Chapter 8
Jordan
“You goin’ to Amman?” I turned around. It was an American. “Yup,” I answered. “I’ve got a flight to India.” The American was tall and wiry. He had dark skin and blond hair and sounded confident and intelligent. “Where you go’in?” I asked. I was curious about him and wasn’t sure why. “Oh, I don’t know. I’ve been to Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, and this is my third time into Jordan. I guess I’ll go back to Lebanon, I’ve got a friend there.” I sensed my new friend was an Arabophile and this turned out to be right. “Whaddya think of Israel?” I probed. “Ah, I don’t like it. It’s a police state. I was staying near the Old City and I could see the soldiers with their clubs every day, and they used them often.” I felt a strange connection to this new companion. His name was John and he felt almost like a brother. “The West has really messed up the Middle East. That’s why Iran’s a big power here. Israel holds all the cards and is playing a really rough game. The Israelis are dictating unfair terms to the Arabs.” I didn’t feel like arguing with him. I liked John a lot and so decided to humor him. When we got to Amman, I noticed how very little paranoia I felt in the air. It felt pretty safe and I felt at home. John helped me lug my stuff as I inquired about Petra and flights to Delhi. I had changed the Amman to India flight four times in the course of this trip. Now I was doing it again. I wanted more time in Jordan.
Amman was bustling and bursting with activity. It was a city resting on hills, or jebels, as the natives called them. John and I checked into a hotel and decided to just hang out. I noticed that the Dome of the Rock was on every twenty-dinar bill, and that a huge photo of the Old City hung on the wall of the Jerusalem restaurant. That’s where John took me to eat. We helped ourselves to plenty of saffron-flavored rice and grilled chicken.
I noticed that John was not unlike my earlier self, a highly educated drifter. He had a logical and powerful mind and it was hiding a lot of emotional baggage. We talked about science. John had been a physics major. We talked about philosophy. “You have to define your terms,” John declared. “What is the mind all about?” he asked. I looked for a way to pierce his mental wall. “Well, the problem is the mind itself,” I parried. “This thing that needs to constantly define things prevents us from seeing the truth.” John was quick to lobby back a serve. “Oh, now you’re sounding like Wittgenstein, man. That guy put philosophy on top of its head. He said it was all just a meaningless game, unless you wanted to put meaning into it. I don’t agree with that. Philosophy is an important human activity. Humans need to do it.” There was a silence. I saw my opening. John’s mind was blocking his heart and I sensed a very deep and open heart across the table. I decided to let John experience the sublime through PUJA! It worked. I did a Mahakala and the next morning took off for Petra. John was calmer and he lent me his watch. Mine had broken down. It was very early morning when I plunged into the dark and deserted streets of Amman. I could hear the muezzins serenading the city with their sweet and hypnotic wails. All of this felt completely familiar.
The bus plowed through the desert highway at top speed. I was munching stale pretzels and trying to catch some sleep. The screams of babies in the front of the racing vehicle made this impossible. I was on a luxury tourist bus, the only one that left that day for this kind of trip. From my window, the desert looked flat, barren, and forbidding. I could see Bedouin nomads camping out in the early morning heat, oblivious to me and everything else. I was going to Petra, the great lost city of the Nabateans, a mysterious race of warrior priests who had carved out of hills and cliffs a monstrous city hidden by canyons and forbidden-looking brown and orange mountains.
Petra was ALIEN. It reminded me of the Grand Canyon, Star Wars, and Lost Horizon all rolled into one big rocky complex of tombs, caves, and dizzy-looking monuments. The place was huge and covered a wide area. The mind had a hard time taking it all in. The huge “treasury” building dwarfed all who came close to it. Inside, there was nothing but emptiness, dark and uninviting. Later, in the afternoon, after the tourist hordes had departed, I walked up all the way to the “monastery,” another huge and towering cathedral-like structure. The dead silence seemed to make the stones speak. The shouts of an occasional Bedouin echoed and ricocheted off the stony walls of this vast temple of ghosts. I did a puja, but like in Qumran, the locals would have none of it. GET OUT! WE DON’T WANT YOUR BLESSINGS! This was their disappointing message. I then counted my money. I had only four hundred dollars left! I had to leave Jordan soon.
