Triptik: A Journey in the Land of the Gurus and Yonder

By Luiz Fernando Brandão

TRIPTIK, a Journey in the Land of the Gurus and Yonder, is the debut book by journalist, translator, and writer Luiz Fernando Brandão.
The work recounts the ocean crossing of the author, then 23, to the Middle East aboard a refrigerated freighter. His goal: to graduate from the world’s oldest known organized center of Classical Yoga training, located in Mumbai, India, where he resided for six months. The story also relates some picturesque, at times almost fateful events that marked his overland passage from India to Europe and the period spent there.
“During all these years, I’ve tired of hearing from people close to me, and even from strangers with whom I’ve shared my adventures, that I should write it all down in a book. Until one wag – I don’t really remember who — suggested that I had adventures enough in stock for three books. I sort of satisfied his suggestion and produced a book in three parts, a triptych: ‘Aboard a star’, ‘In the home of Patanjali’ and ‘Overland’”.
The story was reconstituted from a travel diary and a notepad, a photo album “and impressions engraved in mind and heart.” TRIPTIK is an inspiring journey by Brandão, who with a light touch and good humor shares his search for spiritual experience through a narrative that is valuable for those interested in Yoga, professionals from the corporate world and all who wish to live more complete and better lives.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Sep 29, 2019
• ISBN: 9781728393704

Luiz Fernando Brandão

Luiz Fernando Brandão, born in Rio de Janeiro in 1952, is a journalist and translator. Parallel to a career in corporate communication, he translated into Portuguese works by Edgar Allan Poe, Jack London, Vladimir Nabokov, and Tom Wolfe, among other authors. In 1976, he was certified as an instructor by The Yoga Institute in Mumbai.

Book preview

© 2019 Luiz Fernando Brandão. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 09/28/2019

ISBN: 978-1-7283-9369-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-7283-9368-1 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-7283-9370-4 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019914356

Credits

English version: Steve Yolen, Bruce Rodger, Luiz F Brandão

Illustrations and maps: Pauline Säll

The original Portuguese-language edition of this book—Triptik, uma viagem na terra

dos gurus e outras bandas—was published by Confraria do Vento (Rio de Janeiro, 2017).

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

A Gaze

On Departure

Aboard a Star

To India by Bus

Slaves of Passion

Floating Island

Zero Hour

Sea Below, Sky Above

Zorba Dances on the Equator

Learning to Walk

Hostage to Allah

Walking Free

In the Home of Patanjali

Santacruz East

Sanatorium of Souls

Double Proof

Yoga: An Attitude Towards Life

The Connecting Thread

Brazilians

Impressions

In Corpore Sano

Gurus and Holy Cows

Phony Gurus

Farewells

Misconceptions

Eternal Return

The Owner of the Cow

Countdown

What Moves Us

Leaking Taps

To Live Longer and Better

Protozoans

The Enemies Within

Sweet Memories

Monopoly of the Certainty

Conquest of the West

In the Heat of the Monsoons

Blessed Porridge

Questions of Faith

Final Touches

Overland

Among Jains and Egos

Barrel Water

The Best Hashish

On the Silk Road

Shipwreck in the Desert

Sultans and Muezzins

Yellow Eyes

Reform Haus

Retouched Photos

Supersonic Utopia

Penniless Zen

Rive Gauche

Hungry Dog

Civil Resistance

Vet Tour

Sine Die

Cadbury Land

Goofs, Druids, and Dragons

London, London

Crazy Horse

All the Same

On Arrival

Photos And Maps

A Gaze

O n the occasion, 1973, I was doing the psychological assessments of the candidates for the Yoga Teacher Training Course at the Human Improvement Center of the Vayuananda Academy in Rio de Janeiro. The candidates, for the most part, were restless youths in search of self-knowledge and answers to the existence of the world.

I would receive them in my office, one by one, and listen to their stories and desires, their journeys until then and the ones they still wanted to take. Beautiful people!

There was one, especially, who attracted my attention due to the liveliness of his gaze and because of his questions and the curiosity of his soul to unravel the mysteries of mind and heart.

