Book II : The Vasellian See

Chapter 1 An appointment



Charles threw the letter onto the table and walked over to the window. He lit up a cigarette and viewed the children playing in the park.

It had been clear from their contract that no commercial undertaking is to be permitted for the researcher on the TMNT. UNICEF had reserved exclusive rights for all developments from the study.

Charles had been trying to find a new sponsor for the study on the vampires, but he seemed to be communicating poorly on the issue with potential sponsors. So far nobody had indicated any interests in the area of vampires and immunization issues, despite Charles's clear elaboration of the facts behind such a study. Apparently, he had not made clear how that involved Hindu studies.

The matter had been dragging on for two years now, since he finished the research on the TMNT. The university had extended his contract for lecturing in marketing subjects but he was high and dry on the issue of developmental studies.

The letter he had received today was from UNESCO. It is the social and cultural arm of the United Nations. They had offered him a two year contract as supervisor of projects for the monitoring and development of cultural transformations.

He saw the hand of Bob and the American government, behind the appointment. It made him a little anxious about the obligations involved.




Peter Kurgan dialed the number on the phone.

“UNESCO, good morning,” came the accented voice on the phone.

“Charles Mohan please,” he asked.

“Just a minute,” came the soft assuring reply, I'll connect you to his office.”

“Mr. Mohan's office,” said the secretary.

“This is Peter Kurgan,” he said into the phone, “ can I speak to Mr. Mohan?”

“Just a minute, Mr. Kurgan,” came the reply.

He waited.

The boys were sitting on the carpet in their hotel room, playing with their play doh. Peter kept an eye on Gorgi, the elder, every time the boys were together. It was important that Gorgi learn to manage his younger brother both for himself and the boy's sake.

“Mr. Kurgan,” came the voice on the phone, “ how are you? This is Charles.”

“Good morning,” he greeted. “I'm here in Paris, ….. arrived last night.”

“Where are you staying?”

“The Maillot Hotel.”

“Is the family with you?” Charles asked.

“Yes.”

“Just a second,” he said. A few seconds later, he came back.

“I'll meet you at your hotel, say 11.00 o'clock? At the lobby.....come alone. Have you made any plans for lunch?”

“No.”

“Good,” Charles answered,”we'll take the family out to lunch after that.”

They hung up.

His wife came out of the bath.

“We're meeting my boss for lunch,” he announced.

She was surprised but seemed pleased.

“We're taking the children along?” she asked.

“Yah,” he answered matter of factly. He paused for a while.

“Quite a professional bunch of people,” he said thoughtfully. “They know what they are doing.”

He reached for the brochure on UNESCO,

“Listen to this,” he called to her. She was brushing her hair in front of the mirror.

“This is a quote from the director-general.” He flipped to the page and read aloud from it.

“Humanism is an age-old promise, as well as an idea that is always new, endlessly reinventing itself. The humanist project has been part of our history since Antiquity, yet it shines like new in every epoch. In the early years of the third millennium the word can no longer have the same meaning as it had during the Renaissance in Europe, when it was forged on the image of the ideal man, master of himself and the universe. It also goes beyond the meanings that the Enlightenment philosophers gave it, and
which have remained, despite their universalist aspirations, restricted to a Eurocentric vision of
the world.”

He stopped and put down the brochure.

“That's Irina?” she asked.

“Yah,” he replied.


Chapter 2 The course


“Peter Kurgan,” he extended his hand.

“Charles Mohan. Glad to meet you.”

“Where are you from originally,” Charles asked after they had taken a seat in the lobby.

“Vladivostok,” Peter answered.

“Quite an Asian population there,” Charles intoned.

“That's true,” he answered, “it's very close to China. My wife has Chinese blood in her ancestry.”

“That would explain your interests in Vedanta,” Charles observed.

Peter nodded. “As you are aware, my dissertation was on the origins of the Hindu faith and its relation to human evolution. It's been a curiosity with me since the socialist era, but these days, I think I'm bringing a different attitude to the issues. The fact is, all faith, the way that man has come to recapitulate on the experience, is founded on the common sense relation to his survival experiences.”

“I can't agree more,” Charles replied. “That's why we think you are the right man to take your interests back another step, to the early Vedantic development of the Hindu faith and record the progress that took place.”

Charles continued, “You realize that as a world organization, UNESCO is taking a fresh new look at the development of humanism in the 21st century.”

Peter nodded.

“My boss is from the soviet union and after having weathered the socialist era, she's bringing an outsider's perspective on the issue of faith and human development.”

“I read her quote in the newsletter,” Peter offered.

Charles nodded in acknowledgment.

“It is our view that the present conditions faced by the world is bigger than anything we faced before. We expect some ground breaking work and something original, from this exercise.”

Peter appeared thoughtful.
“In your mail you referred to the Indian experience as being a living account of the development of thought. What you meant is that, they bring the points of their faith to an actual implementation in their lives and to refine their understanding of it.”

“That's correct,” Charles affirmed. “It forms the basis of the individual identity and therefore they stay close to the tenets.”

“But what that also means is that the average Indian identifies himself as a cast member in the legends and attempts to fulfill in his life, that which a character in a story accomplished in their practice of the faith.”

“That is correct,” Charles confirmed. “It is the early development of identity in an individual before they learn to cultivate their identity based on their own observations of themselves in the society.....and in relation to their family, friends and eventually the world.”

“So we are defining the process of identity cultivation as being essentially the archetype for all general identities?”

“We think there is a broad application of the principles. For instance, in the Soviet experience, the deference to the politburo as the mother and the president as father is similar to the legends of faith. In Christianity, the teachings took on the form of the lives of kings, in Buddhism it follows the example set by the Buddha in his life. We think it is a typical condition for man to first adopt a role model before he comes to see himself in his physical and true role in society.”

Peter listened intently. Charles continued.

“What we believe may be happening at this time, is the conversion from the practice with the role model to a new position of recreating the experience of the individual in physical reality.”

“So the subject for the case-study should be undergoing such a transformation?” Peter asked.

“That's correct,” Charles replied. “We have contacted the University in New Delhi and they probably will have some prospects for you when you get there.”

The family joined them in the lobby, a short while later and Charles brought them across the street to a restaurant for lunch.

They made their orders. Charles turned to peter,

“You'll need to come down to the office to sign some papers tomorrow. Say about 10.00 am.”

Peter agreed.

“Its very nice of you to come and meet the family,” Diane, Peter's wife said.

“Its an office protocol,” Charles replied. “We are practicing a policy of putting people first. So before a staff or contact comes to the office, quite imposing that it is, we make it a point to meet them at their place. It forms an important first impression.”

Diane smiled and looking at Peter said,

“Actually, we had no idea that it was already being taken up at the UN.....all these changes that we have been going through.....I think many people thought it was just them.”

Charles smiled in response,

“The fact is, many of the institutions connected with social change, needed to create some responses in society before now, regarding these matters. Unfortunately, the nature of the issues are so complicated that moving any faster to deal with them simply causes more confusion.”

“Are you working together on the project, in anyway?” Peter asked.

“Supervisory only, from here,” Charles replied. “ It's your baby.”

He turned to look at the kids.

“You'll be making arrangements for their schooling in New Delhi?”

“Yeah, at the international school. We made some inquiries.....we don't expect any problems.”

“Will you be looking around Paris this afternoon?” Charles asked looking at Peter.

“Yes,” Peter said eagerly.



Chapter 3 Gangothri


Neela Gangothri Bose sat in his garden in a state of deep contemplation. His white beard waved in the breeze. The wail of peacocks reached his ears and produced a sad melancholy in him.

His compassion for the human condition knew no bounds. He hailed from an illustrious Brahmin family, who have for generations, guided the people of Nanda Puram, in North Eastern India, on the headwaters of the river Ganges.

Neela practiced a form of Yoga, referred to as Gambiratattwa. In it, he made contact with the qualities of the heart, where it was engaged as an instrument to direct and channel his impulses naturally to where they want to go. In such a practice, the aspirant is able to reorder his experiences from the past into a new form and scheme of life.

The presiding emotion in these matters is the love one feels for all created nature, where the interests of each impulse is brought into coherence and congruency with another and creates a union of common purpose of all impulses in the human mind and body.

He ran a hotel for tourists who come to Srinagar in search of peace and enlightenment. He loved to sit and talk to them about what they seek in their lives and in the process, Neela managed to come to understand a little of himself.

As a child in Nanda Puram, Neela lived as an associate of the mountains, the valleys, rivers and trees. He recalled how his father was an elder in the village they lived with another 100 households. His best friend was Kozinsky, a fair boy with ruby cheeks whose father ran the butcher shop in the village.

Together, the two boys roamed the woods and the streams in search of birds, fish, fruits and berries. Kozinsky was two years older than him and always treated Neela as a younger brother. Neela didn't mind, especially since Kozinsky was bigger for his age. He was a strong lad and many a time would come to Neela's defense in a fight with the other children.

Kozinsky's people were reported to be the original residents in the place, going back several thousand years into the past. Neela's ancestors were reported to have migrated here some centuries before from the Indus valley area. This was obviously after the fall of the Vedic civilization.

In the Ganges, Neela's folks had begun a new scheme of faith in association with the residents there. However, for some curious reason the villages have got into a fight with each other from generation to generation, that is a hallmark of their relations in the place.

Neela and Kozinsky were quite a pair in everybody's eyes. To the villages, it represented the form of the relationship they shared with each other. Neela represented the individual self and Kozinsky represented the physical nature of the environment. It was a matching pair and it seemed the most natural experience of the life the villagers lived.

When the boys were about 13 years of age, calamity struck. A strange new illness had descended on the village, causing the people to be blurry eyed, slurry of speech and given to sudden bouts of vomiting.
In past times, the village shaman would have advised the slaughter of a cow and the removal of all goats in the area, to be taken to pasture grounds away from the village. However, when he was consulted on this occasion, he informed them that any continuing effort based on past remedies would not produce any results. There had to be something new.

At first he had advised that newly weds in the area be separated from each other for a period of one year, before they are allowed to live together. However, that did not show much of an improvement.

The shaman was sitting in meditation by the river when Neela and Kozinsky happened before him.

He had called to the boys. They approached him.

“How's your father doing?” he asked Kozinsky.

“He's in bed. He can't walk,” Kozinsky replied.

“How's your mother?”

Neela immediately surged to prevent his friend answering the question. In all the time they had been friends, Kozinsky was clear in his demeanor that he won't tolerate any references to his mother.

Kozinsky looked away, but Neela rushed to answer, “ She's fine. She's not feeling sick.”

The response peaked the shaman's interest in the two boys. He frowned for a moment and then quickly asked,

“What did she cook for lunch today?” he asked.

Again Kozinsky simply looked at his toes and didn't reply. Neela jumped in,

“Fish,” he declared, having caught the scent of fish gravy in Kozinsky's breath.

The shaman had a curious look in his eyes. Superstition aside, the shaman's father had always taught him how humans, by the engagement of the mind, produced the most incredible responses to their own viral condition. It was important to detect clearly just how much influence the two boys were creating in the perceptions of the villagers. It was after all a small village.

A week later the parents of the two boys were summoned to the headman's cottage.

The headman's words poured out easily and the parents were not without some understanding of what that meant.

