£6, 1980 - North Shore News

This is a true tale of a bona fide guru who lived in
North Van for a-while before being deported back

to India:

He lived in an old wooden
house on First Street just
’ west of Lonsdale, behind a
towering hedge of brambles.

He was so spaced-out that
he frequently wore nothing
more than.atable cloth. His
luggage | consisted solely of a
hand ‘mirror decorated with
beads into which he gazed as
he walked, admiring himself.

His éyes blazed. It seemed
like there. was at least an

inch of white all around the...
dark pupils. Frequently; as.

he stared at his own
reflection in the hand
mirror, he'd burst out
laughing. -

A maniacal laugh if there
ever was one.

It. turned out that his
English was superb except

for a Hindi. accent: that:

reridered sentencés in a sing-
song thythm. The first time I
met him — he'd wandered
into the kitchen of a friend-I
was visiting on First Street —
I ‘asked:. “Why. are you

looking at yourself in the ~

mirror, sir?”

He" flicked. an amused,

contemptuous glance at me,

’

like a general gazing down at

you

a bug that has just asked him
Not to move his army for-
ward.

“IT am God,” he said, as

though that explained -
everything.
And, ina way, it did.

I mean, obviously, if you

were God, you'd admire

yourself. I guess.

‘There was hardly any
snappy come-back to make.
The friend. whom I was
visiting reassured me that
this strange gentleman was
actually very spiritual, very
high, and that, in fact, his
whole act was geared to
forcing you to realize that
were God _ too.
Everybody is God, God is
crerytting — that sort of

Fair nani, sez L id heard

mtof a rebel priest.

He'd left India out of
disgust ‘with its “urban
decadence” and had.come to

-B.C. “to-teach the youth to
tise, up:. against the false

messiahs like Maharashi

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. could never

by Bob Hunter

‘s’ two failings

Yogi,” the guy who'd tured
on -the Beatles, way back
when.

All of that seemed
honorable enough. I couldn't
quibble with it. And when
you got to trying to debate
theology with this gen-
tleman, it was hopeless. He
was, after all, a trained
theologian who could quote
the Bhagavad Gita from
cover to cover.

He understood the
working of the I Ching,
apparently, and was as well-
versed in’ Christian and
Judaic teachings as he was in
the utterings of Islam,
Sufism, Buddhistic
mysticism, you name it.

He'd have made a terrific
guru, I'm sure, under almost
any circumstances, except
for a couple of minor flaws.

The first, and most
noticeable, was that he

western attire. Even if he did
manage to get a pair of pants
on with the fly in front,
instead of behind, he just
couldn't come to grips with
the concept of a zipper.
Result: the fly was always

- open.

Second, he absolutely
refused to accept the value

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figure out

of shoes in the northern
hemisphere, even in winter.
My friend.and I took him

to meet someone who lives.

in the bush one- ‘afternoon in
January, a couple of years
ago, when snow lay three
inches thick on the ground.
Spurning shoes, our beatific
buddy. insisted on walking
the necessary three miles
through the snow barefoot.
He made it about halfway
before — surprise! surprise!
— his feet got so numb, he
fell, and we had to carry him
back to the car, neither one
of us, at that stage, very

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impressed with his
metaphysical blather. ,
The other-really bad habit

whe had was that of getting —

furious with anyone who
declined to be his disciple.
He was a pretty intolerant

‘guru. You either shut-up and

listened to him or you were
an agent of wickedness, evil,
depravity, and therefore
doomed in some. peculiar
way that was never spelled
out.

When the . immigration.
authorities finally caught
him — he'd only been in on
some kind of visa, which had

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long since expired — my
friend phoned up to. ask:
“Should we protest?”

We decided not to.

All I could think to say
was: “So long, God. See ya
around.”

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