Meal Ticket

The 18th century German philosopher, Immanuel Kant, famously stated the second (or third, depending how you figure it) formulation of the Categorical Imperative, his foundational principle of ethical reasoning as “Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, always at the same time as an end and never merely as a means to an end.”

And while this didn’t prevent him from being a misogynistic racist, the principle itself seems sound. I think we all realize that it’s uncool to treat people as things; we ought not to use other human beings simply as tools to get what we want, whether it’s money, sex, or if we’re crazed tattoo artists, canvases for our latest Native American-inspired designs.

So, I don’t want to say that all the hawkers who descend upon you as you stroll along the beach here in Goa are doing something wrong, but it can be exhausting to be seen as little more than an ATM by some guy trying to entice you into his restaurant, or get you to buy a parasailing session, or purchase a selection hats, t-shirts, and other souvenir items he’s certain you’ve just got to have to make your vacation complete.

Of course I realize that my incredibly privileged position as an incredibly privileged American confers upon me a duty to give back in any number of ways; I agree, for instance, with Utilitarian philosopher, Peter Singer, that people in wealthy countries are obligated to help those in dire need; consequently, it seems perfectly acceptable that I be asked to contribute however I can.

Still, it’s a lot nicer when I’m seen as a person (albeit one with a wallet) rather than just a walking debit card; that’s why it was kind of a welcome relief this afternoon to be strolling in the opposite direction of the city center and towards the less congested and more idyllic beachfront to the north.

Nobody was using me for anything, which was perfect, since here in paradise, I’m pretty much good for nuthin’.

Little Loss

Exuberance can cost you; in my case, anyway, that’s when accidents happen.

I guess I got a little overeager today with my body-surfing; I let a big wave pick me up, slam me down (which I enjoy), and rip my glasses off my face (which I don’t like), sending them spinning off into the deep blue sea, never to be seen again, unless, as my daughter scoffed, I return in five years and somehow find them washed up on shore.

Although I realized finding them again would be hopeless, I wandered through the surf for a bit, imagining I might get lucky enough to somehow find a pair of corrective lenses looped to an elastic Crokie floating before me; no chance of that; it was like trying to locate the proverbial needle in the proverbial haystack, only in this case, the haystack was the size of the Arabian Sea.

Alas, I’m mostly mad at myself being so careless; in the long run, it’s no great loss; the departed spectacles were my back-up pair anyway, saved especially for doing sports and the like. Still, it’s a drag to lose them and an annoying reminder that I ought to take better care, especially when I’m so especially excited.

In the end, life goes on, and no doubt some happy fish will soon be sporting a stylish new set of eyes; I’ll kick myself a little while for being such a doofus, and hope against hope that five years from now my barnacle-encrusted specs will turn up at my feet.

On the Road to Paradise

The drive from Mysore to the airport in Bangalore for our flight this afternoon to Goa was about as harrowing a four hours as I’ve ever experienced; among other things, we almost hit a horse.

A pony leapt off the median right in front of our speeding taxi and if our driver hadn’t been so adept at slamming on the brakes (a skill honed to perfection over the previous couple of hours), we might all have been ready for the glue factory.

This was in addition to the early bout of road rage we experienced, an incident that culminated, following our taxi’s failure to pass a car that drifted into our lane, with both cars stopping right in the middle of the busy freeway so their respective drivers could yell at each other for a couple minutes while I tried shouting “shanti, shanti, shanti” to no avail.

And then, of course, were the myriad times we almost were driven under the wheels of huge hand-painted trucks, not to mention the innumerable occasions we converged upon spaces occupied by thousands of automobiles, autorickshaws, and motor scooters in hopes of emerging and inch or two ahead of them, all of this while the minutes until our flight was leaving ticked away inexorably.

But it’s all forgotten now here in the paradise on the Arabian Sea that is Betelbatim Beach, whose loveliness is such that it almost makes me wonder whether the seven hours of hellishness we endured to get here were all just a bad dream and which has me pondering the resilience of the human psyche; apparently, we’re pretty good at bracketing out the horrible once we’ve arrived at the wonderful.

Of course, it’s all about that arrival, but as I learned today, if we can avoid hitting a horse, paradise may be within reach.

Fun

People get their jollies in all sorts of ways: model rocketry, kinky sex, even collecting Hummel figurines; it occurred to me this morning, as I bent and sweated for an hour and a half with about six dozen other people, that this was my idea of fun, strange as that may seem; I really do enjoy the Ashtanga practice, and while it’s not always exactly what I would call pleasurable, it is really, when all is said and done (and often, most obviously when the practice itself is finished) quite a good time to be had by most, if not all.

And I think this is sort of useful to keep in mind because it’s easy enough to conceive of the hard work of yoga practice simply as hard work and forget what an incredible privilege and joy it is to subject oneself to the discipline.

You know how they say of something: “It’s the most fun you can have with your clothes on?” For me, Ashtanga could be described that way; I know of no other place in life where I get to be shirtless and dripping sweat all over the place (at least in public) and no other activity I get to engage in that is more engaging of body and mind.

Of course, none of this is to deny that the practice can be difficult, humbling, frustrating, and completely absurd; but that’s life, as well. And one of the things that makes the practice so amusing is how it mirrors, in a microcosmic way, that macrocosm of existence; if that’s not fun, I don’t know what is.