This youth was about twenty years old, and his name was Luiz Fernando Brandão. He was cheerful, helpful, cooperative, and affectionate. There was in him a humility that is only seen in those who really want to learn. He dedicated himself to what he was doing, and his commitment was his reward.

When he first arrived in my office, he sat on the floor and put himself in the position of a chela, a disciple. That was how he felt, a disciple of the world!

He made his journey and, undoubtedly, learned a lot. The young man, bright-eyed and curious, became a man.

Now, continuing his passage, he shares his experiences with us and lets us travel with him to India.

I am grateful to be able to accompany him again in his new phase of life, with the joy of having met him along the Path.

—Eneida de Oliveira,

Psychologist, psychotherapist and yoga teacher

To the generous and inspiring Yogendra family, who from their

magical nook at the Yoga Institute in Mumbai, for more than a 100 years now,

have preserved and taught the science that enables

us to enjoy the best of ourselves and of life.

On Departure

T he world wanderings of a young and earnest Yoga student from the beachside of Rio de Janeiro, who in the 1970s set out to seek, in India, the confirmation of a certainty—that’s what this story is all about. It reconciles two moments of the search for the same answers that seemed to emerge just as I gave up finding them—sort of an armistice that I sign with my conscience almost half a century past that precocious sabbatical in the East.

During all those years, people close to me—even strangers with whom I’ve shared my adventures—insisted that I should write it all down in a book. One wag (I don’t really remember who) suggested I had enough in stock for three books. To make up for lost time, and before it leaves me behind, I have followed their advice my own way and told my story in three parts. Hence the triptych, purposely misspelled, in the title, in the hope of attracting the curious reader, or at the very least, give the book a little help in the search engine landscape.

The twenty-odd days of the sea crossing to the Middle East are covered in the first chapter, Aboard a Star. My six-month stopover in India, attending the world’s oldest known organized Yoga school, is described in In the Home of Patanjali. The third and final part, Overland, contains the picturesque, almost fateful events that marked my overland journey to Europe and the brief period I spent over there.

Almost everything that passed in the first two chapters was reconstituted with the help of a detailed travel diary I kept, which was handwritten, in ballpoint pen, in a university notebook. The journal is still in perfect condition. For the third and last part, I turned to my notes as recorded on a small pad I also—just as fondly—hung onto over the years.

Had they not been used for rolling joints during a memorable summer in Rio, aka Verão da Lata, the letters I sent to the family—stored in a shoebox by my dutiful mom, who later solemnly returned them to me—surely also would have enriched these stories. It comforts me to know that they had been read and their effects were felt at the right moment. They were enjoyed to the last bit.

At the time, some segments of the story were considered unworthy to record and were almost omitted. But scenes, faces, sounds, colours, and smells freely welled up again as this book was being written, as if demanding recognition. Although tinged with the diffuse tones of my memory’s palette—and the forty-year gap in time—these passages are equally reliable, because I never ever forget.

This is how it went, in the first part of the triptych, with the pathetic family farewell in the elevator door, the almost tragic honeymoon in the Greek islands, and the humiliating episode with the Indian consul in Al-Kuwait. And in the second part, when I speak of the stunning Air India employee who, in an elevator, challenged my fragile condition of brahmashari, as they call in India those who uphold sexual abstinence for the sake of spiritual goals.

The final part is entirely based on impressions recorded in my mind and heart—some still very clear, others somewhat faded—revived after rummaging through a battered photo album, whose contents were saved from mildew and chemical decay through the miracle of digital scanning.

I trust that readers interested in Yoga and professionals from all walks and phases of life may find in this book even a glimpse of wisdom and extract something of value for their own journeys.

1

Aboard a Star

compass.jpg

To India by Bus

I had always been attracted to the unknown and travelled quite a lot, and yet, at twenty-three, I had never ventured beyond my mother’s hometown of Fortaleza, 3,000 kilometres from Rio de Janeiro, the city where I was born and raised.

