Malaysia

The traffic of Kuala Lumpur yields to four-lane highway. It is dark now. The bis is VIP air-conditioned, only three seats across. Each seat is like a lazy boy, complete with footrest. Only in the color, patter and material reserved for airplane economy seats and hotel carpet. Coming from Kerala to Kuala Lumpur feels like we crossed two worlds and landed in Australia. The roads here have bright white lines clearly demarcating lanes. And the cars mostly stay between them and on their side of the road. And there are no cows in the road. In fact, we haven't seen a tuk-tuk since we left India. The road is smooth. Where an Indian tour company falsely advertised "no-jerk" bus rides, the Malaysians deliver. That speaks both to the smoothness of the ride and the lack of hassle.

And then there is the food. Delicious street food at every turn. Noodles are back on the menu. Curries are sweeter. Seafood more present and creative. Shrimp everywhere. And a whole range of soups with light seasonings like lemongrass, green onion and cilantro. The glimmering towers of Kuala Lumpur make it clear Malaysia is first world. And while the city's beautiful parks clearly started with bulldozers not jungle, they are as peaceful as the Petronas Towers are tall. Here one can definitely feel the Asian Tigers' roar.

Shadows of lone mountains start to appear in the darkness outside the bus window, like huge slumbering elephants. Their sides look scarred. In the darkness, it looks to be mining. Sides of mountains lopped off, gaping wounds exposed, the mechanics of industry below. Or perhaps it is merely the limestone cliffs on the Andaman Coast reaching inland to mark our journey north.

We reach Penang abruptly, just after midnight. The bus drops us on the side of the highway. I expected us to be in Georgetown and for it to be a sleepy colonial town. But, we are still a dozen miles from Georgetown, and it is far from sleepy. I object to the price a first taxi driver offers us. In most places, when we walk away, they give chase and take our last price. But he didn't. He disappeared into the night. And it was twenty long minutes before another appeared, at which point I was thankful to pay the same 25 Malaysian ringgat I had refused twenty minutes earlier. The taxi driver like the bus, didn't drop us exactly at our destination. We had to walk around an endless block to find no vacancies at the 75 Travellers Lodge. They sent us next door to an old colonial building with a great wooden stairway, high ceilings and plywood walls. We pay for the room, use the toilet, drop our bags, and head out into what is supposed to be some of the best food in Malaysia.

The sleepy Chinese man at the gate locks us out. He tells us to watch out for Indian purse-snatchers on motorcycles. He tells us their is a food court with live music and lots of choices to our left. And a fat Chinese woman with a stall of great food to our right. We opt for the choices to our left. We just came from the right. As we walk, Annette and I reflect on the recent safety advice we received. It is funny that it is always another race or nationality that is the threat. Our black South African guide from Soweto warned us about the Zimbabweans. The Ghanaians warned us about the Nigerians. Now the Chinese Malaysians warn us about the Indians. The guidebook just warns us about motorcycle purse snatchers, just about everywhere there are motorcycles and concentrations of tourists.

We find the food court is filled with pictures of every type of Asian food imaginable and a token pizza place. Many of the stalls seem to be scrubbing their grills down. We land on a Japanese place with salmon and chicken combination teriyaki plates for the equivalent of $3 U.S. We order two large cold Chang beers, which are equally as expensive as the dinner. We sit in plastic chairs and admire the cheap Chinese lanterns hanging everywhere. Two Malaysian women are drinking at the table to our left. Two Malaysian men are drinking heartily with two tattooed gnarled white guys two tables in front of us. It feels like a mix between a bachelor party and a sad business outing in which each tries to out-drink the other, when despite their bravado, all of them would rather be at home with their wives. There is a stage in the middle with three women singing over a synthesizer. They sing everything from Whitney Houston to the Beatles. It feels like karaoke, but it isn't quite. The girls have long hair, knee high tights or boots and midriff showing. Their outfits are about as coordinated as their dance moves. We can tell an attempt was made on both fronts, but they don't quite match. The mismatch works better with the outfits than the dance moves. Our view of the show is frequently interrupted by two waitresses and a waiter who seem to feel the need to refill our beer glass after every sip. We agree this is either a) an effort to get a tip from us, b) an effort to get us to buy more beer, c) training provided by Indian men in the art of service or d) all of the above. In the end, we still only drink one beer, don't tip, and find the waiters and waitresses more entertaining than the singers/dancers.

We stay past the end of the show. A few minutes after 1, we decide to walk a bit more before heading back to our hotel. We walk past a few posh night clubs that won't let us in because of our outfits. We stroll past a row of bars with mostly empty outdoor seating and drinks overpriced for tourists. We walk past a garage filled with a collection Mercedes Benz covered in an inch of dust. We wander around to the front of the building to discover the spotless shiny showroom, still lit through the floor to ceiling windows despite being closed. We walk back toward our hotel to find three prostitutes of questionable gender on a corner across from the iron gate, trickling fountain, leafy foliage and golden-lit balconies of a classy hotel. By the time we pass the 7-11 (they are everywhere in Malaysia and Thailand!), I have decided we should spend our limited time elsewhere. Since we have less than a week until we have to be in Northern Thailand for our meditation retreat, I would rather spend it on the emerald seas amidst the limestone cliffs of Thailand then the dirty streets and prostitutes of Georgetown.

We wake up in the morning and purchase a ticket to Krabi, Thailand. Last bus leaves at noon. We pack and leave ourselves time to wander around Georgetown in the daylight. I am quickly hit with doubts about the decision to leave so quickly. Food stalls waft deliciousness in all directions. We opt for Chinese tofu and vegetables over rice. I am always amazed at how delicious tofu is in Asia. It sometimes makes me wonder whether it is actually pork, not soy. We walk past temples with monks selling caged birds and incense sticks four inches across and six feet high burning. The whole place smells of smoke. Fires are burning in huge clay ovens outside, cooking something. I don't know what. The temple is elaborate. Carnival-esque in a different sort of way than the Hindu temples. The colors here are all based around red. The roof slopes at the edges.

We wander into an empty temple. Three cups of tea and three sticks of incense sit below a shrine as offerings. The stores next sell all the necessary and unnecessary items for worship. Incense of all sizes. Huge porcelain Buddhas. Urns too big to carry. Flower garlands. Temples in Asia always have these stores outside of them What do we have outside the churches in America? In small towns, the post office. In cities, the liquor store, pharmacy, another church?

