August 19th, Nueva Vrindavana Farm, 4:00 PM

¨How can I see God in all that´s around me when all of it is an illusion? That is your belief, yes?¨ Srayam is stringing metal wire together ten feet away, further down the bamboo fence we have planted. He bends the ends of the wires into loops and locks them together. A simple system.

¨This is also part of the God. Maya, illusion, it also is. It is under the God´s feetsies.¨

Through his Peruvian accent I hear ¨feces¨. I think, The Godhead shits out reality? Well, I bet we all make pretty good compost mixed up together -- but I clarify.

¨His . . . how do you say, foots?¨

¨Ahh, feet. His feet.¨

¨Yes. Come.¨ I walk through grey piles of dead anthill and horse manure to help him hold the wire taught. He strings it through a hole in a metal post and roughly wraps it around; suddenly, the bamboo line is snug against the barbed wire behind. I savor the feeling of order more than the feeling of having aided the plants in their battle against the considerable winds out here - but I pocket them both.

¨God is in everything,¨ the 28-year-old monk continued. ¨When you stop being your own god, you see that. I was a strong atheist for most of my life, but then I saw that people with faith were happier. A friend of mine, his father died of cancer and he was happy - well, not happy, but okay - because of his faith. Happier than me, and I have not suffered much. So, I decided I wanted to believe.¨

His decision had landed him in an orange scarf-bonnet, his bed a concrete floor in a Hare Krishna youth convent with two free-minded bulls and a rock-minded American. I silently watched him link the final expanse of wire.

¨The desire is all it takes . . . it doesn´t matter what God is to you. Jewish, Muslim, Christian . . . when the religions fight, it´s like children arguing over toys. The fight that matters is inside you, and it is one noone else can be part of.¨

The clouds just barely scrape the sky night overhead, but condense to a light grey over yonder. Light wind, but sunny. Won´t rain. Hungry. I´m never full here, not after two full plates of fried pumpkin and breaded tomato-carrot dumplings and sticky peanut rice.

¨What is God for me may not be God for a Jewish man. But it is about belief. I believe, and I must not be concerned whether you or other do or do not.¨

I chanted the first few lines of my Bar Mitzvah portion to him earlier. Oo-Mosheh-eh-eh-eh ha-yah ro-eh-eh-eh-eh . . . He picked out two words: Adonai and Eloheem. I told him what the first meant, and made up what I thought the second meant: ¨we¨. Seemed neutral and vaguely profound.

¨But once you put faith into your God, it is done. And faith is something everyone has. Faith in themself, the things they can do well, a loved one, drugs . . . it´s just where you put it.¨

I looked at the horizon: clumps of stale green grass, small square farmhouses flanking brown beds of hidden plants and rusting machinery. And the dominant sky. I had seen each part before, taken note of it so clearly, but now they began to strangely coalesce. I saw a picture of a place, and I smiled, and when I smiled I became a part of the picture. I haven´t had faith in myself as a Well-Intentioned Lost Object for some time, but I found the first true dot on my travel map when I let myself think - for a moment - that I have a vast collage of worldly visions to put my unadulterated trust in. And that most of these visions are still to come.

I look back, and Srayam is finishing tying the wire around the final pole. Just enough to keep every bamboo plant upright - not an inch of the coil we brought went unused. His face is soft to the sight like a child´s, and the space under his nostrils glistens softly. He smiles.

As we walk back to the farm my eyes slowly unglue until they are turned inwards, into my Godbrain, once again. I sit alone in a monk´s bedroom to write, minutes later, to extoll the greatness of something I refuse to believe. And as I complete my work, I become aware of the fact that each word I write is something of an idol to Myself.