The day I must have looked approachable

Tuesday 10th March, it’s 4pm and I’ve just sat down on a National Express coach headed to London from Manchester. There are only a couple stops along the way so the coach is pretty much full at the beginning of its journey. As I’m struggling to fit my phone charger into the plug socket, a Man puts his bag down on the seat beside mine and by the time I’m plugged in his body has replaced it. He offers a friendly “are you ok?” which is later followed by “are you heading to London”. Foolishly, I thought this would be the extent of our conversation, as is what I’ve become accustomed to on the numerous other coach journeys I’ve taken. However, it quickly becomes apparent that this man is a talker and in the space of half an hour I’ve learnt that he’s a yoga monk on his way to the Vulcan islands to teach meditation. He’s also shared conspiracy theories of his regarding climate change (he believes it is happening but not for the reasons we’re led to believe by the government) and expressed his opinion on the corruption of society due to corporations en-masse. To be honest, much of what he says I agree with and the content was, as soon as I’d learned he was a monk, expected. 

The conversations turns into a discussion about reincarnation and spiritually, of which I’m more than happy to engage in with him, I just didn’t realise it would last the entire coach journey; that being a grand total of five hours. We discover that some beliefs we share such as the beneficial effects veganism can have in the reduction of carbon emissions as well as the unfortunate dogma that surrounds religion and makes it unappealing as well as potentially dangerous. Whilst his obvious dedication to meditation and his conviction of reincarnation in the development of the human soul is fascinating and I hope I asked the right questions, even after five hours of it, I’m not convinced. 

Several times throughout he tells me we were meant to have met and to be having this conversation. Apparently I’m “different”, with an aptitude for this spiritual discussion that a lot of people don’t have. He assures me that I can’t possibly be in my first stage of reincarnation because my mind is too expanded. Whilst I’m flattered obviously, I can’t help but feel that this seems a little elitist and possibly derogatory towards less polite people who would have probably put their headphones in and got on with their studying they should have been doing by now. The monk confesses at one point that he’s not really sure why exactly but from past experience he’s found that women usually tend to be more open to engage with him in discussions of this nature. I don’t have the heart to tell him that’s it’s actually due to entrenched social patriarchy that women are less likely than men to easily dismiss someone once they’ve addressed them directly because it feels safer sometimes to just go along with the situation in case, if it came to it, we wouldn’t be able to defend ourselves. This being said, I don’t mean to cast him in a bad light, he was truly, genuinely lovely and I feel like I learnt a lot from him, although apparently I actually knew this from my previous life and he was just reminding me which, if this is true, the whole reincarnation thing surely seems like an unnecessarily lengthy process, almost as lengthy as our conversation. It turns out, yoga monks like to talk about themselves a lot, but my brother also likes to use me as a sound board for his essay plans so I’m quite happy to let this man use me as an outlet while he appears to be working through some stuff. Even if at times it did feel slightly like he was trying to enlist me on one of his meditation retreats, my mind does feel expanded, but that may be just traveller’s fatigue. 

As if that wasn’t enough of an enlightening experience for one day, this morning whilst I was browsing the Jewish history pop-up exhibition at Manchester Central Library, the attendant approached me and talked to me for about half an hour about the accumulation of the photos on display, as well as the plans for the refurbishment of the synagogue. Honestly, I think it was just a slow day, but it’s reassuring at least to know that I don’t look like some sort of nooligan.