The Meaning of Fyfe: An India Story

By John Fyfe

It's the late 1990's. John has come to India searching for inner peace, truth and purpose. He revisits the ashram in the Himalayas, where he's been many times before. This time, however, things don't go as planned. He begins to ask himself a lot of questions. In the hope of clearing his mind, John goes hi

• Language: English
• Publisher: Writers Branding LLC
• Release date: Apr 10, 2024
• ISBN: 9781639459315

Book preview

PROLOGUE

I began writing this story almost twenty years ago and completed it a few years later while living in Ireland. Since then, it has been sitting on the shelf collecting dust.

Why so long? Well, there was the time needed for reworking the story, and then I needed to find an editor who could finish the job at a reasonable cost.

My life journey brought me to Ireland in 2005 and then to Colorado eight years later. My primary income came from my astrology practice, which meant I didn’t have to be tied down to a job where I had to work 50 weeks a year. This allowed me the freedom I needed to travel and eventually reside in places outside of Canada. I always earned enough to live comfortably though not extravagantly. Over time, I’ve lived all kinds of stories, which have become mine to write about and share.

When reviewing my India story, I am amazed by the amount of information I had already gleaned. My utter frustration at the blindness of society and my anger at where it was leading us was truly spot on.

I made no changes to fit the times we are living in.

My story takes place in the late 90s; in it, I express how I miss and long for the good times, but looking back, I wonder if there were any good times. I believe it was all an illusion because the dark side of the world existed back then just as it does now. We were as unaware as so many people are today, except that things have gotten darker; maybe the internet has made this more apparent.

But this story is about my travels to the Himalayas of India to seek spiritual teachings, not about this world full of lies. In hindsight, my story captures both realities.

I have lived quite a varied life, wanting to believe it was mostly good, but often finding myself disillusioned with what I kept seeing in this world.

If I sound angry and depressed in Chapter One, it’s because that’s how I felt, but please read on because you will see that after passing through quite a dark tunnel, I realized that light and dark co-exist.

I have come to learn the art of walking the fine line, the way an acrobat walks on a tightrope. On one side of the tightrope is the darkness, the abyss, and on the other is the bubble of light. Both sides have failed me because I eventually discovered bubbles will burst and the dark lacks any hope.

The journey I take teaches me to become the acrobat who is not afraid to fall on either side; he has gained enough confidence and awareness to get back on the tightrope and maintain his balance. However, before I achieve this, I come up against many challenges, as you will soon see for yourself.

I hope this story makes you laugh or shake your head in disbelief because that’s often been my reaction in making my journey through this life.

JOHN R FYFE

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am beholden to Barbara Gapmann for coming on board and bringing her wonderful editing abilities to make my story flow. I also appreciate Barbara’s moral support and understanding. We even managed to laugh amidst the pains we both went through to tell this story. Thank you, Barbara!

I also would like to thank Odie and Amy Jacques who ititially helped with my India Story.

This story is dedicated to my sister,

Karen Fyfe, and to all my relations.

CHAPTER ONE

GOING BACK IN TIME

I think about my life as I gaze blankly out of the partially frosted window of the train. I catch glimpses of dilapidated warehouses, and telephone poles with sagging wires. I glance at the skeleton-like trees, their branches swaying and bending in the swirling wind on this cold, grey winter day. Patches of dead yellow grass peek through the snowbanks, uncovered in spots by the wind gusting through desolate fields. I find the clickety-clack sound of the train wheels hypnotically soothing. However, my thoughts are elsewhere. I’m wondering where my life is headed.

My last 45 years seem to be a life lived by somebody else, someone who believed in a reality that I now know was nothing but an illusion. Thinking about the past only makes me nostalgic for happier times when life seemed so easy. However, memories still linger and at times haunt me like shadows creeping in beneath the cracks of a door.

Those seemingly easy times lasted until I was about seven years old. After that, my innocence and expectations gradually started to fade. The school system with all its rules began to chip away at my freedom and independence, but I believe we all go through such realities as we grow older.

When I was growing up, at least thirty members of our family were living in the Verdun neighbourhood, three miles from downtown Montreal. As I remember, we stood together as a family, for better or worse. However, the harsh laws being imposed on the English-speaking population forced many of them to move out of the province to look for work. Over the years, many of us lost our strong family connection; as First Nations people say, those who have lost their roots have lost their way.

