I went out to lunch at Intaba's with my mother and her yoga teacher, his two children and my niece, Alma. We were celebrating Alma's birthday with healthy food and a chocolate peanut butter pie. My mother wanted me to meet Su Bapa, a Hindu yogi master from a southern state in India near Kerala. I could not understand him half the time, since he spoke so quietly with a thick accent. I did learn from him that he was secluded for seven years in the Himalayas meditating. He said that when he was in the Himalayas he was always busy doing something. He said "when you are living a spiritual life there is always something more to do, even when there is nothing to do." He smiled and drank coffee and ate chocolate peanut butter pie. I remembered a practitioner of Ayurvedic medicine told me once "When you are grateful, everything nourishes you."

Su Bapa works at the integrative medicine center at the Good Samaritan Hospital in Corvallis because he has been curing people of terminal illnesses such as Lou Gherig's Disease in the small, church littered town of Corvallis, Oregon. He has a reputation of working miracles by teaching a technique called cyclic breathing, which he only teaches to students who are in need. He is working with my mother since she has chronic pain in her sacrum. He says she is a good student.

Su Bapa and I talked about how it didn't matter what the medical establishment approved of or not -- it was essential to keep doing good work and no one could stop us from doing it. He asked me how I got into plant medicine. I said it is what I love and there is no real explanation. He talked about the difference between transformation and superficial change. He thinks it is actually sad yoga has become so mainstream. "It is all happening on a superficial level and that doesn't do anyone any good." Or something like that. I am paraphrasing.

What is true transformation?

How long does it take?

Why do you do good things?

Why do I do good things?

Is the concept of health a fraud?

Is the idea of perfect health an illusion which keeps us from embracing the present?

Death is not a bad thing.

Death may be the kindest friend to walk with us and finally take us.

Take us home.

Take us to a place where we do not have to pretend to be better than we are, because we are fine all fucked up and confused.

As Lao Tzu said -- "Confusion is the Great Teacher"

Cheers. Off I go to Canada...