Magis/Satis [from My India pilgrimage in October]

Magis / Satis

Haridwar

Early morning, [4am] Monday October 18.

This is the end of my first week in India and the beginning of my second out of six and a half.

Francis Xavier gave the Jesuits two great emblem words or mantras, MAGIS and SATIS.

Magis means greater, more, always progress to higher levels and increased activity to the greater glory of God, as the motto of St. Ignatius Loyola became: “Ad majorem Dei gloriam”.
This is an emblem of the Jesuits, abbreviated as A.M.D.G. that every schoolboy of the Jesuits uses to begin anything he writes with,

The other word is Satis, enough. “Satis, Domine,” is the expression of the spiritual intensity of the saint, His ejaculation to God on the excess of mystical fervor raging in his soul expressing the superabundance of divine grace.

This is the dialectic of ecstasy as a principle of spiritual life. On the human scale an continuous increase of effort and capacity to do good and on the divine side the superfluity of God’s love experienced by the soul.

This is the dynamic of the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises that is found personified by Francis Xavier in a life of spectacular missionary activity and unparalleled mystical union with the divine.

And this is why I am in India.

I had to come all the way around the world to bring these two principles, the fundamentals of my human and spiritual being.

I have wanted to come here since I read the Bhagavad Gita in the late sixties. Now that I am sixty I am here.

I have come as a disciple of Francis Xavier, though this is something that I have only gradually embraced and that is just now coming into focus.

Right now I am in Haridwar on the banks of the sacred Ganges.

Yesterday I arrived here on a train from Delhi and came to this remarkable place called Bhij Govindas, An emsemble of bamboo huts facing a garden with its own ghat in the holy river.

The poor pedicabbie I engaged outside the station had no idea where it was and couldn’t read, nor could he figure out where it was on the phone with the number I called to reserve here two days ago, out of Lonely Planet. Then a smart autoricshaw came along and sped my along the river in front to the main ghats to the bridge next to this place.

As soon as I got here I put on my red trunks and bathed in the waters, along with the boys and the many devout pilgrims populating this vibrantly spiritual landscape.

{Outside there is this shrouded figure walking around in the garden on the banks of the Ganges, perhaps it was the night watchman wrapped in a blanket all along, but very suggestive to my psyche of “Death’s fiery chariot hovering near”}

It is five o’clock in the morning and they have just sounded some sacred clarion along the Ganges calling people to prayer,

Normally a sound and steady sleeper, the flight from Chicago to Delhi a week ago did me in and I have been able to sleep soundly since, except for the bus ride back from Agra to Delhi yesterday, and that was delicious. Otherwise, I’m resting at night and up well before dawn, trying to read or write or listening to Mahler.

I am trying to put something together about my trip/adventure/pilgrimage before Vipul comes to pick me up at eight o’clock.

Yesterday after the Ganges dip and since my charioteer Depak who was supposed to return to hive me a tour didn’t show up I walked from this enchanting garden into town. In the garden there is a larger bamboo structure there is some kind of a temple. I walked along River Road to the ghat, made my contribution to the Ganga officer, and found an internet point. I wrote to Kristina and M, Bewandikar, people I hope to visit further on in Goa and Mumbai. Then I wanted to see where the bus station was for the trip to Rishikesh the next day. After I was think about getting my hair cut and even hennaed, but instead I went to Big Ben restaurant around 3pm for something to eat, as the guide, rightly, recommends. There Iwas able to call and reserve a water rafting expedition from Rishikesh. Across the street was the tour agency I had called and texted numerous times from Delhi to set that up. A tall backpacker came in and sat with me as I had a coffee after a delicious dish with nuts and something like tofu in a creamy sauce. She was from Cavan in Ireland and was back from a week’s trek in the Himalayas, so I was the first English speaker she had seen after starting out with a guide who did not speak her language and made her feel somewhat lonely.

After a nice chat I left to get to the cable car up to the mountain top Hindu temple.

And that is where I met Vipul. He told me I had to take off my shows again at the second shrine I rounded. Then outside he came and introduced himself as a second officer on a cargo ship who had been to many American ports, including New Orleans, Houston and New York. I was glad for his good cheer, his good looks and his good English, and heartily greeted him and told him of my years on ships on passenger liners as a porter, utility and wairer, But I explained I had only worked in the steward’s department, never in the deck department and only in summers during my college years, The line for the cable car down was impossible as I saw getting off, so I was walking back down. And after I took a few pictures of the valley and river below and gazed at the mighty mountains to the north, who should come along on his motorbike and take my along for the ride down, but my sailor man! He told me on the way that I could never know how much he loved my country. I said the India was mother to all men and even to me, Bhatta Mata. We went for tea. He wants to drive me to Rishikexh and is coming at eight. Now it’s 5:45 and I’ll finish here and rest some more and recharge the battery of my darling Vaio.