I’m not in the best of moods, and people are not my favourite topic right now. Many things are making me angry, and I’m wondering what the hell to do about it. It is early January, which is a frigid, bleak month in Canada. I am returning from a week’s stay with old friends (there are still a few around!) who have moved to Toronto, an uptight, politically correct city.

The people there seem dead inside, even soulless. They have turned into human drones, controlled by a system that is getting more rigid by the day, in Toronto and all over the world. I scratch my head and wonder how the hell this has come about.

My old friends Rick and Bernice live on the outskirts of Toronto. I visited them to see whether it was a good idea for me to move into their cozy loft. However, Rick and Bernice are splitting up, which tells me that moving in is a big no.

Everything is telling me to leave Canada and I am okay with that. The people of North America are no longer my tribe, if they ever were. It seems that George Orwell’s 1984 is becoming a reality.

The way I see it, people are becoming increasingly unconscious. Consumerism, materialism, selfishness, and greed have become the major components of our existence. People have become self-absorbed, narcissistic and oblivious to everything and everyone around the world. Our native elders have said that we have forgotten who we are and what is essential in our life, which is how to be human. People now ignore each other as they walk by, seemingly talking to themselves, looking like lunatics as they gab on their beloved cell phones. Others are hooked up to their I-pods, having their favourite music piped into their brains all day long; some, I imagine, even sleep with them.

We have shopping malls springing up in every city, too many coffee shops beside numerous fast-food chains on just about every block.

Meanwhile, music and talk radio are playing loudly in cafés and restaurants. Multiple television sets are to be found in every bar and pub, with the volume excessively high. And then we have the mature adults yakking away in their cars as they zigzag along the road, cheerfully unaware of the accidents they’re close to causing. Who do you need to talk to at seven or eight in the morning? What could be so important?

Hello, dear. I just wanted to check to see if the kids are up, and please don’t forget to make them brush their teeth. I already put the toothpaste on their toothbrushes. And these kids may very well be over eighteen!

I find it pathetic that people can’t be alone with themselves for even a second. And you have no choice but to be involved with these people, as they force their private conversations upon you.

I snap out of my thoughts, distracted by a few passengers who begin to chat with each other. In contrast, others start talking on their cell phones to prevent their thoughts from encompassing them.

I look around the coach and wonder what would happen if all of us could condense the most important events of our lives and fit them into a twenty-four-hour time frame.

Imagine having that one day when we could review and fully understand why certain events have occurred in our life, and our experiences of sadness, sorrow, love and joy. Imagine if we could understand the repetitive patterns that occur as we unconsciously play them out, much like actors. We would better understand the hardships that we experienced, the relationships we’d been in and even our money issues. Through this awareness, we could then make a conscious effort to stop our negative patterns from recurring.

When I think about my life, it seems I was asleep when the most important moments occurred. I didn’t acknowledge them because like so many of us, I was blind and took too much time to wake up and see.

I always believed karma would eventually catch up to us but now it looks like we are catching up to our karma. What we do and say to each other and what we think have eventual repercussions. What is also accelerating is the vibrational impact people are having just from judging each other.

I wonder how many people on this train are on the same page as me? I don’t have to guess. The answer is zero. The grey sky begins to lose the little light it ever had as early dusk creeps in. The passengers are mostly silent now as some begin to doze off. Others, I imagine, reflect on their existence as they gaze out onto the bleak landscape. Perhaps they’re experiencing moments of clarity, and maybe some are having melancholy thoughts and asking themselves, Who am I? Where am I going? I know I am.

There are no longer bar cars on the trains as there used to be years ago. Back then, I could sit with people of all ages and have interesting conversations; it was an open atmosphere and people were more connected.

Only a minority would frown at us and shake their heads in disdain as they entered the bar car to take out a sandwich and a drink. They obviously disapproved of us, but we just ignored them.

It’s said there are no bar cars because there was too much trouble going on, but the real reason is to save money by not paying a bartender. If the bar cars were making money, they would be open.

Now, all you can do is sit by yourself in your seat, order a beer if you want, and listen to the self-important idiots talking on their cell phones, their loud conversations pounding against your eardrums.

