Brand New Me

I wake up, and I don't know where I am or what time it is. The sun is streaming through the window, a rich, warm sunlight like nothing we ever get back in London, but it feels like the middle of the night. I've never felt this completely disoriented in my entire life.

I look around, taking in a small room dominated by a half dozen cheap mattresses lying on the floor. There's a hookah next to where I'm lying, and it definitely brings back a few memories-someone told me that a ball of hash helped with insomnia, and I wasn't going to say no to free drugs. They were wrong-I still feel like the sun's not where it should be, a legacy of too much travel through too many time zones in too short a period-but the hash was amazing.

It starts coming back to me, little details filtering through the half-sleep and the residual buzz from the hash. I remember thumbing a ride from Lahore with Sahara, sharing a joint with a driver and conversing with him in rusty grammar school Italian because he didn't speak any English and I didn't speak any Hindi. We rode the hippie trail all the way from England, dropping out to do the East like the Beatles. We busked when the money ran out and relied on the kindness of strangers to get to Delhi. It's amazing how far the kindness of strangers extends to two pretty blondes who don't wear bras anymore.

The room is empty. I don't know where Sahara is right now. I stumble to my feet, feeling strange and light-headed-a lot of it is hunger, I realize. I don't know how long it's been since I've eaten. I rummage around in my pockets and come up with a few coins, probably enough for street food. I stagger outside and begin looking for a vendor.

After a few minutes walk, I find a man selling chaat from a small stand in a local market. I eat something I don't recognize and barely even taste, I'm so hungry. I feel like I'm not making an auspicious start to my spiritual journey, being so openly concerned with my empty belly, but I have to admit to myself that I don't even know what I'm doing here.

Sahara made it sound wonderfully romantic. She said that we would find wise and enlightened gurus who would enrich our spirit, helping us to shed the corrupt skin of the Western world so that we could be reborn as pure souls. We were both on LSD at the time, and it sounded magical. Now that I'm here, though, I don't even know where to find a guru let alone what sort of ancient wisdom I'm actually looking for. I realize I just sort of expected them to be all over the place, dispensing wisdom and enlightenment like chaat. Instead, India feels a lot like London in a different language.

I wander back to the little house, still feeling weirdly disconnected from everything. A couple of people have wandered in, but it's nobody I recognize-friends of friends of friends, probably. Sleeping arrangements get a little loosey-goosey when you're on the trail, I've learned that. I barely even remember the people we're staying with, apart from their smiles and their incredibly good drugs. I wave at my new housemates, and they wave back. One of them is a more than a little bit cute, and I start wondering if he's exclusive to anyone. And if I still have any birth control pills left.

I'm just starting to really wake up when Sahara comes bursting in wearing a sari, her long blonde hair streaming behind her like a halo of sunshine. "Gaia!" she shouts, her voice filled with wonder and excitement. I almost look around for a moment before I remember that she's talking to me. We dropped acid on our last night in London, going inside ourselves to find new identities for our spiritual pilgrimage. She gave up 'Doris' for 'Sahara', eagerly describing a vision of a vast and empty landscape inside her waiting to spring forth with miraculous new life.

I saw Judy Garland doing a conga dance through the room with Lucille Ball riding on her shoulders. I had no idea what the fuck it meant, so I said the first name that came to mind and made up some bullshit about seeing myself give birth to a whole world. I figured at the time that my guru would probably give me a better class of mystic insight than my drug-addled subconscious. Now I'm less sure.

Sahara races over to me, kneeling down in front of me and beaming at me with a rapturous smile that makes me want whatever it is she's taken. "Gaia, I have got to take you to someone! Oh my god, he is amazing! I've been speaking with the Bodhisattva Kobutsu all day, and...I just feel so open, you know? Like my enlightened self is finally speaking to me, deep within. You really have to come and see him."

I feel more like what I really have to do is smoke some more hash, get some more chaat, and maybe see if the cute guy in the corner likes to eat pussy, but it seems silly to come all this way and then ignore a chance at spiritual enlightenment because I'm too busy with food, drugs and sex. Besides, Sahara's practically glowing with inner peace. Maybe this guru of hers really has something after all. I say, "What are we waiting for?"

