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New
York, NY, USA
April 2, 2003
War
and Bliss With The So-Cal Swami
By
Dana Goodyear
On
a recent night, Dr. Swami Ramananda
Maharaj walked up Lexington Avenue after a pro-peace
poetry reading at Baruch College. He was accompanied
by a tan, brown-haired woman named Dr. Ruth Nolan and
her 14-year-old daughter, Tarah.
"We
left 80-degree weather to come here—that’s how deep
our commitment is to supporting New York," said the
swami, a 52-year-old with bronzed skin and a neat white
beard. He wore an orange ski cap, an orange hooded sweatshirt,
a maroon chador with mirrors sewn into it, a
pale orange dhoti, and many bracelets, rings
and wooden beads.
"We’re
fostering a dialogue through poetry," Ruth said. "We
can communicate through poetry." She is 40, and a teacher
at College of the Desert, a junior college in Palm Springs.
Tarah nodded appreciatively.
"I
live in Rancho Mirage, near Palm Springs," the swami
said. "President Gerald Ford is my neighbor. Cher lives
there. I’m the only swami in a 300-mile radius. I’m
like the fix-it guy."
They
stopped at an Indian restaurant. A sign said it was
closed, but Swami Ramananda opened the door and said
something in Hindi to the host. "We’ve got a swami with
us," Ruth said, and the party was ushered inside. The
Swami removed his hat, revealing a sika hair
style: His head is mostly shaved (to discourage vanity),
but there is a little tail at the back, so that God
can pull him up to Heaven. "What a high to come out
of that reading tonight!" he said. "Tonight was about
peaceful people coming together and delivering a message
of peace. It’s reminding me of the 60’s a lot."
The
reading included a contest among high-school students
for best poem about the United Nations. Mohammed Abbasi,
a student at Brooklyn Technical High School, won second
place for a poem called "War Season": "The lush, moist
and newly picked fruits / Sit on the cold floor / Black,
hard and ugly / The scene is dark / The grapple has
overcome the grain."
"Mohammed’s
poem was about the horrors of war," the Swami said.
It was so poignant, especially coming from someone named
Mohammed."
"Wow,"
said Ruth.
"It
was amazing to be at a poetry reading when I could literally
feel death in the air," said the Swami.
"It
feels very front-line," said Ruth. She meant "pioneering,"
not the PBS documentary program, Frontline.
"Very
front-line," said the Swami.
"It’s
like minute-to-minute reporting about what’s going on
in the human soul."
"Very
nice!" the Swami said.
"It
was inspirational," Tarah said.
The
following night, the Swami was planning to read his
own poem about walking alone in the Himalayas, "Mount
Kailasha," at a UNESCO end-violence-against-women event.
"It’s
on the new album I just did with Elvis Costello, Wings
of the Dawn, and in my new best-selling book, Bliss
Now" he said. "It’s a prayer for world peace."
Then,
on Friday morning, the Swami was scheduled to visit
Ground Zero with a rabbi, a Sufi mullah and a priest
from the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. He said he
was going to bring along a vial of water from the Ganges
River, to bless and purify the site. "New Yorkers think
only airy-fairy people live on the West Coast," he said.
"But we feel very deeply our solidarity with New York.
I was just reflecting on what Joan Rivers said on Leno
the other night: ‘The farther you get from salt water,
the less your intelligence.’
"Luckily,
we’re near salt water!" Ruth said.
Ruth,
Tarah and the Swami drank chai tea as the restaurant’s
management hovered anxiously.
"I
will always remember this night," the Swami said.
"Wasn’t
it powerful?" Ruth asked. "Poetry is the one place where
people are trying to tell the truth."
Tarah
pulled a spiral notebook from her mother’s bag and began
writing and crossing out energetically with a purple-glitter
gel pen. Ruth explained that Tarah was writing a poem,
which she would recite at the UNESCO event. Tarah told
the table that the poem was "kind of just like a metaphor
for what the whole world’s going through right now,
and how love will prevail." She counted out syllables
with her pen, mouthed some words, and uttered frustrated
little sounds.
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