I spent the night in a comfortable hotel and almost didn’t return to the ruins the next morning. A blinding windstorm hit the entire area with its frightening hints of violent doom; the wrathful holocaust ended almost as soon as it began. I taxied back down to the entrance of the complex and didn’t really know what to see with the few remaining hours left to me. The bus would be heading back to Amman in the late afternoon. A young Arab who snapped my photo told me to go up to the Altar of High Sacrifice. I did so and the energies were powerful and awesome. I grunted and sweated up the steep trail, climbing higher and higher, and stopping occasionally to gaze at the vast and unfolding panorama that was Petra. I could see donkeys trailing their way below, looking as small as ants. A young Dutch mother and her two daughters had decided to take a rest slightly up ahead of me. I was dizzy and the blonde little Dutch girls were transformed into angels by my fatigued eyes. I could feel a heavy vibration in this rarefied atmosphere. It was indeed the vibration of SACRIFICE.
At the top I could see the huge slab where women and men were offered up to the faceless gods. Drainage ditches had been carved around the sides for this bloody feast. A British couple and their tour guide decided to do a sacrificial reenactment for the cameras on my urging. Old karmic alignments were furiously rekindled as the wife lay on the sacrificial slab to be offered up. Her husband and I went into a photo frenzy with our cameras. Powerful energies were being released, and it was a strange kind of primal puja. No blood was spilled, but the intention of RELEASE was just as strong. Summer’s energy surged forward and so did my Dad’s. I was releasing something, but wasn’t quite sure what. It was intense and brutal as it was sublime. It was Jim, and it was me. It was IT, yet again, in a new and different form.
The Outer Planets
as seen from Petra:
Probably the most important fact about Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto, the outermost planets in our solar system, is how far beyond our grasp they really are. Rings around Uranus were discovered completely by accident. Very little is known about them still. Uranus is fifteen times as far from the sun as Earth; Neptune, seventeen times; and Pluto is fifty times farther. Even from Uranus’ orbit the sun would be no more than a bright point, one star among many. Jupiter and Saturn would be harder to see than Mercury is from Earth. The outer planets are immense satellites and much of what we know about them doesn’t fit neatly together. Occasionally, wild brawling secrets and funny little mysteries can be seen flaming out from the horizon.
The Secrets and the Mysteries:
John helped me load my luggage into a taxi, and grinned a happy goofy good-bye. We had exchanged addresses. I was now hours away from INDIA. I felt relieved and excited. The crazy Arab cabby stopped his car to talk to some friends, who tried to grab my luggage; I screamed and the cabby just laughed. His friends then banged the sides of his vehicle as he zoomed away. I was almost hysterical. You know, to this day, I’m still not sure whether this incident was a joke, or the real thing. Arabs can be strange, VERY STRANGE. Jordanian Airways charged me this hideous amount for overweight baggage. I refused to pay it and a standoff began. As the minutes ticked by for the flight to leave, I did a furious puja. The Jordanians gave in. They wanted to compromise. I gave them a hundred and twenty dollars. I was now down to three hundred dollars and knew big trouble lay ahead.
At least India was dirt cheap and the young Lama was waiting for me. It was a slightly reassuring thought. At the waiting gate, I met a haggard-looking American who had just flown in from New York. He was in transit to India and was booked on my flight. “Where ya goin’?” he asked me. “I’m going to North Bengal to see the Heavies,” I replied. “I’m goin’ to Hardiwar to see Soyasan,” the American countered. “Who’s he?” I inquired, more out of politeness than curiosity. “Oh, he was the first America Tulku ever to be recognized by the Tibetans, but he’s no longer a monk. You know, he kinda just flaked out and got a girlfriend. He’s been black-balled now.” the American recounted almost absent-mindedly. My memory began to get jogged. I had heard of this guy. He was the hero of one of the Head Nun’s groupies, back in the Burmese place. But now this guy was OUT. The American showed me this beat-up photo. An unshaven and spaced-out-looking young man stared at me from the scrap of dull shiny paper. This was the price of karma, I thought to myself.
Security was very tight at Amman airport. It took ages to get cleared, but I finally got on the plane. It taxied onto the runway and accelerated towards infinity with a lift and a thud. I was on my way, at last, towards the heart of my journey. I was going home where people understood me. Support and protection were waiting. More trials lay ahead, but the REAL PILGRIMAGE was now beginning. The flight took only five hours. The plane landed and I heaved a sigh of relief. I was at last on Indian soil. I could feel KALI and the Gurus extending their arms out to me. I was feeling the warm embrace of the protectors. I was finally HOME!
