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Notes from the Road: Not You Average In-Flight Entertainment

Published: 07/08/2009 by Amely Greeven

One thing meditators become familiar with is the universe winking at them.

Yesterday I flew from Los Angeles to Miami to see my family, and then continue on for some time traveling away from my home. I'd had the intention for some time to listen to some vintage lectures by my teacher's teacher, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, on my ipod during the flight, because I wanted to connect back to the source.

Furthermore, it was Guru Purnima, the biggest full moon on the Vedic calendar, and I was thinking that despite this being a highly auspicious day for starting a big voyage and inviting in the new, it was a shame that I'm on the plane alone when everyone else is gathering together. And there was also a subtle sub-theme to my journey. Questions such as, "What is next for me? How is this mediation teaching evolving? Am I doing the right thing in the way I want to shape it and is it ok that I am such a gypsy, wandering on the road?" were floating in my mind as I departed L.A.

On the plane, I found my seat and began listening to some early 1965 lectures that Maharishi gave to some of Vedic meditation's "early adopters" in Wales. Sitting there in my window seat, I was imagining the whole scene, picturing the Beatles there perhaps as my own teacher had once described.... at least, I was doing that when I wasn't transcending and totally missing half of the content. (Note to the novices: lectures by Maharishi take you straight to the zone of Being.)

After some time, I got up to go to the restroom. The first one was occupied and so rather than wait, I walked to the back of the plane to use that one, even though my intellect thought that was rather impatient of me.

On the way back up the aisle, I passed rows and rows of humans filling the big jumbo, all watching TV or plugged into ipods in the semi-dark. Ignoring most in my effort to walk straight, I glanced down just once at the seats below me. My eyes got an instant hit: Right in front of me was a vintage, multi-colored, flower-filled image of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi surrounded by John, Paul, Ringo, and George (or at least 3 of the Fab Four) in the ashram in India where they'd all studied, circa mid-sixties. It was a big photo in a book that this passenger I was walking past was flipping through.

I stopped. Moments like this always make the think of that moment from Casablanca when Rick sees Ilsa. "Of all the bars in all the towns in all the world, she had to walk into mine...."

I briefly pondered, "What is the etiquette in this situation?" Then I simply turned back to him. "Excuse me, but I just have to know what book you're looking at," I said, half laughing.

He looked surprised and flipped the cover to me as if not quite sure what he was perusing. "Oh it's this book on "Hippies""--an artsy little book with random images and vignettes on the 60s counterculture.

I told him that seconds ago I'd been listening to that very same meditation teacher in that picture, on an ipod lecture. Though the passenger seemed momentarily befuddled, he broke out into a smile, acknowledging the nice co-incidence. "Oh, well here he is then!"

I walked back to my seat laughing about how support can be shown in the most banal places. Like by the toilet on flight AA 1520. And tickled by how, even when little human concerns about being "good enough" or being "on the right track" fill our minds, Nature is just wanting to give a groovy, psychedelic little thumbs up.

Or to put it another way, it's constantly trying to say, "Here's looking at you, kid."

I buckled myself back into my seat and fell asleep to another hour of those crackly, charming, and sweet lectures. Before finally giving in and watching back to back episodes of 30 Rock (the funniest show on TV). Soon after, I arrived in balmy Miami, did a puja by myself in my dad's apartment, and looked at the moon.

I winked at it and gave it a thumbs up.