“We have to break down the mahimorata in the mind of the villagers,” he had said. “The shaman has been following the two boys around for the past week and he is certain that they bring a bridge to the opposite sensations of the people. This bridge must be destroyed.”

“What's to happen with the boys?” Kozinsky's father asked between coughs. His condition was the worst in the village.
“Your boy must leave the family and go live with them,” he said to Kozinsky's father, pointing as he spoke at Neela's parents.”

“What about Neela?” his father asked.

“Neela has to leave the village. Do you have any relations living in India?”

“None,” Neela's father replied. “I have a sister in Srinagar.”

“Send him there. Do not let him return.”

The headman had turned to look at the shaman.

“As god is my witness,” the shaman had responded.




Neela looked across at Peter, sitting at the bench before him, in the garden.

“That is how I came to be here,” he said.

Peter had begun a trek into the headwaters of the Ganges. He had stopped overnight at Srinagar. It had been his intention to travel to Nanda Puram to study the early development of faith schemes which thereafter grow into a full fledged faith in the plains of the south. It steers itself along the route of society's advancements and the need for survival.

“Were the people healed?” Peter asked.

“I don't know,” Neela responded. “If you are traveling there, you can find out for yourself.”


Chapter 4  A legend's beginning


The motorcycle was a reconditioned Triumph model from some years back, but it was in good condition. As Peter maneuvered on the narrow mountain roads, he was amused at the way Neela had been so incredibly sharing in his manner. It was as if he had intuited in a sense Peter's own state of mind, in order to share the story of his upbringing in the mountains.

It could have been his relationship with Kozinsky, Peter told himself. As Neela related the events, Peter had been reordering the events in his own mind, creating in a sense an eye witness account of the story as it unfolded.

Indian legends tell the story of Little Krishna who grew up in a virtual paradise in a place that was referred to as Brindavan. The evil Kamsa, a king in those parts had ordered that Krishna be found and put to death because of an oracle that predicted that the King would be killed by Krishna.

Kamsa, as the metaphorical representation of greed, exemplified the identity of the individual who seeks self possession of the qualities of love in the self. Krishna, on the other hand symbolized the will to overcome greed and recultivate a collective sense of love.

Peter reflected on the possibility of engaging Neela as the case study subject. He had met with the other subjects recommended by the university but they lacked the simplicity of manner that Neela represented. Neela's account of his experiences was devoid of any egoistic embellishment.

In addition, both the subjects of the university's recommendations were practicing holy men in New Delhi. They each ran an ashram that catered to those who sought some guide in religious practices. Neela on the other hand didn't gain that level of sophistication in his understanding and related his outlook to a description of daily life as it unfolded in these parts.

It was curious how people related to these legends that deified the personality in the story. It often compared their own experiences, which were quite similar, and caused an overlapping of the identity of the individual and the cast personality in the story.

After a two day journey he arrived at Nanda Puram. He followed the map Neela had provided him and made it to Neela's parents home. He gave the letter of introduction from Gangothri, to Neela's father.

They agreed to put him up during his stay. He met Kozinsky the following day. He had married and was staying in his own house in the village.

He was anything but the way Neela had described him. He had sharp piercing eyes on a face that was carved out of rock. He spoke in a certain hurried sense with short outburst of breath that seemed to want to emphasize every comment he made as being true.

“Its what little boys do,” he said, referring to the days with Neela.

As Peter probed deeper into their early experiences, Kozinsky was initially cautious but relaxed a little in his management of his thoughts.

“We have to be concerned with the common good,” he said. “It's not simply a matter of what we want.”

“How was it like.....the separation from the family?” Peter asked gently.

It was obvious from Kozinsky's manner that it was the first time he had spoken about it to anyone.

“It's a little clearer when you are older,” he said. “There are children whose parents have died and go to live with someone else. It is the same.”

“How did you adjust to your new parents?”

“How is Neela doing?” he suddenly asked. His face had softened.

“He's fine,” answered Peter. “He seems to think that all the religious practices are a fake. That it is a matter of self understanding by the individual.”

Kozinsky's face broke into a crinkle as he laughed.

“He was always very confident about everything......very imaginative.” He paused to measure his words carefully. “We didn't know anything.....but we have to follow the advice of the elders.”

Peter reminded him about the parents.

“It was different,” he answered. “With your own parents you take things for granted, but with someone else you have to form a relationship, understand them and listen to what is being said. You stop dreaming.....and become more practical.”

“You missed your own parents,” Peter asked.

Kozinsky hesitated before answering. Then said,

“I was with my foster parents for 13 years, then I got married and moved away. I was permitted to visit my own parents after that.”

He continued after a pause. “Well....I had thought....okay, I was a little different....but my parents didn't seem to mind that I had become a little distant....I was surprised by that.”

Peter was taping the conversation for his notes. He checked the recorder to see if it was still running.

“Did the separation stop the illness in the village?” he asked.

“It's hard to say.” Kozinsky replied. “Eventually, the illness abated.” Then after a pause said, “ my father recovered.”

“Is there something you want to pass on to Neela. I'm seeing him again when I return.”
Kozinsky smiled before replying.

“Tell him not to be naughty with all the pretty girls in the city,” he said.

There were sitting on a bench at the back of Kozinsky's stone house. Beyond the house was the farm with rows of long beans, tomatoes and cucumber. Down the slope from where they were standing, the river ran haphazardly among the rocks. In the distance, the snow peaked mountains stood cold and bold in the noon day sun.

Peter took some snapshots. He thanked Kozinsky and made his way to the Shaman's house.



Chapter 5 Institutionalized mumbo jumbo


Peter caught the shaman just as he was leaving the house. He introduced himself.

“I have to pick up some herbs in the hills,” he informed. “We can walk together.”

They walked down a slope to the river. He indicated that they would have to cross it. He warned Peter that the rocks were very slippery and to step carefully. Picking up a sturdy branch from the ground, he handed it to Peter, to be used as a support.

It occurred to Peter as he walked over the stones, with the water gushing and rushing around him, that a man needed to hold on to something, even if that was the views of another. We receive from others their perceptions, and bring our cherish to it, as a support for our early selves.

“The village is like the mind of a person,” he answered in response to Peter's inquiries.”Each family and household plays a role and function in relation to the whole.”

They climbed up an incline above the river and then walked north.

“Neela and Kozinsky are like the goat and the bear. Neela is naïve because he has a bigger friend to protect him. He becomes completely secure in his feelings. Kozinsky on the other hand is all brawn and relies on Neela to inspire him to do things. Together, it represents what the human condition is and is representative of relations in the village.”

He stopped to examine a plant, plucked some leaves, wrapped it in a paper and placed it in a satchel he carried.

“But while adults bring some moderation to their relations, in the case of young boys, they mix without limits and create a temptation for the adults to do so.”

They had climbed to a ridge and walked along its crest. The view around them was panoramic. The shaman continued to pluck on leaves.

“Out here, our people rely on their relationship with god in all matters. What we have relied upon all this time is the knowledge handed down to us through the generations. But it is a changing experience and every new generation brings something new to it.”

Peter cut in.

“This knowledge has obviously gone through many changes?”

“Of course,” he replied.

They stopped to rest on some rocks. They viewed the village in the valley below them. It was shrouded in the afternoon mist.

“Is there a religious doctrine to the practice?” Peter asked.

The shaman paused to think then replied,

“We pray to Kaliama, the goddess. She is the village deity.”

Kaliama, as one of the consorts of Siva, is the experience of the fierce female aspect. Her worship is especially prominent in Kolkata, India, where her devotees are known to undergo severe penances, as a way of regulating the mind and body desires.

“So its a combination of your father's knowledge and the influence of the goddess?”

He was hesitant about replying, then said slowly,

“As a human we are a part of the world. In cave dwelling times, we were not consciously directing the path of our lives. It was undertaken by a force in us that is a combination of our mind and passions.It is like the relations we have with our mothers. As we became civilized, we learnt to take over that function. It is a very dangerous undertaking and should only be done with a guru in these matters.”

“Its a mix then,” offered Peter, referring to the several hats we wear in our lives.

“That may be so,” he replied, “ but introducing the human knowledge of the world to the originally existing experience of the mother, is a very delicate business. A man must be mindful of the separate qualities of the original mother, the divine and the human. This is the trident and the practice of the trinity.”

Peter reflected on his own relations with the wife and couldn't help feeling a sense of association with the idea.

“So the separation of the two boys healed the village?” he pressed on.

“You see,” began the shaman slowly, “ when the spirit of the goddess is guiding us, we learnt to obey its dictates and stayed stable in our lives. But man has the ability to learn and each age brings a new craving to advance our knowledge of ourselves. So there is some pushing and shoving between the human and the mother as the originally existing power of self regulation.”

He continued uninterrupted.

“When the mother was guiding us, the illness only took place with the cows and the other animals. But as we take on more of that by ourselves, our minds are coming into the management of our impulses and their viral natures. If we are unable to control and manage it, its a cause for great danger to the body and to society.”

Peter listened intently but made no move to raise inquiries.

“In my father's time, we'll slaughter the cows but as man grows in the engagement of the mind, we need solutions that deal with man's understanding of the phenomenon.”

Then very quickly, he added,

“As a young man, I ran away from the village and went up to Srinagar. It was simply too boring here. But after almost 30 years, I finally got some sense into my head and came back to continue my father's work.”

He raised a finger as emphasis,

“Neela will be returning some day. We need more people to understand this phenomenon and to find better ways to deal with the social aspects of our lives, otherwise people will isolate themselves and society will come to a standstill.”

Peter couldn't help smiling. Neela would probably have run away himself, but the banishment made it official.

“You may inform Neela that he is free to return. That is, when he has learnt that it is not about forgiving us for what we did to him but to understand what we did.”



Chapter 6 Satsang


Peter returned to New Delhi. He sent out an e-mail to Charles at UNESCO on his choice of selection of the case study subjects.

Indian legends on the role of the mother as self regulator was presented in several different versions of man's evolving experience. There was little Krishna and his brother Balram in the paradise of Brindavan. Then as he grew, it became the legend of the teenager, Krishna and the gopis. This further developed into the legend of Govardana hill where Krishna persuaded the common man to rebel against King Indra, who was King and god to the people. All these legends carry a dream like quality to their experience.

This last event may have caused the fall of Krishna on account of the powerful storm that King Indra sent to destroy the livelihood of the people at Govardana. He loses his dream sensation of experiences and brings himself to a greater experience of reality.

In rising from the fall, Krishna cultivates himself as a man in a physical environment. He takes his reformist attitude to Madurai where in an encounter with the King of Madurai, Kamsa, he kills the king and brings back Kamsa's father, Ugrasena to the throne. Kamsa represents the self serving attitude in man. This commences his understanding of the world where he becomes familiar with greater forces at work in the environment.

He comes to meet the empire of the Pandavas, as the group that broke away from the Indus valley and set up a new home in the Ganges. Historically, this represents the Magadha empire in eastern India. As they grew, their outlook on life, took on a greater physical nature than the practices of the people in the Indus valley. This caused certain ideological differences.

In the Mahabaratha war that followed, the Pandavas defeat the Kauravas from the Indus and establish a new sampradaya in India's history. The new outlook creates an emphasis on the physical nature of man's experiences. In some respects, this represents the Kaliama-Hyacinth schism, causing an exodus of the Bactrian population in western India, to travel further west.

