Robert Discovers Bhakti love in India
When I traveled in India I had a good friend, Amba Shankar, who often went with me wherever I needed to go. He fended off beggars, paid the necessary bribes, purchased tickets, translated, made sure I had clean food and suitable water, he got me into and out of all the things that confront one in India just to survive. He made life possible for me, and I could not have prospered there without him. He was always with me with one notable exception. That exception was, in all places, in Calcutta, undoubtedly one of the most painful cities in the world for a foreigner.
It is not for nothing that the original form of the name for this city was Kali-cut. This was anglicized into Calcutta. Kaii-cut means the city of Kali, the goddess of horror, destruction and terror. She is dreadful, with eighteen arms, conceived out of the nightmare of Vishnu when he was once in a drunken stupor.
Calcutta is terribly over-crowded and the worst that one hears of India is most certainly true there. I was left in a hotel while my friend went off to complete business that he had to accomplish. He promised to be back in three days. I had traveled to India enough times it seemed logical that I could manage for myself. But three days in Calcutta broke something in me: nerve and fiber can only take so much of mothers thrusting their dead babies in my arms or children with amputations poking me in the ribs, or stepping over corpses in the street. I was strong at the time, but in a short while I began to go to pieces. My being was not strong enough to take the impact of so much darkness and suffering.
I had intelligence enough to lock myself in a hotel room, thinking I could stay anywhere for three days by entertaining myself and not going out. But the walls were very thin and it sounded as if someone was dying on one side of me while someone else was quarreling in the room on the other side. With the thin walls I finally decided I had to get out, particularly after a night in which there was a political rally with loud speakers and megaphones blasting noise in the street below and robbing me of any sleep. Fate conspired to break something in me.
The one thing I wanted and knew would help would be to find a sympathetic soul to talk to. Talk is a healing balm for someone is such a desperate situation, but I knew no one in Calcutta. There was seemingly no place to go. I was in a poor section of town.
Eventually I ventured out and wandered into a park, where it occurred to me that India had already taught me what to do in a case such as this. Go up to someone and ask if they will be the incarnation of God for you. That is what this custom is for. I brightened at the thought of this, though I am ordinarily far too shy to go up to a stranger. Desperation gives one courage. I went through the park looking about, chose carefully and settled my gaze upon a middle-aged Indian man sitting on a bench who had a kind look on his face. He was dressed entirely in traditional Indian clothing and bore a great dignity about him.
I went up, and with the courage of fear and panic, asked if he spoke English. He responded in the affirmative.
My second question in this new found relationship: “Would you be the incarnation of god for me?”
He looked up at me very seriously, nodded, and said, “Yes.”
He knew. So I poured out a twenty minute flood of talk about who I was, where I came from, what had happened to me and all that I had been through, what I felt and needed, the desperation that was going through me. After this outpouring before an empathic listener I began to heal and somehow pull myself back together. My strength and courage came back, I gained perspective. Eventually my sense of dignity and courtesy returned. After a long stretch in which he said nothing I drew breath and apologized for talking so much.
“Please tell me, who are you?”
He gave me an unpronounceable Indian name.
“But who are you,” I asked.
With a dignity I will never forget he replied, “I am a Catholic priest.”
Of all the people in India I could have pulled off the streets of Calcutta to be the incarnation of God for me I had chosen a priest to pour out my soul to. I was speechless for the first time. Speechlessness is looked upon well in India. It is a sign of wisdom. I just stood there with my mouth open. Presently he bowed and then walked off with a dignified stride that I will never forget. I will never forget that man and that day and I doubt if he will ever forget me.
For once in my life I asked someone to be the incarnation of god for me, and he complied. This is Bhakti yoga in action. It’s not just a theory or something that you do early in the morning as a ritual. It is something to set your roots into, to nourish and strengthen you. I wish I could go to someone here in the West and ask for that kind of profound relationship but it is not something that is understood generally.
