Kashi

KASHI

City of Love and Light

Daniela Jodorf

Text

© Daniela Jodorf 2018

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© Daniela Jodorf

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Daniela Jodorf

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Valentino Funghi on Unsplash

Editing

Monika Winterstein

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Daniela Jodorf

Leonhard-Kraus-Str. 23

53604 Bad Honnef

www.daniela.jodorf.de

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The mind veils consciousness,

and desires color the mind.

◊◊◊

There is no danger of forgetting.

The pain of the past is still alive within us.

Its voice is constantly calling for our recognition,

but not always heard.

Part One

The Pursuit of Happiness

1 Prologue

Varanasi

The mist of the cold November fog touched her face softly and cooled the tip of her nose. The fire of the cremation grounds were eternally burning, sending their strange sweet smell with the morning air around the entire city. She heard the ringing of countless bells of the morning aartis, prayers conducted in homes, temples and on the banks of the Ganga at sunrise; crystal clear sounds, that touched her heart more than anything she perceived at this early hour. She allowed the sound to pierce into her heart, to resonate in its own subtle and secret frequency. Joy rose within her, the bliss of pure existence. She surrendered to this bliss that swept over her consciousness like a tidal wave and witnessed its rise and its fading when it opened the door to an even deeper realm of being: the silence of the universal soul. Pure consciousness and pure energy appeared as one in this vibrant nothingness, void of identity, of time and space. No object was able to manifest in this dimension of pre-existence, no I, no you and no that. And yet she knew that she was completely alive there, in this inner place that was no place. Beyond identification of any kind, she experienced a state of pure being, of pure subjectivity; a state beyond the mind and the senses, beyond perception and recognition. Divine consciousness embraced her and her heart was filled with love, the infinite love of life. Still, after so many years of living in the presence of the divine, a sense of gratefulness flushed through her and pulled her awareness back into the manifest world.

First, she saw her body sitting on the terrace, wrapped in a thick Kashmiri shawl. The body sat in a meditative posture facing the river. The water was calm and appeared like a crystal clear mirror. But it did not reflect her, an image of her own physical body she still witnessed with the inner eye. The mirror of the serene morning Ganga reflected the face of a pale man, looking at her with empty eyes. He was so close to her, that she was about to stretch out her hand to touch and console him. She felt his sorrow deeply, almost as if it was her own. His eyes spoke to her in the silent language of unexpressed emotions. He was confused; he did not know, where to go, what to do. He had lost his path, lost touch with divinity. Why, she asked herself. What had happened? But her thoughts disturbed the inner image and it vanished instantaneously leaving behind the memory of the face and the expression in its eyes.

In the heat of the afternoon, she walked through the crowded alleys of the old town. It was not far to her teacher´s house, only a few blocks. People looked at her with a recognizing smile, greeting her with a kind “Hello”. She passed the burning ghat and much to her surprise, she noticed that she always thought the same thought and felt the same emotion every single time she walked by this place. “This site is surreal”, she thought.” It seems to be neither heaven nor hell and yet both at the same time. It is so terrible and yet so peaceful.” A cold shiver swept over her skin when she felt the grief of the people saying their last goodbye to the dead bodies chanting the ritualistic mantras and watching the flames work of transforming to ashes what used to be a living, moving sentient being.

The door of her teacher´s house stood open, and she entered silently. He awaited her on the floor of his terrace with a kind smile. She sat down in the shade on her asana, a small carpet, in front of him and started to unpack her sitar. He held his instrument on his lap and began to tune it. The first sounds were disharmonious and perfectly mirrored her emotional state. Ever since the vision of this morning meditation, she felt oddly disturbed. And her teacher knew it. He stopped and looked at her seriously.

“You don´t have to worry about him. You know that. He is safe and he will be guided!”