In the last and final legend, Sri Krishna is depicted as the householder in the world, engaging his two loves, both the east and the west in the form of two wives and trying to bring a reconciliation of the two in his individual understanding of himself.

Peter identified Neela in the depiction of the early experiences, up to the Mahabaratha war. Thereafter, he identified Chandra, one of the Swamys recommended by the university. But in the final part, he saw a need to go back to Neela as the return to the household life.

Charles's reply was succinct.

“Excellent suggestion and scope of study. Am pleased to approve the same.”

Peter arranged to meet Chandra the following day. The ashram that was run by Swamy Chandra Segara Raja Megam was located in the north eastern part of the city. It comprised a double-storey bungalow, in a quiet neighborhood, with a large hall for satsang gatherings, meditation rooms, a dining area, kitchen and a dormitory.

The bungalow was surrounded by a garden on all sides.

He met the Swamy in the hall. Swamy was as usual surrounded by the company of students undergoing apprenticeship.

“All divisions are falsely imagined,” the Swamy said in response to Peter. “We experience a split from ourselves for many reasons. There is of course the gender issue. It is the basis of all divisions. Thereafter, the individual experiences a division between himself and another on account of color. Then there is the division between living and non-living, animate and inanimate, knowledge and ignorance, good and bad and finally this adds up to the experience of the individual and the world.”

“What constitutes this division?” Peter asked.

“A man's will,” he replied. “We have to divide the world in order to relate to it, thereafter the division becomes unbearable and we seek ways to reunite.”

“How would you describe your attainment of your understanding?” Peter continued.

The Swamy paused to consider.

“I grew up here in New Delhi. My father was a practicing priest in the temple. I never had a normal childhood....just being a child.” He paused before continuing, “I was a bit rebellious in my teens and my father decided to leave me to my own devices. I took up a job as a teacher and never wanted anything to do with my father.”

He paused to recall the details.

“Slowly, I came into my own and realized the person I was. The divisions caused in me were on account of my family reputation and the preservation of the truth that my father represented. But in overcoming that, I realized that there were natural divisions in society that was founded on a whole lot of other matters. So I spent my time understanding the cause of divisions.”

He smiled before continuing.

“If a man spent a lifetime questioning something, it is bound to reveal the answers to him sooner or later. So I came to see the divisions as a play between the innamai and the mahimai, two principles that represent self and the world. In a simple view, that's all there is, but to persuade the mind of its truth, one has to live the tenets in life, apply it in our daily activities before the mind accepts them as true.”

“Swamy, the satsang,” one of the students called out.

“Oh yes,” he corrected himself, “ in the early experiences of the understanding, one engages food, relationships, work and of course songs as a medium to affirm one's understanding. This is undertaken in a controlled environment, such as this ashram. But beyond that we encourage the student to leave, take a job outside for at least two years, and allow the environment to affirm that knowledge.”

“This is the experience of the Mahabaratha?” Peter asked.

“Certainly,” the Swamy affirmed. “It's a play of the mind.”

“Are your students able to go home to their families?” Peter asked.

“The family environment is still too complicated for the student,” he advised. “Where it involves women and children, the student offers to them his own experience of the female and the child. Thereafter, in a male student, he is left with the male identity, but they view the family with a deep personal sense and this sometimes leads to break ups.”

Before Peter could respond, the Swamy suddenly perked up and said,

“The family is of course the final exercise in the growth of the student, but no guru can tell you what to do there. It is at the will of the jivan or the creative force of the universe.”


Chapter 7 Peter and the wolf


Peter read the bedtime story, ' Peter and the wolf ' to the children and put them to sleep. He came downstairs and went into the study. After the first few months of data collection, he had written the first draft.

He poured himself a brandy and took a sip before resting on the easy chair. Diane came in to join him after finishing up in the kitchen. He poured her a glass.

“It's not complete,” she suggested.

He nodded. He absolutely loved the insights she brought to their discussions.

“If the innamorata and the mahimorata are engaged in a play, like the Indian experience of ' Leela,' at some point it is going to break down and turn into a dream-like experience in the mind without any relation to life.”

Peter agreed.

“The Indian handles it in two ways. One is to engage it like a householder, identify himself as the mahimorata and the wife the innamorata. It is quite a love affair.”

He shifted in his chair.

“The second is to handle it as an individual innamorata in relation to the world as the mahimorata.”

'They have to relate it to the environment. There must be a physical relation and bodily contact,” she surmised.

“The scheme is at best stable in an actual household between the husband and wife. The swamy is undertaking something quite unusual. As the mahimorata, he is deifying the innamorata as the wife. That experience of the wife is idolized as divinity. It is the same scheme in the temple. The priest is in a sense the mahimorata and the idol of the goddess, the innamorata.”

Diane listened intently. Coming from a country where the men are Tzars, she related to it as the innamorata, while she saw herself as the mahimorata.

“Why is it formed in stone in the temple?” she asked.

Peter pursed his lips in thought and then answered,

“It's not yet trained, in the mind of the individual.”

Diane looked at him curiously. She hesitated for a moment, but decided to press ahead.
“What is she being trained for,” she asked.

Peter finished his drink and got up to fill the glass. She gestured that she was fine.

“It is an awesome responsibility for someone to take on a role of knowing everything and to draw from there, that which is useful in a particular situation. The innamorata goes into a faint....at least that's what Neela thinks.”

“But the human condition is to learn it for himself, is he not?”

“Well, both the Swamy and Neela seem to think that it takes place in stages over many lives. Each time, the experience gets a bit more difficult and then they are finally left to their own devices, to define, cultivate and live the truth that they themselves create.”

“You mean the lives of people in the world.”

“Yes,” Peter said, cautiously, “ a Russian today, an Arab the next, Scandinavian, European, American, African, Chinese and then back to being Indian where they will collate all these past lives and learn from them.”

He continued as if in a trance.

“Each time, it is a little different. It may start with a dream-like experience, or it may engage the physical body, then possibly in terms of sense perceptions and finally in physical living experience.”

They stared at each other and didn't say anything for a few minutes.

“Wasn't it Shakespeare in 'Hamlet' who said there are more things in heaven than in our imagination?” Peter asked rhetorically.

“So how far are you going with this?” she asked.

“Well,Neela is a senior to the Swamy. For the Swamy, its him and the idol of the goddess as the inner wife, for Neela it's the individual and the world.”

“Real life husband and wife?” she asked.

“That may be us,” he replied, smiling.

She thought about it for a moment.

“That might mean, for the west it is a relationship between lovers.” she pronounced from her own insight.

“That's hardly surprising,” he responded. “How did they get from a decadent society to a paradise for lovers?” he asked.

“When we got democracy,” she answered.


Chapter 8 In the service of secrecy


The next day, at the university, Peter received a surprise visitor.

“Bob Mulberry,” he introduced himself, “I'm the cultural attache at the American Embassy.”

“I've cleared it with Charles Mohan,” Bob continued. “You should be getting a call from him anytime now.”

Peter waved him to the sofa area. Just then, the phone rang.

“Peter Kurgan.”

“Hi,” it was Charles. “I'm sorry I didn't get in touch with you earlier,” he apologized. “It's the usual rules with the Americans.”

“Quite all right,” Peter responded, “ he's here.”

“Bob's specific interests is with the case study on Neela,” he announced. “They're creating a profile on the soldier and terrorist types. We will be providing a copy of the final report to the American government, so a little cooperation at this stage should be all right. Bob's a former student of mine.”

Peter gaped in surprise. Then turning away from Bob, he whispered,

“It is the CIA?” he asked.

There was a pause, then Charles said, “ Peter, stay focused on our part in this. It can get awfully confusing stepping into areas that don't concern us.”

“Will do,” Peter responded.

“Incidentally,” Charles began, “ I've been going over the draft of your report. I think it needs more input on the case study subjects.”

“I'll work on it,” Peter responded.

They hung up.

“We're profiling the personality of the fighting man in the northern parts,” he began. “We'll be grateful for any help we can get.”

Peter looked at his notes and reported,

“It fits the scenario of the holy jihad,” he said. “The individual is not only perceived as fighting an evil, but for his mental health and society. There is an element of faith that has grown in connection with the experience, but we don't have information on that.”

Bob took out a recorder and gestured to Peter. Peter gestured to say its all right.

“From our records we believe that they are experiencing a dual world view. Is that correct?”

“From what we recorded of the people in the Upper Ganges, I'll say that is incorrect. There are two distinct racial groups, the Mongol and the Indian type. Our observation led us to believe that they are too close for their own good and have to be pried apart from time to time.”

“This is in …..,” Bob trailed off.

“The Nanda district,” Peter replied, “ the village of Nanda Puram.”

“Is there any way we can co-relate that to the situation in the middle-east?” Bob asked.

“There's some literature on early Jerusalem,” Peter began, “ the same situation essentially....Soddom and Gomorrah are indications of a self serving situation between the inna and the mahimorata.”

“So the continuous conflict keeps the place healthy?”

“I might be able to shine some light on the inner conflict,” Peter said, “its an impossible situation for the management of the mind. The Indian guru, Vasudeva, referred to his own vision of life in those parts, as a constant battle. Jesus attempted a doctrine of loving thy neighbor and they rejected that completely.”

Bob nodded.

“Is there some way that the situation may be managed?” he asked.

“Well, the prognosis is simply this.....,” Peter used his hands to explain. “The Mahimorata first creates an influence on the mind and induces the innamorata to follow. This produces a child who is entirely in love with the world. However, when the individual grows up, two different aspects takes place. On Judah's side, they maintain the child-like impressions of the world. On the Palestinian side, they diminish the Mahimorata effect and recultivate the innamorata to take the lead and to induce the mahimorata to follow.”

“But that's to get the world to do what you want,” Bob said.

“It depends on your perspective,” Peter responded. “The inclination to draw the mahimorata into the innamorata is a normal event in the lives of individuals. However, they must complete the exercise. Sadly, the crossover creates an overlap of issues that are very difficult to discern and causes an aggravation on the innamorata.”

“They have to go into the wilderness,” Bob suggested.

“That's absolutely right,” Peter responded. “Christ took himself to the wilderness but his message to a community that is still subject to aggravation, was received poorly. An individual undertaking the exercise must keep his understanding to himself. Mohamed succeeded in avoiding any image of himself and formed his message to the individual. To some extent that has been stable.”

“So any idea of a union between opposite impulses is an awareness for the individual and is not to be preached as a social achievement?”

“That would be about the size of it,” Peter agreed. “Each individual has to create the realization himself.” Then after a pause added, “It is the standard psyche experience of any adult individual. Our internal views are as an individual self. Our external relations are guided by the physical nature of the world and comprise our social self. The two are not the same.”

“Is there a time when such a practice of union may be possible?”

“Its my impression that when every single individual creates this realization, we may refer to a world community in a homogeneous expression of the meaning. Such would be the one society of the world, but not till then.”


Chapter 9 The trial


Neela finished checking on the chores and returned to the lobby of the hotel. The hotel had twenty rooms and a kitchen that only catered for breakfast and tea sessions. He had employed 4 staff members who catered to the housekeeping and kitchen duties.

Neela undertook the gardening himself. It was great therapy on his mind to be constantly engaged in something that was growing.

