| SHANGRI-LA REDUX |
Stevan Orescan
Kathmandu, the Royal Mountain Kingdom with emanations and vibrations of Shangri-La, the
United Nations, ex-pat American and Europeans and the Nepalese Army. Most of the time I only
experience the Shangri-La part behind brick walls surrounded by a lush, green garden of ferns,
indigenous bushes and trees of every shape and size, elephant ear leaves of taro and banana,
flowers of every imaginable color mingling with the brilliantly hued sarongs of the young girls
working in the garden. In the background can be heard the low drone of chanting monks and the
occasional piercing blast from a Tibetan long- horn, the clanging of giant cymbals or the deep,
melodious reverberations of a monastery gong. The man servant brings me breakfast, tea, lunch,
again tea and then dinner. The woman washes my clothes, does the cleaning and keeps the kitchen
together.
The other night we went to a gathering at the house of a US Senator’s mad and multi-talented,
hippie daughter; the night before to the palatial home of an old, Dutch antique dealer who has lived
here for years and sleeps with a different sweet young thing every night. The exchange rate is Rs.78
to the dollar and ten bucks US buys a huge amount of groceries. For those so inclined another ten
brings home a hunk of black hash the size of their big toe.
I sit in front of the screen which sits in front of the window looking out into the garden. I tap-tap
letters all day to people all over the world and can think of no better way of spending my time. The
monsoon is here which lends itself nicely to reading the many books in the library. Sometimes I
stroll down to the stupa and linger over a morning coffee in one of the many small cafes that encircle
it. Monks and townspeople and funny, serious western types come to circumambulate this holy
shrine, mumble in their beads and spin prayer wheels in the eternal quest for enlightenment, a more
auspicious rebirth or a new Honda motorcycle. Not wishing for any of these I am happy to just sit
and watch.
I have a small coterie of beggars that wait for me on my morning walks. Two Indian sadhus, a
one legged man and another young man that glides across the ground on twisted, malformed legs all
seem to know when I’m coming.. No welfare or disability here, no crazy pay for the mad hatters,
no kinder gelt for the poor moms. These are the real holy men and women of this Buddha land; the
beggars and scavengers, the cripples, the whores and goondas, the dregs of humanity that evoke
from the depths of your innermost recesses thoughts and feelings of such intensity that one cannot
help but be transformed by them. These experiences are an every day affair; an entheogenic
voyage, a daily epiphany of insights and illuminations that the West does not offer its inhabitants,
Oprah land notwithstanding.
This is the home of the King of the World and the Mother of the Gods, two local residents that I
see several times a week. They smile and wave hello, never asking but always receptive to a small
donation. How can one not donate to such royalty? One’s beneficence may one day affect the evil
king that rules this land at present, a sardonic, debauched and corrupt ruler that everyone hates.
When he dies his son will take over, a killer in the Saddam mold, feared by all for his
unpredictability and sociopathic inclinations.
The Maoists clamor for entrance to the palace gates. Outside the walls steely-eyed, camo-
dressed gurkas with automatic weapons patrol the tree lined road that surrounds the palace and
give hard looks to all passersbys’, their finger always on the trigger. How nice not to be a person of
importance.
There are many Westerners here in various capacities; dharma scholars, antique and textile
dealers, NGO workers, Social Security retirees, left-over hipsters and drug dealers. One can stay
five months a year on a tourist visa for about a dollar a day or you can enroll in music or language
school, sign up for a Ph.D at the local University or apply for a research scholar’s visa, all of which
will allow one to stay indefinitely and are fairly easy to get. India and the holy city of Banaras are
right over the mountain, about $160 round trip and an hour away, an easy commute if one were
inclined to keep an abode in both places, an idea that I have been considering. It’s a good place to
hole up with books and laptop after the heat, dirt, venality and intensity of the Motherland, its
softness a welcome respite, like an oasis in the desert.
Though this is a Hindu country the large Tibetan community brings a quality of equanimity and
perspicuity that cannot be found in any other culture that I have experienced. The hardship of life on
the high, treeless plateau seems to mitigate against the ravages of self indulgence; the austerity feeds
their spirit and the hardship strengthens it. They are good business people, clear-eyed and charming
in their dealings, and one need not be fearful of being cheated.
In India the full repertoire of feint and maneuver, coercion and cajolery come into play, the caged
despair of the hungry and unsatisfied. It is a good school for the teaching of patience, the ability to
just be, without anxiety. The false pride and moral standards of the West need to be relinquished if
one is to survive. Survival demands that we stand alone, devoid of the baggage of conditioning and
desire and be ready to die at any time, to shut off the brain and release the sorrow that binds us to
the wheel. Camus said one is most awake on the way to the gallows. In Asia the hangman’s noose
is everywhere and one is not paying attention if death is not observed at least once a day. Living in
the East is both a deeper life experience and a deeper death experience. A good place to live, a
good place to die.
