Enlightenment for Idiots

by Anne Cushman

  “Nice, isn’t it?” Om had materialized next to me, holding a plastic cup in one hand and a paper plate full of pretzels in the other.

  “Um, sure. I guess so.”

  “It’s mine.”

  I couldn’t think of a socially appropriate response. My skin suddenly felt too tight, like a badly fitting wet suit. In my peripheral vision billowed a pair of giant testicles.

  “It’s sixty inches,” he informed me.

  “Sixty?”

  “HD. Sony. LCD. I had it flown in from Mumbai just for the weekend.”

  “Oh! You mean the TV.” To cover my embarrassment, I reached out and grabbed a foil-wrapped after-dinner mint from a basket on the table next to me, and began to tear it open.

  A young woman with olive skin and catlike eyes walked up behind Om and put her hand on his shoulder. She was wearing a purple silk sari, but she had left out the blouse that was supposed to go under it; the sari flowed gracefully over naked shoulders. Jasmine flowers were twined in her dark hair. If I had attempted that look, I’d look like I had gotten my hair snagged while crawling through underbrush wearing a bedsheet.

  “Hi. I’m Natasha.” She had a faint accent that I couldn’t place: Russian? Czech? “I’m here with Om.”

  “We’re together, but we’re not exclusive,” Om clarified. “We’re into polyfidelity.”

  “Sounds like a new feature on your HDTV.” I tugged at the foil wrapping of my mint and looked around for Devi Das. He was standing in the corner, a plastic cup in each hand, talking to a pink-haired girl wearing lavender yoga pants and a lacy bra with no shirt. She was laughing. She ran her hand down his freckled arm. Although I’d never felt the tiniest bit of romantic interest in Devi Das, I felt a flash of possessiveness. Get your hands off my sadhu!

  “Polyfidelity has nothing to do with electronics,” Natasha corrected me. You even think of hitting on my man and you’ll be in the gulag for life, said her eyes. “Polyfidelity is when you have committed relationships with more than one person at a time.”

  “I know. I was kidding.” Matt used to talk about polyfidelity as the way of the future, along with solar-powered cars and Green Party control of the Senate. But the idea always made me exhausted, like having call-waiting on your entire relationship. And I could tell that Natasha was not entirely on board either. Don’t worry, I felt like telling her. I don’t want him. I’m just trying to salvage my manuscript.

  Natasha nodded at my belly. “So. When are you due?”

  I’d been outed. I took a deep breath. “June.”

  I waited for Om to kick me out of the party. But instead his eyes lit up. “Wow! You’re just doing it on your own?”

  At a HUF party, unwed pregnancy was apparently an accessory as hot as a labia ring. “That’s right.” I’d finally gotten the wrapper off the mint. But something didn’t feel right. I looked down and realized that I had actually been unwrapping a condom.

  Om looked down and laughed. “Eager to get started?”

  I opened my mouth to explain and a gong clanged; for an awful millisecond, I imagined I had emitted the sound myself. I looked around. In the center of the room, an immense woman swathed in purple silk with a wreath of leaves in her hair was banging with a spoon on a metal tray. “Time for the opening circle,” she called. “All avatars and dakinis, please gather round!”

  “That’s Honeysuckle,” Om informed me. “She’s our workshop leader, along with her consort, Reuben. On the first day of the HUF workshop, we all looked at her cervix with a speculum.”

  I grabbed a meditation cushion from a pile by the wall and sat down next to Devi Das. On the other side of him sat the pink-haired girl in the lacy bra, with one proprietary hand on his knee. Om sat down next to me, with Natasha on the other side of him. The woman with the wreath in her hair was sitting in the center. Next to her, holding her hand, was the chubby man who met us at the door.

  “I want to get out of here,” I hissed to Devi Das. “I’m afraid Om’s girlfriend is going to slit my throat with the cheese knife.”

  “Remember, it’s research,” he whispered back.

  Honeysuckle clapped her hands to call for silence. “Welcome,” she proclaimed, distributing smiles to right and left. Her purple sari billowed over miles of jiggling flesh. “Welcome to our sacred sensual space. Welcome to a place where flesh can embody spirit, as the goddess intended.”

  Please don’t show me your cervix.