Yeah, hi Bill, Michael here. What’s happening with that deal, man? Are we going ahead with it or what? Are we? Great! Hey, what a card you are! Ha, ha, ha, ha!

Or Hi honey, how are you? (They just talked fifteen minutes earlier). We’re in Kingston now, just leaving the station, but I’m calling you back because I thought maybe I could pick up some Chinese on the way home. What do you think, honey, good idea? Yeah, great, I’ll give you a shout in a couple of hours when we reach Montreal and maybe we can watch some old reruns of Friends, or Sex in the City. Okay, bye honey, see you soon.

If I could get away from these boring idiots and have a smoke, I would, but no! We can’t be doing that these days. There are signs everywhere informing us that there is no smoking on this train, even though the ban has been on for years, as it has in planes. May we remind you that this is a non-smoking flight! Have any flights been anything else for the last twenty years?

I remember drinking in the bar car many times and puffing a joint of hash at the table when the bar was empty. I would meet up with people from all walks of life. They were interesting because they were just themselves. At times I would meet up with an attractive woman having a quiet beer, and life would be great. You can’t be puffing hash anymore because it’s no longer acceptable and there is very little of it around. There used to be an abundance of hash coming into the Port of Montreal, but that’s not the case now because the police and powers that be are clamping down on crime and drugs to appease the ignorant masses, showing them how much they care and how they are doing their jobs to protect society. Too bad the cocaine and heroin trade are thriving like never before. To create the impression that the drug trade is under control, newspapers every now and then run a headline saying, Thousands of pounds of hashish seized by authorities in major drug bust! Well, carry on dreaming, people, keep living in your illusion.

When my train comes to a halt, it drops me off at the city of Montreal, the home I used to love. The home where I grew up, with all its great memories. Ah! Those were happy times that I had with my family and friends. I can’t remember ever feeling overly lonely or sad back then. Not like now. My heart feels shattered. Some have told me it has become hardened, but I know differently. My heart has become guarded; I no longer trust people, but no matter how much I have tried, I can’t completely shut down. Inside, I still care.

What the hell has happened? I ask myself. When did it all change? Where has everybody gone? I want to go back and start again!

Suddenly, I remember another train ride twenty-five years ago, when I left Montreal and my job at the insane asylum where I almost lost my mind that summer. That four-day trip to Vancouver led me to the next most important phase of my life.

The train journey I’m on now is seemingly doing the same thing; suddenly a light bulb has been turned on. I have decided to clear out and go back to India!

Within a week I sublet my flat to someone I know who has been looking for new digs since last year. Debra is thrilled to have my five-room apartment with its fireplace and nice-sized rooms. The back porch is another bonus.

I call Mathew, a friend I haven’t seen in quite a while. Knowing he can’t afford a car, I tell him he can have mine. It’s a Malibu that’s old but in good shape. Mathew is delighted. I put boxes of my personal items and clothing into storage. Debra can keep or dispose of whatever is left in the flat. I leave my television, stereo, couches, tables and chairs. Everything I have is now gone!

I think it’s time to go out and have a few drinks before I shove off. I’m leaving tomorrow. I decide to go to the Memories Bar, the local dive, not far from where I live. You’ll find all types there – young, old, the down and out, and your nine-to-five workers. One group of people you won’t see in the Memories Bar is your academic types. The beer is cheap, the music is good, and sometimes, later in the evening, musicians will come out and jam. The music they play is usually enjoyable, some blues and good old rock and roll.

Boy, am I piece of work! Here I am about to embark on a mission to find my spiritual side, to live in more light, but still I get pulled to the darker side and go out drinking. This will be my farewell to Montreal, I tell myself.

I walk up to the bar to order a beer. There are very few people inside so far, maybe because it’s a bitter cold day. At that moment, Reid, an old schoolmate from Verdun, comes strolling up to greet me. John, my man! How are you? Long time no see. Reid has a happy-go-lucky way which is his trademark. He grabs a barstool beside me. You haven’t been in here for a long time.

It’s been about a year, my friend, I answer.

Unlike me, Reid says. I’m in here every day since my divorce.

Here every day? I ask with alarm in my voice, wondering what the hell that would be like.

