The Lonely Old Reprobate

I wasn’t expecting too much from today, it has been the penultimate day of my Ayurvedic treatment, and so it is the beginning of the end of my stay in Alwar. My first concern when I woke this morning was to find a hotel in Jaipur. I am going to there only because I want somewhere with a showroom/main dealership in Mahindra cars. They manufacture a range of models including the Bolero andScorpio which I will enlarge on this later, perhaps in a day or two, but I want to talk about other things first.

Yesterday I spoke about Ayurveda, what it is, how old it is, how, where and when it is practised, but for all the information, I imparted, I felt I had let myself down a bit really. The problem isn’t what I spoke about, the information is good, but more so, it was what I didn’t speak about. There is so much more than the dry bones of factual information, as for example the way the treatment impact me, physically, mentally, and spiritually.

Look, I’m a 66 year old northern bloke, I can be blunt, I say it as it is, to me, and if you’re too fragile to take it as it is intended that’s on you. People always claim they would rather know the truth, unless of course it is the truth about them, and then of course they want everything sugar coated, and ameliorated, so they don’t appear, like I am I guess. the ting is, I couldn’t care less what anyone thinks about me, they don’t shit in my toilet, and they don’t pay my bills, as I have said, I have never fit in anywhere with anyone, so perhaps it has made me a little bit belligerent, I have had stand on my own two feet for as long as I can remember. I think you will get my drift. But it doesn’t mean I’m totally insensitive, it’s more that I am sensitive to things most people wouldn’t notice, or things that don’t interest them

Anyway, as a point in fact, I spoke about how I learned of Ayurveda in my last entry, and about the different therapies I am receiving without really talking about them. My sessions last for two hours, a full body massage, by two men working together, in rythmic synche, applying Abhyanga,  front and back to start. It knocks you about a little bit, the two guys oiling you down from head to foot, including the soles of your feet and the palms of your hands, fingers and toes, it’s more of a limbering exercise thing, which gets your system primed for what is coming. After twenty minutes massage, you then sit in a steamer box for ten minutes, and considering the ambient temperature is already 40 degrees, it’s a bit Hot! When you get out you are literally wet through, so you dry off with little towel things, and then back to the massage bench, for  Shiroabhyanga – Oil Head Massage.

 Shiroabhyanga, is something else, and I say that with reverence. You are told to relax, an Indian mantra is played: Mahamrityunjay Mantra 108 times, ANURADHA PAUDWAL- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-y1sr1qUlE, 

Check it out if you like. I know most of you won’t give it two minutes because our auditory experiences of music are a different thing, even the standard tuning we are subjected to is abrasive, and most of what westerner listen to are lyrically indifferent, but this mantra is not for entertainment so much as for it’s frequency, I listen to it now most times when I’m alone, perhaps because of it’s significance to me via Shirosbhyanga, or whatever, but it comes as part of the package synching with the rhythm of the massage technique. You have to take it or leave it, this is my story, and what I am trying to say is that it does a number on me, it clears the way to thoughtlessness which helps transcend our typical neurological processes. A teeny small wet towel is placed over your eyes, and warm herbal oil is poured over your hairline and scalp while the lightest of touch massage is applied to your forehead and the top of your head for I guess, because I can’t tell, about twenty minutes.

For me, the effect is, otherly, it’s the only way I can describe it. I remain fully conscious, aware of everything going on around me, listening to the mantra, but neurologically I go somewhere ‘else’.