She grins widely as I get up, and talks the whole way there. "When we got in last night, I was talking to Saffron, and of course she said that the only true path was Buddhism. And she told me about this spiritual retreat she'd done, back in '66, just a really enlightening experience-she'd met her past selves, you know? And she told me that she'd been meeting with the Bodhisattva Kobutsu , and he'd helped her really clear her karma up-he'd helped her form a tulpa of her perfected self, and then they merged in a divine union, and it sounded so beautiful. Doesn't it sound beautiful to you?"

"Um, definitely," I say. I only understand about half of it-Saffron was one of the women back at the house, I remember her hugging everyone and saying "Namaste," when we first arrived. And I get the bit about meeting the Bodhisattva Kobutsu, because that's what we're here to do. But the the karma and the tulpa? It's all a bit fuzzy to me. This is usually the point in the conversation where I light up a joint and get squiffy-philosophy always makes more sense to me when I'm stoned.

"So I went to the ashram just like Saffron told me, and I asked to see the Bodhisattva Kobutsu, and you know what? He already knew I would be there! It was so amazing. We communed, and he helped me form my own tulpa, and it was just..." She flutters her hands, momentarily at a loss for words. "You have to, Gaia. You have to see what you can become."

We come up to the ashram, which is barely any larger than the little open-air house we just left and a good bit shabbier. Curtains cover the entrance and all the windows, and there's a man standing outside who looks a little more like a bouncer than I expected from a house of spiritual enlightenment. Still, he smiles at us warmly as we approach, and ushers us in to see the Bodhisattva Kobutsu without a word.

Kobutsu isn't what I expected at all. I had an image of an ancient man with a white beard longer than my hair wearing a homespun sari, but instead I see a clean-shaven young Indian man wearing a t-shirt and blue jeans. He must see the confusion written on my face, because the first words out of his mouth are, "An old soul, yes? An old soul in a young body." His English is strongly accented, but good.

"Please. Please sit," he says, gesturing to a place on the floor directly across from him. "You are Gaia, yes?"

I almost correct him, out of sheer reflex, but instead I say, "Yes," and sit cross-legged facing him. There's a small brazier between us filled with smoldering coals, adding stifling warmth to the already hot day. I find myself wishing I was wearing a sari like Sahara.

"Sahara," he says, giving her a look that I can only describe as 'significant'. She's been gazing at him with religious awe ever since we came into the room, mixed with what only someone who'd known her a very long time would recognize as lust. I've known Sahara since she was fifteen. She wants to jump his fucking bones.

"Of course, Lama," she says, bowing low. She turns and departs, leaving the two of us alone together.

I look at him, trying to see the ageless wisdom that Sahara described. I try to let go of my Western prejudice, clear my mind of preconceptions, and everything else that I would imagine Sahara telling me to do if she was still in the room. None of it works. He looks like the boys back home who thought that love beads and a guitar were all they needed to get a girl like me into bed.

(It also took a bottle of Chianti, some good weed and a Velvet Underground record playing on the hi-fi. Just for the record.)

He smiles at me, and says, "Your soul. It is in disorder, yes? You do not know the truth you are seeking here today." I can feel myself blushing a bit, although I'm not sure if it's embarrassment or defensiveness. His comments strike deeply at my insecurities, hitting all the parts of me that believe the people who said I was too self-absorbed and materialistic to find any kind of enlightenment. Maybe I'm so busy chasing the next high and the next fuck that I really wouldn't know a real guru if he was staring me in the face after all.

He chuckles warmly. "This will make it difficult," he says. "But not impossible. Come." I look around, but he doesn't seem to be going anywhere. "Meditate with me."

My heart sinks. I've never been any good at meditating. Sitting quietly and thinking of nothing just leaves me bored and restless. Five minutes was the longest I managed without turning on the telly or lighting up a joint. But I'm four thousand miles from home. It's the longest sustained effort I've ever put into anything in my life. I can't just walk out of here and tell Sahara I'm not up for it. I focus him with my best 'interested' stare, and said, "I'm ready."

He tosses a handful of flower petals into the brazier. Instantly, the room is filled with a thick, heady floral odor. "Om," he says, drawing out the 'mmm' sound into a hum that seems to go on for minutes.