Enjoying one of KL's parks.

Georgetown Temple

I wonder if the caged bird is a metaphor for something?

We wander back to the hotel for our van to Thailand, settling on the thought that this was the perfect amount of time in Georgetown. And, perhaps, we will have to come again.

Beauty in Munnar

Tea fields in the mountains.

“They are on their honeymoon.”

“So that explains why he looks like a rock star,” Annette responds.

“And why she has Henna up past her ankles,” I add. “They are headed to Munnar too.”

The bus winds up a narrow road. I figure it is a good sign that the mountain vistas and waterfalls are already beautiful and we are still thirty windy kilometers from Munnar.

We arrive in time for a late lunch. This hill station town that used be a refuge for British colonial authorities from the South India heat is busy with Western tourists and more than its quota of henna-covered Indian honeymooners. It must be a nice honeymoon destination—a mile high in the mountains, a welcome respite from the tropical heat, excitement and attention of an Indian wedding. Most of them, I imagine, are fresh from arranged marriages, regardless of whether or not they used the services of any of the several Internet marriage sites we saw advertised on billboards on today's seven hour journey. Imagine if the honeymoon was a first date. Sure, they interviewed each other and each other's family. And they spent the last week of wedding wonderment and chaos together. And now, all the family is gone. The henna is fading. And here among the tea plantations and the mist, they glimpse at each other for the first time, for the rest of their lives. Do they have butterflies in their stomach? Is it all sex, presuming many of them abstained from ever having it before? Or do they wait? Do they feel the need to establish the groundrules of the marriage, teach each other what works and what doesn't for the other? Or has society already done most of that?

We leave the honeymooners in town as we ride a cold morning auto rickshaw up the mountain. It is 7 a.m. The sun is just beginning to light up the brilliant green rows of tea plants. We pass stalls covered in tarps, not awake yet for the throng of tourists and honeymooners who will undoubtedly arrive in a few hours. We climb, slowly, in third gear, then second gear. The tea plants stretching out around us remind me of the beautiful patterns in the cracked mud after the Katrina floodwaters receded. Annette gathers herself around my arm for heat. As the light begins to touch the tea plants, they seem to glimmer with a hint of purple. The tea plantations continue as we climb. They stop only where the cliff faces become sheer, then resume again on the other side.

We stop as the rickshaw driver shouts, “Squirrel.” Sure enough in the tree is a bear squirrel. It is aptly named, with it's thick black coat and touch of brown on the underside. It reminds me of a adult newfoundland, the only other non-ursa I have mistaken for a bear. We snap some photos and drive on.

“That is the highest tea estate in the world.” The rickshaw driver points across the valley to a mountain with neat rows of green striping it like braids. A path that seems to be only a millimeter in width from our vantage point zig zags its way up the mountain to the estate. I try to count the number of switchbacks, but I am unsuccessful. There are too many. And there is too much else to see.

The auto rickshaw driver stops. “You can walk here to that point. I will pick you up there.” He gestures toward the misty valley. “The road will split. You go right.”

So we set off on foot and start down a path behind a closed stall through the rows of tea plants. “No. That way!” the rickshaw driver hollers, directing us along the road. So, we walk the road, enjoying the heat of the morning sun. Tea rows stretch in all directions, sometimes dark pine green, sometimes lush and almost florescent.

We walk and take pictures and breaths amidst the mountains, valleys and clouds, all arranged brilliantly like a beautiful oil painting, to elicit a mood of tranquility and reverence. We stop in some plastic red chairs placed in the sun for chai. The chai is not very good, but it is warm. And it doesn't make me poop for a change, here on the mountain a long way from a toilet. We walk on past women gathering water and setting up their stalls for the day. We walk past offering calls of “Bread omelette, tea, coffee?” as the views get more profound. We come to a gate where a man stands in orange and asks for fifteen rupees admission fee. I wonder what makes the other side of the gate worth charging admission for, but by the time my mind moves my lips to object, my hand has found thirty rupees for the two of us. Sometimes, you just need to go where the tour leads... and be glad we are the only two people on the tour.

The path starts down a hill and winds around to a point. We have left the state of Kerala. Our feet now rest in the state of Tamil Nadu. We come to a lookout point. The mountain drops off steeply on three sides. I sit on a rock on the point and close my eyes. I can feel the warm rays of the sun on my left forearm. I hear birds chirping, tweeting and whistling. I can hear a stream tumbling down the mountain to my right. And the distant chatter of a group of Indian tourists. I can smell pine and eucalyptus, and what I imagine to be the smell of tea plants. It is all so fresh in the morning, almost a minty quality to it. I can feel my breath slow. I sit for maybe twenty minutes, listening, feeling, smelling. It is that feeling of bliss I experienced after that first hug of Amma's.

As I hear the voices of the Indian tourists winding their way down the hill in our direction, I open my eyes. The valley that stretched out before me is now covered in clouds. I can only see a few peaks popping their heads out across the valley. We slowly and mindfully walk back up the hill. I can feel my breath deepening, my heart beating harder, as we climb. The dampness of sweat arrives on my forehead. Still, I hear the birds. I feel the sun. I smell the forest. We stop to pull two chairs up before two women with a stall and a stove. They are beautiful. We ask for bread omelets. I expect an omelet with toast. But it is, in fact, a bread omelet. Two pieces of bread are cooked right into the omelet. French toast meets omelet. It is delicious.

I reflect on our past few days and the ashram. If the purpose of meditation, perhaps even of life, is to experience and live in God's love, then beauty must be access to it. Here, it is all so beautiful. And yes, it is a beautiful place with great energy, much like Amma's ashram. But I think when you are experiencing God's love, you notice beauty all around you. At least I do. The feeling quickly disappears as the bread omelet is digested, the dahlias in the flower garden have been oggled, and we are squarely in the bustle of Munnar town. And all I am left with are words, photos and memories. So, I share them.

Divine Mothers: A First Ashram Experience

Our host in Nasik, Prabhakar, called himself a motherless child. As he described the details of his traditional Indian wedding, it seemed that the fact that his mother had committed suicide hung like a cloud over his wedding. He explained it not with sadness. It was rather matter of fact, actually. While in the west the bride is the superstar of the wedding, in India, he explained, the groom is the celebrity. The mother has several important ceremonial roles in her son's wedding and his was absent. Mine was present. She had to break out of the hospital to be there, but she was there. Her only ceremonial roles were to walk down the aisle with my father and to dance with me. And she did both in her cornflower blue dress with her usual beauty, grace and style.

