Conspiring With Love

We met a week before the Gujarat Genocide event in LA. I bought him a ginger beer while I gripped the slender end of a pint of stout. I said I heard he was a healer. He said he heard about the event I was co-organizing, said it seemed to be a dialogue on the history of Gujarat, his native state, that was missing from his childhood education. That, as a Hindu man, it was crucial he come and fill in the blanks of his heritage. That was April 2012.

Now, in March 2013, we’re settling into our new flat across from Parimal Garden in Ahmedabad, Gujarat. Every Sunday we sweep and mop the entire place together. Every morning and evening we sit side by side for Vipassana meditation. And when gravity relents and orbits bloat, we facilitate play and healing and conversation with youth.

In one such circle we sit now. In the Muslim ghetto of Jamalpur. Famous for its fruit stands. Different sized palms, an array of gradient browns, cupped and held. Knees a braid of continuity. We sit together in meditation. The children close with a prayer. We marinate in blessings of the most potent. “May we trust in ourselves…” Later we’d be told that all throughout the rest of the afternoon, as other children joined for tuitions, a seven or nine year-old instructor would emerge. “Ok, so you have to sit very still. And then close your eyes like this. Right. Good. Then listen to your breath and just pay attention.” From 2 guides, splinters of seeking and sharing yield a dozen. And sitting with stillness, sitting with self within community becomes joyful. A practice that’s passed like eager turns at kabadi. Spirit heights climb over 3 feet bodies. And the profound wisdom of youth drenches us all in brilliant smiles.