Escape From Samsara, The Last Life on Earth by Escape From Samsara, The Last Life on Earth

Escape

from Samsara

amy williams THE LAST LIFE ON EARTH

Escape from Samsara, THE LAST LIFE ON EARTH

by Amy Williams An anamnesis experience leads to dangerous choices and amazing adventures filled with drama, comedy, and surprising lessons.â&#x20AC;Š

Amy Williams Hiking/Resting in Boulder, Colorado 2011â&#x20AC;Š

Copyright ÂŠ Amy Williams, 2015, All rights reserved. Vrindavan, UP, India Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher of this book. The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Published by Amy Williams on Amazon for Kindle and Kindle App, and for iBooks on iPad and iPhone, September 21, 2015.â&#x20AC;Š

Dedication This is not your ordinary spiritual journey. This story starts with a vision and truth, moves through the lies and bondage of a cult, experiences with men and the dangers inherent in the material world and explores the challenges encountered with the search for a mystical liberation.

I dedicate this work to my children who have been so kind as to put up with me as I stormed through changes one after another and put them through changes as I progressed. May they always be blessed and happy!â&#x20AC;Š

Special thanks to my sanskrit editor, Karuna Mayi, for her diligence in helping with “Escape From Samsara.” Her long hours and thoughtful comments helped to make this book both easily readable and enjoyable for the lay person who is not familiar with all the sanskrit terms, as well as professionals who know the history and details of the various subjects contained within the book. Thanks as well to all the editors consulted who gave me excellent advice. They were kind to donate their professional suggestions and wish me well in this endeavor.

Dedication ...............................................................................5 Preface ...................................................................................10 PART I .................................................................................13 THE GIFT OF REALITY ................................................13 Purple Haze ...........................................................................14 The Search Began .................................................................32 Found It! ...............................................................................43 but I Didn’t Want to Do It! ...................................................43 Jumping in Feet First .............................................................47 The Lies Began .....................................................................58 George Harrison ...................................................................62 Initiation By Fire ...................................................................68 A Divine Visit ........................................................................82 The Battlefield .......................................................................88 PART II ................................................................................96 DANGER AT EVERY STEP ...............................................96 Fraud, Bigamy, Murder, Embezzlement, Prostitution, ........97 How Do You Know When You’re in a Cult? ......................117 Deprogramming ..................................................................126 Love is Letting Go of Fear ..................................................133 The Escape ..........................................................................137 The Struggle with Reality ...................................................150

Prince Charming .................................................................160 PART III .............................................................................167 OUT OF THE FRYING PAN AND INTO THE FIRE ...167 Erotic Massage ....................................................................168 A Sociopath & a Sailor ........................................................184 Who Can You Trust? ..........................................................207 PART IV ............................................................................214 YOGA OF THE HEART ...............................................214 Bhakti Yoga .........................................................................215 PART V ..............................................................................223 REALIZATIONS FROM THE PLANET EARTH .....223 Religion is the Opiate of the Masses ...................................224 The People You Meet Along the Way .................................230 California Dreaming ..........................................................242 Visions .................................................................................253 What is a Life? .....................................................................259 Criticism ..............................................................................262 PART VI ............................................................................264 INDIA .................................................................................264 India ....................................................................................265 South India ..........................................................................281 Some Things Changed & Some Remained the Same ........294 Retiring to India ..................................................................300

The Challenge .....................................................................313 Festivals ................................................................................323 The Little Things ................................................................328 Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s A Jungle Out There .......................................................332 PART VII ...........................................................................336 SEEK & YE SHALL FIND ............................................336 The Truth in Plain Sight .....................................................337 The Great Year ...................................................................340 PART VIII ..........................................................................350 GOING HOME ................................................................350 Winter Break ......................................................................351 Sailing ..................................................................................356 Love in the Caribbean .........................................................361 Here Now ............................................................................379 GLOSSARY ........................................................................380 References ...........................................................................387

Preface This book is based on a true story, a spiritual journey that I myself find almost unbelievable as I write. Something amazing happened in my lifetime. The worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s young adults were fed up with war and lies. We were becoming aware that there was something more to life than earning a living, having kids and buying stuff. LSD was changing the way we thought. We wanted truth and wisdom and love. The illusion was beginning to dissolve as we said yes to the truth. The story starts with an Anamnesis experience, an experience triggered by acid, which was real in every way. This experience lead to searching, truth, cults, lies, and reconciliation between ultimate reality and the desire to enjoy the highest material pleasures. Because I have embellished some parts of the story for emphasis and excitement, as well as added some beautiful fiction, I must say the story should be considered a Spiritual and Psychological Fiction. There is history here, there is truth, there is psychology, philosophy, spirituality and fantasy. The story follows a trend described by great sages with an ending meant to inspire and amaze.â&#x20AC;Š

Prologue I was always alone. And it didn’t feel right for some reason. I was alone even when people were surrounding me. In fact, I felt more alone when I was in a crowd than in any other place. I wanted to back off into a corner and pull a curtain in front of me so no one would notice my awkward appearance. Funny thing is, that mostly, no one noticed me anyway. It was almost like I wasn’t there! Was I? I actually wondered sometimes if I was invisible. When passing out pencils in class or party favors or questionnaires, people would skip right over me. I must be invisible, I thought! This is incredible! It happens all the time! When I went to bed at night, I was afraid. Darkness surrounded me as I slipped in between the cold sheets and closed my eyes and I wondered, why am I alone? It wasn’t right. Somehow I knew that I was not meant to be alone. Something was very wrong. Every day I spoke with some unknown god in my heart but I didn’t get answers! Why was I doing this? I knew. I needed someone to talk to! Desperately! And did anyone hear me when I prayed? Where was this God I was supposed to be praying to? Why doesn’t anybody know

who this God is or where He is? If He exists, why doesn’t He give me a sign. The whole thing was extremely weird. How can you just believe in something without knowing? As a child I was told to bow my head and pray silently to this unknown god. “Where are you?” I cried. No answer. It was sad. I wanted a friend. I was invisible, you know. I wanted to be with someone who would treat me like I wanted to be treated. I wanted to be lavished with affection, love and kindness. Yeah, that’s it. I wanted love! But I never felt it. What I felt was that love was just around the corner. It was coming soon. I just had to keep making the effort and one day, someone would love me. But it never manifested. One relationship after another only lead to disappointment, starting with my family, my childhood friends and then on to boyfriends. It just wasn’t happening! So, I drank. A lot. Then I smoked pot. And finally I did Lysergic Acid. Yes, LSD. And there, I thought, I had found real love. It was a temporary feeling, but I knew it was real. Love existed! Not with one person, but with the whole world. Therefore, I had to find a way to make that LSD feeling a permanent one, a feeling that manifested naturally, a love that would last forever!

PART I

THE GIFT OF REALITY

Chapter 1

Purple Haze Once again I found myself alone. Alone beside my husband. Rusty. We tripped all night with Sandy and Jim and when we all said good night, Rusty and I laid on the floor with a bed made of blankets while Sandy and Jim retired to her bedroom. Rusty drifted off quickly but my mind was still working at full speed which meant - no sleep. I was thinking how we are always alone with our thoughts. No one can really be with us one hundred percent. Rusty was with me, but yet, he was not. He could not be inside my mind. And at that moment, my mind was filled with exploding fireworks displaying brilliant colors. Now that was cool once upon a time, but I was bored with it. The novelty had worn off and I just wanted to go to sleep. ~*~*~*~*~*~

Sandy was my roommate in college and Jim was someone we met as a neighbor. We introduced the two and they hit it off instantly. Sandy was a tall, thin, blonde woman, beautiful and intelligent. She was a concert pianist and music teacher. Jim was very handsome with brown hair that fell over one side of his forehead. He worked selling high-end cars and made quite a nice

living for himself. They were both brilliant conversationalists, so we always talked late into the evening. Jim was a Sagittarius , like myself, and philosophy simply rolled off this tongue. Rusty and I met in high school. Rusty was a Leo, my perfect match, astrologically. I was head cheerleader, a short, blue-eyed blonde. Very straight. No drugs. No sex in the back seat. I was more athletic than he. He was more technically minded. He was one of the best looking guys in school, as far as I was concerned. His hair was almost black and his eyes were a sincere hazel green. He was in a fraternity and I was a sorority girl. He was a little shy, but asked me out with no trouble at all and I loved the way he kissed. I melted in his arms right from the start. When he graduated from high school, he joined the Coast Guard and worked as a Quartermaster, or a navigator, learning the positions of the stars using a sextant, as well as various other instruments to locate the position of the ship and any oncoming traffic. He came home from time to time and charmed me with his knowledge of the constellations. Lying in the grass we would stare up at the stars and he would point out the most brilliant ones in the sky. After two years, Rusty returned to the mainland (poor thing was stationed in Hawaii) and we married, having a huge wedding, as was the tradition in the South, 300 people, 7 bridesmaids, a beautiful off-white silk dress, decorated with pearls and crystals and fitting snugly to my body. We spent our honeymoon in New Orleans during the first week of Mardi Gras,

then I left college and moved with him near his base on Dolphin Island in Southern Alabama. When his service was over, we moved to Auburn, Alabama where he was studying Veterinary Medicine at the University. I worked as a secretary and went back to school to study Philosophy. We would come back to Birmingham from time to time and visit friends and at the same time we were starting to smoke a lot of pot and drop acid. Things were starting to change. We were home from Auburn that weekend, ready to free our minds and get to the place of happiness where love was the only thing that was real. That evening, as we tripped with Sandy and Jim, something was different in an astonishing way. The acid we took was incredibly pure and giving us all hallucinations we had never experienced before. Jim noticed it first and said, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Do you see the angels surrounding us? Tilt your head backwards a little and close your eyes half way and allow them to come in to your vision.â&#x20AC;? We thought, ok, why not? So collectively we sat around in a circle on the floor with no lights but candlelight and did as he said. It didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t take long until I could see these heavenly creatures surrounding us with love and affection. Their bodies were transparent and luminous and I was stunned into stillness as they hovered above us and between us, moving in and out. Then, in an instant, they disappeared and I saw the entire universe with the planets revolving around the sun and the stars shining benevolently, all filled with compassion and love and in the next

instant, it was gone! Apparently, I was the only one of the four of us who saw the universal vision, and it was so brief I was not sure I actually had seen it. When it was over, we all fell backwards on the floor, starring at the ceiling wondering what just happened. We talked for hours, each of us trying to describe our own take of the vision until we were so tired that our eyes were beginning to close on us even though our minds were filled with amazement. Gradually we decided to give it up to the comforts of sleep and went our separate ways. As we laid on the floor, I could hear Sandy and Jim laughing, tumbling around on the bed and springs squeaking. I had been married now for three years and sex was not in the forefront of Rusty’s mind. Besides, I never felt horny on acid, so I wondered how they could get it on. I was a little jealous, but realized their new fascination with each other. Anyway, I was really tired and the thought of sex melted away with the next thought flowing in. We had partied long into the evening, taking a hit of LSD called Purple Haze. It was sweet and mellow and gave the most wonderful gifts with it’s gentle lavender glow! Jim turned us on at a party around six months previous to this night. “You guys are gonna LOVE this! Its Mescaline! It’ll make you laugh and see colors. We’re having so much fun! Come on and try it!” We were a little afraid but everyone at the party was affirming Jim’s declaration. “It’s fantastic” they all said. “People have been lying to us all along. There are no bad effects! It’s all

been a lie! This stuff is great!” So, expecting only to listen to the Grateful Dead’s new album and smoke some pot, Rusty and I looked at each other and said, “Should we?” Overwhelmed by the atmosphere and happiness of everyone around us, we decided to go for it. Jim pulled out some little pink tablets we later came to know as Pink Microdot, not mescaline at all, but LSD! We swallowed them with some soda and sat back and smoked a little pot. As we laughed and talked and listened to the Grateful Dead album Charlie brought, we began to feel the acid ‘coming on’ as we became light headed and giggly. Then gradually, I felt as if my whole body was glowing with a light that produced an amazing bliss. We sat around in a circle on the floor and our laughter started to increase as we joked about the effect of the drug as well and the ridiculous structure of the society we lived in and all of our illusions. We laughed until tears were running down our faces and we were in complete ecstasy, literally rolling on the floor! Jim said, “Watch this.” He waved his arm across the sky and we saw not only one arm but thousands of arms following in perfect unison behind the first, synchronized in a beautiful flow. Brilliant colors were everywhere we glanced! At one point, Jim encouraged us to get up and go outside. The trees were dancing as we stood outside on the balcony! They were not only dancing, but they were sending out love beyond any comprehension. “Look at that,” I exclaimed. “The telephone poles are even dancing!” We were spinning around in circles, dancing alone instead of with each other and it seemed as if all

our insecurities left us instantly. We did not need the approval of anyone in the group. We were at one with ourselves and with each other. When I went to the bathroom, I looked in the mirror at my makeup and was astonished! “What the hell is this stuff?” I thought. It looked so artificial. Mascara was running down my face and my eyes were the size of saucers. I didn’t understand what I was feeling, but knew something was unnatural here and at the same time, I felt so natural inside. So I washed my face, kicked off my heels and rejoined the group. We laughed about literally everything in our world wondering why we were born in such illusion and were amazed at how the LSD brought us clear vision instantly. As the night moved on, conversations began to get deep while we were all still feeling something amazing. We discussed the lyrics of the Dead’s new album and talked about a different type of lifestyle and purpose. We stared at each other and professed that we could see each other’s aura. We saw everything was love and light and pure bliss. The feeling I got from the acid was one of incredible ecstasy, self-satisfaction and happiness. I thought I had truly tapped into the truth of the universe and I never wanted to go back to the world of material pursuits ever again. I knew instantly that this feeling is how we are all meant to be naturally, but for some reason that truth was covered in our sober reality. How could I keep this feeling forever, I thought? I felt truly blessed to have found this little

pink pill and knew that this would be the start of a whole other lifestyle based on love rather than money. After hours of laughing, dancing, talking and listening to music like I never it before, we decided to drive up to the mountain and watch the sun rise as our high slowly subsided. It was like seeing the sun for the first time, so humbling, so filled with love and color and compassion that I was grateful beyond words for the experience. We were coming down from the amazing high by that time, so Rusty and I decided to go home. We were staying at my parentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s house because we were home from college, and they had an extra bedroom. When we arrived at their home, they were awake, having just finished breakfast, Saturday morning. We walked in the door and my parents looked surprised. I thought they knew we were on drugs! In that state of consciousness I thought everyone knew, not only that we were tripping, but knew the truth we just discovered. I thought they could see we were different in some way. Drugged. Guess a little paranoia kicked in. But that was crazy. Of course they had no clue, even though our eyes were dilated, extremely glassy and we couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t wipe the smile off our faces to save our life. They were clueless. We hit the bed, slept most of the day and realized that our life had changed forever! Those little pink pills filled our hearts with love and for a moment I even thought we should slip one in my folks iced tea. Wow! That would have been a mistake! As we later found out, not everyone is open and accepting to the truth that acid would produce. Still today, some people simply

don’t want to know the things we discovered that night as we found a new lifestyle in Jim’s living room. But, back to the floor with Rusty while Sandy and Jim were in the bedroom. It must have been around five thirty or six in the morning and I still couldn’t drift off to sleep. We had taken the hit of Purple Haze around 7 pm the night before and talked and laughed and played and danced for hours. But now things were quiet. Sandy and Jim were asleep, I guessed. Rusty was asleep next to me and there I was, lying awake, sleepless, paint buckets of color exploding in my mind, over and over again. I tried to dissolve them into nothingness in order to melt into a deep sleep, but they kept bursting and exploding, over and over again like fireworks in red, blues, bright yellows and hot pinks until I just gave up. I’m really tired of this shit, I thought. With every good thing, something bad always comes along with it. And the bad for me that night was that I couldn’t go to sleep, and my body was tired from all the dancing and spinning, laughing and letting those tears of joy flow. This trip was getting old! I was so tired and yet my mind was projecting brilliant technicolor. I appreciated the beauty of the colorful fireworks and was amazed at God’s creation, but I just wanted to sleep. Finally, I thought to myself, Ok God, if this is what you want for me, I’ll just watch these fucking colors explode in my mind all morning and ‘go with the flow’. I’m tired of trying to control it, so, whatever you want, you can do with me.

And that’s when it happened. . . . . .

Drifting slowly at first but then moving at breakneck speeds, I began a ride through a sort of ‘Tunnel Experience’ journey, but not like those you’ve heard about from people who have near death experiences and move through a tunnel seeing all their past relatives and friends. It was something completely different. I did see friends and relatives, but in a completely different context. I saw myself. I saw myself go through my past 100 lives, one after another as if each life were only moments in the grand scheme of things. But even though my ‘self’ was moving like a freight train, I viewed every second of each life as if I were watching a movie, hanging on every word. If you ever saw the movie “Defending Your Life” with Meryl Streep and Albert Brooks, it was like visiting the ‘Past Lives Pavilion,’ but way more realistic. Their journey was made up of funny experiences with Lancelot and cannibals. My journey was about self-realization, things done that hurt other people, right and wrong choices and the reasoning that kept me imprisoned in a material body. As I experienced the review of my lives, I was simultaneously aware that others go through the same experience at death and that this thing didn’t just happen to me. It happens to everyone at some point in time as a matter of evolution! And I seemed to understand and know what this experience was all about. I also knew the number of 100 was real and everyone who experienced this remembered their past 100 lives, not 10 or 25 or 69, but 100.

