Day 20 of 27 — Re-emergence

July 10, 2021

I arrived in 2003 after half a decade of conflict and instability. My spouse and I had been estranged for several of those years and my brother had left taking the family money. It was a time when grief and seemingly impossible problems consumed my waking life. I had begun meditating in 2000 after a period of alcohol dependency. Now both my innerlife and outer work path were emerging solid from a vague and uncertain fog. I had developed an interest in human rights, education, and conflict resolution after the Bombay riots of 1992-3.

 

But I felt a dark emptiness, like important parts of me were missing. The meditation had plateaued too. I had been using my dreams to live my life more deeply since 1995 when I first started personal therapy.  I asked for guidance about my stagnation. That night I dreamt of a woman in a karate uniform doing movements near a waterfall.

 

I had repressed the memory of my childhood flirtation with martial arts, so the dream was a shock. Since I had completely split myself from my body, I had no intention of following through on this dream. I asked for another guidance dream, but none came. That year after very long our family was able to afford a vacation. We flew to Sri Lanka. It was a strange vacation to start with because we had forgotten how to be together and relax on a holiday. Bentota beach was our second stop, and it began storming as soon as we got there. The tumultuous grey waters crashed powerfully on the beach again and again. We played board games, read, ate, and got restless. As soon as the sun emerged on the third day, my daughter and I decided to try a water sport. We chose wind surfing. 

 

The instructor was a young man with strong upper body muscles, and sun-bleached hair tied into a long pony-tail. He looked at us sceptically. A skinny girl and an unfit woman with white hair. He first put us on boards on the ground to teach us how to move our feet, then put the boards in water.  He found that we had a good sense of balance and he moved us to wind surf boards and began teaching us to manipulate the sails to use the wind to move and change direction. The work was tiring and engrossing. We had to be totally present in every move or we would either drop the sails or fall into the water ourselves. When the morning instruction ended, I had been able to go out to the middle of the river and come back without falling off the board. 

 

It was our first sunny day in Bentota. We ate lunch and lazed by the pool. The wind began to pick up and we napped beneath swaying palm trees. My spirits soared and something dormant stirred. 

 

The afternoon session was more absorbing and intense. We both went out in different directions with assistant instructors in motor-boats supporting our learning. The waves were flowing faster than the morning. Two days of storms had ended but the weather had not yet quieted. In the morning, when I could not control the wind in my sails, I had dropped the sails to avoid being pulled into the waters with them. That afternoon I decided not to drop them, no matter what. My puny arms struggled with the sails and the strong winds, which were determined to subdue me. The two hours ended in a blink. I learned more than windsurfing that day. I learned that physical activity that absorbs is a way to inner depth and quiet focus, just as much as meditation is. The holiday became more spontaneous after that. 

 

When we got back to Bombay, I knew I had to follow through on that dream, but I didn’t know how. In those days you could not google ‘karate clubs in Bombay’ and get a list like you can now. It was another synchronicity that my friend Sean, a quirky Irishman, invited me for lunch. Sean and his wife had lived in the Himalayas for many years with their guru. They only came back to ‘normal life’ after their guru passed on. The adjustment had been hard, and he knew a lot about life and death. At lunch, I told him about my dream and how the urge was amplifying. ‘I don’t understand why my call for a dream to deepen my spiritual path was answered by a karate image.’  Sean pulled out two books from his shelves—The Zen of Archery and a book describing different martial arts. I read them overnight and called him, ‘So what now.’ 

 

‘If you must learn martial arts, there is only one person in Bombay you can go to, Sensei Mistry. I'd studied judo with him years ago,’ Sean said. He called Sensei Mistry and got details of his karate class.

 

The next class was on Friday evening, but I was nervous. Sean said he would go with me but had plans on Friday. I couldn’t wait till Monday, so I set out alone on Friday evening. 

 

The most meaningful journeys are often solitary.