Sure, I had visited peoples and locations that were much farther away, but only through the books of Jules Verne, the science-fiction pioneer. The first of those, A Captain at Fifteen, was a gift from my old man, an insatiable reader.

I was so fascinated by the adventures of that fearless youth that, for over a year, I swapped the regular bus for a cheaper electric trolleybus to ride to school. The journey back and forth between Copacabana and Catete was slower, occasionally interrupted when the driver had to stop and re-engage the trolley’s poles with the overhead power lines. With my savings on the cost of the ride, every two weeks, I had enough to buy a new volume from the Jules Verne collection, published in pocketbook format by Edições de Ouro. That’s how I got to read the French master’s most popular works.

Presented by relatives, fished off the shelves of friends and acquaintances, or exchanged with schoolmates, countless books by a wide variety of authors helped me get through the hours of teenage boredom and fired my imagination. But to actually set foot in the Orient, let alone go and live there, was never in my dreams. If I were lucky, of course, perhaps one day I’d get to see the places some of my more fortunate cousins and schoolmates had visited in Europe and America. In those days, travelling abroad was only accessible to a few.

This story was, right from the start, wrapped in such a magical aura that I only began to realize what actually had taken place more than a year afterwards. And so it is only now, when I play the third and penultimate period of a game in whose final phase I am unable to guarantee my presence, that I think the time has come to share it.

I say this because I believe in the ancient writings of Indian Ayurveda medicine, which state the human body is a machine designed to function for a hundred years, which depends only on the quality of the fuel, the way of use, and the maintenance pattern. I intend to remain alive for a long time yet, but it is always wise to prevent something that definitely is not curable.

I remember the heat of a certain November afternoon in Ipanema, on the veranda at Maria Inez’s. At the time, she was the object of my deepest but unrequited love. Blonde, with long curly hair, a celestial face, and beautiful light brown eyes, I saw her as a Viking princess right out of a medieval fable. Too bad that she thought of me only as a friend—an absolute disaster for a young man in love!

Not long before, Maria Inez’s older sister and her husband, also my friends, had moved to Bombay, now Mumbai, where they were immersed in the study of Sanskrit and Vedanta philosophy. Since I was then a newly minted Yoga instructor and for several years had been a dedicated Yoga practitioner, the three of us had much in common.

Allow me to explain how a guy like me was drawn to Yoga in the mid-1970s. In Brazil, we lived under a military dictatorship and were suffering its ills. Most of the young people my age had no political awareness. Many of those who were not politically engaged harboured dreams of a better world through pacifism, free love, and Eastern philosophies.

Illegal substances—the soma of my generation—promised expanded transcendental states of awareness, in addition to the enjoyment of a forbidden pleasure. There were very few Yoga practitioners. Most of them were older people seeking alternative therapies, or they were counterculture types who had tired of all the craziness, as was my case.

At the law school, which I had abandoned in my second year, I was part of the hip culture that attracted, at most, a fifth of the students. Half of the class consisted of the genuinely brainy students or mediocre ones who just wanted to get a diploma—almost all of them squares. Most of the others were only there to sign the attendance sheet, and they would disappear at the first break. They were the political activists who participated in protest rallies and marches. Some were already headed towards a clandestine lifestyle due to the political situation.

I was now fed up with artificial pleasures; I was in search of something more. A friend lent me a book by Professor Hermógenes, Autoperfeição com Hatha Yoga. I read and reread it from cover to cover and was very impressed. There’s nothing like the right thing at just the right time.

I enrolled, without delay, in a nearby Yoga studio and suddenly found myself practising two hours a day and changing my diet and lifestyle. In short, I was doing those things one does to reinvent oneself. Being invited to participate in a teacher’s training course, held at night in the academy, was a natural progression. Just two years later, I was teaching my own classes.

My routine was hectic. Yoga at home, very early in the morning; part-time work in a friend’s father’s laboratory until noon; a quick bike ride to the beach for an hour of swimming; a hurried lunch at home; and journalism classes in the afternoon. The day ended at the Yoga studio, with another one-hour session, and then the instructors’ course until ten.

Let’s get back to the veranda.

