In places of myth and magic, a seeker finds himself impressed upon by his surroundings, in such a way that the people, and the circumstances of his presence have a potent effect upon the storied reality that becomes his life. Methinks India is one of these places. Where the worker of will has to surrender ego at the door of control, and gracefully go with the karmic weave, that was set out for him, when he arrived at the customs gate, err… I mean, when he became incarnate.
I rolled out of Arambol, knowing I needed to lose something, to offer it to Kali, so she could consume it, and let me be free here without bonds. My attachment to expectation was one thing I would not miss. I had expected to be unscathed on the roads, and the old Gods grounded me quickly. My lust had come in the way of fully appreciating and enjoying myself on the first round in Goa, and the five days of waiting in Mumbai for a bike to manifest may have only spurned on the impatience longer. I felt a sickness welling up in me, a spiritual ill but also a physical discomfort, as I covered the miles from Goa to Karnataka. State border crossings had not been any issue, as boundaries or frontiers often inspired anxiety in me. In fact they had become almost unnoticeable, a jotted line on the gps, and a brown shirted man sitting by a gate with a rope, who kindly lifted a bar for me and my two wheels to pass under. Karnataka came before the high sun, and I opted to take a diversion to Gokarna before reaching Mysore.
To my luck, the roads were paved most of the route, and nothing dangerous subsumed me during the five hours of road time. Two friends had regarded Gokarna as a pilgrimage place with high esteem and a relaxed shanti energy. Gokarna was indeed a holy town of the Indian epics told for ages in mythstory. It had local connotations with Shiva, and his lingam, which was preserved there by Ganesh his son. Thousands of saints, pilgrims, truth seekers, tantrics and yogis traveled to this small temple town at the edge of the Arabian sea. It would be the last I would see of this shore for a few moons.
I kept the wheels turning off the 66, and towards open water as I brought it into second gear over the rubble roads leading into Gokarn. It felt set back in time a few hundred years, and I passed more temples than I could keep count of. Men wearing tilaks and lungis walked barefoot in the alleys and streets with the cows and rickshaws. They were the same black and yellow color scheme I saw in Mumbai, and the cattle could have been from anywhere. Red Cindy’s and old dairy cows no good for milk any longer. I made up fantasies of how far they have traveled, where they ate and slept at night. My first impression of Gokarna were the soft waves, and a beach with no foreigners on it. A man had his two camels tied to a stair, and was offering rides on the sand. Not right now, I had sat on the back of a camel for four days in the Sahara and I wanted to wait until Rajasthan for a trip in the Thar desert.
A couple biker police pulled up to me while I photographed a temple near the beach, and demanded my passport. I showed them without hesitation, then they asked for the international driving license as well, and asked about my career at
home. They seemed satisfied with my answer of being a farmer, and after seeing my photo three times on i/d left me alone. I tried not to let it bother me, and after a good meal of south Indian thali it had already left my mind. I struck up a conversation with an English couple who had been coming to India since the 70’s, who told me about the Shivratri festival in February, when a Shiva shrine would be wheeled up and down the street accompanied by dancing and revelry for Shiva, then it is wheeled back into the shed for another year. The population explodes for just a couple days, and pilgrim flock to Gokarna for part of the action.
By recommendation I found a cheap guesthouse called Sri Shakti, with a juice bar and tiffin kitchen on it’s ground flour. The place was painted in bright stimulating lime greens and citrus oranges, it was hard to be in a bad mood in this place. For 500 rupees, the equivalent of a 10 dollar bill, I could have my own private room with a fan, sink and shower, and access to a balcony overlooking a market street of Gokarna. It reminded me of my stay in Chefchaouen in Morocco, where the hostels occupied mostly vertical space, and offered views over the blue town from above. All showers were cold here in India, at least those I have tried, but even in the post monsoon ‘winter’ season, one was not complaining for hot water. I decided to take a walk to Om beach, remembering an earlier remark about it from an Israeli I met in Mumbai. The beach itself was shaped as the Aum symbol, and he suggested it as more low key than the beaches of Goa, and low key was what I was looking for.
Several temples I passed by had painted graffiti on them, ‘no foreigners allowed’. Perhaps this was to protect misappropriation of the religion, or to preserve the sensitive ritual nature of the temple from cultural awkwardness. but ultimately I did not see how they could enforce it. The prospect of guardians on the thresholds of the temples, keeping at bay the European and the Westerner, which promoted open worship and public reverence felt slightly ironic. There was a kind of urban ghat like those grander ghats seen in Varanasi, with steps down to a man made pool. Signs reading, ‘do not linger here, there are thieves’, and ‘don’t swim in the water, several people have died’. I saw not a soul, and for awhile the streets seemed derelict. I wondered what had happened in the short minutes I had checked in and regaled my stuff to my bedroom. Maybe a summons to a temple, or perhaps there was a prasad lunch (free blessed food) nearby, it was that hour of the day.