  “Some of you have been journeying with us a long time; others have just joined,” Honeyflower continued. “But we have all been drawn here through ancient karma. Maybe this is your first time to the temples of Khajuraho in this lifetime. But we have all incarnated here before. Tonight, we will reenact the sacred union of Shiva and Shakti as we meet in the dance of yoni and lingam.” She held up a wicker basket. “Just remember that safe sex is the house rule. You’ll find baskets of condoms at convenient locations.”

  “Don’t worry. I get tested every month,” Om whispered in my ear.

  “We’ve also provided mango-vanilla massage oil, which, you’ll be happy to know, is edible”—she displayed a small vial—“and a variety of lubricants, in case of an emergency.”

  Terrorist attack? Earthquake? Not to worry—we’ve got Astroglide! To ward off a giggle, I stared hard at Honeysuckle’s hands, which fluttered like plump white pigeons. The hands swooped down, pounced on another item, and held it up: a box of plastic wrap. “And, of course, a sheet of this is indispensable. Believe me, you’ll never even know it’s there.”

  I found it difficult to manage plastic wrap even when I was just wrapping chicken drumsticks: the way it clung to the edges of its box, stuck to itself in wads. The giggle erupted through my nose. To cover it, I began coughing, and fumbled in my backpack for a nonexistent Kleenex. Honeysuckle flashed her teeth in my direction. “Any questions, before we get started? No? Then let’s all get up and form two concentric circles for the invocation.”

  We all scrambled to our feet and gathered in two sloppy circles, facing each other. Sitar music whined. “Open the heart; look in the eyes; kiss the hand; and step to the left,” Honeysuckle intoned. “Open the heart; look in the eyes…”

  I picked up the damp, fleshy hand of the man across from me and gazed into his worried eyes. “Kiss the hand…” As he lifted my hand toward his lips, I tried to picture the yogis and yoginis of Khajuraho doing this dance: robed monks, bejeweled princes, dancing girls. Did what we were doing here have even the slightest bit in common with what they were up to? For that matter, did what we were doing on our yoga mats have anything to do with what the ancient yogis were doing in their Himalayan caves? “Step to the left…Open the heart…” I picked up the bone-dry hand of an older woman, which lay in my mine delicate as a leaf. Her blue eyes were filmy and sad as I brought the back of her hand to my mouth.

  I remembered how Tamara used to spend hours chatting on her toy cell phone, ordering items from catalogs spread out all over the alphabet rug on her playroom floor. She even had a fake credit card that she’d whip out of her plastic purse. When the tea party set that she’d ordered from Pottery Barn Kids never arrived, she was inconsolable. It turned out she hadn’t realized that her props weren’t the real thing.

  The music stopped. I stood opposite a man with a long beard and gray eyes. The silence went on and on. Was I supposed to look at just one eye, then the other? Both at the same time? My contact lenses were drying out; I was afraid if I blinked, one would pop out of my eye. I studied a quivering vein at the tip of his nose.

  Honeysuckle rang the gong. We all bowed, our hands in prayer position at our hearts. Then everyone started looking for someone to hook up with.

  Om grabbed my right arm and drew me to my feet. Panicked, I looped my left forefinger through Devi Das’s sash. The pink-haired girl wrapped her arm around Devi Das’s waist. Natasha latched on to Om’s right hand. As if playing Crack the Whip on a crowded playground, the five of us wobbled through the room and collapsed on
a futon.

  “It’s good to grab a spot right away, before they all get taken,” Om told me. He ignored Devi Das, as if he were an accessory that could be removed later, like a bra.

  “Good job,” said Devi Das’s escort happily. She had the most perfect breasts I had ever seen, displayed like twin peaches in their lacy black cups. No wonder she didn’t want to wear a shirt. Her breasts looked like they should be on display in a museum exhibit called “What You are Supposed to Look Like.” I stared at my toenails, splitting and crusted with dirt. All around us, people were starting to slip out of their clothes.

  “I know,” said the pink-haired girl. “Let’s give each other massages to break the ice. We can take turns—one person receives while all the rest give. We’ll draw straws to see who goes first.” She reached into a nearby basket and sorted through a handful of condoms. “Okay—I’ve got four Trojans and one MAXX Plus. The one who draws the MAXX gets lucky. Everyone close your eyes!”

