It’s pouring with rain again, harder than ever. After the brief respite of a day, one sunset and a few stars we’re back to full on monsoon. It’s hard to imagine where all this water comes from. Fortunately most of the families here about have harvested their maize, ploughed and flooded the paddies (easy in this weather) and planted the rice, so most of the work for this stage of the agricultural year is over.
The didgeridoo drones on from somewhere below. The American girl’s Indian boyfriend has made a suprise reappearance after yesterday’s argument, so there are some hopes the pair might at last decamp to the forest retreat up the road, whence they were originally headed. His sudden appearance the day before on the balcony right next to my room, playing Bollywood music loudly on his mobile phone and smoking didn’t exactly endear me to him from the outset. His temporarily abandoned lady has the tiresome habit of opening and closing the door of their room on and off throughout the night, with a loud snap from the bolt in the lock right next to where my head is. Impossible not to hear it.
The German lad from downstairs yesterday moved into the room recently vacated by the previous American girl with her two dogs and Russian boyfriend just over a week ago. His room mate mercifully seems to have moved on, taking little Woodie, the cutsie yapping puppy with him. Little Woodie used to be my early morning call until a few days ago; now it’s the new American girl. Latest arrival German lad talks to himself all the time and smokes practically non stop. I’ve got used to the three Brazilian yogis at the end of the balcony who seem nice and friendly enough, and they only smoke dope. Their regular invocations to Shiva, singing of mantras and live jam sessions with ukulele, a variety of drums and (aforementioned) didgeridoo have somehow managed to bypass my surveillance systems ever intent upon neighbourhood watch. I’ve enjoyed long talks about Yoga and esoteric tantra religion with them, and we’ve exchanged admiring comments of each others’ tattoos.
This is the real life of a pilgrim, in part anyway, where the work to be done on the deeper self is ongoing. You never ever have to look for it, it is always where you are. Fundamentally it’s about confronting your deeper social programming and cultural conditionings, those characteristics deemed good and bad that make you into the person you (and others) experience yourself as being. This self is, however, a social construct and generally known as one’s ‘ego’. The goal of all Yogic systems, Zen methodology and Buddhism in general is to recognise that this egoic construct is just that. It isn’t real, however real you feel it is and however much you allow it to define you. Not a thing can be allowed to remain that pulls you back into the world and into earlier versions of yourself. The pathway is slow and painful to negotiate and I’ve been following it for years now. However, my perennial, indeed lifelong dislike of intrusive neighbour noise finally got the better of me and I did sally forth at one thirty last night to give the German lad a piece of my mind, as his muttering had evolved into periodic loud exclamations. He seems to have this private interactive thing going with his mobile phone. He was sat in the dark on the piece of balcony in front of his room (a mere five paces from mine) engulfed in a haze of acrid cigarette smoke. He seemed chastened and apologised, but we’ll see if that endures or whether nightly confrontations are now going to be of the order.
The search for that elusive perfection continues …
1. Image of didgeridoo from: http://surl.li/caqlv
2. Image of Saiva yogi smoking hash from:
https://medium.com/entheogen/cannabis-in-india-from-scripture-to-stoners-7b6b756b5bcb
3. Image of man smoking marijuana from: https://www.irishexaminer.com/opinion/commentanalysis/arid-20435808.html