As my mom grew sick, she began to entrust this role of mother more to the world. With my marriage came a new mother, Ms. Annie Hollowell, who is a force unto herself. For me, she also combines the power, grace and style with the boundlessness and steadfastness of a mother's love. I have always had many mothers who have adopted me as their own, whether they were friends' mothers or simply community mothers. My mom e-mailed from her bedroom over her final months with Jane Wholey, an old family friend in New Orleans. And she promised also to be a mother to me as the inevitable day approached when my birth mother would no longer physically be here. It is a role she has taken quite seriously and with honor. As Annette and I planned to depart on this journey, Jane asked only one thing—for me to help her find an ashram for her to visit upon her retirement in 2012. I agreed, although we had no ashrams in our plans.

But we heard about Amma first from a German woman when we were on the beach in Ghana. “The  Hugging Mother,” she is called, for her blessings are given in the form of hugs. That German woman whose name I forget told us that it was the most incredible hug she has ever experienced. We have heard about Amma many times since then. Even our Lonely Planet India has a special page about her that talks about how she is known for her all night hugging sessions, in which she hugs consecutive individuals for up to 22 hours at a time. In the last 36 years, she has hugged 31 million people, we are told during the orientation.

When we were in Fort Kochin, we attended a Khatakhali performance—a traditional stage performance of Kerala. Two or three main characters in elaborate costumes and makeup enact simple moral tales of good over evil. They only communicate through music, facial expressions (using the eyes and mouth), and mudras—hand symbols. Different mudras symbolize different words or concepts. The demonstration before the show covers everything from monkey to love. The mudras for mother and hugging, however, are the same.

We took a bus from Kochin to Allepey and a slow boat along the backwaters of Kerala to Amritapuri, where Amma's ashram is.

Amma means mother. The last time I met somebody called Amma was seven years ago in Dharamsala—Amma Adhe. She was an elderly Tibetan woman in her late eighties. We sat at her feet as she told us horrific and courageous tales of her life as a reluctant but determined Tibetan freedom fighter, and her 28 years of torture at the hands of the Chinese. Moved to tears by the visit, I bought her memoir. I called my mom that night to share her story. My mom read the book within days, reminding me of a unique connection I have always felt to my mother. In the Jewish tradition, religious identity is passed from the mother to the child. So, because of my mom, I am Jewish. And while she didn't practice much religion, she taught me that being Jewish means fighting oppression, wherever it may manifest. My mother and I have always shared a common compassion for the world with a commitment to working against injustice and oppression.

            As I built a career in community service and volunteerism, my mom retired from one. As her and my father sold the community newspaper they had run for nearly two decades, she reminded me of a dream of her's. I first remember her talking about it when I was a teenager and those Sally Struthers' Save the Children commercials would come on. They would show some sad Ethiopian child with an inflated belly and flies buzzing around his eyes in a plea for money. My mom has given money to many causes, but as she retired from her most recent career, she wanted to give time and expertise. She wanted to volunteer internationally. Honored to be able to contribute to her realizing a dream, I started forwarding her opportunities as I heard about them. Within six months, she was flying to Chiang Mai, Thailand to work with Burmese refugees for a month through Unite for Sight, an organization about which she heard from me. Annette and I will be in Chiang Mai later this month for the first time. We will be attending a ten-day Vipassana silent meditation course, which happens to coincide with the second anniversary of my mother's death.

            I came to the ashram, anticipating the profound. We are ten months into a journey that, in many ways, was borne out of my mother's passing. And it has led us here. It may only be a hug. But perhaps it will complete something.

            As we are approaching 3:30 p.m., our boat takes us through a three kilometer gauntlet of Chinese fishing nets. We pass wooden boats with an eye on either side of the prow. Huge posters of Amma's smiling face hang on the boats like sails. A huge pink building appears on the horizon. It must be twenty stories tall. “Do you think that's the ashram?” I ask Annette.

“I hope not,” she laughs. “It looks like a hotel or a condo.”

“Who says ashrams have to be spread out and not up?” I joke. “The guidebook does say it is pink and that more than two thousand people live there.”

As we are both beginning to dismiss the idea that this hulking building could be the ashram, the boat conductor approaches. “Are you going to Kollam or ashram?” he asks. “Amma ashram,” I respond. “That is ashram,” he says, pointing to the twenty-story building. “We stop in five minutes,” he says. “Be ready.”

We slide on our shoes and bags and slip off the boat with maybe a dozen others. We walk across a pink bridge with Amma's face on it. A guard directs us to the temple and up the stairs to register. The place is buzzing with people, most of them dressed simply in flowing white, serenity and smiles on their faces. A few friendly people make sure we know where we are going. I recognize the spirit of selfless service. It reminds me of the welcome party when arriving at a Landmark course. We get checked in, tie our mosquito net over two thin mattresses we place next to each other on the floor in front of the window of our room. The “simple” accommodation promised on our online registration is quite nice. We can see our reflections in the huge beige floor tiles. We have a private room with our own bathroom and a combination lock. The combination is 2020. We return to the second floor of the temple a few minutes before 5 p.m. for our requisite orientation.

We watch a 45-minute video, mostly about Amma's humanitarian initiatives—cleverly and collectively known as Embracing the World. The video is quite professional. From my seat in the corner, I cannot help but notice the messaging and branding. I was responsible for these promotional videos for the last few years. And this one comes across like quite a professional non-profit organization with programs across the globe. It shows thousands upon thousands of people appearing for Amma's hugs. Some break down in tears. Some radiate with joy. Some are crippled. Some are babies. All races, genders, colors, ages. All walks of life. And the works are equal to it. Humanitarian relief. Amma presenting a million dollars to the Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund. A United Nations leader speaking to how critical Embracing the World was to the 2004 Asian tsunami relief efforts, despite and because of the fact that the ashram itself was flooded. The 2010 earthquake in Japan. Orphanages in Kenya. Housing. Schools. Enough, I notice, for Annette to wipe tears from her eyes. It is inspiring. But I am not crying. For much of the video, I wonder if they could be doing more than they are. “Have I become cynical about the non-profit sector?” I ponder silently. But I am called out of my head by the images in the video. Amma appears with world leaders. She receives a United Nations Humanitarian Award from Jane Goodall. And an honorary degree from SUNY Buffalo of all places. And wherever there are good deeds, there are thousands upon thousands of volunteers. Practically the entire thing is run by volunteers. “Wow. There is no power like the power of spiritually motivated volunteers,” I tell Annette when the video ends.