At the end of the journey, there was an abrupt stop and I was facing three Very Large Demigods (or somebodies). I didn’t know who they were at the time. Still don’t. All I knew is that they possessed the power to move me along to the next dimension. They were filling the sky or the space in front of me, their bodies adorned with golden ornaments and golden crowns sparkling with beautiful bluish light reflecting off of all the gold. They were smiling sweetly with great compassion and speaking with no words but communicating something where words were not necessary. It was some sort of psychic communication as they said, “You see, referring to my past hundred births, you do understand why you have to go back, don’t you? We know you are trying hard and we wish we wish you were ready to move on, but you are not yet ready. That illusion you just once again remembered, allows you to make the effort and take the journey necessary to reach the goal. We love you but you will have to go back, go back, go back, go back, go back” and they disappeared from my mind as I found myself feeling extreme regret and sadness. But that was not all I was feeling. I was astounded and amazed and understood myself to be quite fortunate to have just been given a gift so extraordinary only a self-realized soul could understand. The pain I felt of regret I realized was the real pain of death. We fear death because we fear not existing anymore, but we do not understand the pain. The pain is not physical at all. The physical pain lasts for only a few seconds. The pain is not from your head

being cut off or a heart attack, a car accident, cancer or anything else. The pain is from regret because when we see our past lives, we see our illusion. We see that life after life we have made the same mistakes and have not changed, not evolved. The pain is from realizing this wonderful and special human life was given to us and we sometimes simply waste it away. And another thought, again from “Defending Your Life,” (those Demigods, as I saw them, were portrayed as Judges in the film but I didn’t have a chance to defend my life at all. The conclusion was obvious and unchallenging!) I was going back. I was going to take birth again in the material world and take another body. There was nothing I could say or do to stop it. It was happening in that very moment. Screaming from my heart but not from my mouth, this tormented soul shouted “no, no, no, no, no” as I lost all consciousness and everything went black. The next thing I knew, I was aware that I was somewhere else. Where? I was inside the womb of my new mother! I was cramped, being pushed around and nibbled on by something, and was so extremely miserable that I was praying, “Please Lord, please let me out of here and I promise, this time I’ll do it. I promise, this time I’ll do it.” Over and over again I prayed to get out of that hellish situation. (If Yamaraja was the God of Death like a warden in a prison, then the womb is definitely one of his prison cells.) I was in full knowledge of the absolute truth in those moments, or months, and simultaneously knew everyone else was also completely aware in that cramped womb, if they were fortunate. That

awareness is the strangest feeling. You know everything! You are aware of all the 100 past births you remembered on your way out of your last body. You were aware of all those 100 human lifetimes previous to this one, when you were consciously begging for mercy to get out of that womb. The agony was unbearable! At last, I felt an incredible pressure pushing me and something squeezing me that was so painful I felt like I was losing consciousness until . . .

I was out of the womb and into the world!

The womb opened like a cracked egg with a baby bird peeking its head out of the shell. Pushing with great difficulty and feeling like I was screaming, “Get me out of here!”, I struggled to escape the womb. The light against my eyes as my head pushed through the cervix of my mother was bright and caused me to squint. I was free, but surprisingly, I did not feel the joy I was expecting! I was not happy now that I was out of the womb. I prayed to God to let me out and thought I would be happy if I just got out, but things went from bad to worse! Why? Why? Why? Because the memory of the promises made to the Lord of my life, began to fade. The knowledge of my past 100 births began to dissipate in my mind and I once again screamed within my soul, “No, no, no, no, no! I don’t want to forget!”, but it was too late. The memory

of what I promised faded as quickly as did the 100 births I experienced in that tunnel and in the womb. I was covered by illusion! My heart was broken and I cried and cried as the people surrounding me looked down and were so happy to see me, though I was incredibly sad. I knew instantly from the experience that the reason a child cries when it is born is because of the loss of that memory. We are thrust into ignorance once again in that very moment. I was thrust into the ignorance of forgetfulness. Illusion fully engulfed me as I lost all my tears and became happy instantly with all the smiles surrounding me, hands caressing me and touching me with kindness. Completely ignorant, or â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;thick as a brickâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; as I like to call it, I stopped crying and sucked my thumb. The illusion was complete. Dream, Hallucination or Reality? There is something here that needs to be clarified. It may have seemed impossible, but it was Real. What happened was not an LSD hallucination, although it was definitely induced by the mindaltering drug meant to put me in an altered state of consciousness. It was an anamnesis experience, not a dream. What happened was, a connection to my memory or sub-conscious was opened, triggered by the acid and God, I supposed. What happened was a pure anamnesis experience. The acid itself would not have the ability to create that accurate of a vision. This was a memory!

I REMEMBERED dying, being in the womb and taking birth. I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t dream about it. And just as in hypnosis, memories can be triggered, so my memory was triggered by LSD. Vividly! One study I heard about regarding LSD in the seventies explained that acid destroyed concept patterns within the brain. That made perfect sense to me because for a person who experimented with the drug for any length of time, he or she began to see the world in a whole different light. I was one of those people and I was often amazed at the great illusion we were all in. So LSD does things we have never really even investigated for any length of time to understand itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s possibilities. Dr. Richard Alpert and Timothy Leary were on the path to explore its potential, but were cut short by people in this world who intended we stay in illusion, stay consumers. But LSD could definitely transport you to other places. So why not trigger deeply repressed memories? A process of Rebirthing, was done in the seventies, and was known to trigger birthing memories as well, so why not LSD? All I know is that I remembered! And as time went by, I discovered both ancient as well as recent civilizations used mind-altering drugs for enhancing consciousness and inducing memories. American Indians used Peyote or mushrooms, Indians from Peru used Ayahuasca. Many cultures used ganja or pot for their meditation and awakening and even in ancient Egypt, it appeared that the blue lotus created an altered state of consciousness helping initiates to connect with

the deepest forms of truth in order to transcend this earthly adventure and enter the kingdom of the stars. But why me? Why was I allowed to access that memory when so few have professed to remember? Maybe I did something in my past life, or past so many lives, to start a process of questioning my existence. I don’t remember those past lives now, so how am I to know. As a child of around five I remember sitting in the back seat of my parent’s car with my sister and my parents were, of course, in the front seat. I remember thinking, “Who are these people? What am I doing here with them?” I thought, or more realistically felt, something I used to call a ‘toothpick feeling’. I felt insignificant, misplaced, in the wrong body with the wrong people surrounding me. I still feel that way, and I’ve never felt I belonged in this world. I was scared in school, afraid of other kids, afraid of my teachers and confused about what I was supposed to be doing. My mother accurately categorized and nicknamed me ‘a scatterbrain’ because I was always in some sort of daze, not really down to earth. That shit, when your own mother belittles you, will do terrible things for your self-esteem! Anyway, I was shocked when I came back to external consciousness from the experience that morning at Sandy’s apartment only to find Rusty sleeping next to me. I gently moved his shoulder a little to see if he was waking and said, “Rusty, do you remember?” “Remember what?”, he said. “Do you remember what it is we are supposed to be doing?” “Yeah, we’re

supposed to be sleeping,” he said. “Anyway, what are you talking about?”, and he rolled over and went back to sleep. I laid back on the floor again and stared at the ceiling. What was that? What was it? What am I supposed to be doing? If I try, surely I can remember. I’ll just lay here and let it come back to me like remembering a dream. And funny, most of the experience was very transparent, but I could not for the life of me remember what it was I was supposed to be doing. What did I promise? I was completely disturbed as I got up and went to the bathroom. I looked in the mirror searching for something, anything that might give me a clue as to what had just happened. What I experienced was real and I knew it, but I didn’t understand it at all. As I looked in the mirror, I searched for any answer in my eyes. Maybe, I thought, if I stare in these eyes, I will remember who I am and what I am supposed to be doing. But nothing happened. My eyes didn’t talk back. They were as dumfounded as I was and I was in shock! I left the apartment and walked around outside as the sun was coming up and the sky was moving its clouds with different shades of pink and lavender and gold on that April morning. The dew was on the grass and was reflecting the morning sun. I bent down to take a drop on my finger, like it might be the nectar from a honeysuckle flower and I tasted it with curiosity. I sat down in that dew-covered grass and realized I was completely alone. Again. I knew at that moment that no one could ever know what I now knew. But at the same time I thought, someone must know!

There must be someone who has experienced the same thing. Why did this happen to me? Who am I to get this realization? I was a nobody. As the sun began to rise in the sky, I went back into the apartment and sat silently as I watched Rusty sleep. Finally, Sandy came out of her bedroom yawning and went to the bathroom. “Oh, you’re awake,” she said and I said, “Yeah,” feeling weird, thinking, You’ll never know exactly how awake I am! Gradually everyone woke and stretched and laughed about the previous night and discussed the possibility of getting some breakfast. And that was that. I cautiously asked everyone, “What do you think happens at the time of death?” Sandy and Jim made jokes about it laughingly saying something like, “In my case, I’ll be running from the devil, full speed ahead.” I tried to talk about it, but no one seemed very interested. The night before was the time for deep discussions about profound experiences and no one wanted to talk about anything heavy the next morning. The trip was over. So we separated and Rusty and I headed home while the two lovers did whatever they were going to do that day. I was deeply emerged in my experience as I continued to look in the mirror and wonder what the hell just happened! Who was I and what the hell was I doing on this planet and how the hell would I ever discover the truth. As we drove home I tried to explain the experience to Rusty, but it was like talking to a wall. He couldn’t relate and I could understand. How could he? He wasn’t there! And I was

confused! I experienced something amazing on Purple Haze and was realizing again that I was alone.â&#x20AC;Š

Chapter 2

The Search Began Shocked and awed by my experience, I tried to recreate the memory, to access it again with another hit of acid, deeply concentrating on my last experience as I tripped, but it was all to no avail. I thought, if I were in control, I would remember everything right now. But I could not bring this memory back no matter how hard I tried. And believe me, I tried, weekend after weekend until I decided to give up acid as a method of searching and try something different. I had come to the conclusion that this anamnesis experience could only have been a gift from god. But why? And how could I reconcile this gift of reality? Maybe I could find it in books. Maybe someone else has experienced this and wrote about it. But where would I look? Metaphysical book stores seemed the most likely choice, but under what category? So I searched. There had to be someone out there who had experienced the same anamnesis. Times were different in the 60s and 70s. Searching was â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;inâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; so to speak. Along with the newly accepted use of pot, acid and mushrooms, people all over America, Europe and beyond were

asking “where do we come from, what are we doing here, where are we going after this life, is there another life, what is self realization, who is God, is there a God?” And other questions like “is our government lying to us, is their life on other planets, why do we want war, is capitalism a good thing” were on the minds of young people all over the world. It’s as if God rained down on the earth a magical drug to wash us free from illusion, or at least the first layer of illusion so we would start seeking truth. Oh yeah, He did! That was LSD and the time was right! Many hippies took off and joined communes, growing their own food and experimenting with free love. People went in many different directions but the goal was something different, something new, a real change from what our parents were in love with, a new culture, a new consciousness, a new drive, a new planet. Some people were simply interested in doing more drugs. Others got involved in new age politics or went into farming and living off the land. Many fled to India looking for a Guru. Some went the route of getting rich off the drug business and others explored their creativity in artwork, music or film. The music industry was exploding with the sounds and lyrics of the type never heard before. Not just a lot of ‘silly love songs’ but deep, lyrical poems to inspire thought and action. New creative art burst onto the scene. We were changing the world! And what did I do? I searched for anyone who might have a clue about what happens at the time of death and what happens when we are reborn! Everyone I knew thought I had gone off my

rocker! (That must be a southern expression!) And I had! I was disturbed! At first I thought I would try another hit of acid but it didn’t work. So I kept asking people I met if they ever experienced anything like death and rebirth while they were tripping and all I got was “no,” or “oh, it was just the acid.” I thought I was close to finding the truth once when a source told me about “The Great White Brotherhood,” having nothing to do with being white but was all about merging with the ‘pure white light.’ But I could never find anyone involved in anything close to that name. (There was no internet at the time.) So I thought the answer must be in religion. Since I was born in a christian family, I ruled out the possibility that the answer lay there. The agreed upon concept from christianity is a child in the womb is unconscious or asleep and I knew differently. As a child growing up in christianity, I asked my mom, “Who is God?” She replied “No one knows.” I did not understand. “If no one knows about God, then why do you believe in Him?” No answers, only that we must have faith. It almost made me mad. She insisted I love God, but she couldn’t tell me anything about Him. “You must Fear God,” she would say. Love and Fear? They seemed opposites to me. I run away from things that I fear. That was very confusing. So I turned to Buddhism. I read about Buddhism and Taoism. Then I read all the books by Carlos Castaneda and Herman Hesse, etc. I played with the I Ching, and toyed with astrology. (What the hell is that about, mother?) Then there was

numerology, auras and color and herbs and before I knew it, I didn’t fit in the straight world anymore at all. I was officially weird. Then, someone told me I should check out a book called “Remember, Remember, Be Here Now” by Ram Das who was also known as Dr. Richard Alpert and was one of the first people to experiment with LSD. LSD? - Remember? I thought. That must be it, because the acid led me to the experience and I am trying to remember what it is that I am supposed to be doing! I drank in the book with amazing speed and within a few days knew I was on to something real. In the book, Ram Das spoke about how high you got from LSD but eventually the high subsided, a very disappointing ending to a great experience. I agreed. So you did more and more acid, but it wouldn’t get you off again until your system cleaned out. Then, after around 4-5 days, you could do it again and it would work. Yep! I thought. The problem was, the acid made you feel so incredibly good, you wanted to stay that way forever. I felt the same way! But the reality was, if the acid kept you high constantly, you would never quit. You wouldn’t go to work. You wouldn’t eat. You wouldn’t sleep and finally you would probably die of exhaustion. The body simply cannot take a deluge of the drug, so it seemed god devised a way of limiting the experience and causing us to search for the real high that would last forever! Yep! Once again I was in total agreement. Ram Das went to India, met a guru and spoke about mantras and meditation as a way of self-realization taking you to that

place that was real and full of bliss. But I knew nothing of mantras or where I could meet someone who knew about them or where I might find a guru. I only knew what he said about the LSD experience and waking up out of our illusion made perfect sense to me, because I knew after being born, I was instantly put into illusion. But where would I find him or anyone else who knew the truth he was speaking of? I needed more information. So I kept searching. Alone. Rusty tolerated me. He loved me and never criticized me as I was going through my change, although he was not as curious about these things as I was. Naturally. Before we married he was patient, even while we dated. I was fortunate enough to have some good looks and talent, I suppose. In high school I was Head Cheerleader, Junior Princess and first runner-up in my senior year for Homecoming Queen and getting dates was somewhat easy. On weekends I would have a date with Rusty one night, then Billy the next and maybe even an afternoon date on Sunday with Jack. Rusty did not complain. He stuck with me and won my heart. But things change and things were changing very quickly for me, not him. We were married now. We both quit school as LSD and pot were the center of our lives. We worked various jobs, I think, nothing career oriented, just something to pay the bills while we got high and I searched. And I searched with no results while we became a part of the very popular concert/acid mania lifestyle. We saw the Rolling Stones and Stevie Wonder at the University of

Alabama in Tuscaloosa while tripping on Blotter Acid. We saw Black Sabbath, Uriah Heep, Black Oak Arkansas, The Who, Yes, The Moody Blues, Emerson, Lake and Palmer, and so many amazing rock groups while we tripped on windowpane, orange sunshine, pink microdot and ate mellow mushrooms. On Labor Day weekend 1972 things started to change. I was no closer to the answer of the question burning in my heart when we took off to a rock concert in Illinois. As I remember, it was an amazing festival. 220,000 plus people swamped the Midwest in a place called Bull Island and a festival know as the Erie Canal Soda Pop Festival. The festival was touted to be the Woodstock of the Midwest along the banks of the Wabash River and it WAS! People were swimming naked, painting each otherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s bodies and dancing through the woods. I wondered where the snakes went! LSD was flowing freely. People were giving it away! Black Sabbath, Joe Cocker, The Allman Brothers Band, Fleetwood Mac, Ravi Shankar, Cheech and Chong, Richie Havens,Tina Turner, New Riders of the Purple Sage, John Mayall, Santana, Canned Heat, The Eagles and so many other amazing musicians were there. Five friends including Rusty and myself made the trip with tents and whatever gear we could pack into the arena. Life was good and we felt free. We laid along side the long road lined with cars and rested by the cornfields while we waited in line for admission to start. We were patient, having our own party along the way.

