| INTO THE BOWELS OF HELL |
Stevan Orescan
All of my life I have had a fascination for, not China, as one would suppose, but India, that exotic
land of mystery, romance and adventure, and I can only conclude that I must have been an Indian in
another life. Perhaps the gods had been quaffing too much soma, their favorite psychedelic
beverage, and dropped me off in Indiana instead of India for this incarnation.
My first visit to India, in this life, was in the mid 60s and as I stepped off the plane at Dum Dum
airport in Calcutta and was met with the sultry and oppressive heat, the cloying smells of spice and
incense, and the veiled shrouds of a quietly teeming humanity, I knew that I had been there before.
It was about midnight when we landed and as we drove into the city all that could be seen from our
taxi window was the flickering of candle light that barely illuminated the small, pathetically
ramshackle huts on the sides of the road, ghostly and mysterious and seemingly fraught with danger.
Sometimes we could discern a filmy white movement in or around these dwellings of cardboard and
bits of tin, a slow motion montage of a palpable weariness or ennui. It was a startling scene as we
realized that people were just going on about their lives, that this was their life and no one seemed
to mind the hardship, the utter meanness, that we as visitors were unsettled by.
This period of my life was what I called my doctor incarnation for I had recently finished graduate
school, had just completed an internship and was somewhat impressed with my newly acquired
knowledge and prestige. Coming to India was the icing on the cake, for now that I was “educated”
I could delve into those more ephemeral and non scientific areas of learning that academia had, by
in large, discounted as subjective and thus not worthy of serious study. Having been involved in
clinical experiments on the therapeutic application of LSD and other psychedelic substances, and
having touched the hem of mystical experience, so to speak, I was keen to pursue the study of
classical Indian religious and philosophical thought, as well as meditation and other yogic practices
as it applied to the transformation of consciousness.
Over the years I had acquired a number of romantic ideas about India, and as I peered out of the
taxi window on my way to the city I was both stunned and dismayed by the gloomy, squalid
surroundings, and grinding poverty that I was being witness to. I had heard all the stories, been
around the world several times, visited many of the Mediterranean port cities, participated in the
senseless police action in Korea as a young marine on the front line, and lived in Mexico for a
couple of years. Nothing could surprise me I, I was ready for anything.
We checked into The Great Eastern Hotel, an eerie vestige of the British Raj with its seedy
grandeur, long dark corridors, dripping faucets and barefoot attendants padding silently about,
often popping into our room without knocking or peeping through the keyhole to catch a glimpse of
the western memsahib in a state of undress. Several times we ate in the ostentatious and deserted
restaurant, scrupulously attended to by three barefoot waiters attired in long, starched, white kurtas,
red cummerbunds and large white turbans with gold piping, who anticipated our every move; filling
our glass to the brim after we took a sip, serving each item with a concerned precision, adding
chutney to our plates or dusting off a crumb that might have fallen on the tablecloth. We were cared
for in the subservient fashion of slave to maharaja and maharani, royalty always on display, never
left alone, every whim and wish attended to before we ourselves even knew what we wanted.
What a contrast it was to the scene just outside the hotel doors where only sadness and the unclean
prevailed, where flatbread was cooked on an open fire on the street and naked children fought
each other for crumbs.
How easy for one to fall into the master-slave attitude I thought, the divine condescension of the
Brahmin toward the laborer or untouchable, the conqueror toward the conquered, the educated
toward the uneducated. Years later when associated with the Theosophical Society in India, one of
the Indian groundskeepers, old enough to be my grandfather, would address me as master. I
requested numerous times, please, don’t call me master, I am not your master. You may call me
Stevan, Baba, Joe, Jim or Yankee, but not master, I am not your master or anyone’s master.
Please. Do you understand? Yes master, he would invariably reply.
Granted, some people want a master, even need a master, for a master takes care of his slaves as
a king takes care of his subjects. There is a kind of security in not having to take care of oneself
since it eliminates uncertainty, but it is a despicable way to live, is dishonest and breeds resentment.
Each knows down deep that one is not better than the other, even though on the surface they both
have convinced themselves to the contrary, since one might have had some talents or opportunities
that the other did not. Some people work on the plantation, some people own the plantation, that’s
a reality and has always been so, but we are all equal in our humanity and that needs to be
recognized and respected.
India is like a door through the wall of time, an entrance onto an ancient and surrealistic stage where
everything is transparent, on view for all to see, nothing swept under the carpet; ego takes a back
seat since poverty does not let one hide away the ugly or uncomfortable. How can one pretend not
being hungry or naked or homeless? How can one hide the pain and suffering of loneliness, sickness
and impending death? Hiding and pretending are not options, only acceptance and hope that the
next life will be a better one.
The next life?
