Jonathan

Jonathan was one of the guys on the Vipassana course. South African, twenty-two. Used to hack and chat on computers. Wants to become a trance DJ. Told our teacher that he's struggling with boredom after forty minutes of meditation, as he's been smoking charras for the past few months. He appeared quite normal before the course, afterward, though, when we were allowed to speak again, he asked whether the injury on Mori's leg was due to him being closer to his mother or his father.

The question seemed a bit odd. He told me that everything has come together. The Greek Princess (beautiful, dreadlocks, elegant Indian cloth draped all over herself), who we observed everyday as she walked from her residential quarter to the kitchen, gave him this aching sensation in his chest. He didn't understand where the negative energy was coming from - but then he understood it was from his mom because he felt the same sensations when he was younger and separated from his mom for a few hours. He realized he was a mommy's boy, and craved his mother.

He was laughing that it all made sense now. When he explained things to me, I had quizzical looks on my face, trying to connect the dots. He looked at me for a while, and then laughed, asking me whether I saw. The same thing was rehashed several times.

Then we bumped into him again in Rishikesh. He said that he had meditated in his room, and he had started shaking, as deep rooted feelings got exorcised out of his body. Later on we saw him in a restaurant along the river eating a thali. He was laughing much more hysterically and saying we wouldn't believe what happened today. Just then a new-ager arrived, asking him why he had asked her that question earlier on. He had bumped into an older woman - she had wild and crazy eyes. She said she was Indian, but she looked white. He had told her that she had done Vipassana and whether he was right about it. He started talking to her about signs and illusions and his mother and tying himself into knots. She argued back stating the way that she saw things. He got angry that she held such conflicting viewpoints even after doing Vipassana - how could that be? Just then that other girl that had sat down with us, had walked past him, and he told her too that she had done Vipassana and whether he was right. She had also done it, several years ago.

Now in the restaurant he was seeing signs everywhere. When he mentioned the word 'trance party', somebody - at the same moment - put a flyer onto our table about a classic music performance with tabla held at the music school. When he mentioned the word 'light', the electricity went off. As he was about to make a point, an Enfield motorbike drowned out his voice. There were more signs - everything he saw, everything he heard - he somehow managed to connect these events into signs to support his notion of his mother-complex and that everything is coming out.

When somebody banged a pot, or stirred a bowl, or dished out food on a plate, or chairs shifting, the noise of the ceiling fan - they were all notes to this piece of music being played out by the workers. And admittedly, I began hearing it as well - and it sounded good in perfect rhythm.

I briefly saw the madness in which he was living - and he had a problem. Where was it going to end? How many connections could the mind possible maintain? The girl that had sat down with us - she too was no longer interested in him or why he had asked her that, but was trying to subtley reason with him a little, to empathize, but not too support his continuously seeing signs.

A wound had appeared on his shin. It so happend, that the chi meridian that is connected with your mother flows through that spot. He is obsessed with numbers 11 and 22, and has big problems with the number 13. The new-ager pointed out that it was the thirteenth today.

For the next two days I saw him in the streets talking to countless strangers - travellers, and saddhus. You could see they were all trying to hard to connect the dots with him.

Anyway - he seems a lot calmer now - still laughing a lot and strange things happening all around him, like knives stuck underneath his bed, and symbols of snakes and spiders everywhere. I go by every morning to talk with him to ascertain his sanity level. I consider myself of fairly standard sanity and have met many bizarre and wonderful people - but he is most definetly different.