The woman leading the orientation explains she has been living in the ashram for twenty-six years. “The ashram is the international headquarters and spiritual center for all of this. It is built on the site and in the village where Amma grew up. Amma teaches three fundamental principles: love, compassion and seva. Love is God's love. It is non-judgmental. It is acceptance of everything and everybody just as it is. Compassion is the outward expression of that love. When you are overflowing with God's love, it manifests outwardly as compassion. And seva is Sanskrit for selfless service. Amma doesn't care what religion you are, just live in these three principles. We are all her children.”

The orientation and tour last for two hours. The ashram is a small city that buzzes with people in white. It has multiple cafeterias (all vegetarian), stores, laundry services, a pool. There are multiple new buildings under construction, not by people wearing white, just by ordinary shirtless and skirted Indian men. The main assembly hall is the size of Grand Central station. It is like spiritual summer camp. Information boards advertise massage, Ayurveda, yoga, tai chi, astrology, music, meditation and just about any activity that can be said to be spiritual. The ashram produces magazines, clothing, books, journals, jewelry, dolls of Amma and just about any devotional item one could imagine. And it all operates with volunteers. And operate it does.

Our guide leads us to a small building that used to be a cow shed. “Amma's father didn't like all the boys coming around after Amma,” she explains. “They already realized something very special about her when she was a teenager. They would sleep on the beach to be near her. So, her father had Amma stay in the cow shed. It was here that she first gave darshan. And this was the first temple, long before this ashram ever existed. Amma is a mahatma. We don't really have a word for what Amma is in the west--'saint' would be the closest to it. She is not bound by space and time. She can be in all places at all times. Indians believe she is an incarnation of Vishnu. She performed many miracles to prove to the Indians that she was, in fact, a god.” Our guide goes on to recount a tale of Amma turning water into a bottomless bowl of sweet rice that fed people for days. “We don't hear as much about the miracles anymore. There are so many more people that all the stories don't make it back to us.”

As twilight fades, we stop under a tree. There are hundreds of birds above. “This is an important place for migratory birds this time of year.” I look up to see egrets, crows, heron, osprey. Interesting that the birds flock here in much the way the people do. “It is very loud now, but the birds will go to sleep soon. Then you will hear the dogs. But that's India for you.” Our guide chuckles. As we approach the main assembly hall in the middle of the ashram, she stops us. “You can tell we are getting closer to Amma now. You can feel her energy.”

We end in the main assembly hall in search of a tall blond man who holds the darshan tokens. Darshan is what they call Amma's blessing sessions. One needs a token to receive one of her hugs. There is a separate system for International visitors. Separate registration. Separate orientation. Separate token distribution. There is even a Western cafeteria that serves pasta, pizza and veggie burgers, so that westerners can feel comfortable during their stay. I opt for the Indian meals that make sweat pour from every pore and are included with our 200-rupee accommodation fee. Annette enjoys grilled cheese sandwiches most days.

“International visitors receive darshan the day they arrive and the day they leave. So,” our guide explains, “each of you will have the opportunity to be with Amma and receive darshan at least twice. Amma also likes to make sure that Westerners get the opportunity to sit on stage with her. During your stay, each of you will have an opportunity to sit on stage with her for at least half an hour. There is a bulletin board that posts an updated list of who is scheduled to sit with her and at what times each day.” She points to a huge bulletin board with the words, “Stage Sitting List” across the top. There are computer printouts of lists, each with half hour slots. There are probably 800 names in all, separated male and female. They are in groups of close to twenty, half hour slots starting at 11 a.m. and ending at 9 p.m.

The darshan token man doesn't appear until after we have left. By the time we come back, we have missed him. We cannot get our token until 9 a.m. tomorrow morning. Both Annette and I work on not being disappointed. But it doesn't take much. It is all the way it is meant to be, we concede, settling for our hug tomorrow. I sleep a deep and peaceful sleep, the best I have had in months.

We wake early for an hour of chanting, shortly before 5 a.m., followed by an hour of meditation at the beach. I find the meditation easy in this space. I am comfortable in my white and hopeful that ten days of meditation won't be as physically torturous as I previously thought. We nap. Then comes my time to sit on the stage with Amma.

I walk past metal police barriers, through a metal detector and up a long ramp to the stage. I am pointed to find a seat on the floor behind Amma. She is in the middle with countless people gathered around her. At least a dozen of them seem to be handlers. They hold people's heads in position, tell them where to sit, where to kneel. People sit in a line of white plastic chairs on either side of her, as they snake closer for her hug. Many bring offerings. Bowls of fruit. Floral garlands. Each is efficiently taken by a handler within moments of touching Amma's hands and placed in a bag behind her. Two huge china bags seem to be filled and replaced with an empty one every hour or so.

As I sit on stage, most of the time I can only see the bun in Amma's hair, partially covered by a white scarf. I crane my neck, but it is difficult to see Amma around the other stage-sitters, the handlers and the devotees. She is short. And, while on a platform, she is seated. What I can see, however, is absolutely profound. I see the faces of each person as they approach her on supplicant knees and hug her. It is incredible. Never in my life have I seen worshippers from the angle of the divine. I don't often get to stand or sit on sacred stages. At best, I am in a pew. Usually, not even that. It is so moving. Some people are sobbing. Some are glowing. For each, though, there is a look of incredible devotion and love in their eyes. As I sit there, I wonder whether it matters if Amma is a God or not. Perhaps all that matters is that people believe she is. And that is enough for her to cure their ailments. Enough for their lives to be transformed with the blessing of a single hug. I am humbled.

That afternoon is time for my seva. I take an assignment washing pots. I am told dishwashers and pot washers are always what's most needed. All of the seva opportunities around Amma, I imagine, are first to go. I quickly dismiss my aspirations of working with the magazine or chopping vegetables. After all, we are only here for three days. The pots are washed in a greasy shed behind the kitchen. There are three of us, but only two sinks and two hoses. So, I settle for being the one who rinses the pots and puts them away. The other two gentlemen speak limited English. One is German, I believe. The other, French. But we communicate enough to wash every dirty pot we see and cover ourselves in water despite our aprons. After an hour and half, Annette and I return to our room for showers and naps.

