*******
You sign the upbeat note then double check that all additional messages and written materials are laid out in proper sequence on the bed. Yes, you and yesterday’s incarnation did an excellent job in trip preparation, leaving nothing to chance for tomorrow’s departure. Or so you think, with satisfaction, as you fold the wake-up message, blow out the candles, turn on the flashlight, grab two bananas from the shelf, and head for the nearby camping spot.
The flashlight beam reflects off the ashram jeep as you walk down the driveway and through a boulder field to the sandy, riverside campsite. You are not yet sleepy so you build a fire whose comforting light and warmth mix with the roar of Ganga rapids. Looking upward, you become lost in the countless stars of the moment, marveling that the light from a myriad of burning suns comes together in the tiny point focused in your eye; a starry universe captured in a single point on your retina.
Then you move your head slightly and this new point also contains the energy from a universe of stars, as does the next point to which your eye moves, and the next and the next. You sense that you are living in a holographic world where each point contains the whole, and you imagine that if you could wane into nothingness, to enter just one of these tiny dots of space, then you would experience the total universe. The infinite world outside would become the universe within, the universe that is you.
But for now you settle for the reality of the moment composed simply of the sound of the river, glowing embers, and the anticipation of a sound sleep. You bid a quiet goodnight to the Ganga, zip into your blue sleeping bag, and place the crucial wake-up note under the bananas to welcome your morning self on the first step of tomorrow’s journey. You feel alone but content, unaware of your silent neighbors sleeping in nearby trees. Likewise, these monkeys are oblivious to your recent arrival in the darkness. Nor have they yet detected the ripe, yellow treat you have graciously brought to the threshold of their world.
PART THREE
“Hocus-pocus-kamikaze.
Change-the-channel,
Harriet-and-Ozzie.”
- Bodhisattva mantra of transformation
(American version)