ThisLife

. Other Writers Steve Sanfield is a great haiku master. He lives in the country with Sarah, his beautiful wife, and he writes about the small things. Kyozan Joshu Roshi, who has brought hundreds of monks to a full awakening, addresses the simultaneous expansion and contraction of the cosmos. I go on and on about a noble young woman who unfastened her jeans in the front seat of my jeep and let me touch the source of life because I was so far from it. I’ve got to tell you, friends, I prefer my stuff to theirs. Leonard Cohen

Perfect. It reminds me of George Best's immortal words of secular wisdom,..... "I spent a lot of money on booze, birds and fast cars – the rest I just squandered". .

Since this collection of stories is still being visited by readers, I thought perhaps it was time that I added a direct account of that ‘Holy Grail’ of all seekers,…. a modern-day, (still alive) Westerner’s account of his experience of spiritual Awakening. I’m aware that there are at least two major difficulties regarding this subject for most seekers. One is that, although we all desire this experience ourselves, its nature is completely beyond our conception until we, ourselves, experience it directly. Even in the hands of the most skillful user of our seemingly powerful tool of language, words can at best only point us in a certain direction. After that it is our imagination, on its own, which must try to connect us to our mind’s desire. And as everyone knows, for even the most fluid and creative of imaginations, a menu description of a meal cannot ever be the same experience as the meal itself. The second obvious problem is that many, many people claim to have had these experiences. And for a wide variety of reasons. Who is telling the truth, who is deluded by wishful thinking, who is a spiritual con-man, who has only partly glimpsed the truth, etc,…. the answers to all these questions are unknowable by us. So, bearing these two caveats in mind I’ll nevertheless persevere with adding this story. Purely because it has long had a very strong effect on my own spiritual searching. To me, the author seems honest and for whatever reasons, his description stimulated me in an extremely thought-provoking way. That’s all I can say. It is taken from a wonderful book called, “I Hope You Die Soon”, by Richard Sylvester. He has a rather unusual style of writing in that there are no chapters in the book, (just periodic sub-titles). And he separates certain areas of his ‘related-but-different’ thoughts, by using a blank page. To approximate this style here I have used large, bold font for his sub-titles, and three * symbols to represent his page dividers. If his story happens to stimulate any reader's interest to see more closely what the author is like, at the end I have provided a video link to an interview he gave on his book. I have also provided a second link to another interview on the same program, but one made several years later,... of a man for whom a completely different set of circumstances triggered what seems to be a remarkably similar experience. For him, (an American GI), the trigger was being blown up by a hand grenade in the Viet Nam war in the late Sixties. Two experiences seemingly world's apart, yet they nevertheless seem to meet in exactly the same place : “I Hope You Die Soon”, (by Richard Sylvester) * * * Awakening: Seeing There is No One It begins with Saturday afternoons in Hampstead, listening to discussions about non-duality held by Tony Parsons. I do not understand a lot of what is said but something keeps drawing me there. And I like the jokes and the conversation and the drinking afterwards so I go back again and again. Then at a central London station on a warm summer evening the person, the sense of self, suddenly completely disappears. Everything remains as it is - people, trains, platforms, other objects – yet everything is seen for the first time without a person mediating or interpreting it. There are no flashing lights, no fireworks, none of the whirligig phenomena of LSD or hallucinogenic mushrooms. But this is the real 'wow', seeing an ordinary railway station for the first time without any sense of self. Here is the ordinary seen as the extraordinary, arising in oneness with no one experiencing it. In that instant it is seen that there is no one. The sense of there being a person has been a constant up to this point and given meaning to this life. For so many years it has never been questioned. It has been so thoroughly taken for granted as me, my centre and location, that it has not even been noticed. Now it is seen as a complete redundancy. Suddenly it is known that I never had a life because there never was an 'I'. In a split second of eternity it is known that without an 'I' everything is being seen for the first time simply as it is. I do not live, I am lived. I do not act, but actions happen through me, the divine puppet. Every concern of this small but so important apparent life falls away in an instant. Within a second, the self returns saying "What the hell was that ?" But that split-second of no one brings about irrevocable changes to the internal landscape. For seeing this can blow your mind. The past becomes two-dimensional. Before this, the past was a three dimensional landscape which I visited frequently. I rushed about in it, jumping from place to place; every scene had energy and reality to it. That energy appeared as feelings and thoughts, mostly about regret and guilt, with themes of "What if..." and "If only..." endlessly playing. The past was consequently tilled and re-tilled, different possibilities uselessly played out as if obsessive revisiting could somehow change the geography, bring back a lost lover or erase some offence given or received. Now, after that split second of no one, although the person has come back, the past is like a flat painting. All the scenes are still there - this is not Alzheimer's - but they have no energy, no reality, and there is little impulse to visit any of them anymore. Occasionally one scene or another from the past flickers into life for a while but then it dies away again. Regret and guilt loosen their grip. Issues and problems still arise but they cannot hang around for as long as they used to do. The rock face which gave toe holds for them to clamber up and grab me by the throat is starting to crumble. The internal landscape has become slippery. As Nisargadatta says, the world is full of hoops, the hooks are all ours. Now the hooks are dissolving. However, during the next year the self frantically tries to reassert itself, sometimes apparently very successfully as issues manage to re-emerge, as boredom, despair, emotional pain somehow still have to be experienced. One thing that is immediately seen is the nature of all the apparent spiritual experiences that arose during the years of searching and following false paths and gurus. Suddenly they are seen for what they really are, emotional and psychological experiences happening to an unreal person and no more significant than putting on a shoe or having a cup of coffee. Spiritual experiences are not difficult to evoke. Meditate intensively, chant for long periods, take certain drugs, go without food or sleep, put yourself in extreme situations. That will probably do it. I had done all of these things and there had been many spiritual experiences. I had chanted for hours and meditated to the beating of mighty Tibetan gongs. I had seen the guru, sitting on a dais in impressive robes, dissolve into golden light before my eyes. Personal identity had refined and dissolved in transcendental bliss. The universe had breathed me as my awareness expanded to fill everything. So what? There had always been someone there, having the spiritual experience. A person, no matter how refined, had always been present. These events had all happened to 'me'. None of them had anything more or less to do with liberation than stroking a cat. And anyway "You can't stay in God's world for very long. There are no restaurants or toilets there." Liberation is not personal and has nothing to do with any psychological, emotional or 'spiritual' experience, no matter how refined it may be. A spiritual or psychological experience is just a personal experience. Once it is seen that I am nothing, it is also seen that any experience arises only for an apparent person and falls away again in oneness with no significance at all. There is no real person in whom the experience arises and no possibility that it could have any meaning. And liberation has nothing to do with the absence or presence of problems or issues, which may or may not continue to arise. Liberation does not bring unending bliss. For that, try heroin, Prozac or a lobotomy. What a relief. Liberation does not require you to be any particular way. Liberation does not require 'you' to be at all. A person is not writing these words. Oneness is writing these words. And oneness is reading them. * * * Within the story, the period of awakening lasts for one year. During this time, the person reasserts itself, sometimes strongly, drops away again and returns. For a while there is a desert where personal pain is as intense as before but all the old comforts and mechanisms for dealing with it have lost their meaning. A particular comfort had been the belief that pain was meaningful, necessary to my spiritual evolution. "There's no gain without pain." Now that thought simply appears ridiculous. I am beginning to understand that this awakening is ruthless, stripping away every belief that I have ever held and ever clung to. Now there are no life rafts left, not even a piece of driftwood. It is sometimes said that this ruins your life. Well, it ruins what you thought was your life. And there is a saying I remember at this point. "Why do you want liberation? How do you know you'd like it?" My God. Things have got worse, not better. For previously there was hope. * * * Liberation: Seeing 'I' am Everything Within the story, a year after awakening, I am standing in a shop in an ordinary country town. Suddenly but with great gentleness the ordinary is displaced by the extraordinary. The person again disappears completely and now it is seen clearly that awareness is everywhere and everything. The localised sense of self is revealed to be just an appearance. There is no location, no here or there. There is only oneness appearing as everything and this is what 'I' really am. 'I' am the shop, the people, the counter, the walls and the space in which everything appears. When the self disappears, and awareness is seen as everything, then this is seen for what it is, a wonderful hologram sustained by love. At a certain time as a child, awareness appears to coagulate into a discrete space, becoming solid and separate from everything else. This is what creates the sense of 'me' with its hopes and fears and loves and burdensome responsibilities. The thoughts and feelings and sensory phenomena, which really simply arise in awareness, are now owned by someone,… are now felt to belong to 'me'. And so the drama of being a person starts. There is no locality to awareness other than 'everywhere'. There is only liberation. But in liberation the sense that 'I' am not liberated can and does arise. It manifests as the sense of separation, of being located over here rather than over there, separate from all other people and things. It brings fear, longing and hope, and it is highly addictive. It cannot see through itself and it may simply continue for seventy or eighty years until it ends at death. Or it may end sooner, anywhere, at any time. * * * Liberation is freedom from the burden of being a person who apparently has to make choices and decisions; choices and decisions which have consequences. What a wonderful relief it is to see that there is no choice, no person, no separation. Nothing you have ever done has ever led to anything because you have never done anything. No one has ever done anything although it appears that things have been done. Isn't it wonderful that you have never made a choice in your life ? There is nothing to regret, nothing to feel guilty about. Nothing could ever have been any different, nothing could ever have been any other way. Isn't that a relief ? Nothing matters. There is nowhere to go. There is nothing that has to be done. There is no meaning and no morality. There is no help and no hope. You can let it all go, you can release all the tension. You can begin to enjoy the wonder of hopelessness and the gift of meaninglessness. You can begin to enjoy your complete helplessness. In liberation it is seen that nothing has any meaning, it is simply what it is. The story does not stop. The story continues but now it is seen that it is just a story. All the passions of your apparent life are just stuff happening. The conflicts, the loves, the struggles for control and power, the victories and defeats are simply phenomena arising in oneness and falling away again with no meaning at all. Nothing has any more significance than anything else or could ever be greater or lesser. The Trojan war and a glass of beer are equal. Except, of course, to the mind. * * * You cannot earn liberation. I have not earned liberation. No one will ever earn liberation. You cannot become good enough or work hard enough or be sincere enough to deserve it. Liberation has not happened to me and it will not happen to you. Yet there is liberation. There is only ever liberation. Perfection is already here. What you are is already divine. Searching will not get you anywhere, but there is nothing wrong with searching. In this apparent process it may be heard that searching is meaningless but searching cannot be given up until it stops. Then it is over and it is seen that what you were searching for has always been with you, in fact it has always been what you are. But to suggest that you give up searching in order to find is pointless. It does not matter whether you get drunk, meditate, read the paper, sit with the guru or go to the races. None of these will make liberation any more or any less likely. Searching or nor searching, meditating or not meditating, misses the point. For there is no one who can choose to do any of these things. If meditation happens, it happens and it will go on happening until it does not. It is the same for getting drunk. You may as well give up the belief that you can choose anything. Except that you cannot do that either. Until it happens. * * * Liberation is what is left when the self is gone. But the self is simply liberation arising as the self. Liberation is what is happening while you search for liberation. Inside, you already know this. * * * Being Awake and Being Asleep are the Same - Unless You are Asleep When liberation is seen, it is known that being awake in liberation is no different from being asleep. They are both seen simply as oneness, manifesting as sleep or awakeness. In liberation all the mystification of enlightenment is stripped away and its absolute ordinariness is revealed. Mountains are seen simply as mountains. But to the seeker who is still asleep, and in their sleep is searching restlessly for an end to the sense of separation, there appears to be a chasm between that state and liberation. Liberation seems like a marvelous prize to be attained, promising blissful feelings, freedom from pain and suffering, an end to all problems, perhaps magical powers and of course the jealous admiration of your friends. This is why the search for liberation can be so desperate and the question "Will I get it ?" so powerful. All that prevents the seeing of liberation is the thought "I am not liberated". So some say that what you must do to see liberation is to drop this thought. But there is no one who can choose to do this. The thought that this is not liberation, (which is the same as the thought "I am separate" or "I am searching"), continues until it drops away. The apparent self can do nothing to discover that it is itself an illusion – since an appearance cannot discover reality. Liberation is seen either while the body-mind is still functioning or at the death of the body-mind and it does not matter which, except in the story. "At death there is only liberation. It is just more chic to see liberation when you are alive." In liberation it is seen that there never was anything to seek. What you seek has always been with you, what you are has always been what you are. When this is seen all searching ends. * * * I Hope You Die Soon Once upon a time I was a busy seeker, meditating sincerely being careful with my karma, receiving shaktipat, having my chakras opened and cleansed by blessed gurus, thinking I was going somewhere. Then catastrophe struck. I met Tony Parsons. And that was the end of what I thought had been my life. Tony, who hugged me at the end of one of his meetings and said to me "I hope you die soon." Tony, to whom I feel the most profound gratitude, even though there is no one. There is no more appropriate way to end this. Let me simply pass on the blessing I was given and say to you "I hope you die soon." * LINKS : (1) Richard Sylvester's Link : http://bcove.me/rdk2imyu * (2) Bart Marshall (Viet Nam War vet) http://bcove.me/w4wrvv3t

Did you hear about the elderly lady who consulted her doctor about excessive wind, "Im lucky", she said, "They're silent and they don't smell". The doctor sent her on her way with a prescription and told her to return in one month's time. On her return she complained that things had got worse, since her wind now smelt vile. "Thats good !" the doctor said, "Now that we have cured your sense of smell we can start to have a look at your hearing" *

I was absolutely speechless with awe and appreciation when I first came across that story by Chuang Tzu. For anyone who is attracted to Eastern thinking it has to be one of the corner pins of that type of world view. As a story / analogy,... it simply cannot be improved upon. However, for myself, I've now come across it so many times that it has sadly lost it's ability to shake up my habitual thinking any more. My mind has grown so used to it that it automatically kicks in with the thought,..."Aah yes,that lovely story again. It means,...(fill in the blank)." And nothing happens for me any more. I guess it's the nature of our human mind that it always does this kind of thing. The mind likes to remain comfortable in its familiar cocoon of habits. So, I have to keep finding new stories to keep my mind on its toes, so to speak. As a butterfly story, I find that the one below that I came across some time ago, somehow still has the ability to stop my familiar thinking patterns. Mostly, I guess, because I've never been able to figure out what it means. And yet, somehow I feel convinced that it carries a great depth of thought locked within it. It seems to behave like a Zen koan for me,... I keep coming back to it, circling around, looking at it from every angle, but can never quite grasp what it's saying. Perhaps it will do something for you : * * * Suppose someone were to say, “Imagine this butterfly exactly as it is, but ugly instead of beautiful.” Ludwig Wittgenstein .

