Seeking Self Discovery and Deception

Tourists don't come to India, as a rule.
Rather, those drawn to this ancient culture are most likely seekers.
Seeking what?

Answers to life's greatest questions, to mankind's oldest riddles or just an answer to that perennial quandary, "Who am I and why am I here?"

My association with Mother India began in 1970, when I was selected as Kalamazoo (Michigan) Community Ambassador, and sent on an all expense trip to India for several months. Each successive visit I have fallen more deeply in love with the lands and its people, my family's suggestion I, "Get India out of my system" long abandoned.

Today, nearly 40 years into this globe-spanning relationship, I discovered something I've been seeking even longer!

I found a slimming mirror, just like the one I coveted as a girl at my Aunt Ann's house. I bagged no classic spiritual truth of self discovery; I am simply thrilled with a mighty, welcome tool of self deception. A mirror.

My mother's younger and only sister, Ann, and her husband Uncle Bill, had six daughters...the Macdonald family my Midwestern family visited in Massachusetts every summer.

Such glorious vacations included full days at Nantasket Beach and its fantastic amusement park. My brothers remember the tiny Dixie cups of cola ("tonic" according to Aunt Ann; we called it "pop") totally unsatisfying for their growing male thirst. Raising girls only, my Aunt found boys, their behavior and appetites, amusing yet alien.

Images flickering in my beach memory bank:

• my water loving mother, riding the waves, a wild tomboy, untamed by the cold Atlantic's whip


• my father, creating competitions involving smooth, palm sized stones and deep holes


• my busy brothers, darting like sandpipers between the parents


• the six girl cousins holding down the hot horizon, stick figures with pencil-thin legs below blotchy pink and orange bathing suits.

With no soft Massachusetts accent and no picture of me as a Bride of Christ hanging at my Aunt's, I regarded me and my body with great disappointment and growing revulsion. My round bottom and wide hips cast a sickening shadow on the sand. No braids, pigtails or carefree ponytail, my short matted hair fairly screamed, "I'm not a cute Macdonald." I found it safest to stay wrapped in a towel, secretly sucking my faithful thumb.

Only the guest room mirror at Auntie's provided respite from my self loathing those summers. Propped against the wall (Uncle Bill was not handy like my father) the angle mercifully reflected a thin me with long legs like the cousins.

How I loved that lying looking glass; I stared at my implausible reflection long after bedtime.

So, today, nearly half a century and half a world away, I am delighted to find another such mirror here in a Chennai guestroom, at another Aunt and Uncle's home. Another loving mirror that presents me trim, narrow and less. And what perfect synchronicity! Tomorrow, Aunt Boona and Uncle Suren and I head East to the ocean, this time, the Bay of Bengal.

Thank you, Universe, for slimming this seeker, just in time.

(Photo of me in Bay of Bengal added March 1, 2009!)

Hanging Out at the Pig Mutton Hotel

Plump little piggies, is it time for a change?
Do you crave some city scenery; to expand you’re your dreary range?

Whitefield weekend getaways are the latest vacation rage.
Why not grab your bag, leave the barn and escape your familiar cage?

If country life has become a bit dull,
Consider hanging out at “Supriya’s Pig Mutton Hotel”.

Roam about the lobby with other guests, also fresh from the farm.
Like Mr. and Mrs. Goat, whose heady bouquet is bound to charm.

They, too, need a break, to cleanse their tired palette,
Fed up with grass, longing to be served with a crisp Caesar Salad!

You need not lift a leg nor raise a hoof,
Supriya provides all the comforts, under one roof.

Feel free to rest up, to overeat and even to sleep in,
Trust our innkeepers to fulfill your every whim.

With pleasure, we’ll wine you and we’ll dine you.
Encouraging a dip in our hot tub of creamy white roux.

Supriya’s specialty we confess, is our karate-chopping masseuse.
A master with flesh, he’ll make you tender and loose.

Just stretch out on his table, and let him proceed.
His hands are like magic; you’ll be transformed, indeed.

Guaranteed, be you pig or goat when your enter our gate,
You’ll leave as pork and mutton, piled high on a rich man’s plate.

Above, former guest hanging out at the Pig Mutton Hotel.

Make a Beautiful Smile on Your Face

I am living in a land of many many languages; I think there are 26 recognized in the Indian Constitution. And unfortunately I speak just one, English. My friend, Sujata, speaks at least four, the local Indian dialects specific to individual states.

Last week at Yoga University, I heard such far flung languages as Japanese and German, with close to 500 students from all over the world on campus. In the 6 a.m. yoga class, my teacher Naryan would often say, "Make a beoooooootiful smile on your face and feel the relaxation!" This cute phase would always stretch my broad grin a bit more. So sweet.

But perhaps the most satisfying interaction I enjoyed involved the communication skills of Razeena and Ramia (left and right, pictured here) the two talented massage therapists who pampered me with warm oil Abhyanga massages and steam baths. "Ahhhh" is all I could say. A certified Abhyanga masseuse myself, it was fantastic to be the body on the table. No spoken language was required.

Is it my imagination, or is there a red heart dripping down the inside of that steam box??? Like the heart that appeared in my coffee cup earlier this month?

Rest assured, I made an especially beooooooooootiful smile on my face during the massage sessions. Do I dare admit I had a massage every day? Yup!

Barack Obama, Abraham Lincoln and Me

My 57th birthday is this Thursday, providing a great link to Barack Obama. In fact, I am happy to announce that there is but one degree of separation between me and Barack!

