Yatra

The teacher had groped everyone already during the previous yoga sessions. He loved coming close, tugging at a hip, stepping gently on a hand. All the while, eye roll, he wore tights that clearly showed his penis. And, he had so no clue that he was showing his penis.

Sweat ran down my face. My lower back was a rain soaked jungle. The tickle of sweat running across the back of my knee was novel. My shoulders were hurting the worst. Everyone was hanging in there. I could not be the first to give up. I would have given up already three minutes ago. I never realized that I could keep going. Actually, what kept me going was a radiant energy from my groin. Lifting everything up, I pressed my pubic bone sharply against the ground. There was a warm tingling that spread out from there along the entire inside of my thighs. I secretly pressed my pubic bone harder against the ground. It felt so good. I desperately wanted that feeling more than I wanted to get out of the pain of my muscles. The pain made me lose my guard to chase that pubic/inner thigh feeling with abandon.

The teacher had us sit up for breathing exercises. I looked around. "Where is Harold," I whispered to Coco. She whispered back, "remember, how the guys had to carry him out of the bus, because his back went out? He's sick in his bed."

"I'd like you all to put your hands on your heart. Today, we are going to study the heart chakra. In Sanskrit, it is called unbeaten or unhurt. Your heart pumps blood 60 times a minute. It sends love to every part of your body 60 times a minute. It does not discriminate. It sends love to every part of your body. And, that love heals all your hurt. Every day, we will study another chakra. Today, we will completely emerge into the spirit of the heart."

"With your hands on your heart, I'd like you to take all the people of your life into your heart. Take your mother. Take your lover. Take your boss. Take that asshole. Yes, take the worst rotten asshole that you know into your heart. Your heart wants to love selflessly. Just let it love."

I looked over at Coco. She had a smile on her lips like god was looking down at her from heaven. Tears ran down her face. I bit my lip. I knew what I had to do. I did not want to do it. Yet, I knew. I had this feminine spirit whisper in my heart: "There is one person that is your worst asshole. And, he needs the most love of all of them right now." I quietly got up and walked out.

The men's yurt was like ours. There was no wood to knock against, only white fabric. "Hello, it's Sam. Can I come in?"

"Yeah, I'm sorry about not carrying your luggage. I can't move."

I gently pulled the tent opening away. There was the smelly boy locker room smell. They boys had thrown their sweat soaked workout clothes on the floor. The floor was littered everywhere with stuff. How could they tell, who owned what. It was one big pile. Of course, the boys already had squashed beer cans. Those naughty boys didn't even care about throwing them out.

Harold, the airport snitch, was lying on his back. Only his head turned to face me. He had these painful eyes with red in them. My heart melted at the poor puppy. I sat down next to him. I looked into his pale face. His beard hair had grown out over two days. A few locks of hair curled onto his forehead. He looked kind of sexy. His clothes were crumbled from sleeping in them.

"Oh, my poor tollpatsch."

"What's a tollpatsch?"

"My German grandma would call me that each time that I made a mess."

I could sense in him that he had this softness. It was like he was energetically reaching out to me to be touched. He was like this lost and alone lamb that finally found a little love. Oh, it broke my heart to see him like that. I could not help but reach out with my hand to touch the face of this little fallen angle. He closed his eyes. His skin was a little a million little people calling out to my hand, "come to us."

"Oh, you must be so bummed to be out here by yourself."

"Sam, you don't know how hard I try to do the right thing. And, I always feel like the outsider, the loner."

He had this wounded deer look in his face. "Let me give you a hug." Because he could not move, I bent forward and laid my chest onto his. I gently held his head in my hands. I just held him. I had to hold his soul. I had to pour out my love. I felt his chest lifting slow like the rising tide and lowering. We were in this messy yurt. He was filthy from a lack of hygiene. We had this deeply touching moment. And, then I cried. I cried, dear lord!

"Harold, you don't know how lonely I feel at work. I collect donations for starving African children. Everyone feels always obliged to praise our cause and be uber-friendly. However on the inside, they try to get away from me so quickly. They feel uncomfortable about saying 'no' to donating. They fear that, when I stay with them, I will ask them for a donation. I go to all these cocktail parties. People make big extravagant gestures to praise our cause. And then, they run like hell to get away from me. Each time, it's like a stab to my chest."