. PART TWO : * * * Caucho Camp Late one afternoon we pulled up to a small clearing in the riverbank jungle occupied by a group of palm thatched huts at the mouth of a tributary of the Rio Tigre called the Pavoyacu. We had our evening meal early and were sitting on deck talking in the gathering dusk when off in the forest nearby a panguana or tinamou (tropical jungle partridge) sounded its mournful four-note call for a sleeping mate. It was soon answered by another, and their calls echoed back and forth. Our conversation came to a halt and I noticed a faraway look come into Cordova's expressive eyes. Hear that panguana calling? It reminds me of a time in my youth over fifty years ago when I was alone in a caucho rubber camp on the upper Rio Jurua. Then too a haunting melancholy cry of a forest tinamou floated on the evening air from nearby and was answered so faintly from off in the depths of the jungle that it could hardly be heard. A vague but persistent feeling of foreboding lingered in my thoughts as I tended a fragrant stew bubbling in an iron pot over an open fire. Darkness was approaching and my companions should have returned ravenous with hunger by mid-afternoon. They had gone off in the forest at dawn to tap newly located latex-producing caucho trees. It had been my turn to cook, so I had been left to tend camp and prepare a meal for their return. Now, as I added a couple of sticks to the fire, I remembered the warning of a trader at the last outpost on the Jurua River as we travelled through a corner of Brazil toward this isolated section of Peru. My companions had scoffed at the warning - those soft Brazilian seringeiros might be worried about Indians, but not tough Peruvian caucheros ! We had come to this totally isolated area on the advice of an old cauchero who had tapped rubber here during an earlier rubber boom. Our camp was on a small tributary of the upper Rio Jurua. There was a small palm-thatched cooking shack and, adjoining it, a larger shelter with supplies stored in the back and our sleeping hammocks hung in the front. And all of this set in a small jungle clearing, to let in some sunlight. In the fading light of a setting sun a noisy flock of parrots flew over in pairs on their way to a roosting tree, and the sundown cicada buzzed loudly in a nearby tree. The momentary twilight of the tropics was quickly fading into the dark of night. I tried to piece together the plans for the day that my companions had revealed in their conversation before departing this morning. Roqui and Encarnacion had planned to fell and tap caucho trees already located some distance from camp. Toribio and Domingo intended to explore for more distant trees. It was possible they might still come in, but more likely now that they would sleep in the forest. I knew they didn't like to travel this trackless forest after dark. I was only fifteen years old, impatient and hungry, and decided not to wait any longer but to eat my portion of the stew. I watched the fire and the flickering shadows it cast in our small forest clearing. Night sounds were replacing those of the day. A raucous tree frog started cur-awking up in the crotch of a tree. He was soon answered by another. Two tahuayos (tropical whippoorwills) carried on a melodious dialogue. Once I thought I heard the men coming, but no one appeared. The fire died down and I decided to cover it with dirt and ashes to hold it till morning. Frustrated, I went to my hammock and covered myself to avoid the mosquitoes. But sleep would not come. The familiar sound of crickets and other insects provided a continuous pulsating background hum for other intermittent sounds of the night. There was a forest partridge nearby that sang out periodically with a clear flutelike call. A trumpeter bird also floated his call on the heavy night air, and a nocturnal monkey repeated his plaintive piping note over and over in an accelerating sequence. The trumpeter calls seemed to alternate from different directions around the camp, and there were many calls and sounds I had not heard before and could not identify. This increased my uneasiness and I felt for the rifle under my hammock for reassurance. It had rained in the late afternoon, and now a rotten branch of a big tree came crashing down nearby. This brought me sitting straight up in my hammock. To calm my nerves, I thought to myself, That's the reason for our camp clearing - so none can fall on us. Settling back into my hammock, I went over the events that had brought me here to the depths of the forest. In Iquitos I had lived with my father and mother and completed as much schooling as was available. Steamships coming up the Amazon from the Atlantic Ocean to this most inland port brought the news of a rubber boom, and Iquitos merchants began outfitting groups of men to organize rubber-production camps in the forest. Having finished school and with some forest experience already, I persuaded my family to let me go upriver to the town of Iberia. Here my sister's husband was active in rubber trading, and I would have a chance for a start in this growing business. When I arrived at Iberia, Lino agreed to let me go with four of his caucho cutters who were preparing to move into new territory. We travelled east by canoe on a narrow canal, "sacarita Iberia" which connected the Rio Ucayalli with the Rio Tapiche at high water. Going north down the sluggish black-water Tapiche, we came to the mouth of the Rio Blanco. From there we travelled up the Blanco to a small tributary, Lobo. Then, selling our canoe, we packed two days overland to the headwaters of the Rio Ipixuna. Here, in Brazil, we went down the Ipixuna to the Jurua and then up the Jurua until we were back in Peru – or thought we were. No boundaries had yet been marked between the two countries, so it was impossible to be sure. We had established our camp, and the first few days of locating caucho trees around the camp gave us reason to expect this should be a profitable location. The trip made with four seasoned caucheros had been a challenge and an education for me. My confidence, at fifteen, was unlimited. Another tropical downpour with thunder and lightning passed over the camp. The cool air caused me to wrap up in my blanket and I dozed off into a troubled sleep. With the first light of dawn a group of toucans awakened me with their raucous calling from a nearby treetop. I took the shotgun with the idea of getting one for breakfast, but the partridge I had heard the night before made the mistake of showing himself first, and he was soon in my hands. As I turned to go back, a sudden impression of not being alone in the forest startled me and the hair on my neck bristled. I paused to look around. The tall trees were festooned with vines and lianas, some attached to the tree trunks, others hanging free from the upper branches. Small trees and underbrush made it impossible to see very far even though the undergrowth was not thick in this forest of big trees. I could neither see nor hear anything but the jungle and its usual sounds, and I returned to camp with my partridge. There I stirred up the fire and prepared a spit on which to roast the bird, then went to the stream for fresh water. The creek was slow and clear. By then the sun was sending shafts of sunlight to the forest floor. A dragonfly hovered and darted in and out of the sunlight over the water. I saw the flash of the silvery side of a big sabalo fish in the depths of a pool and thought of catching him later. As I dipped the bucket for water, a slight movement and sound caught my attention. Turning my head, I found myself surrounded by a group of naked Indians. They had fantastic designs painted in black on their brown bodies. Each had either a wicked lance or a bow and arrow aimed at me. We were thus frozen for a moment without movement or sound. Then one of them stepped forward and took first the hunting knife from my belt and then the bucket from my hand. He was immediately followed by two others, who tied my hands behind my back. It was all done so quickly, as if by plan, that there was no chance for a struggle - and to what purpose even if I had tried, with the odds at least fifteen to one? On a command which I could not understand, we all returned to the camp. There, while two stood guard beside me, the others took the camp apart. It was all directed by one man and was well organized. Everything useful was quickly arranged into pack loads. The half-roasted partridge I had put over the fire was portioned out and gulped down quickly. I was given some and I forced myself to eat it, against an unknown future. Our camp shelters went up in flames. During all this my mind was a hurricane of thoughts, trying to understand what was happening while at the same time searching for something I could do. At one moment I thought surely my companions would return and let go with a fusillade of rifle shots at these savages and set me free. But then I realized all of our firearms were accounted for in the equipment being collected into pack loads. Where were my friends ? Had the Indians kept them from coming in last night? What had been done to them ? And what were the plans for my future ? We had heard stories of cannibals in this area. What chance of escape might there be ? I looked around at the Indians and noticed that my guards were intently watching every move I made, even a turning of my head. All of these men, though not large, seemed well built, muscular. Their movements were smooth and purposeful. Each one was naked except for a belt or band at the waist. Now my captors formed a single line with me in the middle, the men immediately in front and behind me obviously responsible for my actions. Then we were off through the forest, leaving the camp a smouldering ruin. As we left and during the first few hours I kept track of the direction of travel. The sun was over my left shoulder, so it was southwest we were going. There was no sign of a trail that I could see, but the pace was fast. The Indians seemed to glide through the forest without effort, while vines and thorns were constantly pulling at me. It was especially difficult for me with my hands tied. I needed them for balance. But from the first moment my instinct had been to show no sign of weakness or emotion, and I kept up somehow. We maintained a south-westerly direction up and down hills through rolling country. I tried to keep track of the small streams we crossed, as landmarks, but with the exertion of our pace I soon lost track. In the forest the sunlight seldom reached the ground, so it was cool, but with the high humidity and the exertion of trying to keep up I was constantly in a running sweat. As the pace of travel kept on without let-up I became less and less aware of the details of my surroundings. By mid-afternoon I was exhausted and, even with extreme effort, was stumbling as I walked. We stopped by a small stream and my hands were untied. By example they indicated that I should wash and rinse my mouth. But when I gulped the water instead of rinsing my mouth, they led me away from the stream. I was dying of thirst, but they would let me have no more water. Pieces of smoked meat were passed around. Mine was so dry I could hardly swallow it, but I knew I had to eat to survive and forced it down. After only a short time my hands were tied again and we were off. The food helped, and strength to go on came from some reserve, perhaps in the mind. This time it was for all night. As dusk deepened into darkness the pace slowed somewhat to accommodate my difficulties, but we did not stop until daylight. Stopping again at a small stream, I followed gestured instructions, rinsing my mouth out and swallowing only a small amount of water in spite of the desire to gulp it down. They allowed me to bathe. My body was covered with scratches from a thousand thorns along the way and my clothes were in tatters. The pause was only a brief one, and we were soon walking again at the forced pace of the day before. This we kept up for another day and another night ! I was near the point of collapse from exhaustion after these two days and two nights of almost continuous forced march. For the last few hours before dawn on the third day I was barely staggering forward. As it was getting light we came up a small hill and stopped. Here my captors opened a well-hidden deposit of supplies. I collapsed on the ground in an agony of fatigue. Even breathing seemed an effort beyond my power. I was in fact barely conscious, my mind able to develop only the most fragmented bits of thought: Where ?... How ?...Why ?... After several hours of tortured rest and fitful sleep I was prodded into eating and was given a small clay dish of thick sour liquid to drink. This proved to be refreshing and stimulating, and I felt as if I were coming painfully back to life. Late in the afternoon two Indians came into camp from the direction of our arrival and seemed to report, with many gestures, to the leader. This must have been a rear guard who had been checking to see if we had been followed. I knew that we had not been, for even if one or more of my companions had escaped and gone for help, it would take days to reach the nearest settlement. And the possibility of their survival seemed very unlikely. The Indians also must have been satisfied, because we rested on through the night, but they did not build a fire. Before dark one of my guards rubbed crushed leaves of a small shrub on my scratches and cuts, which relieved the itching and pain and also stopped the bleeding. This was done without any show of favour or feeling. As soon as the sun went down, moisture from the high humidity in the air began to condense on the leaves and was soon dripping from the treetops with a constant patter that continued all night. For protection against this cold dripping dew, the Indians put up individual palm-leaf shelters on stick frames. They were only large enough to sit in, and mine was surrounded by others - with no avenue of escape. It was a night of cold, misery, pain and fear that I will never forget. My whole body ached from unbelievable exertion and I was emotionally shattered by events. My thoughts were still fragmentary and disconnected - mostly of the past. But what of the future ? A formless void to be filled by events still undreamed of. I had heard plenty of Indian stories in the villages and camps we had visited on the way to the Jurua. Storytelling was a pastime. But reality in all that I had heard was unclear. I was prodded from a troubled sleep at dawn. All evidence of our camp was scattered before we set out again. We stopped at the first stream for a bath, and then the march was on again – still southwest, but at a more moderate pace now. The Indians seemed released from the first pressure of escape from the area of their attack. I tried to keep track of the days, and I tried to observe the country. I knew that the Rio Jurua was to our right, for we had crossed no major river. It was up and down hills, over fallen trees, through swamps and small streams. Compared to the gruelling pace of the first two days and nights, this part of the journey was mild. We stopped every night to rest and travelled only from dawn to dusk. One day it was cloudy and rainy all day. The forest was eerie, shrouded in whitish mist. The rain was filtered through the foliage starting at 150 feet above our heads. The air was heavy, completely saturated with moisture. Every leaf and twig discharged its load of accumulated moisture if touched. This was the kind of day when caucheros stayed in camp, mended their clothes, ate and talked. On what by my count was the ninth day of travel, I noticed about noon one of the Indians rejoining the line with a small forest deer slung over his shoulder. Later another appeared with two game birds. This was the first hunting I had noticed on the trip. The feeling among the Indians this morning had been different somehow - faces less severe and some conversation back and forth. The pace had definitely picked up again. About mid-afternoon I saw off to the left a momentary break in the forest, a whole big patch of blue sky. Soon after we passed by what was obviously a cultivated patch of yucca. We must be nearing a village, I thought; What would the end of the journey bring ? Why had these Indians not already killed me ? I was quite sure they had killed one, if not all, of my cauchero companions. The way now led up a long hill. Suddenly there was a loud squawking of macaws and almost immediately we stepped into a village clearing filled with naked Indians - men, women and children. They crowded around and pushed one another for a better view. There was an immediate hubbub of chattering that stopped abruptly when a thin, ancient, long-haired old man stepped calmly through the throng. He came up to where I stood, my hands still tied behind my back, and deliberately looked me over. I looked back at him just as deliberately. I saw a very old man with a distinct Oriental cast to his face. A feathered headband held back a shock of reddish-brown hair that came to the middle of his back. A few long yellowish whiskers on his upper lip and chin added to the Oriental look. And whereas every other Indian in sight was naked, he wore a simple sleeveless garment of coarse white cotton that came almost to his bony knees. This, I knew, must be the chief. I was determined not to move an eyelash or to show a sign of emotion or fear. The noise soon started up again: children squealed; men and women grimaced at one another and shouted; the macaws were squawking again. The chief stepped close, carefully unbound my arms and instructed my captors to remove the tattered remnants of my clothes. More people were joining the jostling crowd of what must have been over a hundred. A group of very old women came up to look me over. They tested my solid flesh and cackled. But one old woman was of a different mood. She came up with a heavy palm club in her hand and began to mutter angrily as she glared at me. Suddenly, with a wailing screech, she brought up the club and came at me in a frenzy. The old chief, still at my side, gave a sharp command. The leader of my captors brusquely grabbed the club from the old woman and with a single, deft swing of it knocked her to the ground with a crushing, killing blow. A gasping sigh passed through the crowd as the club was tossed onto the body and, at a command from the chief, the other old women dragged the corpse away. Another command from the chief, and two of my captors led me behind the old man into the largest of a group of conical houses. The roof and walls were one and came clear to the ground. Inside it was dark and smoky. * * * Visions After perhaps six months with the Huni Kui, (meaning the Chosen people or the True, Gentle People), I had become accustomed to living in the nude, to eating their unsalted diet of jungle game, the few products of their primitive agriculture and wild fruit. And I understood a few words of their strange vocabulary. Now it became evident that something new was in the offing. My diet was changed drastically and was carefully controlled by the old women who were my constant custodians. Instead of being given the mixed fare of the daily take from the jungle, which consisted of roasted, smoked or boiled portions of nearly any one of the jungle animals and birds, along with vegetables and fruits in various forms, the restrictions became pronounced. For several days my food was limited to the carefully roasted white breast of the jungle partridge, of which there were several varieties, roasted yucca, and a mushy liquid concoction of cooked and mashed bananas or sweet potatoes. In addition to this diet, every two or three days I was obliged to drink an herbal preparation of jarring odd flavours which produced unexpected reactions. These drinks were given to me firmly but with assurance that they would not harm me. One caused violent vomiting; another was a laxative; and still another caused accelerated heartbeat, fever and copious sweating. I was given baths and massages and felt exhilarated afterward. After perhaps ten days of this treatment, during which everyone - including the chief, who personally supervised the affair - showed solicitude for my well-being and expectation of favourable reaction, it came to an end with a day of fasting and face painting. A group of ten men had special intricate designs painted on their faces in red paint made of achote. Late in the afternoon, perhaps an hour before sunset, the group, which I recognized by this time as consisting