I think he was even less than an unremarkable teacher. I don't think he taught anything useful at all (of course, I learned things from that time anyway - just nothing useful I can think of that came from him). I used to value meditation very highly indeed, and did an awful lot of it in the early days. I eventually came to regard Rawat's techniques as useless. The experiences I could get from meditation just came down to sitting quietly, detaching from the internal monologue. No teacher needed. It would take a minute to describe. Less. I've just done it.

I won't be outdone in boneheadedness. I just won't. I have form like you wouldn't believe.

I don't see people so much as discrete individuals any more. (I used to imagine that I'd be whole and complete and fulfilled if I could live alone on a desert island contentedly, needing nothing and no-one - probably I was too much influenced as a child by the Robinson Crusoe series on TV. Self-sufficiency in every way seemed a noble goal!). To me now, society looks more like people soup such is the interconnectedness and inter dependence. So where to lay the blame for foolish things is hard to pin down. Was it me, Rawat, my Dad, his Dad before that? I'm not entirely convinced of the reality of free will. Sometimes it's just soup, the cream-of kind, not even the lumpy kind.

I hate that sentiment, whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger. As if, with sufficiently broad perspective, it's all good. My neighbours' son died a few years back. They never got over it. They can put on a bright face and laugh and joke, but you always know there's a darkness in there which manifests unpleasantly at times. Next door to them, an old widow. Her dog died - it's all she had. She's very lonely, so I encouraged her to get another. She was afraid the dog would outlive her, or that she wouldn't cope with the walks. I told her I'd help out if necessary - just get yourself a dog. So she did, a little yappy thing that goes out in the garden morning and night and yaps, driving my neighbours nuts. They've fallen out, badly. And now my neighbours have fallen out with me for encouraging the woman to have a dog. I said she has nothing else. They don't care. They want the dog gone.

It could be my fault, the mess. I just didn't want the old woman so lonely. Could be the crotchety neighbours, but after someone's son has died, you can't demand equanimity. Could be the old woman, letting the dog out to bark, but she can only walk it once a day, and it doesn't bark that often. Trouble and strife, easily done, just three neighbours. I don't know where the source of the pain is, who to blame. Just the human condition. Our paths brought us all to this. I feel no homage is due. Scale this up, to the whole street, the town, the county - zoom out. People soup.

I guess I ought to walk the dog, morning and night, but that isn't the level of help I had in mind. I'm too lazy and not altruistic enough for that. And I hate yappy little dogs myself. It's out there now, yap, yap, yap.