In the first ten years of his arrival in Srinagar, he was in a deep melancholy and depression. For starters, he was in a new place. The experience of the urbanized environment totally changed his outlook. It forced him to confront himself as the object of his pre-occupation and forced him to create an account of his actions. These were entirely new experiences to him.

But most of all, he missed being in charge, in the way that he was master of the landscape and environment. He used to be one with everything, here in the city he was just another individual in search of a job and survival.

He found a job in a shoe factory. However, the loss of the exclusive nature that he experienced, being a one of a kind person in the village, was lost and it caused pain in his feelings. He resolved to recover it and that caused him further anguish.

Finally, after two years of coming to Srinagar, he gave up trying to hold on to the past. It brought to him a moment of epiphany, that followed a nervous breakdown. In it, he saw himself as a person who has been trying to conquer the world in some way and have it move according to his will. Where this appeared as the main desire in his feelings, it caused him great anguish to think that he was totally unrealistic bout his expectations.

He suppressed these feelings with the shock of the realization. His mind became a total blank. Thereafter he created an absolute acquiescence to all matters around him, learning to identify the priorities and creating a focus of attention to them.

In the years that followed, as he grew to understand his condition and the environment around him, he realized that it wasn't that hard to follow a routine and anticipate people's needs around him. He applied himself to his self management like a method.

Work helped him create a focus. Beyond that his mind was like a storm that raged daily in respect of his past fondness of issues. He heard the other workers speak of their ambition to join the monastery some day. He heard them refer to za-zen, or the practice of ' sitting-just-to-sit ' as a way of controlling the storms in the mind.

He figured he might try it at home. Each day, before he went to sleep, he would spend an hour just leaving the mind alone, instead of imposing on it the usual imperatives. Eventually, he moved it to review the events of the day. As he reviewed his actions for each day, he formed an understanding of the basis for each action and engaged that as a guide. Soon he found his condition less catatonic and given to a mellowing of his manner.

In time, he came to settle down and the high acidic nature of his condition, lessened. Some years later, at thirty-two years of age he married a girl, his aunt and uncle had match made.

With the dowry received from his in-laws and the savings he had accumulated, he took over the the hotel, with an understanding to pay the balance in monthly installments. He undertook some renovations to the place and soon was wooing the backpackers back.

His marriage opened his eyes to the world of sexual pleasure, which was till then, kept in denial in him. They had one daughter.

The imperatives of the culture struck again. The wife could not bring herself to live in a hotel environment, with references to the impressions of her virtue. She took the daughter and went back to her mother's house. Neela would visit them once a month and paid for their upkeep.

He grew acclimatized to his life in the hotel and awoke one morning to the awareness of a curious new habit he had formed. The hotel was his door to the world. Through his customers, his dreaming mind returned, as every encounter with a customer raised his curiosity about the world.

He related to the way they looked, their dressing, attitudes, speech, tone of voice and the general demeanor of their behavior. It brought a curious contact with his own latent impulses, in the melancholic brew of his being. In it, he pursued each impulse to the very end, be it through feelings, thoughts, joys and sorrows, the rational and the overall feel of the world experience, each customer brought to him.

This had the effect of lifting the dementia his mind was in. He combined this with the programs on satellite TV and came to recover the experience of the world that was abruptly taken from him when young. He was rediscovering the world, with himself in it.

As the active nature of his thoughts grew, he frequented the second and bookshop in town and borrowed books for a small payment. The collection in the shop was quite considerable as many of the tourists will dump their books there after reading instead of having to carry it back again.

He found quite a treasure in the literature. It occurred to him that he was rebuilding his own life with his own thoughts and understanding. Fearful that he might go into a deviation, he visited the Kaliama temple, that was close by, and brought himself to view her as the force that determined all that took place in his life.

In coming into contact with Peter, he was reminded again of his childhood friend, Kozinsky. Peter had spent about three months, in Srinagar, all together, documenting Neela's childhood and growing experience.

It gave Neela the opportunity to view himself in the process and he engaged the inquiries, Peter made, as a way to rout out the hidden impulses in him.

He had been curious about how this compared with Peter's own experiences, but Peter created an avoidance of the issues. However, he ventured to say that he preferred a picture based account of describing such experiences, instead of referring to them in the physical.

He referred to Neela's experiences as beginning with a disagreement with the ' King of Nanda Puram.' Thereafter, Neela was banished, where he grew up alone and was forced to provide for himself. In the adventures that followed, Neela fought a huge monster of the city, lived with wolves in the shoe factory, wrestled a great big snake when he got married, and thereafter, was the great guru of the Himalayas with the many tourists who stayed there.

Neela laughed uproariously.

“Actually, half the time I was imagining all these things, myself,” he responded, “ except I was using American movies to do it with.”

They laughed together.

Peter was reminded of his own upbringing. His powerful experience of his aspirations were forced to go underground after the fall of the Soviet Union. In its place, he was learning to view himself, not as the world, but as one nation among many in a family of nations in the world.


Chapter 10 Karma


Swamy Chandra grew up secluded in a Brahmin community in New Delhi. As a young boy he came to be exposed to the world of ritualization.

Every action that he took was in accordance with certain rites and customs. To pluck a fruit from a tree, involved first, affirming the intention to do so, thereafter, to relate to the tree as another living entity in the world, to create cognition of the fact that the tree's nature is to give off its produce, thereafter, in consuming the fruit, the mind comes to a grasp the qualities consistent with the flavors of the tree, which is then applied to life, the results of which are related to all of one's past actions.

In such a rigid upbringing, Chandra had found it intolerable and ran away. He had figured that it wasn't necessary to place so much emphasis on intent. In Srinagar, he took the fruit from the tree, out of a mere sense of want. Thereafter, he had difficulties trying to account for his actions and behavior. It was only after he undertook his vows and took to the training of a Brahmin priest did he come to realize the consequences of each action that we perform.

“In much the same way,” his father had taught him,” our lives as barbarians in uncivil societies of the past, involved us in many actions that was not integrated with the understanding of the mind. In these times, we get an opportunity to atone for these past ignorance and re-cultivate our behavior. In all our actions today, we encounter the results of past actions. This is karma.”

“I spent two years living the life of a sadhu,” he told Peter. “In that experience I realized that opposites exist for a good reason. It is a man's life's work to reconcile these opposites in a from in which they represent a stable experience in the individual.”

“How do you view opposites today?” Peter asked.

“Our lives are one,” he began.” but on account of our physical natures, we come to view ourselves in the duality. There are many ways in which we do this.”

He paused to consider and then continued,

“To a lover it is the company of the beloved, to a man in rage it is the enemy, to a husband it is the wife, to a businessman it is the competition, to a politician it is the opposition party....these are the ways that we represent the opposites in our lives.”

He paused to look at Peter,

“But each of these actions are related to each other. Take the man in rage....it is his actions that have caused his enemy to fall....now he is obliged to help the other rise again....when he has done that, the risen individual now works with him for them to maintain a stability in their relationship. In doing so they are representing their understanding of their oneness, for a person will never be at peace until they come to experience an equality with all.”

Again he paused, while Peter considered the view.

“If you know this in the heart of the soul, then your perception can only be represented by a sense of irony regarding your actions in the world. Even when you speak of it, it can only be spoken of, rhetorically.”

“So when a person meets with resistance in the performance of actions, his understanding of opposites will....” Peter trailed off, letting the Swamy finish.

“Your actions begin with an understanding of their correct initiative. When a resistance rises, you'll know the source of the resistance and its proper place in the conduct of your actions. But to do that, you need the correct understanding of who you are, your role, identity and your place at that moment in time. Then the principle of the one will intimate to you the response you ought to take regarding the resistance.”

“ That could mean redirecting the other person, creating a solution for him or destroying him all together?”

“Certainly,” said the Swamy.

“Then this sense of the one represents our will?” Peter asked.

“No, not quite,” the Swamy answered. “ Life exists in several forms in all of creation, such as matter, trees and plants, animals, man and the gods. Certainly such a will will be representative of all or a part thereof at any one time.”

“How would a man who understands this, respond to the world?”

“Well, he would relate to them as the five major divisions in the world, each representing one aspect of the creative force.”

“Is there any corroborative evidence to support these?”

“My learning is not yet complete,” the Swamy replied. “But if you wished to identify these in the average man, you could refer to the ' Sanatana Dharma ' policy of India, where they profess to treat all as equals. Or you could look at the ' Pancha Tantra ' policy of Indonesia, that views the world as five qualities. China's policy, though not religious, refers to their practice of the ' Tao ' as pervading all things in life.”

Peter paused to review the notes he was taking.

“What would be the advancement of your own practice?” he asked.

The Swamy appeared thoughtful and then with a frown said,

“I would have to recreate myself, beyond that which nature has accomplished in me, to-date. I have to come to view myself as a co-creator, seriously, and to understand the part I will play in the continued evolution of the human experience.”

He continued,

“It appears to me that nature has to-date been borrowing from the mind of man and engaging the qualities of the heart to guide us in our evolutionary endeavor. However, we have not yet come to the full use of our minds. Some day we'll have to do that.”

Peter sat motionless for a while. Then said,

“What does a spiritual aspirant experience in the search for knowledge and understanding?”

“It is to find the door or threshold,” he said, “ in the Indian vernacular, the word for threshold is ' Vasel.' When you pass that door, you'll find yourself in a great big sea. The sea will open your eyes to everything your mind has observed from the day the stars were born. These are stored in a special part of the mind. It is for you to make sense of everything that it presents to you as part of your life's experience since your creation. If you fail this time, you'll continue the work in another life, until you get it right.”

“The Vasellian sea,” whispered Peter.

“You may call it that,” replied the Swamy. “For the west that might mean going back to their previous experience of the flood and to apply their understanding to it again.”


Chapter 11 The eagle lands


“It's like life came down from the mountains and settled down in the plains,” Susan said. “It broke up into two groups, with one group going west and another to the east.”

“We may have a case for world heritage then?” Irina asked.

“Absolutely,” replied Charles.

“We have already gazetted the Altay range as heritage, on account of its biodiversity,” Peter informed.

Irina nodded.

“Okay,” she gestured,” my usual rules, don't give me your scientific jargon.....just an overall view.....say it in simple words. What does this tell us about man's heritage?” She looked at Charles.

“The human archetype may have begun in primate behavior in the Carparthian mountains in the Ukraine,” he began tentatively.

“This is Susan's report?” Irina asked.

Charles nodded to affirm. He then continued.

“Then a Neela-Kozinsky divide occurred. We think that might have occurred in the ancient Anatolia experience. They both then went their separate ways.” He paused, “Then we don't know what happened. There is no scientific basis for the reincarnation of souls. But what we think happened is that, the soul of the life sought greater and greater ways to improve on itself. To do that it evolved through a series of rebirths, congruent with its advancing experiences.”

Irina lit up a cigarette. Charles did the same.

“The folks who went west, recorded their histories and drew from there, the archetypical identity of themselves. We think at this time, that such an identity was founded on the basis of the hero of the story.”

“This might explain the Greek tragedy of the hero, who inevitably falls,” Susan added.

“The life force travels around the world, taking on different bodies. But more than reaching the zenith of its experience, it wanted to know of itself. We find this in the folks from the east, who similarly recorded their experiences in legends.”