As we relaxed beside the road, I looked up to see a long-haired skinny guy sitting in a tree above me. He was checking me out and smiled. After some time, he crawled down and joined our group to talk. His name was Richard and he served as a helicopter pilot in Vietnam for two years, released from duty in 1970. He was much happier going to the rock festival instead of being shot at and we laughed as he told us stories. I was personally amazed at what a naturalist he was. Kinda. He blew his nose in his hand and then washed his hands. As time went on, of course, I saw this many times, but was surprised when he so naturally cleared his sinuses. He grew attached to me as we walked and talked and didn’t seem to care that I was married. That was a time of free-love, remember. Rusty and I agreed to the popular trend, but I still wondered how he felt about the whole thing. He never said anything, not a word, not for it or against it. He was just agreeable. Richard camped by the side of our tent and made it known that he liked me, but what I liked was something very different. I was in love with Rusty and this guy was simply a new friend, though I did like him, and he was cute. But as we spent time together during the festival, we had discussed religion, philosophy, the purpose of life and the reality the LSD experience provided. We connected in a real way as we got to know each other. On the day before we left, Richard told me, “When I leave the rock festival I am going to the Hare Krishna festival in West Virginia. Would you like to go with me?” “Aren’t those the

people who chant Mantras?” I said. “Yes, if Rusty doesn’t mind, I would love to go” and Rusty did not mind. Or at least he said so. At the time, I think Rusty was just glad to get rid of me because he was tired of hearing me talk about all my mystical bullshit. He knew I was looking for someone like Ram Das described in his book, “Remember, Remember, Be Here Now”. At the end of the festival, I took my tent and Richard and I started out towards West Virginia, hitch-hiking. It was only about a 7-hour drive from Chandler, IN to Moundsville, West VA where the Krishna festival was being held, so we didn’t expect to have any problems. We took off with optimism in our pockets and then the spirits kinda waned when we were still 5 hours from our destination and it was almost 10pm. Amazingly, however, we got a ride just when we were about ready to find a place to pitch our tents. An off-duty truck driver gave us a ride all the way to the very entrance of the festival and dropped us off at 4:00 am in the morning with a kind and pleasant smile while he kept on moving. Was that just luck? I don’t think so. It was too perfect! We got out of the truck and were surprised to find many people rushing into a building with blankets wrapped around them and paint on their face. We slowly followed them into the building to see what was happening. I’ve got to admit I was weirded out. We took off our shoes and went inside where a group of around 60 people were gathered in the dark with candles in front of an altar. They began to sing in some foreign language a beautiful melodic tune. Richard and I stood

mesmerized, soaking it all in. I wasn’t sure how he felt, but I knew I was in the wrong place. There was no way I could possibly understand what these people were doing. Nevertheless, I was there, so I was going to find out what the hell was going on. After the ceremony was over, we merged out into a second room where people were milling about, talking to each other, watching other people reuniting with friends saying, “Great to see you again” and talking about different things. Richard and I were together checking out the strange art covering the room when a bubbly and vivacious girl came up to us with a smile big enough to cover Texas and asked, “Do you know who God is?” Her name was Gayatri. Remembering my mother’s answer, “No one knows,” I painfully said to her question, “No, I do not know who God is. Do you?” She said, “Yes. Come over here and I will show you.” I thought, Show me? A simple telling me would be great. How can you possibly show me? But she pointed up to a picture of a bluecolored man dressed in yellow garments with his arm around a golden-colored woman with a red dress. They were holding a flute together as they looked into each other’s eyes. “That is Radha and Krishna. God is both male and female.” She went on and on talking of love and Krishna and devotion and she said so much I could not contain all the information she was shoveling into my head, when people started shouting, “Here comes Prabhupada! Here comes Prabhupada!”

A large Lincoln rolled up and everyone gathered around the car singing and jumping up and down with their arms in the air. A stately, old Indian gentleman stepped out of the car, very regally dressed in pale orange robes with a walking cane in his hand. He strode like a peacock as everyone followed him into the building. Looking at each other, Richard and I followed suit and went inside the building looking for a place to sit. After another round of singing their mantras, the old man began to speak. His accent was strong, but I could understand him a little, nevertheless. The funny thing was that after that class, the only thing I remembered were his comments on sleep. He explained that a person should only sleep around six hours a night. Then he added, “Later, if you need, you can take a nap, maybe for 15 minutes only.” I was shocked! Is he off his rocker? I thought. (There’s that word rocker again.) A fifteen minute nap? What’s the use of a nap at all? Richard and I stayed for 5 days traveling to Pittsburg, going to a Krishna Rock Opera where Srila Prabhupada attended, spent some time with a rich hippie in a huge mansion who picked us up hitch-hiking and then returned us to the festival. The whole experience was amazing and different and crazy! We camped on the farm land, ate apples off the trees, fucked and listened to some of their classes. Gayatri and her husband were constantly seeking us out to give us more information. I understood a little, but by no means a lot. Some of the people really turned me off and others were sweet and charming as they tried to explain their

philosophy. Some of them appeared to be trying to force us to believe them, but we were on our own and could escape from the hovering very easily, so we did! At the end of the festival when the Spiritual Master left, we headed south to Alabama, stopping to visit a friend of his, hitchhiking all the way. I technically was not cheating on Rusty because we previously gave each other permission for free love. But I missed Rusty and was ready to go home. When we arrived back in Alabama, Richard spent a few days with us there and then left. I saw him again around 4 years later. Things had changed! My feelings about Rusty were confusing at that time. Free love is not a good thing for a marriage. Humans are simply too jealous. Rusty never complained, however, maybe because he knew how much I loved him. Sometimes I wondered if he suffered from a low sex desire. Maybe he was doing something on the side as well, but he never showed any signs of it and I never made any attempt to hide what I was doing. Only much later in life did he ever stray and even then I think that it was not coming from his heart.â&#x20AC;Š

Chapter 3

Found It! but I Didn’t Want to Do It! I was still searching for the answer to “What promise did I make in the womb?” By this time I had almost given up thinking I would ever find an answer and so I pretty much stopped asking people who only gave me blank stares and no possible kind of conclusion to such a crazy question. Nevertheless, I thought the Krishna farm experience was the closest thing to finding god so far in my search. I was fascinated that those people actually knew who was god and the old man exuded a charm I couldn’t explain. He was a spiritual master who cared not for his own welfare, but only wanted to spread Krishna consciousness in the western world. A selfless person was completely unknown and foreign to me. I decided to visit the Hare Krishna temple in Atlanta, Georgia around two weeks after I returned and asked Rusty to go with me. He was not interested. My mind was loaded with questions, and as far as I knew, no one had ever professed to be God Himself as Krishna had done in Bhagavad Gita. Therefore I decided to go

alone. I was going for their Sunday Feast program and Atlanta was only 3 hours away from Birmingham, so I took off. When I arrived, the same enthusiastic, bubbly girl I met outside of the temple room in West Virginia, Gayatri, greeted me on the front porch of their temple converted from an old victorian home. She was very happy to see me and her bubbly conversation began immediately. As we talked, she quoted different passages from the books their spiritual master translated into english from hindi and sanskrit. AND THEN SHE SAID IT! Why? I can only imagine that God sent her to me because my heart was absolutely dying to know the truth. “DO YOU KNOW WHAT HAPPENS AT THE TIME OF DEATH?” she said. I thought to myself, Yes, but nobody believes me, so i’ll just say no and see what she says. “No,” I said, “what?” She said that the temperature goes up very high, maybe up to 107 degrees and then begins to fall instantly as the soul leaves the body. Then she said, “Wait a minute. I’ll just get the book and read from it.” She ran inside the building and brought out a book and began to read. She read from the Srimad Bhagavatam, known as the 5th Veda, about experiencing 100 births and deaths at the time of leaving the body and then being put into a womb. She then read from the Third Canto, Chapter 31, describing exactly what happens while the child is in the womb. I nearly fainted! I must have gone pale as she continued: “If you have led your life in a way that is hurtful to others, you will definitely experience a long, painful journey with severe

consequences when you die. However, if you are pious, you are placed in the womb of your new mother and allowed to remember your past 100 births as you pray to love and serve Krishna.” Then she read from the book, third canto, chapter 31, and here are the verses that blew my mind: S.B. 3.31.9 - “The child thus remains just like a bird in a cage, without freedom of movement. At that time, if the child is fortunate, he can remember all the troubles of his past one hundred births, and he grieves wretchedly.” S.B. 3.31.10 - “Thus endowed with the development of consciousness from the seventh month after his conception, the child is tossed downward by the airs that press the embryo during the weeks preceding delivery.” S.B. 3.31.11 - “The living entity in this frightful condition of life, bound by seven layers of material ingredients, prays with folded hands, appealing to the Lord, who has put him in that condition.” S.B.3.31.12 - “The human soul says: I take shelter of the lotus feet of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who appears in His various eternal forms and walks on the surface of the world. I take shelter of Him only, because He can give me relief from all fear and from Him I have received this condition of life, just befitting my impious activities.” S.B. 3.31.17 - “Oh my Lord, when shall I, a wretched soul, be released from this confinement?”

S.B. 3.31.22 - “The tenth lunar month, while he thus extols the Lord, the wind that helps parturition propels him forth with his face turned downward so that he may be born.” S.B. 3.31.23 - “Pushed downward all of a sudden by the wind, the child comes out with great trouble, head downward, breathless and deprived of memory due to severe agony.” S.B. 3.31.24 - “He loses his superior knowledge and cries under the spell of maya.”

Tears filled my eyes and the hairs on my arms were standing on end. Paralyzed and struck with awe, I was finally able to speak saying, “So this is what I am supposed to be doing with my life? Do I have to join your group or move into your temple?” I did not want to. I really did not want to! I would rather look in from the outside and let those people wear the paint on their faces, shave their heads and wear clothing from another country. Surely God did not want me to do this! But I could not deny it. Every word she read reflected the exact experience I had under the influence of the Purple Haze. I was stunned and happy to have found what I was looking for, but very upset about the form it was in. What was I to do? I didn’t want to dress like an Indian and chant these mantras in a foreign language all day long. I did not want to be a Krishna devotee!

Chapter 4

Jumping in Feet First What exactly did that mean? It must mean that you jump in, hoping there is nothing at the bottom to kill you. Well, thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s what I did. What would happen, I did not know. I was both elated and deflated! Their lifestyle and clothing were deplorable to me, but the words of Krishna to Arjuna written down in the Bhagavad Gita were words that satisfied my soul! Krishna was the only Person in history to have the balls enough to say, â&#x20AC;&#x153;I am God. I am in control of everything. Everything emanates from Me and is in Me and yet I am also standing here before you, as your friend.â&#x20AC;? So I bought a Bhagavad Gita (Song of God) and took it back to Birmingham to read it. It was difficult, I admit, but when I hit on a truth, I was stunned. I read the entire book in two weeks and then returned to Atlanta for the Sunday Feast, filled with questions. Honestly, I was being drawn to that divine truth more and more every time I visited. I was beginning to see the absolute must include both a personal form as well as an impersonal energy known as cause and effect, or electricity and magnetism. If God did not have a personal form, then it made sense that the

Absolute would not be absolute at all, but rather incomplete. INCOMPLETE! It was all coming together. God was indeed everything, every atom, but also had an incredibly beautiful and charming personal form. And I was learning that the Supreme Person also had an incredible personality! He is known as the Butter Thief, the Darling of Vrindavan, the Lover of the Gopis and the Killer of Demons. He plays in the forest with His cowherd boyfriends, meets secretly with the young girls, adores His mother and brings shoes to His father on His head. He makes everyone around him laugh as He grabs the tail of a baby calf and is dragged around the courtyard of His fatherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s home. He plays games with his childhood boyfriends in the forest as He takes the calves out to graze. He is the center of everyoneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s attention! So there I was, going back and forth between Birmingham and Atlanta, falling in love with a Butter Thief and having amazing realizations daily. Yet, I did not know what to do. I did not want to live with these culture mimickers and nor did I want to leave my husband, but somehow or another I was hopelessly dragged in by hearing the sweet past times of the Divine Absolute who is the source of everything, including my pleasure. The philosophy was perfect as far as I could see, but I did not want to live in a commune with people who were running around in Indian saris acting as if it was the most natural thing in the world. I was disturbed. I finally found the answer to my question as to what I was supposed to be doing with my life, only to find God

hiding in the midst of some crazy people chanting mantras on the street. People who are wearing orange robes and shaving their heads! Why the hell would I want to be associated with a movement like that? Well, I knew the reason, but I did not like it. I dreaded the thought of wearing an Indian sari and paint on my face. No doubt the saris were incredibly beautiful, flowing pieces of art painted with turquoise, reds and burgundies, olive greens with gold, hot pinks with pale yellows and some were bordered with patterned prints made from silver and gold threads that shimmered as these beautiful women moved about. They were made from silk, cotton, and a fabric called khadi. Some saris were made from beautiful tie-dyed cotton, made in the province of Orissa and sought after by connoisseurs. These saris, pleated at the waist, made them full at the bottom and they swished graciously as the women walked, accenting the curves of their large hips and small waist. A shortened type of crop top known as a choli was worn as the blouse underneath, thus exposing the womanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s midriff and it was sometimes cut very low to expose the swollen breasts underneath. Together, the sari with the choli made a truly beautiful site! Sometimes a sheer iridescent scarf was draped across the breast, as if it could actually hide something. Sexy was not a good enough word for this luscious style of dress because there was exposure in all the proper areas, and there as also a delicate hidden suggestion of what lay underneath. But I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t want to wear one!

The problem, for an American not used to wearing this type of classic Indian dress, was to keep the damned things on. They were wrapped around the waist, pleated, then wrapped around the bodice, over the shoulder and then over the head. I could never understand how the other women seemed to like it. I did not want to cover my head, either. The reasoning was that it was chaste. “Lovely hair made a woman more desirable,” they said, “and we do not want to agitate the brahmacharis who were trying to be celibate,” so we were instructed to braid our long hair and cover our heads, basically so the men in the organization wouldn’t get too excited and get a hard-on. What the hell? The sexy midriff exposed, as well as low-cut cholis exposing the rounded curves of the breasts of beautiful women in the prime of their life and yet we were instructed to cover our heads? And in the midst of all that, I was being told that I was responsible for someone’s hard-on! I was just a little too independent for that kind of gibberish. I didn’t believe everything everyone told me. I just was not that kinda girl. If a guy wanted to be celibate, that was his problem, or call it gift, if you will. If either a man or woman was strong enough to be a celibate monk, then they must be more serious than me. I always thought that monks and nuns had something going for them the rest of us were not aware of. But in the meantime, I felt it was not my responsibility to be concerned about their level of advancement when I was struggling with my own. If they were so agitated by seeing my hair, I thought, they should go live in a cave!

My new guru meant well, there is no doubt of that. However, I was not raised in India and by the time I was 23 years old, my habits and dress choices in this world were pretty much solidified. I simply did not want to become an Indian to achieve self realization. Blue jeans, or a cool sundress were fine with me. Surrendering, however, I told myself, It is only clothing. Surely you can make a few changes if it will help you find what youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve been looking for. And besides, many of the women loved their new-found style so I kept my mouth shut and decided to give it a try. But the truth was, it agitated my mind from the very first day I tried one on until the last day that I ever wore seven yards of fabric wrapped around my body and tied and tilted and smoothed and pinned until I could barely walk and could not keep my hands free from holding the pleats on my shoulder and keeping the cloth over my head. And I just didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t get what was up with these guys shaving their heads with a sprout of hair coming out from their crown chakra? They looked like pictures from Egyptian Hieroglyphs of the Amun Priesthood. Was that really necessary or were they just sheep following some process without ever really thinking about it? In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna said it didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t matter what your nature was, all you needed to do was to remember Him. So why the Brahmin clothes? But these guys were running around chanting in the streets with this odd hairstyle and pale orange, yellow or white robes, looking like a type of dress, acting as if they were from India, as the people in the community looked on

laughing and yet wondering, What the hell is going on? I was so embarrassed to be a part of it that I could have cried, and I did, as time went on. I continued to drive to Atlanta to visit the little temple, housed in an old converted yellow victorian with grey trim in the hippie district called “13th Street”. The more I went, the more I was sucked in. It was like a vortex with gravity at the bottom pulling me with strings attached to all the limbs of my body, as well as my head. When I visited, they always gave me some service to do like stringing garlands or working in the garden. I listened to classes and read the books and ate the delicious vegetarian cuisine, sometimes spending a night over the weekend. At one point, in October of 1972, I could take the separation from the process of devotional service no longer as I returned to Birmingham and told my husband I was going to move into the temple. That guy must have been some kind of saint because he so kindly said that he understood, and off I went. I jumped in Feet First with no idea what would happen next. But I was more concerned about the Indian culture in the temple ashram than anything else. Why did they have to adopt the clothing of India? It was driving me crazy! I was dead set against it and thought it to be very foolish, though I did finally understand on some levels. (When in Rome - when you visit India or maybe work on the altar.) But didn’t any of these guys ever question why they were required to dress that way and why we didn’t just refuse to do it? I realized soon enough there were

basically two reasons. The first was that we all wanted to please our spiritual master and the second was peer pressure! If we wanted to get initiated by a real spiritual master, we needed to toe the line or the temple president would not recommend us to the guru. So I did. I toed the line. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m not sure what everyone else was thinking. I just thought it was weird. But besides the dress, this Truth was blowing my mind! Every time anyone spoke about this Truth, either from the Bhagavad Gita or the Srimad Bhagavatam, it was always perfect! All the answers to every question I had, were answered. Shit, these ancient scriptures even answered questions that I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t know I had! Not only did they know who god was, but they also seemed to know how to approach Him or Him/Her, both male and female. They knew that the whole universe or universes were the separated energies of god and were not different from that Divine Person Himself. They knew where the Divine Couple lived, what They did and so much more. The descriptions were way beyond what we would think of as The Garden of Eden, with jewels lighting the palaces, flower airplanes, cool and clear streams filled with lotus flowers so fragrant they could be smelled in the distance, large ripened fruits filling the trees, the buzzing of bumblebees and sweet melodic songs of birds who filled the air with beautiful colors. Their scriptures described how cows who were grazing the pasture grounds were constantly spilling milk when they gazed at Krishna playing His silver flute, dressed in yellow silk garments with pearls hanging from His turban, silver

fish earrings swinging from His ears, a peacock feather on His head and silken ropes for the calves hanging over his shoulder. And they quoted from the Bagavada Gita on how Krishna professed that all the universes of the material world resided in Him, and they were resting on Him like pearls on a thread. His bare feet were described as being covered in symbols like a flag, a fish, a crescent moon. As He walked through the forest , His feet, powdered red with kum kum, left footprints causing his devotees to swoon and even faint. The birds in the trees would sing and the flowers would drop nectar as He passed, with each living entity feeling intense love coming from that Divine Being, as if they were lovers who just met and the love was instantaneous for both. His eternal consort, Srimati Radharani, being the source of the Goddess of Fortune and every divine goddess, for that matter, would be the main cause of Krishnaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s bliss. Radharani was described as so beautiful that She made the diamonds shine and gave the pearls their luster. Krishna, we were told, was controlled by Radharaniâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s love. The Supreme Male was controlled by the Supreme Female. That did it for me! I was in Love! Floating deliriously back into this world where I was born, I somehow knew this truth was something I might have experienced in a previous life. Maybe the hangup on the culture kept me from going forward and kept me coming back to this world again and again. Is that why I remembered what it was like to die and take birth? I thought I simply needed to deal with it in this lifetime, so I decided to give it a try.