of the important individuals in the tribe, gathered at the chief's dwelling. After a short consultation, in which I naturally had no part, we formed in a single file and with a soft rhythmic chant marched slowly off into the jungle with the whole village silently looking on. (My description of what is to come is based largely on later repetitions of these events, when I had attained sufficient understanding of my strange environment to interpret what was seen and heard or emerged from unknown recesses of the mind.) An almost imperceptible trail led us gently downward along a forest-covered hillside through a stand of tremendous trees of great variety in shape and form. After a half hour's slow walk we arrived at a small clearing in the undergrowth, a jungle glade with a small creek running through it. Here the large fluted columns of the giant trees were even more imposing, because the undergrowth had been cleared out, giving the impression of a great vaulted cathedral. Shafts of sunlight brilliantly illuminated occasional isolated spots. At sunset the birds of the jungle repeat momentarily the strange cacophony of calls heard at sunrise. Nearby the plaintive flutelike call of the tinamou was answered by another in the distance. A far-off raucous cry of the jungle falcon echoed through the forest, and on the distant sound horizon rose briefly the roar of a band of howler monkeys getting set for the night, huddled together in some giant tree crown. In our secluded jungle glade the calm of sunset deepened. One of the Indians imitated several bird calls and from the depths of the jungle these were answered from several directions. The chief showed satisfaction with this indication that we were well guarded and need not fear unwanted intrusion. Our group (myself excluded), knowing what to expect, went calmly about strange preparations. Four of the ten men withdrew slightly and took up guard positions on four sides of the clearing. In the centre a small fire was being kindled from a glowing coal brought from the village in a small clay pot. Several feet from the fire were low wooden stools set in a circle with the legs firmly in the ground. The soft chanting continued intermittently, but I was unable to understand any of it. Finally the participants took positions at their stools as directed by the chief. My place was beside him. A large bundle of dried leaves was brought and laid beside the fire by one of the guards, who then silently withdrew. The chief, chanting a different sequence from that I had heard before and softly accompanied by the others, approached the bundle of leaves and broke off some small bunches. The chanting pace quickened and the mood changed. A branch of leaves was placed on the fire and a cloud of thick pungent white smoke rose slowly from the fire. Not a breath of air now moved in the intensely silent jungle. With a large scoop-shaped fan made of brilliant feathers, the chief now carried great volumes of the fragrant smoke to each of the participants, taking special pains to see that I was well enveloped in this incense. With this came another chant, the meaning of which I learned later. The intensity of feeling, the chants and fragrant smoke seemed to create a trance-like atmosphere within the group. Every movement and action was made with the greatest calm and deliberation. A slight change of mood and intonation came when a tedium-sized clay vessel, highly decorated with incised motifs, was placed beside the fire. A small dipper was plunged into the vessel and six small palm-nut cups were filled with a dark-green liquid. Each of us around the fire was given one of these cups by the chief, who brought mine last. Giving it to me, he held up his own in front and indicated that we should drink. Momentarily I hesitated and thought of refusing, but already I was in a semi-trance, and in such a calm but intense situation the impulse passed, and l drank the liquid down in a gulp, as did the others. It was a bland concoction that tasted rather like boiled green corn. After taking the potion everyone calmly sat down on his low stool around the small fire. The chanting continued but became more animated and moved into a high falsetto of a florid, tremulous character with each participant adding his own harmonious obbligato, coming together in unison with the chief on certain key words for continuity. The sequence of what happened next has always been beyond recall, but from many other such ceremonies continuing over a period of years I have reconstructed this first experience. A high pulsating whine started softly in my ears and increased with intensity until a violent shock passed through my entire nervous system. A feeling of great nausea overcame me, followed by fleeting sensations of intense erotic stimulation, then utter confusion of sense perceptions. Chaotic visions of various coloured lights and forms dominated my visual senses. Blue and green shades predominated, interspersed with intense flashes of other colours. Emotional involvements of indefinable content accompanied the colour visions. Many other confused elements entered the visions after the pure colours and abstract shapes. These included jungle animals and natural forms, but it was not until many months and séances later that I established enough control of the vision progression and content to attempt to describe or explain these sequences. Eventually, with no real sense of time, I drifted into complete lethargy that progressed gradually to deep but troubled sleep. I awoke with a shaft of sunlight stabbing through the forest canopy to strike me in the face. I felt lost and completely disoriented, unable to distinguish clearly the shapes and forms of my surroundings. My first conscious thread of reality was the animated morning chorus of several jungle birds. My companions, aware of my return to consciousness, calmly encouraged me by gesture and word to enter again the rational world. The men sat around in conversation, apparently exchanging impressions of the night and commenting on my reactions. By noon we were back in the village, but I was far from the same as when I had left it. Food helped restore my equilibrium, but for some time, especially when I was asleep at night, snatches of visions returned. After spending the night in the forest sharing strange visions with my captors, it became noticeably easier for me to understand the meaning of their previously unintelligible language. It was still many months before I learned to speak with any fluency, but I began to understand most of what was said to me after our first séance in the forest. Soon afterward I was taken to a secluded camp in the forest to learn how the vision-producing extract was made. Early one morning I was instructed to leave the village with one of the old men whom they called Nixi Xuma Waki (Maker of the Vine Extract). For a while we were accompanied by a small group of well-armed younger men, but these Indians soon disappeared into the forest. Late in the afternoon, after a leisurely day on a meandering forest trail, we came to a small clearing beside a small creek. There were a few large stones around a fireplace and a small palm-thatched shelter on a framework of poles. An assortment of clay pots, dippers and a pile of firewood were also present. We set about preparing for the night. A fire was kindled; we hung small hammocks under the shelter and ate a small portion of smoked meat and drank fruit mush from one of the clay pots. Nixi (the Vine, for short) exchanged birdcalls with some unseen phantoms in the forest. This happened at intervals during the night, and it was evident that we were well guarded to counteract any thought of escape on my part or unwanted intrusion by others. A soft unintelligible chant was also sung by Nixi Xuma off and on during the night as he fed the fire. At dawn I was awakened by the repeated call of a forest dove and the rapid trip-hammer pounding of a woodpecker on a hollow tree. The chill and dampness of the night air still hung on the camp and a light mist drifted in the treetops as the sunlight slanted in through the upper crowns. A group of toucans started a raucous exchange and soon the forest was alive with the daylight sounds that were so different from those of the night. As I raised my head from the hammock and sat up, old. Nixi glanced from the fire he tended and nodded a greeting. Again he exchanged bird calls with our unseen guards in the forest. We ate some food and arranged the various large and small earthen pots around the fireplace before Nixi signalled for me to follow him into the forest. He took a stone axe and his bamboo knife. This was the first time I had been more or less free in the jungle since my capture, but I knew the two of us were not alone. Attempted escape passed through my mind, but I rejected the idea as impossible. My companion moved through the tangled forest undergrowth with ease and stealth, hardly disturbing leaf or branch. I found it difficult to keep up. Every thorn and vine seemed to grab me. At one place I disturbed a bush that Nixi had just passed, and a swarm of stinging wasps were at me from a small papery nest hanging on the underside of a large leaf. In a half dozen places I had burning welts on my naked body as I rushed away out of range. In a few moments I was given an antidote in the form of leaves to chew and place on the stings, and the pain disappeared at once. After this we went at a more deliberate pace that gave me a chance to observe how Nixi flowed through the underbrush. Eventually, as all of my senses became attuned to conditions in the forest, I could make my own way under the worst conditions and keep up with anyone in the tribe. After an hour or so we came to a huge buttressed tree with several strands of a vine the size of my wrist hanging from the top branches. The vine was examined in every visible detail - the bark, the strands themselves, their thickness, the roots and the soil, an examination that was accompanied by a chant. Finally old Nixi tested one stem by pulling it with the whole weight of his body. When it did not yield he went up it easily and quickly, hand over hand, to the tree crown above. Here he cut loose one of the stems, which came tumbling down with a crash. Returning to the ground, he began to cut with the stone axe, and with my help, this length of vine into three-foot pieces, and we carried as many as we could lift back to camp. Then we went off into the forest in another direction until we found a small shrub with large leaves that attracted my companion's attention. He pointed out to me the strangely marked bark of the main stem and the shape of the leaves as distinguishing characteristics. The bark had odd-shaped varicoloured markings similar to those on a boa's skin. The leaves were lance-shaped and had peculiar vein markings that conformed to the lance shape of the leaf itself. Several dozen leaves were carefully selected, picked and taken back to our camp. There the serious preparations started, accompanied by almost continuous chanting. First the vine was cut into one-foot pieces with the stone axe and pounded on a flat stone with a large wooden mallet until it was well mashed. The old man chanted: “Nixi honi,(Vine whose extract produces visions) boding spirit of the forest origin of our understanding give up your magic power to our potion illuminate our mind bring us foresight show us the designs of our enemies expand our knowledge expand our understanding of our forest” A layer of mashed vine pieces was then carefully arranged in the bottom of a large new clay pot. On top of this was laid a layer of the leaves in the shape of a fan. And as he did this Nixi chanted: “Bush with markings of the serpent give us your leaves for our potion bring us favour of the boa source of good fortune” Then alternating layers of mashed vine and leaves were put in place until the pot was more than half full. Clear water from the stream was then added until the plant material was well covered. A slow fire was started under the pot and the cooking was maintained at a very low simmer for many hours until the liquid was reduced to less than half. When the cooking process was completed the fire was removed and, after cooling, the plant material was withdrawn from the liquid. After several hours of further cooling and settling, the clear green liquid was carefully dipped off into small clay pots, each fitted with a tight cover. The entire process took three days, being done with utter calmness and deliberation. The interminable chants accompanied each step, invoking the spirits of the vine, the shrub and the other forest spirits. This carefully and reverently prepared extract provided the potion for many subsequent ayahuasca sessions in the peaceful and secluded forest glade, sessions that progressed to incredible vision fantasies. A few days after returning from the forest with Nixi the Honi Maker, with a number of small pots containing the potent green liquid, one of the hunters came to the chief. It was early in the evening as we sat around the small fire in the centre of the chief's house. Xurikaya (Coloured Bird) came in quietly and sat down. It seemed almost as though his coming was expected. The conversation led to the subject of hunting, and soon Xuri (the Bird) was telling a long melancholy story of bad luck in his hunting. "The last time I came upon the large herd of wild pigs that usually ranged in my assigned hunting territory I approached by misjudgement too near the head of the band. The old sow leader saw me and gave the grunt of alarm before I could loose an arrow. The whole band disappeared as if by magic. Now they seem to have abandoned my hunting ground. At least they no longer follow their usual feeding circuit. They leave no trace. "The other evening I was calling a tinamou. When it finally came after much too long a time of calling back and forth I shot it and found it full of worms from a previous wound - almost eaten up. “The band of howler monkeys in my area manage to piss and crap on me from the treetops but somehow avoid my arrows. The forest deer sense my movements from afar and avoid me by leaving confusing tracks. The fruit trees that produce the favourite food of the forest animals this year seem to bear nothing but leaves. "My family is being fed by others, which brings me great shame and leaves me with obligations that I will never be able to pay off unless my luck changes." Finally the chief said, "Come back tomorrow night and we will look at it again, with others. Bring your hunting equipment with you." Xumu sent word by his old women to a small select group of the best hunters. They came to sit around his fire the next evening, and the palaver went on and on for half the night. Xurikaya brought all of his hunting gear. It consisted of snares made of strong twine of various thicknesses treated with beeswax; a large open basket woven of palm fronds of a type used to catch the small jungle partridges that sleep together on the ground at night; several lances for night hunting; a large bow with a dozen arrows of various types; and finally his bamboo knife, which was worn on a string around his neck. These were passed around the group and all were examined minutely and the defects pointed out and commented on. The snares had not been properly treated with herbs to eliminate the smell of man, hence no animals would approach them. The partridge basket was just a little too big to handle easily in the undergrowth and catch birds. The lances had surely been affected by iuxibo (evil spirits). The painted designs on the bow and arrows could be improved in many details to attract favourable assistance from the forest spirits. After the equipment had been examined, Xuri was questioned closely about his preparations for the hunt: his use of herbal baths to bring good luck and to remove body odours; special diets for getting ready to hunt certain animals; the use of charms for finding favourite game animals. Then came a minute dissection and discussion of Xurikaya's recent hunting experiences and failures. Finally, about midnight, it was agreed all around the fire that a honi-drinking and vision session in the forest sanctuary was needed to solve Xuri's problem. On the following day the chief called the same group together again and prescribed in great detail the diet and purges to be used in preparation for this coming session. When several days of obeying these instructions had passed, there was the face-painting ritual and then the slow late-afternoon trip to the isolated forest meeting place just as before. Xumu led the way, followed by Xurikaya and myself and the expert hunters. This time I understood much more of what was said among them and was more clearly aware of my surroundings and of course knew something of what to expect, as we followed the same route through the forest of giant trees to the hidden jungle glade. We got there about sunset, and the upper crowns and branches of the great trees were illuminated in brilliant sunlight, but only an occasional deflected shaft of sunlight broke the gloom on the forest floor. Again the four guards took their places at the edges of the clearing, withdrawn from the participants. A small fire was kindled and the ancient and fragile chief, chanting an invocation to the spirits of the forest, placed dried leaves on the fire. After a crackling sound, a cloud of fragrant smoke billowed up. Each of us was again bathed in the smoke and its fragrant tranquillity. This time it was extract I had helped to make that was passed around in the small palm cups, and I was determined to control myself and participate more fully in the sequence of visions. Each of us drank his cupful of. Honi xuma, the vision extract. The chanting gradually took on the high falsetto quality, with each one in the circle adding his tremulous obbligato to the chief’s chant, again coming together on key words which gave emphasis and continuity to the flow of sound. As before, in a few minutes a pulsating hum dominated my consciousness, followed by a violent muscle spasm as soon as the pulsations merged to a continuous sound. Nausea did not appear this time, but a flow of other sensations progressed through my consciousness, their content impossible to describe in terms of the rational world. Exotic sensations, erotic in nature, produced indescribable feelings of pleasure and exhilaration. And I had the impression of being free of my body, capable of actions, sensations and knowledge completely divorced from my physical being. The sense of time disappeared completely and perhaps the impressions felt were very fleeting with relation to normal consciousness. Coloured visions began to dominate the scene, and the chanting seemed to intrude and take over control of the progression of visions. After unorganized visions developed, of coloured forms and abstract shapes dominated by intense blues, natural objects of the forest began to appear - in vague, imprecise outline at first, but soon in unimaginable detail. With the chant of the boa, a giant constrictor appeared slowly gliding through the forest. Blue lights intensified an intricate design of scroll configurations that seemed to float along the boa's spine. Light flashed from his eyes and tongue. The bold patterns on the snake's skin glowed with intense and varied colours. I was to learn later that the boa was greatly admired by these Indians for his ability to move silently through the forest and capture other animals. To handle a boa and pass a finger over the outlines of the patterns on his skin brought good luck in hunting. The boa visions, brought on by a special chant, therefore came at the start of all auspicious séances dealing with the hunt. Other snakes followed the great boa - a giant bushmaster, a fer-de-lance, and many more. Next came the birds, in particular members of the hawk family, which is thought to be the source of knowledge about the forest. With the special hawk chant there came first into the visions an enormous harpy eagle in flight, darting in and out through jungle vegetation on lightning-quick manoeuvres. Finally he alighted, spread his giant wings, displaying his creamy white breast and striped wings, then a jet-black back. Turning his head and raising the neck feathers into a magnificent crest, the eagle flashed enormous baleful yellow eyes at us and snapped his hooked scimitar of a beak. A snake-eating hawk, the forest sentinel who when disturbed gives the alarm with a shrill far-carrying call, alighted and hopped around with wings