I wake up hungry. To our surprise, I find the sign in the main assembly hall reads “ALL TOKENS.” That means it is our turn to enter the darshan line for one of Amma's hugs. Annette and I split up. She goes to the right side of the stage (women's side) and I go to the left. I leave my shoes before the metal detector. I am surprised to find the line relatively short. I am on stage in a matter of minutes, snaking my way through five rows of chairs, seven or eight each, toward Amma's embrace.

I sit in silence and watch. I am nervous. Will I break down and cry in her arms, I wonder, like only a child can in his mother's embrace? That moment when we know everything is going to be all right and we don't need to hold it together anymore. Will I see my mom in her and experience a connection to universal motherhood? My palms are a bit sweaty. I close my eyes and try to meditate. But I open them again. Every minute or so I have to slide down to the next chair as another of Amma's children receives his or her embrace from God. There are fans blowing around Amma. I notice a cool breeze when I reach the front row. There is an air vent above. Should I have brought an offering, I wonder. But the questions all quiet down as I grow closer. I accept that I will say what I say. I will know what to do when I reach her. And it will all be perfect. After all, isn't it always in a mother's eyes? That is part of the divinity of motherhood.

It gets crowded as I move closer. I am crowded in among handlers and stage sitters at my toes. I kneel. “Language? English?,” an older gentleman asks me with a wide smile. “Yes,” I say calmly with a nod and a smile. I kneel. They push me forward firmly and lovingly. Amma reaches her arm around me and rests it on my shoulder for a moment while I reach my arms around her waist. I bury my face in the white robes just below her right shoulder. I close my eyes. She smells sacred. Sandalwood and rose water, I guess. But my thinking mind didn't record it. Surely the scent is recorded somewhere deeper in my experience, in that level of consciousness that records smells and remembers things the conscious mind cannot seem to. She holds me for what seems like a long time. It may have just been a minute. Then she pulls me close. Perhaps she clasped her hands together behind my neck. She whispers in my ear. “Merdu, meru, merdu, meru,” it sounds like. I know not what it means, merely that it is a blessing. And I need not know what it means. I don't even try to figure it out.

Then she lets go. She shoves a small brown bag in my hand—prasad, blessed food. I stand, bow, smile, walk toward the edge of the stay, turn around and bow with hands folded. And slowly, I walk barefooted off the stage. I walk down slowly and sit in a plastic chair in front of the stage. I feel peaceful—beyond peace, blissful. It is all so beautiful. As I sit, I notice that a band has gathered. They begin playing quietly and beautifully, seated before the stage. I open the small brown paper. There is a small orange hard candy inside. I open it and put it in my mouth. It tastes delicious. I chuckle to myself.. Of course mother gives me candy. Just like the dentist. I savor it. I savor the music. I savor the present moment. I watch for Annette's turn. My thoughts slowly return, rising like the sun as it slowly wakes the world and disturbs the peace and silence of the dawn. Soon, I see her receive her hug. She comes and sits next to me. We sit in a peaceful knowing silence for a moment, anticipating nothing. The bliss fades as the evening eases into night

“I am clear now,” Annette says to me as she sits next to me in one of the thousand plastic lawn chairs in the main assembly hall. “It isn't that they think that Amma is a conduit for God. It is that she is a God.”

“What makes you say that?” I ask.

She explains that she talked with a woman who has been coming her for years about it.

We wake up the following morning a bit later for chanting. I sit on the floor. I am beginning to recognize the chanting. It is the archana—the thousand names of the divine. It is the same chanting we heard in Bangalore. It happens here twice a day. In the afternoon, they have two huge screens that show the words and the translations. Then 6 a.m. chai. Meditation follows. I can feel the previous day's cross-legged sitting in my thighs. There seem to be more ants than usual. I leave the beach early for yoga. The movements are slow, the breath and mind intentional. It reminds me of tai chi classes years ago. Silently chant in your head. “Na” when you inhale. “Om” when you exhale. The movements are focused on our lower backs. “Lead with your heart, not your head,” exhorts the instructor. “We already use our heads too much.” She is speaking of a particular pose, but might as well be talking about our lives. All of it, like everything in the ashram, occurs under a photograph of Amma's peaceful smiling gaze.

More seva follows yoga. I wash dishes silently, surprised at how clean, dry and systematic it is in comparison to yesterday's pot duty. A mug comes across. It has Amma's name on it. How would one wash God's mug,? Just the same as everybody else's. After all, what Amma is teaching is express divine love to all creatures. The divine is in everybody, everything. Is she God? I don't know and will never know. Was Jesus god? And what did people think of him in his time. All of the spiritual leaders I have ever studied or learned about had been dead for some time already. This is the first that I have met while she is alive. And the first who is a woman at that. I don't know exactly who or what Amma is, but she is a spiritual leader of some sort. And she emanates an aura of peace that encompasses this ashram, at the very least. It is a beautiful place to be.

That evening, Amma leads meditation at the beach. She sits on a platform surrounded by children. At first, she does not speak. A man at her feet speaks through a microphone. He welcomes us. Recites a prayer. Instructs us to sit in a comfortable position. Close our eyes. Focus on our breath. Focus deep within us. On divine inner stillness. Peacefulness. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. Na. Om. Na. Om. Then a long period of silence. There must be six hundred people sitting on the beach. But I hear only the sounds of the waves, my breath, an occasional crow. I open my eyes for a moment to find Amma smiling, her eyes open also, looking at me.

I close my eyes and return to my breath. My foot tingles. It is falling asleep. Soon, I can no longer feel my right foot. I uncross my legs and recross them, this time placing my right leg over my left. As the blood returns to my leg, I expect that painful feeling of pins and needles. But, it does not hurt at all. It just wakes up. Soon, my left leg falls asleep. But when I adjust, it is the same. No pain.

