PART 7: BLACK HOLES -- WHERE PHYSICS MEETS RELIGION

It's mid-April 2019 as I write this. The scientific world has been buzzing about the first photograph of a monster black hole at the center of a distant galaxy. As I looked at this photo (below), I was immediately struck by the unmistakable parallel to God as Shiva, who most Hindus believe will smash the universe to atoms so they can be re-emanated at the end of the present yuga (spiritual age). After all, that's what happens to anything sucked into a black hole. Now the question is what happens when everything has been sucked into the biggest black hole of all and is so compressed it becomes unstable? Does it explode in another Big Bang, a new act of creation? I think the Hindus are on to something here.

The super-massive black hole at the center of Galaxy Messier 87. Could this be Shiva Himself? Photo by the Event Horizon Telescope, via Wikimedia.

In the 11th chapter of the Bhagavad Gita, "The Vision of God in His Universal Form", we find a scriptural example of this. The warrior Arjuna has listened to Krishna's explanation of various spiritual topics for the past ten chapters. Now he somewhat foolishly asks to see Krishna in his Universal Form. Krishna tries to talk him out of  such a dangerous notion, but Arjuna insists. Arjuna soon wishes he hadn't insisted quite so strongly, as his mind is blown at the sight of entire worlds going down to destruction in God's flaming mouth, and a lot of other really scary stuff. Arjuna begs Krishna to remove the vision and return to His comforting and friendly form. Krishna naturally obliges, as he still has seven more chapters to fill up.

PART 8: OF MICE AND MEDITATORS

Dormitories at Yogaville today are plain, but comfortable, something on the order of a spiritual Motel 6. When I lived there, to say the accommodations were “spartan” would be a very charitable description.

I shared an antique mobile home with three other men. My quarters were the largest room in the trailer, the former kitchen at the very front. I felt very lucky to have this room, and only for a moment pondered why one of the other men had given it up for a smaller room at the back. It wasn’t until winter that I found out why he moved.

Our trailer was one of the oldest and most decrepit on the property. The monthly winter fuel bill for this trailer was the highest for the whole ashram. Because none of the windows or doors were tight, and there was almost no insulation in the so-called walls, it leaked heat like blood from the proverbial “stuck saint”.

My quarters were the farthest from the trailer’s creaky furnace, and I can't remember that there any ducting into my room. If so, it didn't deliver any heat. Given that any warmth in my end had to first wander past the ill-fitting door to the outside world, my quarters were like Antartica without the company of penguins. There was also a former stove vent in the wall right above my bed. This had cute little shutters worked by a pull chain, but even with the shutters closed there was always a frigid draft in winter. I had yet to learn about that miracle material, duct tape. During the winter I lived there, a huge pile of blankets kept me warm at night.

Still, I was pleased with the room. It had a tiny closet, space for a small altar, and I added a couple of bookshelves. My bed was the upper part of an old bunk bed set, and stood well up from the floor. There was room underneath to store several boxes of my modest household goods and other stuff. The room had everything I could ask for, except warmth.

One reason our trailer was so cold was the mice who lived inside the walls. They had carried off lots of the already inadequate insulation material to line their nests. At night I could hear the little beasties gnawing at the aluminum siding, or whatever else mice do at night to keep tired yogis  awake. So I bought a Victor Steel Cat, a humane repeating mouse trap, which I placed just inside the door each night. In the morning on the way to work, I would take the trap and the night’s catch a couple of miles down the road and turn the mice loose. Probably none of the mice found their way back, but there were always plenty more where they came from.

The Sadhana Room at  the Hunting Lodge was where Swami-ji held satsang. It also was our meditation hall and yoga studio in the early days. The building is deeper than it looks, but we had already outgrown the space. The room is still  used for retreat programs.

Every morning, except when I was cramming for a test at the local community college, I rose in time for 5:00 AM meditation in the hunting lodge. This was often a lonely vigil. Usually there were one or two swamis, one being the pujari  who lit the altar lights and led the prayers. There would sometimes be an overnight guest or two. Often it was just the pujari  and myself. Or sometimes  just myself, so I lit the lights and chanted the prayers alone. The missing swamis, and most lay members, preferred to do their morning prayers alone at altars in their quarters. Some of them were, no doubt, catching a few extra Zs.

I never complained about the lack of meditators, but somebody else must have. From time to time Swami-ji would hear about this, and order everyone to meditate together, especially the swamis, who he said were supposed to set an example for the rest of us. So for a couple of weeks morning meditation would be well attended. Then things slipped back to ashram-normal.

We had to put up with occasional arachnid wildlife in the meditation hall, so a container was kept at the ready, marked “Spider Remover” for obvious reasons. One morning as I was meditating eyes-open, I spotted a enormous spider working its way along the wall. It must have been almost two inches across, though mostly legs. One of the swamis  sitting nearby was also watching the creature's progress with a horrified look on her face. When meditation ended, she immediately jumped up and ran for the spider remover. The critter was summarily ejected from the building.

Food at the ashram  was vegetarian (of course), usually plain and always wholesome, but boring. As Swami-ji once observed, “You didn’t come here to eat cookies.” Meat, fish, poultry and eggs were banned. Also on the hit list were white flour, white sugar, white rice, salt, butter and most other dairy products (yogurt and some milk were allowed).

Breakfast usually consisted of some really tasty homemade bread, freshly baked the night before. This was cooled on a “mouse-proof” metal rack outside the kitchen. One day I discovered a loaf with a six-inch deep hole bored by mice. So much for "mouse proof". I swore off the bread after realizing that the mice had probably crawled all over this and the other loaves, dribbling their little . . . uh . . . calling cards everywhere.

