Swami Mendicananda

"You have a beautiful aura," the old man said. He was walking toward me on the sidewalk in Santa Monica, ten feet away, dressed like a swami. I was talking to Flip on my cell phone, but smiled acknowledgment at him. He quickly covered the remaining ground between us when he saw that he had my attention.

"You have had many misfortunes, but things are shifting." He thrust a crumpled spitball-sized shred of paper into my hand, directing me to keep it. I politely stuffed it into my jeans pocket. "No, in your hand," he said. I removed it from my pocket.

"He wants your money," said Flip in my ear.

The swami asked me how old I was, if I had children, and what kind of work I do. He told me to pick a flower. I said, "Lotus," thinking it might please him. Yes, I know. Swamis are Hindu, not Buddhist. But lotus is a very nice flower nonetheless. "Lotus is water flower," he corrected me. "Choose garden flower." "Lilac," I said, thinking of the fragrant purple display newly blooming in my San Francisco backyard. "Leleck," he scrawled on a tiny pad. He seemed to be assigning numerical values to every answer I gave him. I reflexively opened my mouth to correct his spelling, but thought better of it.

I was already feeling stupid because I couldn't understand his accent and kept asking him to repeat himself. With any luck, he assumed that I was hard of hearing. He gazed deeply into my eyes and assured me that he was a holy man, not a beggar.

"Your money," repeated Flip on my cell phone. "I'll call you back," I told Flip.

The swami worked with his numbers and then gave me a reading, most of which was unintelligible. Too bad, because I really would have liked to know my future. He did say that in one year, I would be famous and wealthy. He did not tell me how this amazing metamorphosis would occur. Or if he did, I missed it. He asked for the crumpled scrap of paper he had given me. I produced it, and he pointed triumphantly to the numbers on it, which were the same as the ones on his little pad. I can't guess how he did this. Houdini would have been envious.

He opened his book, which had become a rather large wallet, leather, brown, and showing considerable distress. "Give me twenty from good heart," he said. I understood every word. "I am holy man, not beggar," he added again.

I had a twenty and two ones in my wallet. How did he know this? But I needed the twenty. I put the two bills in his open, gaping billfold. He regarded me with contempt. "I AM HOLY MAN, NOT BEGGAR," he stated in case I hadn't understood him. "Two dollar will do nothing."

I apologized. I did not snatch my offensive small bills back, nor did I hand over my twenty. I am shallow. I needed it for Starbucks.

The holy man stalked away without a backward glance, leaving me to wonder if I had sealed my own doom with my lack of spiritual awareness, my miserliness, my inability to believe a stranger on the street, or even to understand much of his heavily accented pronouncements. I am probably screwed.

"I met a swami on Main Street," I told my daughter when I returned to her apartment. "Of course you did. You're in Santa Monica," she said.