A bird shits on my right hand. It is watery. I quiet reach into Annette's bag to find a tissue and return to meditation. The man at the microphone calls our attention back to the world. Then Amma takes the microphone, speaking in Malayam. The man at her feet translates. The boy next to her lifts her arm and tucks himself underneath it for a hug. He introduces the conversation—a continuation of last week's discussion about how to stay positive and hopeful in life. A dog wanders up to the platform and plops down on Amma's right side. He reaches back to itch his back leg. Amma reaches for a pen to help him itch. Another of her assistants joins the effort. Meanwhile, a woman in a wheelchair speaks about the impact Amma has had on her life. She speaks of divine intervention and a mother's love that has helped keep her hopeful in the face of pain and crippling. Amma is listening to both her and the dog. And presumably to all of her children. And then, abruptly, she ends the session. The man with the microphone explains that those who arrived today and are leaving today can come for darshan. We are leaving at 7 a.m. tomorrow, so this includes us. Eventually, a crowded jumble of people turns into two lines. Again, I find my nose tucked into Amma's bosom. But it is not the same as yesterday. I suppose not many things are quite like the first time.

Annette and I leave the following morning before sunrise with hopes of returning some day.

The backwaters en route to the ashram.

Gauntlet of chinese fishing nets.

The ashram from the water.

Fish fall from the sky: Fort Kochin, India

I wake up to a man shaking my leg. “Kochi?” he asks. “Here.” We gather our belongings and scramble off the bus, from sleep to street in a matter of minutes, hoping we didn't forget anything. It is ten minutes to six in the morning. Super Bowl Sunday, I think. It is still dark.

An autorickshaw takes us over bridges, past the watermelon tree. No, watermelons do no miraculously grow on this tree. Thousands of watermelons sit beneath it. It is a watermelon central market of sorts. Hard to imagine how the watermelons on the bottom don't get smooshed or go bad. We pass communist signs and crowded churches. Ironically, these are the first signs of both communism and Catholicism that we have seen in India. Crowds gather outside the churches for lack of seats inside. Ganesha, Krishna, Vishnu, Hanuman have been replaced by images of Jesus and his mom.

Man made churches to honor God. God made trees to honor man. Anyone who has sat in the shade of a great old tree knows this. Buddha knew this. Now man makes great shrines to honor him. And another cycle is complete. Fort Kochin's trees are as great as any I've seen. Entire cricket matches occur under their canopies. They remind me of the live oaks in New Orleans, the way their trunk-sized branches stretch wide like yawning arms. And then there are the banyans—Bodhi trees—Buddha's eponymous tree of enlightenment, roots hanging like dreadlocks on a Sadhu.

Hours later, after sleeping off the overnight bus ride from Bangalore, we sip fresh pineapple juice in the shadows of Chinese fishing nets. These twenty-square-meter nets take six men to operate. The men pull on thirty meters of rope, every meter marked by a ten kilogram boulder—all of it attached to a huge log frame—a complicated counterweight to the nets. Like a laid back oil derrick, the nets slowly dip in and out of the water, producing three or four kilos of fish every few minutes. The crows watch carefully from the perimeter for an opportunity that never seems to come.

We choose a red snapper and some prawns for lunch. They are placed in a plastic bag and handed to a man whom we follow down the block and around the corner. He seats us under an umbrella at a plastic outdoor table and proceeds to clean and grill them in a delicious lemon ginger sauce.

After lunch, we wander pat children playing cricket under one of Fort Kochin's great trees. We hear a loud thud on the ground three feet to our right. We expect a cricket ball, but it's a fish, maybe six inches long. A tiger fish, to be precise. It's dead. Annette and I look at each other in wonderment with a chuckle. A fish just fell from the sky. Did the children throw it, we wonder. Their looks are innocent and the angle from which the fish dropped was wrong. We wander on, content to accept that in India, fish fall from the sky.

That evening we watch elephants adorned in gold parade around a temple, three dancing men and a processional rainbow of ornate brightly-colored umbrellas atop each. We watch a troupe of drumming braided girls in pink and men with metal rods through their skin and tongue. All are dancing. Surely, a fish falling from the sky isn't out of the ordinary.

As we sit on the balcony of our guest house, we watch a fish eagle a sparrow and a few crows alight in the great trees of Fort Kochin. And I remember the crows by the Chinese fishing nets. Perhaps an opportunity presented itself, its bounty only to be lost on a branch high up in a great tree overlooking a children's cricket match. If that is the case, why didn't the crow come for it's fish?

Fighting the crows for fish in the Chinese fishing nets of Cochi

Lunch

Just another temple festival in Kerala

Full color version.

Ouch...

Chanting

I sit, legs folded in front of me on a thin carpet. We are in an auditorium that has been converted to a Krishna Temple. There is a carpet that runs the length of the room in the middle. Then it splits into a T before a horizontal row of steel benches that separate out what in Christianity would be called the pulpit. Men sit on the right. There are only five or six of us. I am by far the youngest. Women sit on the left. They far outnumber the men. There are close to forty of them. Annette sits in the back, her hot pink socks glowing amidst a rainbow of sarees.

They all chant in one voice. I don't understand what they are saying. It has a certain percussion to it. I admire the altar. The auditorium stage has been lined with huge images, in front of a red curtain. I am glad to now recognize each of them, even though I don't know their stories. On the left is a big blue Ganesha. He sits in half lotus, four hands outstretched, each with something different in the palm. In the center is a huge photo of a stone statue of Krishna sitting in front of a river, the mark of the trident on his forehead, torso perched atop a snake. Below the photo is a brilliant display of flowers. And to the right is Hanuman, the monkey god. He has one leg up as if he is dancing, tail dangling behind him.

Before we left Hampi, we went on a pilgrimage of sorts to the supposed place of Hanuman's birth. It ended up being a ten kilometer walk broken up by a river crossing in a boat overloaded with people and motorcycles. It culminated in seven hundred steps to the temple that sits atop a mountain. As we hiked, a monkey howled at me and threatened. I cowered, wondering if the monkey would actually attack me for the bag of bananas in my right hand. “Act big,” Annette reminded me. So I lifted my arms and shouted, “Go away monkey.” And he did. Annette asked me why I didn't give him the bananas we bought at the bottom. “We bought them to give to the monkeys,” she said. I told her I would give them as an offering in the temple. I don't want to encourage that sort of aggressive behavior. The monkey is probably used to people feeding it. The man in his eighties who is limping down one step at a time doesn't seem to be disturbed by him. But perhaps that is because he just got blessed by the monkey god.