The mice became such a problem in the kitchen that drastic measures had to be taken, and one of the swamis  proudly unveiled his proverbial “better mouse trap”. This consisted of a mop bucket and a narrow plank forming a ramp. A piece of bread with peanut butter was the bait, and a thin coating of peanut butter was applied to the plank as well. The mice were expected to climb up the ramp and drop into the bucket. The trap worked great on the first night, but the swami  made the mistake of using a plastic bucket. In the morning the bucket was empty, with a mouse-sized hole chewed through the side.

The alternative to mouse-bread was puffed cereal. This was almost always puffed millet, which has a taste vaguely like cardboard, and is just about as appealing. I didn’t find out why we ate so much puffed millet until I worked at the ashram’s  natural foods store in town. Every few days the head cook would provide the store manager with a grocery list, including a generic request for several bulk bags of cereal. Naturally, the store manager sent what we had the most of, and since almost nobody in the world willingly eats puffed millet, that’s what he chose. How else could he get rid of this stuff? Puffed rice or puffed wheat occasionally appeared at the ashram, but were gone almost as soon breakfast began.

Bagels were another rare treat. Since more than half the ashram  residents were ex-pat New Yorkers, and most of them of Jewish descent, bagels disappeared like dew before the sun as soon as the word got around.

Coffee was an ashram  dietary no-no. Even decaf was banned. There were, however, said to be a couple of trailers where secret pots were fired up every morning. People in the know, swamis  included, could sneak in for a cup of this life-bestowing elixir. Since I hadn’t yet embraced the coffee habit, I never found out where the good stuff was.

Our main meal was lunch, self-served, and cafeteria style. One could load up a generous heap of food, though a somewhat bland one. The most common meal was tofu baked in tamari sauce, unmilled short-grain brown rice, and a cooked vegetable, frequently steamed broccoli. A light soup and tossed salad rounded out the menu.

Ashram  residents who worked at our natural foods store in town were offered a free lunch (non-resident employees could also buy in for a modest price). Our sandwich-maker was also the lunch cook. Since the sandwiches were one of the store's most profitable sales items, they had to be made, wrapped and in the cold case before lunch. Only then could the cook prepare lunch for the staff. The regular sandwich-maker usually took the easy way out, and almost every day made tofu baked in tamari sauce, unmilled short-grain brown rice, and steamed broccoli. Sound familiar? On the regular sandwich-maker’s day off, her replacement would cook us lo mein, a wonderful change.

On my mid-week day off, I ate lunch at the ashram. Or at least tried to. That was fast day, when almost nothing but an ungarnished tossed salad and thin soup was served for both lunch and dinner, even for those who weren’t fasting. Later I changed my day off, but the ashram  shifted their fast day, again to match my day off, so I stayed hungry. That's called "food karma". Why I didn’t hide a stash of food in my trailer is beyond me; maybe respect for the rules. The mice would probably have found it anyway.

After lunch there was sometimes a small caravan of cars headed off the ashram  grounds to the nearest country store for a Pepsi and a Hershey bar or other forbidden goodies. I gladly joined this motorcade in quest of a sugar high and a full tummy.

A sugar rush was far from our minds when most of the natural foods store staff were recruited to run a concession stand at the LOTUS dedication day, 20 July 1986. We sold bottled water and health-food brand fizzy drinks to our guests. With the temperature at 95 degrees, the stand did a land-office business and was almost sold out by mid-day. An emergency trip to the store brought all the drinks left in the warehouse and on the shelves back to the LOTUS and kept us going until the end of the event. The staff were encouraged to drink as much as we could to stay hydrated, and I downed down over a dozen sodas. The work was so frantic and I was sweating so heavily that I never noticed a sugar high.

The Light of Truth Universal Shrine (LOTUS) in 2017. It is an ecumenical temple to the Light of God that is mentioned in nearly all scriptures.  The temple was Swami Satchidananda's crowning achievement.

We rotated out from the concession stand from time to time for a break, but I missed the speeches by the dozen or so notable spiritual leaders who were guests. I was able to watch Swami Satchidananda anoint the temple from a helicopter with water, milk and holy ash, for me the defining moment of the whole dedication ceremony.

The upper level sanctuary in LOTUS contains altars representing all of the world’s great religions in a circle facing a central altar dedicated to the Light of God. My favorite meditation spot was, and still is, beside the altar representing Buddhism. I spent a peaceful half-hour there during a break from selling drinks on dedication day.

My salary at the natural foods store was low, and I had some pretty stiff financial obligations, plus paying room and board to the ashram. To make ends meet, I burned up my GI Bill benefits with night classes at the local community college. The government checks were generous enough to keep me afloat after paying for tuition and books. What it couldn’t cover was a new auto. My truck had blown out several successive head gaskets, and the odometer was approaching 160,000 miles, but I couldn’t afford to replace it. In addition, my round-trip commute was almost 100 miles a day, a major fuel expense.

My adventure as an ashram  resident ended after about ten months. One night I massacred a suicidal deer on the way home from school. The accident was fatal for the deer. It was nearly fatal for me as well, as the truck stopped just a few feet short of rolling down a steep embankment. 

Getting the truck put back together took six weeks. During that time, I tossed and turned in my sleeping bag 0n the natural foods store's office floor. I only got back to Yogaville on my day off and on Sundays, when I was able to do laundry by skipping morning meditation. 

