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You’re swingin' on the Riviera one day |
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Then bleedin' in a Bombay alley next day |
Before Vince left India, he stopped in Bombay. One of the world's oldest and busiest
ports, now a thriving movie and music town. They call it Bollywood. He said he was
going to see a psychic there, The Reader Of Brigue. He was told that the reader had
personal problems, mostly chasing after Western women, and his accuracy of reading
the future was limited, but he had promised a friend that if he could, he would see
him.
He called the number up on the card he had been given and made an appointment to
see him the following day. Checking into a small hotel called the International Grand,
it had as much room as a beehive cell, he said. But it was cheap and clean.
After washing up in the room, he decided naturally to have a look around the city.
Stepping outside into the street, he took a deep breath, and could smell the burning
leaves mixed with cow dung that intoxicated the senses.
A rich, deep and memory-lingering smell.
After an hour's walk, seeing mostly apartment buildings and small shanty-style dwellings,
he found his way back to the hotel and had dinner. Then went upstairs to sleep and
await the next day.
In the morning he caught a cab to the Reader's residence. A large condo-like apartment
building. He knocked at the door and a tall, blonde, American Goddess opened the
door and ran out into the hallway screaming, until she disappeared from view. "It
looked like a Marx Brothers' movie", he told me, and smiled. He lit a cigarette,
and looked introspectively for a time. I hesitated to interrupt his reverie, when
he began to continue talking. Well, he took me downstairs into a parking lot and
measured my shadow with a ruler, right? Then back upstairs behind his desk, he pulled
out a number of plastic sheaths and he begins to tell me about my business, and love
life.
Pretty accurate he was, down to the color of ex-girlfriends hair and eyes. He asked
if I was more interested in my past or future, and I said "Whatever!"
At the end of the reading I gave him 400rs and walked out into the street. I had
lunch somewhere, and I began to walk back to the hotel. My reservations on the airline
were not for another two days, and I wondered what I was going to do with the time,
when a taxi cab pulled up and the driver said, "You must come with me sir".
Vince said he had seen too many movies to go for that line! He said he had the strangest
feeling though, that he knew the cabdriver somehow, and instinctually trusted him.
The cabbie said again, "Please come with me, sir. Trust me, no harm will come
to you". I said, "Alright, I’m coming", and I got into the back seat.
We must have driven for two hours, the city streets faded from sight and the scenery
was becoming backroads. He kept driving, thru the dusty backroads, until he stopped
in front of a small building in the proverbial middle of nowhere, or as the yogi
would say now here!
He got out of the cab and opened my door like I was getting out of a limo in Hollywood!
"This is my cousin’s hotel, I will get you a good rate, don’t worry!" I
was still under the spell of déjà vu, I guess, because my mind was
trying to get my attention, badly!
It wanted to say to me, "You idiot! You fool! This guy picked you out as a sucker
and you bought it! Now look what trusting your instincts has done! How many times
do I have to tell you……." Something like that. I felt the vague waves of its
embarrassment, but I decided not to listen. Not now, not yet.
I looked around the landscape and it was deserted as far as I could see. Huge dirt
roads, a bridge that seemed to lead to nowhere, and this little white stucco hotel.
I walked in. The manager or owner, I don’t know, welcomed me like I was the King
Of Morocco! He showed me to a room and said "Don’t worry, I’ll give you a good
rate!" I stepped inside a small 12-by-15 room with a bed, and a black and white
TV that didn’t work.
It was 1:00 p.m.
I sat on the bed and watched the cab drive off, lit a cigarette
and continued to stare out the window at dust. I must’ve fallen asleep for an hour
or more, when bells outside in the street awoke me. It looked like a carnival. Hindu
priests were stepping off a large truck ringing bells and waving incense sticks.
A lot of people with animals were suddenly crowding into this tiny street. I watched
awestruck at this change and the colors of the ceremony! Just as suddenly as it began,
it ended, and the truck with the priests left canvass empty again.
"I had hoped to give up the nicotine habit while I was in India", Vince
told me.
I had promised myself not to buy a pack while I was there. But to my chagrin, I found
they sold individual cigarettes, and I wanted one now! I fought the feeling for ten
or fifteen minutes but it wouldn’t go away! I walked out the door of my room, to
the manager's desk and asked where I could buy a cigarette. He smiled, and just pointed.
I watched where he was pointing to and followed into the street where the Priests
had done the animal blessings. There was nothing there!
I walked around to where the bridge was and crossed it. It was a mile long or so,
and there were a few shops, but no smoke shops. I purchased a small silver ring of
an Indian Saint named Shirdi Sai Baba for a few rupees, had a small bite to eat at
a little stand, and walked back to the hotel.