From that moment on, once I moved into the temple, life was a roller coaster ride. We woke at 3:30 in the morning, took a cold shower (I still think that one was nuts) and chanted the Maha Mantra for a total of 16 rounds of 108 beads. At 7:00 am we sang devotional songs to the spiritual master and to Mahaprabhu (the Golden Age of Kali Yuga incarnation) and to Radha and Krishna. Srimad Bhagavatam class came after that. Sometimes we fell asleep in class because we were only allowed to sleep six hours a night and well, who the hell gets up at 3:30 in the morning? After class was a breakfast of oranges, cream of wheat and garbanzo beans with a little slice of ginger and then we were all off to our own particular daily duties. My first service was to take care of the Holy Basil plant named Tulasi. There was a small home-built greenhouse in the rear of the victorian with around 30 plants. The plants needed to be watered daily, ventilated, freed from mites and cleaned of their dead leaves. The leaves were placed on the offerings of food to Krishna on the altar. Each morning, we worshipped Tulasi by circumambulating her while singing a song dedicated to her for her love of and service to Krishna. She was placed in beautiful pots with decorated skirts covering the clay. We wore Tulasi beads around our necks made of her wood coming from India and our meditation beads were made out of Tulasi, as well. She quickly won everyoneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s heart for reasons I cannot explain. But I was happy to have that service.

We used to steal sweets from offerings occasionally and one morning I grabbed a powdered milk, powdered sugar and butter ball called a ‘Simply Wonderful’ and inserted it in my bead bag (a bag hanging around our necks so we could always have our meditation or japa beads with us). As I bowed down to offer respects before class, the sweet ball rolled out of my bag, across the hard wood floor and directly into the hands of the temple president. He picked it up, looked at me as if to say, Caught you and then popped it into his mouth. Life was both strange and fun, living in that new ashram style home. I laughed and cried often! We were told that going out on ‘Sankirtan’ (congregational chanting of the holy names in public) was required. We were told we would need to sell books and incense to make money for the temple. At first I hid from devotees as they were loading up their van to hit the streets. I could not force myself to go out and chant and dance in a public place, especially in a sari that I could not keep wrapped around me to save my life. So, if I knew they were going out at 10:00 am, I left the temple around 9:30 and took a very long walk. I panicked every day until I was able to make the sacrifice, but I didn’t like it! Ever! Honestly, the only thing I liked were the classes. Oh yes, I also liked the food, but I think I already said that! I did not particularly like the chanting or singing. The sound was charming, but it was just a little too weird. I didn’t understand the meanings of the words and if I sang those sanskrit songs without understanding them, that made

me a hypocrite. I tried to understand the lyrics, honestly, but I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t try very hard. There were just too many of them. I could only devote myself to the books. And the books were amazing!â&#x20AC;Š

Chapter 5

The Lies Began Rusty came to visit me on Sundays and after a few months, he moved in too. I have to say I was certainly happy about that. I loved him very much and actually he was an ally in the midst of a strange land. And it was definitely strange. We were young. I was 23 and he was 25. We were also young in our practice, so I couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t criticize too much, but in a place where you would think everyone would be conscious and kind, there was way too much cheating and lying. (No lying in the scriptures, but lying to the public and each other was pretty common.) Which one of us was perfect? But higher standards were my goal and I hoped the people I chose to be friends with would have higher standards as well. It was hard for me to believe people who were seriously seeking God would have this type of behavior. What would be their reason for being in a serious ashram only to lie and steal? I finally surrendered to chanting on the streets and selling books although every fiber in my body rejected the practice. We were shuttled in vans, women always in the back, patriarchal society, and dropped off in downtown Atlanta or some hippy and trendy subdivision with vegetarian restaurants, yoga studios and head shops. One day, not long after I first went out, I spoke to the

temple president and said, “It’s so great we are helping the poor people in Bangladesh.” “We’re not.” He said. “It’s ok to lie for Krishna. We are just collecting money to further Krishna Consciousness through this temple and also we send money for the temples in India.” “What?” I said. “We’re not helping the people in Bangladesh? And you want me to lie?” I was devastated! “Really? You expect me to go out there and lie? It’s bad enough you require that I go out at all,” I said. I was shocked and told him with tears in my eyes, “I can’t do that. I will not lie.” I was disgusted with the lack of integrity of my temple leader and what he said. And I cried again. Big tears. How could I be involved in something like this? And yet, how could I leave? I understood I needed to do my part in supporting the temple where I was getting the knowledge I so desperately desired, as well as room and board. And if I promised in the womb to serve the Lord as described in Srimad Bhagavatam, I would at least need to try and make the best out of it. After all, how could I ignore what God gave me in the form of remembering what happened in the womb, and then giving me the knowledge of how to attain that goal in this short lifetime? Gradually I found a way to ‘not lie, but not tell the whole truth’ for my own integrity. Basically, all that scamming simply sucked! And I’m honestly embarrassed to tell you what I saw other men and women doing in the name of earning money for Krishna, but I am going to tell you nevertheless, later in this story. I have to! In

the meantime I thought to myself, I’ve gotta get out of here! But I stayed. Now, some people believe the end justifies the means and I guess in some cases I believed the same. The temple president was actually a very heart-felt man with love for our spiritual master and a desire to please him. He was a charismatic, educated man who gave a class capturing your imagination and making you laugh, at yourself. He was very busy arranging feasts, festivals and schedules of everyone around. He read Krishna Book in the evenings while we ate popcorn and drank warm milk to help us sleep. Granted, I don’t think I ever really knew who he was. He was accessible and yet distant. On one of my first trips to sell books at a mall, he was with me and we were both arrested and spent the night in jail. The next day, the case was dismissed. He thought it was part of the sacrifice we were making for our guru. He was right! A freaky sacrifice! One woman in jail that night hung her ass over the bed and peed on the floor. The smell in the room was horrendous and I was glad that mostly, I was a law-abiding citizen and not a criminal. It broke my heart that my temple president was a sexist, considering women to be less intelligent. Nevertheless, the love for our spiritual master could be seen in his eyes. I just don’t think I’ve ever seen a man with such worry in his face. I was amazed at how much care he seemed to have for the devotees but was devastated to see his annoyance by his own child. Yet, who could judge another person when we were all so young in our

spiritual and psychological growth? So, no matter what mistakes he made in his duties as a temple president, he was human with one great credit. That was his devotion. Although the temple president, himself said I funded the temple in India by my collections, I was not allowed to go to the Grand Opening of the Krishna Balarama temple in Vrindavan, India. I collected more money than anyone in the temple, yet only men were sent to the grand opening. Yeah, he seemed to be a chauvinist, no sorry, he was definitely a chauvinist. That was his illusion. So, even though women were used for their ability to charm and earn money, they were not respected as sincere spiritual truth seekers. They were definitely second class, in both his opinion as well as the opinions of other men. So pathetic was the behavior, it literally made me sick to my stomach. I dealt with it anyway. Years later, I met so many other women who were sent to Vrindavan from other temples around the world for that festival. My hurt began to show up as anger. Why was I not allowed to go? Ok, we were taught, whenever something happens to us, we should consider it Krishnaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s mercy, and I did, but that did not excuse his chauvinism. My heart was torn. Its like having your own brother steal from you. I was insulted by his indifference and lack of compassion. It was a hard thing to get over, but in time I realized that anger at injustice would be one of my biggest challenges in life, being born under the rule of Jupiter who is known for justice.â&#x20AC;Š

Chapter 6

George Harrison The protocol for selling books or incense was to tell people that we were collecting funds for Bangladesh, as I mentioned earlier. Although I didn’t like the idea, I also practiced the fraudulent scheme, especially when we sold incense outside of the Concert for Bangladesh. It was a virtual goldmine for Krishna temples. And anyway, what the hell? I thought. It appeared as if George Harrison wanted to help spread Krishna consciousness around the world. And the devotees loved George. He was considered like a type of savior himself with his All Things Must Pass album. And if Srila Prabupada was the divine guru of Kali Yuga, then George Harrison was the divine angel that accompanied him to planet earth. Prabhupada adored him. He said George did more for spreading Krishna consciousness than all of us put together, even though we were busy distributing thousands of books daily. “George,” he said, “was a demigod who came to earth during this miracle age, to work out some karma and to glorify Krishna along with him.” Devotees were elated to have such a famous and talented spiritual person profess their devotion to Krishna

and constantly dropped his name while selling books in the seventies, eighties and nineties. Many years later, Martin Scorsese directed a documentary for HBO entitled, “George Harrison, Living in the Material World” in 2011 documenting the Spiritual Life of George Harrison. Even though devotees knew about George’s many contributions to Srila Prabhupada, none of us knew the extent his spirituality radiated to everyone he met and without a doubt, he met and influenced some of the most famous people and musicians in the world. In the documentary, Eric Clapton, Tom Petty, Eric Idol, Jackie Stewart, Ringo Starr, Phil Spector and others described the incredible person that was George. We knew George met Srila Prabhupada at the home of John and Yoko just after George co-signed a lease for a temple in Oxford Circus. George would occasionally disguise himself and go to the temple in London to chant. He produced and recorded “The Radha Krishna Temple” album in the early days. One prayer on the album, “Govinda,” is played over speakers as devotees sing along in every temple all over the world, everyday, at 7am in the morning when we greet the deities as they are dressed in new garments for the day. He paid for the publication of the first edition of “Krishna Book,” helped to pay for remodeling the temple in London while devotees stayed at the home of John and Yoko and gave Srila Prabhupada a huge estate north of London, now called the Bhaktivedanta Manor.

When He recorded “All Things Must Pass,” Phil Spector picked “My Sweet Lord” to be the hit of all the songs and it did make it to the number one spot in musical charts. Phil said, “Everyone fought me on that because they said it had religious overtones in it.” But Phil insisted, it didn’t matter. He said, “It’s the most commercial song in the album and George was even nervous about it because Hare Krishna was in it, as well as ‘Awaiting on You All.’” “It took George 12 hours to record two guitar solos on My Sweet Lord,” Spector continued, “he was more than a perfectionist. Anyone can be a perfectionist. With George, it just had to be ‘right’”. “I thought about whether I should do ‘My Sweet Lord’ or not, because it’s really committing myself to something people don’t get and a lot of people are going to really hate me because people fear the unknown,” George said in an interview. “The point was, it felt like I was sticking my neck out on a chopping block. But nobody else was saying it. I wished someone else would say it, to represent it (this truth), because everyone was simply doing ‘be bop baby.’” George was being tested, as any aspiring spiritualist will know, the tests are always there. But he released the album and Phil Spector was right! “My Sweet Lord” went straight to the top. George continued, “Because the mantra is transcendental, you just want to chant it and never stop. Once I chanted it for three days non-stop while driving through Europe. You get sort of

hypnotized on some sort of subtle level which makes you feel so good you don’t want to stop”. George visited Vrindavan a number of times, I would not know how many. On one of my visits to Vrindavan, one devotee named Romburu, asked me if I would like to come to her home and see her pictures of George with her family. “Are you kidding?” I said. “Of course I would like to see them.” I went to her house and spent around and hour and a half looking through albums of George with her family in Vrindavan. He loved Ravi Shankar and Paramahansa Yogananda as well as Srila Prabhupada. From the video, you would think he loved everyone! He loved Monty Python and produced “Life of Brian” with a company he formed called “Hand Made Films” to finance the project. With the same company, George was the Executive Producer of “Time Bandits”. Both movies were spiritual satires making us think and making us laugh. I don’t have to tell you his accomplishments were amazing, and he was tested spiritually. In the end he chose spirituality over ‘The Material World’ long before he died. George’s second wife, Olivia, was the person who initiated the project of his spiritual journey in the film directed by Martin Scorsese. She spoke about his spirituality in the video using words like ‘leaving his body,’ and as far as I know, only devotees would use that terminology. She said, “When he left his body, he lit up the room”.

What most people don’t know, maybe even devotees of Krishna may not know is, he set an amazing example for the whole world. He went through tests with fame, drugs, wealth, someone trying to murder him, with women and he also went through tests with his devotional service to Krishna. And as far as I could see, he came out on top because at the end of his life, he wanted to plant trees, garden and chant the Maha Mantra. He felt if you didn’t change, then what was the point of life. “This physical realm is meant for changing,” he explained. “If you are not God conscious, then you may be simply wasting your time.” So, he not only created amazing songs that changed the world, but he himself changed and evolved. He created amazing music, movies, poetry and gardens. He evolved to become completely Krishna conscious in this lifetime, dying with devotees around him chanting the holy names. And, he did it all without robes or a shaved head. (He looked a little like Jesus to me.) Maybe we missed the second coming! Ok, that’s a joke, but, who knows? The word Acharya means teacher by example. Srila Prabhupada was known as the greatest acharya. George Harrison was also an acharya with his devotional songs and his personal example. After the attempt on his life, he spoke on camera saying, “When death comes close, you have to evaluate what it is that you want.” He said it was time that he start practicing what he believed in and decided he was completely done with the temporary enjoyment of the material world. He was ready to go forward to be with Krishna. He did not want to come back again

to this material world. Granted, he was an empowered human being, but he was especially influential for those who didn’t want to join a religious organization to become self realized. “By chanting the names of the Lord and you’ll be free!” In this picture, you see his right hand is in his bead bag. In every picture I saw of him in India, he held the Tulasi chanting beads in his hand. That is more than many of us. He was serious! (Pictured with Romburu, Pritu and son in1996 in Vrindavan)

Chapter 7

Initiation By Fire I was persuaded I needed to get initiated by the spiritual master in order to be fully surrendered and blessed. There needed to be a direct connection with a bonafide representative of Radha and Krishna. If the Spiritual Master is connected to Radha and Krishna, then he could guide me in how I could connect to the Divine Couple. There were scriptural references provided throughout the vedic literatures. And, it made sense. Initiation meant taking a mantra to free oneself from the desires of the material world in a gradual process of meditation. So it was necessary. Sound vibration creates the material universe and we can also transcend the material world by sound vibration. Everything was coming together in my mind to convince me I needed the commitment. And besides, when I looked at my Spiritual Master, he was so humble. He was so real. He was a man who was free from false ego who only wanted to help me attain God. And he emphatically expressed to us that Krishna was non-different from His name. If we chanted the names of the lord, without offense, we would become free from material desires and could enter into the spiritual realm where everything

was eternal, full of bliss and knowledge. I wanted it! There was nothing higher! So, I knew I had to become his disciple. He first lived as a renunciate in Vrindavan, India and translated the Bhagavad Gita and the 1st Canto of the Srimad Bhagavatam into English from Hindi. He published a magazine called “Back to Godhead” and traveled to Delhi to sell the magazine on the streets. His spiritual master told him to take Krishna Consciousness to the West. He took his spiritual master’s order to heart and finally, at the age of 70, in 1965, he begged passage on a steamship from India to the US to fulfill that desire. On the passage, he suffered a heart attack, but managed to come through. He stayed with an Indian family in Boston for whom he was referenced after first arriving in America. He cooked his own food, did his daily meditations and began his journey to deliver the message of Godhead to the entire world. He moved to New York City and started chanting with some small cymbals in Tompkins Square Park. In that park, many hippies found him out and joined him. Gradually, with the help of his new disciples, he opened a small store front temple, previously known as “Matchless Gifts,”and both my spiritual master and all the devotees adored the name. It was perfect! Hippies came by the dozens to hear from the strange sadhu and he began to initiate them with joy. He was fondly known as Srila Prabhupada. Srila means beautiful, prabhu means master and pada means feet. Therefore