I learned that several of my fellow devotees were searching for a housemate to share quarters. I jumped at the chance to move to town, and joined them as soon as my truck was repaired. I left the ashram  with deep regrets, and feel that my time there was among the best years . . . er . . . months of my life. Of course, this wasn’t the end, since I was still able to participate on weekends, especially when Swami-ji was in residence.

Part 9: THE ONLY HARMONIUM REPAIRMAN IN TOWN

When I was a youngster, we had a two-manual Thomas electronic organ in our house that my father played (everything at a 4/4 tempo). About the time I turned eleven, my parents arranged organ lessons for me. I did fairly well for the first few months, when all the music was played with just chords. When the teacher tried to have me play a counter melody with my left hand, I began to fail. I was hopeless at musical multi-tasking. A few months later, the teacher was apparently fed up with my lack of progress and said to my parents right in front of me, “You are wasting your money.” That would  be a red flag to any tight-fisted Mid-westerner, so the lessons ended right there.

Although I wasn’t all that enthusiastic about organ lessons, being dismissed this way was a major blow to my musical self-esteem. As an Iowan, I was raised to have a “healthy sense of guilt" over any failure. The really sad side to this was that I have always enjoyed music of many genres, and would have loved to have played alongside my friends in the school band. Why didn’t my parents get me a trumpet? The answer was “Mid-western cheapness” since we already had the organ.

A lack of coordination in my left hand was the cause of multiple musical failures. I tried the tin whistle, the recorder (several times), guitar, Scottish bag pipe chanter, tanpura  and even the sitar. The only instrument I have ever had even modest success playing is the harmonium, and that only because my left hand does nothing more complicated than pumping the bellows.

A 19th century parlor organ, grand-parent of the modern harmonium from India. (Wikipedia Commons)

The iconic Indian harmonium is a small brass-reed organ-in-a-box. Old parlor organs frequently seen in antique stores or country museums, with twin foot pedals to work the bellows, are usually brass-reed harmoniums. These large harmoniums were brought to India in the 19th century by the wives of British colonial administrators and by missionaries (some sources claim it was Portuguese Catholic missionaries in Goa; very likely both). The Indians miniaturized the European harmoniums to the size of a suitcase, lopped off a few keys, and added a hand-pumped bellows. The harmonium became a popular instrument for kirtan, which probably was a great annoyance to the missionaries. “How dare these ruddy natives profane a good ‘Christian’ instrument with their heathen music!”

In recent years, the harmonium has been under attack by Indian musical purists as a foreign transplant. At least for a time, All India Radio (AIR) banned the harmonium from their broadcasts. It still remains a popular instrument for kirtan  because of its portability and ease of learning.

I gambled and ordered up a harmonium of my own. The first thing I learned to play was the Integral Yoga kirtan, followed by selections from Paramahamsa Yogananda’s  Cosmic Chants  song book, other songs worked out from various cassette tapes, plus a few of my own modest compositions. Only once did I play publicly at the ashram, and that was not a great success. A professional musician friend said charitably that my playing was “a little uneven”. I suspect he was being very kind. Usually I played just for my own amazement.

My first harmonium, of unknown make. It wasn't much of an instrument, but I played it for over 30 years. It still works, but sounds awful compared to my new professional-quality harmonium.

Many Indian harmoniums are assembled in little backstreet workshops with the loosest quality control, if any at all. My own harmonium had lots of problems. Some keys stuck to their next-door neighbors, causing extra notes to sound. The stops that controlled the volume were very stiff, and the two that controlled drone notes didn’t work at all (and still don’t). The wind chests leaked air badly, so the instrument had to be pumped furiously to sound properly. Being a tinkerer, I had the experience and the tools to fix problems like these. I addressed these issues by partially disassembling my instrument, adding a new layer of felt to seal the air leaks, shaving the sides of the keys, then making adjustments and improvements to the mechanism as needed until the harmonium played reasonably well. Addressing tuning issues was beyond my skills, and I wisely did not monkey with the bellows.

While rooting about in the attic above the hunting lodge on some other project, I came upon two Bina-brand harmoniums. They had been shoved up there when something went wrong, since nobody at the ashram  knew how to fix them. Given that the temperature in the attic could go well over 100 degrees in the summer, the instruments weren’t going to last much longer. Heat and dryness are obvious enemies of leather and wood. I was given permission to remove the harmoniums and see what I could do to get them working again. Using the experience from my own harmonium repairs, I was able to restore both to working condition.

Your author's first harmonium with the wind chests opened to show the brass reeds (top) and a partial view of the stops (below) which regulate air flow to the reeds. The two horizontal reeds just above the hinge are the drones, which have never worked.

Officially, the ashram  had two harmoniums. One was kept in the meditation hall and used for playing the kirtan  during satsang. The other was kept at the school to teach kirtan  to the children. When I finished the two attic refugees, they were swapped for the two official instruments. This pair received the same first aid. 

I never found what happened to the two extra harmoniums. I suspect they were taken by the more musical swamis  to their quarters, which was probably a good use. As long as they didn’t end up in that hellish attic again, I was satisfied.

While rummaging about in the attic, I found “half” of another harmonium. This was also a Bina, but a rare stage model. Harmoniums like this have a stand bringing them to the right height to be played while seated on a piano bench. A bellows built into the base is charged by two foot-pedals with the air rising through pipes on either side to the upper half with the keyboard, much like a skeletal version of the 19th century parlor organs mentioned above. Using foot pedals frees up the left hand to play chords or a counter melody. I had seen and heard a harmonium like this just once during a visit to a Self Realization Fellowship temple.