  There was a flurry of colliding hands. When I opened my eyes, I was holding the MAXX Plus condom.

  “Lucky you!” The pink-haired girl seemed to have assumed the role of camp activities director. “Take off your clothes and lie down. Five minutes each, then we’ll switch.”

  Reluctantly, I began to pull off my salwar kameez. The party was starting to feel like one of those nightmares where I found myself standing naked on a spotlighted stage, running for president. At what point did I call the research off? I lay down on the futon, leaving on my bra and underwear, which stretched like a rubber band over my swelling belly. This way I could at least pretend I was in a bathing suit.

  “Genitals or no genitals?” The pink-haired girl was as matter-of-fact as a waitress offering fresh-ground pepper.

  “None!” I said, too quickly.

  “Wow.” Om cupped his hand over my belly. “Your belly is beautiful. Is it okay to touch it?”

  I felt like crying. How many times had I longed for Matt to feel the baby kick? I rolled on my side. “Actually, why don’t I lie this way and you can do my back.”

  Om and Devi Das and Natasha and Pink-Hair-Girl began pouring Kama Sutra oil into their hands and rubbing it on my skin. It was thick and sticky and smelled like cotton candy. I shut my eyes. Hands coast and glided over my body, with varying degrees of pressure and expertise: kneading my shoulders, rubbing my head, massaging up and down the length of my spine. “Your heart is like the sun…,” crooned the CD player. “You are the light of the Universe…” I’d been longing to be touched for months. But this was even less satisfying than the ten-minute promotional massages they sometimes offered at Whole Foods, where you sat in a massage chair next to the meat department and someone squeezed your shoulders while other customers ordered free-range beef.

  “Tell us what you like,” murmured Om.

  “Oh—it all feels good.” I’d always hated that question. That question presumed that my body was a map with fixed landmarks. But instead it felt like a mysterious, ever-changing estuary where waters were constantly flowing in and out, and what was a sand dune yesterday was a tide pool today. That used to drive Tom crazy; he wanted to know that the button he pushed yesterday would yield the same result today. “Making love with you is as complicated as a moon launch,” he’d told me once. But Matt had loved it. “You’re an entirely new woman every time I’m in bed with you,” he’d said. “It’s like having multiple relationships with one woman.”

  Must not think about Matt. Someone began to knead my sacrum. Someone else began to run their fingers in and out of the spaces between my toes. I flinched away; my feet had always been ticklish. I opened my eyes and noticed that the sofa next to our futon had been occupied by a pair of colossal buttocks, glowing blue in the tinted light. Squinting, I saw that they belonged to Honeysuckle, who was kneeling with her dress hitched up around her waist. From between her billowing thighs protruded two flailing, spider-thin legs, naked except for a pair of Nikes.

  I sat up. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I need to leave.”

  BACK AT THE Kama Sutra Lodge, I lay on my side on my thin mattress, exhausted. My skin smelled like a candy stand at the county fair. Devi Das flopped across the end of my bed.

  “You could go back there if you want,” I told him. “I feel bad about wrecking your evening.”

  “Will you stop apologizing? You probably saved us another fifteen incarnations, at least. That girl had ‘samsara’ written all over her. She’s exactly what we became a sadhu to get away from.”

  “The sad thing is, I really could use a good massage. I just couldn’t do it with Honeysuckle frolicking three feet away.”

  “You’ve been needing a massage? Why didn’t you say so?” Devi Das sat up, scooted down the bed, and put his hands on my back.

  “That we can definitely handle.” His bony fingers kneaded expertly up and down my spine. I felt my muscles soften under his touch.

  “Hey. You’re pretty good at that.”

  “We actually studied shiatsu in a previous life. We were planning to be a bodyworker.”

  Yet another thing I hadn’t known about Devi Das. Who would he be—who could he be—if he’d just take off his sadhu suit for a while? But maybe that was as futile as asking me to stop pretending to be Amanda. I closed my eyes, let out a deep breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. I felt my brain melting, as if it could run in a gelatinous shampoo out of my ears and into the pillow.

  “Did you notice, when we were at the temples this morning, that the sculptures were all on the outside walls?” Devi Das’s hands moved down to my sacrum. “When we got inside, the walls were bare.”