He gently patted me on the back. It reminded me of my grandma. That's how she used to soothe me. We held each other. We were really present. There was no rush, no appointment book, no cell phone service. I fell into a little slumber. My eyes were all blurry, when I woke up. His torso felt so comfortable. I pushed my hand on his chest like familiar furniture at home.

"Hey Sam, could you do me a favor? The teacher left some Ayuverdic oil with me. I can't reach."

"Of course, my tollpatsch. Roll over."

Harold labored to lift his head a few inches. With great moans, he lifted his hip around. His face fell on the pillow. He seemed happy to stay where he was. My fingers reached to the sides of his t-shirt. I pulled on it. His body was too heavy. He tried to move. "You relax. I got this." My fingers pressed into the mattress. I dragged the shirt up. I pulled his pajamas down. He had a nice plumber's crack. His butt and back was actually quite cute.

The oil was in a little bowl. Cute stick figures were painted on the bowl. I held the bowl to my face. Lavender smelled relaxing. There was a subtle smell of roses that indicated bilva. The bilva fruit looks like a skull. It is used in ritualistic worship of Shiva. The oil coated my hands. It felt soft like velvet. It drizzled from one hand to the other. My skin warmed it.

I planted my hands on his back. I held them there to let the energy permeate. After a while, I a caressed my hands in circles over his lower back und upper butt. I played with his skin. I painted the alphabet on his blighted body. The oil made his skin shine. It dried within minutes. The residue was sticky. I got enamored with the valley between his back muscles. I felt the knobs of his spine.

A funny spirit came over me. I pulled down his pants to below his butt. His butt was stark naked. His face was buried in the pillow. He was unable to move. I teased him, "Will the boys rape you, if I leave you like that?" I pinched his butt in the intimate center cleft. He protested muffled in his pillow. He tried to move his arms. He couldn't. I laughed at my mischief. He was like a beetle on its back.

I heard someone come. I quickly pulled the pants over his butt. My heart was panting like a little bunny chasing over the grass. Oh, my god, what had I done! I was getting a little careless there in this bubble among open hearted yogis. One of the dudes came to pick something up. He left pretty promptly.

++++++++++++++++++++++

It went a little better. The back was a little better. Sam's visit had really helped. The back pain was mostly psycho-somatic. All the stress had taken its toll. I had tried to bury my distress on the inside. And, look what it did to me. Her warm connection had triggered something in my body. I could sit up for the first time in Uttarkashi. Steven was standing next to me, looking over my movements.

"Hey buddy, if you can sit, you can sit with us. The boss is only going to do a sitting meditation. We'll prop you against a wall with a pillow. You should be with us."

Steven reached his muscular arm out to me. He obviously had way too much time to burn in the gym. I grabbed his wrist. He grabbed my wrist. He pulled me up like an Ariane 5 rocket. He stretched my arm over his shoulder and dragged me to the ashram house. Everyone waved at my return. Steven gave me his blanket. The blanket was way soft, such a fabric geek. Coco brought pillows. Sam smiled at me, "be my meditation partner." It felt like a home coming parade for the victorious troops. I couldn't help and smile at all the warmth.

Sam sat Indian style. Her face was earnest. Her shoulders were big. She had a long nose. Her boobs were well sized. However, her torso was so wide and tall that the stretched out. She wore a new tank top with a deep cut out in the front. I could see the absence of a bra. Her naked heal was pressed right up to her crotch. She was wearing a little golden bracelet around her ankle.

The teacher commenced the introduction: "We walk through life and we feel that nobody loves us. It's not true. Everybody loves you. They just forgot that page in the book. Love is all around us. People just forget. The heart chakra is the center of selfless love."

"Face your partner. You are going to take turns. Hold your heart with both hands and tell your partner. 'I love you.' Then, place your hand on your partner's heart and ask 'Do you love me?' Don't answer. Switch turns. I'll play you some music. Keep doing it for 62 minutes."

Sam looked deeply into my eyes. I saw the color in her iris. She had this look like she was speaking from the bottom of her heart. Her hand pressed against the center of her chest. I could see her boobs being squooshed. "I love you." She pronounced every syllable with the deepest sincerity. Her delicate fingers gently touched my chest. "Do you love me?" She looked at me questioning with vulnerability in her eyes.

