Living for Disco

“Do you know who you are?” asks our guru, his soft voice seeming to drift into our minds without effort; the smell of incense permeates everything with a sense of calm.

“This body is just a costume. It is not who you are. You are a soul – whatever it is that looks out of your eyes, and hears with your ears, this is who you are. You must learn, through meditation, to harness the healing power of your energy, your soul.”

“Sorry sorry sorry sorry! We are late! Sorry!” says a voice that sounds as if it has been stretched and sandpapered almost out of existence. A man appears, his eyes bright and interested, dragging two girls in his wake. We all begin again, at the beginning. Throughout the introduction, he shuffles a collection of plastic bags around in his pocket, then gets out his mobile phone and turns it off. It plays a happy little tune.

“And so the soul has a number of original qualities, qualities that are buried under the acquired traits such as anger, greed…”

“Is my car alright outside?”, pipes up the Voice.

“Uh… what?” Our guru is momentarily derailed.

“My car. I parked it outside. Do the people in the next door house need to get out? Must I move it?”

“No, it’s ok. There is no-one living next door. Anyway, uh, where was I…”

“OK. Good, good.”

We practice a spot of guided meditation while staring at a point of light on the wall. It’s quite amazing, actually – I feel a sense of power that makes me almost euphoric. I’m not sure it’s supposed to do this – at one point I actually feel as if I could destroy things just by looking at them, but I’m not convinced meditation is supposed to be about destruction. I feel that this is something I should work on.

We finish, and all sit feeling serene; all except one. “So at the end of the course, will I be able to see angels and things floating all around me?” he asks excitedly.

Our guru patiently tells him that he has maybe missed the point. “You are the angel,” he explains to the clearly baffled man. “Angels are just other human beings. You have to learn not to look at the things around you. The point is to look inside and find your inner angel.”

“Right. OK. No angels.” He looks a bit disappointed. Some minutes pass in relative calm, as the guru tells us all about the ‘university’ and its courses.

“That guy – is he the one that was on his way to Namibia, but then he got stopped at the border and deported, because he had all these meditation things with him?” He is pointing to a picture of a serene looking Indian man that is hanging on the wall. It looks as if it was taken at least 40 years ago, and is, I assume, of the founder of the organisation. Our guru is starting to look a bit bemused.

I start staring at the point of light again, so that I won’t snort snot out of my nose. I am still a bit snotty, and I don’t think that it would go down well with anyone, really. Also I have no tissues. I don’t want it to be like one of my A-level history lessons when my friend Chrissy made me laugh so much I had to pretend to have a nose-bleed.

When I tune back in he is trying to get everyone all excited about the next session. “Come on people, we must finish this course! No hanging around. We have to finish!” I think that he has probably decided to get to the end of the course and see for himself whether the angels appear, as he does seem particularly eager to get it all finished. I don’t understand how he can be so perky – I feel almost catatonic with calm and well-being.

We eventually agree, amid some confusion, to meet again on Saturday, and slowly file out into the frangipani-scented evening air.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 28th, 2007 at 10:31 am and is filed under Miscellanea. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.