1 Chapter One

New York

The tiny moment of silence before the audience started to applause was hard to catch, but Paul had never missed it in his entire career. Then, one or two people began to clap and only a second later the rest followed. He was tired tonight. Concentration had cost him a strong effort. Now he looked at the people in the filled Hall over critically. Yes, they appeared to be enthusiastic and the applause still grew stronger. He bowed down, playing his role perfectly. When his eyes went another round through the audience, he thought that he finally knew what had disturbed him for such a long time. They had come to see Paul Madden, the composer, the conductor, the cellist. They had come to see a name, but none of these people had come to hear his music, to listen to his language, to follow the subtle story, he had tried to tell with his orchestra. He felt empty, almost dead. A dear friend embraced him, they had worked together for many years, and the applause swelled again, not comforting Paul´s sadness, but worsening it.

He almost fled when it was over. He grabbed his cello and his coat and ran off. He lived far from Carnegie Hall in Downtown Manhattan, but he did not call a cab. He had to walk down Broadway to be alone with the cold of this November night. “Why do I do this”, he thought with a strong need to blame himself for his perceptions, his thoughts and his unwanted feelings. In this moment, he hated himself. He thought he had failed. If the people did not feel his music, there had to be something wrong with it. Maybe it was not deep enough, not true enough, not universal enough to be touching. He pulled the gray scarf closer around his neck to protect himself from the icy northern wind and walked faster down south without looking left or right. His cell phone rang. It was Phil, the friend who had hugged him on stage. But Paul did not answer the call. Countless thoughts entered his mind and he had to prevent to drown in their negativity. Never had he doubted his passion and his talent like this. Music had always been the driving force of his life. It had given him energy and inspiration even in difficult times. But now was no difficult time. The difficulties were past. Now was a time of ease. But suddenly, when least expected, the source of his creative energy seemed to turn against him. He passed his apartment and walked around the next block, then another and another without a destination. His hands were frozen when he recognized a bar across the street. Blind to the outer setting he opened the door, sat on the next table and mechanically ordered an espresso. The coffee came quickly and he tried to warm his hands on the small cup when somebody approached him calmly. He looked up curiously, expecting one of his friends or colleagues, but he did not know the tall woman, who looked at him kindly. There was something very serious and urgent about her.

“Can I help you, Madame?” Paul asked politely and the woman sat next to him without being invited.

“I have to talk to you!” she said with a self-confident voice.

“Have you heard the concert?”

“The concert?” She smiled with a hint of amusement. “No!”

He was puzzled, unable to figure out, why a stranger might want to talk to him at this place and this time, yet, it was not completely unusual that people recognized and approached him.

“You don´t have to be afraid”, she said.

“Afraid?! Of you? Why would I.” He did not like the situation and tried to get up.

She grabbed his hand and almost pulled him back in his chair. "Not of me, but of your thoughts, your emotions, your experiences!"

He did not understand. “My experiences?”

“Yes, the experiences you have just run away from.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Again he thought about getting up, but somehow he could not. He was unable to move, while the woman still held his hand and looked at him with a facial expression that suggested she was delivering a highly important message.

“You are starting to doubt your life and your work.”

That was true, but he had not talked about it to anybody. How did she know?

“Who are you?” he wanted to know.

“That is of no importance. What is important is that you find out who you are and what you truly need. You have to listen to me carefully now.” The pressure of her hand got stronger and painful. “You will be flying to Berlin soon.”

“No. I won´t. I have several engagements in Europe next month, but not in Berlin.”

“This will change. You have to believe me.”

“This is ridiculous. Are you some kind of fortune teller? I will not pay you."

Her face turned angry for the first time. “I am surprised that you are such an idiot. Never mind. You will go to Berlin and you have to be very aware.”

“Aware of what?”

“Of your perceptions, your feelings and surprising coincidences!”

This woman was crazy, he thought, but he finally gave in. He did not want to upset her even more. “Okay. I promise. I will try to be aware, if I go to Berlin, even though my schedule does not permit any change.”