Yup. I live right across the street. I have my advertising business, which I run from home, then I punch out at five and sure as shit I’m not going to sit on my own every evening, watching television and pretending I’m having a good time.

Yeah, I hear you, Reid.

Reid’s face is a bit pockmarked, which gives him a rugged look. He exudes confidence and has an affable personality. Everyone he meets feels comfortable with him; that’s his Verdun style. Reid enjoys his beer and cigarettes and definitely loves smoking up.

Let’s go outside, John and smoke this joint I’ve rolled.

Sounds good to me Reid. Let’s bundle up.

We put on our coats and go outside. Reid lights the spliff, inhales deeply from it and passes it over to me just as a woman walks up to us before entering the bar. She kisses Reid on the cheek and says in a happy voice, All right! Just what I need, Reid, baby, a nice joint to puff on so I can forget my bloody day. Who’s your friend?

You know John. You met him a few times last year.

Oh yeah! Jackie says with enthusiasm in her voice. You’re that good-looking guy who really turned me on! I didn’t recognize you with your clothes on, ah, I mean your winter clothes, she giggles.

I remember you too. I say, picking up on her flirtation. Your name is Jackie Bond. That’s a name I could never forget.

And how ‘bout my beautiful body, baby? Could you possibly forget that?

I guess that’s really hard to gauge right now, Jackie, with what you’re wearing tonight. Jackie has on a wool hat pulled down over her forehead, almost touching her eyebrows, and a red scarf that is wrapped around her neck and chin.

We quickly finish the joint and scurry into the warmth of the Memories bar. Reid goes over to sit at a corner table by the window overlooking the snowy street, and we follow. He asks what we’re drinking and goes to the bar. The buzz from the joint of grass hits me as soon as I sit down. When Jackie peels off her winter wear, I notice she indeed has a good-looking body; voluptuous even. She has dark hair and when she smiles, as she often does, I notice dimples in her cheeks. There’s mischief in her laugh as well. Jackie is in her mid-thirties and has a deep, husky voice that no doubt comes from smoking too many cigarettes and probably drinking too much. With the buzz from the grass, I find Jackie more than pleasant to look at, and while I stare at her, Jackie catches my eye and says, So, you do remember my sexy body, big boy? She lets out a rasping laugh.

Caught out, I smile and say to her, Well, yeah. I guess I do.

Keep looking and you might get lucky big boy.

Oh yeah? I ask.

Maybe she answers. We’ll see how the evening goes, won’t we, baby? Her dark brown eyes twinkle at me just as Reid returns with the beers.

Memories is a perfect name for this bar; there’s an old-style jukebox that plays all the old tunes. The song that’s presently playing is by the Temptations, Papa Was a Rolling Stone.

During the next hour, the juke box plays Motown hits from the sixties and seventies, making me feel nostalgic. We smoke more joints and drink more beers. My last evening out reminds me of how it used to be when I went out partying. This time though, it’s without my old friends. I’m getting a buzz on but I suddenly realize I need to get out of the bar fast. I’m starting to spin out, with one great song after another becoming a distant blur in my mind, blended in with the voices and laughter from the patrons in the bar. I’m beginning to see double. I quickly put on my coat without anybody noticing, ask Natalie the bartender to call a taxi for me (not before unsuccessfully trying to plant a big kiss on her lips) and then I get the hell out of there. Oblivion is getting ready to take over. I wait outside for the taxi to show up and he’s taking his damn time! My knees are shaking and I’m shivering from the freezing cold. Just then I hear someone rustling up behind me. I turn around and see that Jackie has decided to join me, all bundled up in her winter garments. You were planning to leave me behind? she asks.

Ah, I guess I was thinking you were doing just fine in Memories, I reply.

You’re wrong if you think that hanging out with those losers is doing fine! Jackie answers me in her husky voice. I’m thinking it’s time for you to invite me into your taxi if it ever fucking gets here. Then you can ask me to go back to your house.

I think you’re right, I reply. There’s no better time than now.

CHAPTER TWO

MY JOURNEY BEGINS

I am airborne. It’s all behind me now; my parents, my family, and my longtime friends are all history. My sixteen-year marriage to Aileen, even the pets I loved, are only a fleeting memory. It’s time for a fresh start.