Unfortunately, nobody at Yogaville could remember what happened to the top part with the keyboard. I suspected that once separated from the base, the top had been thrown in the trash as useless since it didn't have its own bellows. It would have been a wonderful challenge to restore this rare instrument.

It took me several hours of web searching to turn up a photo similar to the foot-pedal harmonium I found at Yogaville. The base was less ornate and lacked the portable "suitcase" features. What the lost top looked like is anybody's guess.

My modest skill at fixing harmoniums came to the attention of Swami-ji’s secretary, who asked if I would repair the guru’s  personal instrument. Wow! What an honor, but what a responsibility as well. Swami-ji’s harmonium was a folding portable type, the first portable I ever worked on. It was an obviously expensive and beautiful instrument, but had been poorly assembled and was unplayable. 

Again, many of the keys stuck together, so I removed them to sand the edges smooth. It was here that I made my greatest mistake — I didn’t think to number the keys, and despite my best efforts to keep them in order, some got scrambled. I was terrified that I had ruined Swami-ji’s instrument. Getting one octave worth of keys back in order was no big deal, but three octaves and change was another matter since there are a lot more keys, especially since the keys were hand-made and not all the same width. It took me all afternoon to restore the keys, and there were still some gaps I wasn’t truly happy with. The other adjustments went smoothly and soon the instrument could be played. With considerable relief, I returned Swami-ji’s harmonium to the secretary. I later heard that Swami-ji didn’t play his harmonium at all, and the instrument had been stuffed back into a closet.

The last harmonium I serviced was another portable, and appeared to be a near-twin to Swami-ji’s. One of the swamis  had accompanied Swami-ji on a trip to India. She somehow had saved up enough money from her small monthly allowance to buy an instrument, and found a harmonium shop on her last day in India. The shop did not sell harmoniums to walk-ins, but only took orders and had them made to customer specifications. There was one harmonium awaiting delivery, and the shop owner persuaded his original customer to let the “nice American lady swami” have it, and another would be built for them. The swami  paid for her instrument without playing it, and flew home the next day.

Her new harmonium was a total dog. The wind chest seals leaked so badly that furious pumping could barely get a note to sound. The stops were so stiff they couldn’t be moved at all. And again, some keys were so tight that depressing one key also pulled down its neighbor. The swami, probably fearing she had been cheated (she was!), almost tearfully asked if I could get her instrument to play.

I added a new layer of felt to all the seals, took the stops apart to sand and wax the pieces so they could slide, and sanded the sides of all the keys (removing them one at a time). It took several evenings of work, but I finally made the instrument playable.

Shortly after I serviced this instrument, I moved to town, and there were no more requests to fix harmoniums. I doubt that today anyone at the ashram  remembers there was someone who could repair their instruments. I sometimes wonder what became of all these harmoniums, and hope they didn’t end up baking in some attic again.

PART 10: ONE BIG MADHOUSE

My kirtan-leader warned me not to expect that everybody at Yogaville would be walking around in blissful samadhi  trances with beatific smiles on their faces. She said this was a place where people came to work on their problems.

A chief problem for ashram  residents was controlling their egos, as it is for almost everyone. Ego control is a frequent theme in both Buddhism and Hinduism, and was one of Swami-ji’s favorite topics. Often his sermons dwelled on the perils of an out of control ego, especially one getting in the way of spiritual practice. Swami-ji taught that an attitude of selfless service to others was the best cure for egotism. "Selflessness" was usually among the hardest things for us to achieve.

The ashram  itself was filled with many opportunities to get caught in subtle ego traps, especially over spiritual matters. The receiving lines that devotees formed when Swami-ji entered or left an event are a perfect example. His path would snake between lines of followers on either side, all with hands joined in the prayerful “namaste” gesture and hoping that Swami-ji would stop for a moment to talk to them, pat them on the shoulder, or at least smile as he passed. Of course, he did stop and talk to some people. Understandably, he chatted with old friends he had not seen for a long time. Indian visitors would get special attention. Anyone holding a baby usually rated a stop and often a blessing. Senior members who worked on ashram  boards and projects got a lot of attention, but often at the expense of others who saw Swami-ji less often.

Hoping for attention was a huge ego game, one that automatically left most players defeated, since there was no way Swami-ji could give everybody in the line personal time without making us stand there all night. Maybe that was the lesson (it should have been), but everybody would be back in line the next time Swami-ji was around. Hope springs eternal in the human ego.

Sri Swami Satchidananda, working his way down a line of eager devotees, circa 1985. The location is an outdoor pavilion built for summer satangs, as the group had outgrown the hunting lodge.

I sometimes played the attention game myself, until I found a way to short-circuit those lines at satsang  when I really felt a need to talk with Swami-ji. There were usually a few minutes between the end of the arati  prayer and when Swami-ji rose to leave. He would still be sitting in his huge chair, munching on  on a bit of prasad and watching the congregation. That was when I zoomed in to kneel in front of him and ask a question that I felt was too personal for the “magic box”. I did this only a couple of times when I really needed advice. Usually I stayed in sociologist-mode, and just watched the interesting processes unfolding around me.

In general, ashram  residents did their best to treat everybody with respect and compassion. But being human, they sometimes failed, and some folks could become quite prickly, myself included. Even the swamis  had their share of emotional baggage. Swami-ji compared his ashram  to a rock polisher, where the rough edges on stones would be smoothed away by banging into other stones. In the same way, egos were supposed to be smoothed out by rubbing them together.

