Fruitless Sadhu-Chasing in Nepal
On one of the days of my recent dismal, leach-infested, jungle-wandering trip to Nepal, in a hostel in Pokhera, an overrated resort of Euro-trash and Israeli charras-addicts, my much-beloved Indian friend from Benares, came up to me and said, "Baba has been trying to hook up with one of your Facebook friends, thinking he was a woman."
This so-called "sanyassi," Mohan Giri Baba, who, until today, WAS one of my "friends" at Facebook, had been, for a long time, apparently, dissembling his true nature and objective in pursuing friendship with me, which was, as I had been forewarned by the other youngish sadhu whose place he took as traveling companion and adviser in the ways of the sadhus, to "suck me dry" of money and then dismiss me from the ranks of what they often name their "foreigner disciples."
If I hadn't been such a naive fool, in consorting with so many "holy men" I'd been warned against, this story, rather than being embarrassing to me, would be hysterically funny. Mohan Giri Baba is addicted to charras, (ganja), and is hard at work attempting to addict himself to harder drugs like heroin. That is, I've been told, why he quickly spent the 20,000 Rupees I sent him when he was recently in Rishikesh, and said he needed more, for "clothes and food," when, actually, he'd been buying heroin and buying and selling trinkets like a dvd-player he sold the day after its purchase--obviously to fund an out-of-control drug habit.
Instead of being able to teach me some kriya (yoga or meditation techniques), his knowledge of arcane sadhu lore extends only to such false "Tantric" practices as the "left-handed" technique (if you can call it that) of sousing himself with alcohol. Instead of expressing interest in the pranamaya (yoga breathing exercises) I'd like to learn, he told me that the only kriya he knows are "hard naga kriyas," which "you, Bruce, would be incapable of," as they are only for "us naga babas."
His religion appears to be nothing but a farrago of superstitions that prioritize absolute belief in his power as a naga--a power, he boasts, that can "cure cancer" with a mantra, and stop the rain, if a devotee, wishing it, will beg him to do so, by touching his leg. Once, early during our stay in the dilapidated hostel we reposed in, during our stay in Pokhera, he responded to my request that he not smoke his noisome drug in our room, and that he stop ordering so much beer to be delivered by room-service, by telling me that, as his "disciple," it was not my place to order him to do or not to do anything, and that he would do whatever he wanted. Certainly I understand the role of a chela (student) and the responsibility of obedience to one's guru and even the obligation of giving guru dakshina (offerings to the guru), but, in exchange for such loyalty and obedience, the chela is supposed to get wisdom and/or knowledge from the "teacher," but from Mohan Giri Baba one gets nothing but displays of his ability to manipulate into a knot displayed on a stick, his foreskin-enabled penis--a trick (chaabhi) that a benighted firangi (a foreigner) cannot manage. This benighted firangi, however, was paying his baba's lodging and drinking bills, as well as God knows what else, and becoming quickly and quietly furious with his baba's loutish rudeness--not only to me, but to all of the staff people who were waiting on him, hand and foot. (No one but my white-trash stepmother, of whom my father is finally rid, has ever given me such a display as Mohan has, of offensive stentorian demands on servers, as well as anger and contempt for their few failings. I doubt that a Mogul emperor or a refined maharaja would ever bellow at waiters, with so many 'bhaiya ("brother") get' this or 'get that's'.)
The thing about the chaabhi, or ling kriya, as it is otherwise denominated, however, is that it is supposed to represent the Naga (naked) sadhu's renunciation of sexual behaviour and inclinations, whereas, in fact, rather then representing brahmacharya (chaste) inclinations or tendencies, Mohan Giri Baba's flourishing of his genitalia may only symbolize voracious sexual appetites, such as, he proudly announced to Raju (who told me), preferring orifices other than yonis (vaginas), for the release of his vast energies. And apparently he goes trawling for his foreign-born sex-partners on any and all of his Facebook friends' "friends lists." And sometimes, as my afore-mentioned Facebook friend unhappily learnt, he mistakes foreign-sounding male friends' names for female ones. When he is corrected, he responds with a sullen "Fuck you, man!"
