Turning Tide

The Old Man And I - Two Encounters With Eternity.

So here I am, a 33 years old German Engineer, recently arrived in Brazil to head a local formulation development team (Pesticide Chemistry), proud "owner" of about 50 fluent words of Portuguese (the local language) enough o take cab rides, enter a restaurant and order a meal and eventually to ask for a street name hoping that the answer is going to be short.

Our plant was situated in a beautiful valley 250 km north- east of São Paulo (Resende, RJ) and every newcomer was required to take part in weekly and monthly meetings with staff personnel of our administration in the city. While this duty turned out to be a welcome distraction from my daily routine in years to come, the first few trips had their load of excitement. Everything was new, strange and totally different from good old Europe. Friends in Resende warned me about the potential dangers I could encounter in São Paulo, admittedly one of the more dangerous places in the world.

But I had more fears of getting lost in the crowd, in making a longer taxi ride than necessary and or not being able to communicate correctly while finding a place to eat (one of the cultural highlights there) at night.

And then, I was very well dressed with a "solid" belief system. Being a protestant by nature I grew up in our church reading the bible up and down and I used to pray for help and forgiveness whenever opportune.

Some years later when some esoteric thoughts and early ESP research appeared on the "market place", doubts about the god I believed in took me away from church and I dove full speed into "modern" spiritual thought frames like Karma and Reincarnation which fascinated my mind for many more years.

So again, here I was in the middle of that melting pot called São Paulo with the certainty of a lion that nothing could touch me and that I was save in god's hands no matter what.

But then there was this hidden fear that He might look away for a moment or decide to pay me a lesson testing my faith. But then again, for my first excursion I selected on of the most frequented areas of SP: Avenida Paulista, the local banking avenue and their side streets filled with nice little restaurants.

Although I took enough money with me I calculated carefully the amount I would need for this evening. Taxi-restaurant-taxi plus a silent reserve in case I want to buy a newspaper. This way the result of an eventual robbery would be less painful.

I didn't quite finish to indicate the street name to the taxi driver and he knew already that I was a foreigner and took me promptly for a ride that took 3 times as long as necessary.

But we finally arrived at our destination: Rua Haddock Lobo where one of those famous Churrascarias was located.

As usual I arrived 60 minutes before opening and I decided to walk up and down the streets to help time pass. It was still rush hour in SP and during that time of the day one could find many beggars asking for money to support their children. (In 90% of the cases people's donation would directly be translated into alcohol!). Based on my Christian beliefs my conscious was always bad because I had everything I need and felt obligated to "give" to the poor. But I hardly ever did because my budget was tightly calculated while the rest of my money (including my own) was safely resting in my hotel room.

This way, while walking down the street trying to dampen my bad conscious I turned into a well-frequented broad avenue parallel to Avenida Paulista. Several yards in front of me I spotted this beggar leaning on the house wall with his hands open to the crowd. He must have had half of his household with him because some cloth and cooking stuff occupied a fair amount of space around him.

"That's it now", I thought, like trying to kick my own butt, "this one is getting it".

So I searched my pockets nervously while trying to keep up with the calculation of how much I had to spend at the restaurant and so on. I finally gave him a couple of bucks leaning downward looking into his face. It was an older person, long white hair standing up like those of Donovan.

What I saw in his face however marked my life until this very day. Behind his dirty face and his dirty hair I looked into the most remarkable face I have ever seen in my life! So much wisdom, kindness and purity when our eyes made contact. I felt totally naked in front of his eyes and knew that this man looked straight through my outer and inner personality. I froze completely, unable to move for a fraction of seconds. I felt somewhat uncomfortable and with a well-natured probably somewhat clumsy smile I gave him the money and walked rather abruptly away.

Still totally flattered I went on walking for a few steps until I remembered how little money I have given to THAT kind of a man. So I turned around and returned to the place where I met the old man angry with myself and ready to give ALL my money to him. But, to my very surprise, the man was gone and so were all his belongings. Not a minute had passed since I left him but he was gone and I never was able to figure out how a single being was able to pick up that many articles in a few seconds and vanish without a trace.

I looked around but no sign of the old man.

I had my meal (which that night somehow did not want to taste the same as usual) and the money I had left was enough to bring me but 1 mile short to my hotel. I had to walk the remaining distance. But nothing happened to me.

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