My longtime Ashtanga teacher, David Garrigues, once described what we do in our yoga practice as a kind of shamanic journey; I agree, but it’s also sort of a crazy amusement park thrill-ride, like the Tilt-A-Whirl; it’s that kind of fun, too, and best of all, unlike those carnival experiences, you only sometimes feel like hurling afterwards.

Cheapskate

Before I left home, my friend and longtime Ashtanga yoga teacher, David Garrigues, cautioned me that India would turn me into a cheapskate.

I was crowing about how inexpensive my monthly rent was going to be: “7000 rupees a month! That’s like 160 bucks! My taxi to the airport in Seattle is almost that much,” (I exaggerated a little.)

“Just you wait,” he said, “by the end of the first month, you’ll be trying to get them down to 6800 or so.”

I scoffed at the idea of wrangling over 200 rupees, something less than five bucks.

But I’ll be damned if he wasn’t right, at least in theory.

I haven’t gone into re-negotiations with my landlady, but I have, oddly enough, become hyper-aware of thriftiness; I would gladly wrangle over 200 rupees; I find myself occasionally making a big deal over a tenth that amount, say when the autorickshaw driver wants to charge me 100 rupees for a ride downtown that usually only costs 70 or 80.

It just goes to show how artificial monetary value is and how what we’re really valuing is something else altogether: self-esteem, maybe, or perhaps a sense of autonomy or control.

One vacillates constantly between wanting to be generous and desiring not to feel like a sucker. If the autorickshaw driver, for instance, quotes me the market rate of seventy rupees for the trip downtown, I’m perfectly happy tipping him thirty, in part for treating me fair and square; but if he tries to take advantage of me, by, for example, by asking for 100 straight off, then I’ll be loath to give him any more, and might not even ride with him in the first place.

Weird.

I wouldn’t be surprised if economists have a name for it; Malcom Gladwell has probably written an essay about it.

All I know is that it’s going to be really weird paying something like 135 rupees for a cup of coffee when I’m back in Seattle; here, that’s a meal in a restaurant for two or three; a cuppa joe is less than a 10th of that.

Really

Here’s an interesting argument for the conclusion that all the really exists is undifferentiated Brahman from the ancient sage Shamkara, the “unrivalled propounder of advaita Vedanta, the non-dualistic aspect of the Vedic teachings” as explained by Swami Prabhavananda in Spiritual Heritage of India:

Shamkara accepts as “real” only that which neither changes nor ceases to exist. No object, no kind of knowledge, can be absolutely real if its existence is only temporary. All of our various experiences of waking and dreaming are only temporary. So, every object of knowledge, external or internal, is subject to modification; they all change and/or cease to exist; same with the objects themselves, which pass into and out of existence. Therefore, neither the objects of knowledge, nor the objects themselves are real. The only thing that never leaves us is pure consciousness; this is the constant feature of all experience, whether we’re awake, dreaming, or in dreamless sleep. Thus, only pure consciousness is real.

Now, we might wonder why only unchanging, eternal things are real, but we might also be willing to allow that such things would be “more real” (if you can put it that way) than things that change or cease to exist. In that case, maybe pure consciousness, or Brahman, is “realer” than the “reality” we generally experience. Okay, grant that.

And I’ll be damned if Shankara doesn’t beat me there: Again, Swami Prabhavananda: “Here then, we are confronted by a paradox—the world is and is not. It is neither real nor unreal…It is nonexistent, yet it differs from the Reality, the Brahman, upon whom it depends for its existence. It is not real since it disappears in the light of knowledge of its eternal basis.”

I’m not entirely sure I buy it, but I have to admit, it really is intriguing.

Unfinished

I think that, in general, Indians must have a much greater tolerance for “process” than Americans; there are so many more unfinished, half-finished, and clearly never-to-be-finished projects all over the place here than at home.

Aside from the visual appeal of seeing the guts of things as they move along towards some desired end, I think it’s also a good reminder of what we, as human beings are into, as well; our lives are unfinished works; even though we may imagine that we have somehow consummated the project of personal development or self-realization, it’s obvious that all of us have loads left to do; preventative maintenance alone can be a fulltime job.

Another thing that’s different is that here, as opposed to in the good old US of A, there seems to be a much greater tolerance for allowing people to see and interact with the work-in-progress.

Case in point: on the way downtown from Gokulum to Mysore city center, there’s a major road construction project going on: bulldozers, cranes, dozens of men digging trenches, bending rebar, and pouring concrete. If this were going on in my hometown of Seattle, there would be a huge cyclone fence around the worksite; you’d need to have credentials and a hardhat just to watch; here, though, people stroll right on by the machines; I wheel my bike underneath a concrete overpass that will apparently hold up a roadway at some point in the future; no one seems to mind.

Surely, part of the difference has to do with liability issues; in the US, you couldn’t have the public wandering through a major construction zone for fear of someone getting hurt and suing; here, by contrast, it seems like it’s just up to those who pass by to make sure they don’t get beaned on the noggin by a backhoe; if you do, it’s your fault, and probably your karma, as well.

But I also think there’s an aspect of the Indian psyche that just may be more comfortable with allowing the world to see how the sausage is made, as it were. Since we’re all on the same karmic journey, and, at essence, all the very same thing (the universal Atman that is Brahman), who cares if others see our partly-finished projects, because, after all, they’re just seeing theirs, as well.