Today, on my morning walk to the stupa I saw a strange sight. Child? Man? Baby? With a body
weighing no more than 15 pounds and a head larger than a basketball with two more protuberances
the size of cut-in- half grapefruits growing from it. The whole thing looked like it was ready to
explode onto the circle of people staring at him. The mother, sitting on the ground, held him as if
nursing while explaining in Nepali what his condition was, thanking the people as they donated a
coin or small bill.
Though this poor being was sweating and obviously uncomfortable he looked amazing alert and
intelligent and as I looked into his eyes there was a flicker of recognition, some
kind of connection that allowed the both of us to see deep into each other. At first I had thought
how horrible, that such specimens of humanity should be eliminated at birth for they can only suffer
untold anguish, humiliation, and pain but the more I looked into his eyes the more I saw a soul, a
brain and a mind that could very well be much more advanced than the puny one that we so
arrogantly carry around.
If mind is the unfolding of thought, and thought is the result or output of the brain’s activity, then this
huge brain throbbing inside the skull of this person could be a developing mutation struggling to find
and keep its place in the hierarchy of the primates that presently occupy the planet. Is this
possible? Or could this be another form from another planet who has floated down on a thread of
DNA to eventually occupy this planet that we humans are destroying with our greed and
aggression?
Twenty years ago I saw another such person in a small village in the north of Thailand, a huge
pumpkin head in a tiny withered body, lying in a baby carriage as the mother solicited
contributions. They looked similar, could have been twins or members of the same mutated species
that have evolved into this extreme deviation to teach us about mind and intelligence, and slowly
replace us as we become extinct due to AIDS, drugs and wars. And if they have come down, say
from Alpha Centauri, are there more? And if these huge brains and withered bodies were to return
to their place of becoming would they refer to us as huge bodies with withered brains that they
observed on their travels?
Or are these just isolated examples of encephalitis , “water on the brain,” a condition more
prevalent in Asia due to heat, dirt, diet and strange tropical diseases, and one that has not been
swept under the carpet or warehoused in a special institution as we do in the West? What if two
members of this group were to have children? Would their offspring have the same characteristics,
the same brain size and intelligence, the same under developed body and withered appendages?
Those, of course, are relative terms; underdeveloped in relation to what? Withered in relation to
what? To say that they are underdeveloped and withered is stating an absolute-that which doesn’t
stand in relation to anything else, and that prevails all the time and everywhere. That certainly is not
the case with Homo sapiens. We are as varied as the snowflakes, all beautifully shaped and
singularly unique and equal in our humanity. And if the world is God made manifest then those two
specimens of humanity, and all the others of their form and substance, are just other versions like all
of us and with as much right to live as all of us, if they choose.
But what if they were not specimens of humanity? What if they were not human? Could they be
angels? And what is an angel? A spiritual being not of the corporeal world of time and space? An
immaterial substance? A disembodied spirit? An article of faith? A winged doer of good deeds,
bringer of light and wisdom?
There is not much in the annals of Buddhism regarding angels and there is no theological,
philosophical or scientific proof that angels exist in any of the major religions of the world. But there
is also no proof that they do not exist and the two beings that I saw, both times in Buddhist
countries and in areas of holy shrines, indeed carried with them a radiant, celestial presence once
one overcame the shock of seeing their forms.
Angels exist as an article of faith in the three major “revealed religions” of Judaism, Christianity
and Islam, and there are angelic intimations in some Buddhist circles that manifest in divine forms
such as mother goddesses or heavenly helpers. Generally these beings have beautiful
configurations, ethereal, sometime with wings signifying other worldliness, as if from heaven or even
the nether reaches of the underworld of darkness and shadow as in the angel of death. But never
distorted and misshapen, never frightening in appearance, weak or physically helpless; these
characteristics belong to the world of evil, bad karma, hell, suffering, punishment, all that we are
afraid of and try to avoid during our life.
However, since there are handsome forms of evil as well, one could presume that grotesque
angels also exist. Osama and Saddam are handsome men and Hitler would not have been
considered ugly or funny looking had it not been for his moustache and haircut. Mother Theresa,
considered by many before she died a living angel with much inner beauty, had little of the outer.
Does an angel bring happiness? Wisdom? Comfort? The ever smiling drug dealer on Freak Street
does that, the whores and madams of the brothels do that; succor, aid and attendance, an anodyne
for a tired body and anguished soul as it awaits the angel of death, handsome in his black robes,
piercing eyes and bloodless, white face, ready to sweep us up in his robe and carry us off to places
unimagined by mortal man.
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