| MYSTIC REGENERATION |
Stevan Orescan
New Delhi was crawling with an international crowd of travelers. It was my second trip to India,
the late 60s, France was in turmoil with student unrest led by Rudy the Red and Mario Savo, and
his cohorts in Berkeley, were occupying the university office of the president. LSD was being
consumed by the buckets as people were waking up from a long, long sleep. Timothy Leary,
Richard Alpert and Ralph Metzner of Harvard had opened a Pandora’s box with their experiments
on the therapeutic use of mind expanding substances, and their book, The Psychedelic Experience,
based on the Tibetan Book Of The Dead, became an instant best seller along with Alpert’s Be
Here Now, a pot-pourri of hip wisdom gleaned from his inner voyages, and the religious traditions
of the mystical East. Both were destined to become classics, and a permanent part of every mind
explorers library.
The introduction of backpacks and sleeping bags on the world stage released people from the
confines of costly hotel rooms and heavy luggage, and hitchhiking and camping, along with the VW
bus, fast became a way of life that was played out in every corner of the globe. Everyone seemed
to have a little vial of blue or orange pills and some kind of exotic pipe in their backpacks along
with copies of the Bhagavad-Gita, Dhammapada, Bible, Kerouac’s On The Road or something by
Lobsang Rampa or Herman Hesse.
The search was on, a magical mystery tour. Everyone was looking for God and all roads led to
India. Where else? It was the home of the original hippie, six million of them called sadhus,
wandering holy men, who never cut their hair, smoked dope constantly and spent their days either
in a meditative trance, doing yoga, or reading and discussing the holy books and great philosophical
and religious questions of the day. Homeless, with all their worldly possessions contained in a small
bundle, they wandered the great sub-continent of India as mendicant teachers, and devoted their
lives in the search for God and personal liberation, coming together every four years in a grand
mela, or gathering of the clans along the holy Ganges and it’s main tributaries, a forerunner to the
Rainbow Gatherings that take place every year somewhere on the American continent when the
tribes surface from their caves and teepees, grey bearded and bent, with children and grand
children, to come together in a medicine circle of prayer and remembrance, to pass the peace pipe
and talk story.
Of course some were bums, criminals and madmen in this group of Aquarian disciples, but there
are those elements in every human sampling as there were, and are, in those wandering Indian
sadhus, but they were all accepted since this was a new age of brotherhood, of love and light, of
joyful spirit and a dedication to serve their brothers and sisters with unselfish devotion. They all
lived in a yellow submarine as the song said, one family sharing the same magic and mystery, the
same goal, had all taken the same little pill and heard the all pervading OM within the recesses of
their mind, had seen the radiation of energy and the patterns of vibrating colors flowing out from
the bodies of friends and lovers, had seen the music and heard the colors and knew that their cells
did not lie, that what they saw and felt was real and that it was God speaking, urging them on into
the uncharted seas of psychic experiences.
And so they came, journeying to the East, seeking out the wise ones, the saints and yogis and
philosophers, those that knew, who could answer their questions, who could show them the next
step in the evolutionary process they had undertaken. It was a dangerous journey and there were
casualties along the way, for the path is a razor’s edge and some fell into the abyss. Evolution is a
hard task master and the weak do not survive, nature selects only the strongest to carry on the
work of growth, of mutation, of progression to the next level of consciousness, of transformation.
So I landed in New Delhi the second time, alone, without the steadying and sensible influence of
my partner who was to meet me in two weeks. Until then my time was supposed to be spent
making contact with several Indian psychologists who were on my list of people the Indian Tourist
Office had sent me, with a possible visit to a local mental hospital if time and circumstances
allowed. I had in my possession several hundred doses of pure Sandoz LSD, it not being illegal at
the time, that I thought I might share with my Indian colleagues if opportunity and interest were
shown. However, the opportunity never arose for within minutes of landing all previous plans were
cancelled and a new adventure, setting, and costume enfolded me onto it’s stage, and I was lead by
an unseen hand to a most unusual temple of transformation in the heart of Old Delhi.
After checking into my hotel and taking off the Brooks Brothers apparel and Omega gold
chronometer, I went to the Khadi Bhavan department store and bought my first set of Indian
clothes; hand spun, very loose, white pajamas, a long, orange, kurta shirt, two lungis, or sarongs,
and a soft cotton shoulder bag. I paid my rent two weeks in advance and securing my passport,
money and medicine pouch safely in the zipper pocket of my shoulder bag I plunged through the
door of the magic theatre – for mad men only - and disappeared into the dark lanes of the old city.
