Follow the Senior Hummingbird

Most of my world travels have been as a deaf mute. For many years I was mostly in situations where I could neither understand nor speak the language. While many travelers find this uncomfortable, I became used to it. Otherwise, I would have drastically limited the dimensions of my experiences. And it happened the other day without leaving my neighborhood.
As a member of our local community’s India Club, I received a notice about Spiritual Awareness Seminars. I was curious, so I went to one. Although I was physically entering one of our Clubhouse rooms, I was actually entering a little piece of India in America. What the notice had neglected to tell me was that the seminars would be in Hindi. So, I pretended that I was in India. I became an observer.
Many shoes were piled up along the walls. The ordinary room had been transformed by large blankets on the floor in front of two armchairs with some material thrown over them. There were small tables with a couple of pictures on it that each had a flower necklace around it. Candles and flowers were near the impromptu shrine.
Many East Indians sat effortlessly on the blankets in that cross-legged position I work so hard to do in yoga class. Behind them, others sat in chairs. Men and women sat separately. The display of saris was dazzling — so many styles and beautiful fabrics.
A seated man, who I assumed to be a priest of some kind, was leading in chants and songs. Then, when another man entered the room, all stood up, faced him, chanted while lightly clapping in unison and bowed as the man made his way to the front. His eyes flickered in surprise when he passed by me, the only non-Indian in the room. He said in English, “How do you do?”
All ages had gathered to hear him, so it was obviously not just our retirement community’s India Club. In fact, I saw no one I knew. I never did find out what group was sponsoring the series of seminars, but I believe they had invited wise men, perhaps gurus, from India to come speak to them.
The elderly man had a kind face wreathed in smiles. He sat comfortably in the other covered armchair, with one pillow at his back and one under his feet. From what I could determine, the seminar was a discussion rather than a lecture. People, usually the men, asked questions and the wise man answered. Sometimes after he said something, the whole audience responded in unison. More often, the people in the audience nodded their heads in agreement with what he was saying. It was obvious that what he was saying was important, but he said it with many smiles and laughter. The audience laughed often.
Like all bi-lingual cultures, a word or two would come out in English, sandwiched between Hindi. The English words I heard were “responsibility,” “liberation,” and “Variety is the spice of life.” Since I’m an English as a Second Language teacher, I listened to the Hindi and tried to put it together with the characteristic rolling of the words that makes their English so hard for us to understand.
I thought back to my almost 3 years living in Macau where there was a Bahai International School with some teaching staff from Goa, India, at that time. They were nice ladies, but almost impossible for the rest of us to understand. We felt very sorry for the Chinese students who had to learn English from the Indian English teachers.
In all my circles around the world, I never did go to India. I heard about its wonders and always listened enthusiastically to those who had traveled to India. I got a sense of the spirituality I had heard India offered from the time I spent in Bali, Indonesia.
Unlike most of Indonesia, the Balinese are Hindu rather than Moslem. There are connections between the Hindu religions of India and Bali. I have been to several religious ceremonies in Bali which are unique to that culture. The Balinese don’t understand the language used by the Balinese priests, so they just listen as the priest performs the rituals.
At the seminar, when the wise man wanted to emphasize a point, he would say something and have the audience repeat after him, then continue the sentence and have the audience repeat that. After more than 2 hours of the audience sitting very still, including those who had sat cross-legged the whole time, some people came forward to perform their parting ritual for the wise man. Some kneeled before him, and he patted their heads, their backs, and sometimes playfully slapped their faces.
Necklaces were also a part of the ending ritual as they put necklaces on him, and he then took off the same necklace and put it back on the one who had put it on him. The great respect of the audience for this man was obvious. People then clapped in rhythm as he walked among them saying something to everyone he passed on his way toward tables bearing absolutely the largest pots of food I have ever seen.
Of course, the seminar would have been far more interesting had I understood the language, but I felt a familiar feeling of having traveled somewhere new and fresh in those two hours. Becoming a part of another culture, even briefly, and even as a deaf mute, can be satisfying.