Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
guru himself. Eventually he realised his folly and recalled what
Neem Karoli had taught him: silence, inner work. Ginsberg later
became a Buddhist.
What all those - including myself - who had experienced
undeniable truths through LSD and other hallucinogens wanted
was an explanation of what exactly were the mystical experiences
induced by these drugs, how the drugs caused them, and
what they
meant
. Alpert got the most succinct answer from Neem Karoli. The
frail old guru, then in his eighties, examined the bottle Alpert handed
him. It contained enough LSD for two hundred-odd people. He
asked Alpert if the pills gave him strength - and then emptied the
whole bottle down his throat. Alpert was horrified. Two hundred
doses had no effect whatsoever on Neem Karoli, however. He sat
smiling serenely all day, just as he always did. Alpert got the message,
and he stayed at the guru's ashram for more than a year to get a lot
more of it.
After him, the Taj records another guest looking for answers to
the same questions: George Harrison. Instead, though, the Beatle
found the sitar, and a friend in its greatest exponent - Ravi Shankar.
He became disillusioned with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi after
the giggling guru fondled Mia Farrow, and eventually he discovered
what he sought in the teachings of Paramahamsa Yogananda.
By the late twentieth century, we Westerners were clearly no
longer after India's material wealth, but were searching for the
spiritual wisdom that has always been this country's true riches.
We often found far more than we bargained for. The Taj Mahal
Hotel has witnessed this entire shift, this gyre that twists from the
nadir of human baseness to the very summit of human aspiration.
I asked an old bearer who had been working at the hotel for
nearly sixty years if he noticed a change in the guests and the general
atmosphere. 'Sahib,' he replied, 'the most big change is this:
Europeans are coming to
my
country now. So I must try even more
hard to give good impression of country. But, sahib, I am feeling
that now people are coming here because they are liking the India,
isn't it?' And he smiled proudly.