  I nodded, too tired to answer. The temple we went into had been cool and dark, a respite from the sun. An immense stone lingam, the phallic symbol of the god Shiva’s power, nested in the inner sanctum. I’d leaned my cheek against a stone wall. I could have stayed there all day.

  “Our guru once told us that that’s how it is in our life, too. All the things we’re so busy with—sex, work, travel—they’re just beautiful decorations on the outside walls. But when we close our eyes and really go inside, there’s nothing but space and silence.”

  I was starting to drift off. I pictured my life as a sandstone temple standing in the blazing sun. Sculptures snaked around the walls: Matt. Tom. My mother. Lori. Sam and Tamara. My baby. There were carvings of computers, yoga mats, dogs, wine bottles, boogie boards, pacifiers. Ishtar was there, and Ernie, and Darshana, and Om. There were spiritual teachers: Harold, and Mr. Kapoor, and Hari Baba, and Sri Satyaji. Every surface was boiling with life, every detail lovingly rendered. Look, the sculptures proclaimed. Look. Isn’t life crazy? Isn’t life wonderful?

  What would it be like, to open the doors of that temple and walk inside, where the walls were bare? Would I be lonely? Or would I just rest in the quiet darkness, finally at peace?

  Reclining Bound Angle Pose

  (Supta Baddha Konasana)

  Lie on your back, your spine draped over the length of a bolster. Put the soles of your feet together and let your knees fall out to the sides. Spread your arms out to the sides, palms open to the sky. Spelunk your awareness down into the dark cave of your belly.

  Here in the liquid darkness of your own womb lives Devi, the great Mother Goddess of fertility, rain, and earth. Go into the temple of your own pelvis and bow down before her altar. But don’t be surprised if what appears is your own mother instead. You may meet her rage, or passion, or terror, or tenderness. You may meet her longing or broken dreams. Her life is lodged in your cells. Her story quivers below the surface of your own. And everything she couldn’t allow herself to feel you have swallowed whole. It rests like a stone inside your belly, waiting for you to digest it.

  The Divine Mother is to be meditated upon as shining in a vermilion-red body, with three eyes, sporting a crown of rubies studded with the crescent moon, a face all smiles, a splendid bust, one hand holding a jewel-cup brimming with mead, and the other twirling a red lotus…


  —Lalita Sahasranama, ca. AD 1000

  CHAPTER 18

  RIGHT HERE’S THE baby’s head,” said Dr. Rao. “It’s got its nose pressed right up against the placenta. See?”

  I was lying on an examining table in Dr. Rao’s office in Bangalore with Devi Das standing beside me. Dr. Rao had smeared a cold jelly all over the taut dome of my belly and was moving the ultrasound wand slowly across it, studying a monitor next to the table. I peered at the screen: pulsating blobs of white on a black background, swirling like a satellite photo of an incoming storm.

  “Sure,” I lied.

  “We don’t see it at all.” Devi Das studied the image. “But that’s okay. Once we spent three weeks in a Tibetan monastery trying to visualize a green Tara. Instead, we kept visualizing the lady on the Green Goddess salad dressing bottle. We worried that that would slow down our spiritual progress. But it actually seemed to accelerate it.”

  So far, Dr. Rao had told me, everything at my nineteen-week checkup looked like a textbook pregnancy: perfect weight gain, perfect blood pressure, perfect numbers on my blood work. But part of me was still waiting for the other shoe to drop: for Dr. Rao to tell me that I needed to go back to California immediately, doctor’s orders. I wasn’t sure whether these orders were something I dreaded, or longed for.

  “Here’s the spine, running right along here. The baby’s lying on its back.” That I saw: a delicate, almost reptilian curve. “And look, there’s the heart.” I stared at the throbbing blob, then looked away. The truth is, I didn’t really want to see inside my uterus. It felt like opening the oven door while the soufflé was rising. Instead, I studied Devi Das’s hands resting on the edge of the table: the knuckles raw and chapped, dirt ground into the grooves around the fingernails.

  “And here’s the pelvis…and the bladder. Everything’s looking good. Do you want to know if it’s a boy or a girl?”

  “You mean you can already tell?”