Anil Mitra April 8, l997

945 Mad River Road

Arcata, CA 95521

707 822 8305

Dear LuAnne,

Thank you ‑ it was so nice to get your warm letter full with warm happenings in your life. I felt some of the warmth. The brown envelope with British stamps made me think at first that the letter was from my mother... you must have been staying about 30 mi. from the rest of my family ‑ my parents and brother live in S.W. London; that you were there was a pleasant coincidence for me to contemplate.

I'm glad things are going well for you. Please do write ‑ especially when your child comes. Of course you'll be very busy and occupied then ‑ just drop me a line or a card when you get a moment.

Here and now my life is a bit of a struggle ‑ 40 hours of work a week, trying to have some sort of social life but the "struggle" is mainly with my "writing" ‑ maintaining energy and focus. Currently it is difficult for me to write to people especially in depth and to those who matter most to me but I do want to write to you now because of your warm letter and since your child must be due soon.

There are so many ways to characterize my writing in addition to the "relation between conscious and blind evolution" that I mentioned in S.F. Something I've been thinking of for some months is "What is the ultimate in [human] be‑ing and experience and what is the relationship between the ultimate and everyday experience?"

I read that Yoga's goal ‑ kaivalya: "absoluteness" ‑ is experiencing, becoming, recognizing that one is identical to universal consciousness. It is sobering that what I want to do has been done in some ways in the place of my origin. But I inherit two traditions and I continue in the belief that individual experience is also important and that each culture is vibrant through [re]creating its own truth on the path to the Truth. But, of course, its wrong to suggest that one tradition cultivates only individual experience and that the other completely minimizes individuals. I have come to think that in order to feel that my work has validity I need to have some knowledge of a number of cultures ‑ modern, traditional and "primal;" and knowledge is not enough ‑ experience and becoming‑being are also needed.

I tremble sometimes with fear at the magnitude of my ambition and sometimes with excitement at the possibilities. It's not just intellectual: its my adventure of ideas, spirit, experience and becoming in the realms of human possibility. [Adventures of Ideas is the title of a book by A. N. Whitehead.]

The work and I continue evolve from an inclination to a formal Western emphasis on the external world to include intuitive, animal‑aboriginal, native‑primal, Indian and Western and other traditions of insight and intuition. I am coming to believe that animal experience in relation to the world of nature is fundamental to if not inclusive, at some level, of all human experience.

As I write I begin to criticize what I have written in the previous paragraph and to respond to my own criticism but I resist the temptation to ramble on. I'm sometimes lonely to share my deepest experiences but not so much now that I'm on the path. In fact it is difficult to accept interruptions due to my need for focus and also due to being vulnerable to distraction and my everyday but also wonderful human "needs."

I've just spent two days arranging my room so that all my study needs are readily at hand in a way that is conducive to the process.

My life? Working 40 hours a week at the inpatient psych. ward is both rewarding and draining; the rewards are both human and my own personal growth through the various challenges.

I've been practicing touch typing and writing on my new cheap 2nd hand Smith Corona "Personal Word Processor." This is preliminary to buying a PC that I will order in the next few days. My system will help me in writing, organizing and graphics; in printing and publishing; in doing research ‑ as an organizational and resource/online tool; in making contacts and looking for work opportunities; and, perhaps later, in doing technical work and consulting.

I spoke to my parents recently ‑ was happy to learn that my father does not have the pancreatic cancer that the internist had suspected. My brother and his family are going to visit this summer.

I have been running 3‑5mi, 3 times a week at the beach amid dunes ‑ it is wonderful following the contours of the dunes allowing my energy to flow with the earth. I ran this evening as the sun was setting amid clouds with colors of purple, blue, gold, orange... another day: I have run 3 miles out to the mouth of the Mad River and as I turn back to complete a six mile loop, at first in soft sand next to the river and then flowing amid the dunes and the elymus grass, a blue heron stands silently and as I pass it is disturbed by my presence and starts an ascent against ocean, sky, setting sun and streaks of grey‑purple cloud... it is going to be hard to leave this place.

Land is an element that shows me that it is more valuable to be spoken to than to speak; another is music.

I've been listening to much music from everywhere but especially Indian music of which I do not seem to tire. I have a wonderful Ravi Shankar tape ‑ at times my mood changes with each note. Ravi Shankar said, perhaps quoting some aphorism, "that which colors the mind is a raga." One night in my room near the Pacific Ocean: listening to a CD of Baul singing I feel that I am in Bengal; and the tension between being emotionally and empathetically there and physically here rends my flesh [hyperbole]; and tears well in my eyes. But the music and the life of the itinerant Baul singers of Bengal reminds me that no matter how far I travel ‑ physically, emotionally, culturally, intellectually, spiritually, or in my whole being ‑ I am still at home; I still am. Music is so deep!

Land and music are metaphors for the flow of life; but also are life and its flow.

I asked Dr. Khan who works at County Mental Health about Hyderabad ‑ he grew up and lived there. He was not particularly enthusiastic about the music scene there but admitted that he hasn't lived there in a while; he added that the air in Hyderabad is terribly terribly polluted. I was in Bangalore in l970; I experienced it as a beautiful city with a pleasant climate because its above sea level... but I've heard that development and population have taken their toll though thetas true of most of India.

I hope for much warmth for you and John in what must be a time of love, connection, hope and excitement.

Love,