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How do you sell a thought? “Actively, or sometimes inactively,” says the white Netherlands’s boy with dread locks in the New Delhi Airport. “See those in the orange pants over there? They just came to get high.” I wonder how much different their experience is compared to my student’s trying it for the first time, the executive who uses it like a martini, or the girl mixing embalming fluid with her weed to get a three day high? How is that seeing God?

How do you create a prism of mind filtering life into organized colors of intention and emotion? Repeat in extreme simplicity and allow for extreme complexity in individualized meaning. Repeat an om until the om can be heard no more. Hare Krishna! say the Lord’s name and be blessed with the mere sound. Commission a work of art and be save through your art if not with your money. Pray the rosary, chant and read for hours until the emotion is spit and burnt in a fire, to cleanse the soul. I wonder if anybody here repeats the om until they bleed from the pain of those fallen in a war that’s continued for seven plus years hoping it won’t spill into Pakistan. Or are they just feelings not polite to voice in our religion?

I’ve come to the conclusion that selling religion is like selling someone on marriage. Left to the complete truth, we’ll become depressed. Much like happiness and love, the longevity of a marriage depends on selective memories of everything that keeps us illusionary happy and trash the rest. We agree to disagree or believe if the story sounds right, anything and everything for hope.

How do you label colors in area that keeps you thinking long after its gone? You don’t, not everyone will agree. You infuse it like chai with strong contrasting tastes. This is India. India the caste, the white gold and diamonds on elaborate hands with intricate saris. The gangrened beggars that parade on the street in their profession of pity. The simplicity of the country side on camel and a farm. India the colorful, the brown and white marble that never keeps heat and the dirty street that mixes dung and piss with jasmines. India, a bed of religions and charlatans, how contrasting you are, how beautiful you are.

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