spread downward, as when attacking a snake. He was followed by a parade of birds that served as sources of food. Each one repeated its various calls and displayed some characteristic of its habitat that would be helpful in the hunt. Next came the animals, large and small, each with its own chant. The procession took all night and would be impossible for me to describe; much of it I no longer recall, since the knowledge did not originate from my consciousness or experience. In the morning, jungle sounds and an occasional shaft of sunlight penetrated the depths of the forest to awaken the lethargic phantom-viewers from their troubled dreams. The usual unfermented fruit gruel was passed around to drink. After exchanging impressions of the night, the chief questioned Xurikaya. "You saw the action, heard the calls, talked with the spirits. Can you dominate them now?" "Great chief, Xumu Nawa, Dominator of all the Spirits, leader of the Huni Kui, my understanding is renewed, increased. The forest will provide for all my needs now," he answered. The chief turned to me. "The honi xuma penetrated deeper this time. We will try again soon.” All I could do, in my still confused state, was nod. Soon we were all on our way back to the village, where an inquisitive group awaited our arrival. I could tell from the remarks and glances in my direction that my progress was watched with satisfaction. Again my understanding of the language and' activities of the village increased rapidly. After this second session of visions, the role I was expected to play in this strange world began to unfold out of the pattern of incidents in the flow of daily tribal life. I found the people pleasant and friendly but undemonstrative and reserved as individuals. Separate from the group or tribe, they had no private point of view. Individually they expressed little if any emotion, and habitually their faces were unrevealing stolid masks showing nothing of inner feelings. The children were treated with kindness and understanding. The only punishment came occasionally from older children of the same family. They all bathed several times a day in the small creek near the village. Body hair was eliminated by applying a tree resin to the skin. Only the chief let his hair and whiskers grow. The men wore their hair in a short bobbed style. The women had bangs across their foreheads, their hair hanging shoulder length in the back. They were a strong, vigorous and industrious people. In the principal house of the village, Chief Xumu had a section separated off from the other families also using the house. From the first day I was a part of this special enclave. And as the days passed, it became obvious that I was neither a slave nor destined to be eaten. As my understanding and participation increased, it also became apparent that the chief observed, controlled and directed everything that involved me, including diet. From my privileged position I gradually became aware also of how Xumu held his tribe together. The activities of the entire group were to a degree under his control and supervision. Hunting territories and planting areas were assigned. The results were observed and adjustments made when necessary. Conditions for hunting were especially good during the early part of the dry season, before preparations for planting could start. In order not to kill off all game near the village, small hunting camps were set up at this time of the year at a distance of several days' travel into the forest. These were located and organized under directions from the chief. Xumu's knowledge of the forest for several days' journey in all directions from the village was phenomenal. This came from his own experience when he was younger and could travel and from the daily reports brought back by the hunters, who all reported to him on the territorial movement of several bands of wild pigs and monkeys. These bands were relatively easy to keep track of because of their group habits and organization. Animals that had more tenuous contact among their own kind required greater intuition and skill to bag. * * * Apprenticeship After the raid, since the enemy invading our territory had apparently withdrawn, life in the village settled down. Although the routine of daily life still seemed strange to me, it was a known pattern for the Indians. The tension was gone; the women went back to work in their little cleared and planted plots in the forest; the men again took up organized hunting. The chief kept a close watch over all these activities, giving the necessary directions to keep things moving according to his wishes and plans. My own position had noticeably improved after I took part in the defence of the village against the invasion threat. And my ability to shoot the rifle without flinching from the awesome noise of thunder exploding when I pulled the trigger gave me a special status among the Indians, to whom the rifle was a strange and awesome thing. I soon found that the chief’s program for my training was far from finished. He prepared now a series of combined herbal purges, baths and diet that had subtle effects on my feelings and bodily functions. I cooperated without hesitation now, since the recent events made me sure that I was in a secure position within the tribe. Before my life among these Indians had begun I had heard the usual rumours of Indian medicine and witch-doctor activities. There had always been a certain fascination in this for me, so now I was determined to observe and learn all that I could. After several days of preparation in which every detail was closely supervised by old Xumu, we began a series of incredible sessions with the extract of the vision vine, nixi honi xuma. A small shelter was built especially for the two of us at a spot slightly removed from the village. It was just within the edge of the forest that surrounded our small settlement. There was only room to swing two hammocks with a small fire between. Outside there was also a small clear space in which to swing hammocks among the trees. Here we were well guarded from intrusion of any kind. Food was brought only on signal from the chief and always by the same o1d woman. Sounds from the village did not reach us. The chief and I went to this secluded site alone one morning. On the way I remember wondering how old this man might be. Actually, his physical features did not give the usual signs of age. His skin was not unusually wrinkled and the flesh did not sag on his bones. Nevertheless, he gave the impression of being ancient, and it was evident that reverence and admiration dominated the feelings of the tribe toward their headman. He maintained a calm, distant aloofness from the people and their activities, yet gave the feeling of complete awareness of present, past and future events. And one felt that their awe of him was justified. He led the way toward the forest at his usual slow, deliberate walk, which also gave the impression of great age. He seemed to choose each step with care. On the way he started a low chant, seemingly to himself : "Spirits of the forest revealed to us by honi xuma bring us knowledge of the realm assist in the guidance of our people give us the stealth of the boa penetrating sight of the hawk and the owl acute hearing of the deer brute endurance of the tapir grace and strength of the jaguar knowledge and tranquillity of the moon kindred spirits, guide our way" It was a clear, still day of the early dry season. A few isolated cotton puffs of clouds drifted in an azure sky as we stepped from the village clearing into the mottled shade of the cool forest. Preparations had been made for our arrival, but no one was present. The old man sounded a birdcall that was answered from somewhere out of sight. I looked around. A tiny, newly kindled fire glowed in the centre of a small opening in the forest undergrowth. Beside it was a bunch of the leaves used for the fragrant ceremonial smoke. The small clearing revealed the massive buttresses to the columns that supported the leafy roof of the forest a hundred feet above our heads. These columns, draped in vines and hanging plants, were also visible in the diffuse filtered light that was occasionally broken by a brilliant shaft of direct sunlight. Details otherwise unnoticed would stand out momentarily in vivid clarity in these illuminating shafts of light from above. At a motion from the chief, I sat down comfortably in a hammock swung low outside the shelter. Chanting, the old man deliberately put a bunch of leaves on the fire. Billowing clouds of fragrant smoke filled the still air. "O most powerful spirit of the bush with the fragrant leaves we are here again to seek wisdom give us tranquillity and guidance to understand the mysteries of the forest the knowledge of our ancestors" We savoured the fragrant tranquillity of the scene as the smoke drifted around us and up into the vaulted structure of the forest. Every immediate sound and movement seemed suspended by the magic smoke. Before the enchanted spell drifted away with the smoke, Xumu poured a single large gourd cupful of honi xuma from a pot and began another low chant: "Phantom revealing spirit of the vine we seek your guidance now to translate the past into the future to understand every detail of our milieu to improve our life reveal the secrets that we need" He came over to me and said: “You drink alone this time. I will be present to guide you. All is well. Your preparations have been completed. Every reaction is favourable. Drink it all at once, without hurry and without fear, and prepare for visions. Pleasant and profound visions will come to you." He took back the empty cup, calmly sat down opposite me in the other hammock and said, "The diets and purges have prepared you well. No unpleasant reactions will appear this time. With care, we can direct the flow of visions into desired channels. I will not leave your side. I have done this times without number. When prepared with care, it comes out well." We both lay back in our hammocks. Imperceptibly a feeling of euphoria entered my consciousness. I heard a brief pulsating hum in one ear, which seemed to float off, up into the treetops. My eyes tried to follow it, and as my glance wandered in the treetops I became aware of undreamed beauty in the details of the textures of leaves, stems and branches. Every leaf, as my attention settled on it, seemed to glow with a greenish golden light. Unimaginable detail of structure showed. A nearby birdsong - the irregular arpeggios of the siete cantos (seven songs) - floated down. Exquisite and shimmering, the song was almost visible. Time seemed suspended; there was only now and now was infinite. I could separate the individual notes of the bird song and savour each in its turn. As the notes of the song were repeated, I floated in a sensation that seemed somewhere between smelling an elusive intoxicating fragrance and tasting a delicate ambrosia. A breath of cool air drifting in from the forest created an ecstasy of sensations as it cooled my exposed skin. Sensations of a pleasant aroma again seemed involved. The chief spoke in a low, pleasant tone, "Visions begin." He had completely captured my attention with two words of magic. I instantly felt a melting away of any barrier between us; we were as one. The mere glance of an eye had infinite meaning. The slightest change of expression conveyed full intent. We had complete rapport at all levels of understanding. I knew his thought as he knew mine. Did this telepathic facility come from some primitive recess of the mind used before ancestral man communicated in formal language ? Xumu said, “From the hunting camp we find there is much of the forest that you do not see and understand. We will change this. You must have complete knowledge of the forest to lead the men in vision ceremonies to improve their hunting. Thus they can eat well and be content." A few simple words and slight gestures transmitted the full intent of his message. {Cordova stopped his story and explained to me at this point: "You must realize, my friend, that the deeper we go into this, both written and spoken words of formal language become less and less adequate as a medium of expression. If I could arrange it we would have a session of visions ourselves and then you would understand. But that would take time. Meanwhile we will continue with indifferent words and inflexible modes of expression.} The chief said, "Let us start with the birds. You know the medium-sized tinamou, the partridge that gives the plaintive call at sunset because he does not like to sleep alone on the ground. Visualize one for me there on the ground between the trees in the alternating light and shadow." There he was ! I saw him in infinite detail with his rounded tailless rump, plumage olive gray, washed and barred with shades of cinnamon, chestnut and dusky brown, colours that blended imperceptibly with the light and shadows on the leafy forest floor. My visual perception seemed unlimited. Never had I perceived visual images in such detail before. “Yes, Chief, I see him," was my response, mentally if not aloud. “He will move around now. Watch closely.” A few shy, furtive movements and the bird was in another pattern of light and shadow where he was much more difficult to see. But I had followed him there and could pick out every detail still. The chief then brought a female, and the male went through his mating dance. I heard all of the songs, calls and other sounds. Their variety was beyond anything I had known. Finally a simple saucer-shaped nest appeared on the ground between the birds, with two pale-blue eggs in it. The male then sat on the nest, to my surprise. “Yes, he raises the children," said the chief. We went from the various tinamous to the trumpeter, the curassows and other important game birds, all seen in the same infinite and minute detail. Then the chief said, "Close your eyes now and let the visions flow before we go on to other things." I do not know how much time had passed – time had lost its meaning for me. As I closed my eyes vague traceries of light and shade developed, gradually taking on a bluish green colour as the patterns changed. They seemed like living, changing arabesques, moving in rhythm over a geometric background, with infinite variety of form. Sometimes they slightly resembled familiar patterns of spider webs or butterfly wings. A moving current of air with a barely perceptible fragrance translated itself on this visual screen of my mind as a faint violet wash over the moving arabesques. A birdcall or buzz of cicada - a brilliant flash of colour or a subtle rippling of waves, depending on its character. All the senses seemed to be intensely acute and integrated into a single system. A stimulant to one was immediately translated to the others. The imagery gradually faded away, and the chief was aware of this. He spoke, and I roused myself. It was late afternoon. "We have night work to do," he said. "It will take another cup of honi xuma to make it effective. You will find this second cup even more illuminating. Listen for my instructions and have no fear.” He built up the smouldering fire so there was a dancing flame in the gathering dusk. Then he handed me another large cupful of the clear green liquid, which I drank without hesitation. There was an almost immediate reaction. As the darkness deepened I became aware of an acute depth of visual perception far beyond anything known to me before. The mighty trees around us took on a deep spiritual quality of obedient benevolence that set the character of the whole scene. As the fire died back down to a glowing coal, the darkness settled over everything. At the same time my visual powers were so augmented that I could see things that in other circumstances would have been totally invisible to me. This explained how the Indians could travel with ease through the forest and even hunt at night. A passing firefly lit up the scene with a brilliance that seemed to approach the light of day. My sense of hearing was also much more acute. I could separate the night sounds far and near. When a cricket buzzed nearby I could see him in the dark on a stem rubbing his legs against the sound box of his body. A group of small yellow frogs up in a nearby tree started an alternating exchange of a bell-like call, "chill-ing, chill-ing," echoing back and forth with the exquisite clarity of a small silver bell. From the treetops there drifted down on a descending air current the heavy musky fragrance of a night-blooming orchid. In my state of heightened sense perception, this was almost overwhelming in its intensity and it overflowed into indescribable sensations of taste. The call of an owl, “whooo whooo," floated on the still night air and was answered in the darkness. "You will learn to see and hear at night as clearly as the owl," was the chief's comment. And I felt that it was true. With chants and the calls of the various animals, the chief evoked in my visions vivid episodes in the lives of the nocturnal forest animals. The chants, the calls and the visions they brought were all to become part of my own repertory. The morning sunlight breaking through the forest canopy awakened me from a strange sleep that I could not remember falling into. Orientation with time and space returned, but only slowly. I felt as though I were coming back from a distant journey to unknown and unremembered places. The chief offered me a calabash of thick fruit gruel to drink, which helped my senses return to reality. We soon walked, at Xumu's usual measured, deliberate pace, back to the village. I was still kept on a strict diet, and it turned out that this was to be a period of intensive training for me. Once every eight days I would have a session of visions with the chief. These included examination of plants and their various uses both as food and as medicine, as well as further study of the animals. During the time between sessions I was taken often to the forest on both day and night trips with small groups of hunters. On these excursions I found to my delight that the intensified sense of perception and increased awareness of my surroundings originating in the sessions with the chief stayed with me. In the forest my companions would point out origins of sound and smell and continually test my progress in becoming completely one with the forest environment. After each series of four sessions with the chief eight days apart, I would have an equivalent period to work with and absorb the new experience and knowledge. A strict diet was still kept up, and then another series of vision sessions would begin. At times during all this, which went on for months, I became nervous, high-strung and afraid of going insane. The chief and the old women noticed this. They took pains to explain and reassure me that as long as I followed the diets and instructions every- thing would come out well. During my training I became aware of subtle changes in my mental process and modes of thought. I noticed a mental acceleration and a certain clairvoyance in anticipating events and the reactions of the tribe. By focusing my attention on a single individual I could divine his reactions and purposes and anticipate what he would do or what he planned to do. This was all important to the way Xumu governed the tribe, and I began to see what lay under the surface in his management of their community life. The old man said my power to anticipate and know future events would improve and grow, also that I would be able to locate and identify objects from a great distance. All this, he told me, would help protect and control the tribe. As the training process went on I began to sense a vague feeling of urgency on the part of the chief to impart his fund of knowledge and experience to me adequately. In actuality, I believe you could say that he was transmitting the accumulated tribal knowledge of, perhaps, centuries. The tribe could stand no rivalries in the chieftainship and it became clear that I was being prepared. During the rest period between the vision sessions, in addition to going out with the hunters, Xumu himself often took me on short excursions to the nearby forest. There he would take great pains to show me and to explain the use of the plants, many of which we also saw in the visions. He would explain to me the secrets of their preparation for use and repeat the chants that should accompany both preparation and application. It was strongly believed among them that the chants helped in bringing about the desired effect of the treatment. * * *