I wandered for two weeks in a surrealistic world of shadows, sleeping on rooftops, in parks and
underneath bridges, my companions being the lowest of the low, the wretched and dispossessed;
Indian beggars, French junkies, rickshaw pullers, psychotic westerners, some nights sleeping on the
pavement with one lungi on the ground the other covering me like the shroud of a corpse, my
rubber sandals under my head for a pillow, my money and passport tightly clenched between my
legs or tied around my waist. I bathed at the public water pump with the rickshaw wallahs, cleaned
my teeth with the twigs that old women on the street sold by the bundle, ate off the fly infested
stands, frequented the opium dens in the Chinese section, urinated and defecated in public like the
other residents, traipsed through the back alleys with wild eyed western sadhus dressed in
psychedelic paisley robes, smoked chillums at Jantar Mantar park with assorted holy men, and
dropped acid on the roof of the famous Crown Hotel in old Delhi with fifty others as we huddled in
blankets watching the full moon, meditating, chanting and blissfully freaking out.
A Spanish painter from Barcelona and nephew of Gaudi gave me datura seeds to chew. I gave
him 100 micrograms of Sandoz. You are God, he said. No, you are God, I replied. We looked at
each other and couldn’t stop laughing for we recognized the truth of what the other had said. Tat
svam asi. That art thou. We laughed until we ached. Divine madness was exhausting. Every few
days I would furtively crawl back to my hotel and sleep.
Two weeks later my significant other returned from Venice where she had been on a buying trip
for Italian glass beads, crystal ware and other rare and expensive items for her Hollywood bead
and jewelry boutique. She stepped off the plane in the latest Gucci creation accessorized in
exquisite Italian leather shoes and matching handbag. It was a sobering sight for it instantly brought
me back to a reality that I had so thoroughly left behind in just two short weeks, and had not
realized just how much until that moment. My life would never be the same.
Back at the hotel I changed out of my Indian rags and back into my button down costume with
gold chronometer. I left the beard. Looking into the mirror I saw another person I did not
recognize. The form was vaguely the same but the substance emanated unfamiliar vibrations,
insupportable and illogical, a contradiction to the costume that covered the form. Another person
was looking out from behind the eyes. Who it was I did not quite know, but I knew he had
experienced a transformation, a transmutation of genetic material, a rearrangement of DNA and
would never be the same again.
We did the tourist routine; a houseboat on Kashmir’s Dal Lake, the Oberi Palace Hotel, the Taj
Mahal, fine carpets and other gifts and mementos shipped back. I went through the motions but
none of it had any meaning, my mind and heart were elsewhere. They wished to return to that
temple of transformation that had been found in the hardship and poverty, in the pain and depth of
Indian life….
the late 60s, France was in turmoil with student unrest led by Rudy the Red and Mario Savo, and
his cohorts in Berkeley, were occupying the university office of the president. LSD was being
consumed by the buckets as people were waking up from a long, long sleep. Timothy Leary,
Richard Alpert and Ralph Metzner of Harvard had opened a Pandora’s box with their experiments
on the therapeutic use of mind expanding substances, and their book, The Psychedelic Experience,
based on the Tibetan Book Of The Dead, became an instant best seller along with Alpert’s Be
Here Now, a pot-pourri of hip wisdom gleaned from his inner voyages, and the religious traditions
of the mystical East. Both were destined to become classics, and a permanent part of every mind
explorers library.
The introduction of backpacks and sleeping bags on the world stage released people from the
confines of costly hotel rooms and heavy luggage, and hitchhiking and camping, along with the VW
bus, fast became a way of life that was played out in every corner of the globe. Everyone seemed
to have a little vial of blue or orange pills and some kind of exotic pipe in their backpacks along
with copies of the Bhagavad-Gita, Dhammapada, Bible, Kerouac’s On The Road or something by
Lobsang Rampa or Herman Hesse.
The search was on, a magical mystery tour. Everyone was looking for God and all roads led to
India. Where else? It was the home of the original hippie, six million of them called sadhus,
wandering holy men, who never cut their hair, smoked dope constantly and spent their days either
in a meditative trance, doing yoga, or reading and discussing the holy books and great philosophical
and religious questions of the day. Homeless, with all their worldly possessions contained in a small
bundle, they wandered the great sub-continent of India as mendicant teachers, and devoted their
lives in the search for God and personal liberation, coming together every four years in a grand
mela, or gathering of the clans along the holy Ganges and it’s main tributaries, a forerunner to the
Rainbow Gatherings that take place every year somewhere on the American continent when the
tribes surface from their caves and teepees, grey bearded and bent, with children and grand
children, to come together in a medicine circle of prayer and remembrance, to pass the peace pipe
and talk story.