Peter moved to contribute.

“The effect of relating to cast characters in the legends, stimulated the experience as an impulse but did not bring the identity to ground level. So a blacksmith was still a blacksmith, despite the fact that his internal image portrayed him as a Herakles from the legends.”

“So that evolved the divinity experience?” Irina suggested.

“Certainly, it is one such possibility to arise from the experience. So while the East set up the Krishna phenomenon, the west set up Troy. Both experiences fell thereafter on account of the basis of the identity.” Charles spoke with deliberated manner.

He continued.

“We think the two experiences occurred between the years 1,500 bc to 500 bc. Thereafter, the original experience that produced the human archetype, went into a more forceful Neela-Kozinsky split. In that it produced the Jesus and Mohamed phenomenon, about 500 years apart from each other. We think there was a particular ferociousness in the wars that were fought between 500 bce and 1500 bce. Its purpose was to create a greater separation of the experiences of the mahimorata and the innamorata.”

“There are both one, but at the same time are different,” Peter offered.

Susan looked over her notes, before commenting,

“There's evidence of a continuing culture of separation in the area around the Black Sea, in the southern Ukraine. The intensity of experience in groups causes divisions and these get taken up later in the political causes of the regions. So we looked at the nations around the Black Sea area and identified Romania, as the continuing male archetype and Bulgaria as the female archetype.”

“These are indicative of the nature of relations between man and woman,” Charles offered.

Susan nodded.

“On the eastern board, Georgia continues to identify itself with St. George, the dragon slayer, while Armenia, represents itself as the Griffin, an early symbol of that which has evolved into the symbol of the dragon.”

“Meaning that gender relations in the west are more indicative of a social nature, while the same in the east is indicative of greater individualization.” Charles elaborated on the issue.

“But its indicative of a variety of such experiences, not especially archetypical?” Irina asked after some consideration.

“That would be right,” Charles affirmed. “We think that the faith introduced by Mohamed, seeks to find the center of these experiences, but they are obviously shared with its natural opposite, the Christian practice. Where it might be possible to bring a bridge to their experiences, we might see the impact of that in the Crimea, which we think holds the key to the union.”

“We think in some way that might already be existing in the experiences of the people in the Crimea and the Ukraine,” Susan offered, “ but we will need corroborative data to support that view.”

“That would explain the international interests in the Crimea, all those years,” Irina echoed.

“Virtually every major foreign power has had a hand in the history of the Crimea,” Susan reported.

“Are the case studies helping us to support any of these views,” Irina asked Charles.

“The experiences are as yet incomplete,” Charles reported. “For a complete sense of understanding, of one man's identity to the world, our two subjects must come to identify themselves as related to the dream of the Crimea.”

“And that is?” Irina asked.

“The experience of the most high. The Russians have until recently referred to it as the Tsar,” Charles responded. “It's drawn from the early experiences of Assyur, Ishtar or Indra.”

“It is possible to make an assessment as to whether they will advance to that identity in the future,” Peter offered.

“How much more time do you need?” Irina asked. “ We need more corroborative support from Crimea and the assessment on the case study subjects.”

“Three to five months,” suggested Charles.

“You've got it,” Irina replied, standing up and going back to her table. “ I will need a predictive quality from the results. I'll need to know why there was a war for 30 years in Sri Lanka or whether there is going to be a new hotspot in Africa?”

“We can come close,” offered Charles.

“Get on with it,” Irina suggested, her mind already elsewhere on the issues.


Chapter 12 Not connected to number one


“We'll need a social attitudes survey in the Crimea,” Susan suggested.

“Anything else?” Charles offered.

“Cultural stuff...artifacts, legends, music, songs.....”and then added, “ food.” She smiled in memory of their previous study in the Appalachia.

They entered his room and occupied the sofa. Charles checked his phone messages before joining them.

“Peter?” he inquired, in reference to supplementary work.

“Device a test for Neela and Chandra,” he suggested. “I'm certain they have not created an identity to the mahimorata in the physical way that we might ascribe a historical and geographical reference. I mean this is like knowing where your soul has been before?” He seemed incredulous.

“We can't dismiss any possibility on account of the fact that we have not come across it before,” Charles offered. “ Its a new world. It would need new approaches.”

“Okay,” Peter suggested. “Both of them have indicated that they need to continue with their studies. Chandra refers to the return to the family as the next great achievement. Neela plans to return to his village and settle in. We could use that.”

“Perfect,” Charles responded. “Go with it. We got three months.”

“What's your take of the Crimea?” Susan asked. “ What do you expect we will find?”

“It's what Peter found in Chandra's self management.... irony. We'll need to bring that out and identify it in their relations.” Then on an after thought added, “I was thinking of the comment Peter made about the goat and the bear.....”

“The shaman,” Peter corrected him.

“That's right,” Charles affirmed,” what's a mythical beast that's a cross between a goat and a bear?”

“A bear with horns,” Susan suggested.

“On hoofs,” Peter added.

“A satyr?” Charles inquired. “ Bears are known to hibernate....is a satyr in the process of experiencing a metamorphosis?”

“Curious,” said Susan.

“How are you going to explain the Sri Lankan civil war?” he asked, changing the subject.

“I'm not going to do that, you are,” he referred to Peter.




Susan let out a soft shriek when she saw Bob waiting at the restaurant. He kissed her on the cheek.

“Why didn't you tell me?” she turned to Charles.

“Bob's got me on ice as far as saying anything about him and what he does,” Charles responded.

Peter greeted Bob stiffly, like a representative of a foreign government.

“So what's this about frightening Peter with cloak and dagger stuff,” she asked Bob when they sat down.

“I can't have my inquiries connected to number one. You know what I mean,” he persuaded.

Peter staged a 'shut-off ' knowing that he was not included in the conversation.

They placed their orders and returned to the conversation.

“How's the profiling?” Susan asked.

“I don't have enough to go on,” he pleaded.

“We need a golden scarab,” Charles offered.

“A what...?” Bob intoned.

Susan looked surprised.

“I'm sorry Peter,” Charles apologized. “ This is something from our past.”

“Not a problem,” Peter answered, wondering about the excitement.

So Charles began with how they had been working on the Algonquin project to bring Peter up to chase. Then he told them about discovering the scarab.

Susan gaped deliberately in surprise.

Bob shook his head.

“I swear Charles, you keep doing stuff like that and someday I'm going to shoot you myself.”

“So that confirmed it,” she blurted excitedly.

They sat in silence for a while.

“They've been digging up gold from the Ukraine for centuries,” she said. “Sometimes in graves that didn't have a body.”

“What,” Peter exclaimed suddenly.

“It's on record,” Susan replied.

“You think they resurrected?” Bob joked.

“Actually there's a far greater seriousness to that,” Charles said mysteriously. “Susan found that in Transylvania.”

“Vampires?” Bob went for it again.

They kept silent.

“Okay, this has gone far enough,” said Bob leaning back, “I'm changing my drink.”

He called the waiter and ordered a whiskey.


Chapter 13 An embroided towel


Peter returned to New Delhi at the end of the week.

Their plan was a simple one. Get Neela back to Nanda Puram for a visit and record the perceptions of his experience. Similarly, get Chandra out of the sanctuary of the ashram, away from the daily ritualization of worship, and record his perceptions.

Peter arranged for the swamy to stay at the University of New Delhi for two weeks, for a series of four events, including a lecture and panel discussion.

In the Ukraine, Susan had suggested studying the lyrics to popular songs as a way of narrowing down the interests of the innamorata. In addition, she had proposed that they identify a writer of children's stories and engage the individual as a case study, to record her perceptions of the mahimorata generated.

Charles had organized all the information they had and put it up on a soft board to view its overall relation. It puzzled him that the Ukraine continued to be center of the consciousness of the world. As the beginning experience, the Ukraine should in natural order grow into a tech based center, where an individual's responses to the world are primarily on auto-pilot, regulated by an active combination of mahi-innamorata.

The distinction for being the balance between the passions and the reason should be a matter of achievement by man, in the way that, that comes to be reflected in the society and the values of the people. It should reflect itself in the knowledge of the individual. That ought to be another location, he figured.

In the 10th. Century, there was a split between the Roman church and the Eastern orthodox church. 500 years later, in the reign of Elizabeth I, England broke away from Rome. In the years following the breakaway, the English civil war distinguished two classes of Protestants. It introduced to the world, the character of the Puritans, who in beheading King Charles I, made the clear comment that a man's faith and knowledge is the product of free will alone and is not influenced by any other.

These are the Puritans who landed at Plymouth rock and met with the Algonquin, and continue to this day, to represent themselves as the leaders of the free world. No doubt the Americans have taken upon themselves to represent to the world the knowledge of who we are, both as individuals and as the world.

His secretary brought in a fax message. It was from Susan in Kiev.

Susan had met with one Nina Sukova, a writer of children's tales. Nina had brought to her attention a song, by the singer Vasily Gerello. His song was entitled, 'Ridna Maty Moya ' and it contained the lyrics,

“Dearest Mother of Mine, you had many sleepless nights
You led me to the fields next to the village
And on my long journey, you saw me off at dawn
And gave me an embroidered towel for luck

I'll take this towel, and unfold it as if destiny
In the quiet, rustling meadows, and chirping oak-woods
And on this little towel, will live the familiar pain
My childhood, separation, and unconditional love”

Nina had also brought to Susan's attention, the tale of ' The Dead Princess and the seven knights,' from the Russian folk tales, which shared its honors  in the Grimm Brothers' tale of ' Snow white and the seven dwarfs.'

In the Ukrainian, the evil archetype was the Tsaritsa, who spoke to her looking glass the words,

“Tell me, pretty looking-glass,
Nothing but the truth, I ask:
Who in all the world is fairest
And has beauty of the rarest?”
And the looking-glass replied:
“You, it cannot be denied.
You in all the world are fairest
And your beauty is the rarest.”

Susan wanted him to confirm if that's the kind of stuff they were looking for. He replied in the affirmative, advising her to follow the trail indicated by the qualities of the Tsaritsa. Look for the ' Snow Queen,' he had advised.

Charles sat down on the sofa in his room. He lit up a cigarette. It was all there, right before his eyes.

His Tamil father had struggled with the idolatry of his female half and eventually came to marry an Irish girl, who reproduced the experience of the idolatry in the form of a positive, beautiful woman, with whom he shared his life. He was the product of that union.

He had come to understand his nature.

He had originally experienced it as a dream vision in his youth, the way that his attention was constantly drawn to the world and the way, a sense of his identity, floated in it. His awareness was the product of his learning, the way that he combined the knowledge of science with traditional folk understanding.

His thoughts went to his wife and the devotion that he continued to feel for her. After meeting Sunder in college, he had in some way gravitated to Asian girls. When he met his wife, she was an undergraduate. Her parents had migrated to the US from Sri Lanka. He was doing his post graduate studies.

The first years of the marriage was fine. They both pursued their careers and got along great. When the daughter arrived, she quit work to take care of the baby. It was supposed to have been for two years. But she never went back to work again.

The years of being at home changed her.

She had come to expect a greater devotion to the truth about herself. Such a truth, he had found was not mollified with flowers or chocolates or the occasional holiday they spent together. It needed more.