While I waited for my elusive sweetheart, occupied in the depths of her home with issues I assumed to be more important than me, her mother, the calm, sweet Angela—Lica, to her friends—showed up. She told me the latest news from her daughter and son-in-law in India, and she confessed her concern about them being so far away. With an air of innocence, she tempted me with, You wouldn’t by any chance also be interested in going to study there, would you?

Wouldn’t I! I gushed about the teacher’s training program offered by the Yoga Institute—six months of deep immersion in the subject that had become my reason to exist would be a post-graduation worthy of respect. But then I explained that I was in no position to undertake such an expensive trip. Worse still, the course began in January, and we were already nearing the end of the year.

To my surprise, she quietly said she’d discuss it later with her husband. He just happened to be the commercial director at Lloyd Brasileiro, the Brazilian state-owned ocean shipping company. As of that moment, the plot entered the fast-forward mode, and I would soon find myself actually boarding a cargo ship.

Three days later, my benefactor calls me directly, gruff and to the point, Luiz, Roberto Arieira here. Angela spoke to me. There’s going to be no boat to India for a while, but there’s one leaving for Kuwait in the next twenty days. From there, you can fly to Bombay. You should be able to get there before the course begins.

I take him up on his offer without a moment’s hesitation. And that night, like a person with something trivial to impart, I nonchalantly toss out the newsflash to my family, gathered at the dinner table. My parents barely disguise their shock, bordering on incredulity. Understandably, the information shatters the linear routine of our quiet conventional family life; very little change ever occurs in this home, because my parents’ social life is almost non-existent. They are still trying to come to terms with my most recent habits, which for them are just as, or even more, eccentric than the previous ones. Consequently, worried about the mental sanity of her only son, my mother asks me to talk to her brother, a renowned psychiatrist and the director of one of Rio’s leading clinics for the mentally ill.

In his office, my uncle Deusdedith—brilliant, but conservative—prods me about the reasons for the trip. Faithful to the orthodox line of his profession, he is suspicious of any and all mysticism. When it comes to Freud, Jung, the subconscious, and psychoanalysis, It’s all a load of rubbish, he pronounced during the informal consultation he’s granted me when I mention certain books that have influenced my new way of seeing things.

I don’t give in to his pressure tactics and explain that Yoga, different from what many believe, has nothing to do with religions or sects. It is a science, like any other, dedicated to self-knowledge through specific disciplines.

I understand, he says, scrutinising me with his deep grey-green eyes. Have a good trip and never lie to yourself, he counsels, dismissing me while simultaneously stuffing two 100-dollar bills into my shirt pocket.

My old man, after years as an executive in a multinational company, now works at home, doing technical translations for law offices specialized in intellectual property. Jorge Brandão was a master, the dean of his profession, one young attorney told me many years later. Following my lead, he also had begun to do Yoga at the same studio and was enjoying the experience very much; my proposal, while unexpected, made sense to him.

Aglaïs, my mother, a gifted homemaker—in the best sense of that timeworn expression—hardly ever went out, except for shopping and rare visits to relatives and friends. She was always worried about my future and made me learn English and typewriting while I was still a boy, for which I am extremely grateful. She never resigned herself to the fact that I had dropped out of law school. And it was only after she checked with my uncle about his diagnosis of my psychiatric state that she was able to rest assured and offer her customary benediction, May God protect you, my son.

My much younger sister Patricia, who saw me as a father-brother figure, tried to show enthusiasm when I announced the trip. But it wasn’t long before she rose from the table and rushed to her bedroom in tears, as if she had just lost a loved one.

The next weeks were of feverish activity, which included negotiations for obtaining visas for India and Kuwait; termination from my job under highly advantageous conditions, thanks to the generosity of my boss and first employer; temporary leave from my journalism course, which I was halfway through; and a letter of recommendation written by an old acquaintance who had ties with the Yoga Institute. All was sorted out in a matter of days.

December 1975. Sitting on this bench in the Rio de Janeiro bus station, backpack nestled at my feet, I am completely focused on my thoughts, just like the other occasions when