Prabhupada meant master whom all other masters fall at his feet. He desired nothing for himself. No car, no house, no boat, no special clothing, no fancy cuisine, no fame, no good looks, no vacations, nothing. Is this the definition of renunciation and purity? Yes, but there was more. A person can renounce, ok, but when one dedicates their life to God and the wish of their spiritual master, then it goes beyond renunciation. Prabhupada’s deeds were transcendental. There was no violence and no pressure and he told us, “Krishna Consciousness is not an imposition on the soul”. If someone wanted to take to the process of self realization prescribed in the Vedas, then he was simply laying it out for them to take. He was not attached to the results, a symptom of his surrender. A symptom of his love. He was attached to following the instructions of his spiritual master. So, there I was, in the midst of a group of people who thought they could lie, cheat and steal for Krishna on one side and my gentle-minded and kind spiritual master on the other. What the hell was going on? Was this a real spiritual process or was it something made up like many religious cults? And what about all the rumored criminals who sheltered there? Were they serious seekers who just developed bad habits? “Prabhupada said,” a term devotees misused and misinterpreted often, bring them to Krishna, by hook or by crook”. Does anybody know what that means? Those scoundrels took it to mean they could be ‘crooks’ for Krishna. Oh my God! Really? Do you know what that means? It comes from the

Egyptian times when the Pharaohs ruled. They held a ‘Crook and a Flail’ in ceremonious rituals. They were symbolically crossed upon their chests. The British interpreted the crook (or hook) to be used to bring the subject in. The fail was to punish. There are other esoteric meanings to the crook and the flail discovered in time, but these were the definitions most commonly used in the period when Europeans were hungry for Pyramid knowledge. So Srila Prabhupada’s instructions were to bring devotees home to Krishna by Hook or by Crook. He did not mean that in order to serve Krishna, you could be a crook! Am I the only person who saw that? Later, however, it did appear that he simply turned his head when fraud was going on in the name of spreading love of god, but we all felt that he would ‘bend the rules’ for the opportunity to give Krishna to the whole world. Anyway, in the midst of all these misconceptions, I realized I had to wade through the swamp to get to the beach. I needed to be content with my own integrity and deal with those whom I felt were deluded. It was very confusing because I was also seeking approval from these crooks and deceivers in order to get initiated by my spiritual master. I had to get to the core truth, in order to transcend this material world and not take birth again and I would have to do it through this imperfect vehicle, this body and mind and this imperfect society where I was learning a perfect truth. So I stayed and sought out initiation from the saint I saw only five times.

A Fire Sacrifice

After six months of following all the rules and regulations set down by our guru, we were allowed to get initiation. The ceremony began with a Fire Sacrifice. Humans were not sacrificed. A beautiful arena was designed with dyed rice flour mandalas made with yellow, red, green and blues. Coconut shells cradled mango leaves and bananas, while flowers were arranged symmetrically around the arena. Incense filled the air and bowls of uncooked rice, sesame seeds and ghee (clarified butter) were given to participants to offer to the fire. The purpose of the sacrifice was to offer oblations to the Gods through Agni, the Fire God, to purify our minds We were given a new set of Tulasi beads to chant on with 108 beads, one for each primary Gopi and one head bead representing Radha and Krishna. We offered rice and sesame seeds into the fire as the acting brahmin poured ghee over the wood and chanted the appropriate mantras. The fire exploded while we responded with the word ‘Svaha’ (The wife of the Fire God, Agni, and the only way to approach Agni). At the end of the ceremony, we were given a spiritual name and we were in bliss! Here I need to say that the ‘fire sacrifice’ now revealed itself to me as a symbol, looking back. I was definitely going through a sacrifice much more engaging than the fire before me. It was the ‘fire of ordeal’. And believe me, this fire was burning me up, burning my heart and forcing me to forgive others and look

inward. At one point, I came to the realization that initiation was a process that takes many years and I still was not fully surrendered in the ‘fire of love of god.’ I was simply playing or toying with actually following the complete orders of my spiritual master. This process is very hard when you are attached to the pleasures of the material world, and let’s face it, our desire to enjoy the material world is why we were here! It was normal. If we weren’t here to enjoy, then we wouldn’t have been on this planet at all. So, there should be no guilt, darling. No bullshit, indicating you that you’re going to hell for having great sex! We just needed to evolve if we wanted to stop the process of continued birth and death called ‘the wheel of samsara.’ I felt like screaming, Stop the bus and let me off! Take me out of this illusion! It didn’t happen overnight. The process, as many did not understand then and do not understand now, is a gradual process of simply losing attraction to those things you once so much adored, because the pleasure derived from them was temporary. I was looking for eternal pleasure. Easy, if you look at it this way. For instance, I once loved water skiing. Every weekend I was out on the water. Every summer, I was tanned and oiled with my own set of skis meant just for me and that’s all I wanted to do. I enjoyed it for some time and later, I was on to something else. I got over it. Real initiation is like that. While living in the material world and enjoying it’s pleasures, you learn from a spiritual master and chant or meditate and focus on the truth. As the truth becomes

more realistic, the material pleasures simply don’t mean much any more. They dissolve away! My spiritual master used to say, “When the full moon rises, the stars will seem insignificant.” So, as truth rises in our hearts, the illusion becomes second class. Once enjoyed pleasures become lesser pleasures, now ignored for a higher taste.

Puerto Rico

Strangely enough, Rusty and I took our first initiation in San Juan, Puerto Rico. How we got there was a little unusual. Rusty was a navigator for the coast guard, as I mentioned earlier, a Quartermaster. Certain leaders in the Krishna movement wanted to take Krishna Consciousness to the islands, at least that’s what we were told. Maybe they simply wanted to sail in the southern seas. And who wouldn’t like to go to the caribbean? I really didn’t know anything about the island, but the opportunity seemed interesting. We were therefore sent to San Juan to wait for the boat to manifest. It never came. Poor planning would be my guess. Why didn’t they have us out looking for boats instead of selling books? Rusty was not the type of person who was innovative enough to take charge and find a boat. So we waited. And the island was nice! Who would complain about being sent to a tropical island?

Many years later I realized my first initiation was a joke. The person who preformed our fire sacrifice had issues of his own, was definitely not a brahmin, and was not qualified to perform a bonafide fire sacrifice. No problem. First initiation was just a formal ceremony where you vowed to follow principles and received beads from the spiritual master. I think my beads came from a shop. Spiritual names were given to us at the end of the ceremony. The names were given by someone other than Srila Prabhupada at that time, because he was so busy translating books. That person was confused! No problem. I lived with the name of a boy, Sanandananda, for years and never knew the difference. Rusty’s new name was Maha Shakti or Great Energy. It fit him well. Things were pretty much unexplainable in a lot of areas at the time. But when I met Srila Narayana Majaraja, regarding my name he said,“There’s a little something wrong with your name.” It didn’t really matter to me, but he offered to change my name. I accepted his offer so I could establish a connection with him. Anyway, as new devotees, we all desired to know the truth and Srila Prabhupada gave us the truth we sought and reeled us in to the beginning of a magical transformation. And what a magical transformation it was! We were changing and everyone we touched changed. We were on fire! What does that mean? Oh My God, We were on fire! We were on fire with love of our guru. Really? Yes, it was true! But who was this Krishna? We were starting to find some

attraction to him, too, though mostly it was just amazement as we heard powerful stories of truth, love, beauty, knowledge, magic and unlimited power. I realized I was at the doorway of finding out Who was the Love of my Life and I wanted to know more. The difficult thing was that this Krishna guy was obscure and I wanted a love that I could touch, someone right in front of me, not someone with an unearthly type of body. It was confusing, but I knew truth was there, so I persevered. The caribbean was beautiful. That was long before my sailing days. Later I wished I could return, but to sail boats not sell books. We sold books in parking lots mostly, strip malls, vacation spots, Jewelry Row in Old San Juan and at the University of San Juan. It was interesting being in a tropical climate with avocados, champa flowers and fruit growing everywhere. In the early morning, the air would be filled with night-blooming jasmine so when we woke for our morning meditations, the fragrance would be permeating the atmosphere. The rains would come down strong and then disappear as they passed over the island. Once we went swimming in the ocean at a place called Condado. And get this. I was required to swim in those seven yards of fabric wrapped around me instead of being seen in a bathing suit! Insane, right? I got tossed around by the waves and dashed to the bottom of the ocean with such fierceness that I swore never to wear a sari again. But I did, just not in the water! Fuck that! The island people were certainly a different culture that we were not used to being around. Some were fascinated by us and

others hated our presence. We were fire-bombed by a group of students, throwing small explosives at us in the middle of the night. There were flashers around everywhere you looked. Men, just dying to show you their dicks! The temple president was a lusty little guy himself, desperately seeking sex, but the problem was that the men were supposed to be celibate unless they were married and the tradition followed from India that an arranged marriage would be more lasting and spiritual than a marriage we would choose for ourselves. Therefore, this guy pleaded with the leaders of the society to give him a wife. And they did. But when she arrived, she was so homely and I am sorry to say, not very attractive, that he rejected her, putting off the wedding time and again. Poor thing was devastated. She was so sweet and devoted to our guru. One morning there was chaos all around the temple. Everyone was refusing to talk, but yet everyone was whispering! I walked into the kitchen to cut some fruit just in time to overhear the sweet and innocent devotee had been raped. Some Puerto Rican man climbed up over the railing to the balcony where she lay in her room asleep and brutally raped her. He beat her till her face was purple with bruises and she would not leave her room for over a week. This was the temple presidentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s out. He could not marry a woman when rape was now a part of her persona. He began to treat her with disrespect as she gradually emerged from hiding until she finally flew back to the states, ashamed and jilted. My

heart was breaking for her. What could she do? On one hand she was given an unattractive material body and then she was refused a husband because of rape. Rusty and I were in so much shock there were no words. We honestly did not know what to say to each other, and what to speak of every one else. Unfortunately, cruel words like karma were being tossed around in a condescending way making me sick to my stomach. Is that your solution to everything that happens in this world? I thought, to place the blame on karma without any affection or compassion? What was this society I was involved in? Every day I found more truth and knowledge and love, I found more stupidity. We continued to stay but no boat was ever produced. I learned to cook from an amazing chef who was living in the temple. Daily I sold lots of books. Since I spoke Spanish, it was fun interacting with the different culture. Puerto Rico was quite charming in many ways. Old men would sit in groups playing cards or chess in the main square of town. They joked with us as we passed, chanting in ecstasy. Children were playing everywhere. The old women were dressed in colorful full skirts and ruffly blouses while the young girls were strutting in tight pants and short skirts. There were singers in the Square in groups of men or men with a beautiful woman to attract attention. In the shopping centers we would find very rich women with huge diamonds and rubies and emeralds decorating their necks, arms and hands. They were very proud of their wealth and it

showed. In the neighborhoods people would sit on their porches in the afternoon and rock or swing in chairs as others walked past. It was an outside lifestyle I came to adore as time went on. But the temple situation was not good, to say the least, so that over-ruled the charming atmosphere. There was one thing I would never forget. A number of new devotees were made while I was in Puerto Rico. Two older women were living in the temple and one couple with a young child moved in to live with us. We were taught the mouth was the dirtiest part of the body. We therefore always washed our mouths after eating and were careful not to touch our mouths to anything clean, like things for the altar. Therefore, it followed that we should not kiss our children! At the time, I was childless, so I didn’t think about it at all when one of the older women came to me and said, “Are you crazy? You think you should not kiss your children? Your children are the most precious thing in your life and a kiss is the way we show affection!” I was flattened! My heart must have stopped for a few beats, because I knew she was right and I began to doubt all these rules and regulations imposed upon me, not out of cruelty, but out of stupidity. I am quite sure my spiritual master’s mother kissed him, very lovingly. It was the most natural thing in the world. So what was this insane fanatical cult perversion that was happening around me? The jilted lady left the island and the temple president became more angry daily as he yelled at devotees in the community and snapped at us for the smallest things. The residents in our

community were embarrassed to have us around, so we were being treated cruelly in the neighborhood. I wanted to get the hell out of there and go back to the states! One day, when tension was high, I asked Rusty if we could leave. He refused to go saying we should follow the temple authorities and simply wait on the boat to manifest. I argued that for six months we waited and nothing happened. I wanted to go back to Atlanta. What were they doing anyway? There was no evidence of any effort being made to find a boat. And why should we follow this temple president who was definitely messed up? Maybe Rustyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s training in the military allowed him to accept instructions without question, but I was not of the same mentality. I made up my mind. I was getting out, Rusty or not. In those days, flying was different. Reservations were easy to get. You didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have to book three weeks in advance, and I knew I could arrange it. I started keeping some money aside I got from selling the books, lying to the authorities about a bad day in sales without much income. I made a reservation to go back to Atlanta, but was short around $50 for the trip. So, cunningly, I borrowed some money from a brahmachari saying I needed money to buy some things for the altar and I would pay him back next week. (never did, sorry to say) The night before I left, I stashed some things in a bag in the bushes outside of my apartment and very early the next morning when Rusty went to Mongal Arotik, I grabbed the bag and walked to the nearest bus station where

there were taxis or community cars. I got a car to the airport and I was gone! That was my first Escape. Yeah, thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s my first solution to a bad situation, I escape! Rusty was shocked, I found out later, but he knew where I was. There was no question. I was not willing to live in a place where I was disrespected and treated cruelly for any reason, as women were in those days, and I was willing to deal with the consequences to get out. If my husband was pissed, so be it. If the temple president in Atlanta was angry, so be it. He would not be able to send me back, no matter what he said. I made up my mind and I left. After arriving back in Atlanta, Rusty called to find out if I was there. Of course he was worried, especially after the young woman was raped, but he suspected my plot because I had expressed my desire to leave. Really, I think he was embarrassed he did not support me and he was definitely embarrassed that his wife left without him. It seemed a type of insult to him, although my leaving had nothing to do with my love for him. I simply needed to respect myself. Two weeks later, after the temple president in San Juan and the temple president in Atlanta reconciled the situation, Rusty returned to Atlanta as well. There was never a boat and God knows what went on after we left. There were such weird things going on while we were there! I felt bad for the devotees who stayed, but I needed to save myself and what could I do about others? No one was mad. They were only shocked. And I think I actually liked the shock value.â&#x20AC;Š