There were occasional ashram  controversies that got everybody’s nickers in a twist. One major flap was a ban on rock-and-roll music Swami-ji tried to impose on his followers. He felt that the intensity and beat of the music was disturbing to spiritual practice. He probably wasn’t too keen on lyrics celebrating sex and drugs either, but I don’t remember this being mentioned. Strange that this came from Swami-ji, who had been on the stage at  Woodstock, and also numbered several well-known rock-and-roll stars among his followers.

Not surprisingly, this proclamation provoked a lot of grousing and hunting for loopholes from his followers, such as “What about  ‘My Sweet Lord’, Gurudev? That’s rock-and-roll. Does it count?” Finally Swami-ji made his point and everybody calmed down, or least some of them calmed down.

At the next satsang, someone kicked over the whole bucket of worms again when they stood up and publicly asked Swami-ji, “What did you mean last week by ‘No rock-and-roll’?”  In response he thundered back, “I meant no rock-and-roll!” As with most ashram  controversies, the rock-and-roll flap eventually blew over. Since the ban was pretty much unenforceable, almost everybody except the monks and nuns went back to playing their Jimmi Hendricks albums.

Working on one’s ego was usually far from the minds of many people who came to live at the ashram. For most, the best reason to live at the ashram  was to do spiritual practices such as meditation or hatha yoga  in a supportive atmosphere. That was one of the main reasons Swami-ji founded Yogaville. Others came to raise their children in a safe and healthy environment, in theory free from temptations like Pepsi Cola and Hershey bars. Of course the attraction of a real-live Hindu guru  was also a major draw.

On the down side, some people came because they couldn’t fit into wider society, and had no other place to go. There were hints of drugs, horrors of the Vietnam war, broken families and even suicide attempts lurking in several members' back-stories. Some dealt with their problems and then moved on to “normal” lives in the wider world, often still associated with Swami-ji and his organization. Others never left. One of my favorite sociologists notes that alternative religious communities like Yogaville can provide not just a haven for “lost souls”, but an opportunity and a safe path to re-integrate slowly into society. For some members, re-integration extended no farther than the ashram  itself, but that was enough to give them a measure of peace and a social role as a valued member in a spiritual family.

I’m not sure where I fell on the “lost soul” spectrum. I certainly had been adrift because of my divorce and my military work situation. Yogaville definitely allowed re-integration for me, but I also came there to learn. I also enjoyed the “spiritual glamour” from living with a guru  (a private ego trip for sure, but not one I lorded over anyone else). I suspect that most other members also had multiple reasons to be at Yogaville. 

One very astute lady who had spent years with Swami-ji once said to me, “We’re all mad here. We wouldn’t be here if we weren’t mad.”  Indeed, Swami-ji sometimes joked that his ashram  was a mental asylum, and he had all the keys.

My introduction to ashram  lunacy happened the first time I visited for a week-long retreat. One of the swamis  asked if I would perform a service for Swami-ji by driving into town to pick up a can of  “blood-red” enamel paint. She went on to explain that Swami-ji wanted the rocks around the garden at his quarters painted red because visitors sometimes drove off the gravel and onto the plants. Of course I was excited to go, and assumed that everything had been arranged, so all I would have to do was pick up the paint and sign a payment chit. How wrong I was!

I arrived at the paint store and asked the manager about the paint ordered by Yogaville. Nobody had made any such order, and his store didn’t even stock “blood red” enamel paint. Now the manager, an obvious born-again, demanded, “And what does His Holiness want with blood-red paint?”, perhaps thinking of Ringo’s plight in the Beatles' movie  HELP. Then he rounded on me, warning that I was risking Hell by fooling around with “that cult”. Heard that before! I got on the phone to the swami  who had sent me on the errand. She told me Swami-ji had changed his mind about the paint, and that I should come right back. (Sigh!)

If these stories seem like I can only remember the controversies and failings, you are partly right. Remembering exactly what Swami-ji said is difficult at this point. I could barely remember most of  what he said when his words were still fresh. A friend and I regularly had a greeting dialogue that went something like this:

“I don’t know, Ace. I just don’t know.” (We called each other “Ace” all the time).

The other replied, “I don’t know either, Ace. I just don’t know.”

Then one night after a particularly great satsang  with Swami-ji, the conversation shifted. “Ace, I know! I know!” he said.

“I do too, Ace. I know!”, I replied. But then added, “But by tomorrow morning, Ace, I will have forgotten.”

“Yeah, me too, Ace. Me too,” was his sad response.

That is not to say we weren’t uplifted and changed by the ashram  experience and Swami-ji’s teachings. His magic worked slowly, a little bit at a time. It was a long-term growth experience.

I suspect that most disciples of gurus  and other spiritual teachers suffer from the same problem. Only a few particularly meaningful high points from the teacher’s sermons stick, though the overall experience can be life changing. Look at Jesus’ poor disciples, who just really didn’t “get it” until he was gone. The only reason we have such a detailed record of Sri Ramakrishna’s last years is because his Boswell, Mahendra Nath Gupta (or “M”, as he modestly styled himself), had a near perfect memory, took notes, and spent hours writing down everything he could remember into his diary as soon as he got home. That diary was later translated, edited and published as  The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, and remains a popular spiritual classic.

Naturally, living at an ashram  that emphasized hatha yoga, I eventually took an introductory class to learn the basic asanas  (poses). Integral Yoga Hatha, as taught by Swami Satchidananda and instructors trained in his method, is intended to be simple and easy to do. There is no pulling joints from their sockets, baking in hot rooms, hanging from ropes, or any other extreme practices, just gentle bends and stretches.