Rebirth, reincarnation, or transmigration is endemic in the Indian psyche, whether from a Hindu or
Buddhist point of view. In the former it is believed that a new body of a distinct entity which may be
called the soul or atman returns to earth in a new body, the quality and status of that new life
contingent on one’s individual past karma; what you have sown you will eventually reap. In the
latter, rebirth is a corollary of karma, meaning that no spiritual or psychic entity passes from one life
to another, that each life is considered the karmic effect of the last life and thus the cause of the next
life. Life and death is a cycle just as night and day, waking and sleeping, alternate in an endless
series, a karmic wave that has no individual substance; it is only the movement that goes forward.
Both of these views are an affirmation that death is not conclusive, that it is a passage, and not a
finality, that something continues. And though we know not what, most of us who have given these
matters more than a passing thought feel that we have not only been here before but that we have
always been here in the past, and will always be here in the future in one form or another. How
could it be any other way? The lilies of the field are always there; pluck one today and it is there
tomorrow. Can you tell the difference? Is there a difference? Is there even such a thing as individual
lilies or is there just lily, the essence of lily contained in all the structure of stem and pistil, leaf and
flower?
When I stepped off the plane in Calcutta I knew that I had been there before, or the essence of the
person that I refer to as me, myself and I, had experienced those same smells of spice, incense and
jasmine, the same sounds of temple bells and chanting, the same cries of hawkers and beggars
echoing from the crowded bazaars. There was no question in my mind when I put on the first set of
Indian clothes that I had worn those clothes before; that the fit, the feel, the textures and lines were
as familiar to me as my morning face in the mirror, as was the food, the warm breezes of the coming
monsoon, the friendliness and smiles of the people and the delicacy of their movements. For the first
time in my life I was comfortable; I had, at last, returned home.
Never before had I felt like that in America where things of the spirit are consumed in the flames of
a puzzling righteousness, where being takes precedence over essence, where things are valued
more than ideas, and where people become cogs in a machine after being rendered too
comfortable to object. How did I get here, I used to ask? What is this all about? What diabolical
twist of fate compelled my creator to leave me on the doorstep of such a spiritually bankrupt
tenement, an innocent babe in a jungle of hungry carnivores? Where was my real home? Is this
really it or is it all a great cosmic joke that will become clear at the moment of death?
And then LSD was discovered, and the 60s rolled into view, the age of Aquarius, Hair, hippies,
Vietnam, the Beatles, sitar music, gurus, meditation, altered states of consciousness, and India
came center stage as the world erupted in both inner and outer revolution.
And thus the journey to the East began for hundreds of thousands of people, both young and old,
who swallowed a small pill, looked up into the heavens and came face to face with God as their
doors of perception opened into the infinite, as the dark veil of ignorance was ripped away and the
inner sanctum was revealed to hungry minds and hearts…..
land of mystery, romance and adventure, and I can only conclude that I must have been an Indian in
another life. Perhaps the gods had been quaffing too much soma, their favorite psychedelic
beverage, and dropped me off in Indiana instead of India for this incarnation.
My first visit to India, in this life, was in the mid 60s and as I stepped off the plane at Dum Dum
airport in Calcutta and was met with the sultry and oppressive heat, the cloying smells of spice and
incense, and the veiled shrouds of a quietly teeming humanity, I knew that I had been there before.
It was about midnight when we landed and as we drove into the city all that could be seen from our
taxi window was the flickering of candle light that barely illuminated the small, pathetically
ramshackle huts on the sides of the road, ghostly and mysterious and seemingly fraught with danger.
Sometimes we could discern a filmy white movement in or around these dwellings of cardboard and
bits of tin, a slow motion montage of a palpable weariness or ennui. It was a startling scene as we
realized that people were just going on about their lives, that this was their life and no one seemed
to mind the hardship, the utter meanness, that we as visitors were unsettled by.
This period of my life was what I called my doctor incarnation for I had recently finished graduate
school, had just completed an internship and was somewhat impressed with my newly acquired
knowledge and prestige. Coming to India was the icing on the cake, for now that I was “educated”
I could delve into those more ephemeral and non scientific areas of learning that academia had, by
in large, discounted as subjective and thus not worthy of serious study. Having been involved in
clinical experiments on the therapeutic application of LSD and other psychedelic substances, and
having touched the hem of mystical experience, so to speak, I was keen to pursue the study of
classical Indian religious and philosophical thought, as well as meditation and other yogic practices
as it applied to the transformation of consciousness.
Over the years I had acquired a number of romantic ideas about India, and as I peered out of the
taxi window on my way to the city I was both stunned and dismayed by the gloomy, squalid
surroundings, and grinding poverty that I was being witness to. I had heard all the stories, been
around the world several times, visited many of the Mediterranean port cities, participated in the
senseless police action in Korea as a young marine on the front line, and lived in Mexico for a
couple of years. Nothing could surprise me I, I was ready for anything.