“You have to listen to your inner voice. And please, do not judge your experiences. You are safe and you will be guided.”

She suddenly let go of his hand, got up and left without looking back. He was still unable to move and began to shiver. Paul called the waitress to pay. When she brought the bill, he felt the strong irresistible urge to ask her about the woman.

“Did you see the woman, who sat on my table with me?”

“No! There was nobody, Sir.”

“You mean, you have been too busy to look at my table?”

“No, Sir. There is not much going on at this time of the night. There is only you and three more guests over there.”

“You did not see a brown haired tall woman, wearing a light brown leather jacket with jeans?”

“No, Sir.”

He was shocked. Fear crept into his heart. Was he about to lose his mind?

When he opened the door to his apartment ten minutes later, he relaxed for the first time this evening. Yet, he avoided the habitual glance at his face in the mirror across the entrance door. Instead, he looked at the photography on the shelf below that showed his son and his wife. “Would this not happen, if they were still with me”, he thought with a strong sense of loss. He had to admit that he did not know. He did not know, what was wrong with him, and he did not know, what brought about this serious crisis. He took off his coat and went straight into the bathroom. After a long, hot shower he felt better. All the dark thoughts had gone, vanished without leaving the slightest trace. But he knew that they would return. It was not over yet.

The phone woke Paul early the next morning. “Yes!”

“Paul, this is Emerson.”

“Emerson, do you know what time it is?”

“I would not wake you up, if it wasn´t urgent, Paul.”

“Okay. What is it?”

“I have Germany on the line. Hamburg has canceled. They have trouble with their new concert house. But Berlin is asking if you can play on the same day. This is perfect. Fantastic. Berlin. In December.”

Berlin? Paul was in a state of shock. He remembered last night´s encounter; the face of the stranger, her self-confidence, the urgency of her words. That was impossible.

“Paul!?”

“Yes, Emerson. Berlin. Have you talked to anybody about this before?"

“No. I told you, I just got the call!”

Paul was gasping.

“Paul! Are you there? I need your okay!”

Paul forced himself to speak. "Yes, Emerson."

“Great! This will be the greatest Christmas season ever.”

Paul was unable to share Emerson´s enthusiasm. Last night's fear was back; the appalling fear of losing control.

It was only six, but Paul was used to getting up early. Still, in his pajama, he took a cup of strong black tea into his study, his personal hermitage. Nobody was allowed to come in, not his ex-wife, not his son and no telephone call. Here, he felt alive and true, he was always calm and concentrated and he had never spent an hour without witnessing a new piece of art coming to life within him. He sat on his high chair, the feet still bare touching the cool wood of the floor. Taking his green soft pencil into his hand he did not have to wait for inspiration and creativity to flow onto the piece of paper in front of him. He heard the strings, the harmonies, the interplay of the instruments weaving a web of different melodies into one piece, the rise and the fall of the melody, leading to a dramatic moment of intense density with his inner ear. There was an urgency in the composition that surprised him. It was the first draft of a soundtrack for a British motion picture about Shakespeare and the minute he began, Paul could feel Shakespeare´s pressing need to express himself as the main theme of the work. The famous author had found strong words for his intense emotions – personal and universal at the same time -, and Paul did not have to do much, but convert these feelings into his own language, the language of sound.

He still loved his work. The crisis was not a crisis of ideas, a creative blockage or some stress related fatigue. He worked a lot, but not too much. The crisis, that had crept into his life gently and slowly first and then increasing in intensity and speed, was more about the way his work was received and perceived. It was less about him and more about his audience. But that made it only worse. He could have changed his attitude, or his way of working, but he was unable to change his audience. In fact, he resented his own reaction strongly. Paul felt arrogant and out of touch with the people he wrote and played for, the people, who paid for his concerts and CDs. What could he possibly do, he asked himself ashamed and desperate.

