So it's the end of my yoga ashram time, and I end up sharing a cab to the train station with this American guy from NYC I meet who is a Ramakrishnan devotee. If you want to read about the whole yoga ashram experience up to this point, read my previous blog posts Getting to Rishikesh, India and My Yoga Ashram Spiritual Experience in Rishikesh, India.
When I wake up at the ungodly hour of 4am to catch a cab to the train station, I soon get a call from this guy I've meet. It's been 2 months since this actually happened at the time of this writing so I don't remember his name, but I know met I met him he introduced himself with a complicated indian sounding name, but I later got it out of him that he has an English name too that he stopped using once he became a Ramakrishnan devotee. I'll call him Tom from now on.
On the phone I tell him I'm about to go pick him up at our specified place.
Me: "I'll see you soon"
Tom: "See you soon at the mercy of Ramakrishna."
Me: "Ok..."
Tom: "We'll be in front of the building in 5 minutes with the mercy of Ramakrishna."
Me: "Ok...see ya."
So we pick him up and him and his friend join me for the ride over. I'm sitting in the front, his friend is sitting behind me, and he's sitting in the other backseat. Other than introducing myself to his friend, I didn't speak to him at all. I just started talking with Tom. We do some traveling small talk like where we're going and what we're doing, but it quickly comes up about his life as a devotee. He talks about places he's been to promote Ramakrishna and how I should go to visit some of the Iskcon temples near Agra. At some point I mention I'm Jewish, and he says he's Jewish too. He seems to think of the Judaism religion and his devotion to Ramakrishna as distinct, separate things that both describe him, but he talks like Ramakrishnan plays a more major role in his life.
The entire time we're talking, I'm noticing that his friend sitting behind me has been mumbling under his breath. He's saying something like "Hari Krishna Ramakrishna Hari Hari Hari Krishna" really fast. It sounds like what they were singing with their song the night before. I ask Tom what he's doing back there, and says he's showing his respect for Ramakrishnan. Starting this conversation doesn't even phase his friend, who continues to mumble his respect. Tom says that every day, as devotees, they need to pay their respect to Ramakrishnan by essentially just repetitively saying his name for 2 hours. 2 hours every day!! I'm aghast with this new information, but Tom continues on.
Tom: "Usually I wake up at about 4:30am every morning so I can meet everyone for the group prayer at 5am. That's done by 6am so I then have 2 hours to pay my respects before it's even 8am. It works well for me."
In my head: "Whoa, how do you have time for anything else...and sleeping. Quite the devotee..."
Me: "Ok..."
I'm really in disbelief at this point. I could never handle something like that. We finally get to the train station, and I kind of want to shake them before he tries even more to make me a devotee. I hope they aren't on the same train as me. They're headed to New Delhi, and I'm going to Agra a bit farther south than Delhi. We pay and I say goodbye and maybe I'll see ya later. Then I head off to find my seat on the train while they're getting their luggage out of the taxi.
It's still super early, about 6am, so I find my sleeper seat next to a family of four and pass out.
I wake up a bit later, more refreshed at about 10am. The train doesn't get to agra until about 3pm or so, so I have a bit of time to chill. Soon afterwards while I'm hanging out, Tom walks by! We say hi to each other and he comes to sit down. He comes with food though, so I'm ok with that. He starts giving me fresh dates, mmm, weird "packed with vitamin c" fruit, and some kind of weird nuts. After the food he gives me a little book that's an Into to Ramakrishna. I took it so as not to be rude, but I left it at the next hostel I stayed at. He continues to tell me that I should go to another one of these "holy" cities. I've definitely had enough of the holy cities with Rishikesh, but there's this one he keeps talking about north of Agra that has all sorts of temples and is the birthplace of Ramakrishna.
At one point he starts showing me some pictures and videos on his iPad of places he went with other devotees to spread the word. At one point he was talking about how Russia was trying to ban the Ramakrishan book, and they organized a parade to protest that. I asked why they would try to ban it, and his answer was pretty much that he didn't know. I haven't done too much research into it, but I think he knew but was in somewhat denial that the teachings are kind of a cult religion that Russia doesn't want its citizens being a part of. But then again that's religious freedom, right?
I also realized that when I was in New Delhi, I actually ended up going to an Iskcon temple. We got drawn in from the noticeable architecture(check it out on wikipedia) and it ended up having a party going on when we arrived. Once I thought about it they must've been singing the same song they always sing. I showed Tom pictures and he mentioned that's where he was going in New Delhi as well.
I'll take this time to describe the look of Tom. He only had on an orange robe and some kind of sandals or flip flops (I don't remember). The robe wasn't at all like robes monks wear, it didn't seem to out of the ordinary. He also had an interesting haircut. His head was mostly bald with just the top of his head with hair in a little tiny pony tail. On the front of his face he had some painting from the top of his nose up to his forehead. It looked like a little bit extra on top of what most Indians have with just the dot on their forehead. Since we'd been traveling all morning the paint looked like it was crumbling off his skin a bit. I asked him how often he re-applied it, and the answer led to even more interesting facts as I asked for clarification.
He said that he reapplied it after every shower. Well how much does he shower? 3-5 times a day! Whoa. He can't use soap every time right? There's no need. Well actually he doesn't use soap at all. Actually he showers with 2 towels. One he keeps dry and hangs on a hook. The other he actually wears into the shower. So he doesn't actually shower naked, he says he thinks it's disrespectful to Lord Krishna. After he showers by just rubbing down his body with water, he drys himself with the dry towel and then wipes himself down with the wet towel. He says he thinks he gets a better clean that way (by using the wet towel afterwards). Radical, I tell you.
Every time I hear another answer to a clarifying question I'm more and more surprised. That is the weirdest shower routine I have ever heard of. Anyway, he puts back on his face paint after every shower.
We talk about a few other things, but nothing as interesting as what I wrote here. His stop at Delhi came up before too long so we said our goodbyes and I had some time to enjoy my last train(and yummy meal) before I headed off to the rest of my trip in Rajasthan, India!
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