It was as if she played an integral part in the life of the world and she needed to know that. Charles's American attitude of being pragmatic, wasn't enough. They had split up when the daughter was eighteen years of age.

Charles recalled an early Indian legend when Siva's consort, Sakthi, had engaged in a quarrel with her father, the innamorata based progenitor of the human race. Thereafter father and daughter had split up.

She in turn split from Siva and moved into the snowy pastures of the north, where she wiled her hours alone in her thoughts.

We would have to look at the legends of the snow queen again, Charles told himself.


Chapter 14 The face of truth


Neela didn't need much persuasion. When informed that the shaman had approved his return to the village, he had wept. Leaving the hotel in the care of the staff, he had packed up a few things to visit his parents.

The Swamy, on the other hand seemed reticent.

“I have so far only catered to those who come here to dedicate themselves to a personal journey of discovery,” he had said. “My message is something a person must ponder upon. I don't think I can win an argument with it.”

Peter continued to press on. In was in the interest of the Swamy to appreciate fully the mechanics of irony, in his attitude. Besides as Peter pointed out, the outcome of the study was for UNESCO, to better understand the needs of the world's communities.

On the latter issue, the Swamy had responded favourably. But two weeks later, returning from the panel discussion the faculty had organized, he was visibly shaken.

“I have to do several hours of meditation to regain my calm,” he told Peter after they returned to the accommodation the university had provided.

Peter took out the recorder and placed it on the table in front of the Swamy.

“What are your thoughts about the event?” Peter asked.

“Fortunately for me I identify with the need of my community for the role that I represent, otherwise I'll be inclined to think that I'm a charlatan.”

“This is a different crowd from what you are used to,” Peter offered.

“Achah, that's true,” the Swamy responded,” but since the pro-American attitudes have caught on in the world media, the young people today appear to think it might be possible to communicate the most esoteric principles in a simple form.”

“Is that what the world seeks to do....in your opinion?” Peter continued, allowing for the Swamy's gambiratattva nature of the heart to allocate the issues accordingly.

“I can't forget that I was a young man once and I myself had thought that what my father was engaged in was a lot of self delusion....you're right,” he said after a while, “I needed this at this time to reorganize my experiences and place it in a greater context of the world.”

“Is there something you have encountered that is significant?” Peter asked.

“I wish I had the words for it....,” he began, “ the world is in an experience of globalization. What we perceived as symbolic natures before is today coming very quickly to present itself in a physical world experience. The point is, are we ready as a society to understand and to accept them?”

“Is there something in particular, you could refer to?”

“I seem to recall as a child, how the Indians believed that as a society, we were in some way realistic in our experience of the living, but the west appeared to be living a …..fairy tale.....no that's not fair.....that the west was trying to discover true love, in the way we live our lives in the world. I used to think that it was crazy....that it is the stuff of stories.”

“And what do you think of it today?”

“Well...I've had many thoughts of it in the course of my Brahmin training....I came to find that a person cannot live merely with reason and thoughts....that one needed a base of passions that eventually comes to match with reason.”

“Can you match that today?”

“I can't,” he replied, shaking his head, “ it would take a better man than me to do that. My training is in recovering the mind through ritualized practices. A mind, incidentally, which has fallen on account of having followed the path of true love.”

“But to recuperate the mind, you'll have to persuade it that true love exists,” Peter commented.

“Yes, we do that,” he replied, “ but in relation to an iconic or idolized substitute for the object of love. That may be in the form of a dream image, a character in a book, one's parents, an idol that is consecrated for the purpose......and so forth.”

“Is it possible to engage the world as such an object of love?” Peter asked.

“Yes....it is the basis of Dharma.....to view everybody in the world as oneself....,” before he could continue, Peter cut him off.

“As an object of love?”

The Swamy took a while to consider that.

“Yes you can but as the great god of creation.....being careful not to mix that image with one's personal beloved or as man.”

“That may imply another dimension of experience?”

He nodded, his manner had relaxed considerably as he applied himself to expressing what he felt. He looked much better.

“It is the path that lies ahead for my jivan....in a new life....when my life comes to encounter the views I've created in this life a little differently.”

“How....differently?” Peter pressed on.

“My own practice of ritual behavior and irony is suited only to a certain temperament and social times. In another part of the world, at another time, my attitudes would be considered as self gratification or pedantic in nature. At that point, the living individual would feel disposed to destroy all these and re-cultivate anew.”

“Do you see some of that already taking place in the world.”

“I'm certain of it. It would explain the explosive new sense of our social experience today. It seeks to destroy the old and reconstruct a new world.”


Chapter 15 The law of free will


“I beg your pardon, general,” Bob said, “ with due respect to your comment, I think the American experience is, at this time, in a stage of formulating our role in the world. We have been in process, on it, over the years. Our foreign policy aligns itself with such a world view.”

“I appreciate that,” the general replied, “ but we can't wait for the American people to tell us what their world view is. We have to make an assumption that this is what they want us to do.”

“You're referring to the stuff you documented on Guantano Bay?” the State Secretary, inquired.

“Well, its the most damming piece of information we'd had to-date.”

The President and the three of them were at Camp David. They were being treated to a buffet lunch.

“Okay, let me try to put it in a cultural context. The fact that they undertook an unprovoked attack on civilians on our soil.....okay, I'll leave that aside,” General Sanderson continued, “essentially the culture there makes too strong a case for gender identity. Socially, their women are oppressed in favor of the male priority..... .”

Bob cut in.

“It's a little more than that,” Bob said, “what we see is an attempt to interfere with the free will of another individual, but the fact is they undergo a great deal of learning in their culture to do it well. They don't hold a gun on their women. They practice a socially accepted perception of being both the male and the female and allowing for their female understanding to align with the physical responses of their women. It is the teaching of their faith.”

His comment was greeted with a cool silence. Everybody turned to look at the Secretary of State.

“This is very good salmon,” she said diplomatically, to the President, “you catered out.”

“I thought we could do with the change,” the President replied. He rose to refill his plate. “This is why I like having the General around on these chit-chats. It helps me maintain a balance.”

“Thank you Mr. President,” the General called.

“It's simple arithmetic in decision making,” the President said from the buffet table. “We don't yet have our own world view. We rely on studies about everybody else. So when everybody brings their perceptions to bear on us, we have no way of determining if that is true of us. So we reject it. If their perceptions are true they will stick to their guns and in the process convince us of its validity.”

“If I may say so, Mr. President, that is soldier talk,” the General echoed.

“Thank you General,” the President said as he returned to the table. “ And that is the crux of American foreign policy and unless I am mistaken, that is what every red-blooded American is about in their world view.”

“You guys have not touched the venison,” he complained, “ you ought to try it.”

Bob and the General rose to go to the table.

The President continued,

“The world has not always responded with a validation of their views. When you reject something, in the nature of a belief, in someone, their first response is to make up for it, by being agreeable with you. This is the position of the British Empire. They succumbed to the adulation of the world.”

“And the American way is......,” the State Secretary created the lead.

“Cut their balls off....,” he turned to the Secretary, “ if you'll pardon the expression.....and if they are still walking, then you know they've got something real.”

“The Puritans must have seen what that made of Great Britain,” Bob said, as he took his chair. “You start to believe that the whole world endorses what you do.....you don't walk away from that.”

“It is the law of free will,” the President said matter-of-factly. “You live by it and you die by it. And that is how we honor our fallen heroes.....as heroes in a cause.”

“This is great,” said the General, referring to the venison.




“I feel like I've stepped into an abyss,” said Neela. “I don't know how to take the next step.”

“Perhaps you should give it more time,” Peter advised.

They met at Neela's parents home.

“How's Kozinsky?”

Neela smiled.

“As crazy as ever, but he's got kids now, so the responsibility is good for him.”

“Explain crazy?” Peter asked.

Neela was taken aback for a moment, but regained his composure.

“I learnt to take an orderly view of life in Srinagar. We have to compartmentalize the mind, as a discipline, to create a specific relation to each issue we encounter in life. There is just too much going on these days to simply leave everything on the same plate. Kozinsky continues to do that and when I'm talking to him it feels like sitting next to a storm.”

Peter pondered deep into the comment. Then as an afterthought said,

“Somebody I know....well, actually, its my boss at UNESCO.....the way I heard him explain that, is this....he calls it the ' Moulin Rouge.' A moulin is a deep crevice in the snow that is created by melting ice. The French have a curious habit of referring that to the 'yoni' in women. Where it is as frigid as a galcier, the blood vessels on the sides cause an excitation that is carried to the mind and brought into activity in the person. So a woman who disengages from sex may actually have a very active mind.”

Neela considered the point but wondered about the position of Kozinsky or men in general.

“How does that apply to men?” he asked.

“We think it's possible it refers to all manner of crevices,” Peter said casually.

Neela appeared shocked and at a loss for words.

“We don't know,” Peter said quickly in response. “The research has not caught up with us yet. But you can see why we make these assumptions in our studies. We rely on human insight that people like you bring to us by your living experience.”

“So it creates a stimulation on the mind. That's how I recovered from my depression in Srinagar,” Neela gushed in surprise.

“You ought to give it some time,” Peter advised. Then added, “ Gangothri.....that's the ….,”

“The glacier in Nanda East,” Neela interjected. “My father named me after it.”


Chapter 16  Kupalo


“It's the Kupalo,” Nina said. “It's a pagan celebration to affirm life. We weave wreaths and place them in the water with our hopes that we'll meet a nice man in our lives.”

“I'm surprised that you still follow the old traditions so closely,” Susan responded.

“That's what everybody says,” Nina replied. “We've had Christianity and the Soviet rule for years, but our Kupalo is still very much the definition of what we are.”

Then suddenly, as if she remembered something, said, “ Want to hear another song?”

Susan agreed.

“This is Taisiya Povalivy and her hit song ' Two Colors,' “ she said as she inserted the CD into the player.

Susan listened as Nina translated some of the lyrics.

As I was small and was going at spring
To go somewhere by unknown ways
Mother embroiders me a shirt
With black and red
With black and red threads
My two colors, two colors
Both are on the linen, both are in my soul
My two colors, two colors
Red one is love, black one is sorrow,

The song ended and Susan indicated that she'll like a copy of the lyrics to it.

“What was it like under the Soviets?” Susan asked, after they had settled back on the sofas.

“Well, its like half the population will say it was good and another half will condemn it. But Ukrainians have a fondness for strong leadership that is prepared to sweep away some of the old ways and introduce an orderly society.”

“Is that important to you?” Susan took out her recorder and gestured for permission. Nina didn't object.

“The average Ukrainian has a musical soul. For a long time, people viewed their bodies like a ' kobza,' its like a lute. The practice was made famous by a Ukrainian Cossack named Mamay, who's like a father of the Ukrainian soul. But it is very difficult to manage and sometimes we go through long periods of being blocked up in our expressions. That's why many people prefer the orderly way of doing things.”

“And what about the people who don't subscribe to order?”

“That's the Kupalo. It's always a part of what we are.”

“So that is why you write children's stories with references to wicca,” Susan surmised. “ It is a revival isn't it, after the Soviet rule?”

“It's not so popular now, not after Hans Christian and the Grimm brothers, but I think it will catch on. We are a simple people, not like the Germans who produced great thinkers. We need something simple, so we explain it as magic. I don't think anybody can explain the Ukrainian soul any other way.”

