Close to the Bone by Lisa Ray

Author:Lisa Ray [Ray, Lisa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Doubleday Canada
Published: 2020-11-03T00:00:00+00:00

I also wrote down her recipe for tomato sauce, which may be as important as her spiritual guidance, and goes like this:

— Oil, garlic, tomato sauce, milk, salt, rosemary Borlotti

— On low heat cook together for 20 minutes, put in fresh basil at end

— Add water from pasta

(Simple, but perfect.)

They were followers of Osho, known as Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. Westerners remember Osho as the controversial Indian spiritual leader who started an ashram in central Oregon in the 1980s (and he is now the central figure in the Netflix documentary Wild Wild Country). Idyllic landscape, organic farming and red jumpsuits gave way to claims of corruption and Osho was unceremoniously deported. He died in 1990, but his practices live on all over India, especially at his ashram in Pune where Krishna and Nadama met. Krishna had been living there on and off, having run away from his wealthy family in Amritsar, Punjab, to enter Osho’s ashram when he was seventeen. When he met Nadama at the ashram decades later, free love was the policy, so it took a few years before they actually came together as a couple.

“We’re not here to be worker ants, Lisa,” said Nadama. “Don’t take on the aspect of a worker. We’re here to grow and experience. To dance with existence. To strengthen the soul.”

To strengthen the soul.

In both India and Canada, the question of identity was always linked to work: What do you do? But Nadama and Krishna rarely spoke about their paid jobs, though I pieced together that Krishna had worked for IBM (“I slip in, I slip out”). Nadama said she couldn’t touch a computer as it interfered with her energy. We never talked about our work and careers, which was incredibly freeing. At that first meeting, we sat at their kitchen table and chatted over coffee. I was nervous and eager to please, and I spoke too much and too quickly. After we left, Marco told me her verdict: Nadama liked me, even though I talked too much. I should come back the next day for coffee and pasta and we could talk about pain.

Religion had always seemed to me something that people functioned inside of for a limited period of time, like my granny at church. Religious people appeared different outside places of worship. Not always, but often enough. I was always sensitive to this game because it seemed to me another sort of mask. Despite that, I had always felt a tickle in my belly and a strong pull towards spiritual practice, even venturing, in Milan, to sit in the back of churches, waving cheerily at priests during services as they exhorted me to examine my relationship to eternity. I wasn’t sure whether I was looking for a path or an exit. But I’d never been in a community of people who emphasized seeking above all else. It was a revelation. I began visiting with Nadama and Krishna on my own, often spending an entire day in their kitchen. Nadama

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