Chapter 8

A Divine Visit In order to maintain my sanity and devote myself to some sort of practice, I had to go deep within myself and pray for help. I did my duties, chanted my rounds, went to classes and did the work of collecting money with books and incense. I was reasonably happy by the end of two years, when it was announced my spiritual master was coming to Atlanta for a visit. At the time, I was working as a seamstress for the deities on the altar, (statues of different incarnations of God). I polished brass, made flower arrangements and designed colorful clothing covered with sequins, beads and jewels . I actually taught myself how to sew, with some help. I cooked for 75 people every day and sometimes 200 people for a Sunday Feast. I sold books and incense and did my devotional practice of meditation. I felt I was making some spiritual progress despite my disdain for the organization. And Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m not trying to say I was good and others were bad. I had my issues. Sex, as you will see later in this story, consumes me! Srila Prabhupada arrived in Atlanta on February 28, 1975. Everyone loved him. He was not the charismatic leader who was

a taker. He was a giver. He gave his life and he gave us something we all wanted desperately, and that was Krishna. He only wanted to give us truth, and it was obvious. And very tactfully he told us how we were in illusion, that we were not these bodies. “The reality never dies, he said, and the illusion never lasts. Our material bodies perish and yet our spirit soul never dies. Krishna is your eternal lover and He will never leave you, he said. Every other relationship, life after life, will end, but your relationship with Krishna will get stronger and stronger and stronger, ever increasing in eternity, knowledge and bliss, ‘sat, chit, and ananda’”. I wanted that for myself. I met Srila Prabhupada five times, as I said before. This meeting in Atlanta was an extra-ordinary one because it was my home temple. The night before he came I was up all night getting clothing ready, making sure his appointed seat, Vyasasana, was ready. The next morning the devotees were going to meet him at the airport but I stayed behind. That was ok. Someone was required to make sure things were ready when he arrived. I fell asleep in the closet, filled to the max with turquoise silk and peacock feathers as a bed, just before the devotees went to the airport. Someone woke me up after about an hour and a half of sleep to inform me Srila Prabhupada would be here at any second. I pulled myself together and made it in time to come face to face with him as he entered the temple room. He paused before the altar and observed the deities, then offered his respects by touching his head to the floor and went to his elevated seat for

a short welcome speech. While speaking, we witnessed what we thought was a sort of miracle. Tears shot from his eyes as if erupting from a volcano, but instead of up, they went straight out. He expressed his gratitude for all the book distribution we had done in his behalf and how his own spiritual master was also very happy. Wow! There are some moments in a personâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s life that are simply amazing and this was one. Devotees were there from all over the United States, but mostly from the East coast, Washington DC, Miami, Gainesville, New York, Pittsburgh and West Virginia. The atmosphere was surcharged with love and light and pure ecstasy as he spoke about the wonderful past times of the Lord. He was extremely happy with both the deities on the altar as well as the devotees who occupied the temple. We already thought we were special because we were leading the movement in book distribution and we knew this made him very happy. So, although he was humble, we were somewhat puffed up. He was translating Srimad Bhagavatam, Chaitanya Charitamrita and so many other books day after day and we were told he worked until around 2:00 am every morning, slept for only a few hours and then woke to preform his daily meditation. We felt it was our privileged duty to distribute those books. And no one understood how he could be getting only two hours sleep a night. We were all amazed at his super-human activities and were more than happy to distribute those books to the world. There in Atlanta, he showered mercy on us by thanking us for our

sacrifice and we were certainly feeling that our own auras were extending to all corners of the universe. Srila Prabhupada glowed like the sunshine. You can just imagine the energy given to him caused his aura to shine, but his own humility, gratitude, love and devotion were overwhelming. He was certainly not like any man we knew! Just think of it. Most men are pursuing career goals either in business, sports or whatever. Others may be priests or monks, but most were all admittedly not pure of heart. The false ego leads us to deplorable places and we all have that issue. But he did not. He simply served his spiritual master and took no credit whatsoever for anything, an unbelievable factor to those of us who met him. Unbelievable! Tears filled our eyes when we glanced his way. It was like only by seeing him our sins were washed away, we thought. I know those words seem fantastic, or even fanatic, but those feelings made us think about how people washed the feet of Jesus with their tears and at the same time became pure of heart. We literally felt cleansed and energized by his presence and his humility. Really, I cannot say enough about Srila Prabhupada. He spread Krishna Consciousness all over the world in fourteen years with some 10,000 disciples in North America and South America, Europe, India and even some islands. I could go on and on about how wonderful he was, but I think you get my message. He was the hope of every searching hippie, theologian and college professor. He literally pulled back the curtain of illusion and

flooded us with the reality of Love. What to say? I was hooked, cult or not! And my goal was to find a way to avoid going into the womb yet another time. I had my first initiation in San Juan, Puerto Rico, but my second initiation kept getting postponed. I felt like something was wrong with me and that I was not good enough to be a brahmin. The truth was, I realized later, I was more of a vaishya or business woman than a brahmin. Anyway, when Srila Prabhupada came to Atlanta I got the chance to get second initiation directly from him. I was ushered into his room covered in white sheets. He was sitting on the floor at a small desk and ask me to sit down beside him. That’s when I realized how stupid I really was! I was so enamored by his presence, I was simply staring at him as he showed me how to say the mantra and count by using the joints on the fingers of my right hand. He slapped my hand and said, “Pay attention!” Many years later I realized what a double blessing that was. One was that he passed energy or shakti to me by touching me. The other was that he gave me a direct instruction and as I look back at my life, I realized that paying attention was exactly what I needed to do. My mother called me scatterbrain since I was a child. She was right. One verse in the Srimad Bhagavatam declared, “This Beautiful Srimad Bhagavatam is like a light that will benefit all human beings by distinguishing reality from illusion for the welfare of all.” Srila Prabhupada was helping us to see this. I saw it on that

special day. One more Fire Sacrifice and I was officially wed to my guru and to God.â&#x20AC;Š

Chapter 9

The Battlefield Planet Earth, the Body and the Mind

Having thought I had surrendered, I realized I was now being introduced to the Battlefield, the place of war between my spiritual and material tendencies and desires. In the Bhagavad

Gita I learned that the Battle of Kurukshetra was an allegory for the struggle within each person to transcend the material world and connect with Absolute Truth, thus launching us into some kind of eternal Samadhi I knew nothing about. Two armies gathered on the battlefield of Kurukshetra , one army named the Kauravas, descended from a blind father, designating ignorance. The other army was the Pandavas, descended from a very paleskinned father, designating purity. Do not blame me for that one! Krishna is black, remember? This was simply symbology. Arjuna asked Krishna to pull his chariot in between the two armies so he could see whom he was to fight. Faint and despondent, Arjuna dropped his bow and said he could not fight to kill his cousins, uncles and friends, even though these relatives were trying to kill him and take over the kingdom of the Pandavas. The text of the Bhagavad Gita began when Krishna instructed Arjuna why he should fight, by describing the science of the soul, our purpose in this material world and how to get out of the struggle of material existence. He explained how we are not actually this body, but a spiritual being on a path to attain the Absolute and because we are not these bodies, our relatives and friends are unfortunately, temporary. Our real truth is eternal and spiritual. Therefore we should act according to Dharma or right action and then ultimately, surrender to the will of the Absolute. Krishna, the cousin of Arjuna, acted as the chariot driver for Arjuna who was known to be the best archer of the times. The allegory goes like this. The Chariot represents our Bodies, the

vehicle given to us on this planet as we fight the battle for our liberation. Arjuna or the Passenger represents the Soul, as in each and every one of us. Krishna, his Chariot Driver, represents the Supersoul or Spirit within each of us, who is not separate from us and who is directing us, fulfilling our desires and giving reactions to our actions. The Reins of the chariot are the Mind, our tool for controlling the Five Senses represented by the Five Horses. As humans, we constantly struggle with good and evil, sometimes evil winning out and sometimes good winning. The yogi or transcendental soul works to go beyond the good and evil to a state of transcendental detachment wherein peace exists with pure bliss. This goal, to simply allow the Supersoul to take control, is the perfection of human life. But like Arjuna when he pulled his chariot in front of his enemies and saw who he was required to fight, we similarly do not wish to fight this battle with materialism. Our belief is that we will find our pleasure outside of ourselves. We do not want to ‘kill’ our material desires. We want to fulfill them! And besides, most people would say, “You can’t get rid of your desires.” The answer to that was to change our desires to something spiritual. That is why we need help in the form of a guru or prophet or teacher like Jesus Christ. But it is important to remember when Arjuna was in the Chariot, Krishna was his charioteer meaning, in our struggle, God will always be with us. The five horses represent our senses, the

organs for experiencing material pleasure. Sometimes our senses run wild, eating too much, drinking too much, hearing criticism of others, watching things that will drain our energy and even allowing smell to drag us into restaurants to eat unclean things. Fortunately, we have been given a mind, or reins (of the chariot) to reel in and control our senses. As a yogi practices, over many years and many lifetimes, he will eventually use his intelligence (buddhi) to control the senses, surrender to the Supersoul and thus achieve the goal in pure Samadhi, transcendental bliss, wherein there will be no more need for a material body and we will no longer need to incarnate! And that was definitely an exclamation point because that is what I wanted! I did not want to go once again inside that womb. . . or tomb and again in another womb! I wanted to stop the Wheel of Samsara, of Birth and Death. Dharmakshetra and Kurukshetra, the place of both Dharma (right action) and Kuru (blind material action) are both one and the same, our body and mind. Our body and our mind are battlefields. As I tell this story of the journey after the vision, the search and the surrender, I have to say that I consciously struggled for many years in this lifetime and only God knows how many other lifetimes, but for some reason, I thought I was getting very closer to understanding this truth. I thought to myself, if I actually do understand, then I feel like it will be the beginning of the journey instead of being somewhere in the middle of it.

Most people take scriptures literally. I always have. But things were changing in the world around us and I was beginning to see things differently. Was Krishna actually here on this planet? One teacher says that Krishna was actually here on this planet and another says, “It just appeared that way. Krishna appears in Vrindavan like a movie projector casts a film on a screen. Krishna never has a material body and never comes in contact with material nature.” If so, then where did the stories come from? What’s up with the footprints? Some say the stories came from the sages who could see through their hearts. Others say to see Krishna, your eyes had to be anointed with love. So evidently, some people actually did see Him while others did not. I liked that idea, but what did I know? In India, there is a place north of Delhi named Kurukshetra where the battle between the Kauravas and Pandavas took place. The story was part of the Puranas (history) of India, so my guess is the story is real, but it is also an allegory describing a battle to defeat ignorance. It was still going on every day in each and every person on this planet, and interestingly, Earth, anagrammed, is Heart and Earth is the perfect school for souls to experience and grow in their hearts. It was also described as our Battlefield, or one of our battlefields. What I did know is there was a battle going on within my mind and my body. I did not want to die! Did I already say that? But neither did I want to grow old. I could see that peace would ensue if my mind were not agitated. And why was my mind

agitated? The same reason as yours. We simply want someone to love us and without that eternal love, there is something missing within each one of us. So our mind and our body are battlefields, accepting and rejecting at every moment, things for our pleasure of course, but especially accepting and rejecting the opposite sex. We fall in love for some time when we meet someone compatible and attractive but as time moves on, we see the faults in our partner and judge and criticize and things just become ugly. And all this battle going on in the mind causes depression. One year I was in Colorado with my kids where people were a step above most in the United States, as far as I was concerned, regarding dharma. They were so honest, they were constantly laughing at themselves. They’d say things like, “I need some Zanex.” “What?” I said. “Mom, everyone is depressed!” Then they would laugh about it. It was a joke! Everyone was joking but they all knew it was true. We’re all depressed! Now you may say, “Not me. I stay busy and won’t let myself get depressed.” But just listen to those words! A yogi doesn’t stay busy or get drunk to keep from being depressed, he just meditates on truth or a mantra and is in bliss. That level of bliss, however could take a lifetime to achieve, depending on where we were spiritually in our last life, right? But it is obvious I was on a battlefield and I was at war with my mind and my senses, especially since I was making an effort to turn my lead into gold! This was the real alchemy.

I’m was told by people who knew a lot more than me that our body needed to be finely tuned for our spirit soul to easily leave and transcend this world. But yet I saw all around me people were clogging it up with chemicals like Coke and Pepsi. And then because of boredom, we drank way too much wine and vodka. (That was my case.) And there were those who didn’t drink but ate until they almost popped, bulging from super-sized meals. And some people were what we called ‘stoners’. Always fucked up on pot. But, here’s the thing, we were not perfect. And just like all the wonderful material things we desired in this world which would go away naturally when a higher taste developed, we needed to make some small efforts here and there to develop a higher taste, better fuel for our bodies and our minds. Back then I could see, both my body and my mind were a Battlefield. Actually, I was told that the process to ascend started with the body first and then went to the mind. According to Vaishnava philosophy, as well as other belief systems, the hardest thing to transcend is something called Pratista. That means when you reach a certain point in your self realization and advancement, you want adoration or praise. The example was given of a priest or evangelist who developed a congregation who dearly loved him. As time went on and his congregation grew, so did his ego until his fall down was inevitable. He or she would start spending all that glorious money his followers graced him with on himself. Pretty soon he

would be wearing silk suits, getting a doctorate degree, driving a new Rolls Royce and holding his head up high. In America, we saw this behavior often. These people not only ended up in prison in Texas, but it would be my guess that they would be imprisoned in this material world for a long time. This pratista was referred to as â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;the last snareâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; in the effort to give up our material desires and unite with God. And believe me, Pratista or the desire for honor is a material desire! The war within required reconciliation. Trying to become pure in heart was a battle I would need to fight if I were to enter into the real world of eternal pleasure with the Divine. It was the battle I would have to fight if I did not want to take birth again and again and again.â&#x20AC;Š

PART II

DANGER AT EVERY STEP

Chapter 10

Fraud, Bigamy, Murder, Embezzlement, Prostitution, and Pedophilia, as well as Grand Theft, Drug Smuggling, Arson and Copyright Infringement. The list goes on. The criminal activity within Iskcon was astounding! As a naive Christian girl from the South, I actually didn’t know much about what was happening with the ‘Heads’ of the religion. I only knew what was going on in my immediate vicinity, if that. Only in the early nineties did I read about the crime within our movement in a book called “Monkey on a Stick” by John Hubner and Lindsey Gruson. They claimed to have researched all their data extensively. As I looked back, I could understand their information was probably correct. Religious institutions, be they Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Muslim or whatever, capitalize on the innocents. It’s really sad when good-hearted people are taken advantage of in the name of God due to their genuine faith. Some would call us stupid and I wondered myself if that were true. What went on behind closed doors in many churches during the age of Kali was often horrible.

It was enough to make you want to turn away from all religion forever. The longer I stayed in the association of the Krishnas, the more I began to see that our religion was no different. Rumors flew like wildfire when some nefarious event happened. The temples bulged with hundred dollar bills as devotees sold thousands of books daily and collected money all over America and the world. Illegal things were happening in the name of God causing many devotees to lose faith and leave the movement. You know why I stayed! And, I saw no criminal activity on the part of my guru, although he did authorize bigamy and the use of firearms to protect ourselves, if necessary. Kirtananda, a man living in the Bronx, NY, was one of Srila Prabhupadaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s first devotees and Prabhupada had great hopes for him. He was devoted and intelligent, having graduated from Columbia University, and was already challenging many scholars to debate within the intellectual and metaphysical communities in New York. But he would soon disappoint our guru with trying to start his own path of Krishna Consciousness instead of following the traditional path brought by Prabhupada. He and his life partner acquired some land for a commune and wanted to do their own thing but were not successful. He therefore, turned the community around for Srila Prabhupada with himself installed as its leader. But in the years he ran that community, there was more crime done than in all the temples

put together. The community was called New Vrindavan in West Virginia where I ventured to first meet Srila Prabhupada. Devotees in his community were required to eat ‘oat water’ for breakfast. That’s oatmeal water, for those of you who don’t know. And they drank ‘mung water’ for lunch while their leader ate opulently with fresh fruit, basmati rice and fresh veggies. He required both women and men fraudulently collect money from outsiders by telling them all sorts of lies (all temples were doing that) and he even condoned the beating of women, prostitution, arson and he authorized murders. On top of that, rumors spread he was molesting young men with the young boys’ headmaster. Many years later he was sent to prison for fraud and conspiracy to murder. Evidently, that was all that could be proved. He was fined $250,000 and sentenced to 12 years in prison. He served eight. He paid 2.5 million to an attorney for an appeal, but the appeal was lost. I happened to become acquainted with one of Kirtananda’s ‘yes men’ in 1974. In those days the different temples organized what they called ‘traveling sankirtan parties’, later known as ‘scamkirtan’. The term sankirtan actually meant congregational chanting, but what was going on was far from that. In the name of selling books and collecting income for the temples, all sorts of criminal activities took place. This one man I am speaking about, Dharmatma, was thought to be a pimp of sorts, although nobody really knew for sure, but he said he knew how to get his women making money and he knew how to keep them happy. He was a

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real sociopath, in my opinion! I first met him when he brought his traveling party through Atlanta and made an effort to get my husband involved in his scheme. He would get a woman alone, have sex with her and convince her she would be much happier if she was getting sex on a regular basis. He would give them, one by one, undivided attention until they were thin, beautiful and happy and they would collect hundreds of thousands of dollars for him and the New Vrindavan community. His affect on these women was amazing as they all dropped 20-30 pounds, glowed from pride and no one really knew what was going on. He ate opulently while they rarely ate at all in order to keep thin. At the same time, he yelled at them and created a Stockholm Syndrome amongst his patriots. He married three of the women and I’m not sure how many children he fathered, but sex with all his women was known by everyone. Most men would have loved to have known his secrets, but if he could fuck that many women, my guess would be that his secret was stamina! I knew something was different when he visited Atlanta, but couldn’t figure it out. That is, until my husband told me this man tried to get him to do the same thing. Then, one of his women, whom I knew from Atlanta, told me they were making money from occasionally selling sex. Occasionally? I could make a lot of money in a day, but they could make a lot of money in less than an hour. She told me they would go into bars in the evenings to ‘collect’ and come home with lots of cash, way more than we made on a daily basis selling books. They were encouraged to dress in very short skirts

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and unbuttoned blouses to expose their breasts and easily attract any man within reach. Since Srila Prabhupada condoned bigamy as part of an effort to keep women protected and happy, all was accepted as being ‘authorized’. Bigamy worked for the men, but not for the women. Men, being men, all began to consider having more than one wife, especially if the current wife was not interested in sex. The new wife was ecstatic, the old one horrified, but for some odd and insane reason, these women put up with this system introduced by our beloved spiritual master. Of course it was only about sex and everyone knew it, yet the process was allowed to go on. One afternoon in Atlanta, my temple president asked me to deliver a message to one of those men with a new second wife and believe me, I was naturally curious. I ran up the stairs to the back of the house where I knocked on the door and someone asked who I was. After saying I had a message from the temple president, the new wife came to the door completely naked with a sheet wrapped around her that I could see straight through. This is a spiritual ashram? I thought. Here I am trying to be celibate while I was married and I got a good look at lust at its best. I was angry and even jealous but most of all I just didn’t buy it! I’ve got to get out of this place! I thought, What the hell is going on here in the name of God - Bigamy? But I stayed. And there was no shame from the participants. After all, the spiritual master said it was a good idea. And it was true. Would I lose respect for my guru? India was known for it’s barbaric treatment of women, and he