Susan suddenly recalled her encounter in Transylvania. Excitedly she asked,

“I met this strange man in Transylvania for an interview. We were researching male archetypes. He sat on the chair with his neck arched backwards and every time, he spoke his teeth would protrude from his mouth.”

Nina laughed,

“Count Dracula,” she said, with a throaty accentuation on the name. “The doctors here call it meningitis, which is a condition affecting children and sometimes adults. Well, there's where the problem is. Medical science will do a brain scan and scare you half to death. In pagan practices, we treat that with a garlic and vinegar based ointment that we consume on a daily basis to keep it under control.”

“And it works?” Susan sounded surprised.

“You'll have to come under the care of a fully trained herbalist,” she responded, “ and there's no cure for it as such, its like a lifestyle thing. If you can avoid stressful conditions, it's good.”

Susan turned again to her notes.

“Is there a revival of nazism in the Ukraine?” Susan asked.

“Just games that boys play,” Nina said with dismissal. “They miss the Tsar who makes everything right. I mean, I wish it was true. It'll be great to meet a real man for a change, but it's a re-cultivation of the old principles of chivalry and courage. It will take time to grow.”

“Okay, one last question. Are there satyrs in Ukrainian folk tales?”

“That's in older times. There are satyrs and chimeras adorning the Massandra palace walls in the Crimea.”

Susan returned to the hotel and sent off a fax to Charles with a summary of the salient points. She pointed out that she hadn't handled case studies before and wasn't sure whether the material from Nina was sufficient. She requested for advice.

An hour later, she received a reply from Charles, informing her that the material was good. Not to worry about the case study. The study had changed course and will seek an American case study subject. Will explain when she gets back to Paris.


Chapter 17 Flanders


Mike Flanders was a business partner in a security consultancy firm in the Houston area. He was a big man, with a well trimmed mustache, hazel eyes and close cropped hair. At 6 feet two, with an athletic gait, he was surprisingly light on his feet and was quick to smile as he greeted Charles at the door.

“Thanks for seeing me,” Charles said.

“Glad to have you,” he replied, as he led Charles to the back of the house, where there was a patio table and chairs set under an oak tree. Charles saw his report on Neela's case study on the table.

“We might start out with your comments on Neela,” Charles suggested.

Mike poured two glasses of Jack Daniels and handed one to Charles. Charles took a sip and brought out his recorder and note book. He indicated no notion of the fact that he wasn't asked.

“Interesting fella,” Mike said.

“We are viewing Neela's condition as a training in living principles in society,” Charles began. “Yours may be viewed as a mission orientation?”

“It's the military like any other,” Mike replied.

“Would you say that the seals represent a level of training above all else in the armed forces?”

“It's the general reputation,” he responded.

Charles put down his notebook and reached for the drink. He appeared thoughtful.

“Would you like to make a statement before we start?” He offered.

Mike reached for his back and pulled out a commando dagger. He placed it on Neela's report.

“You know that I have read the report. It's the door to the rest of what I am. I want you to know that I know,” he spoke softly, with a slight Texan drawl.

“Fair enough,” said Charles. “But now you've got me thinking that you may be carrying a handgun.”

“I'm not carrying anything else,” Mike responded.

“In that case, can we start again?” Charles asked rhetorically.

“Neela is ambiguous as to gender. He's not in a position to stand up for himself physically. He compensates for it with a mind that's trained on ritual. Obviously, he's resourceful, but he has not set an objective to achieve. He's been waiting to heal the split from his friend but he goes back to his village and he crashes. He has a long climb back and it's going to take the remainder of his life doing it.”

“You're referring to his survival prospects?” Charles asked.

“That would be correct,” Mike replied.

“In a societal context, Neela's actions would be viewed as establishing a social identity. Finding out who he is.”

Mike pondered on it. He seemed vaguely familiar with the concept.

“You've got me there,” he responded.

They spoke until the sun set. Mike cooked up some steak and potatoes and they moved indoors to continue.

As the early morning rays of the sun peaked over the horizon, Mike was showing Charles his gun collection, and explaining why the Luger P08 is the preferred handgun. They went out to Denny's for breakfast.

“I got a note from General Sanderson's office,” Mike drawled, “you have friends in high places. Were you in the service?”

“No,” Charles replied, “I train young boys and girls to think. The best way to learn is to teach.”

“I hope I've been of some help,” Mike offered.

“I'd like to go over some personal areas, outside of your growing up and career training.” Charles requested.

“Fire away,” Mike offered.

“At some point in your training, you must have experienced the most high. How did you manage it?”

“How did you do yours?” Mike asked.

“I told him I'm a man, no more no less.”

“What did he say?”

“That I'm a fool.”

Mike laughed, and continued,

“I mean, besides that.”

“That he would be pleased if I made a commitment to it.”

Mike pondered on that.

“There's a story in the Bible about God speaking to King David. He was messing about with Sheba. Well...... by and large he told me the same thing. He told me I'm a man and not to forget that..... I wasn't likely to forget. He threw King David to the Assyrian wolves.”

Charles smiled. Mike continued.

“That's a little like Neela's condition. When you are behind enemy lines, you are not fighting for god and country. You're just fighting.”

“Until you figure out who you are. Then you fight for yourself. It's free will in action.”

“I see what you are saying,” he said, as he leaned back, then just as quickly added,” You wanna take a walk? There's a great place here out in the woods.”

They paid the bill and left for the woods.


Chapter 18 DC


“God damm it, Charles!” Bob exclaimed, “ I told Susan I'm not going to play the American version of your Swamy.”

“We must have got the wires crossed or something.....,”

“I bet you did!” Bob yelled.

“Well, I'm here in Houston. I can fly up to DC in the morning.”

“God damm it,” Bob yelled again.

“Bob,” Charles appealed. “I can do this anyway you want. It doesn't have to follow a rule. You tell me how we are doing this.”

Bob was silent for a while. Charles could hear his breathing. After a while, he came back on line.

“Okay, in the interest of international cooperation....I'll highlight those areas in the Swamy's case study that I identify with. If you want an interview, I'll allow you ten questions....and ten questions only. You do up a case study report on me and I get to vet it before you show it to anyone else. That's the deal.”

“Okay, can I request that you grade those areas that you are in agreement with? On a scale of 1-10, what you agree most and least?”

He thought about it for a while.

“Okay, I can do that.” he replied.

“I'll need at least fifteen questions,” Charles counter proposed.

“Twelve,” replied Bob and “that's final. And if I don't like a question, I don't have to answer.”

The following day, Bob picked him up in front of the hotel but undertook a series of maneuvers on DC streets, as if they were being pursued.

“Is this a normal thing here?” Charles finally asked.

“Paranoia? Yeah,” Bob replied. “It's the grease that moves the capital.”

They made it to Jefferson park and found a bench to sit.

Charles went over the notes Bob had made in the Swamy's case study. It denied any pattern of ironical behavior.

“Well, what that means is that you have chosen to challenge the innamorata on all issues, before accepting or contributing to it,” Charles said, looking very thoughtful.

“I'll affirm that,” Bob replied. “It happens to be the foreign policy of this government.”

“It also means that you are relying on physical and existing facts to make your decisions.”

“Right again,” he said.

“Your decision making is on a collective basis.”

“We discuss everything before it gets finalized.”

“So who would you identify as the decider?” Charles seemed to follow a train of thought.

The DMU...the decision making unit.”

“So someone is appointed to take responsibility if anything goes wrong.”

“That's correct.”

“Hence the decision making and responsibility are entirely procedural, part of a process, with no overt initiative or focus undertaken by any one individual.”

“It's the system,” Bob answered. “Its as good as the organizational structure, its checks and balances.”

“It would imply that the system and its people are one and the same. A case of the mahimorata and the innamorata being one.”

“Meaning?”

“In the Ukraine, they combine the mahimorata and the innamorata in a pagan relation to issues. It functions somewhat like an exercise in irony, but it is viewed as playing with each other like a leela. They bring that into their relationship with the neighboring states with whom they relate on a archetypical basis. That allows for an independent check and balance on the ironical perspective on issues. ”

Bob continued listening.

“The US has undergone further divisions in that relationship. Over here, it is not undertaken as a play. Every situation is viewed with an eye for its implications. But significantly, the US does not relate to other sovereign states in that relationship. It introverts the experience and relies on a system of checks and balances to keep itself straight from within. It is founded on a self correcting mechanism.”

“And that can lead to problems?”

“ As it grows in familiarity, it leads to a collusion between the individual self and the state and the two then become fused in a mix of identities. It creates pressures on individual identities.”

Bob continued to remain silent. Charles continued,

“Can I record your comment on this?”

Bob seemed distracted but quickly said,

“We had other priorities. We didn't want a repeat of the British situation. But if we have stumbled into this, then we have to deal with it.”


Chapter 19 The American bard


“It means, after the experience of royal Britain, the Puritans who came to the American shores attempted something very honest. They wanted to give to their people and the world, a leadership that is founded on sound principles and does not hide behind a facade.”

“The achievement of the dream,” said Susan.

“It certainly has not been achieved any where else in the world,” said Charles.

“It up to their bards to convert a theistic notion into a living reality,” added Peter.

“Hemingway tried to bring out the expression of himself through his writings,” Susan continued. “He lived his experiences.”

“You think perhaps the American innamorata identifies with Hemingway's cast characters?” he asked.

“I think they identify with two aspects of Hemingway. Firstly, they identify with the story character, but at the same time with the way the writer himself perceives the expression of the American identity,” she replied.

“The same thing may have occurred before in the Indian experience,” Peter suggested. “The writer of the Siva Purana was identified and thereafter deified as the god of the scribes, Ganesha. It was the story of creation, so the characters were identified as Sakthi, the power of creation. The husband Siva was identified as the intent of the creator or the innamorata and the son Muruga as man, or the living individual.”

“So the Americans will grow to do something similar?”

“They might adapt,” he suggested. “The identification with the character of a story takes place when there is an accurate portrayal of the life. This is identified with the passions of the reader. But the mind of the reading public identifies with the writer of the story, as the individual who perceives such a living condition in himself, and brings it into expression in the world.”

They sat in silence for a few minutes as they considered it.

“The American situation is still in too much of a work-in-process to enable a predictive quality,” Charles said. “But it may be possible to create a predictive quality in other areas. We'll have to narrow the issues that we are engaging in prediction,” Charles surmised.

“It could take up to 250 years for these situations to work out,” Susan suggested.

“Okay, then let's finalize the report,” Charles stated and got up from the meeting.

“How about.....okay....sorry,” she said, her mind appeared to be grasping several things at once. Charles sat down again.

“I was thinking about Mike Flanders,” she said. “What's your take on that?”

Charles leaned back in his chair and pondered on it.

“That's a Siva if I ever saw one,” he began slowly. “But while the Navy Seals training may well be the best in the world, the result appears to a lean machine, not a socially trained individual who may create the lead on social initiatives.”

“He needs a good woman,” Peter suggested.

Susan smiled.

“The highest recognition ever provided to a Navy Seal is that of 4-star admiral. They have never been promoted beyond that point. It means the military wants to keep the lean machine down, while portraying a socially responsible image of itself up front,” Charles suggested.

