Those Crazy Vedantists

Over the past three and a half weeks, I left Yasodhara, spent time at "home" in Victoria, went to Port Alberni to visit my Grandma and extended family, hung out with my friend Jason in Seattle, and took the train to California to finish my Sivananda training in Grass Valley at one of the ashrams Swami Visnu-devananda founded. I'd initially started this training last year in India, but it was cut short by a relapse of my epic illness (my doctor at home in China had told me I wasn't well enough to leave home yet, but I didn't listen and got on the plane.)

This ashram has a different vibe than Yasodhara for sure (as evidenced by my free use of the terms "vibe" and "for sure"). In addition to the whole California-hippie-peace aura, there is a nice sort of family feeling too. There are kids running around all over the place, students chatting over meals, a mother and her daughters baking cookies in the kitchen while I do my karma yoga on dishes, couples strolling together in the early evening, and even (gasp!) karma yogis getting married to each other!

There are also a couple of older men who sit around on the veranda outside the boutique in the afternoons, sipping cold beverages and discussing spiritual and global matters.

Today, not really meaning to eavesdrop, I heard one of said fellows saying: "Spiritual neurotics are building castles in the sky. Spiritual psychotics are living in castles in the sky!"

"I wonder, which one am I?" I joined the conversation.

"By being on the spiritual path at all, you are admitting to at least some degree of schizophrenia," he expounded. "Think of it! You are eating the bread of this world, and yet doing the work of the other!"

"That's a matter of perspective, isn't it? It depends how much you feel that the things of this world are infused with the reality of the 'other' world," I responded.

His eyes bugged out and he laughed. I suddenly remembered something I'd written in my journal a few days before, and since he seemed like a good sport I decided to share it with him: "May 27. Sometimes I think vedantists sound like psychotic power-crazed maniacs when they rave about transcending Nature."

The old man laughed and laughed. He rose from the table, walked around to where I stood, raised his short arms up and embraced me. "You see what I mean!" Still laughing he went to sit back down.

I left to go do my karma yoga.