A Letter of Gratitude and Awe to my Friend and Teacher; Manu Rehani
A man that knows his heart needs no words.
A man who knows the spirit needs no directions.
A mind that knows its weakness makes no flaw.
I write a lot about thoughts and ideas. I write poems that reflect romantic and spiritual feelings. But my favorite pieces I have ever written, the pieces I keep going back to as life proceeds, are the pieces written about people in my life. People who show up in my life and show me the way, their way and my way become the same for a little while, and I learn and grow by being in their proximity. Going back to such pieces is always an enjoyable experience because it captures an emotion held in words.
Manu Rehani; I have to admit, I am only scratching the surface of who Manu Rehani is. He is a sea of knowledge, experiences, and stories. He is likely the most interesting person I have met in my life so far. I have met the rich, I have met the famous, I have met tyrants, I have met gurus, I have met saints and angels, I have met geniuses (I once had a 2-hour conversation with the man who invented modern wireless technology.) But I still get the impression Manu is more interesting than all of the above.
Manu is East meets West. Technology meets history. Buddhism meets modernity. I get the feeling if I tell him these words he might disagree, he might say I am exaggerating. And he won’t be wrong. Manu gets so humble around compliments. Manu is very careful with poison. You can claim to be big all you want and let your cheerleaders cheer you up and boast about how awesome you are. In Manu’s reality, the spirit comes first. Now I guarantee you, if I tell him that, he will have something to say about the body, the world, and our reality. Manu is not lost in spirit. Manu is guided by the spirit. And I get the impression, if I told him that, he will remind me that we are the spirit and the spirit is not distant from us; it is us; how could it act on us then? I give up on trying to describe Manu. I think the best way to learn about Manu is to interact with him yourself. And I guarantee you, even that won’t be all.
A man that knows his heart needs no words.
A man who knows the spirit needs no directions.
A mind that knows its weakness makes no flaw.
The mind is mighty capable when calibrated to all that you are.
So instead of describing Manu, let me describe the Manu-effect as I experience it.
Being around this man is always eye-opening.
A lot of people are walking around with profound truths and earth-shattering facts. Everyone is so excited (I know a lot of nerds) to tell you this random fact they learned before. Most stories are incomplete because the storyteller is obstructing facts they might feel a certain way about, like shame, guilt, or just trying to perfect their social image.
When Manu tells a story, he takes you on a trip of self-honesty. He shows where he lacks and where he excels. And the story goes beyond him. He will get surprised a couple of times. He will get defeated a couple of times. He will embrace and accept somewhere along the way. He will get you in the other character’s mind without assuming intentions. You gain empathy for him, and for the people he interacts with. The emotions sparked by the story are almost always more important than the details of the story. You never get a single bit of detail that is excessive or unneeded. Details only add excitement, resolution, or open up mystery. His details guide you to what’s next.
Okay, he can’t reject this one then, Manu is a storyteller! A great storyteller.
Manu doesn’t read and repeat. Manu doesn’t just tell. Manu takes you on a trip. Wait, Manu is a TRIP. He legitimately is. There is no way around it.
Proof of that: I was at his house with two other friends yesterday. He offered to cook us dinner. And you bet your ass this dinner wasn’t going to be your typical dinner experience. Eccentric doesn’t do it justice.
First off, at the door of his apartment, a sign says “Note to maintenance, Please coordinate with resident before opening the door. Cats like to escape. And they are good at it. Thank you.” I read that out loud. I giggled. And thought in my mind “oh cute.” I love cats and I grew up with so many cats, I was excited to meet his cats.
We walk in, and Manu says something about cats chewing on shoes. Manu takes us to the balcony; the view of West Lake Hills is just incredible. I could waste years chilling on that balcony. But there is a cage on the balcony. We look to see what’s inside the cage; we see three bobcats staring at us!
As it turns out, they weren’t your everyday bobcats. As it turns out, one of the many weird trends in the 80s was cross-breeding wild cats with house cats. The first generation is the wildest and most domestic kind of cat you can ever get; they call those F-1. An F-1 is 50% wild and 50% domestic.
I am standing there thinking to myself what in the world! How wild! Every time I think the word wild now I have to pause. Is pure wild more wild or hybrid wild? like is it more wild that a cat is just wild, or is it more wild when a cat is 50% wild and 50% domestic? Is that cat wild or are humans wild? Are we domestic or wild? Are you domestic or wild? Are you bipolar? Why are you reading this? I mean thank you, but I am just getting existential and cant help it!
At some point during our dinner conversation Manu will talk a lot about the gap. The gap in your consciousness, that sexy ass gap that allows you to watch anger episodes without taking action. That gap that the buddhists give everything up in exchange for. Is that gap wild? Or is it domestic?
In trying to describe that gap, Manu kept using the letter “I.” So he would say something like I was watching, I am watching, I can watch my anger, my anger doesnt rule me.
I looked at him in awe and curiousity and asked him “then who are YOU?”
He looked at me with a smile on his face, tilted his head in a goofy way, raised his eye brows, lit his eyes, stared into my eyes, and said nothing, I unvoluntearily jumped on a goof-train and mirrored exactly his facial expression, he raised his hands in exclamation, I did the same. We stayed there for 3 seconds. Silence. Only broke it afterwards with giggles. This is the best way someone could ever answe the question I asked. (why are you still reading?)