Being born with seriously limited joint motion, I was never too good at most poses. One instructor told me I wasn’t even doing savasana   (“corpse pose”) correctly. How you can screw up laying there like a dead person I don’t know, but apparently I couldn’t even get that one right. Still, I tried for several years and was pretty faithful at doing my asanas  almost every morning.

Hatha  came to an abrupt end for me while doing a fairly basic pose called ardha matsyendrasana (“half spinal twist”). As I assumed that pose, a searing pain swept across my back from my right waist to my left shoulder. For the next two weeks I hobbled about, bent into the “this-hurts-too-much-to-stand-up-straight” asana. No more hatha  for me after that, but bhakti  and kirtan  had always been my sadhana  anyway.

My biggest ashram  nuts0 experience happened the day of our Guru Purnima celebration (a day to honor our guru, and all other gurus  as well). Because Shivananda Hall, Yogaville’s present dining hall and assembly room, was still unfinished, the ashram  rented a community building in a nearby town. Residents with automobiles were asked to offer rides to others who lacked transportation. I signed up to take one adult and possibly one child in my little Toyota truck.

On the morning of the event I was approached by one of the swamis  who asked if I could carry Swami-ji’s huge chair in my truck. No problem, and I was quite honored. An hour later, the same swami  asked me if I would also take a "few" boxes of decorations for the hall. Again no problem; the truck was empty except for my sleeping bag and a large box holding jumper cables, tie-down ropes and other tackle. Just before lunch she hit me with yet another request. Instead of waiting to take a passenger, would I mind driving down “just a bit early” so there would be time to arrange the decorations? “Just a bit early” meant right after lunch--like in an hour. Again, no problem, but now I was starting to feel trapped in what is known in management-speak as “zero-point escalation”, where a situation grows from almost nothing to a huge headache.

Oy, what a headache it was! When I arrived at the pick-up point by the hunting lodge, I was gobsmacked by a huge pile of stuff. Besides Swami-ji’s chair there were two more chairs and box after box of decorations and other things. The pile looked like it was as big as my truck itself. I protested to the swami  who was in charge, saying it wouldn’t all fit, and that I need first to go to my quarters and unload my own stuff. He overruled me with “We can make it fit”, and over my protests he and his helpers began cramming everything into the little truck. They did manage to get it all in, filling the camper shell right up to the roof. Unfortunately, I couldn’t see out of the rear view mirror, or the right side mirror either, since they had also filled up the passenger side of the cab. Somebody even wedged in an upturned chair into the cab, so I could barely reach the gearshift. Finally I pulled away for the 20-mile trip to the site.

Just a mile or so down the road I began to smell something burning, and wisps of smoke were floating past my eyes. Then I spotted the problem. That chair in the cab had been shoved up against the cigarette lighter which was now glowing like Sauron’s evil eye. I managed to stop and pull out the lighter before the dashboard burst into flames, but the heat had melted the area around the lighter socket like Salvadore Dali's watch.

When I arrived at the event site, I was in a livid rage, one of those rare mads I very occasionally get that no amount of wisdom, meditation or deep breathing will cure. After the truck was unloaded, I considered blowing off the whole event and going back to the ashram, but realized I would be expected to drag all the boxes and furniture back when the program ended. It wouldn’t be fair (or "yogic") to leave that job for someone else. Instead I retreated to the building’s basement, and sat brooding through the evening in semi-darkness so as not to spoil the event for anyone else.

When I came up for air at the end of the celebration, most of the stuff had already been whisked away by other drivers. I was left with just Swami-ji’s monster chair and box or two of decorations.

One of Sri Ramakrishna’s favorite folk tales (told with my usual dry humor) offers a solution to this:

THE SWAMI AND THE NAGA

A  FABLE  ABOUT  SNAKES  FOR  PEOPLE  WHO  CAN'T  SAY  "NO"

Once upon a time, a huge naga  (cobra) took up residence under a tree near a village. The snake terrorized anyone who walked down the road that ran past HIS tree.

One day a holy man visited the village, and told his hosts he would soon be leaving by the road that passed the cobra’s tree. The villagers pleaded, “Oh, Reverend Sir, please don’t go that way. A terrible naga  lives under a tree. If he bites you our whole village will get bad karma.”  The swami  reassured the worried villagers he had a mantra  that would protect him from the snake.

As the swami  reached the tree, the cobra rose up ready to bite the holy man. But the swami  spoke his mantra  at the last moment, and the snake fell docile at his feet. “Oh, Snake," he asked, "why do you frighten these villagers and try to bite them?” 

The serpent replied, “Maybe you haven't noticed, but I'm a snake. Biting things is what we snakes do for a living. It’s our nature.”

“I can show you a higher nature. I can teach you to see God, but you must promise never to bite anyone again.”

The snake responded, "God? I heard the villagers calling for somebody named 'God' when I chased them. I'd like to know more about this God person."

The cobra promised to reform, so the swami  initiated him into spiritual life, teaching the snake his precepts, giving him a mantra  and showing the serpent how to meditate. As the swami  left, he promised to check on the snake’s progress when he returned in a month or so.

The naga  kept his word, and even gave up eating little animals. He lived on fallen fruit, herbs, nuts and roots, which made him very thin. He stopped harassing the villagers and they began to use the road again.

One day some naughty boys saw the cobra meditating under his tree. They picked up rocks and began to pelt the snake, causing many wounds. The cobra tried his best to ignore the rocks and continued chanting his mantra. Then one of the boys grabbed the snake by the tail, swung him over his head and bashed the poor reptile against the tree. Thinking the snake was dead, the boys went off to harass some other unfortunate animal. The serpent crawled slowly into his den and resumed his meditation.