I smiled. I had to smile at her face. I felt my own chest. I filled it with the feeling of Christmas family evening. I filled it with all my siblings sitting together in peace on the couch and on the floor. I felt so vulnerable for touching into that tender part of me. When my mouth opened, I visualized a beam of warm loving light radiating into her heart. "I love you."

I carefully reached my hand onto her chest. I was conscious of not touching her boobs too much. I felt like NASA – I had made contact. Her soft skin gave me a sense of her. All the vulnerability of being in school, alone in the playground on break, hoping – inwardly begging – that someone would want to play with me welled up inside of me. "Do you love me?"

Like a wave, her "I love you" came over me. She tilted her head sideways as a gesture to say, 'how could you ever doubt my love?' "Do you love me?" she asked with the playfulness of a child that knows that everybody loves her. I burst out, "I love you!" I know that it is supposed to be an exercise, not a romantic love thing. However, every bone in my body loved Sam so much. And, I let it all come out without reservation or fear of being rejected.

62 minutes later, the teacher clapped to praise us: "Well done, children of love. For this evening, we have a special treat. Back in Los Angeles, yoga is trimmed down to be a bit of stretching. Here in India, we can practice real yoga. The heart is selfless service. We went through the postures that strengthen the heart. We mediated on the energy of the heart. Now, it is time to go out and serve."

"The Sakya temple is a very poor temple. They selflessly serve. They do not beg. When nobody feeds them, they hunger. And, they still go into the streets to help the needy. We will do their dinner service. I bought a truck load full of food. It only cost $100. Yet, it feeds 500 monks. You will go around and serve the food. You will be the loving servers to the monks."

"The energy in the monastery is very special. They pray and mediate for ours. Multiply that by 500 monks. Multiply that by millennia. The positive energy is so thick in there. Good spirits from all over the world are drawn to it. If you are contemplative, you might draw out such a spirit. While you are in the temple observe golden silence."

Our tattered bus drove us to the monastery about an hour away. Sam sat down next to me. We were silent for a while. I could feel her thigh pressing against mine. I was just taking deep breathes to sense the little hint of her body smell in the air.

"I really like you, Sam."

"I like you, too, Harold."

There was a bit more silence. The day was already growing dark.

"Harold, I want to tell you something."

"Sure."

"I believe in forgiving. I often put my feelings back, when someone apologizes. I want to tell you how horrible that SWAT team incident really was."

"(continued) I sometimes fall prey to negative thinking. My thoughts spiral out of control. It's like I forget to deposit a check at work. Next I think that I will be fired. I imagine not being able to get a job, because my name will be tarnished in the industry. I imagine the cold pavement that I will sleep on. I'd feel so helpless being homeless. And, then people would rape me. And, dogs would eat me."

"(continued) I had really horrible things going through my head, when the SWAT team came at the airport. I imagined that they would pull me into a room, strip search me, leave me naked for hours and days. I'd end up on a black CIA prison in one of those women hating Arab countries. I'd get tortured every day."

Sam started sobbing. "I know it's not real. It's my mind runs away. And, then it feels real."

Harold hugged Sam, "I got my first tooth pulled this year – not a wisdom tooth, a real tooth."

"What!? I open up and you tell me about your dental history?"

"Listen it out. I felt so horrible about it. I felt like I was losing a part of me. I was losing a part of me. Just having to accept that I am nothing but a bunch of parts to those doctors – not a real person – was so hard for me. I cried at night about having to voluntarily let part of my body be taken. When I was done crying and the tooth was gone, I felt like my brain had to accept something that irrevocably changed it."

"(continued) Losing parts of your body, the world forces you to take it without a whimper. I lost empathy. I had to have a skin autopsy later. I felt nothing for having a piece of skin cut out of me. A colleague went through chemo. I felt nothing anymore. People have to go through medical torture. That's just the way it is. I think about my own death. I don't feel anything anymore. When I lost that tooth, I lost any feeling. It's like my heart is made of metal."

"Come here tollpatsch," said Sam. She pulled me in. She put her lips on my mouth. Her tongue followed. They call French kissing soul kissing. I felt for the first time that I touched another soul. When I told her my secret, I had to take down my emotional wall. And, her tongue was freely visiting in the city of my soul. It wasn't about the physical, erotic feeling of wet, female tongue in my mouth. It was about letting down. About not being judged or sent away.