Back to the cats. The wild cats that arent all wild. Manu’s cats are even more special than your typical F-1. One of them was actually an F-1. And that F-1 had the most bipolar characterstic I have ever seen in a cat. He looked like he could never make his mind on wheather to be wild or domestic. He looks sweet, and then a demon takes over and he wants to hun. He made me wonder about bipolar disorder in humans. He made me wonder about myself and my rage episodes. He made me see something scientists call genetics that we are so afraid to talk about because of how damaging race theory was to the world. We carry savages within. Our savages want to savage. We carry domestic genes. We want to be subby. We want to serve, we want to be spanked? BDSM is likely the most telling truth about humans. (you maybe like this writing style if you are still reading and I am glad. But also a good question to ponder upon is why in the world you are still reading, why in the world do you do anything at all? I swear I am not on drugs, I havent even had coffee, I am just so intrigued by you, please hit me up and let’s have a conversation soon. I might be writing a story about you soon! And yes it wont necessarily follow your typical narrative arc for story telling. You know why? Because I watched an epic tedx talk this morning by an artist that used to be a corporate analyst and had PTSD. She wanted to make PTSD sound so awful she called it CPTSD. I am quite sure in two years we are gonna add another letter to the CPTSD lettersoup because CPTSD is going to be the norm and we will need to emphasize special pain in a way that hasnt been done before. Pain is pain. I digress, she talked about how breaking into arts helped her manage her CPTSD soup. She now drinks CPTSD for dinner instead of agonizing over it. Somehow trauma is being processed in the process of making art. The best part is she talked about how she was painfully isolated and then she finally started connecting to other people by making art about their stories and struggles. What was even better? She talked about skipping all the rules and getting to the creativity straight up. She said something about art doesnt make sense. She said something about freedom in expression is more valuable than fitting into a box of good art. I am embracing her advice in my writing. And you are still reading and I love you. Keep going we are almost there.)
F-1 had two siblings in the cage. They were much bigger. we decided to call the siblings F-1-dash. F-1-D are also a mix of wild and domestic. They were born out of an incestral relationship between big daddy wild bobcat who had many F-1s. Some of his F-1 daughters were females. Females were not all fertile. One daughter was miraculously fertile. She had sex with daddy and gave birth to F-1-D babies. Manu acquired two of them. Famous ass people bought the rest of the F-1-D family for so many dollars $$$$$$$. Having experienced the royal F-1-D babies realtime, I think they are priceless! Truly priceless.
I dont want to give the wrong impression that all the passion last night was about the cats! The cats were merely a reflection of the level of the conversations that we were partaking in on the dinner table. The food he cooked had meaning behind it. At some point he offered us ice-cream and brownies. Which is so unusal of him. We started devouring dessert. We loved it. I havent had icecream in a while and I was so happy I am eating it again. It tasted so good I kept adding more. And then Manu came back with herbs that desensitize the sweetness receptors in the mouth. He offered us each one of the herbal pills. We swoshed it back and forth with our tongues. It tasted like dry tobaccoo and made me wanna smoke. I kind of always want to smoke but I like the execuse. 30 seconds of swoshing and then we rinsed off with water. Manu invited us to eat more icecream and brownies. It was sweetless because we cant taste the sugar. And this is really mind bending my friend who reads that far, it was really mindbending because iceacream without sugar tastes like cum. And brownie without the sweetness tastes like shit. A plat of sweetness without the sweetness tastes like cum and shit. I am a bit kinky, not that kinky, I spit everything out and was grossed out to my bones.
F-1-D are so in their senses. They are 75% wild and 25% domestic. They still like being pet, but they look like hunters. Once they were out of their cage, they came out and scanned the whole space. watched us and made a judgement call. You see them doing that in real life and you know these cats will eat you if your heart wast lighter than a feather.
And they sat at our feet as we sat on the couch. One of them started rubbing his chin against my toes and then used my foot as his toy. I can’t hide it, I took that as a compliment. If you meet a pet for the first time and he sits at your feet, you are so fucking lucky and should feel lucky. That pet just gave you the biggest compliment they could give to a stranger.
Should we stay in our hunter instinct? Should we live all the way domestic? Are corporate jobs suffocating us? Is society an awful prison? If these cats went out in the wild they would die… One of the stories Manu shared about them is one of them ran away back in the day, Manu recruited a whole community to find the cat again. And when they did, only after 5 days missing, the cat had battlescars fighting with a golden head cobra. Ok I tell you the truth I am happy I dont have to fight cobras. I am so so glad tigers are not chasing my ass. But I also dont want my soul sucked in modernity. And I dont want so to suck the souls of others to get to the “top.” Is the top even worth hurting a single string of emotion?
What Manu is to me, is a man who showed up in my life with an arsenal of tricks and magic and emotional integrity. At a time when I am in the middle of healing my deep wound of sexual abuse. I was abused by a man who didnt understand himself. And my heart is broken forever on that note. Someone took from little Asem without permission. Someone took from little Asem. And little Asem suffered years of agony and pain, all in silence. Little Asem put on an awkward smile forever to please others. Little Asem fawned at the sight of dominant assertive men. I am only now learning about safety and teaching myself how to stand up and how to ride the wave of anger to its end. I need men that know themselves. I need men that are dont confuse manhood with abuse. I needed light. And god had sent me a lot of light and magic through the lens of Manu.
A man that knows his heart needs no words
A man who knows the spirit needs no directions
A mind that knows its weakness makes no flaw
Manu is a cat. not so wild, not so domestic. Manu is a scientist, not so stuck in a lab. Manu is a feeler, that knows his mind. Manu is a shaman, in a suit and tie. Manu is a sinful saint. Manu is a clean heart and a ferocious demon. Manu is man that knows his inner woman. Manu is a child that is so mature. Manu is so much light and so much realness.
Manu is Manu and also is not
Wild meets doemstic. East meets West. Technology meets history. Budhism meets modernity. F-1-D jump on a TV screen.
