Monkey Tales.

February 26, 2008

At the Ashram there are many beautiful living creatures. We have been spending lots of time with the cows, and I truly believe that baby cows know everything about this universe and beyond, you can see it in their eyes. There are also eagles that soar all around the buildings. Supposedly they were not here until the Tsunami brought them, although Amma has a history of eagles following her. But perhaps the most curious of them all is the monkey. Hunnamann. The Monkey God of Hindi belief.

We had heard that there was a pesky monkey living around the Ashram, but we had not had the pleasure of becoming acquainted. Supposedly the monkey keeps to himself, and even when he is around humans he just stares off into space. But once he is engaged, he can become mean. Okay, so mental note, stay away from monkey.

One night we were watching another amazing sunset melt into the ocean from our balcony, which rests in the clouds 15 floors above the earth. The sun had gone down, and everything was in dark profile. Suddenly Tonya yelps and jumps to the side and starts clapping and making strange sounds. What the fuck, I ask her. Monkey, she says. Monkey Monkey Monkey! I did not believe her, cuz we were on a balcony on the 15th floor and shit, but sure enough here is the monkey climbing over the balcony, in complete profile from the sun, just looking at us. Shoo shoo yells Tonya. Finally the monkey continues on his way up the side of the building, not being fazed by us at all.

The next day I was doing my selfless Seva work, which is picking up garbage from the kitchen, sticking my head and hands inside and taking out any recyclable materials. Dirty, hot, and unthankful. Well that particular day they asked me to do it twice, both in the morning and afternoon. Needless to say I was not pleased. I was stuck with a German who was very particular on how to sort through trash ("you are doing it all wrong!") and a short French man whose only English consisted of "I am France!". And it was hot. We are in Kerela now, in Southern India, which is lush and SUPER friendly but so M.F.'n HOT. I have never witnessed heat like this before. It's not worse than the mugginess of Boston in August, but different. It seems really nice and almost like paradise, but if you are being physical (i.e. walking) in the sun for 5 minutes, you're head starts swooning. It really catches up to you fast! And it just keeps getting noticeably hotter and hotter.

So I went to get yet another trash barrel, and when I came around the corner, Then French man was sitting on the ground, smiling his head off, and next to him is the monkey. Now I could finally get a glimpse of the creature, and it literally is almost as big as this French man. It is huge, almost baboon size without the big red butt. And the French man was petting him on the head, stroking it's fur roughly. And Frenchie is just laughing, pointing at the monkey and looking at me. And I have this dreadful feeling inside, ya know, but the monkey is in his own world, not even looking up. Then Frenchie grabs the monkey's hands and starts dancing with him. And I say No, you don't want to do that! But still the Monkey is not fazed at all. So Frenchie pulls a little harder, and that wakes him up. The monkey whips back it's claws and shows it's fangs, and Frenchie jumps back and yelps, but still laughs. the monkey then jumps under a gate and starts climbing up the face of the side of the building, like Spiderman! It was so cool, and all I could think of was that I was so happy to do my Seva that afternoon.

Next day we saw the monkey chilling where everyone was sitting around, in front of the temple, and he was eating an orange. After awhile he got bored and just walked into out building, walked right up the stairs, and apparently walked all the way to the 16th floor without being stopped. Well shit, are you going to stop a monkey? But the story goes that there is a woman who is in a wheelchair on the 16th floor, and she left her door open just a little bit. So of course the monkey got in and started jumping on the bed and was conducting a bunch of other monkey business. There were 3 men with bananas inside the room, trying to entice this monkey out, but he wasn't having it. Finally the monkey grabbed a big bag of granola and ran down the hall. Some courageous (i.e. crazy) guy ran after the monkey and had a tug of war with the monkey and the granola, until the bag ripped. And off went the monkey.

Then things were pretty still for awhile. Our friends Greg and Suzie came, who are both as tall as Alex. Anyways, one morning we were coming out of our room, and I spot the monkey down the hall, so I say to Tonya don't move. She says what, sees the monkey, yells, tries to go back in the room which is now locked, bangs on the door, and then jumps in my arms. All the while the monkey walks passed us like we are crazy.

Next morning we hear BANG BANG BANG on our door, and I opened the door and who do I see but Hunnaman. And of course I closed it quickly. So now he's knocking on our door, or so we thought. What actually happened was Greg was coming to our room to wake us up, and he noticed the monkey down the hall, trying to push open every door. Finally he finds one that is open, and goes in. And Greg saw this large Russian woman wake up, grab her sheet and wrap it around her, point and yell MUN-KEE MUN-KEEE. And so the monkey runs out of the room, straight at Greg. So of course he turns around and starts to also run, straight to our door, and when he gets there he starts pounding. We don't answer in time, so he continues to run, but when I answered the monkey stopped and greeted me. Everyone is petrified of this monkey. Next day I was mediating on my porch, early morning, and when I open my eyes there's Hunaman. Hello Hunaman!

So at this point we are kind of used to Hunnaman, But Tonya is still afraid. We both went to the Vedic astrologer, and he said to both of us that we should feed monkeys. So Now Tonya is working both on her karma and getting over her fear of this monkey. And every morning we leave him bananas.
Shawn