We were soul kissing in the back of the raggedy bus. It's not the environment. It's the experiences that you have. The environment simply happens. Back in LA, we pay so much for premium service and interior design. It can't buy the human experience that I found in the rickety bus in a third world country.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

The whole day had been emotionally deep and regressive. My inner child had come out to play. The environment was supportive. I could be a little girl. All the girls in our group were blooming. They were infectious. We were on an exciting trip to a real monastery. They were real monks, not the Los Angeles monks that go home to watch TV.

I saw the monastery. And, I knew that it was the real deal. It had the intense red color of the monk robes. The golden embellishments were quaint. Rows and rows of monks stood to welcome us. Everyone had a red robe. They looked so similar, like a monk army. There were little ones. Their faces were so childish in the monk robes.

A little pickup truck had followed us. It had only one front wheel in the center. Buckets of rice and lentil stew were on the truck bed. The teacher gave each of us a bucket of food. Sweet baby Jesus, a bucket of rice is heavy. I held the skinny plastic hold with both hands. I barely held the bucket up.

We walked in a procession up the stairs. The monks stood at the sides. Inside rows of monks sat on carpets. I held the bucket of rice to the first monk. He smiled at me. He placed his hands together to thank me. I felt like yelling out 'take the food already, god dammit.' I really wanted to. The bucket was so heavy. I was breaking. Selfless service is hard.

Each monk only took a spoon full of rice. Sweat ran down my face. It dropped into the bucket. Nobody minded. I had rolled up the bottom of my t-shirt to expose my belly. No disrespect monks, holding that bucket really worked the core muscles. My belly was glistening wet.

They had no hurry. Each one of them gave me a ceremony of gratitude before taking my rice offering. I looked into so many different eyes. All the eyes were patient and waiting from years of mediation. They were so composed. I was so struggling with that heavy bucket. I felt like bambi.

The next morning was ominous. I sensed something odd. The weight of the blanket seemed off. My right arm didn't move right. I looked at the sky outside of our yurt. The cloud formations seemed threatening. Coco smiled at me and said "good morning." I recognized her face in a dream. In the dream, Coco had been a demon that was boiling me in a pot.

I stumbled out of the yurt. My legs had stubble. I hadn't shaved since being in India. My hair was a mess. I smelled from the humid air of sleeping with eight girls. I pinned the yoga mat under my elbow. It was time for before-breakfast-yoga. Something strange hit me. Thick black smoke poured out of our ashram. I had never seen such black smoke.

I panicked. I noticed that everyone was simply standing in front of the ashram.

"What's going on?"

"I think Baba lost it. He's been mumbling something about exorcising evil spirits. He hasn't' talked to anybody. It's crazy in there."

I was curious. I climbed the stairs to the entrance. I lowered my head. I covered my nose with my t-shirt. The upper half of the room was filled with opaque black smoke. The lower half was kind of clear and only smelled burned. I crawled into the room. Coco was sitting in meditation pose. She relished the drama.

Our teacher pulled a bouquet of incense sticks out of a wrapping. He lit all of them. He stuck them into buckets filled with sand. Then, he lit all of them. The floor was littered with incense boxes. There were literally thousands of incense sticks burning at the same time.

The teacher called out, "we have to exorcise the demons. Lord Vishhnu gave us an exercise to do it. Stick your tongue out as far as you can. Open your eyes wide. Hiss 'ha.' That will scare them away."

The teacher squatted. His face looked wild with the tongue out and eyes like big O's. Coco was thrilled. She daunted the demons with fire. I gingerly tried it as well. Oh my god, I could feel it. I made the face. I could feel my power pour out. I had memories of my boss, donors, random people in the street coming to me. All those people had in common that they had scared me. And, I saw them in the smoke. And, I hissed at them. I exorcised them. With all my power, I hissed. I pulled the eyes open as far as I could. I got lost in the witch hunt.

Everyone else came into the room. The hissing was noisy like a barn full of ducks all quacking at the same time. The energy of everything scaring demons was so intense and intoxicating. I smiled a little inwardly at all the chaos that we were breaking loose. We were grownups acting like little children. I so missed being silly.