We are sweating by the time we make it to the top. But the trip has been long and we are going to get our effort's worth. The trip up was inspired by two new friends – Monty and Bert. We met them at our hotel in Hampi. It turns out they both served in the Peace Corps in India in the late 1960s. If Hampi went from four guesthouse to 72 in the last twenty years, I can only imagine how their villages have changed. Monty is energetic and talkative. This is his first time back to India in more than forty years. Bert wears a gray pony tail. He is quiet and reflective. He has kept in touch with a family in his village. Monty jokingly describes Bert as his spiritual guru. Bert talks about the house he just bought in Peoria, Illinois. They are both ecstatic to be in India. At breakfast, Monty asked Annette and me if we can feel the blessings from the gurus when we visit the temples. We both looked at each other and couldn't say yes, despite out best efforts. Mostly, when we have visited temples, we have stood around awkwardly, not wanting to offend. Not sure whether to touch our foreheads to the ground, kneel, not kneel, where to bow, how to hold our hands.

“The guru in the monkey temple. Man, I could feel the chi when he touched my forehead. It was powerful.” Monty may not have realized it, but he not only made us want to visit the Hanuman Temple, but he also gave us permission to participate at the temples.

At the top of the hill, I follow the crowd. We take our shoes off and wash our hands and feet. Inside the temple are three shirtless men sitting on the floor, drinking chai. There are three small rooms, each with a man inside and a shrine. We go to the largest. Annette goes first. The man there pours a spoonful of water from a metal dish into our hands. He motions for us to put it towards our mouth. Then a handful of sugar crystals. Then the red powder pressed upon our forehead with a blessing. I splash the water on my face. I can only eat half of the sugar, the other half falls to the floor slowly from my dangling hand. The blessing is firm, but there are no firecrackers. Just a man firmly pressing his finger to my forehead. Pressing with intention and clarity. Without hesitation. Perhaps that is the blessing.

We walk past the second small room. There two men are reading from a scripture. I bow. In the third room, I lay a banana on a metal tray next to an existing banana. I kneel and bow. Back in the main room, one of the three men of the temple invites us to have chai. We sit on the floor. A boy of no more than 12 years, pours our chai from a huge steel container. One of the men asks Annette where she is from. Otherwise, few words are exchanged. Just smiles and sips. After ten minutes, we head outside to admire the kingdom below. From here, we can see the river winding through Hampi amidst a brilliant green of banana trees and rice paddies, accented by rose-colored boulders reaching toward the sky.

As I sit and listen to the chanting, I look at the monkey god. I feel pride, that sense of small satisfaction that comes with knowing. With it comes the feeling that there is more to know. I think about the Ramayana I saw yesterday in a bookstore. Eight hundred pages of Hindu epic that tells the tale of the monkey god. Surely it speaks of Krishna too, and Ganesha. I ponder the blog. I am writing it as a record. And I have been moved to write but haven't known what to say in the last week. It feels like it is merely part of knowing, describing, reporting. Food for the mind. Useless in the pursuit of no-mind.

Our first morning in Hampi, Annette found a book on Natural Farming, called The One Straw Revolution. It was written by a Japanese man in his sixties in the seventies—Masanobu Fukuoka. He had given up his successful and important life as a researcher to return to his father's orchards. Now he grows food as part of a life philosophy of no cultivation. “Do-nothing farming,” he calls it. Nature knows how to grow. We interfere with nature and then double our work. We don't need to till the soil. We don't need to use pesticides. We don't need to keep the rice paddies flooded. All of this creates more work, and interferes with nature's way. Right farming, he says, equals an average of one hour of work per person per day. The rest is left for spiritual pursuits, art, music.

I look to my left. A man in white robes is plucking flowers onto a steel dish that sits on an elaborate wooden carved shrine. The flowers are red, orange and yellow. Inside is a framed picture with a string of flower draped across it. I cannot see from here what is inside the frame. I notice my mind wondering. I could wonder for days at the significance of each act, each word in the chant. At the meaning of it all.

I think about Osho. We considered stopping at the Osho Ashram in Pune. The guidebook laid out it's controversy. It is a Western spa, expensive by ashram standards. Hugely developed and commercialized, some argue. The guidebook noted that HIV testing is mandatory for admission. And that Osho was known in the west as the “sex guru.” We decided against it. But on the coffee table at Savitha's house in Bangalore I found one of Osho's books. Truth Simply Is..., the title. Like the Japanese farmer, Osho talks about how we can never pursue the truth with use of our mind. That consciousness is man's greatest gift, his mind his greatest trap. I think about the zen of it all. Our minds like a Chinese finger trap. The harder we try to figure something out, the more we think, the more the trap tightens. I keep thinking.

The chanting continues. I look at the clock. It has been seven minutes since it started. It should last for an hour. My toes are tingling. I adjust my position. Sit on my butt and hug my knees for a while.

“Knowing, knowing, knowing.” That was what the monk said to Annette's questions. Only an hour ago we confirmed our spots for ten days of Vipassana meditation at the Northern Insight Center Temple of Peace in Chiang Mai, Thailand. The monk spoke in broken English, but we understood. February 22^nd at 9:30 a.m. he told us to be there. Wear only white clothes for the ten days. I wondered why. I even asked why February 22^nd was the best day for us to arrive, when we would prefer a few more days lounging on Thai beaches beforehand. But I received no answer. It doesn't matter. Knowing is no help here. The questioning mind only creates more questions, more activity not less. I think about a philosopher in some book I read along the way. He said the question mark looks like an upside-down plow. It churns the soil. That, I think Fukuoka would say, is the problem. I ponder my discomfort after sitting for ten minutes and wonder how I will ever sit for ten days in silence.

The mind determines comfort or discomfort, I remind myself. I think of another small blessing from our trip to the monkey temple. When we had been walking for some time and the sun was at its hottest, I was still feeling good. But then it occurred to me that the temple I saw we were nearing atop a mountain might not be the Hanuman Temple. It might be the wrong temple. When that doubt surfaced in my thoughts, my back and neck began to hurt. Just stiffness, but discomfort nevertheless. Five minutes later, it became evident that we were indeed approaching the foot of Hanuman's mountain. I climbed the steps in perfect comfort. The tiredness, weariness, discomfort disappeared from my body when it disappeared from my mind. Certainly, that will play itself out one hundred times in Thailand.