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seemed to agree with the status quo. He said many times that women were less intelligent and needed to be ‘protected’. I sadly overlooked his lack of understanding of western society, his misinformation about women and their brains and his cultural differences, just as I overlooked the crooks and thieves among our group in order to keep practicing Bhakti yoga. FRAUD was becoming incredibly popular amongst devotees. They were becoming perfect con artists. It started with telling lies in order to collect donations and led to something they called ‘the pick’. After around 4 months of my being in the ‘movement,’ as we called it, a meeting was called to teach devotees how to sell books and make a lot of money. Two followers, Tripurari and Gopa Vrindapal came to Atlanta and began to share their techniques. They were completely vague in the meeting but required that we go out with them individually and watch them work. So I did as I was told, as I seemed to be a good money maker and was obedient, but I knew something was a little fishy since they refused to reveal their techniques at the meeting. We loaded into the vans and headed out to the airport with cases and cases of newly printed Srimad Bhagavatams. I was assigned to Gopa and shadowed him as he started his process of book sales. At first, he was working so fast, I didn’t really catch on to what he was doing, then I caught on. The system was, give them a book, pull out a wad of ones and ask them if they have a twenty so that you can get rid of some of your ones. Then you would take their twenty and ask them if they could give the

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whole thing. If they said no, you would give them back one dollar only. If they complained, you would give them back another, but basically you tried to keep their whole twenty. Some willingly gave it, saying, “Oh what the hell, just keep it.” Others were extremely upset. But it was all done for the benefit of Krishna, so it was considered ok, so they said. The day I went out with Gopa he approached a young serviceman who was going home for the holidays. And when I say young, you know what I mean, probably around 19 years old with pimples on his face and the attitude he recently learned in the service, to give respect. When this young man gave Gopa a twenty, he said he could only give five. Gopa refused to give this young man the proper change. The poor man said it was Christmas and he still needed to buy his sister a present. This was Christmas time, for God’s sake! Gopa still refused to give the man the proper change. I watched as the man teared up, slammed the book back into Gopa’s hand and left (without his money). I confronted Gopa saying, “What are you doing? Why would you hurt someone to distribute one of Srila Prabhupada’s books? This method is not Krishna Conscious!” He responded by saying the person would benefit from giving money to Krishna. He explained that even by his holding this sacred book, the poor young man would achieve liberation. I was appalled and horrified! I walked out of his company never to respect him again, and this, my friends was called the ‘change-up.’ It was basically short-changing people, a part of what became known as

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‘the pick.’ ‘The pick’ was also about knowing how to charismatically pick a twenty from a man’s wallet or simply to help someone ‘give it up,' especially foreigners at airports who were not familiar with our dollar. One woman became expert at pointing at twenties in a wallet with a great big smile on her face and saying, “Yes, give that one” in Japanese. These devotees became perfect con-artists for Krishna. I called it FRAUD and the people who were doing it were no better than thieves! It is no wonder 40 something years later, this organization is still filled with crooks, because all the temple presidents, Governing Body Commission members and so-called renunciates who called themselves Sannyasa, condoned it. I recalled everything that happened and the criminal activity within this religion later in life and was extremely sad and embarrassed to have been a part of the organization. And as I recalled these incidents, I remembered the hieroglyphs on the temple walls in Egypt. Pictures were shown of Horus tipping the scale at the weighing of the heart. If the heart was too heavy, the dead would fall to the ‘underworld.’ It would be evident bad things were done and thus the heart was heavy with guilt. But if the heart was light, the soul could ascend to a higher plane of existence. The priests, therefore, sold ‘shakti’ dolls to innocents to counter the weight of the heart, so at the time of their death, their scales would be balanced. Priests convinced buyers that the scale would be weighed evenly if you bought more shakti dolls. The more they

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purchased, the better their chance would be to ascend to heaven. Horus would tip the scale in their favor. Fraud! So what that meant is, the very first criminals in this material world were priests! And I’ll bet you are not surprised! These priests were known as the Amun Priesthood and the hieroglyphs showed the priests wearing sikhas (the pony tail in back of the head) and wearing clothes exactly like Indian dhotis. Sikhas are still worn by today’s Vaishnava devotee men! It made me wonder! Anyway, I refused to do it. I refused to do ‘the change-up,’ and I refused to collect funds by any method called ‘the pick.’ The process became more about getting people’s money rather than selling books. My associates, temple president and elite members of the organization were trying to get me to do it for Srila Prabhupada. But I would not. My thought was that if I have to lie or steal to sell a book, then that meant, I had no faith in God, so what the hell was I doing there? It was evident these devotees did not have faith or they simply showed no respect for other human beings. And actually, they didn’t have any respect as they always called non-devotees karmis with a disdainful inflection in their voice. But, for some reason, I did have faith and I did have respect for other people. I was able to sell the books by my enthusiasm alone, mostly, although I would manage to avoid the real truth when I needed to. I was no saint! The most ‘elite’ members of this Iskcon society that I spoke of became very famous for collecting the ‘most’ money and selling

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the ‘most’ books by this ‘change-up’ method. For years they continued to do this to unsuspecting travelers in airports, vacationers in amusement parks and patrons as they rushed inside the stadium where their favorite football team was about to kick off or a concert where their favorite group was about to play. Fraud came in many forms those days. Devotees printed their own sports paraphernalia to sell at games. They developed techniques like, “Excuse me sir, but I have to arrest you for being intoxicated with football.” Then they would lie about a charity. The person would laugh and then pull out his wallet. These devotees became expert with words and were quickly learning how to con people, never revealing the real reason they were asking for money. I began to realize the men who taught us were professional con-artists and we were learning how to play the game with their lessons. How the hell did these men wind up in a spiritual ashram? I couldn’t figure it out. Had they been picking on the streets long before they found a spiritual master? Well, Krishna said that anyone could be a devotee. Wow! Didn’t realize it went that far! In the end, some devotees were jailed for ‘copyright infringement’ as well as fraud. In Germany, the whole temple was arrested. Not sure how that turned out. When you were making as much money as we did, you could afford an expensive lawyer. I heard sometimes known felons would hide out in ashrams and religious communities, so the FBI would be fooled into not looking in that direction and I did hear this was a common

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occurrence in West Virginia. Kirtananda, from the West VA farm hired personal ‘enforcers’ to do his dirty work. One was an exmarine who spent time in Viet Nam and had no problem killing people when it was deemed necessary to please his leader. He was eventually convicted and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for two murders. He was known to have killed others, but only two were proved. I couldn’t believe it! God was I naive! Many new devotees came to Krishna in those days, in ecstasy to have found the truth of god, but left as soon as they were told to go out and sell books by crooked methods. I hated to see some of those souls go, but I totally understood! Again I thought to myself, I’ve got to get out of here! These people, who may have had a sincere desire to know God, were going crazy! What are they thinking? I can’t imagine that a good and kind God would have mercy upon such individuals. But I was wrong. The end justified the means, they believed, and God didn’t seem to care. Srila Prabhupada once commented that Krishna sometimes used maya or illusion to achieve his goal, so it appeared as if that was happening. These cheaters were obviously in illusion and yet, our God allowed the whole process to continue. Was it because God could spread Krishna Consciousness all over the world and at the same time give blessings to people who would normally be doomed? That was the rumor. Even though the thieves and murderers got a chance at liberation, who knows how they would be dealt with in the end. And by the end, you know what I mean.

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God had mercy on me too, and I was no angel, as you will see later. EMBEZZLEMENT was huge amongst leaders. The ‘worker bee book sellers’ were working day and night collecting funds for the temple. We sold sandalwood incense, Tootsie Roll pops and smelly carnations, getting at least a couple of bucks for something we paid a few cents for. Making a profit was not the problem. It was lying about the donation that was fraudulent. We sold Football stickers, pretending we actually cared about the teams that were playing, and you know it was easy to identify these guys as they all were wearing their colors of orange and blue, red and black or gold and green. We sold incense to concert goers, all in the name of George Harrison and Bangladesh. We learned, from our ‘trainers’ that the women should approach the men and the men should approach the women. It worked, of course. We were also trained that the men were actually more soft-hearted than the women and we found that to be true, as well. When we approached couples, we were taught to approach the woman first and win her over because she was in control of her man, then get the money from the man. We sold whatever we could to keep the temple afloat and to help our spiritual master with his goal to spread Krishna Consciousness throughout the world. The money was flowing in by the hundreds of thousands and we were sending money to India to build temples as well as expand our own real estate.

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In the meantime, temple presidents, sannyasis and others were pocketing money for themselves. When asked where they got new sweaters or expensive shoes, a Rolex watch, a Mercedes Benz, etc., they would credit their parents for their good fortune or as time went on and some of these guys acquired disciples of their own, they would credit their disciples for the expensive gifts, and that might have actually been true as some of those people were extremely stupid, I am sorry to say. One devotee who was a temple president in France and later became a guru after Srila Prabhupada died, was known as the Sun King because he would only eat off of plates made of gold. He bought new cars and had plenty of women. He even kept a BMW waiting on him when he would visit London. What he kept in his pockets, no one really knew. Many devotees left the movement with cash in their pockets, new cars and new a business. The whole thing made you think twice, yet you could not let their pathetic lifestyle dissuade you from trying to practice your service as purely as possible. So, again, I stayed but I was beginning to think, Exactly who was stupid here, them or me? MURDERS were documented in New Vrindavan (again in West Virginia) and were described in a book called “Monkey on a Stick”. It was all about money, as you would guess, but it was also about keeping Kirtananda in power. One devotee was shot 12 times, stabbed numerous times and still wasn’t dead when the killers finally covered his head with plastic to smother him. He was buried on the land and was found when one killer confessed

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to the murder. Murder was necessary to make an example of devotees who kept money from the farm’s leader. The victim’s wife inherited $50,000 and they jointly decided to go in the nursery business, supplying stores in Pittsburg with flowers, near to the farm. That one devotee became New Vrindavan’s ‘Monkey on a Stick’. The name came from plantation owners in India who would kill monkeys when they invaded their banana trees. They would impale them on a stick and keep the stick on the property to scare the other monkeys away. One was sacrificed to keep the others at bay! There were approximately six murders in New Vrindavan, thus bodies were found everywhere on the property. When everything finally came to an end, it was found that all the funds collected by fraud added up to $5-6 million a year. That did not count what was embezzled and hidden in Kirtananda’s buried treasure. Moving on from New Vrindavan, there was more. One sannyas was extremely popular with all the devotees. He was tall, very good looking and radiated the most charming smile. He loved to sing the beautiful mantra songs and had a beautiful voice. He would invite devotees to his traveling bus to sing with him late into the evening. When he told stories, he spoke in a way that captured the hearts of everyone who listened. He was adored by both men and women. Then one day he simply disappeared. A rumor was quickly spread that he desired to give up his sannyasa status to be with women again and Prabhupada said

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that for a sannyasa, that was worse than death. It was told that such a man should commit suicide. Other devotees said the young sannyasa, Vishnu Jana Maharaja, went to Prabhupada and asked if he should kill himself and Prabhupada said emphatically “NO,” but he should continue trying to keep his vow. Then Prabhupada explained, “No one in this Hare Krishna movement is actually a qualified renunciate. Therefore, suicide would be useless.” He could not fall down because his status was never elevated in the first place. Everyone, at the time, knew that one of his associates named Tamal Krishna took over the traveling party of Vishnu Jana Maharaja and took control of the bus as well as added many other traveling buses. He was the business man. Things began to change. There were no more late night kirtans and the joy seemed to be waning like the moon. I was in Miami, Florida shortly after the shift in power happened. Being extremely intuitive, I watched the two interact and I could see a definite sadness in Vishnu Jana Maharaja and a proudness in Tamal Krishna. I did not know if it was because Vishnu Jana wanted to be with women or if it was because this other devotee took over his traveling bus, but my guess was that it was probably both. I personally saw Tamal Krishna walking shortly after Visnu Jana disappeared with his head held high, his nose in the air, completely pacified as though he were given the position of Pope, as young devotees fell at his feet.

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After Vishnu Jana disappeared, the rumor spread quickly that, â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;he committed suicide because he fell down to sex desire. So his god-brothers gently helped him to his death by holding him down in the Ganges until he was drowned.â&#x20AC;&#x2122; The incident was never investigated. No charges were filed against these men and they all protected each other by not divulging the people involved! I wondered if there was a statute of limitations on murder in India, but I knew government officials would never investigate because Iskcon was such a well-thought of community responsible for a huge amount of tourism and money. Besides, what could they prove? The men, if that was how the event actually happened, agreed to protect each other. We would never know. Later we would find out many so-called renunciates and supposedly celibate brahmacharis and sannyasis were regularly fucking their young women devotees also. So, cast the first stone? But this beautiful sannyasa was definitely not the suicidal type. As devotees got over the shock, his associates appeared to be filled with pride, as they were becoming popular, having lost the Star of all the Renunciates. I knew it was murder! But I could not prove anything and it seemed no one else cared to try. Truth was, most devotees disagreed with me, but my intuition was very strong, so I had no doubt. The whole rumor was accepted as truth and devotees went on with their lives as if nothing ever happened. No one even questioned that devotee men admitted holding the man under water in the Ganges. (Murder or Assisted Suicide?) Those men should be in prison! All of them! Devotees

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acted as if it were ‘sad, but ok’. The whole thing made me so sick I could have cried! Sounds like lots of things made me sick in those days! PEDOPHILIA was also attributed to Kirtananda in New Vrindavan and his Headmaster in the boy’s school, as well as devotee men teachers in India. There was something we learned some time later when we began to understand the culture there. India was not like America. Men could not just have sex with women on dates before marriage. Their value system was quite different from ours. Therefore, the men had sex with each other, even if they were not gay. And they had sex with their young students. It must have been easy because young disciples were taught not to question the teachers and to never say anything or Krishna would be very displeased. But in time, just as in the Catholic church, the stories came out. And evidently there were many, I was told. I wasn’t there. In 1992 the Governing Body Commission of Iskcon, headed by Tamal Krishna, made a resolution to “Never tell the Indian Government of the crimes against these children.” So it all kind of just disappeared. I was told that safeguards were put into place to prevent some of this type of behavior from ever happening again. What these safeguards were, I did not know. Just a note: years later, Tamal Krishna met his fate on the road from Mayapur to Calcutta as his taxi flew head on into another car and he was killed. Sorry, but he finally got Smeared across

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the road. I had no mercy. This was the fault in my stars. Jupitarians love justice! CHILD ABUSE was the most mind-boggling thing for me. How could spiritual women and men beat their children and belittle them? Women were told to put their children with a temple daycare and go out to sell books. The women who ran the centers often were mean to the children. Also a school was set up in Dallas, Texas where both devotees and non devotees sent their children thinking they would get an excellent spiritual education as well as learn their abc’s. But teachers there were reputed to be horrible, professing, Srila Prabhupada said, “Spare the rod and spoil the child” giving them justification for hitting. All this was exposed after some time, but unfortunately, it was too late for the kids. I have a few friends now who are in there early 40’s and they have horror stories to tell of how they were mistreated, beaten, shoved into closets for punishment as well as other methods of righting the children’s wrongs. And where were their mothers and fathers? Regarding theft, a devotee named Guru Kripa, according to “Monkey on a Stick,” developed a plan to steal Rolex watches and diamond bracelets while picking in Japan. He would take them to Calcutta to fence for rupees, then turn the rupees over to Srila Prabhupada, bragging to his friends about his accomplishments. Laguna Beach temple engineered a drug-smuggling racket, bringing in hash and heroin from Pakistan and Afghanistan. So,

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add Grand Theft and Smuggling to the list of things done to please our beloved gurudev. I’ve got to get out of this place! I thought. Many of you knew this sort of thing was going on anyway. You were definitely right when you were calling the Hare Krishna movement a ‘dangerous cult.’ It was very dangerous, both psychologically and physically. My journey was trying to figure out what I promised in the womb and how to keep that promise in this lifetime when all around me was Fraud, Bigamy, Prostitution, Murder, Child Abuse, Grand Theft, Drug Smuggling and Embezzlement. How did I cope with the injustices along the way? How could I deal with the reality that I was a participant in a cult and what would happen to me when I was about to die? Was I going back into the womb once again? Was I really on the right path? So there I was, concerned that I made a promise in the womb I was not going to be able to fulfill because I was mixed up in this practice which was smack-dab in the middle of a gangster ring and a dangerous cult with murderers and embezzlers as authorities. I wanted to toss the sari in a garbage can and have my memory wiped clean from experience I remembered while on purple haze. I wanted Out! In the end, however, Srila Prabhupada spread the name of Krishna all over the world. Criminals became liberated by doing their criminal activities for god. The innocents (there were no innocents) learned many lessons. The spiritual master didn’t know everything. Krishna did. And we still loved devotional

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(Bhakti) service. We were feeling ecstasy, each and every one of us, each and every day!â&#x20AC;Š

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Chapter 11

How Do You Know When Youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re in a Cult? Right from the beginning the general public was calling us a cult. Our leaders convinced us we were not a cult because the teachings were handed down from a line of saints going back some 5000 years. (of course all religions have some sort of story like this) After some time, I decided to do my own investigation on what makes a group a cult. There are lots of different opinions about the characteristics of cults, but all have similarities. A guru or main leader is worshipped. This tradition was more religious in the case of highly qualified saintly people such as Jesus Christ or other prophets and may not have necessarily denoted a cult, although there were Jesus and Mohammed cults existing for thousands of years. And who was to say that some branches of the christian religion were not simply a type of cult with their own made-up rules and regulations? When local leaders or charismatic people take control without saintly qualities and their followers worship them, then trouble will definitely ensue. Mind altering practices like meditation are accused of being cult characteristics, however, meditation has been practiced by sadhus, renunciates and priests as long as

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religions or philosophies have existed. If an individual practices his/her meditation without being forced to do so, then there would be no connection to a cult, but when it is demanded in a group atmosphere, it can be considered a cult characteristic. Although our Guru was not the charismatic, controlling leader found in many groups, and although meditation was practiced since the beginning of time, there were still many obvious characteristics of a cult I saw on a daily basis. The leaders of this group, both individually and collectively took an age-old Indian religion or path of spiritual realization and turned it into a cult. And by leaders I do not mean the spiritual master, but definitely his closest followers who were desirous of fame for themselves. All of the characteristics listed below are common in most cults. They were certainly present in the one where I found myself an unwilling participant.

