Shanti Travels, part 1.

Friday morning (4-2-’11) Kumar from Shanti Cafe’s travelling agency (Shanti Travels), told me that according to the computer of SriLankan airlines, both boarding passes have been used and I wept. What happened?
Since about a week ago there was this practically bold Western woman walking about, often hanging out at Ramanashram chai shop, behaving wildly, abruptly, plain weird, talking to the sky with her mouth and hands. Crossing the street over and over again in a way that made every spectator expect her to be turned into a traffic victim or a corpse sooner or later. I felt a strange attraction toward this psychotic being. Something pulled me toward her. Three days ago she was speaking to the moon or the gods again, this time from behind  two terrace tables on which she had spread out the contents of her bags.
(Later I was to learn that she was talking to this mast with all the mobile phone and other
companies’ antennas, from where she supposedly was being spotted all the time and
given instructions. Sigh).
She strolled again into Ramanashram and I asked the girls next to me on the terrace if the stuff left on the table was from the luni lady. (Rethoric question answered).
From that moment on I had stepped over the line of doing nothing and had the beginning of an audience by declaring that I would gather the stuff and use it as an excuse to attempt to make contact with that woman. Also from then on bits and pieces of information started to come in my direction. Plus the curious surprise that someone was intended to try the supposedly impossible, making contact with this disconnected woman.
I stuffed her stuff in two bags and crossed the street over to Ramanashram where I spotted her in the distance. There I lost sight of her and later spotted her back on the terrace of the chai shop. just going slowly with the flow I at a point went over to the woman and put my hands on her knee. Surprised and content with my action she looked at me and we had eye contact. After a while she asked, serious as if she was ET himself ‘are you a human being?’
From there a two hour energy dance unfolded.Her story being one, clearly coming from a paranoid psychotic plane; lots of poison, bad radiation, badvibes, punishment and voices demanding responsibilities, with as the price of not toeing the line, the death of others, her whole family and even her home countries’ population.
In short, heavy stuff and contentwise at first sight pure nonsense.
And, I already felt/guessed that before I approached her, a huge load of agressive anger beneath it.
The story from the surrounding field was, that already several people had tried to help her, to bring her to a doctor, etc. But she had turned violent when action came close and people had given up.
I was also told that people had phoned the consulate and her mother and that someone was coming to pick her up.
I asked her if she was aware of this, which she denied and I took her over to the Ramanashram Office. There she spreaded herself out over three chairs and I met doctor Muhrti, the apparent chief there (No, no, Sir, we are all volunteers, helping our ashram
president, he said later). He made it clear to me, that there was an ongoing story going on with the woman already for years. Her brother and sister were aware of her situation, her mother denies that her daughter is mentally ill and blocks proper treatment.
(In hindsight this sound a bit odd, the woman is 50 years old, so her
mom wil be around 75). Summary of what he, utterly friendly and deeply meant, told me: Sir, you are a newcomer here, the best advise I can give you is this, forget about this woman and go do what you have come here for. By me answered with: Thank you Sir, I hear you. And I don’t know what is going to happen, maybe I’m here for this, what do we know?
This is a strange place, I added. And then he came in with this:
No Sir, this is not a strange place. This is a mystical and spiritually charged place and not everyone can handle.
Now Sir, as gently as you have brought this woman into the office, will you be so kind as to gently lead her out again, because she is a nuisance to the office. (Only in later conversations he gave me more information on how she has upset the place over the years). I took the lady out and our communication went on on the steps in front of the office. At a point she came at me with her full anger and I countered that with a equally strong roar. I must have sounded like a wild animal, but I was totally calm and deliberately mirroring her energy rather precise. She fell silent for a moment and walked away tot talk to the moon for a while, but she kept coming back. Any attempt from my side to come to some practical conclusion in the direction of her getting of the street was avoided thru moving into pure mental space. Later I left her at the chai shop terrace and went for dinner. Two days later I was going to meet her again.
(to be continued)

hans