. One year during the early 70’s I had the opportunity to follow any study courses that caught my interest. So I basically picked five topics that I knew almost nothing about, and imagined that by enrolling it might help me to stitch over a few more of those many blank spaces in my education. One of the courses I took was Anthropology. I’d always loved the sound of the word, but other than that it was the study of mankind,… knew nothing else. It turned out that our teacher was extremely keen and dedicated to his subject, and I very much enjoyed where he led the class over that space of eight months. The specific area where he had done all his PhD research was South American Indian tribes, and, in what I soon came to regard as a very curious choice of ‘required reading text’, he had asked all his students to buy the following book as part of his course material. Forty years later I can recall only two things about the entire course, but one of them was this most extraordinary book. I still have my copy from all those years ago, since it made such a strong impression on me at the time that I tenaciously kept hold of it throughout all the moves and life changes since those times. The book is called “Wizard of the Upper Amazon: The story of Manuel Cordova-Rios”, by F. Bruce Lamb. It’s the factual account of a young Brazilian boy who took work looking after the camp of a rubber prospecting crew who were subsequently attacked and murdered in the forest by an Indian tribe living in the area where they were prospecting. Here I’ll stop, because the author and his protagonist tell the story far too well for me to carry on spoiling it any further. But I should let readers know that : {a} I have included both the Introduction by Andrew Weil and a Prologue by the author, as fascinating background material. {b} I have only given you three out of the sixteen chapters in the book. So, you will undoubtedly notice obvious gaps of missing narrative. But one has to draw the limits somewhere, and the reason these chapters were chosen will become obvious after reading the Introduction and the Prologue, and finally, {c} When I tried to place the story here, the editing tool told me that it was too long. So I'll have to divide this story into two parts. However, for anyone stimulated by this brief selection,… I can tell you that the rest of the book is every bit as much part of literature's truly extraordinary tales ! * * * PART ONE : * * Introduction In 1971 when I was writing The Natural Mind a friend gave me a copy of Wizard, of the Upper Amazon, then just published. I read it through in one sitting, quoted excerpts from it in my own book, and recommended it to many people. Two years later, on returning from a long expedition to South America, I met the author, Bruce Lamb, in New York City. Over lunch at a Brazilian restaurant we reminisced about our adventures in the south, and I learned to my dismay that Wizard was out of print and unavailable in the United States. I felt strongly that the book should be re-issued because it contained so much valuable information about the potentials of the human mind. Wizard of the Upper Amazon is an extraordinary document of life among a tribe of South American Indians at the beginning of the century. For many readers the most compelling sections of the book will be the descriptions of the use of Banisteriopsis caapi, the yage or ayahuasca of the Amazon forests. This powerful hallucinogen has long been credited with the ability to transport human beings to realms of experience where telepathy and clairvoyance are commonplace. When German scientists first isolated harmaline, an active principle of ayahuasca, they named it "telepathine" because of this association. Manuel Cordova, the narrator of these adventures that have been recorded for us by Bruce Lamb, is now an old man, well-known as a healer in Peru. He attributes his powers to his time as a captive among the Amahuaca Indians, in particular to intensive training sessions conducted under the influence of ayahuasca. In a matter-of-fact tone Cordova tells how he learned the lore of the forest and the Amahuaca directly from the visions that followed upon the drinking of ayahuasca extract. He also describes vividly his repeated experiences of shared consciousness with his captors: group vision sessions in which all participants see the same visions simultaneously. These passages are the high points of the narrative. They leave us awed at the reality of an experience that seems infinitely worthwhile. The desire to transcend one's own ego boundaries, to share completely, if even for a moment, the consciousness of another person, must be a universal longing. It motivates many of our activities, from taking drugs to making love, and lies behind the search for new ways of getting close to one another that is so intense in our society today. But with all of our psychological sophistication we usually find ourselves insulated from other minds in some fundamental way no matter how close we get our bodies or our conscious thoughts. To read of “primitive" Indians achieving what we cannot is both frustrating and exhilarating. Manuel Cordova's experiences suggest that there is hope for the rest of us. He learned to participate in collective visions with the Indians. Therefore, the ability to share consciousness through the medium of the visual imagination must be a capacity of the human nervous system. All of us have the necessary neural circuitry whether we use it or not. * * * * Prologue When I arrived in Lima, Peru in 1962 on my way to the Peruvian Amazon to undertake a forest survey of the area drained by several upper Amazon tributaries, already I began to hear of a man by the name of Manuel Cordova who could be of assistance to me in my timber survey. As the project of its own momentum moved ahead from a base at Iquitos on the Amazon, I found the reputation of Cordova taking on the aura of a living legend. And on my arrival in Iquitos it turned out that the local company assisting in my survey retained Cordova because of his knowledge of the medicinal properties of the Amazon flora. He produced for his employers commercial quality pharmaceutical extracts from jungle plants for export. These included curare, the deadly Indian blowgun dart poison now used in modern medicine as a muscle relaxant. Cordova, because of his knowledge of the forest, was proposed as a member of my survey party. And for this I consider myself vastly fortunate. Before leaving Iquitos to undertake field work I heard that Cordova was a healer and there were hints of strange jungle adventures during his past life in the forest. Casual mention was also made of his use of the vision-producing extract from the jungle liana ayahuasca, the soul or vision vine. And this involvement was soon verified as our examination of the forests got underway in the area of the Rio Tigre. One day, coming out of the forest at a small riverbank clearing, we found two Indian men talking in front of a small palm-thatched tambito. After greeting us briefly in Spanish they resumed conversation in a strange tongue, and shortly, to their amazement, Cordova joined in. Soon the Indians stepped into a canoe and disappeared up a small creek. Cordova told me one of the men had come down from up river to visit his friend and try to see what he could do for a siege of bad backaches afflicting him. They had gone now to the forest to find the ayahuasca vine and yage leaves. Tonight they would drink the extract of these plants and have a session of visions to find a cure for the backaches. Cordova expressed interest in participating, saying he had had some experience in this sort of thing, so we decided to wait. It was not long before the men returned with sections of the ayahuasca vine. These they sent across the river to a village to be prepared, and then left again to find the yage leaves. After a while we took the launch, our floating operations base, over to the village. Cordova wanted to see how they were making the ayahuasca extract. After a brief visit in one of the houses he came out, boarded the launch and said abruptly "No need to wait. Let's go.” When we were underway he explained with disgust that we had been wasting our time. Preparations for the vision session were completely inadequate, with the boiling down of the vine taking place in a dirty, battered old aluminium pot tended only by a small boy. Drinking such a carelessly prepared extract would only cause violent vomiting, acute intestinal cramps and diarrhoea, he said, and went on to tell me that ayahuasca must be handled with care and reverence, simmered slowly in a special earthenware pot over a low fire under constant, proper attention. To take ayahuasca extracted in any other way, he said, was dangerous. It was not until much later that I learned Cordova's full background for making such a critical judgment, but the story began to come out when, one day going along a faint forest trail without the usual machete cutting, I noticed Cordova breaking over the tip of an undergrowth forest plant at waist height every fifty feet or so. That evening back on the launch I mentioned that the only other time I had seen this trail-marking method used was while working with the Apiaca Indians on the headwaters of the Rio Tapajos in Mato Grosso, Brazil. Cordova replied that he had learned this easy way of marking a jungle trail from the Amahuaca Indians. This led to an exchange of Indian stories in which I found myself doing most of the listening. As the days of our collaboration stretched into months of joint effort to gather the detailed information needed on the composition of the Amazon jungle, I learned not only the details of Cordova's ayahuasca experience but also became aware of his desire to alleviate human suffering and his frustrated urge to perpetuate the use of his exotic knowledge. Daily incidents of our work would stimulate him to comment on the adventures of his youth in the forest. In what follows, then, I have brought together in narrative form what I was able to capture of those fascinating, random bits and pieces of Manuel Cordova's recollections of his early life. F. Bruce Lamb New York City * * *