Before he left for school, he called his son in L.A. But the answering machine informed him, that he and his mother were out for the whole weekend. Kaya had a new partner in San Diego and Sean seemed to like him. Paul was not jealous. It had been hard for him to let Kaya and his son go, but that was five years ago. They wanted to stay in L.A.,when he had been called to Julliard School in New York. Of course, he had had strong and offending arguments with Kaya. She had accused him of loving his work more than his family and of sacrificing his son. How could a mother think like that!? He had tried to convince her that that was not true. For Paul, it was not a choice between career and family, but a choice between ignoring that they had lost their love and admitting this painful truth; a choice between dishonesty and sincerity. For a whole year, she had refused to talk to him, but she had never withheld their son. Today he knew that he had taken the right choice, even though he had paid for it with loneliness. Sean visited him often, but this was not enough to heal the wound of separation. He was Sean´s father and as a father, he had failed, because he had left for whatever reason. There was no excuse for his absence. Kaya and he had failed as parents. Paul knew one thing for sure: a child needed to feel that its parents loved each other.

Suddenly, Paul remembered the woman, who had talked to him last night. You have to listen to your inner voice, she had told him. He had never heard this voice and seen his feelings more clearly, and he had never been this strongly aware of his failures and his guilt.

For lunch, he met Phil in a deli around the corner of Julliard. Phil waited at their favorite table in the back reading a newspaper when Paul came in.

“Hey, you look better today.” Phil sounded worried.

“Something strange happened to me, Phil. I walked home last night and had a coffee in a bar in Soho when a woman approached my table and sat down."

“Ooh, that´s eerie!” Phil laughed. Paul looked at him almost inflictive.

“I did not know her! She spoke of some change that I was facing and that I would be traveling to Berlin soon.”

“Emerson called me this morning.”

“Yes, Phil. Get it now? She told me, we would have an engagement in Berlin before it was even set!”

“That is spooky!”

“She said many cryptic things and appeared to know everything about me. She said I should be aware of my inner voice and not to judge my future experiences.”

“How can you not judge a thing like that: somebody telling you your future out of the blue?”

“When I wanted to ask the waitress if she knew that woman, she told me she had not seen anyone at my table."

Phil gave Paul a serious look. “Wow. Did you imagine all this?”

“No. She was there. I am absolutely sure. She held my hand and pushed it on the table to make me listen to her. I have felt her. I know what she smells like. I would recognize her anywhere. I have no idea, why the waitress did not see her. Her presence was strong and charismatic.

Her words were true for me. I feel this strong inner pressure, Phil. There is some sense of wrong waking up inside of me and I am trying to fight it back, to drown it, but it keeps creeping up from my subconscious mind. It´s not enough to tell myself that this will pass, that it is all right. I have to do something about it, but I don´t know what and how.”

Phil turned pale and looked very worried now. “Why? Do you know why, Paul?”

“It has something to do with the people, our audience. I feel misunderstood, wrongly interpreted. I feel like speaking a foreign language that nobody understands.”

Phil smiled again. “That is what music is, Paul, a foreign language and we are lucky and can be happy if the people, not many, but only a few, are able to understand it and maybe speak it, too.”

Paul disagreed strongly. “No, Phil. That is not true, it´s much too defensive. I have had moments of complete unity. The audience, the musicians and the music merged into one conscious being and they understood, without being able to speak any language. There was no need for explanation or translation. It was a transmission from heart to heart, not from mind to mind, and it was bliss; pure bliss, Phil. But I have not seen this for a very long time.”

Phil pondered in silence. He spoke with a low voice again. “These moments are rare and precious. I know. When did you last experience that?”

“Two or three years ago.

Phil nodded and looked out of the window to avoid eye contact. “You are a very lucky guy, Paul. I know, I haven´t told you this before. But…, I have always admired you for what you have: talent, success, love, friendship, chances… Your life has always been so full of chances, Paul. I think you are not even aware of that!”

