Hindus and Hippies
Last weekend (in case you missed it) was Diwali, the Indian New Year. Purely synchronistically, I rode my bike up to a temple in northern San Francisco. There was a sign on the wall: "Hindus Welcome. Non-Hindus by appointment only." What the fuck does that mean?, I thought. After brief hesitation, I entered anyway. If anyone asked me whether I was a Hindu, I reasoned, I could say, "I don't know what I am. If I knew what I was, I wouldn't have to waste my time going to temples, would I?"
Inside, I glanced at their literature, and strengthened my suspicion that this was quite a narrow-minded group. I stayed in the temple, though, for over an hour. An American guy all dressed up like a Brahmin priest started doing ritual worship to a statue of Ganesh, the elephant-faced god. He waved incense, washed the idol with various liquids, lit lights, rang bells, & chanted melodious Sanskrit mantras. By the time it was over, I was extraordinarily high. I mean, my euphoria was such that, were it not for the discrimination I've picked up over the past 8 years, I probably would have "signed up." It was fascinating, and somewhat disturbing, to see that a group that (to my mind) was so intellectually bankrupt could give me such ecstasy.
Next, I rode to the Red Victorian theater on Haight St. to see "The Hippie Temptation." Originally, it was an hour-long made-for-TV news report with Harry Reasoner aired in 1969, basically critical of the Haight/Ashbury hippie scene. I thought it was wonderful that the Red Vic could transform this documentary into Art, simply by showing it in a different context.
In the film's most poignant segment, they interviewed this 17-year-old guy confined to a mental institution. The conversation went something like this (remember, this is a serious documentary):
REPORTER: Why are you here?
KID: My mother had me locked up because I told her I could see God.
REPORTER: You've seen God? What is He like?
KID: God is everything. When you see that, everyone is beautiful.
REPORTER: You mean you can't recognize when someone is dangerous?
KID: Of course some people are dangerous. But even if they're dangerous,
they're still beautiful.
The camera cut to the kid's home where his mother was practically in
tears. "You have no idea how terrible it was to have my own son walking around
the house saying he could see God," she said. "I tried to explain to him,
'That's impossible. You can only see God after you're dead,' but there was no
way to get through to him."
When I later told Janardan about the movie, he said it was fortunate that they had locked the kid up. His mother could have done a lot of damage to his mind had he remained at home.
Yours,
Stuart