia, and explored the northern reaches of India before landing here, and this was not entirely atypical. Mary, whom I had brought home with me straight from the airport, had no real plan for going home after graduation; she only knew she wanted to get to the Phillipines at some point. No hurry.


All of the "TTCers" (as we would become known, to differentiate us from pansy 2-week "vacationers") had arrived and been initiated, and tomorrow would be our first day of regular lectures and asana.