Aum Dada Gospel 8: isha and the silly birds

A red fluid fills a tall glass bird. It is wearing a little yellow hat. Suddenly it dips its beak into a cup of water. The bar on which it sits is separating two men playing with picture cards. One man throws four cards down and chants, “Fifteen-two, fifteen-four, fifteen-six, and three is nine.” With one hand, he moves a metal peg above a wooden board filled with rows of holes, while lifting a chalice to his lips with the other. The man sitting across from him throws down his four cards next and sings in exaggerated delight, “Nineteen!” The bird dips its beak into the cup of water again.

A boy is watching the glass bird with fascination while listening to the men sing out their mantras. He has had a busy day rowing in a boat and his mind is wandering away from the comic book he was reading. Now his tired body becomes the bird and he wonders what force is regulating this perpetual motion, pumping his beak back and forth into this transparent surface of water. He listens to another mantra. “The kitty isn’t that much better. A pair of eights for two, and the matching jack makes three.” But the dissatisfaction appears practiced.

He flies to the beam that spans the open living space and looks at the dark and empty brick red hearth. Where does the fire go, he wonders. Another mantra floats to his ears and he sees that he is now submerged in the glass of water which has grown to giant Alice-like proportions. Swimming past a scuba diver and a pirate ship, he thinks it odd he’s never noticed all this wonderful ambrosia surrounding him before.

How could he have ever been thirsty? Why has his head been moving up and down seeking what’s so obviously all around him? Nothing is making sense right here and now. Even the mantra that’s breaking through the surface sounds outlandish to his ears. “That is the whole, this is the whole; from the whole, the whole becomes manifest; taking away the whole from the whole, the whole remains.” The sun breaks through the picture window; New Moon Lake is coming through the door.