Paul gazed onto the street. “You think, I am ungrateful?”

Phil nodded almost invisibly without turning toward his friend again.

◊◊◊

Paul took the metro at Lincoln Center Station. The train was surprisingly empty for a Saturday in November. The Christmas shopping season had already started several weeks ago, and Paul was used to crowded trains carrying citizens and foreigners packed to the limits. Today he even caught a seat and allowed his thoughts to wander as soon as the train accelerated jerkily. Phil´s surprising confession was disturbing. Paul had never thought of himself as being somehow privileged. Of course, things had worked well, but there had also been failures and frustrations, pains and sorrows, losses and regrets. Did he ask for something so outrages, when he felt the need to be heard and understood? There was something higher within the art of music, something sacred, deep and full of meaning. For Paul, this was the essence and the purpose of his work. And whatever he did or did not accomplish in his life, did not add up to this soul of music. In fact, it did not matter in the face of this numinous quality of sound and vibration.

When he left his apartment at seven to take a cab to Lincoln Center, where he played a string concert for violoncello this evening, anxiety spread in his mind and his body. It was not stage-fright. He never felt nervous before a performance. Paul feared the end of the concert and the reaction he would have to face.

He got through the program flawlessly. The other strings, two violins and a string bass, performed highly professional. Paul was completely in the flow and rhythm of the music, concentrated to the point. His heart was widely open when he experienced every single emotion drawn on the canvas of imagination by the strings – a full cycle of life´s experiences, of happiness and pain, gain and loss, love and hate. And then, again, in the end, the magical moment of silence, when the numinous could become tangible. Could… It was for him; and also for his colleagues, he witnessed. But as he looked anxiously at the people in the audience, he did not find the recognition he was longing for so desperately. Empty eyes looked at him once again. There was no glance of wonder, neither love nor awe. Like always Paul reaped a strong, never-ending applause. But it meant nothing to him. The silence was more important, he knew, but its magic had once more been overheard.

◊◊◊

The November passed quickly and Paul seemed to feel better; most of the time his mind was calm and serene. Only the concerts reminded him of the hidden pain that he tried to suppress as good as possible. After almost every single performance, he had to be alone to force down the sorrow that tightened his chest and made his mind swirl. What was wrong with him? Where did this pain come from? What could he do about it? Thought initiated counter-thought, all fed by the pain he did not want to acknowledge, the dejection that he craved to get rid of so strongly. But his mind was unable to come up with a relieving solution. He was stuck and he knew it.

In these moments he always remembered the woman from Soho. Sometimes he hated her for scaring him so much and worsening his pain. Sometimes he thought she was part of a nightmare that would end soon. Other times he longed to see her again, to be able to talk to her without defense and free from fear. There had been some promise in her appearance, he felt, but he was unable to grasp the meaning of it.

When he packed for the four week trip to Europe, Paul suddenly felt hope again. He went with an extremely talented orchestra that would perform at Europe´s most recognized concert halls. In many of his previous trips to the old countries, the European audiences appeared to him well versed and sensitive in their perception of classical music. They seemed to understand the old masters much better than the Americans, but they approached modern composers like him much more skeptical and prejudiced. The critics, on the other hand, loved his compositions, compared him to idols like Philip Glass and Terry Riley. But he had never given much about the critic's opinion. The audience was Paul´s only measure for the quality of his work.

The suitcase was packed and Paul did what he always did before he left: he called his mother in Boston.

“Hey Mom, I am leaving tomorrow!”

“Toi, toi, toi,” she said meaning wish you luck. “Say ´Hello´ to Berlin.”

“You can come with me, I have asked you several times.”

“No, Paul.” She laughed. “You are the vagabond! I prefer to be at home for Christmas!”

“I promise to come to see you for your birthday. I have two months for writing and studio work only for the Shakespeare soundtrack. No concerts.”

No concerts! What a relief“, he thought.

“See you then, Paul!”

“See you.”