The Search Goes on
by Lucinda Nelson Dhavan
Back in the 1960s, "The Search" meant only one thing—not Google, not looking for a job that would give you a good life or a mate to share it with, not even checking out various lifestyles to find a good fit. It meant The Search—-capital "T", capital "S"—the big one, the quest for Truth, Reality, and the Meaning of Life.
The Seekers among us weren't looking for everyday truth or ordinary reality, but for magnificent, mystic, universal versions-Truth! Reality!
A lot of people snickered at this. People over thirty, for instance—notorious killjoys who didn't "get" the sixties—ridiculed those who tried to tune in to the universal vibes. Then the next generation had a good laugh. When the Seekers themselves turned into over-thirty workaholic realists (with a small "r"), their children laughed at the prayer wheels packed away in the closet and the dusty meditation guidebooks that had landed in the attic with the love beads.
Then it became popular again, in a way. Seekers and their children both began to feel the stress and started buying Gaiam yoga mats and watching DVDs that induced inner peace through conscious breathing, or mindful watching, or chanting, or affirmation . . . or any of the multitude of methods now evolved.
Popular or not, The Search always lurks in some corner of the human brain. However dormant the urge may be, it will wake and make you feel its power on those dark nights when you can't sleep, and "What's the use?", "What does it all mean?", "Is this all there is?" echo through the empty mind.
My Search never even took a nap. I started out with a typically sixties-style muddle-headed assumption that India was a cool place where enlightenment was available on tap. Many of my contemporaries who made the journey to India, Nepal, Thailand, and such destinations did find bliss with ease, since it flowed freely from the stem of a pipe. You may still see gray-haired foreigners in droopy tie-dye, sucking their daily dose of peace in the Himalayan villages that make a living out of keeping them supplied with their simple needs.
Since I was too bourgeois and academically inclined to go that way, I studied the texts and took comfort in the fact that the Hindu faith seems to recognize four proper aims in life, four things for which to search. Roughly translated they include: love, money, a moral life, and, Liberation or Enlightenment. If I couldn't skip straight to Enlightenment, I could work on the others on my way to the final destination.
Years passed. I did well enough with the love and money part, tried to live in harmony with the universal laws of dharma. So far so good.
But the last one? That's the killer. The three sub-searches were understandable, at least. Wanting a connection with another person, needing food on the table, a roof overhead, money to give—these are things we have words for, things that we all understand. Dharma may be a huge concept that can't quite be encompassed in words like "religion," "ethics," or "order," or described as universal laws or the true nature of things—but you know when you break those rules. The results are bad. You don't feel right. It doesn't work. You learn from experience.
The Search, though, goes beyond ordinary experience and leaves vocabulary behind. You have no option but to start capitalizing ordinary words, as though that big letter could give extra weight and greater depth.
At least, living in India, I don't feel so odd about Searching still. This is not because India is "spiritual" while the West is "material." There seems to be an equal distribution of humans everywhere into worldly and other-worldly types who feel uncomfortable or bored with spiritual talk. It's just a matter of numbers-with so many Indians, the spiritual ones count in the millions. And a matter of emphasis-since the first written words, Indians have been looking for ways to experience Truth and Reality.
The Seekers here are numerous, respected, and obvious, and nowhere is The Search more out in the open than in the city where I live. Every winter, for one month, a Mela—loosely translated as "fair," but more like a retreat—takes place where the Ganges and Jamuna Rivers meet. Traditionally, people were supposed to take an entire month off from normal concerns and camp out on the river bank, listen to discourses, bathe in the waters, and contemplate. Every twelve years, this gathering is called a Kumbh Mela and considered especially important. The main groups of Hindu monks also set up their official camps and devotees by the millions congregate from all over India and the world.
The Kumbh Mela is, for the Seeker, what a toy store is for a child. In one camp, a seer lectures; in the next, a Guru puts his disciples through yoga exercises; and in the next a teacher answers the questions of disciples in a cozy tent. Everywhere you look, spiritual life is evident.