When the swami  returned he called for his disciple, who painfully dragged himself from his snake hole. The swami  was shocked. “Oh, you poor creature, what has happened to you?”

“Well, Master, I stopped eating little animals," the snake responded. "I’m a vegan now, so maybe I lost a little weight.”

“But I see you are covered in wounds,” observed the swami. ‘How did this happen?”

“Oh, those were from the village boys. They didn’t know I had changed. But I kept my promise and didn’t try to bite them.”

“You poor fool,” said the swami. “I told you not to bite anybody, but I never said you couldn’t hiss!”

Sometimes I just needed to hiss “NO”, but that was always a tough call for me to make at the ashram.

PART 11: NEW DIRECTIONS AND THE DREAM'S END

Moving to town opened me to some important new spiritual experiences. Yeah, I know: No guru-hopping, but my temptation to explore was strong, and Swami-ji had always encouraged us to learn about other faiths.

It was about this time that I decided to make a small pilgrimage to New Vrindaban, the Hare Krishna center near Moundsville, West Virginia. For several years I had  subscribed to ISKON Today, the Hare Krishna magazine, which frequently featured stories about New Vrindaban. So I put on my tulsi  bead necklace and took off for the wilds of  West Virginia for a weekend of immersion in “Krishna consciousness”.

What I saw on the surface was a vibrant community of American converts trying hard to live a spiritual life, a life similar to what I had experienced at Yogaville. The big difference was a very rigid and fundamentalist approach as the members strove to become the most orthodox of Hindus, including adopting as nearly as possible an Indian lifestyle.

Prabhupada's Palace of Gold is New Vrindaban's centerpiece attraction. Much of the ornate building was built with resin castings, allowing quick assembly. Guided tours are offered to visitors. (Photo by Lee Paxton via Wikipedia Commons.)

I first toured Srila Prabhupada’s Palace of Gold, an elaborate temple mushrooming out from a small cottage that their the guru  “made holy” when he spent a few nights there shortly after the community was founded. Much of the elaborate detailing around the temple was cleverly made with Disney-esque resin castings from huge molds. The castings were then painted and gilded. The building would have taken decades to erect if all that decoration had been carved in stone. The materials are not traditional, but why not use modern methods? It's all for the Divine.

Then I visited the impressive state-of-the-art dairy farm where the devotees proudly showed off their herd of magnificent holsteins. The tour guide claimed their cows happily gave more milk because devotional Hare Krishna bhajans  were played in the milking parlor. It has actually been demonstrated elsewhere that cows do give more when relaxing music is played during milking, though in that example the music was classical. New Vrindaban's cows certainly looked well cared for, though I'm not sure what a happy cow looks like. Do cows smile?

In the main temple there was lots of music and dancing (“The Hare Krishna Two-Step”), and lectures by their leader, Swami Kirtananda. He droned on and on about esoteric topics which were far above me. As my attention wandered, for the first time in my life I spotted a real tulsi  tree growing in a pot in the corner. Tulsi, or orcimum sanctum, is a plant in the basil family which is considered sacred to Krishna by most Vishnavas.

All the meals were delicious, and I was kept stuffed with Indian food.

And of course, I visited the ever-popular Hare Krishna gift shop and dropped a few bucks.

The most memorable event of the whole trip was a torch-lit night procession to worship at two gargantuan statues of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and his pal Nityananda. Chaitanya is the major saint in the Gaudiya Vishnava  tradition, and the Hare Krishnas trace their guru  lineage from him, as well as believing Chaitanya to be an incarnation of Krishna. These two effigies stood side by side, but their identities were unmarked by any signage. I knew who the statues represented, but was confused as to which was Chaitanya and which was Nityananda, so I asked a devotee if he knew the difference. His very practical reply was, “It doesn’t matter. Just think of them as Left and Right Deity.” Well, why not? That works for me.

The massive statues of Chaitanya and Nityananda, or "Left and Right Deity" at New Vrindaban. (Photo by Lee Paxton, via Wikipedia Commons.)

The next day was marred by a near-argument I had with one of the senior devotees. At Yogaville I was used to seeing and interacting with female swamis, and many of them held senior positions of responsibility. I realized that I had never seen a female Hare Krishna renunciate, here or at any of their other centers. So out of curiosity I asked a devotee if there were any female swamis  in ISKON. His rather sneering and blatantly sexist response was, "Renunciation is only for men — women cannot truly know Krishna, but if they properly do their duties to their husbands women may  be reborn as men in some future life." That answer stank as much as what those happy cows produced along with milk: crap.

So I asked, “What about Mirabai?” 

“Who is that?” the devotee countered rather sharply.

I tried to explain that she was a Rajput princess, a contemporary of Chaitanya, and a Vishnava  poetess who renounced everything for Krishna. He immediately shut me down with "Don't know anything about that," and stalked off. Curiously, I later learned that some bhajans  in the songbook I bought in their gift shop were written by Mirabai. That was then, and later I read in ISKON Today, that their organization indeed had begun allowing women to become swamis.

I was further shocked by a horrid maxim I heard during my visit: There are three things a devotee should beat often and hard — his drum, his dog and his wife. 

At the end of the weekend I made the six-hour trip home, much more enlightened about ISKON and touched by the devotion I had seen. On the other hand, their fundamentalism and sexism convinced me that ISKON was not a path I would ever go down.

In fairness to ISKON members,  just because my experience at New Vrindaban was soured by extremism does not mean I think that all Hare Krishnas are this way, or even all the people at New Vrindaban. I have met some very mature, courteous ISKON members who have been outstanding representatives of their faith. Like all religions, they have both saints and sinners.