Of course some were bums, criminals and madmen in this group of Aquarian disciples, but there
are those elements in every human sampling as there were, and are, in those wandering Indian
sadhus, but they were all accepted since this was a new age of brotherhood, of love and light, of
joyful spirit and a dedication to serve their brothers and sisters with unselfish devotion. They all
lived in a yellow submarine as the song said, one family sharing the same magic and mystery, the
same goal, had all taken the same little pill and heard the all pervading OM within the recesses of
their mind, had seen the radiation of energy and the patterns of vibrating colors flowing out from
the bodies of friends and lovers, had seen the music and heard the colors and knew that their cells
did not lie, that what they saw and felt was real and that it was God speaking, urging them on into
the uncharted seas of psychic experiences.
And so they came, journeying to the East, seeking out the wise ones, the saints and yogis and
philosophers, those that knew, who could answer their questions, who could show them the next
step in the evolutionary process they had undertaken. It was a dangerous journey and there were
casualties along the way, for the path is a razor’s edge and some fell into the abyss. Evolution is a
hard task master and the weak do not survive, nature selects only the strongest to carry on the
work of growth, of mutation, of progression to the next level of consciousness, of transformation.
So I landed in New Delhi the second time, alone, without the steadying and sensible influence of
my partner who was to meet me in two weeks. Until then my time was supposed to be spent
making contact with several Indian psychologists who were on my list of people the Indian Tourist
Office had sent me, with a possible visit to a local mental hospital if time and circumstances
allowed. I had in my possession several hundred doses of pure Sandoz LSD, it not being illegal at
the time, that I thought I might share with my Indian colleagues if opportunity and interest were
shown. However, the opportunity never arose for within minutes of landing all previous plans were
cancelled and a new adventure, setting, and costume enfolded me onto it’s stage, and I was lead by
an unseen hand to a most unusual temple of transformation in the heart of Old Delhi.
After checking into my hotel and taking off the Brooks Brothers apparel and Omega gold
chronometer, I went to the Khadi Bhavan department store and bought my first set of Indian
clothes; hand spun, very loose, white pajamas, a long, orange, kurta shirt, two lungis, or sarongs,
and a soft cotton shoulder bag. I paid my rent two weeks in advance and securing my passport,
money and medicine pouch safely in the zipper pocket of my shoulder bag I plunged through the
door of the magic theatre – for mad men only - and disappeared into the dark lanes of the old city.
I wandered for two weeks in a surrealistic world of shadows, sleeping on rooftops, in parks and
underneath bridges, my companions being the lowest of the low, the wretched and dispossessed;
Indian beggars, French junkies, rickshaw pullers, psychotic westerners, some nights sleeping on the
pavement with one lungi on the ground the other covering me like the shroud of a corpse, my
rubber sandals under my head for a pillow, my money and passport tightly clenched between my
legs or tied around my waist. I bathed at the public water pump with the rickshaw wallahs, cleaned
my teeth with the twigs that old women on the street sold by the bundle, ate off the fly infested
stands, frequented the opium dens in the Chinese section, urinated and defecated in public like the
other residents, traipsed through the back alleys with wild eyed western sadhus dressed in
psychedelic paisley robes, smoked chillums at Jantar Mantar park with assorted holy men, and
dropped acid on the roof of the famous Crown Hotel in old Delhi with fifty others as we huddled in
blankets watching the full moon, meditating, chanting and blissfully freaking out.
A Spanish painter from Barcelona and nephew of Gaudi gave me datura seeds to chew. I gave
him 100 micrograms of Sandoz. You are God, he said. No, you are God, I replied. We looked at
each other and couldn’t stop laughing for we recognized the truth of what the other had said. Tat
svam asi. That art thou. We laughed until we ached. Divine madness was exhausting. Every few
days I would furtively crawl back to my hotel and sleep.
Two weeks later my significant other returned from Venice where she had been on a buying trip
for Italian glass beads, crystal ware and other rare and expensive items for her Hollywood bead
and jewelry boutique. She stepped off the plane in the latest Gucci creation accessorized in
exquisite Italian leather shoes and matching handbag. It was a sobering sight for it instantly brought
me back to a reality that I had so thoroughly left behind in just two short weeks, and had not
realized just how much until that moment. My life would never be the same.
Back at the hotel I changed out of my Indian rags and back into my button down costume with
gold chronometer. I left the beard. Looking into the mirror I saw another person I did not
recognize. The form was vaguely the same but the substance emanated unfamiliar vibrations,
insupportable and illogical, a contradiction to the costume that covered the form. Another person
was looking out from behind the eyes. Who it was I did not quite know, but I knew he had
experienced a transformation, a transmutation of genetic material, a rearrangement of DNA and
would never be the same again.
We did the tourist routine; a houseboat on Kashmir’s Dal Lake, the Oberi Palace Hotel, the Taj
Mahal, fine carpets and other gifts and mementos shipped back. I went through the motions but
none of it had any meaning, my mind and heart were elsewhere. They wished to return to that
temple of transformation that had been found in the hardship and poverty, in the pain and depth of
Indian life….
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