I've gone there and found a supposedly 100-year-old sage who sits in decrepit state and lets his assistant do the talking. Assistant is a handsome guy with lush oiled locks and a chest full of gold and varied amulets and rosaries-including one of crystal beads the size of eggs. When I met him, a nice young couple who'd come all the way from Singapore, waited, wide-eyed, for his next words of wisdom. I left them to their private audience.
I went to several of the huge programs where the Guru reads and interprets a story of the Gods. At the most dramatic turns of the narration, the devotees, swept up in the emotion, stand to sing and sway in ecstasy. It's an impressive, often moving sight, but I think I'm ecstasy-impaired.
My Search for a Guru to show the way has not been very successful so far. The closest thing to a miraculous moment of finding took place at a Kumbh Mela in 1989. The Melas after that have been rather different in spirit, with the camps increasingly taking on a polished look, with the Guru's saffron-painted Mercedes or Toyota parked alongside. Foreign tourists seek an elevated environment in Swiss Cottage-style tents with all the modern conveniences and an in-house yoga instructor.
But in 1989 I decided I'd take the chance and bathe at the confluence of the rivers on the most important day, although I have always dreaded crowds.
Millions were expected—fifteen million bathed that day, the papers said, though I have no idea how so many heads were counted. Cars were stopped miles from the center of the Mela, but I had a pass to get on a boat at the nearest point-only I didn't, because someone had just slipped off the jetty and almost drowned; the boat was taken out of service.
We'd come that far, though, and there is a momentum to these things. My companions and I decided to cross the river using the bridge, with no pass and no favors, and join the hordes of pilgrims on the other side-most of them villagers and small town folk from the rural hinterland in that direction. As far as the eye could see, people abounded.
With such a mass of humanity, I had no idea what to expect. Pushing, maybe even jostling and fighting for a place in the water—since the bath was supposed to wash away sins and bad karma, maybe people would act uncivilized knowing their bad behavior would soon be erased by the waters..
None of that happened. We moved forward along with all the rest. A helpful acquaintance saw us and offered a place in an ordinary country boat. We were rowed out to the place where the rivers joined and took our dip, with the sun warming us, and gulls and people laughing all around. At that moment I can say that I felt part of something far bigger than myself. Like the mesh of sunlight rippling on the water, the hopes of fifteen million Seekers joined.
BIO: LUCINDA NELSON DHAVAN first went to India on a Fulbright Foundation grant immediately after graduating from Sarah Lawrence College. She is still there. After several years devoted to domestic bliss, child rearing, and learning Hindi, she joined the staff of a regional newspaper. She now feels she may have learned enough to write fiction and is currently working on a collection of short stories and a novel. Contact Lucinda at: ldhavan@yahoo.co.in.
ARTIST DEE RIMBAUD STATEMENT: Dee Rimbaud is an artist, poet, novelist and occasional new age gypsy. He is currently living in Isla Cristina, in the south of Spain, with his partner and child, after four months of travelling about in a Mercedes 609d van. He is author of two poetry collections, The Bad Seed (Stride, 1998) and Dropping Ecstasy With The Angels (Bluechrome, 2004); and one novel, Stealing Heaven From The Lips Of God (Bluechrome, 2004). He edited the charity poetry anthology, The Book Of Hopes And Dreams (Bluechrome, 2006). He also edits The AA Independent Press Guide, a free online directory of magazines and publishers, hosted on his website alongside a host of useful writers' resources, as well as a port-folio of his art and a selection of his writing. His art is frequently used in magazines and internet zines and has graced the book jackets of collections by Janet Buck, Rupert Loydell, Norman Jope and many others. Dee's art is now available on t-shirts, posters, cards and assorted gift items via his CafePress shop. Aside from all that, Dee maintains a blog and a travel-blog Altogether, he manages to scrape a living that keeps him happily tightrope walking the poverty line. Rich patrons, poor publishers and penniless poets are welcome to email him with offers of commissions.
Contact Dee at: info@mercyground.com Artist's Website: http://www.rimbaud.org.uk/.