I found another outlet for my devotional energy through a local Siddha Yoga kirtan  group which met weekly at a devotee family's home just outside of town. Siddha Yoga is an organization founded by the Hindu spiritual master Swami Muktananda who had “left his body” in 1982. In some ways the organization was similar to Yogaville, with a guru  residing at their major ashram, and local centers and house groups scattered around the world.

The kirtan  group was run by our hostess, with another long-term Siddha Yoga initiate frequently drumming and leading the chants. There were usually no other Siddha Yoga members, and most participants were followers of other gurus.

We always sang the Siddha Yoga version of "Jyota se Jyota", with a verse specifically mentioning Baba Muktananda. (I had a tape from the Sri Ram Ashram changing that verse to a more generic praise, which is the version I still sing and play on the harmonium.) After chanting Jyota  so often, it was burned into my brain, and it remains one of my favorite bhajans. Jyota  was followed by a traditional chant that changed with each meeting.

I was a regular at the Siddha Yoga kirtan  for about three years, though I never visited the group's ashram  in Fallsburg, New York, to have the darshan  of their current leader, Gurumayi  Chidvilasananda. The local group was eventually disbanded on orders from Fallsburg for reasons which remain a mystery to me.

I had long wanted to broaden my understanding of Jesus and his message. My interest was less on Paul's interpretation of Jesus' rather messy state-sponsored demise buying us salvation, and m0re about Jesus' own teachings. I have never been comfortable with the quid pro quo  position of most Christian churches that professing belief in Jesus’ resurrection is all you need for salvation. This trivializes his great ethical messages and his teachings on the love for God. I particularly like the Gospel of Mark which I believe to be the most accurate of the four Gospels (and the least influenced by Paul). Mark was Peter’s secretary and the text relates what Peter claimed to have witnessed.

So I went in quest of a church with a super-liberal interpretation. I had planned to visit the Unitarians and the Quakers, but started with Unity and never went any farther. They were so welcoming  I was "charmed in". Not many churches have a "hug ministry", with volunteers ready to embrace everyone who comes in the front door.

The Unity School of Practical Christianity, to use the denomination's formal name, is one of several similar churches in the “New Thought Christianity” movement. Unity was founded by Charles and Myrtle Fillmore in 1891. The Fillmores had been trained as  Christian Science practitioners by Mary Baker Eddy, but chose to take their ministry in a different direction, emphasizing what might be described as “practical mysticism”. Unity’s focus is on the application of Jesus’ teachings to enrich our everyday lives. Unity also teaches that the universe is God-permeated and that part of the divine spirit lives in all of us, very similar to the Atman  or universal soul of Vedanta. The Fillmores called this spirit “The Christ in You”. Unity’s teachings are all totally positive, just what this sometime-cynic needed.

The focus of this particular Unity congregation was more on New Age spirituality, including many elements from outside Unity's official teachings. Consequently, the Fillmores’ wonderful spiritual message was rarely mentioned. I once asked the minister about this. He responded that some Unity congregations were much more focused on the Fillmores’ mysticism and Jesus’ practical spirituality. However, ministers usually follow their congregants’ interests (after all, a pulpit committee hires the minister best suited the wants of the congregation). Our particular congregation was heavily invested in the New Age, so that was our focus. I'm not against New Age spiritualism, and this congregation did at lot of positive stuff.

I have to admit to abetting the drift away from Unity's founders in a small way. At the minister’s invitation, I taught group study classes on basic Buddhism and also a series on the Upanishads, an important group of Hindu scriptures. 

Back at Yogaville, my participation ended in a rather abrupt and painful way.

After a rocky start with one of the swamis, we became friends when she learned we shared a devotion to Krishna, the harmonium and a love of kirtan. The swami  was an accomplished musician, both as a singer and as a harmonium player. The love and joy she brought to her music was written all over her face when she led kirtan. Unfortunately, my friend sang in a high register with a nasal intonation as native Hindu women often do (she was actually a New York ex-patriot). This was not popular with some in the congregation, and I overheard several people grousing about her style.

My swami  friend was abruptly sacked as kirtan  leader, and replaced by another swami. I was not party to the reasons for the change, and there were likely other issues going on as well. I do know my friend was quite hurt by the way she was replaced as kirtan  leader. She resigned from the monastic order, and left both the ashram  and Swami-ji’s organization completely.

The new kirtanist  seemed determined to “improve” our music program. Not only did she personally lead kirtan, changing the music to a more western style, she also extended her mandate to the whole congregation which she treated as a choir. I was squarely in her sights, and the swami  made it clear by various actions that she didn’t want me singing and banging on kirtals  (hand cymbols), or at least wanted me as far across the room as possible. This really hurt. Kirtan  was my main sadhana,  and what I truly loved to do at Yogaville. She could have taken me aside for a private chat or maybe even offered me musical instruction if my attempts at singing were disturbing to her, but that didn’t happen. 

Finally, one night she stopped the music. Looking directly at me, she screamed in front of the whole congregation, “Now everybody get on key!” Fighting back tears and thoroughly humiliated, I turned and walked out of Shivananda Hall, I thought never to return.

Shortly after my embarrassment, I gave away all my books,  pictures of Swami-ji, and other stuff related to the ashram. I stopped using the name Ganapati, and rebranded myself Haridas (servant of Hari, or Krishna). Except for dropping in once to visit a dying friend, it would be over ten years before I again had anything to do with Yogaville, Integral Yoga or Swami Satchidananda. My reconciliation with Yogaville will have to wait for another chapter.