The chanting continues. A man enters, approaches the altar, and bows. Drops money into the box. Dips his finger into some liquid, or perhaps a powder, and presses it to his forehead. Then he sits in the back, next to me, cross-legged. He looks like he is coming from work. It is 5:12 p.m. I think about how often I have been late for things because I was coming from work. How I have to sit there for a moment to wash the stress of the day off of me. How, even though my body is present, it takes my mind sometime before it is present. Before I am consciously here. I think about how often I probably wouldn't even want to go to the temple after work. How the chanting would seem just like another commitment in an exhaustingly long string of commitments. But that by the end of the hour, I would feel better every time. And that is why I would make myself go. I think about Prabakhar, our couchsurfing host in Nasik. He woke up for work at 5 a.m. His work week was always five-and-a-half days. Most days seemed to be close to ten hours. And he left on time, he told us, unlike his colleagues. All to pay for a wedding, to furnish a small two-room house for his family.

Four minutes have passed. The chanting seems to have reached a rhythm. The male and female voices, the individual voices are completely indistinguishable. Just a mass of voices chanting in one voice. I cross my legs again, rest my wrists on my knees, and close my eyes. My mind wanders to our afternoon. We ate Italian food and it was delicious. At the UB City Mall. Funny how no matter where you are in the world, the malls are about the same. Some nicer than others. Some restaurants better than others, but the mall is an ultimate expression of consumerism. And it shines brilliantly from Accra to Bangalore. My stomach is still full from the food.

I think about Bangalore. It is such a contrast from Hampi. Hampi is ancient and sacred. Mahatma Gandhi Road in Bangalore feels like Times Square. Billboards climb over each other for space. Familiar brands are plastered everywhere – Puma, Reebok, Guess, Versace. The colors and logos are always the same. Undoubtedly, each of these corporations has internally published mid-sized books on the use of their logo and brand. Bangalore, India's silicone city, where burgers are as frequent as temples. Bangalore, where Annette and I had futures and palms read without seeking it out. Both promised great success, long life, happiness, partnership and children. India is a place of great contrast. It is a sub-continent indeed. Far larger than a nation or a country.

I look at the clock again. It is 5:27 p.m. The chanting continues. I think about time. In Hampi, I started to feel like our time was growing tight. We started making plans to return home. Southeast Asia seemed like it would be crammed into six weeks. This afternoon, we booked two tickets. One to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on Valentine's Day. And we even booked a ticket home. Ho Chi Minh City to John F. Kennedy. Ironic, given the way those two names came together in history. But as I sit here in this auditorium of a temple, time feels eternal. Ten days in silent meditation may feel like ten years. Yes, we have plenty of time.

Lately, I have been thinking more and more on time. As we have traveled, we have often not known what day it is or what time it is. And when we reflect on things, we reflect on time geographically. When we had a pitcher of beer the other night, it was the first time since South Africa. For nearly a year now, we think of time in relation to place. “Back in Croatia,” we say. This geographic order to time will disappear soon. Shortly after 2:30 p.m. on Saturday, April 1^st, when a China Eastern Airlines flight lands at JFK Airport in New York City. Perhaps a few weeks after that, maybe a month. Once we are settled back in New Orleans and have started to talk about things other than our travels.

The chanting continues. An old main with a forehead of white paint folds his book of chants and walks toward the front. He brings a steel pail that looks to be filled with rice. He scoops the food out several times. Six, seven, eight scoops, far more than looked like would fit in the steel bowl. He puts a steel plate on top and puts it next to the man plucking flowers. He then places the pail on a table below the Krishna image. The flowers look like a torso. Green stretches out at its base on either side, like legs folded into a lotus position. I wonder if this is intentional. The flowers are some sort of physical incarnation of the figure, I wonder.

I think about our time ahead in ashrams. We used a paper-thin new Mac Book Air at an Apple Store in the mall to e-mail the Hugging Mother ashram and reserve a place to stay for two nights. I wonder what we will do there. And if it matters that we don't know much about Ama, the Hugging Mother, except that she transforms people with her hugs. I think about the huge temple we passed on the bus to Nasik. It was the temple at Sai Baba's birthplace. Not just an ashram, a small city. I think about how Sai Baba's serene image is plastered everywhere, his ears looking more monkey-like than the monkey god's. These images are everywhere. Sai Baba. Ganesha. Like religious sayings in Ghana, plastered on windshields and storefronts. What a place India is. Sacred and profane, modern and ancient, all crammed into the same country.

I think about today's Times of India that I thumbed through this afternoon, while waiting for Uninor to reactivate our mobile phone. Two stories struck me. One was about the prime minister eating meat, despite the fact that he claimed to be a Gandhian. It spoke of the hippocracy of these times and laments the Westernization of India. The second talked about a report on life expectancy in India. At the time of independence in 1947, it said, average life expectancy in India was 37 years. Famine and food shortage was common. Today, it is 68 years. I thought of the little man in the robe and spectacles who insisted on a free India. What certainty he must have shown amidst uncertainty, that India could be such a great nation. That life expectancy could double in two generations. What strength of spirit.

How should we spend our time...in life, I wonder. There was a man we met at the train station in Hospet en route to Bangalore. A couple, actually, from the U.K. They recognized us from some temple or another in Hampi. The man told us a story about an ATM machine and not wanting his card to be taken. I told them we were traveling around the world. I actually started to say this as a precursor to the story of how the ATM in Cape Coast, Ghana only gave me half of  my money. But I never got to the story. He matched our adventures with some of his own. They told me about their sailing down to the Mediterranean in their retirement. He told me about Jews for Justice. And the incredible story of how he gathered a bunch of principled Jews opposing the occupation of Palestine to sail into Gaza, where Israeli boats were illegally blockading ships in international waters. The harrowing tale lasted thirty minutes. I have been meaning to do a YouTube search for it. They ended up doing some jail time and never got the boat back, but they figured that would happen. I wonder, could I do such a principled thing?

Rice paddies around Hampi

One of the many shrines to the monkey god, Hanuman. Note the coconut offerings have been eaten.

The white speck in the distance in the middle of the photo is the temple of the monkey god.

Our ferry...

Rice fields and boulders.

The path to the birthplace of Hanuman.

The view back down.

The temple at the top.

The chanting stops. A man in white robes approaches the center of the altar. He lights incense and then ten candles. I hear drumming and a bell clanging from the back. More chanting as he moves the flame around the flowers at the base of the Krishna image. After several fires, bows and short recitations, the chanting ends. It has been an hour.