KRISHNA IN DRAG

Excerpt from Changing Lenses
by Ram Dass

I’m driving my old Buick and a State Trooper stops me for going so slow. (I seem to have a lot of karma with police. Not like some of my friends, but . . .) The State Trooper stops me, and I’m going too slow because I’m driving an antique car, and he says, “You’re going too slow.”

I say, “Yes, Officer.” I’m the potential criminal, and he’s the policeman. I’ve been doing mantra for some hours and I’m so out of my skull that I look at him and he is obviously Krishna, who is in drag. He’s appearing to be a State Trooper who’s come to give me a ticket, but he’s really come to let me see God in this form. But I know you don’t say to him, “Hey, I know you’re not a State Trooper, you’re God,” because therein lies much trouble, you know?

So we play out our routines. Then we run out of the routine of culprit and policeman. But he’s feeling good, because every time I look at him I’m totally in love with him. I mean I don’t want to go to bed with him, I’m just in love with him. “Are you here? I’m here. Far out. Here we are. Well, if you want to be the policeman, I’ll be the culprit. Okay. Here we go.”

You and I have to dance in form. There’s no way we can meet on this plane other than through our forms. The only question is whether we get lost in the melodrama.

So the State Trooper doesn’t want to leave because it feels so good. Of course, it feels so good to resonate free of our separateness for a moment. He says, “Great car you got here.” because that’s another kind of macho thing men can talk about. We kick the tires, and spit, and do all the things you’re supposed to do. Then we sort of run through that routine, and he says, “Well, be gone with you.” Great.

I start to drive away, and he’s gone back to his police car. I look in the rearview mirror and he’s waving at me. I’m about to stop and say, “You blew it now. Because State Troopers don’t wave. C’mon, I mean, you’re not playing your game cleanly enough.”