I wait, unsure whether I should be repeating it like a response, or whether I'm expected to join in. He gestures to me just before he says it again, and this time I'm only slightly behind him. "Om," we say together. I draw out the consonant sound the same way he does, trying my best to at least pretend I'm trying my best.

"Om," we say again, this time in perfect unison, and the room feels strangely silent when we stop. The air feels hot and damp and sticky like treacle, and it's almost like it's catching the sounds and holding them in place. I feel a rush of vertigo, as though I'm rising without moving.

"Om," we repeat, and I feel light-headed. I feel the most intense stillness, now, like the air isn't moving at all. Like nothing's moving. There's a pressure all around me, like the universe is staring at us. I don't feel paranoid, just enormously self-conscious. I remind myself that I've had worse trips, and try to lock onto Kobutsu's eyes to steady myself. He smiles and nods at me in recognition.

"Om," we say again, and this time it echoes all the way around the room as though we're suddenly in a vast, empty space. I want to look around, but I feel so dizzy that I know I don't dare. I haven't moved, but I feel like we're impossibly far off the ground. If I look down or look around or move at all, I know I'm going to fall a million miles.

"Om," and this time I don't even feel like it's my lips saying it anymore. It feels like the sound from my previous repetitions has come back like a reverberation all the way from infinity, and all I have to do now is let it repeat itself endlessly. Part of me quite shamelessly wonders what the fuck those flower petals are and whether I can get some back in London, but I shush myself. Even if it's all just a drug trip, it's a fucking amazing one.

"Om," and now I'm convinced the sound really is just buzzing past my ears, over and over and over again, because I hear him speaking to me even though I still hear the endless repetition of the mantra. "Very good, Gaia. You have taken the first step, just by stepping outside of yourself with me into this astral space."

I feel a sudden lurch, the beginning of that million-mile fall as I find myself thinking for a second about how impossible all this really is, but then I hear the mantra echoing past and I steady myself again into the endless floating. "Now, Gaia. We are going to create a tulpa together. An ethereal form, composed of pure thought and spirit."

He smiles. I can see him both move and not move, speak and not speak. I've never been on a high this intense before, and it's almost terrifying. I try to remind myself that I'm just stoned out of my gourd, that we never moved from the tiny enclosed space, but it's not working very well anymore. "Imagine the breath that flows out of you is a stream of mist," he says, and I can see a silver liquid pouring out from his mouth as he speaks.

I breathe out, and I can see my own stream flowing from me to mingle with his. "There we are," he says, his words causing ripples in the liquid as it pools in the air between us. "This is the breath of spirit, the astral force moving out to form your tulpa. That tulpa will become your perfected self, the you that you want to be."

I keep exhaling. It seems like I don't know how to breathe in anymore, and like it doesn't matter if I do or not. The silver stream pours out endlessly, and the rippling mass of liquid in the air grows rapidly into a swirling cylinder tapered at both ends. It's the size of a person within moments. "And now," Kobutsu says, "let your thoughts and your will flow into the tulpa. Let it become the new self, the perfected self inside you released and reborn."

I almost choke. I suddenly realize that I don't know what the perfected self inside me looks like. I don't know who she is. I imagine she's prettier than I am, with bigger tits (I've always wished I were a cup size larger) but I don't have the slightest clue what an enlightened Gaia would be like. I always just assumed that was what the guru was for-to tell me.

Kobutsu must sense my distress, because I feel his hands holding mine even though my body feels like it's a million miles away. "It's alright," he says. "I can help you. Just relax, let our spirits commune. I will help your tulpa find its correct path." He exhales, and I can feel the silver medium between us shudder as something enters it. Then I feel it moving through the tulpa into me.

I feel Kobutsu's thoughts, flowing up through my mouth into my head. "Think of yourself," he says. "Think of the best parts of you. Are you kind? Are you loving? Are you generous?" I nod, and I feel those emotions, those sensations pouring back out of me along with Kobutsu to enter my tulpa. I shiver, wanting for a moment to claw them back and scream that they're mine, but it's too late.