For all my bluntness, I have to say I am first and foremost a spiritual person. I have already mentioned my NDE, over forty years ago and I don’t want to keep harping on about it, but this is what I believe: 

“We are spirit. All of us. I don’t care if you are a murderer, the worst criminal on earth, or a holy man, a Sadhu, or even a King, that is the illusion. Reality as we know it, isn’t real. It is all mind. We manifest our own truth, as we see it, but the real truth is we are all one and the same thing. We ARE spirit, having a human experience, and the events we encounter are of our own making. It is this which is referred to as Karma, the place where we learn our lessons. Karma is balance, you get in the bath, and the water rises, you get out of the bath and the water falls. Today you get out of bed, and the world is a wonderful place, tomorrow you get up, and you are in the pit of hell, so what has changed? Nothing! Nothing but your own perception, what we experience is all mind, it is what you project onto your life yourself, it is what you make it, it is you, it is Karma. and the lesson you choose to learn”

I learned this during my NDE, and I have thought about it for 40+ years. I know people who laugh at the idea, Kevin Hay, a man I look up to for his immense intelligence, see’s the brain as a radio receiver, and he thinks people who talk like me are charlatans. My good friend Keith Naylor, will not listen to such trash talk because it can’t be proven, and peer reviewed. But quantum mechanics, and theory points more and more to what I am claiming, think of the double slit experiments first conducted by Thomas Young in 1801, the observed, and unobserved, who or what tells photons to behave the way they do?

Look, I am not trying to convince anyone, I said above, “this is what I believe”, I also said, ”you can take it or leave it, I don’t care“. Believe what makes you happy, this is my story, and all I am saying is this is what I believe.

But I digress, I was talking about Shiroabhyanga, and its otherness. The first time I had it, I sank into spirit, I experienced disassociation, and detachment, I experienced a somewhere elseness, not here, not anywhere, if I had words for it; never mind, I haven’t, but I know that place in the root of my being. I found myself there, stood in front of my Lord Shiva, at the “Shri Lakshmi Narain temple” in New Delhi ( my breath as I write this is has become staccato like), I can’t withhold my emotion. The Hindu Priest in that moment sat at the threshold of the shrine, just nodded at me and smiled, and he then placed a bindi in the centre of my forehead as tears streamed down my face, and from somewhere I heard myself asking forgiveness for forgetting who I am. That was the 8th May, and I am still shaking.    

This is India, this is why I came here, and it is why I feel I belong here, and why I want to share it with you, it is extraordinary.

I digress again as I wipe away a tear. That was my first experience of Shiroabhyanga. It hasn’t happened again since that first encounter, I don’t think I could take it every day, but it happened. Since then I Merely enter a trance state, or one of deep meditative bliss. I have never bothered with meditation, because of my belief we are in spirit anyway, spirit Is our natural state. Everything else is just mind.

Following Shiroabhyanga, there is another short ’scalp massage involving having your head tapped with the fingers of both hands on both sides of your head, having it raked and messed with rhythmically, and finished off with a closed hand placed on my crown and  tapped gently with the other hand. I don’t know what the significance of that is, perhaps a psychic door bell, to open you up, but it is a practise stretching back thousands of years, and which I open myself up to without needing to understand. 

I find it difficult to speak, or communicate following Shiroabhyanga, again I am laid down, for a facial massage, and nasal oil drops. The oil is organic, neither pleasant, nor unduly unpleasant. My nose is massaged, and I am told to lay on my back to relax for five more minutes whilst I reconstitute. Then comes the bit I don’t like. The dreaded enema. I know the anus is the quickest entry point into out nervous system, and the oils injected there clears toxins from the colon, improves gut – brain communication,  and encourages theta-brainwave states (deep rest, intuitive access,  and all the rest, but I don’t like it) I suppose it’s the northern bloke part of Toni which persists, no matter how hard I try to surrender to it. I’m sorry, no offence intended to anyone who feels different, but for me, it has always been an exit point, which does not permit access to any sort of insertion, and it gives me a great sense of unease. After I have recovered from that ordeal, I wipe down the oils which have stay put for three hours minimum before showering, during which time the inevitable consequence of the enema takes its toll centre stage.

But for all of the above, my special experience came at me differently. The clinic is run by Dr Ashok Kumar, whose 98 year old father has visited regularly during my treatment. He is slightly taller than I am, very slim, not thin, and he dresses as he probably has done his entire 98 year life.