As the plane reaches its maximum altitude, I look out the window at the pitch-black sky and feel a huge sense of relief. I have great memories of my last evening in Montreal, spent at the Memories bar with the voluptuous Jackie. I can’t imagine a better farewell.

I am on my way to India to spend time once again in the Kalla Valley, where my sister has lived for the past twenty years. Kalla is an exquisitely beautiful valley in the Himalayas, where the view is breathtaking and the air crisp and clear. It is called the Valley of the Heavens, where hope and inspiration can be found.

My sister lives in the town of Mandi with a community of over two hundred people, most of them from the Western world. The teacher is Swami Sarva, an Indian guru who practises and teaches how to obtain awareness of the self. I’ve decided it’s time to do some inner work, and for me, there is no better place to go.

My plane will take me to Delhi, where I’ll stay for a week before making the three-hundred-mile trip to Mandi. I have plenty of time as there is no going back as far as I am concerned; I feel I no longer belong to the world I have left. I may stay away for years.

I reach into my knapsack and pull out the book Earth, channelled in 1994 by Barbara Marciniak and friends, friends being the Pleiadians, who are beings from a higher dimension.

I read the chapter called Family of Dark.

"You must learn to recognize when you are fleeced or had, taken up or stung. Do not hold anger over your realization; simply wise up. Your world leaders have been acting this way for centuries. Today, there is a tendency to play with the dark in a more audacious way than ever. Why? In the Book of Earth, it seems that you would never awaken without Family of Dark outrageously preposterously trashing every one of your values and boundaries. You would remain complacent, like cows chewing cuds, never noticing what was transpiring. When you look behind the scenes, you will learn about an ancient race with their own tale of division, a tale of secrecy and hidden power.

They are the ancient reptiles, your ancestors, your kin. Reptilian beings have been ruling behind the scenes for eons, placing puppets in front of you as their messengers. These puppets often do not understand that they are possessed and taken over by the massive manipulators. Sometimes, when they discover that they are part of so immense and grotesque a plan, they feel shrunken and shriveled, even though they may be popes, presidents, kings, queens or others of prestige and power. They recognize that they are nothing more than tools, taken over because they made a home for these forces through perversions, lies, attachment to sex, and lust for material objects. Your world is full of darkness. You cannot reach the light without knowing the dark, and the dark comes now in massive amounts asking to be healed.

There will be a tremendous exposure to shocking perversions because love from mother to child and father to child is missing. The form of love we speak of has not been practiced here for thousands of years. It is a challenging time in which you live, a challenge to examine how degenerate humankind’s frequencies have become. Shocking changes will destabilize civilization, and this is all meant to be.

The challenges you will be facing in the next fifteen years will involve the darkest of the dark energies, the darkness before the dawn.

Many leaders from around the globe, particularly in politics, religion, and education – especially in those areas that are purportedly dedicated to children – are part of a massive covert organization of pedophiles who use children for sex. What is missing? You already know: It is love."

I close the book. I’m no longer blown away by the information, having read so much in the past few years. I know bigger things are happening in our world that most people know nothing about. Although most of the material I’ve read is probably closer to the truth than anything we’ve been told. I don’t want to go there tonight.

I need to use the bathroom and have to squeeze by the older couple sitting beside me. I say to the man next to me, Excuse me, I need to get by.

He answers, "Pardon?"

Excuse me, I need to go to the toilet.

"Je ne comprends pas l’anglais."

I’m not in any mood for this separatist shit.

What will you do in London if you can’t speak English? I ask him.

The man looks to be in his late sixties. He has a goatee on his non-existent chin, and I feel like giving it a yank. He doesn’t like what I said; I know he has understood.

"Je suis un Québécois et dans cet avion je parle en français." (I am a Québécois and, on this plane, I speak French.)

Yeah, yeah, good for you. I reply, How nice that you’re from Quebec. So am I, mon ami. I squeeze by the old fart and his wife, who gives me a dirty look; it is a look of vulgar distaste. I blank them out when I get back to my seat.

I pick up my notebook and begin writing about the period when I was married to Aileen.

We used to take this flight to England every year, as Aileen was from England and that was where her family lived.

****