When Mohan thinks that someone else will foot the bill, he will loll in bed for half the day, watching mindless Bollywood films and tele-dramas, too sluggish even to get up and luncheon on the porch, preferring that room-service be brought to his bedside. During our disastrous trek into the high jungle around Pokhera, where we became lost and leached of our blood, Mohan Giri Baba complained bitterly about being brought out into the hot sun to walk all day--although, strong as an ox, he frequently outpaced Raju and myself--all the while mumbling imprecations against me for imposing such a hike on him. (I thought sadhus were supposed to love nature and find spiritual significance in pristine natural beauty and cthonic forces--silly me!),
As a result, now, of this unprofitable and disastrous connection, with a second scoundrel of a sadhu, I think I'm going to abandon my search for the ancient wisdom of the Babas and just count on a little serendipity to afford me some sort of meaningful relationship with Hindu renunciants. Perhaps Raju Verma, my very pious friend from Benares, can arrange something--or perhaps all my knowledge of their ways will have to be second-hand, gleaned meagerly from books--the method a shy, bookish fellow, such as myself, is likely to resort to, anyway
And, perhaps, it is now, in the heart of the Kali Yuga (the recurring "dark age" of Hindu lore) impossible to find a totally dedicated, absolutely sincere and altruistic rishi ("holy sage") who practises the Sanatana Dharma ("old religion") in front of firangis without an ulterior motive of cupidity or lust. What I cannot fathom, though, is how the older and more genuine practitioners of ancient rites, meditation techniques and yoga exercises would have agreed to initiate into their revered akharas (militant, severely disciplined orders) and maths (monasteries) so many individuals of no aptitude for the religious life of devotion, prayer (bhakti yoga) and meditations (jnana yoga).
I guess it was a good thing that the Shri Mahants (similar to abbots) of the Juna and Niranjani akharas decreed that, after their main bathing day (the so-called Shahi Snaan) of the most recent Kumbh Mela at Prayag (Allahabad), they and their newly-initiated proteges would decamp to Kashi-Benares--perhaps to get far enough away, so as not to be inspired to behave badly by such hoodlums in their ranks as Mohan Giri Baba or such thrill-seeking foreigners as they, mistakenly, imagine me to be.
This so-called "sanyassi," Mohan Giri Baba, who, until today, WAS one of my "friends" at Facebook, had been, for a long time, apparently, dissembling his true nature and objective in pursuing friendship with me, which was, as I had been forewarned by the other youngish sadhu whose place he took as traveling companion and adviser in the ways of the sadhus, to "suck me dry" of money and then dismiss me from the ranks of what they often name their "foreigner disciples."
If I hadn't been such a naive fool, in consorting with so many "holy men" I'd been warned against, this story, rather than being embarrassing to me, would be hysterically funny. Mohan Giri Baba is addicted to charras, (ganja), and is hard at work attempting to addict himself to harder drugs like heroin. That is, I've been told, why he quickly spent the 20,000 Rupees I sent him when he was recently in Rishikesh, and said he needed more, for "clothes and food," when, actually, he'd been buying heroin and buying and selling trinkets like a dvd-player he sold the day after its purchase--obviously to fund an out-of-control drug habit.
Instead of being able to teach me some kriya (yoga or meditation techniques), his knowledge of arcane sadhu lore extends only to such false "Tantric" practices as the "left-handed" technique (if you can call it that) of sousing himself with alcohol. Instead of expressing interest in the pranamaya (yoga breathing exercises) I'd like to learn, he told me that the only kriya he knows are "hard naga kriyas," which "you, Bruce, would be incapable of," as they are only for "us naga babas."
