In Bed With Lord Byron

ambitions, he looked really surprised. I felt quite confused by his reaction. Then he covered it up quickly, smiling, his face bright again.
    Our shopping done, I realised with a pang that it was probably time to go back.
    ‘You must come and see this local temple,’ Peter said. ‘It’s dedicated to Lord Shiva and the silence inside is quite profound.’ As we entered the temple, I stumbled
slightly on the step and he quickly put his hand on the small of my back. I felt a burst of lightning tear up my spine. We exchanged hot glances. And then looked away.
    Inside, the temple was cool and incredibly serene after the bustle of the market. We sat down, incense swirling sweetly around us, while Adam and Tony explored. They both looked faintly
intimidated and walked about whispering and poking each other, daring each other to touch something. I noticed a woman shuffling in wearing a white sari, her face etched with grief. She knelt down
before Lord Shiva and began to weep softly.
    ‘You know, when I first came here, I felt pretty cynical about India and all this enlightenment mumbo-jumbo,’ Peter said. ‘But when you look at the way Indians live life,
it’s inspiring. In the West we put money first and religion last. Whereas in the East they do it the other way round.’
    ‘What about all the scams?’ I said. Then I felt churlish. ‘I mean – I can’t blame them, I guess, with the difference in our incomes. What
is
enlightenment
exactly?’ I asked, feeling a little stupid for having to ask. But he didn’t do that male thing of patronising me with his superior knowledge; he just responded sincerely.
    ‘I think the best way to look at it is through that story which is the centre of the
Bhagavad Gita
, the story of Arjuna. Arjuna is an impossible situation. It’s his dharma
– his sacred duty – to fight in battle, but he finds himself in a war where he will have to fight his own friends and family in order to defeat evil. And so he turns to Lord Krishna for
help. Krishna tells Arjuna, “
Yogasta kurukarmani
”, which translates as, “Established in Being, perform action.” By being established in Being, Arjuna can act
perfectly, freed from karma.’
    ‘Karma – it’s such a naff term, though,’ I laughed. Then I saw his face and bit my lip.
    ‘I kind of like it,’ he said. ‘I mean, it’s the same if you’re a Christian –
What ye sow, so shall ye reap.
’
    I’ve discussed this all with Anthony when we’d visited India, and I brought up the same point now that I’d made then.
    ‘I guess the idea of karma just makes me feel uncomfortable. I mean, I know that atheists sneer and say religion is the opium of the people, but actually I think atheism is the ultimate
form of hedonism. It’s so much easier to enjoy life, doing whatever you like, if you don’t believe in heaven, or the possibility of hell, or a God who might send you there.
There’s no sense of responsibility, because if you hurt someone else it will never reverberate back to you. But karma – karma makes me feel nervous. It’s like, whatever I do will
have all these tiny little actions and reactions all rebounding off people and the stars and the sun and the moon and finding their way back to me wherever I am. It makes me scared to bloody do
anything at all!’
    Peter smiled. ‘Tell me about it. Though it also says in the
Gita
that karma is unfathomable, so I wouldn’t go worrying about it, we just have to be natural. The point about
karma, though, is that until we’re enlightened, we’re caught up in it. When we act, we create latent impressions, which give rise to more desires, which give rise to more actions, which
in turn bind us. It means we’re never satisfied.’
    ‘Hmm . . . ’ I chewed my lip. ‘I guess that’s true. I have all these fantasies, and when I play them out I find they never quite fulfil me. I mean – you know
– you fantasise about, I don’t know, changing your job, or your house, or your boyfriend, and then you go through all the hassle of it and you get there and sometimes it’s like,
“Oh, nothing’s really changed. I still feel the same inside.” And there’s this feeling of anticlimax . . . ’ I frowned, suddenly full to the brim with
self-questioning. Because despite the fact that Byron had been a bastard, Leo gay, Ovid a chauvinist, and Al Capone a lousy lover, I was still bouncing about in my time machine, still searching for
the butterfly of happiness that