* Kindness Is more important Than wisdom, And the recognition Of this Is the beginning Of wisdom. *

* Call it a dream. It does not change anything. Ludwig Wittgenstein *

* If you don't know where you are going, any road will take you there. *

That always strikes me as an extremely curious statement, to say that someone is "following the Tao" To me that automatically puts the speaker in a position 'separate' from the Tao, a position from which he can either choose to, or choose not to, be part of the Tao. Or to negate it with his extremely potent power of disbelief. This sounds like a tail which has somehow, suddenly developed a basic level of awareness. Its first, beginner's thought, is that it must have magically created the dog which, (from the tail's perspective), seems to have sprung forth so miraculously from the almighty tail. Until God, the dyslexic doG,... looks back and said, "Woof, Woof !" *

Updating, abbreviating, and livening up dear old Nasruddin to our current 21st century, the wisdom in his cautionary tales still lives on : * Stressed Executive, late for meeting, desperately seeking parking place: "Lord, if you find me a parking place, I promise I will believe in you" Like magic, a parking place suddenly opens up. S.E. "Forget that promise, Lord, I've just found one". *

Well, after reading through quite a number of interesting and thoughtful responses to my protest against what I perceived as a discouraging growth of childish and cum-oriented topics in this forum, I guess I have to concede that I'm onto a loser with my viewpoint. Therefore, in the spirit of, "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em!", I bow to the winners and will endeavour to accept myself as just one more apple in the barrel. Let whatever topics turn up, turn up, and just carry on without protest. (That's the theory, anyway.) In passing though, it isn't prudishness, or being offended by "dirty talk" that I object to. It's what I see as the falseness of imagining that the level of ejaculatory fascination that keeps getting brought up here, is actually of a spiritual origin. Or that bringing topics like this to a supposedly 'philosophically-minded' group of people, (like you'd expect to find in a Taoist Forum),.. somehow elevates wanking into a spiritual experience. Granted, genuine Taoism does have a comprehensive and profound knowledge about sexual matters. But my feeling is that anyone who is actually a practicing Taoist at a level high enough that such matters are of serious concern to him / herself,.... would hardly be coming to an open internet forum like this, either to {a} look for answers, or {b} to give out advice for complete strangers to follow. This forum is just a fun place to hang out in. There are lots of interesting people from all around the world, with very different points of view on "spiritual topics", (as do hundreds of other similar chat rooms dedicated to some particular brand of car, mobile phone, dating, or sports teams.) But in the end, this is still just a chat room where we all get to dress up and imagine ourselves as either spiritual teachers or seekers, and share our experiences at this level. We're simply a bunch of folk who spend a lot of time sitting at home in front of our computers, shooting the breeze with others in the same situation. And in the same way that I enjoy talking with new people and hearing very different world views,... I personally find it rather distasteful and off-putting when a certain age-group turns up who is still fascinated with bodily excretements, gaseous expulsions from the anus, and the exciting discovery of jizz. Still, if that's what turns some people's cranks, perhaps the best solution is to grab another beer, wait till this short-lived excitement winds down,... and limpness rules once again. Thankfully, there's always a wide cross-section of fellow nutters in this particular barrel, and the verandah is big enough for a group of high-spirited youngsters to have a verbal circle jerk down at one end while I can still be part of the knitting circle at the other end. Hopefully this little blip of protest won't cause any of us to lose our concentration on the respective implements in our hands. .

. The analogy of a caring group kindly hiking at the pace of the slowest hiker, takes the point I was trying to make about endeavoring to maintain some kind of standard, and subtly transforms it into something completely different. My objection has nothing to do with "slowness", it has to do with a growing proliferation of one of the least attractive qualities possessed by many young males - a puerile fascination with penises, genitalia, sexual 'kinkiness' and all the many other forms of bravado usually displayed by pimply adolescents. There was a thread here a while back questioning why there are so few women on this forum. In my opinion, you don't have to look much further than the extraordinary and increasing number of titles like this. To give you a different viewpoint on an issue that many of us guys may well be inclined to blindness about, (because for most of us, it's been an accepted part of our hard-wiring since leaving childhood),... here's a trawl I've done through all the current titles on this forum in only the FIRST TWO pages : (1) The Living Hell of the Man who Orgasms 100 Times a Day (2) Semen Retention: 100 Days and My Experiences (3) Addiction to Lust/Porn/Women (4) Creativity and Sexual Energy are like husband and wife. (5) Embarrassment at the nightclub.... (6) Relaxation of the seminal ducts (7) How to control/transmute excessive sexual energy? * Seriously,... what does that say about this forum to any visitor ? Particularly any who may be female ? Rather than the analogy of everyone here slowing down to accommodate the hiker who can't maintain the pace, I think it's more like the analogy of running the risk of allowing the growth of seven rotten apples like the ones above, to make the whole barrel worthless. Liberalness always sounds like a virtue when you compare it to totalitarianism, or other similarly negative alternatives. But my opinion is that all too often the liberal acceptance of anything going down, is simply the step before decadence, decay, and degeneration. Topics like those above are the high school equivalent of the boys never-ending love of drawing penises and scrotums in textbooks with that peculiar titillating thrill that comes from the thought, "Some girl will be shocked and horrified when she sees what I have drawn !" Surely we can do better than this on a spiritual Forum. I think this kind of tripe is a shame and disgrace to the very name of Taoism. .

Thread titles like this in a supposed 'spiritual forum', to any visitors make it look like more like a compost heap for utter fruitcakes, than a place they might go for genuine enquiry. It strikes me as how, in exactly the same way, most people are unhappy to see their neighbour let his house and garden slide into slovenly rack and ruin,.... because it reflects on the entire neighbourhood . Perhaps it would be more in line with the ethos of this place to spare a thought for the image you create for it when you post pre-adolescent nonsense like this.

* Many teachers of spiritual development suggest that there is someone who can do something to heal their sense of separation; in other words that there is a person who is able to discover that they are not a person. The absurdity of this idea is often camouflaged by highly complex and subtle thinking.

. Tell me the reason for existence of a field mouse, a tree, or a rock. My reason is exactly the same. .

If you want things to stay as they are, things will have to change.

. I think that you are being far too hard on the subtle art form of Insult. Like any other usage of the spoken or written word, in the hands of a maestro it can be elevated into the realms of literary masterpiece. Here's a sampling of a few gems that I've come across over the space of several years in various religious forums. My experiences there tell me that Taobums is unfortunately somewhat lagging behind in the Department of Creative Insult : * * "He is one of those people that would be enormously improved by death" Saki (H H Munro) * Never argue with an idiot. They'll drag you down to their level and beat you with experience. A wise soul * "He has no enemies but is intensely disliked by his friends" Oscar Wilde * "His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork" Mae West * "He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts... for support rather than illumination." Andrew Lang * The terrifying power of the human sex drive is horrifically demonstrated by the fact that someone was willing to father you. Ipso Fatso * You must have taken great pains, sir; you could not have been naturally so stupid. Samuel Johnson * Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. Albert Einstein * Don't look now, but there's one person too many in this room and I think it's you. Groucho Marx * "He would be out of his depth in a parking lot puddle." * "This young lady has delusions of adequacy." * "He sets low personal standards and then consistently fails to achieve them." * "If you see two people talking and one looks bored, he's the other one." * "It's hard to believe that he beat out 1,000,000 other sperm." * Do you want me to accept you as you are or do you want me to like you? * Don't you love nature, despite what it did to you? * He is dark and handsome. When it's dark, he's handsome. * You're not yourself today. I noticed the improvement immediately. * "The biggest argument against democracy is a five minute discussion with the average voter." * Young man (after seeing Churchill leave the bathroom without washing his hands): “At Eton they taught us to wash our hands after using the toilet.” Churchill: “At Harrow they taught us not to piss on our hands." * "The United States invariably does the right thing, after having exhausted every other alternative." *