It was around 5:00 p.m.
The sun was beginning to set and I was still on the search for a smoke shop when
I found this alley of streets to the west of the small hotel. I entered it and found
a smoke shop! What was interesting to me was how the alleyway seemed to go on and
on into an ever-widening and curling street. I started walking deeper into what seemed
like a labyrinth. The sun was still going down slowly, when I became aware of my
fear again. It wanted to advise me that people can disappear in alleys!
I heard a voice exclaim, "He’s here! Baba is here!" Vince took a drag from
his cigarette and looked me dead in the eyes.
"You won’t believe what happened next", he said. He told me he felt a great
sense of exhilaration and began looking himself for Sai Baba.
As I walked further into the alley people were sitting on the roadway, and I seemed
to feel as if they were my dear relatives! I heard myself say to myself
"Oh, there’s Narayana and his two children. She just got over a severe cold,
and he’s been grateful that she’s better."
I saw an old man, and I heard myself say, "Just 120 hairs left on his head and
missing one tooth in his back pocket comb!" Windows flew open and people cried
"Baba, baba!" I felt myself gliding above the street, blessing each and
every one from a heart filled with a Universe of abundant love!
Then I heard this Voice saying to me, "Oh look, that man's lungs are black with
smoke! Baba will fix. Watch, watch!"
The image of Sai Baba was now inside my mind. As he took this deep breath in and
exhaled a ton of black smoke. "Look now, black lung is gone… clean!" He
laughed and laughed and laughed. "Look what Baba did", I heard Him say
as he laughed.
"Is it you, Baba?", I said. "Yes", he laughed. "Just watch
and listen!"
At that moment I heard millions of voices in my head, I knew the sound of each and
every one of them. I knew their names and the names of their families and fathers
and great-grandfathers back to the beginning when there was no one but God and into
the future I saw their children and children’s children into infinity. They were
praying to God! Baba said to me, "See that man upstairs by the window, he doesn’t
like me. He’s been asking me for a job for a long time.
He doesn’t know his brother-in-law is coming here next week with good news for him."
I felt under my feet the insects who lived there and knew them as well as I knew
myself and loved them as much. I knew their desires and feelings.
We came across a very small Muslim temple and the priest came out and bowed to Baba!
He asked Him in to bless the temple and at that moment I was left alone in my personal
consciousness. I felt a cold fear tickle my mind like needles. I cried inside, "Baba,
where are you?" And He replied, "Don’t worry, I’ll be right back."
I did what I thought to be my best imitation of Baba, using my hands in the way He
might, and told the priest to wait. He didn’t seem to notice anything wrong, I mean
that it was me, Vince, there and not Sai Baba, so I stood fast and waited for Baba
to return.
He did, I heard him tell the priest, "I bless! I bless! I bless!" and we
moved on.
The sun had just gone down, and lights came on in the alleyway like a small Las Vegas!
Music began playing and noise everywhere…. Baba seemed to be leaving the alley and
people were waving goodbye! It was now dark outside as I reached the entrance where
I had first entered into the alley.
I didn’t know what had just happened! My mind was trying to tell me that I just went
over the edge and should seek medical help! I walked into the hotel and the owner
said to me, "Did you see Him?" "See who?", I said. "Sai
Baba, Sai Baba was here! What a pity that you missed Him!", he said. Every 5
years the people
in the alley save up enough money to celebrate a holiday. They wrote to Sai Baba
asking Him if He would come, and He sent a letter saying "Yes, He would!"
"So", Vince said, "What I experienced was real. I tasted our Real
Self that contains omnipresence and omipotence and omnicompetence! Peace beyond imagination
and Love beyond anything we as humans call love."
"What did you do next?", I asked. Vince said he stayed the night. The cab
driver came the next morning and took him back into Bombay where he stayed for another
day, until he caught the plane back home.
This is the story that Vince told me one afternoon, as we sat having Chai (Indian
Sweet Tea) at a little restaurant on the streets of Puttaparthie.
Ever since then my faith in God has deepened and I have a sense that I am not as
alone as I think I once was. God is listening and watching, and waiting for me to
make the right choices. Like the Indian man who was upset at God for not giving him
a job when he asked for it, he chose to be upset and unhappy.
Work was coming…. it wasn’t on his timeframe though. So, he chose unfaith and unhappiness.
Time wasted.
From this story Baba sounds as if He is always in Joy and enjoying everything and
everyone. He sees them, as Vince said, as his dearest relatives and as His own Self!
And that Self is in everyone and everything and constantly filled with giving and
Loving and laughing!