A cow with full utters followed me down a dirt track out of the narrow town roads of colored stone houses. She happily tramped along the trail behind me until we reached a massive Banyan tree, then crossed a footbridge into a property with a garden. The arms of the Banyan seemed like they could have held the world together if they simply stretched out to embrace it. This tree was becoming a good point of reference in my journey, and a totem of my freedom. On my wilderness excursions thus far, where I had abandoned any itinerary, I would come to meet with the Banyan. It was so bizarre and ancient, and I was starting to remember each one individually.
A tarmac road led me rising higher until a view could be afforded of Kuddle Beach, and a whole seaside hamlet in one panoramic gaze. Perspectives always felt more alive at high places, and for a few blissful moments I perceived everything in my life was perfect just as it was. Everything fit just so, and everything was right in my soul, being here now… looking… feeling… in the world but not of the world, an attainment of a true Yoga… a loud honk came around the corner from a car going too fast, sigh, back to humanity again.
I met some young folks on the beach from Israel and Spain, they were staying in one of the jungle hostels that had their head in the lush vegetation and their toes in the sand. There were moderately dressed people, some throwing frisbees, or spinning poi, and every little hut sold sweet lassis and cafe fare. Dogs were chasing cows and biting their tails, and dark skinned young men walked the lengths of the sand selling Rudraksha beads, and blankets with mandala patterns on them. I tended to reserve eating tropical fruits at home until I could travel to their country of growth, and enjoy them fresh. I was indulging in sweet mangoes, pistachio milk, red bananas, papayas, custard fruit, and tamarind. The flavors felt appropriate on my palette, and tended to sweeten the hours on the beach even more. The haste of the day to come to an idle, and I let the waves rock me in its tide until the sun fell red stained into the salty bath.
A rickshaw picked me up in the dark on the way back to the center of town, and left me at the guesthouse. I have the habit of attempting conversation with the drivers, even if I don’t understand a word of the language. They seem to liven up when I ask about their family and personal life, and this usually reflects in the trip fare. I’ve never felt overcharged at the end of a rickshaw ride, and I am actually starting to like them.
A bookstore across the road had literature in all the big languages, and if it were not for the paper weight I would have collected a few more. A book about Jesus in India, and The Mountains Shadow, and a Goan hippie diary caught my interest. I bought a postcard depicting an Aghori sadhu, presumably in Rishikesh, and made a mental note to write to my friend in New Brunswick.
I retired early, determined to motor on before sunrise the next morning, and cleansed the salt from my skin before bed. The mosquitoes and some kind of bed bug were a point of discomfort during the night, and I felt a sickness tying knots in my gut. They call it Delhi Belly, I’ve seen Ayurvedic treatments for it in the holistic shops, but I had been careful about my food and water consumption. I thought my gut flora was above average. I drank plenty of fermented kefir and kombucha in Goa, and my water was always filtered through ultraviolet and carbon from the Bisleri or Swatik brands. I did consume a lot of ginger on the beach with my tulsi tea, and perhaps the astringency of the root was giving me some gastro-intestinal chaos. This problem seemed to resurface a few times a year since I had the bacterial infection in Guatemala, and perhaps the amoeba never truly went away. But an intuitive feeling in me said it was beyond physical. I think this was what I needed to purge, to give to Kali, the sickness and shadow inside me.
I think the pain that manifested in my stomach represented an aspect of needing to get rid of something that I no longer needed. It works like this sometimes, a stress of the mind, or a turn of the heart away from the wholesomeness of ones being can create ills in the deep seat of the soul. I would not lie to say that I felt heavy before arriving to India, and my heart had actually been very closed, whether I was ready to admit it. I was trailing behind a shadow, instead of walking in the sun. The mantras and songs of my spirit were not singing the magic it once knew, before and during the marriage. I think it has been my attachment to relationship that created a bondage that actually trapped me from truly having new experiences, despite their novelty. There was always a sense of dejavu or longing for the past, craving for the future. I was clinging to the love of another, and could not find it in myself to start a true healing process. I also felt that Kali was attuned to the energies of lust in men, and had to take her ugly form for these energies to be snuffed out. Needless to say I had some of that living inside me that would have to leave. My morning did not play out as I thought and my room became a healing chamber of its own, as my spiritual illness was expelled out my mouth in the most violent of ways.
The morning chants of Gokarna started to resound in the town, and I caught a view through the wrought iron window frames of shirtless monks heading to temple. I started to feel on the up, and made a few prayers to Ganesha, and Shakti while I packed the bike. The woman in the kitchen offered me an orange, and it went down like gold nectar. The inspiration for the trip kick started again, and I meandered out of the cobbled streets slowly, sure and certain of a return to this weird and wonderful town. Mysore held my attention now, and the gps read 482km, to Gokula, the heart of Ashtanga yoga.
the motorcycle mantras 