After a self-led tour through the store, I settled on a seat next to an east window on the first floor, and facing a pair of women who I'd overheard discussing churchie matters. Somehow the segway presented itself into a conversation with the pair, a sweet elderly woman of ninety years who told a few tales of her youth in Jamaica. Though maintaining blue eyes and relatively pale skin, something of her appearance indicated she may have been to some degree of African descent. The other, a face not unfamiliar--a cue that generally indicates some degree of association with the reminiscent other, providing clues as to how to interpret said sorts of meetings--a middle aged woman with a pronounced nose and greying hair, hazel eyes and a toothy smile, reminiscent of two different older women I knew in Oklahoma years ago.
At the onset of this chat I gave the spiel I have found it necessary and felt obliged to proffer so often, especially to those to whatever degree deluded by the Christian paradigm: Abraham and Sarah and Haggar were predated by Brahma and Saraswati and Ghaggar in the narratives of ancient India, Christ analogous to the more ancient Krishna, and Islam hearkens to Siva and various names and forms of Shakti in certain pivotal tenets and terms (see posts "Hidden Origins of the West" and "One, Two, Three, What're We Fightin' For?"). Also noted several Sanskrit cognates in the English language over the course of our conversation: English "God" is derived from the Sanskrit "go," which translates directly as "cow," English "right" comes from Sanskrit "Rta" (denoting "correct" and not "right as opposite to "left"), etc.
In this exchange, as with so many these days, an underlying narrative passed through the periphery of my thoughts as sorta a voice-over, either telling hidden meanings of the exchange else weaving webs improv-style to confuscate, or perhaps a bit of both. Directional cues and oft twisted or perverse sub-narratives and odd arrayals of mind, space and time of interdimensional nature are thus presented, tieing persons from my past experiencings and mythic figures, archetypal references and historic personages presented as connected more than piecemeal, much of the time in such tight synchrony and externally veritable and verifiable expressions, seeming valid hints and clues that these prove difficult to dismiss as mere fancy, delusion or lie.
The players in these little lila sometimes bear more than striking resemblance to others I have know from the past, sometimes with startling implications, and sometimes hearkening to events from the long past past, and sometimes to figures and figurations of celebrated fame, Hollywood stars and murti presenting Divine persons, and all woven into a rather confusing narrative that seems to have been woven since at least my early years of this life. One friend of the fairly recent past, a beautiful young woman I met in Laramie just a few years ago is a clear double (if a tad bit thinner in the face) to a murti of Mahamaya I came across on the internet and had downloaded to my computer.
Many women I've chanced encounter over the years seemed reminiscent of one particular woman I became immediately enamoured with years ago upon seeing her dance, and who I have determined was and likely still is an avatar of Parvati, at least or especially in her dance and in her laughter. These sorts of visual cues indicate relationships of persons archetypal and Divine, not unlike what is posited in the Emerald Tablet's "as below . . . so above, as above . . . so below."
The Divine plays out in the mundane, and the mundane is determined by--and determines--the Divine. In the fractal universe understood as maya, the stories of Gods and Goddesses are our stories in life lived, if examined carefully and insofar as the myths are well writ and properly told.
Even in the names of places writ across the map are clues to constructions of this game we all play, whether consciously or no. Pathways woven into the arrayals of maya manifest in story and song, maps and myth, dream and drama tell of this constant yoga ("yoke"/"union"), this grand nata ("dance"), this sometimes absurd yet generally beautiful lila ("Divine play") that is played out in seeming infinite variation in and throughout eternity.
Still, in the midst of such, though I can make out certain consistent themes there are intrigues maintained, mysteries and uncertainties conveyed that sometimes make for grand adventures, and sometimes for manifold sufferings. This is where yoga is essential, and I ain't just talkin' asanas, breath-work and pranayam relagated to a "yoga studio." I mean the "alteration of sense-vibration, that pure consciousness might abide" (Patanjali's Yogasutra, vs. 2-3). I mean tuning the symphony of maya, mellowing the "vibe" (Sanskrit, "sphurti"), correcting voices out of tune and fixing instruments needing restringing, destroying dissonance where it does not belong and playing the right songs the right way. I mean destroying lies, dealing appropriately with ills of minds and Mind, battling demons would inappropriately interrupt the flow of the raga or bhajan or cause corruptions of the kiertan sung by the devoted.
And yet, as I know these modes and means to be true, compassion would stay my hand when it seems some storyline might have importance to the grander scheme, else to the wellbeing of innocent others caught up in the milieu, and exercise caution and consideration to the nuances of the tale told and played out. Rather a pain in the arse, back and neck, sometimes, yet indeed seems there are times to forgo one's own plans to pay due heed to sufferings and confusions of others, and to grant others' plots woven due consideration. So onward into this story, this absurd lila, this oft as not twisted tale I go. From here, perhaps I shall venture yet again to the other side of the divide (Continental, that is), else to familiar stomping grounds to the south where there are more who are aware of the more ancient and abiding tellings and contexts and of true to life myths, where obfuscations of the truth are less prominent and the people more open to dharma not confused with false dogma. To be honest, the ignorance and intolerance of the Christian community and the psychic and other assaults of those guardians of the lies which falsely uphold said faith make me long to retreat to someplace like Taos and the Hanuman Temple, where hippies and like open-minded folk, as well as the traditions of the Pueblo Indians (rooted in India, btw: see "Maybe Columbus Found India After All: Traces of India Amongst American 'Indians'") hold sway, and where the matrix of reality doesn't so much favor lies upholding a corrupted (if not corrupt from the beginning) system of belief (sorry Colorado Springs, your relatively recently adopted evangelicalism is rather a drag. Namaste, nonetheless).
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