Elvis, Karmapa, and Illusion 2.0

The sunday saw the early morning trip on my favorite Shatabdi back to the land of my Karma- Bangalore. As soon as we return we find the home sweet home a tad dirtier, according to Rini's exacting standards. We unpack put the clothes to wash, alls well until I happened to see "Fun in Acupolco (1963)" on the Telly.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-yZifpgCR0

Elvis, the quintessential 1960s and still relevant Casanova. Rini goes "Who is he?" With blinks in quick succession until I explain to her. Elvis is God. Women would fall at his feet. So famous that in scenes where Elvis features that were to be shot in public they had to use a body double. Charisma, the machismo, the aura, un-paralleled even today. And the voice. And the dance. Plenty of Indian movie stars aped him from Shammi Kapoor, to Shivaji Ganesan one way or the other. Rini agreed Elvis makes your head turn.

There is this song "Margarita" copied verbatim into "Kaun Hain Jo Sapno Mein Aaya" repriced by Mohammad Rafi. Not to worry there are countless others.

He is God nonetheless but God with foibles. Much later in life, when age caught up to him, drugs, women, the usual suspects during decline, gave him a divorce, loneliness and eventual death.

That had me thinking. If you are God how do you know that you are going wrong? A man who has never gone wrong how would he ever know that he is on the right path? I am no god I have people I look up to, people making and not making mistakes and sometimes I learn from them rest of the time I learn from my own. This kind of kept me on the even keel so to speak.

The rest of the day was spent in comatose. I did not have a good sleep for about a week and slept like a baby. Come evening- the thing I detest with the core of my heart- Shopping. This time my eyes lay on this face looking right at me, observing me keenly, alert, calm, the cover page of the GEO Magazine with the cover story on Karmapa as "The New Face of Buddhism".

GEO is not to be confused with NatGeo. GEO has a German pedigree and launched recently here in India.

http://www.geo-international.de/

                                                     H.H The 17th Karmapa, Ogyen Trinley Dorje

Its quite an interesting story. Karmapa is the head of the Kagyu sect and the Dalai Lama is the head of the Gelug Sect. It is the Gelug sect that represents the political aspirations of the Tibetans. Though Chinese have had no problems with the Kagyu, as historically Kagyu is a rival sect of the Gelug, Karmapa nonetheless chose to escape the Chinese.

"Naturally then, it was a great humiliation for the Chinese government when the reincarnation jumped out of his monastery window on the evening of 28 December 1999 and escape to exile in India"- quote from GEO

                                          H.H The 17th Karmapa with H.H The 14th Dalai Lama

The exile of Karmapa and Dalai lama have bought the rival sects more closer than ever.

Some many Births back the same Karmapa and Dalai Lama were sworn enemies. The Kagyu and the Gelug fought a bloody war to wrest control of Tibet, with help of Mongols and other clans. Buddhism was forgotten and lives were lost in a "Momentary Lapse of Reason". History is full of ironies, so is life.

The concept of re-incarnation. The story of Birth and identification of Dalai lama or that of Karmapa is nothing but fantastic. I am saying this not because whether I believe or don't believe but rather I am fascinated about the culture and the practice of the Tibetans, I am curious and skeptical but I do believe the story. There are multiple credible sources both popular and the not so popular that have narrated the same. Take for instance the Martin Scorsese Movie - "Kundan (1997)" based on the life of Dalai Lama and the Brad Pitt starrer "Seven Years in Tibet (1997)".

How did the practice come about? How did Tibetans come to believe in re-incarnation? When they test a subject for possible re-incarnation they give him a collection of old and new articles that were possessions of the Monk whose re-incarnation is being searched for. Unless the subject identifies the the articles correctly and other elements for example - the time of birth, the occurrence of rain bow at the time of birth or crow cawing on the tent where the subject was born and some such incidents hold. Fascinating. But Hey there is a actually a rival Karmapa. Somehow the top Disciples of the earlier Karmapa had a dis-agreement and each faction pushed there own Karmapa. Only the Karmapa on the cover page of Geo is recognised by the Dalai Lama.

Well images and imagery what is the truth? Truth is elusive, it sleeps through your fingers, your abstractions, your theories, your opinions, your understanding.

One interesting excerpt caught my attention

"The internet only brings an illusion of information. It also creates confusion. Often it is too much for me."- Ogyen Trinley Dorje, the "official" Karmapa.

and the other in the author's words

"A Buddha needs neither an inbox nor a Facebook profile. His medium is the face-to-face audience with his visitors"- Andreas Hilmer, Ethnologist for GEO

That I would call Illusion 2.0 and I am very much in it.

The article also discusses the political significance attributed to the Karmapa given the possible power vacuum after Dalai Lama and the intervening period when they search for the 15th Dalai Lama. Now thats politics and beyond my sphere of influence if you wanna know more, grab a copy- The GEO India, May issue. There are plenty of other interesting articles on Dentistry, Bio-Diversity, Culture and adventure, more on that later.