Me and Meditation. January 21

One of the reasons I wanted to come to India is because of John's incredible enthusiasm about the village where his spiritual guide lived and died. He's always talking about the great "shakti" there. So Ganeshpuri was absolutely essential to our itinerary. It's a small rustic Indian village, and yes, I mean rustic like cooking over fires, keeping chickens and water buffalo, and sleeping, eating and entertaining in the same cement room that you have your business located.

So, what do people do in Ganeshpuri when they are not milking the water buffalo? They meditate and chant in the temple of the Guru Nityananda. Yep. And there is also this Ashram that attracts people from all over the world. Kind of like the "pray" part of "Eat, Pray, Love".

Okay. So I've tried to meditate and it usually just feels like a monumental waste of time. But I'm married to this guy that gets totally blissed out on meditation. He has all sorts of amazing, joyful moments when he meditates and I just have achey hips.

Arriving in Ganeshpuri was a relief and a burden. There was the relief of not being trapped in a smelly, throbbing overwhelming city and the burden of a whole new set of problems to get used to. Problems like how will I escape this feeling of being a total fraud, fake, cheesy new age guru groupie. Ganeshpuri is the hub of Baba Muktananda and Nityananda. They are both the gurus of John's Guru. The place that we are staying is across the street from the ashram where people come from all over the world to have "darshan" with these Gurus. I just learned that "darshan" means "in the company of saints", but of course when our host, Denish used it like I say it everyday in my life, I nodded and smiled a complicit smile that said, "Oh yeah. Totally do darshan all the time." When he started talking about how he grew up with Guru Maya and his father played with Muktananda and his grandfather cared for Nityananda, I realized that I'm into this pretty deep. It's like when you stopped listening to someone, but you're nodding your head like you still know what she's talking about and it just gets deeper and deeper because you finally have no idea whether you should be agreeing or disagreeing. I still want to confess to Denish. "I don't have any idea what I'm doing here. I just came along because I like Indian food." But he continues to talk to me like I've been practicing his religion for my whole life and I continue to pretend that I have.

As I continued to think about this problem I managed to work myself into a lovely little anxiety spiral. Alright, now I was not trapped in the depths of a frightening city, I was trapped in a spiritual mecca of devotees. Everybody here says "namaste". It's like saying "hello". I always thought it was a yoga word. There are still beggars, but they are enlightened and try to sell you offerings for the guru. Every westerner I meet is blissed out and wearing Indian clothes. Yep. I had a whole new situation to untangle.

Talking to John about it helped. I usually get some valuable advice about my anxiety by talking to John. I call it "talking me down". I usually need this when my thoughts have spun out of control about some problem I'm grappling with, like an angry parent from school or a complicated lie I have spun for myself or a multitude of problems. So, his advice was good for me. "Maybe you can just treat it like something you're checking out"...like taking a car for a test drive or browsing for a movie. I thought that since I'm at the "hub" of a spiritual mecca, I might as well give it a shot. So, I got a book about meditation at the book store and read it last night.

Today, after lunch, John wanted to go to "Muktananda's Maha Samadi Shrine". Other than a mouthful, this is the place where Muktananda's body rested. Maha Samadi means "the great merging". Cool. Okay. I'll check it out. I decided that I would just go in and walk through the routine that everybody else did.

The part that has always made me uncomfortable is all the prostrating gestures that others made. People would touch their hands to their hearts and kiss their fingertips and touch their fingertips to the edge of the shrine. Others would lie down on the floor in front of the shrine and kiss the floor. Others would kneel before the shrine and close their eyes and say a prayer. Teenagers and old folks all did this. All this felt really insincere and phony for me. I wasn't sure about how I felt about this whole thing, but I didn't want to be disrespectful and not follow the rules. I'm a big fan of "following the rules", frequently this is motivated out of "fear". Not sure I know what's going to happen if I don't follow the rules, but I still have the innate fear, so I guess it doesn't matter what I'm afraid of. I'm not proud of this. I frankly can't stand this quality in myself. But it's definitely there.

But I'm just checking it out. Not joining a cult. Not giving up all of my worldly belongings to a stranger. Just checking it out, taking it further, checking it out. I feel a different confidence with this new attitude. I stroll into the temple and follow the protocol. Step up to the offering table, bow, walk clockwise. I don't look at the guru with love like I think I'm supposed to. I just look with curiosity. In my head I'm thinking, "alright, what are you all about anyway?" It feels like I'm facing him. Just standing in his presence. Then I walk up to the alter where there is a bunch of flowers. I go through the motion of bowing down in front of the alter, and as I do, I catch the scent of the jasmine in the tray. I know what I'm gonna do at the altar. I'm just gonna breathe in. It feels great.

Having gotten through the most public and, for me, most difficult part of the ritual, I settle onto the cool marble floor. I lean my back against the cool marble wall and I close my eyes. Now the internal conversations begin. The meditation instruction book gave me permission to not have a mantra. Another way to meditate is to sort of step outside of yourself and observe your thoughts as they occurred without judgement. So I give it a shot. I observe that I'm uncomfortable in the temple. I observe that this feels weird and foreign. I observe that there are other people in the room looking around. I adjust myself on the floor and I observe that I'm self conscious about moving around.

This is starting to get old so I decide to try the mantra idea. But I don't want to say something I don't understand in Sanskrit. So I try to think of what I can say and the words come to me from somewhere else, "silly, silly Marcia. What are you so afraid of?" I can feel a smile growing on my face and I'm set free just a little bit. That is my mantra? This is my mantra. I start repeating it over and over again. I want to laugh and I can picture Muktananda laughing too. We are both laughing heartily at me. But it's not a mean or sarcastic laugh. It's a joyful, full laugh like we're a couple of teenagers at a pajama party.

I continue to repeat my new mantra until it starts to get old. Then I switch back to observing my thoughts again. I observe that there is a woman on the other side of the room who is very serious about her meditation. I start to slip into thoughts about how she is phony and pretentious about meditation. Muktananda says, "why do you care about her? What does your opinion of her matter?" But I don't feel my typical reaction to that judgement. I just easily observe that he's right.

Then I break out the hard stuff. I let those feelings of homesickness and sadness come to the surface. I observe that I miss Mom and Sally. I observe that I feel scared about them being safe and well. I observe that these feelings are about me feeling bad that I'm not with them, but far away from them instead. I observe that I'm judging myself for this. I observe that I love them very much. Now it is getting hard to be outside of myself. I'm starting to well up with tears.

After several breaths and repetitions of "silly silly marcia what are you so afraid of" I feel back on track. A new feeling comes to me, from what seems to be a new place. I'm not really separated from them. I had this image of me, Mom and Sally spinning up into the sky like a twisting, freeing vortex of white energy. Not easy to fathom, but that is what I observed and it felt great, like I was riding the vortex up through the ceiling.

Finally, the thoughts about the begging I was dealing with came up. I observed that I felt shame about it. I observed that I felt angry about all this shit. I observed that I was trying to fix everyone. I observed that I was feeling pretty important about all this power I had. Then, out of somewhere else. "I don't have to figure out everything. But when I decide to give someone money, I should be fully present with them. Not, here's some money now leave me and my guilt alone. Instead, I will look the person in the eye and put the money into his or her hand and be there for the exchange." I know I didn't think of that all by myself.

Then I observed that I felt great. Much of the tight awkward self-consciousness in my body was gone. I walked out of the temple and smiled at the three guys guarding the place with their guns and uniforms. I strolled over to get my shoes and the two guys waiting to sell me flower garland offerings waited there to hit me up for rupees. I checked in with myself and smiled at them and said, "no thanks fellas" and I strolled up the hill.