"I need to go for a haircut".
Neither Pitaji (my Guru), nor the many women (Mother, elder sisters, and care-taker maid) let me out of their sights. I had to tell them of my whereabouts on a second-by-second basis, in an age without cellphones!
A hair-cut cost some ten rupees in the fifties. Boys less than 10 years old were not expected to give tips. Neither did they have the luxury of doting elders to lessen the burden of sharp scissors around your ears, and those tickly devices on the nape of one's neck.
Buddhi Ayah (the care-taker maid) would supervise my crossing the road, but the rest was up to me. I should say that crossing a road in 1958 was no big deal. It was very much as in Switzerland today. You simply stepped on to a pedestrian crossing, and all automobiles would halt.
Mother gave me the money, many instructions that I forget, while my sisters sternly repeated her words. Buddhi Ayah was mumbling something in the background, but that again was par for the course.
So my final port of call before the hair-cut expedition, was to tell Pitaji. Trust him to come up with something tough!
"I will watch you from our usual place. Report to me on what you observe".
'Usual place' meant the smaller of our two balconies (round balcony is the home jargon). Pitaji loved to sit there. He would engage me in competitions. I had to squat with my hands on my ears if I lost. I never won, so I do not know what he may have done in my place! His favorite was to count cars. Ambassadors and Fiats ruled my city roads in those days. I would have to count Ambassadors as they passed by, while he would count Fiats. The first person to reach a fixed number won. Many decades later, I realized that my city had more Fiats because they were made locally.
Here is a recent picture of the view from the balcony. The road has been divided and the car models have changed (multiplied as well!) Little else has changed over the past half century. The barber shop is in the building next to the white Gothic beauty in the photograph:
"How will I keep count from the barber's shop?"
The question seemed reasonable to me, but it evoked a scornful response from Pitaji.
"Observe inside the shop, not the road, you fool!"
I found this a bid odd as Pitaji could not (I then thought) see inside a barber's shop; in fact, his locks and beard suggested that he had not visited one for long! However, fearing further corporal punishment, I simply kept my mouth shut.
I do not remember crossing the road or the hair-cut. The saloon had the usual motley crowd. I still go there, more than half a century later, and never fail to observe everyone inside as closely as possible! Then, the Spirit of Pitaji and I enjoy a laugh over my observations. They are standard now. A physics lesson in the 1960s taught me again, the same thing that Pitaji did that 1958 day.
I waved to Buddhi Ayah, crossed the road, and went back home with her. I went to Pitaji, after a customer coke and mutton cutlets, and told him everything I thought I had seen in the barber's shop. He listened with unusual patience, but then stumped me as usual.
"What did you see in the mirror while your hair was being cut".
It then struck me that I had seen endless images of everyone between the two mirrors that every barber's shop has, to this day. My physics teacher taught me to observe the same phenomenon by lighting a candle between two mirrors facing each other.
This was my introduction to Advaita or Non-Duality. Pitaji spent the rest of his days with me, ingraining this foundation principle of Hindu philosophy in my psyche. He stepped up the rhetoric even as my mind developed. He also taught me rituals of Narayana worship, havan (homage to fire), and aarati (worship with lights, incense, and bells). However, my doubts about contradictions between these practices and Advaita, dissolved under his benevolent care. I continued to study Non-Duality after he left his mortal form in 1966. The writings of Swami Vivekananda and Dr Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan added substance to my beliefs.
I began studying Biology in 1962, and specialized in this area between 1969 and 1971. My understanding of genetics gave me a secular basis for my commitment to Advaita. All living things have the same nucleic acids. Some scientists believe that life may have come to earth through microbes on the back of asteroids. Certainly, there are bacteria that love stones: I market them!
The concept of Maya (illusion) is more difficult to accept than Advaita. However, the Indian system of Gotra is evidence of the essential unity of all humans. Our species has evolved from humble forms-some of which are still around. Nevertheless, the genetic origins of all life are irrefutably united.
This philosophy has helped me worship Jesus, the Buddha, and the Guru Granth Sahib, even though I remain a practicing Hindu. My pioneering Guru was the first to celebrate the conversion of my eldest sister to the Catholic faith. His Spirit smiled when my son announced that he would marry a Christian. Some of my best friends are Muslims and Zoroastrians.
I revel in Advaita. I hope that my successors will live by it for all time, so that I too can defeat death by living through them.
The photograph below is dominated by vegetation and trees. There is some exposed soil in the foreground that must contain earthworms and microbes. Birds feed on the turf, and there is a dog just beyond the bunker. Poor people earn their bread by looking after this golf course, while their wealthier fellow humans work and live in the tall blocks of concrete and glass on the horizon. Advaita teaches the illusion (Maya) of differences between forms of Brahman (the Universal Spirit).
