Feeling Wibbly Wabbly in Bombay, Mumbai

Just a quick warning: This is not my usual witty, sarcastic, brilliant, highly modest self. It’s just so exhausting being “on” – I now know why Lenny Bruce, Gilda Radner, Andy Kaufman, and Richard Nixon succumbed so early.

This is a more pensive, serious, more 2000 Craig. This said, I continue; I know it’s been a while. I have just returned from a one-week stay at an ashram in Ahmednagar, Maharashtra. Me spending a week somewhere is like the normal person spending a month. In my normal frenetic Gemini/post-HIV immediacy, I tend to have short, intense experiences. So I slowed down.

The ashram is the spiritual center of Avatar Meher Baba, a man believed by many to be an avatar for this age. What’s an avatar? It translates roughly, to my understanding, as a God-realized man, most closely referred to as a Christ figure in Judeo-Christian terms, or as Buddha in Buddhism.

In my never-ending stream of uncanny circumstances, I went to Meher Baba’s ashram on the advice of a Vedic astrologer who gave me a reading. My friend Michelle told me about him. I called and had a reading two days before I left for Nepal. He said I should go to India; it would be enormously significant spiritually, and I should stop by Meherbad to visit the samhadi (tomb) of Meher Baba.

I showed up at Meherbad and was told, “Your friend is coming Friday.” I thought, “Who?” They meant Jade, the astrologer who did my reading. So I thought, “Hmmmm. Wonder why our paths are crossing?”

I met Jade and his wife Misty the following week. Great people – warm, funny, and highly sincere, as were the majority of people at the ashram. And why were they different? They had a sense of humor and joie de vivre that the other karma crabs at Sai Bab’s and Amma’s didn’t. So I spent a really peaceful week meeting some really nice, happy, spiritual people (obviously-out of my element.) All in all, it was a very nice turn on my previous, jaded and cynical ashram slumming.

Can I say that Meher Baba is the Avatar? No. Can I say that he isn’t? I can’t say that either. Pete Townshend thought he was; Townshend even dedicated the rock opera Tommy to Meher Baba. I do know that he was a genius who walked the walk of compassionate service. And I will learn more.

So, love the one you’re with. And that includes yourself.

Reverend Craig,

Church of the Confused Hermes

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