The first time I saw him he was sat with his hadn’t raised in a mudra, (you see Indian temple sculptures holding them, there are many varieties, each with it’s own significance) he struck me as special, a serene, holy man. When I say we are spirit, he embodies my impression of what I think I am talking about. I don’t think he saw me at all, but I put my hands together and bowed my head to him, not that he noticed that either. However, I have seen him a number of times since that first encounter, the first time I think he saw me, I touched my chest, with the same hand I touched below my eye, and then directed the same hand towards him, my attempt at nonverbal communication saying “I see you”, and he has smiled at me, as he has done a few times since then. I saw him again today. When my treatment had finished, I went out to get into my taxi, and again I put my hands together and bowed my head, he then reached into a small pouch and gave me what I thought were some crystals and tiny stones, which thrilled me to bits especially because he was grinning all over his face. I had no idea what he had given me, I was getting in the taxi to bring me back, so I nodded my appreciation and put them in my pocket.

Back at the hotel, I took a photo:

I input the photo to chat GPS and asked what  they are, it turns out they are:

1. Kishmish (किशमिश) – These are golden raisins. They’re naturally sweet, sun-dried grapes and commonly offered in prasad (sacred food offering).

2. Mishri (मिश्री) – These are small, cube-shaped crystals of rock sugar. Mishri is considered sattvic (pure) in Ayurveda and is often used in rituals, as a digestive, or in combination with fennel or herbs.

Symbolic and Practical Meaning:

• This combination is often handed out as a simple prasad, meant to bless and nourish.

• Raisins represent vitality and sweetness of life.

• Mishri represents purity and clarity—and is said to sweeten speech and thoughts.

It’s likely the old mystic gave this to you as a symbolic gesture of sweet blessings, divine energy, and goodwill. It’s customary to receive it with the right hand and eat it with a sense of reverence.

For me, this was a special moment which brought tears with the realisation, I was seen! I don’t care if the gesture means nothing to anyone else, I was touched deeply by him, so i have put them in a pill box and I will carry them until I settle down some where.

Later, in the evening, I took a Tuk, Tuk to the railway station to book my ticket to Jaipur the day after tomorrow. I went to what I thought was the ticket office, only to be sent a further 200meters down the road, to the reservations office. They didn’t tell me I had to fill form in, which I managed eventually, and I wasn’t expecting at 7pm to be in a crowd of about twenty clamouring people pushing and shoving with no sense of order, but as with the roads people are oblivious to anyone or anything else, other than what they want or where the want to be, only to be told when I was eventually in range, that the information I had was wrong, so my form didn’t matter, and my travel plans were useless, and I couldn’t hear what was being said, so I gave up the ghost.

Shirosbhyanga, tires me out, and I was at the end of my energy, so I thought enough is enough, and returned to the hotel. There I spoke to the duty manager, who said he would arrange a taxi for the journey! I know! a taxi! It’s a bit extravagant, a 150 kilometre taxi ride, but it will cost me £40! Can you imagine that in the UK? You would pay more that that for a ten mile fare on a night out. At least I will be taken door to door, no luggage issues, no hustle and bustle, no chance of being on the wrong platform when you can’t read the signage, I mean, I am trying, but flipping heck!!

So hotel booked, taxi booked, no travelling in the dead of night in a sleeper carriage full of farting hairy bruisers, and alls well that ends well. And whilst I was sorting that, the chef was hanging around. That guy can cook, and so I pulled his leg about my blog and said I would give him write up if he did one of his amazing special meals. Half an hour later, he brought his favourite dish to my room with on of the young lads who works here with a fruit dish containing all  sorts of delicacies, so I got a shot of them in my room, don’t they look young? The lad closest to the camera is the chef, he looks about twelve years old to me, but wow! his food, it’s the best.