LITMIR.BIZ

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in a café about twelve feet square and three stories high, on a corner where two channels of market-dwellers meet, the Aussie and I have a seat, order Limcas, and look down on the theatre below us. Down on the tangle of electrical wires which create a knotted trellis precariously tying together the buildings lining the streets. Down on a pulsing artery of Indian life. I am more of an observer than a participant here. An angel looking down on a fragile but beautiful creation I am not allowed to touch.

      As I watch Indian street life unfold below, I am distracted by something out of place. It looks like a large reptile, some unknown creature slithering across the ground through the rickshaws and bicycles and loaded carts. In, out and around the hundreds of feet moving this way and that. The Aussie turns to see where my attention has been cast and we both stare until we decipher the shape of a mangled boy. His legs are twisted into question marks and he is dragging himself through the streets on his belly.

      Without exception, the locals ignore him except to step around him or to move out of his path. Westerners move to the other side of the street when they notice him. Except for a young woman with dirty blonde dreads, who gets up from her seat at a chai stall to press some bills into his hand and then quickly returns to her companions. The Aussie tells me the boy is an untouchable, the lowest caste in India. Some believe if they touch him, or even pass through his shadow, they will become unclean. They also believe there is a natural order to this hierarchy which should not be disturbed. More shocking, the Aussie tells me that poor families will sometimes cripple their own children, in order to ensure they’ll be able to make a living as a beggar.

      I complain out loud about the cruelty of a system that locks a person into one category for life, with no hope for a better future, with no chance for social mobility, education, or prosperity. Come on, the Aussie says, you think America is that different? I start to argue, but after only a moment’s reflection, realize it may not be. America has its caste system, the Aussie proclaims, it just doesn’t admit it. Think about it, celebrities, star athletes, and billionaires are America’s Brahmin, the highest caste. Your politicians are your Kshatriya, the rulers. Your successful business owners are the Vaishya, or merchants. Almost everyone else, in other words most of you, are Shudras, or laborers. And then the welfare class and those in your overcrowded prisons are your Dalits, or untouchables.

      While I’m digesting this idea, the power goes out. But no one really seems to notice. I turn to the Aussie who says this happens all the time, sometimes several times a day, sometimes for hours at a time. Looking down at the confusion of black wires, tied together with tape and scrap wire, it’s a wonder the grid is functional at all.

      We finish our drinks and leave some change on the table. The power is still off, so we wander the streets, buy some veggie pakoras served in a newspaper cone, and check out more of the market’s mélange. Though it is barely mid-day when we’ve made a complete pass around the bazaar, we surrender to the nagging tug of sleep and head back to the guesthouse for a nap.

      As we’re about to duck inside, I turn to see the faint shadow of the moon hanging low over the crumbling buildings. I am caught for a moment. As if I’m under her spell. And then it sinks in. Where I am, how far I’ve come, and that the journey has officially begun. I’m filled with nervous excitement, trepidation even. There is no knowing what’s to come. Maybe I’ll find a guru, shave my head, and never return to the States. Maybe I’ll be killed in the crossfire of a religious war. Or maybe I’ll lose my bag, my passport, and have to beg for food. Whatever my path, I must find the stillness and the courage to look it in the eyes and somehow not flinch, so I can see if it’s real.

      15

      Les Etoiles

      Number seventeen in the major arcana is called Les Etoiles, the Stars. A naked young woman kneels with one foot in water and the other on land. She holds an urn full of water in each hand. She pours water from the urn in her right hand into the sea, creating ripples upon the water. The water from the urn in her left hand she pours onto the land, which flows into five tributaries. In the sky above the young maiden is a large yellow star, which is surrounded by seven smaller white stars. There is an ibis sitting in a tree behind her.

      The universe is abundant and supports each of us. In order to see this, though, we must open all of our senses. We must be open to life’s mysteries and its treasures. Only then will our spiritual life begin to flourish. We must take time for renewal, and have faith in our path.

      –The Book of Mysteries

      16

      Scylla

      The monk was chosen for this path. Not because he is a great adventurer or a storied discoverer of mystical lands. Not because he is a master tracker, nor a student of plants and forests. He was chosen because of his ignorance of these things, an ignorance that forces him into a closer relationship with the land, the water, and the sleeping goddess who inhabits them.

      His master taught him that knowledge is not the same thing as wisdom. Ignorance is different from unawareness. And awareness is more essential than a hundred skills. To be aware is to be open. And to be open is to know the path of every master who has roamed the earth. A master sees the illusion. A master understands the illusion. A master shapes and molds it, adds and subtracts from it, crafts its layers, and provides tools for its unveiling.

      Though he has studied the teachings of the masters until they have become second nature, he is not a teacher. He is a tertön. It is his dharma to discover the teachings that remain hidden and to give them life. These teachings, known as terma, can take many forms. They may be writings. They may be ideas, insights, or even dreams. Or they may also take the form of a physical place or object that triggers a teaching in the mind or heart of a tertön.

      So evolved was the relationship of his master Rinpoche to the elements, the Dorje, universal oneness, that he veiled 108 sacred valleys from humankind. These valleys are a part of the terma hidden by the Rinpoche, along with the cryptic maps for the valleys, each written in ancient symbols and codes. The Rinpoche timed the revelation of each, even naming the tertöns who would one day reveal these treasures.

      Each of the hidden valleys is a paradise unto itself, a cathedral of nature. Each one waiting patiently for its time. Of all these mystic places, there is one considered most sacred. This is the land he seeks.

      The Dorje is a sleeping goddess who inhabits this land. She is one with it. She is a master dakini, a sacred muse, a shape-shifter, a guardian of the mysteries of the self. With grace she walks in all worlds, assumes all characteristics, is female and male, visible and invisible, fierce and protective, omnipresent and nonexistent. She is the guru and the consort, the Enlightened Buddha and the Void.

      The river is the blood of her veins, flowing through her chakra centers. It begins in the exalted purple mountain of her crown, descending over giant boulders into her throat, where it sings the most beautiful song known on earth. From here it enters her heart and encircles the peaks of her breasts, which are covered in flowers known for their honey-sweet nectar. Then it continues down through her navel in the valley of sweetgrasses and into her secret place, the mountain of crystal lotuses. It is written that upon entering the threshold of her secret place, all human veils will be lifted and the karmic entanglements of thousands of years will be erased.

      Each of these centers is a lotus, unfolding with four layers of petals. To enter fully into any one center, the tertön must move through the four layers: the outer, the inner, the secret, and the hidden layers. And to find the Dorje’s secret heart, he must enter through the crystal lotus mountain and into the heart of hearts of the land.

      The Dorje’s resting body bridges two lands. Her lower half, from her feet to her navel, is in one land. Her upper half, from her navel to her crown, lies in another.

      He, too, must bridge these worlds, in order to find her. In order to unlock the door to her heart. In order to bring her sacred fire to the rest of humanity. And to use that fire to light up the starlight locked in everyone.

      ****

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