His religion appears to be nothing but a farrago of superstitions that prioritize absolute belief in his power as a naga--a power, he boasts, that can "cure cancer" with a mantra, and stop the rain, if a devotee, wishing it, will beg him to do so, by touching his leg. Once, early during our stay in the dilapidated hostel we reposed in, during our stay in Pokhera, he responded to my request that he not smoke his noisome drug in our room, and that he stop ordering so much beer to be delivered by room-service, by telling me that, as his "disciple," it was not my place to order him to do or not to do anything, and that he would do whatever he wanted. Certainly I understand the role of a chela (student) and the responsibility of obedience to one's guru and even the obligation of giving guru dakshina (offerings to the guru), but, in exchange for such loyalty and obedience, the chela is supposed to get wisdom and/or knowledge from the "teacher," but from Mohan Giri Baba one gets nothing but displays of his ability to manipulate into a knot displayed on a stick, his foreskin-enabled penis--a trick (chaabhi) that a benighted firangi (a foreigner) cannot manage. This benighted firangi, however, was paying his baba's lodging and drinking bills, as well as God knows what else, and becoming quickly and quietly furious with his baba's loutish rudeness--not only to me, but to all of the staff people who were waiting on him, hand and foot. (No one but my white-trash stepmother, of whom my father is finally rid, has ever given me such a display as Mohan has, of offensive stentorian demands on servers, as well as anger and contempt for their few failings. I doubt that a Mogul emperor or a refined maharaja would ever bellow at waiters, with so many 'bhaiya ("brother") get' this or 'get that's'.)
The thing about the chaabhi, or ling kriya, as it is otherwise denominated, however, is that it is supposed to represent the Naga (naked) sadhu's renunciation of sexual behaviour and inclinations, whereas, in fact, rather then representing brahmacharya (chaste) inclinations or tendencies, Mohan Giri Baba's flourishing of his genitalia may only symbolize voracious sexual appetites, such as, he proudly announced to Raju (who told me), preferring orifices other than yonis (vaginas), for the release of his vast energies. And apparently he goes trawling for his foreign-born sex-partners on any and all of his Facebook friends' "friends lists." And sometimes, as my afore-mentioned Facebook friend unhappily learnt, he mistakes foreign-sounding male friends' names for female ones. When he is corrected, he responds with a sullen "Fuck you, man!"
When Mohan thinks that someone else will foot the bill, he will loll in bed for half the day, watching mindless Bollywood films and tele-dramas, too sluggish even to get up and luncheon on the porch, preferring that room-service be brought to his bedside. During our disastrous trek into the high jungle around Pokhera, where we became lost and leached of our blood, Mohan Giri Baba complained bitterly about being brought out into the hot sun to walk all day--although, strong as an ox, he frequently outpaced Raju and myself--all the while mumbling imprecations against me for imposing such a hike on him. (I thought sadhus were supposed to love nature and find spiritual significance in pristine natural beauty and cthonic forces--silly me!),
As a result, now, of this unprofitable and disastrous connection, with a second scoundrel of a sadhu, I think I'm going to abandon my search for the ancient wisdom of the Babas and just count on a little serendipity to afford me some sort of meaningful relationship with Hindu renunciants. Perhaps Raju Verma, my very pious friend from Benares, can arrange something--or perhaps all my knowledge of their ways will have to be second-hand, gleaned meagerly from books--the method a shy, bookish fellow, such as myself, is likely to resort to, anyway
And, perhaps, it is now, in the heart of the Kali Yuga (the recurring "dark age" of Hindu lore) impossible to find a totally dedicated, absolutely sincere and altruistic rishi ("holy sage") who practises the Sanatana Dharma ("old religion") in front of firangis without an ulterior motive of cupidity or lust. What I cannot fathom, though, is how the older and more genuine practitioners of ancient rites, meditation techniques and yoga exercises would have agreed to initiate into their revered akharas (militant, severely disciplined orders) and maths (monasteries) so many individuals of no aptitude for the religious life of devotion, prayer (bhakti yoga) and meditations (jnana yoga).
I guess it was a good thing that the Shri Mahants (similar to abbots) of the Juna and Niranjani akharas decreed that, after their main bathing day (the so-called Shahi Snaan) of the most recent Kumbh Mela at Prayag (Allahabad), they and their newly-initiated proteges would decamp to Kashi-Benares--perhaps to get far enough away, so as not to be inspired to behave badly by such hoodlums in their ranks as Mohan Giri Baba or such thrill-seeking foreigners as they, mistakenly, imagine me to be.