How so? My birthday is also the birthday of President Obama's hero and guide, Abraham Lincoln. The President and I both have a strong connection to Lincoln, me by birth, the President by choice.

No wonder I feel such a kinship and love for America's 44th President. And his brown eyes remind me of the earnest, hard working, determined gaze of my son. We are definitely connected.

As for how I am celebrating my new year, I will be happily holed up in a 15,000 volume library of yoga research at the Yoga University here in Bangalore. Looking at the campus's most astounding buildings, it almost resembles a birthday cake, huh? It is actually an OM sign.

While I am a yoga teacher, teaching Yoga in the Garden here three mornings a week, I am also and always a student. How delighted I am that some friends arranged for my four day stay at the school. Can you picture me, swallowing these books whole??

An Unbearable Softness in Your Heart

Separation is such an illusion, huh? We create time and space to distance ourselves from one another, to rank and reduce, to limit and even torture.

Why am I surprised when the day I am living mirrors the books I am reading? Or the coffee served delivers the message of the Universe? Only my foolish need to divide and diminish causes me to forget Oneness.

"One of the blessings of existence is that everyone is born with a desire to see more. That's why the sages of India believed that even to think about God is a sign that surely he will one day appear," writes Deepak Chopra in his sweet fable, Why Is God Laughing?

"It turns out that expansion of consciousness is the Divine Plan. There is no other. As your awareness keeps growing, you become more and more certain that you are part of the Divine Plan as well. Nothing more is demanded of you or ever was."

Sudharsan, the beautiful young man who served me a 5:30 a.m. coffee in Pondicherry repeated this message, serving it in a cup.

So does Teresita, explaining her healing power, in The Hummingbird's Daughter, by Luis Alberto Urrea: "It is always from God. Everything is from God."

"What is it like?" to practice the gift of healing?

"It is like falling in love," she answers.

"You love them. You feel a tenderness toward them, an unbearable softness in your heart. You feel a tingle in your belly, you feel like crying. You want to kiss them, but you know you cannot."

In other words, no separation, no illusion, no distinction such as "you and me," or "us and them."

"When unity with God is attained, all energy becomes available. At that point, your wishes and desires are the same as God's," Dr. Chopra writes. "There could be no other way, since in unity a thought and a thing are one and the same."

As in a coffee cup made of love, served in love, full of love.

Can We Respect Different Approaches?

In the one week since I left the USA for India, the weather in Washington, D.C., has changed from Inaugural Euphoria to a stalled out, mean spirited storm of accusations, mistrust and ego-driven divisiveness.
(Left, Boy, with puppy, Haskell, on right)
Famous groundhog Puxatawny Phil predicted six more weeks of winter, but, please, may it not be as deadly as the present political cold front paralyzing the federal government.

Reflecting on what motivates those fighting our new President on every conceivable project, I began to think about how style not only clouds thinking, it shapes it.

A silly little story comes to mind:
One morning a few years ago, our lovely dog Boy, (somewhat a collie) was struggling to breathe. I never thought an animal could look pale, but Boy did.

My husband Thurmond drove Boy to the veterinarian, promising to call when he knew something. I stayed home with our other two dogs and tried to convince myself Boy probably ate something spoiled. I told Thurmond if euthanizing Boy was the only possible merciful action, he had my consent.

Clinging to “no news is good news,” I stayed busy and hoped for the best. The morning moved on. I didn’t know Thurmond was facing the worst news… Boy was full of cancerous tumors, one had ruptured his spleen. Boy was drowning in his own blood.

Ultimately, at the vet’s recommendation, Boy was put to sleep in Thurmond’s arms. Running on automatic pilot, Thurmond placed Boy’s body in a blanket in the car. He didn’t call me; he didn’t even use the bathroom, which he needed to do! Recalling the whole event later, Thurmond said he had just wanted to get out of the animal hospital and bring Boy home. He had just wanted to come home and grieve privately.

I share this story now, because while Thurmond and I were both 100 percent committed to our dog’s well being and supporting each other, we handled the moment very differently, and it led to a big disagreement. Rather like the nation’s leadership now…both parties pledged to care deeply about the people, but following radically different approaches.

Once home, Thurmond parked the car and ran to the bathroom. Meanwhile, I had been pacing around outdoors, and came upon his car in the garage. I looked in the backseat. I saw the large wrapped parcel. Only then did I learn Boy was dead.

“Why didn’t you call me? Why didn’t you tell me as soon as you got home?” I cried out.

Thurmond explained he never relieved himself at the animal hospital, though he was bursting with morning coffee. “Listen, honey, I thought I would tell you right after I used the bathroom. I didn’t know you would look in the car.”

I was sure I was right. I believed Thurmond should have told me first and foremost, either with a phone call or immediately upon getting home. I was so upset.

Yet, Thurmond had handled the burden single handedly. He drove close to 60 miles; he sat for hours with our dying, suffering pet. He carried 65 pound Boy in and out of the car, and watched him close his eyes for the last time. Now surely, wasn’t Thurmond allowed a moment alone? Was telling me first the only way he could express his compassion for me?

Today, I can honestly say I don’t think either of us was right or wrong. And strangely, this new awareness has given me some comfort when I consider the snarl in Washington. Perhaps no one is right and everyone is right, and everything will work out for the best. Can we respect different approaches? After writing this, I can even see Thurmond was right.