It was an absolutely lovely summer this year, the weather could hardly have been better, all my family and friends are still alive and well,… and so I can slide into autumn without too many regrets for summer’s passing. Autumn has a beauty all its own, (it’s only the thought of what comes next that often makes it a bittersweet pill.) Anyway, as a celebration of a new season with all the mob down at Tao Bums.com, I thought I would add one final story about the colourful childhood adventures that came with growing up in Corfu, Greece, in the 1930’s, by my much-loved author Gerald Durrell. It’s still just too warm and lovely outside right now for me to be able to turn my mind towards more serious spiritual beliefs. For anyone who may be wondering why I’ve added yet another piece by this author, for me it’s Durrell’s ability to experience, then transfer into words the sheer joy of living, that has kept me reading and re-reading his books for over forty years now. Perhaps, in bringing some of his most charming pieces here to this forum, that joy might well continue to spread to like-minded souls via this amazing 21st century tool of the internet. * * * The Talking Head (Extracted from ‘Birds, Beasts, and Relatives’) * * Summer gaped upon the island like the mouth of a great oven. Even in the shade of the olive groves it was not cool and the incessant, penetrating cries of the cicadas seemed to swell and become more insistent with each hot, blue noon. The water in the ponds and ditches shrank and the mud at the edges became jigsawed, cracked and curled by the sun. The sea lay as breathless and still as a bale of silk, the shallow waters too warm to be refreshing. You had to row the boat out into deep water, you and your reflection the only moving things, and dive over the side to get cool. It was like diving into the sky. Now was the time for butterflies and moths. In the day, on the hillsides where it seemed sucked free of every drop of moisture by the beating sun, you would get the great languid Swallow Tails, flapping elegantly and erratically from bush to bush; Fritillaries, glowing almost as hot and angry as a live coal, skittered quickly and efficiently from flower to flower; Cabbage Whites; Clouded Yellows and the lemon-yellow and orange Brimstones bumbled to and fro on untidy wings. Among the grasses the skippers, like little brown furry aeroplanes, would skim and purr and on glittering slabs of gypsum the Red Admirals, as flamboyant as a cluster of Woolworth’s jewellery, would sit opening and closing their wings as though expiring from the heat. At night the lamps would become a teeming metropolis of moths, and the pink geckos on the ceiling, big-eyed and splay-footed, would gorge until they could hardly move. Oleander Hawk Moths, green and silver, would zoom into the room from nowhere, and, in a frenzy of love, dive at the lamp, hitting it with such force that the glass shattered. Death’s Head Hawk Moths, mottled ginger and black, with the macabre skull and crossbones embroidered on the plush fur of their thoraxes, would come tumbling down the chimney to lie fluttering and twitching in the grate, squeaking like mice. Up on the hillsides where the great beds of heather were burnt crisp and warm by the sun, the tortoises, lizards and snakes would prowl and the praying mantis would hang amongst the green leaves of the myrtle, swaying slowly and evilly from side to side. The afternoon was the best time to investigate life on the hills, but it was also the hottest. The sun played a tattoo on your skull, and the baked ground was as hot as a griddle under your sandaled feet. Widdle and Puke were cowards about the sun and would never accompany me in the afternoons, but Roger, that indefatigable student of natural history, would always be with me, panting vigorously, swallowing his drooling saliva in great gulps. Together we shared many adventures. There was the time when we watched, entranced, two hedgehogs, drunk as lords on the fallen and semi-fermented grapes they had eaten from under the vines, staggering in circles, snapping at each other belligerently, uttering high-pitched screams and hiccups. There was a time we watched a fox cub, red as an autumn leaf, discover his first tortoise amongst the heather. The tortoise, in the phlegmatic way that they have, folded himself up in his shell, tightly closed as a portmanteau. But the fox had seen a movement and, prick-eared, it moved around him cautiously. Then, for it was still only a puppy, it dabbed quickly at the tortoise's shell with its paw and jumped away, expecting retaliation. Then it lay down and examined the tortoise for several minutes, its head between its paws. Finally it went forward rather gingerly and after several unsuccessful attempts managed to pick the tortoise up with its jaws and, with head held high, trotted off proudly through the heather. It was on these hills that we watched the baby tortoises hatching out of Their papery-shelled eggs, each one looking as wizened and as crinkled as though it were a thousand years old at the moment of birth, and it was here that I witnessed for the first time the mating dance of the snakes. Roger and I were sitting under a large clump of myrtles which offered a small patch of shade and some concealment. We had disturbed a hawk in a cypress tree nearby and were waiting patiently for him to return so that we could identify him. Suddenly, some ten feet from where we crouched, I saw two snakes weaving their way out of a brown web of heather stalks. Roger, who was frightened of snakes, uttered an uneasy little whine and put his ears back. I shushed him violently and watched to see what the snakes would do. One appeared to be following close on the heels of the other. Was he, I wondered, perhaps in pursuit of it in order to eat it ? They slid out of the heather and into some clumps of sun-whitened grass and I lost sight of them. Cursing my luck, I was just about to shift my position in the hopes of seeing them again when they reappeared on a comparatively open piece of ground. Here the one that was leading paused and the one that had been following slid alongside. They lay like this for a moment or so and. then the pursuer started to nose tentatively at the other one's head. I decided that the first snake was a female and that her follower was her mate. He continued butting his head at her throat until eventually he had raised her head and neck slightly off the ground. She froze in that position and the male, backing away a few inches, raised his head also. They stayed like that, immobile, staring at each other for some considerable time. Then, slowly, the male slid forward and twined himself round the female's body and they both rose as high as they could without overbalancing, entwined like a convolvulus. Again they remained motionless for a time and then started to sway, like two wrestlers pushing against each other in the ring, their tails curling and grasping at the grass roots around them to give themselves better purchase. Suddenly they flopped sideways, the hinder ends of their bodies met and they mated lying there in the sun, as entangled as streamers at a carnival. At this moment Roger, who had viewed with increasing distress my interest in the snakes, got to his feet and shook himself before I could stop him, indicating that, as far as he was concerned, it would be far better if we moved on. The snakes unfortunately saw his movement. They convulsed in a tangled heap for a moment, their skins gleaming in the sun, and then the female disentangled herself and sped rapidly towards the sanctuary of the heather, dragging the male, still fastened to her, helplessly behind her. Roger looked at me, gave a small sneeze of pleasure and wagged his stumpy tail. But I was annoyed with him and told him so in no uncertain terms. After all, as I pointed out to him, on the numerous occasions when he was latched to a bitch how would he like to be overtaken by some danger and dragged so ignominiously from the field of love ? With the summer came the bands of gypsies to the island to help harvest the crops and steal what they could while they were there. Sloe-eyed, their dusky skins burnt almost black by the sun, their hair unkempt and their clothing in rags, you would see them moving in family groups along the white, dusty roads, riding on donkeys or on lithe little ponies, shiny as chestnuts. Their encampments were always a squalid enchantment, with a dozen pots bubbling with different ingredients over the fires, the old women squatting in the shadow of their grubby lean-tos with the heads of the younger children in their laps, carefully searching them for lice, while the older children, tattered as dandelion leaves, rolled and screamed and played in the dust. Those of the men who had a side-line would be busy with it. One would be twisting and tying multi-coloured balloons together, so that they screeched in protest, making strange animal shapes. Another, perhaps, who was the proud possessor of a Karaghiozi shadow show, would be refurbishing the highly coloured cut-our figures and practising some of Karaghiozi's vulgarities and innuendos to the giggling delight of the handsome young women who stirred the cooking-pots, or knitted in the shade. I had always wanted to get on intimate terms with the gypsies, but they were a shy and hostile people, barely tolerating the Greeks. My mop of hair, bleached almost white by the sun, and my blue eyes, made me automatically suspect and although they would allow me to visit their camps, they were never forthcoming, in the way that the peasants were, in telling me about their private lives and their aspirations. It was, nevertheless, the gypsies who were indirectly responsible for an uproar in the family. For once I was entirely innocent. It was the tail-end of an exceptionally hot summer's afternoon. Roger and I had been having an exhausting time pursuing a large and indignant king snake along a length of dry stone wall. No sooner had we dismantled one section of it than the snake would ease himself fluidly along into the next section, and by the time we had re-built the section we had pulled down, it would take half an hour or so to locate him again in the jigsaw of rocks. Finally we had to concede defeat and were now making our way home to tea, thirsty, sweating and covered with dust. As we rounded an elbow of the road, I glanced into a small valley, and saw what, at first glance, I took to be a man with an exceptionally large dog. A closer look, however, and I realised, incredulously, that it was a man with a bear. I was so astonished that I cried our involuntarily. The bear stood up on its hind legs and turned to look up at me, as did the man. They stared at me for a moment and then the man waved his hand in casual greeting and turned back to the task of spreading his belongings under the olive tree, while the bear got down again on its haunches and squatted, watching him with interest. I made my way hurriedly down the hillside, filled with excitement. I had heard that there were dancing bears in Greece, but I had never actually seen one. This was an opportunity too good to be missed. As I drew near, I called a greeting to the man and he turned from his jumble of possessions and replied courteously enough. I saw that he was indeed a gypsy, with the dark, wild eyes and the blue-black hair, but he was infinitely more prosperous looking than most of them, for his suit was in good repair and he wore shoes, a mark of distinction, in those days, even among the landed peasantry of the island. I asked whether it was safe to approach, for the bear, although wearing a leather muzzle, was untethered. 'Yes, come,' called the man. 'Pavlo won't hurt you, but leave your dog.' I turned to Roger and I could see that, brave though he was, he did not like the look of the bear and was only staying by me out of a sense of duty. When I told him to go home, he gave me a grateful look and trotted off up the hillside, trying to pretend that he was ignorant of the whole scene. In spite of the man's assurances that Pavlo was harmless, I approached with caution for, although it was only a youngster, the bear, when it reared on to its hind legs, was a good foot or so taller than I was and possessed on each broad, furry paw a formidable and very serviceable array of glittering claws. It squatted on its haunches and peered at me out of tiny, twinkling brown eyes, panting gently. It looked like a large pile of animated, unkempt seaweed. To me it was the most desirable animal I had ever set eyes on and I walked round it, viewing its excellence from every possible vantage point. I plied the man with eager questions. How old was it? Where did he get it ? What was he doing with it ? 'He dances for his and my living,' said the man, obviously amused by my enthusiasm. 'Here, I'll show you" He picked up a stick with a small hook at the end and slid it into-a ring set into the leather muzzle the bear wore' 'Come, dance with Your papa.' In one swift movement the bear rose on to its hind legs. The man clicked his fingers and whistled a plaintive tune, starting to shuffle his feet in time to the music and the bear followed suit. Together they shuffled in a slow, stately minuet among the electric blue thistles and the dried asphodel stalks. I could have watched them for ever. When the man reached the end of his tune, the bear, as of habit, got down on all fours again and sneezed. 'Bravo !' said the man softly. 'Bravo !' I clapped enthusiastically. Never, I said earnestly, had I seen such a fine dance, nor such an accomplished performer as Pavlo. Could I, perhaps, pat him ? 'You can do what you like with him,' said the man, chuckling, as he unhooked his stick from the bear's muzzle. 'He’s a fool, this one. He wouldn't even hurt a bandit who was robbing him of his food.' To prove it he started scratching the bear's back and the bear, pointing its head up into the sky, uttered throaty wheezy murmurings of pleasure and sank gradually down on to the ground in ecstasy, until he was spread out looking almost, I thought, like a bear-skin rug. 'He likes to be tickled,' said the man. 'Come and tickle him.' The next half hour was pure delight for me. I tickled the bear while he crooned with delight. I examined his great claws and his ears and his tiny bright eyes and he lay there and suffered me as though he were asleep. Then I leant against his warm bulk and talked to his owner. A plan was forming in my mind. The bear, I decided, had got to become mine. The dogs and my other animals would soon get used to it and together we could go waltzing over the hillsides. I convinced myself that the family would be overjoyed at my acquisition of such an intelligent pet. Bur first I had to get the man into a suitable frame of mind for bargaining. 'With the peasants, bargaining was a loud, protracted and difficult business. But this man was a gypsy and what they did not know about bargaining would fit conveniently into an acorn cup. The man seemed much less taciturn and reticent than the other gypsies I had come into contact with and I took this as a good sign. I asked him where he had come from. 'Way beyond, way beyond,' he said, covering his possessions with a shabby tarpaulin and shaking out some threadbare blankets which were obviously going to serve as his bed. 'Landed at Lefkimi last night and we've been walking ever since, Pavlo, the Head and I. You see, they wouldn't take Pavlo on the buses; they were frightened of him. So we got no sleep last night, but tonight we'll sleep here and then tomorrow we'll reach the town.' Intrigued, I asked him what he meant by 'he, Pavlo, and the Head' walking up from Lefkimi. 'My Head, of course,' he said. 'My little talking Head.' And he picked up the bear stick and slapped it on a pile of goods under the tarpaulin, grinning at me. I had unearthed the battered remains of a bar of chocolate from the pocket of my shorts and I was busy feeding this to the bear, who received each fragment with great moans and slobberings of satisfaction. I said to the man that I did not understand what he was talking about. He squatted on his haunches in front of me and lit a cigarette, peering at me out of dark eyes, as inimical as a lizard's. 'I have a Head,' he said jerking his thumb towards his pile of belongings, 'a living Head. It talks and answers questions. It is without doubt the most remarkable thing in the world.' I was puzzled. Did he mean, I asked, a head without a body ? 'Of course without a body. Just a Head,' and he cupped his hands in front of him, as though holding a coconut. 'It sits on a little stick and talks to you. Nothing like it has ever been seen in the world.' But how, I enquired, if the head were a disembodied head, could it live ? 'Magic,' said the man solemnly. 'Magic that my great-great-grandfather passed down to me.' I felt sure that he was pulling my leg, but, intriguing though the discussion on talking heads was, I felt we were wandering away from the main objective, which was to acquire the immediate freehold of Pavlo, now sucking in through his muzzle, with wheezy sighs of satisfaction, my last bit of chocolate. I studied the man carefully as he squatted dreamy-eyed, his head enveloped in a cloud of smoke. I decided that with him the bold approach was the best. I asked him bluntly whether he would consider selling the bear and for how much ? 'Sell Pavlo ?' he said. 'Never ! He's like my own son.' Surely, I said, if he went to a good home ? Somewhere where he was loved and allowed to dance, surely then he might be tempted to sell ? The man looked at me meditatively puffing on his cigarette. 'Twenty million drachmas ?' he enquired, and then laughed at my look of consternation. 'Men who have fields must have donkeys to work them,' he said. 'They don't part with them easily. Pavlo is my donkey. He dances for his living and he dances for mine, and until he is too old to dance, I will not part with him.' I was bitterly disappointed, but I could see that he was adamant. I rose from my recumbent position on the broad, warm, faintly snoring back of Pavlo and dusted myself down. Well, I said, there was nothing more I could do. I understood his wanting to keep the bear, but if he changed his mind, would he get in touch with me? He nodded gravely. And if he was performing in town, could he possibly let me know where, so that I could attend ? 'Of course,' he said, 'but I think people will tell you where I am, for my Head is extraordinary.' I nodded and shook his hand. Pavlo got to his feet and I patted his head. When I reached the top of the valley I looked back. They were both standing side by side. The man waved briefly and Pavlo, swaying on his hind legs, had his muzzle in the air, questing after me with his nose. I liked to feel it was a gesture of farewell. I walked slowly home thinking about the man and his talking Head and the wonderful Pavlo. Would it be possible, I wondered, for me to get a bear cub from somewhere and rear it ? Perhaps if I advertised in a newspaper in Athens it might bring results ? The family were in the drawing-room having tea and I decided to put my problem to them. As I entered the room, however, a startling change came over what had been a placid scene. Margo uttered a piercing scream, Larry dropped a cup full of tea into his lap and then leapt up and took refuge behind the table, while Leslie picked up a chair and Mother gaped at me with a look of horror on her face. I had never known my presence to provoke quite such a positive reaction on the part of the family. 'Get it out of here,' roared Larry. 'Yes, get the bloody thing out,' said Leslie. 'It'll kill us all !' screamed Margo. 'Get a gun,' said Mother faintly. 'Get a gun and save Gerry.' I couldn't, for the life of me, think what was the matter with them. They were all staring at something behind me. I turned and looked and there, standing in the doorway, sniffing hopefully towards the tea table, was Pavlo. I went up to him and caught hold of his muzzle. He nuzzled at me affectionately. I explained to the family that it was only Pavlo. 'I am not having it,' said Larry throatily. 'I am not having it. Birds and dogs and hedgehogs all over the house and now a bear. What does he think this is, for Christ's sake? A bloody Roman arena ?' 'Gerry, dear, do be careful,' said Mother quaveringly. 'It looks rather fierce.' 'It will kill us all,' quavered Margo with conviction. ‘I can't get past it to get to my guns,' said Leslie. 'You are not going to have it. I forbid it’, said Larry. ‘I will not have the place turned into a bear pit.’ 'Where did you get it, dear ?’ asked Mother. 'I don't care where he got it,' said Larry. ‘He’s to take it back this instant, quickly, before it rips us to pieces. The boy's got no sense of responsibility. I am not going to be turned into an early Christian martyr at my time of life.' Pavlo got up on to his hind legs and uttered a long wheezing moan which I took to mean that he desired to join us in whatever delicacies were on the tea table. The family interpreted it differently. 'Ow !' screeched Margo, as though she had been bitten. 'It's attacking.' 'Gerry, do be careful,' said Mother. 'I’ll not be responsible for what I do to that boy,' said Larry. 'If you survive,' said Leslie. 'Do shut up Margo, you’re only making matters worse. You’ll provoke the bloody thing.' 'I can scream if I want to,’ said Margo indignantly. So raucous in their fear were the family that they had not given me a chance to explain. Now I attempted to. I said that, first of all, Pavlo was not mine, and, secondly he was as tame as a dog and would not hurt a fly. 'Two statements I refuse to believe,’ said Larry. ‘You pinched it from some faming circus. Not only are we to be disembowelled, but arrested for harbouring stolen goods as well.' ‘Now, now, dear,' said Mother, ‘let Gerry explain.’ 'Explain ?' said Larry. Explain ? How do you explain a bloody great bear in the drawing-room ?’ I said that the bear belonged to a gypsy who had a talking Head. 'What do you mean, a talking head ?’ asked Margo. I said that it was a disembodied head that talked. ‘The boy's mad,’ said Larry with conviction. ‘The sooner we have him certified the better.’ The family had now all backed away to the farthest corner of the room in a trembling group. I said, indignantly, that my story was perfectly true and that, to prove it, I'd make Pavlo dance. I seized a piece of cake from the table, hooked my finger into the ring on his muzzle and uttered the same commands as his master had done. His eyes fixed greedily on the cake, Pavlo reared up and danced with me. 'Oo, look!' said Margo. 'Look! It's dancing!' 'I don't care if it's behaving like a whole corps de ballet,' said Larry. 'I want the damn' thing out of here.' I shovelled the cake in through Pavlo’s muzzle and he sucked it down greedily. ‘He really is rather sweet,’ said Mother, adjusting her spectacles and staring at him with interest. ‘I remember my brother had a bear in India once. She was a very nice pet.’ 'No !' said Larry and Leslie simultaneously. 'He's not having it.’ I said I could not have it any way, because the man did not want to sell it. 'A jolly good thing too,' said Larry. 'Why don’t you now return it to him, if you have quite finished doing a cabaret act all over the tea table ?' Getting another slice of cake as a bribe, I hooked my finger once more in the ring on Pavlo's muzzle and led him out of the house. Half way back to the olive grove, I met the distraught owner. 'There he is ! There he is ! The wicked one. I couldn't think where he had got to. He never leaves my side normally, that's why I don't keep him tied up. He must have taken a great fancy to you.' Honesty made me admit that I thought the only reason Pavlo had followed me was because he viewed me in the light of a purveyor of chocolates. 'Phew !' said the man. 'It is a relief to me. I thought he might have gone down to the village and that would have got me into trouble with the police.' Reluctantly, I handed Pavlo over to his owner and watched them make their way back to their camp under the trees. And then, in some trepidation, I went back to face the family. Although it had not been my fault that Pavlo had followed me, my activities in the past stood against me and the family took a lot of convincing that, on this occasion, the guilt was not mine. The following morning, my head still filled with thoughts of Pavlo, I dutifully went into town - as I did every morning - to the house of my tutor, Richard Kralefsky. Kralefsky was a little gnome of a man with a slightly humped back and great, earnest amber eyes who suffered from real tortures in his unsuccessful attempts to educate me. He had two most endearing qualities; one, a deep love for natural history (the whole attic of his house was devoted to an enormous variety of canaries and other birds), the other that, for at least apart, of the time, he lived in a dream world where he was always the hero. These adventures he would relate to me. He was inevitably accompanied in them by a heroine who was never named, but known simply as 'a Lady'. The first half of the morning was devoted to mathematics and, with my head full of thoughts of Pavlo, I proved to be even duller than usual, to the consternation of Kralefsky who had hitherto been under the impression that he had plumbed the depths of my ignorance. 'My dear boy, you simply aren't concentrating this morning,' he said earnestly. 'You don't seem able to grasp the simplest fact. Perhaps you are a trifle overtired ? We’ll have a short rest from it, shall we ?' Kralefsky enjoyed these short rests as much as I did. He would potter out into the kitchen and bring back two cups of coffee and some biscuits, and we would sit companionably while he told me highly coloured stories of his imaginary adventures. But this particular morning he did not get a chance. As soon as we were sitting comfortably, sipping our coffee, I told him all about Pavlo and the man with the talking Head and the bear. 'Quite extraordinary !' he said. 'Not the sort of thing that one expects to find in an olive grove. It must have surprised you, I'll be bound ?' Then his eyes glazed and he fell into a reverie, staring at the ceiling, tipping his cup of coffee so that it slopped into the saucer. It was obvious that my interest in the bear had set off a train of thought in his mind. It was several days since I had had an instalment of his memoirs and I waited eagerly to see what the result would be. 'When I was a young man,' began Kralefsky, glancing at me earnestly to see whether I was listening. 'When I was a young man I'm afraid I was a bit of a harum scarum. Always getting into trouble, you know.' He chuckled reminiscently and brushed a few biscuit crumbs from his waistcoat. With his delicately manicured hands and his large, gentle eyes it was difficult to imagine him as a harum scarum, but I tried dutifully. 'I thought at one time I would even join a circus,' he said, with the air of one confessing to infanticide. 'I remember a large circus came to the village where we were living and I attended every performance. Every single performance. I got to know the circus folk quite well, and they even taught me some of their tricks. They said I was excellent on the trapeze.’ He glanced at me, shyly, to see how I would take this. I nodded seriously, as though there was nothing ludicrous in the thought of Kralefsky, in a pair of spangled tights, on a trapeze. 'Have another biscuit ?' he enquired. 'Yes ? That's the ticket ! I think I'll have one, too.' Munching my biscuit, I waited patiently for him to resume. 'Well,' he continued, 'the week simply flew past and the evening came for the final performance. I wouldn't have missed it for the world. I was accompanied by a Lady, a young friend of mine, who was desirous of seeing the performance. How she laughed at the clowns ! And she admired the horses. She little knew of the horror that was soon to strike.’ He took out his delicately scented handkerchief and patted his moist brow with it. He always tended to get a trifle over-excited as he reached the climax of a story. 'The final act,' he said, 'was the lion tamer. He paused so that the full portent of this statement could sink in. 'Five beasts he had. Huge Nubian lions with black manes, fresh from the jungle so he told me. The Lady and I were sitting in the front row where we could obtain the best possible view of the ring. You know the sort of cage affair that they put up in the ring for the lion act ? Well, in the middle of the act, one of the sections, which had not been securely bolted, fell inwards. To our horror, we saw it fall on the lion tamer, knocking him unconscious.' He paused, took a nervous sip of coffee, and wiped his brow once more. ''What was to be done ?' he enquired, rhetorically. ‘There were five huge, snarling lions and I had a Lady by my side. My thoughts worked fast. If the Lady was to be saved, there was only one thing I could do. Seizing my walking stick, I leapt into the ring and marched into the cage.’ I made just audible sounds, indicative of admiration. 'During the week when I had been visiting the circus, I had studied the lion tamer's method with great care, and now I thanked my lucky stars for it. The snarling beasts on their pedestals towered over me, but I looked them straight in the eye. The human eye, you know, has great power over the animal world. Slowly, fixing them with a piercing gaze and pointing my walking-stick at them, I got them under control and drove them inch by inch out of the ring and back into their cage. A dreadful tragedy had been averted.’ I said that the Lady must have been grateful to him. 'She was indeed. She was indeed,’ said Kralefsky, pleasedly. 'She even went so far as to say that I gave a better performance than the lion tamer himself.' Had he, I wondered, during his circus days, ever had anything to do with dancing bears ? 'All sorts of animals,' said Kralefsky lavishly. 'Elephants, seals, performing dogs, bears. They were all there.' In that case, I said tentatively, would he not like to come and see the dancing bear. It was only just down the road and, although it was not exactly a circus, I felt it might interest him. 'By Jove, that's an idea,' said Kralefsky. He pulled his watch out of his waistcoat pocket and consulted it. 'Ten minutes, eh ? It'll help blow the cobwebs away.' He got his hat and stick and together we made our way eagerly through the narrow, crowded streets of the town, redolent with the smell of fruit and vegetables, drains and freshly baked bread. By dint of questioning several small boys, we discovered where Pavlo's owner was holding his show. It was a large, dim barn at the back of a shop in the centre of town. On the way there I borrowed some money off Kralefsky and purchased a bar of sticky nougat, for I felt I could not go to see Pavlo without taking him a present. 'Ah, Pavlo's friend ! 'Welcome,' said the gypsy as we appeared in the doorway of the barn. To my delight, Pavlo recognised me and came shuffling forward, uttering little grunts, and then reared up on his hind legs in front of me. Kralefsky backed away, rather hurriedly, I thought, for one of his circus training, and took a firmer grip on his stick. 'Do be careful, my boy,' he said. I fed the nougat to Pavlo and when finally he had squelched the last sticky lump off his back teeth and swallowed it, he gave a contented sigh and lay down with his head between his paws. 'Do you want to see the Head ?' asked the gypsy. He gestured towards the back of the barn where there was a plain deal table on which was a square box, apparently made out of cloth. "Wait,' he said, 'and I'll light the candles.' He had a dozen or so large candles soldered to the top of a box in their own wax, and these he now lit so that they flickered and quivered and made the shadows dance. Then he went forward to the table and rapped on it with his bear stick. 'Head, are you ready ?' he asked. I waited with a delicate prickle of apprehension in my spine. Then from the interior of the cloth box a clear treble voice said, ‘Yes, I'm ready.' The man lifted the cloth at one side of the box and I saw that the box was formed of slender lathes on which thin cloth had been loosely tacked. The box was about three feet square. In the centre of it was a small pedestal with a fattened top and on it, looking macabre in the flickering light of the candles, was the head of a seven-year-old boy. 'By Jove !' said Kralefsky in admiration. 'That is clever !' What astonished me was that the head was alive. It was obviously the head of a young gypsy lad, made up rather crudely with black grease paint to look like a Negro. It stared at us and blinked its eyes. 'Are you ready to answer questions now ?' said the gypsy, looking, with obvious satisfaction, at the entranced Kralefsky. The Head licked its lips and then said, 'Yes, I am ready.' 'How old are you?' asked the gypsy. ‘Over a thousand years old,' said the Head. 'Where do you come from ?' 'I come from Africa and my name is Ngo.' The gypsy droned on with his questions and the Head answered them, but I was not interested in that. What I wanted to know was how the trick was done. When he at first told me about the Head, I had expected something carved out of wood or plaster which, by ventriloquism, could be made to speak, but this was a living head perched on a little wooden pedestal, the circumference of a candle. I had no doubt that the Head was alive for its eyes wandered to and fro as it answered the questions automatically, and once, when Pavlo got up and shook himself, a look of apprehension came over its face. ‘There,' said the gypsy proudly, when he had finished his questioning. 'I told you, didn't I ? It's the most remarkable thing in the world.' I asked him whether I could examine the whole thing more closely. I had suddenly remembered that Theodore had told me of a similar illusion which was created with the aid of mirrors. I did not see where it was possible to conceal the body that obviously belonged to the Head, but I felt that the table and the box needed investigation. 'Certainly,' said the gypsy, somewhat to my surprise. 'Here, take my stick. But all I ask is that you don't touch the Head itself.' Carefully, with the aid of the stick I poked all round the pedestal to see if there were any concealed mirrors or wires, and the Head watched me with a slightly amused expression in its black eyes. The sides of the box were definitely only of cloth and the floor of the box was, in fact, the top of the table on which it stood. I walked round the back of it and I could see nothing. I even crawled under the table, but there was nothing there and certainly no room to conceal a body. I was completely mystified. 'Ah,' said the gypsy in triumph. 'You didn't expect that, did you ? You thought I had a boy concealed in there, didn't you ?' I admitted the charge humbly and begged him to tell me how it was done. 'Oh, no. I can't tell you,' he said. 'It's magic. If I told you, the Head would disappear in a puff of smoke.' I examined both the box and the table for a second time, but, even bringing a candle closer to aid my investigations, I still could not see how it was possible. 'Come,' said the gypsy. 'Enough of the Head. Come and dance with Pavlo.' He hooked the stick into the bear's muzzle and Pavlo rose on to his hind legs. The gypsy handed the stick to me and then picked up a small wooden flute and starred to play and Pavlo and I did a solemn dance together. 'Excellent, by Jove! Excellent !' said Kralefsky, clapping his hands with enthusiasm. I suggested that he might like to dance with Pavlo too, since he had such vast circus experience. ''Well, now,' said Kralefsky. 'I wonder whether it would be altogether wise ? The animal, you see, is not familiar with me.' 'Oh, he'll be all right,' said the gypsy. 'He's tame with anyone. ''Well,' said Kralefsky reluctantly, 'if you’re sure. If you insist.' He took the bear stick gingerly from me and stood facing Pavlo, looking extremely apprehensive. 'And now,' said the gypsy, 'you will dance.' And he started to play a lilting little tune on his pipe. I stood enchanted by the sight. The yellow, flickering light of the candles showing the shadows of Kralefsky's little hump-backed figure and the-shaggy form of the bear on the wall as they pirouetted round and round and, squatting on its pedestal in the box, the Head watched them, grinning and chuckling to itself. *