“What if they continued their training into social acceptance. It is what the Swamy does in India. He reintroduces social values to a mind that has grown irascible, finds a way to diminish the edge on their training and creates an acceptance. The satsang, the group sessions, the life of the sadhu.....they are just the thing to reintroduce the individual into social attitudes,” Peter suggested.

“It'll have to be in a form that lends itself to integration with his own sharp mind,” Susan suggested. “Somehow I don't see Mike sitting down and doing satsang.”

Charles lit up a cigarette.

“Mike made a comment about the condition that Neela is going through,” he began. “he said an individual wouldn't have allowed that to happen to himself in the first place. He says that Neela's self defenses are misplaced.”

“But Neela is responding to a social environment,” Peter responded.

Charles suddenly appeared distracted but he fought with a will to continue.

“Where a person may be trained to the highest level, he comes face to face with god,” he paused, then turned to look at Peter, “ you know what I'm saying.”

“In my case, its the wife,” Peter began,” I think I'm projecting it onto her.”

Charles looked at Susan. She realized what he was asking.

“No comment,” she said. “ A girl's entitled to her secrets.

Charles got up again.

“A fine lot of scientists you fellas would make,” he said in mock complaint.

They smiled. He returned to his table.

“Okay. Write it up the way it is.” He said as he returned to his table.

He called to Peter as he was leaving.

“Neela's in the village?” he asked.

Peter nodded.

“I need to have a session with him,”Charles suggested.

“I dunno if that's such a good idea, Charles....he's in pretty bad shape,” he began.

“Make the arrangements,” Charles said firmly.


Chapter 20  Hippolyta


“I'm doing this to myself. I know it,” said Neela.

“You were responsible for getting kicked out of the village?” Charles asked.

“It's my dharma,” Neela replied, his voice was a little withdrawn but he was fighting to stay focused.

Together with Peter, the three of them walked at the edge of Neela's village, along the river as it flowed downstream.

“For the record, can you describe in one sentence, what might have happened to you?” Charles continued.

“I was completely destroyed....my joys....my passions....my identity....totally isolated.”

“How would you now describe this person who bought and managed a hotel and is walking with us today?”

Neela hesitated and then replied,

“This is just my shell, my physical body....,” he was saying, when Charles cut him off.

“How does your physical nature relate to your passions?”

“I was born with that.....it is my right....it represents my parents.....,”

“So you didn't create that. When you engage your passions to speak, you might have say, ' this is what every one says',” Charles suggested.

Neela turned to look at Peter. Peter made no motion to speak. He turned to Charles again.

“I understand what you are saying,” he said, “ I've read about people completely rebuilding....in Vietnam....Syria.....Bosnia... ,”

“That's what I mean,” Charles cut in warmly.

“You're saying that I ought to rebuild my passions, brick by brick.....,”

“Start with the small things,” Charles suggested.

Neela's legs had grown wobbly. They stopped to sit on some rocks by the river. Neela hung his head and wrestled with something in him. They waited. When he spoke again, he seemed quite clear on issues.
“I ought to go back to Srinagar,” he declared. “There's nothing for me here anymore.”

It had been almost two months since Neela returned to his village. The force of his youthful memories acted as magnet on him. His life as a child had been as if a dream. He had never truly related to the village in a living experience. All he had were memories, based on what he thought his experiences were and he was trying to make it real for him.

In the legend of Herakles, the hero was believed to have killed his wife and family, in a metaphorical destruction of his social nature. As atonement, Zeus had commanded that he spend a certain period living with Hippolyta, the Queen of the Amazons.

A man such as Herakles combines all the qualities of the creative force of the mahimorata and is possessed of an intuitive sense of its play with the innamorata. Any attempt to bring to him a learning encounters a response that is intimated as regards what the learning hopes to achieve.

In a learning situation, his defenses respond to justify his own actions and cultivate their own self sufficiency of purpose. This extends to practices of sodomy for an affirmation of its sexual self sufficiency.

However, sodomy as a substitute for sex between genders, denies the continuity of the species and the intimation of such a fact, is experienced in the individual as a sensation of self destruction. This leads to despair.

The Hippolyta factor is an instrument of nature and acts in accordance with its innate need to stymie the defenses of the individual. Accordingly, she relates to him in a manner as to take the opposite position of everything that he expresses, causing in him a reversal of attitudes and a convolution that is so severe, that it denies a thought even as it is born.

The effect of these conditions causes the individual and the society to gravitate to greater body mind impulses rather than the reasoning of the mind. In relying on the passions, the individual minimizes what was previously perceived as the power of thought in his actions.

Thereafter, in a culture that is based on the tenets of the body mind, the individual arrives at the perception of himself from another perspective and realizes the self prophetic nature of the mind in his actions. In overcoming this, the individual learns to relate to his physical environment and creates only those responses consistent with the stimulus of the environment.

In time, he cultivates a refinement in the understanding of intelligence and is able to bring himself into accord with the tenets of its practice. Such an understanding, he would find, aims to optimize our reasoning and the affirmation of the societal nature of our lives, as the best course for the continuity of the species.

In the East, the practice of nihilism, arose as a school of thought, that addressed itself to these issues, with the power of logical thinking as the substitute for intelligence. It continues to this day with different variations of the practice both as institutionalized learning and by individual effort in the life of the householder.

Neela's condition was therefore archetypical of the theme described. Its prescription called for the individual to be isolated in a social environment, in order to allow him an opportunity to re-cultivate his experiences from scratch.


Chapter 21 Conclusions




“Okay, so that we start off on the right foot. The study affirms a certain pattern pf behavior in the ethnic composition of the people we have engaged. This serves to confirm the existence of what we define as the innamorata, as the lead on impulses of the society. This again, relates to and is responded by, the mahimorata, which is the impersonal aspect and which we perceive as an active living quality of the world.”

“That would be correct,” Charles confirmed.

“I'm looking for the medium-term predictions...I don't see any,” Irina stated.

“It would take another exercise to do that,” Charles answered. “We related to only those groups we thought would be relevant for an affirmation of the thesis. There are other groups...the Chinese, the middle-eastern..... .”

Irina cut him off.

“So this is only a Indo-European perspective?”

“That's correct,” Charles confirmed. “It is a defining criteria and has been the basis of political decision making for a long time. These days, the ethnic aspect of the relationship is causing many political leaders to move away from references to it.”

“You're saying in the highlights that it represents the old Parthenia-Scythia relation.”

“We think it might have grown from there.”

“So I'm not getting my predictions,” Irina created a mock wail.

Susan jumped in.

“We made some observations in the locations we have studied. Its in the appendix.”

Irina flipped the pages and then stopped at the appendix. She ran her eyes over the page. Then she read it out loud.

“The Crimea separatist condition is expected to intensify because they seek an archetypical head of the family. American influence will diminish as they regroup to refine their theistic experiences of the first 250 years into a living experience. India is expected to continue with the convolution in its society and may achieve an advancement in organizational efficiency, over the next 250 years.”

She paused to look at Charles, then continued.

“The world is headed to a greater orientation in self beliefs and pagan practices. Learning and education is expected to be the growth leader in industry. Social attitudes will have a marked impact by the qualities of individualism. The ambivalent sexual situation with regards to gender is expected to continue. Political trends may be headed towards the concept of a world government.”

She stopped and looked up at the rest.

“Somebody explain gender ambivalence,” she stated.

“It's the way in which the personal and impersonal relate to each other,” Susan offered. We used case study observations to make that conclusion. You could refer to page 112, “ she added.

Irina flipped the pages, then paused to read.

“You found sexual ambivalence in all the case study subjects?” she asked.

“It's a quality of the body mind,” Charles replied. “How it expresses itself in society would depend on the ways that are brought to manage it. The Americans amended marriage laws....elsewhere societies have set up nudist parks and beaches....in some cases it is expressed discretely. Neela best exemplifies the quality.....it is not possible to pursue knowledge and learning without in some sense opening the mind to all possibilities. To deny and create a fixity about gender roles is to deny knowledge based development.”

“This begs for social programs,” Irina said.

“Absolutely correct,” Peter spoke up.




At the directors' meeting a week later, the report was poured over by all the department directors in UNESCO. Many of the questions raised were on the type of social programs that may be engaged. Irina instructed all department heads to indicate their responses to the report within the month.

Thereafter the report was tabled at ECOSOC, chaired by the UN Secretary General. The meeting endorsed Irina's proposal for a second study to be undertaken that would provide an archetype behavorial based predictive quality, to the world's events over the next twenty years.

Two weeks later, the report was tabled at the General Assembly for the endorsement of country representatives.

Charles had a holiday coming up. He figured he'll visit Kashmir and along the way, check out to see how Neela was doing.


Chapter 22   Hard Disc Meditation


“You can trust this,” said Charles pointing to the internet on the computer.

Neela had absolutely refused to come under the apprenticeship of a guru. He figured that, these days, a man cannot truly learn by giving up his free will.

“So this is the new bodhi tree,” Neela said, in reference to the Buddha sitting under the bodhi tree.

A new age requires new remedies. They had installed the computer in Neela's office in the hotel. It became the substitute for information that he obtained from the tourists and satellite TV.

In the old days, a man would sit in contemplation, to still the mind, until he was able to contact the three active components of his being. These are the qualities of Piety, Action and Ignorance. In relation to the body, these receive their greatest influence from the qualities of milk, blood and the sexual impulse. Together they mix to form the basis of all thought and action and is perceived by the mind as the great sea that is the threshold to physical life.

In all the ages of man, the first great labor of the mind was to reach for the zenith of its experience. Such an experience represents in some way the realization of the dream and the optimization of the pleasure principle. The second great labor was to create a store of the memories of all the events its life encountered. The third was the organization of the knowledge, in its store, in a form that helped the life come to understand itself.

Every society came to understand the importance of the knowledge it had stored about itself. In that it gave man the semblance of determining his own destiny, in a way that aligned itself with the intelligence of the creative power of life. In time, man came to realize that the creative force relied on him for its own further advancement. Man, has in a sense become a co-creator of his destiny.

Neela had his work cut out for him. First, he had to discover the individual identity of Neela the man. Secondly, he had to learn to apply that in a social context to discover Neela the social self. Where he failed in his efforts, he would have been introduced to Neela the anima. All three contribute to cultivating the experience of creation and of man.

“I went through ten years of struggle just to find out that I don't want to be in Nanda Puram.” said Neela.

“How else would you have known?” asked Charles.

In the 20th century, the US army organized the information it had about the fighting man and put it together in a scientific organization of its forces for greater efficiency. The results it produced drew the interests of academia and a new science emerged called the Organization of Management.

The discipline, thereafter, came to be relied upon in a critical way by commercial institutions and the needs of mass scale production. Today, the study of management forms the backbone of the world's economy.

Neela had the heart to deal with the volumes of information one encounters in the mind but he lacked the pragmatic skills in organizing it into a perception of the world.

“I hear there's a swamy here in need of training,” came a voice from the door.

They turned. It was Mike Flanders.

“The way I heard it, it was the Navy Seal,” replied Charles.

Around them, the Himalayan range reached for the sky, in a burst of ambition, that was unbridled by human reason. Nature brings itself into contact with man in the most unusual way. In the encounter, both the creator and the created, come into intimation with new possibilities.