We checked into The Great Eastern Hotel, an eerie vestige of the British Raj with its seedy
grandeur, long dark corridors, dripping faucets and barefoot attendants padding silently about,
often popping into our room without knocking or peeping through the keyhole to catch a glimpse of
the western memsahib in a state of undress. Several times we ate in the ostentatious and deserted
restaurant, scrupulously attended to by three barefoot waiters attired in long, starched, white kurtas,
red cummerbunds and large white turbans with gold piping, who anticipated our every move; filling
our glass to the brim after we took a sip, serving each item with a concerned precision, adding
chutney to our plates or dusting off a crumb that might have fallen on the tablecloth. We were cared
for in the subservient fashion of slave to maharaja and maharani, royalty always on display, never
left alone, every whim and wish attended to before we ourselves even knew what we wanted.
What a contrast it was to the scene just outside the hotel doors where only sadness and the unclean
prevailed, where flatbread was cooked on an open fire on the street and naked children fought
each other for crumbs.
How easy for one to fall into the master-slave attitude I thought, the divine condescension of the
Brahmin toward the laborer or untouchable, the conqueror toward the conquered, the educated
toward the uneducated. Years later when associated with the Theosophical Society in India, one of
the Indian groundskeepers, old enough to be my grandfather, would address me as master. I
requested numerous times, please, don’t call me master, I am not your master. You may call me
Stevan, Baba, Joe, Jim or Yankee, but not master, I am not your master or anyone’s master.
Please. Do you understand? Yes master, he would invariably reply.
Granted, some people want a master, even need a master, for a master takes care of his slaves as
a king takes care of his subjects. There is a kind of security in not having to take care of oneself
since it eliminates uncertainty, but it is a despicable way to live, is dishonest and breeds resentment.
Each knows down deep that one is not better than the other, even though on the surface they both
have convinced themselves to the contrary, since one might have had some talents or opportunities
that the other did not. Some people work on the plantation, some people own the plantation, that’s
a reality and has always been so, but we are all equal in our humanity and that needs to be
recognized and respected.
India is like a door through the wall of time, an entrance onto an ancient and surrealistic stage where
everything is transparent, on view for all to see, nothing swept under the carpet; ego takes a back
seat since poverty does not let one hide away the ugly or uncomfortable. How can one pretend not
being hungry or naked or homeless? How can one hide the pain and suffering of loneliness, sickness
and impending death? Hiding and pretending are not options, only acceptance and hope that the
next life will be a better one.
The next life?
Rebirth, reincarnation, or transmigration is endemic in the Indian psyche, whether from a Hindu or
Buddhist point of view. In the former it is believed that a new body of a distinct entity which may be
called the soul or atman returns to earth in a new body, the quality and status of that new life
contingent on one’s individual past karma; what you have sown you will eventually reap. In the
latter, rebirth is a corollary of karma, meaning that no spiritual or psychic entity passes from one life
to another, that each life is considered the karmic effect of the last life and thus the cause of the next
life. Life and death is a cycle just as night and day, waking and sleeping, alternate in an endless
series, a karmic wave that has no individual substance; it is only the movement that goes forward.
Both of these views are an affirmation that death is not conclusive, that it is a passage, and not a
finality, that something continues. And though we know not what, most of us who have given these
matters more than a passing thought feel that we have not only been here before but that we have
always been here in the past, and will always be here in the future in one form or another. How
could it be any other way? The lilies of the field are always there; pluck one today and it is there
tomorrow. Can you tell the difference? Is there a difference? Is there even such a thing as individual
lilies or is there just lily, the essence of lily contained in all the structure of stem and pistil, leaf and
flower?
When I stepped off the plane in Calcutta I knew that I had been there before, or the essence of the
person that I refer to as me, myself and I, had experienced those same smells of spice, incense and
jasmine, the same sounds of temple bells and chanting, the same cries of hawkers and beggars
echoing from the crowded bazaars. There was no question in my mind when I put on the first set of
Indian clothes that I had worn those clothes before; that the fit, the feel, the textures and lines were
as familiar to me as my morning face in the mirror, as was the food, the warm breezes of the coming
monsoon, the friendliness and smiles of the people and the delicacy of their movements. For the first
time in my life I was comfortable; I had, at last, returned home.
Never before had I felt like that in America where things of the spirit are consumed in the flames of
a puzzling righteousness, where being takes precedence over essence, where things are valued
more than ideas, and where people become cogs in a machine after being rendered too
comfortable to object. How did I get here, I used to ask? What is this all about? What diabolical
twist of fate compelled my creator to leave me on the doorstep of such a spiritually bankrupt
tenement, an innocent babe in a jungle of hungry carnivores? Where was my real home? Is this
really it or is it all a great cosmic joke that will become clear at the moment of death?
And then LSD was discovered, and the 60s rolled into view, the age of Aquarius, Hair, hippies,
Vietnam, the Beatles, sitar music, gurus, meditation, altered states of consciousness, and India
came center stage as the world erupted in both inner and outer revolution.
And thus the journey to the East began for hundreds of thousands of people, both young and old,
who swallowed a small pill, looked up into the heavens and came face to face with God as their
doors of perception opened into the infinite, as the dark veil of ignorance was ripped away and the
inner sanctum was revealed to hungry minds and hearts…..
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