He draws more out of me, things I never knew about myself, things I see instantly and then forget as they leave me. I feel like there are only shadows left inside me, and I know this is all wrong and it's not a transcendent and mystical experience at all, it's vampiric and perverse and I can't stop him and this isn't a trip at all, this isn't the drugs, oh god it's all real and this thing is taking away everything and I can't make it stop stop stop STOP!

There's a terrible breaking sensation as the tulpa calves away from me like a slab of ice falling away from a glacier, and I instantly know we've done something terrible. I fall a million miles back into my own body in a heartbeat, and I run from the ashram with tears streaming from my eyes.

*****

An hour later, I still haven't entirely come down. Some food helped-I don't feel quite as hollow as I did when I stumbled through the curtains-but I still feel attenuated somehow. I wander through the crowds, feeling terribly alone even though I'm in one of the most densely-populated cities in the world, trying not to think about having to go back and tell Saffron and Sahara that their spiritual guru left me huddled in tears in an alley for thirty minutes, and that I wouldn't go back to see him at gunpoint.

I finally realize that I don't actually know where I am, and the quite mundane and ordinary panic I feel about being lost in a strange city shocks me back to reality quite nicely. It takes me twenty minutes to orient myself, and another thirty to get back to the house we're staying at. By this time, it's almost sunset, and I'm convinced that everyone will be wondering where I am.

I race the last block or so to the house and burst in, shouting, "It's okay, everyone, I'm alright!" But there's only one person there. I don't recognize her at first, although she seems so familiar that I can't understand why I can't place her. She's blonde, wearing a sari like Sahara, but she looks more like me than like-

"They've cleared out for a bit," I hear her say, and I'm so distracted by hearing what the sound of my own voice sounds like from outside that I almost forget to panic. "I told them I needed some time alone with myself."

"You're it," I whisper, my voice thick with dread. "You're my tulpa." I am terrified past the point of description now. "You're me."

"I'm better than you," she says back. She sloughs off the sari in a single graceful movement, leaving herself naked. She's got bigger breasts than I do. I can't help but feel cheated somehow. "I'm everything you wanted to be and didn't know how. I'm the perfect you." She laughs. "I've been waiting for you for two hours. Trust you to screw even that up."

I want to turn and run as far and as fast as I can, but I'm terrified to turn my back on her. She comes closer to me, and I feel her stare pinning me in place like a cobra with a mouse. "You're afraid," she says. "That's not surprising. You've always been afraid of change. You've always been afraid to live for more than the moment. But now the moment's here, Gaia. It's time to transform."

I feel a sudden surge of irrational anger. "My name is Dottie, you bitch!" I shout. I suddenly realize in a flash of enlightenment that I don't want enlightenment at all. I don't want to be perfect. I want to be someone who laughs at dirty jokes and kisses strangers and drinks on Sundays and gets laid with silly boys who play the guitar. I want to be me. And one thing I know about Gaia, she's not me.

I lash out to slap her, but it's like dredging my hand through pudding. She shimmers, and I can feel sticky tendrils of her clinging to my hand as I pull away. She's not finished, I realize in a sudden understanding that's not entirely my own. She's still only a thoughtform, she needs a body. She needs my body. She's going to take my body, flow inside of me and 'purge' me of the unwanted things, and then she'll be real and I'll be the ghost-

I turn to run, but it's far too late for that.

She's on me with inhuman speed, and I feel her grasping at me with warm and squidgy hands. She sinks in half an inch, and suddenly it's like I'm looking at a fun-house mirror version of my own mind. All my thoughts are there, but they're distorted and reflected so strangely that I scarcely recognize them. I see the Bodhisattva Kobutsu, vast and looming at the center of her mind. She wants to fuck him so badly, I realize. He gave her life, he gave her form, and she wants to give herself to him in return. I think back to the way he went into my mind and plucked out exactly what he wanted to make the 'perfect me', and I wish I could give the little bastard a slap, but I'm too busy kicking and flailing and trying to get Gaia off of me to care right now.

She's pressing up against me, rubbing her tits and her pussy up against me like we're having sex. It's perversely erotic, masturbation with someone else, but I'm too frightened to enjoy it properly. I suddenly realize that everyone who says I'm far too self-absorbed is absolutely right, and I find myself laughing and crying at the same time.