We woke up in a storm. 2025 showing intention? 2024 flushing? We shall see.
Lou had a day off and wanted to go to Neasden Mandir. With all the years she’s spent in India she occasionally needs a fix of it.
I have never quite gelled with Hinduism, which is unusual considering my poly view to most world religions. I’ve never been drawn to a Hindu country in this life, and I’m not sure if there are many previous tracks that way. Buddhism – particularly Japanese Buddhism – felt very familiar to me immediately. So did shinto, so do many of the strands of animism left in the west, the things we’ve had to piece together from negative retelling and takeovers by colonising faith structures. I’ve travelled through these places before but not through the Hindu. I found some power in Ganesh, a solid frisson of recognition in Shiva, although I’m convinced he’s a woman.
The Mandir is a huge temple in London. BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir, a molded edifice full of devotional Hindu. A beautiful if modern place of devotion for one of the oldest thriving world religions. A place with history of thought and care and peace. And it is beautiful. I circuited round, observing the rules as best I understood them, feeling mildly constrained as it felt like there might be secret rules that are only known to “insiders”. It wasn’t my gang. With shinto my instincts really helped me and I just seemed to KNOW what was the way and what wasn’t. With this temple I even sat wrong. Not my gods. Still, Ganesha is equivalent to my lady untier of knots, Hanuman has much in common with the tricksters I’ve come to know, haida ravens, even Bacchus. Shiva and Vishnu are the clearest tropes to explain what I have come to understand in the balance between creation and destruction, and how destruction IS creation just as creation IS destruction and round we go. But I can’t attach my imagination to the humanified molds. And to really consume the knowledge, it’s too much in this lifetime, I’ve already eaten about 5 major religions and I’m still pushing Joseph Campbell’s connective thoughts into the magimix of my brain to see what eventually drips out into the glass. I guess Campbell is a human I admire, so in those terms it is a little less odd that many of the devotional shrines contained people. I can admire people, but I’m not gonna fucking worship them, no way. I know people too well, love them too well.
It was a good contemplative start to the year, and I’d recommend it unless you’re monomaniac and likely to be freaked out by a different culture or what you have decided is a “wrong” way of contemplating the infinite. You can largely work out what’s what by observing the other people there. Lou and I were the only ones invited to the £2.00 “Learn about Hinduism” exhibition. We both politely declined. We went across the road though to the sattvic restaurant.
So many carbs, but we got stuck into an “all you can eat” vegetarian sattvic buffet. Chana Massala, Saag Paneer, Aloo – the regulars – some hot stuff, lots of carbs. A healthy first meal. Some years ago I would deliberately go to KFC on New Year’s Day, so that every meal after my first one was better than my first. I’m glad I’m not doing that sort of crap these days. It was a glorious first meal of the year.
We got home and listened to a meditation, but I’m not that far down the line. While Lou sat cross-legged I found myself emptying cat shit out the litter box and taking the bins out. Practicality.
Now it’s 9pm and I kinda want to go to bed. Brian is in New Zealand so it’s just Lou and I here for a bit with Boo. Gonna start this year slowly, and without any big promises wouldn’t it be nice to keep taking care of myself, eating well, taking care of the things beyond our ken?
“This sweetcorn methi leaves a taste in my mouth that is really similar to the one I get with Ayahuasca.”
Grandma is reminding me of the promises I made to myself a few weeks ago.
Happy start. Happy forward. Much to do. Much light to find.
AlBarclay 