.. Yes, I like that piece of advice by Robert Louis Stevenson, very much. With regards to its applicability to the question we're discussing here, I would interpret it as saying that all 'spiritual paths with heart', are advice about how to make our journey enjoyable to both ourselves and others. They are NOT step-by-step descriptors of how you get to our destination. (Though unfortunately, since the folk who do the actual writing-up and formalising of religions and spiritual paths into doctrines and creeds are frequently NOT people who have actually seen the destination themselves, they all too often let their imaginative 'creative juices' flow with fanciful descriptions of heaven, enlightenment, etc,... and forget that we would all be better off if they stuck to writing about things they actually "know". i.e. How to travel hopefully.)

. . "ENLIGHTENMENT IS RIGHT NOW" . . The fundamental flaw in all statements of this type is that they take a by-product of the state which people seem to live in whom many regard to be "enlightened", (or whichever term you prefer for these spiritual goals everyone on sites like this is striving for, or aspiring to),... and then try to present these by-products of enlightenment as a 'path' which leads to that state. To use an analogy, it's the same form of wishful thinking as saying ---- "I've noticed that virtually all movie stars own a yacht. Therefore, if I work really hard, save up all my money and eventually have enough to buy a yacht,.... then undoubtedly, I too will become a movie star ! " The flaw in logic is identical. It happens far more frequently than we would ever imagine. I think it happens when we want something so badly, but can't figure out how to get it,.... that we willingly allow ourself to believe that if we wish and hope strongly enough, then the power of our wishes will somehow break through the invisible and incomprehensible barrier which separates us from this enlightened state that we all crave. This may possibly be so. I'm certainly in no position to claim any personal knowledge. But my life's experiences of religious and spiritual seekers and their multitudinous paths,.... has certainly not indicated to me that wishful thinking eventually transforms into this coveted goal of Enlightenment. Perhaps the very act of wishing that ourself and the world around us were somehow "different" than it actually is at this moment is,.... (unrecognised by ourselves), simply the perceivable form in which the barrier' which separates us from whatever the next stage of awareness is, appears to our awareness. .

Gee ! When you put it like that, it all seems so dog-gone simple. It makes me wonder how on earth I didn't think of that myself. That's it ! From now on I'm going to live focused on the moment. Get ready Enlightenment,..... Coz here I come !!

Unfortunately, despite the moans I sometimes give voice to about the limitations of this device,..... a suppressed awareness lies just barely under the surface that the real limitations stem from my own nature,.... one that is naturally conservative and which does NOT readily embrace change. And since 'change' is the very quintessence of existence, dissatisfaction will no doubt be my companion for exactly as long as I have this attitude. Unfortunately, merely recognising a side of oneself which is 'less than helpful',...... does not mean we have any control over it. In fact, the direction of my own life's search for spiritual answers, has led me to question whether this "I" who is supposedly directing this diligent search,.... even exists at all. What a joke on us all that would be, eh ?

I'm currently on holiday and obliged to use an iPad for all my internet communication. I certainly appreciate that it is one clever little technological gizmo,..... But it is not even in the same ballpark as a PC or laptop when it comes to versatility as a tool. It takes a long time and a lot of head-scratching for me to figure out how to make a post like I made above, suitable for presentation, using only a crude iPad. This is just another example of what we lose when we opt for speed, convenience, and brevity in our human communication. First it was the whole process of pen, pad of writing paper, envelope and stamp. Then emails. Now Tweeting and Twittering. There's a total of 47 characters allowable for communication, I believe. Examples abound for anyone interested enough to look. We're floating down the river of existence through a very strange time in human evolution right now. I think it's interesting to keep my eyes open and as fresh as I can keep them, to what is happening all around me.