Characteristics of a Cult and Practices Within Iskcon

Exclusiveness - (We believe that only we have the truth) - Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve got to admit, I was extremely happy to have found a description, name and even location of the God I was desperately seeking, but the profound and adamant declaration that, only we know the truth made me nauseous. That simple truth alone made me ashamed. Ashamed because basically it was disrespecting the intelligence and sincerity of everyone else on the planet. This was

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just a little too arrogant. And how dare we say, we are the only ones? In my opinion, that made us look very stupid. Philosophers like Plato, sincere seekers of truth, saints like St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross and God only knows how many others in the world have achieved union with God. What makes us think we are the only ones? I was embarrassed to be associated with such narrow-minded people.

Submission - (To the leaders of the group) - In each temple a president was appointed and everyone was subservient to him. If you questioned authority, you were severely chastised, but never asked to leave. They liked their numbers and didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t want anyone going anywhere. There were never any women leaders at that time and I would say that mostly the leaders were good men, but as I spoke of before, some were known to be embezzlers, chauvinists and seekers of fame. And even if they were good men, all of a sudden they were elated with their power, especially over women. Husbands were forcing their wives to be submissive as well. For a man to have a woman be submissive to him in America in the â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;70s was a manâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s dream come true. Right? In addition to the temple president, the patriarchal organization decided on a GBC or Governing Body Commission to allow Srila Prabhupada to translate books instead of manage people. We were required to strictly follow whatever resolutions those men made at the yearly meetings.

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Us Versus Them Complex - (In this case they were the karmis and we were the devotees) - The description of a Karmi is one who acts only for the benefit of his/her self. In other words, people who enjoy the fruits of their labor. Because of this, they will have to suffer or enjoy the fruits of their activities. Devotees of demigods would worship their particular gods for some benefit. This is known as Karma yoga. Devotees, on the other hand, are working for Krishna, taking only what they need and giving the results to Krishna. In this way, they freed themselves from karma. We were proud we were devotees, but the sad part was that many devotees spoke of karmis, or non Hare Krishnas with extreme disdain. They would use an inflection in their voice as they spoke the word, karrrrrrr meeees!! Little children were mimicking their parents without even understanding what they were saying. UGH! When I had children of my own, I decided to keep them away from such people and never taught them the word. Years later my son was around a devotee family when their son asked if our bread was ‘karmi bread.’ My son asked, “What’s karmi bread, mom?” He thought it was some kind of rye bread or something extra special. I was so happy he had not been influenced by that cult mentality of us versus them!

Shame and Guilt - (Control of the members actions by use of shame and guilt) - Well, the method used was if you went back into the world again you would once again become a karmi and would be caught in illusion forever. They made it seem like you

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would drown if you left the movement and you would never be given the chance of redemption. Basically, they made an effort to scare the shit out of you and it worked! If you wanted to leave, you would be cornered by more than one devotee and preached to until you gave up. We were certainly brain-washed.

Isolation - (Keeping members from family members and others who don’t believe) - This action basically started a Deprogramming movement that spread through not only our movement but others as well, as cults were cropping up everywhere in the seventies, like the Moonies, for instance. The principle was simple. If you listened to your parents you would leave the movement and lead a ‘normal’ life. You would miss the greatest opportunity in many lifetimes of searching, to know Krishna. So we needed to be isolated.

Cognitive Dissonance - (Critical thinking was not tolerated.) You must accept the doctrine without question. This was sooo true. You were criticized as if you were less intelligent if you questioned the doctrine, and you were considered to be a traitor. You would not be allowed to take initiation from the spiritual master and you were basically shamed for asking questions that appeared to be doubtful.

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Gender Roles - (Women were treated as less intelligent) - This was horrible within the movement. What can I say? I am a woman and it was very disappointing and degrading to be treated as some sort of baboon. Men and women have their different strengths and their brains work differently. One sex is not better than the other, they are only different, both are necessary and beautiful and compliment each other. But this critical behavior comes from insecurity. I began to recognize the symptoms by observing the behavior of men who thought they were superior. My own husband was even beginning to treat me as an inferior. It was pathetic!

Imprisonment - (Not able to come and go at will) - I gave up my car when I joined the movement and was shuttled around whenever I needed to go somewhere. Therefore, I was required to get permission and sometimes beg for the privilege of using a temple vehicle to do some personal shopping. This would usually be for some personal items like toothpaste or tampons or maybe even just a simple spool of thread to mend my clothes. When I went out, I was usually accompanied by another devotee.

Separation of Husbands and Wives and even children to gain control of them - Yeah. They did that, too. At times, Rusty and I were provided with our own room, but sometimes we slept in separate ashrams (technical name for the home of the guru). In that way, the temple president could have control. No doubt,

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there was a practical reason for the separation, as well. Only so much space available. Children were sent to day care very early in life so that the women could work (not unusual in any society) but the problem was, it was not our decision. It was forced on women. When the children became school age they were put in a religious school called a Gurukula where the kids were brainwashed further with cult techniques like us versus them or cognitive dissonance and gender roles.

The end justifies the means (in certain practices like making money) - You can lie for Krishna. Some devotees even thought it was ok to steal (shoplift) using the excuse that, everything belongs to Krishna. What a load of bullshit! Shoplift? I was traveling with some devotees in San Diego when we pulled into a Ralph’s store. I mentioned earlier that I needed some kind of pain ointment for my legs but I would get it another time. One devotee brought out a bag of groceries where he stashed some pain ointment and who knows what else. He told me he stole it for me. I refused to take it. Didn’t we have the philosophy after all that God would take care of our needs? Why should we steal? And wouldn’t a karmic reaction to that theft soon ensue? Some devotees thought they were beyond karma and honestly, I don’t think they really even cared.

Pre-occupation with bringing in new members and making money - That seemed to be the goal, but not necessarily a bad

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one. After all, Srila Prabhupada translated all these books and he asked us to help him distribute them to bring people to Krishna who had been suffering life after life and were ready to give up the material world for self realization. This was actually glorious and made me very happy. But it did not make me happy to try to force someone to stay when they saw the injustices all around them.

Nevertheless, many things made me happy in those days by making an effort to help my spiritual master spread Krishna consciousness. I loved cooking the Sunday Feast for hundreds of people. I loved cleaning the altar and taking care of the deities. But I had to face the truth that with all the crime and violence going on within the organization, as well as leaders competing for power, I was lodged right in the middle of a mind-controlling cult. Still I asked myself, what the fuck? Why am I doing this? I knew. I remembered what it was like to die and take birth again. Here we go again. I was never going to forget it! It was described in Srimad Bhagavatam, just as it happened to me as I laid on Sandy’s living room floor and that was why I continued to stay, but what was I to do? I did not want to be in a cult, but I definitely was! And I promised Krishna in the womb that I would serve Him and I thought, this was how I am supposed to transcend this material world, at least in one way, so I stayed. One thing on “this is how,” please let me explain. This was the only place in the world, at least that I knew about, where I could

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actually hear about the past times of that little blue guy who had the balls enough to call himself God. (I think Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve said that three times now! It just blows me away!) Anyway, if I left, I would not hear about Him again. Or at least the cult made me think like that.â&#x20AC;Š

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Chapter 12

Deprogramming As I mentioned above, a whole class of people called â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;deprogrammersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; sprang up as a result of all the cults in the early seventies. In Atlanta, we were hearing rumors from other temples where some sweet devotee lady who was snatched by deprogrammers, was taken to a hotel room and questioned and preached to for days at a time until she gave in and went home to her parents. Some devotees fought to get away from these trained professionals and they were able to escape through a bathroom window or another method. For those of us living in the temples, we never knew who we could trust at the time. We were protected when we went out to distribute books by a type of body guard and we were always on the look out for anyone suspicious looking in our direction. One morning in Atlanta, we were singing our daily mantras to the spiritual master and our deities when a car drove up and two men got out and walked to the front door of the temple room. The room was covered from left to right with windows overlooking the lawn so all the devotees could see what was

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happening. One of the men was the father of a young devotee man who said he just wanted to talk to his son. I couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t hear the conversation, but saw the results plainly. The young man and the two older men walked out to the car parked at the curb. One of our devotees who happened to be a black belt in karate, walked out slowly behind them. As the two men and the young devotee got closer to the car, they grabbed the boy while a third man in the car opened the door as they shoved him in. My karate friend was on them within seconds and injured the boyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s father with a kick in the back as he pulled the boy out and brought him back to the temple. Needless to say, we stopped our ceremony and all were watching with fear in our hearts as they pumped at twice their normal speed and our faces turned a pale white with shock. The boy was happy to be rescued, but who knows what happened down the road. My memory is vague, but I believe the boy left the temple around six weeks later, never to be seen again. Was he successfully kidnapped? Maybe, but I think he left of his own accord in the middle of the night. Is that not weird? To think you had the most wonderful spiritual master in the world who was completely selfless and all you wanted to do was to help him in his mission and yet you were lodged in the middle of a mind-controlling organization, and you felt like a saint one day and a sinner the next. It was enough to scramble the brain, and my brain was getting

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scrambled more and more daily or should I say, brainwashed by the cult. After that incident, many classes were given explaining how these parents were actually demoniac (because they wanted their children to come home and lead a normal life) and because they were against Krishna. But these people were not demoniac at all. They were just normal moms and dads who were worried about their children and had absolutely no understanding about the mission we were on. My poor parents came to visit me one day saying, “Why can’t you be normal? Why don’t you call us or come see us? We love you and just want you to be ok.” I was tense the whole time they were there, thinking they would try to kidnap me. When I looked back, I realized at the time I was 24 years old, married and the law would not allow them to forcibly interfere with my decisions in life. I loved them, however and hoped they would be somewhat favorable in time. That day, I invited them into the temple to see our altar and meet the devotees but they declined. I am so sorry to say, I hurt my parents, tragically. What would I do if I had to do it over again? I pray I would never do that to anyone ever again. God bless their poor hearts. Sometimes you hurt the ones you love. You have to wonder if their pain is their karma, as our own suffering is our karma, but that didn’t make things better. As time went by, of course, I did go home to visit. By the time I finally went back to Birmingham, I had been studying these ancient scriptures for a few years and

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was pretty fixed in their conclusion, so I felt no fear they could take me away. And in the end, I never actually left Jesus Christ. I could never leave my first guru, the light of my life, who taught me to forgive others and ‘do unto other as I would have them do unto me.’ I would continue to celebrate Christmas in the future and go to different churches to pray. I actually made it a goal to visit cathedrals all over the world as I traveled and have been to Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, St. Patricks in New York, Notre Dame in Paris, Sagrado Familia in Barcelona, and the Cathedral de Avila where St. Teresa attained union with God in Avila, Spain. Sometimes a parent has to trust in the way they bring up their child. My parents brought me up to be kind to others and to put into practice the teachings of Jesus Christ and although I admittedly was somewhat of a failure, I tried daily to do the right thing. Everyday I repeated the simple prayer my father said when he sat down to eat, “Thank you for these blessings we are about to receive, in Jesus Name we pray, Amen.” Deprogrammers eventually went away as they were seen to be some kind of ‘gangsters with their own agenda.’ The parents turned to them because they had no one else. Men were beginning to make a profession out of the process. They were not priests or family friends, they were muscle men, and were being exposed for their scandalous pasts. But those parents were desperate. Some kids left home at the age of 16, 17 or 18 years old, leaving school or just barely finishing high school. A young person at the age of 16 is not capable of making major decisions at

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that time of his life. Think of how recklessly a teenager will drive when first getting their license! Really, a parent needs to at least try to control the behavior of their children until they are of the legal age of 18. Better is 21 when a young adult has completed his or her education and can have a little more maturity under their belt. These were my realizations. I felt so bad for those parents, back then. But you could understand from the news that times were changing. The LSD generation continued to spread and things would never be the same. Strange religions were being introduced into the mostly naive American communities, the word Karate was commonplace, when only 30 years previous, it was foreign to most. The rock and roll scene brought about a generation of rebellious kids and Chinese medicine was becoming very popular. Young people were experimenting with all kinds of natural herbs and medicines and psychedelic colors were exploding in art. Parents were beginning to accept their fate. Life as they knew it was changing. Sometimes I thought people from the South, like my parents, had the hardest time. Not being from California where love and peace was the vogue of the day, they were astounded. They came from a situation where they were forced by the government to give up their bigotry against blacks and treat them as normal people. Now, Presbyterians like my parents were seeing their child turn to a foreign religion where people wore strange clothes and clay markings on their foreheads. They engaged in strange

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rituals and as far as everyone could see and were worshipping idols, something strictly against the Christian religion, ‘having no other Gods before me’. My parents were sure I was taking myself straight to hell. The devil had gotten control of me and there was nothing they could do. It broke their hearts, but they got over it, slowly, I thought. Actually, I might have been wrong. Maybe they never got over it, but learned to tolerate it. They tolerated because they saw that in spite of all the idol worship, strange language and unusual dress, their children were still good people. Once we went home again, they knew we would never change our belief, but they were comforted by the evidence that we were still good. We were not out on the street stealing (well, not all of us) and we were good parents (well, not all of us). Krishna certainly changed for me forever, but I would always feel bad about hurting my parents. Some of the young people joining the movement actually brought their parents along with them. There was one family where all three sons joined and their parents eventually came around as well. That was exceptional. Most were overwhelmed with grief. My mother had one good thing to say, “At least these people are clean. I have never seen such clean young people anywhere as they are here.” And, in spite of her disdain, she actually liked some of the food I brought her. “Bring me some more of that sweet rice,” she would say. And when she died, she actually came to me in one of those half awake/half asleep visions and

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thanked me for my courage to devote my life to God. That was real. It was not a dream.â&#x20AC;Š

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Chapter 13

Love is Letting Go of Fear “Love is Letting Go of Fear” was a book I read in the seventies by Gerald Jampolsky. This philosophy was guiding my every decision in life, long before I read his book. Here was the thing. I was afraid of being forced back into another womb and having to do the process all over again. However, I could not let fear dictate my behavior. Sure, I remembered what it was like to die and to take birth again and that alone was enough to scare the shit out of Hercules, however, letting fear dictate my behavior would be a sucky, horrible way to live and you can’t truly be yourself if you’re trying to be somebody else, right? In spite of knowing what was going to happen to me, I could not fully surrender to simply loving God and giving up material desires. Neither could I let these patriarchal leaders control my behavior with fear. Like everyone in this world, my biggest desire was for love and sex. I started masturbating with my next door neighbor early in life, maybe at the age of 10, I’m not sure. From the very first time, I experienced an amazing orgasm and knew I had found the most incredible feeling in the world. I masturbated everywhere, on every hard surface where I could

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rub myself and with any tool or vegetable I could find. My neighbor first turned me on by ‘playing doctor’ with me where she took some plastic toy tools and played around with me until I was dripping wet and arching my back in ecstasy. I could barely contain my scream as she finally rubbed me into a frenzied passion of thrusting, heavy breathing and wet squirting. Masturbation became the thing I wanted to do most in the world! My lust was overwhelming me and it was My secret. I experienced something amazing and it was making my youth much more interesting and worthwhile. By the time I was 20, I was married, a virgin but craving, and as time went on I realized I was craving more sex than my poor husband could give! One job I worked at in my twenties was as a Leasing Agent for a property management company. There, I met a fellow employee that told me she had sex with her boyfriend two to three times a day. I was only getting it two or three times a week. I was incredibly jealous! “How did you find a guy like that?” “He’s Latino,” she said. Well, I didn’t know any Latinos, but I sure wished I had one. And later in life I did, finally! And yes, he did live up to the reputation! Thank God! I found my sex buddy! And he loved me! But this was long after Rusty. While living in the ashram, I restrained my sex desire because (I was supposed to have sex only for children) and, yes, I was really stupid at the time or either I was absorbed in devotional service to my guru and Krishna and the thought of sex was in the background of my

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mind. For years I gave up sex, only having an occasional rendezvous with my husband. I also gave up meat, with good reason. I became a vegetarian before ever meeting the devotees. We followed four regulative principles, 1) no illicit sex, whatever that means, 2) no meat, 3) no gambling and 4) no intoxication. Intoxication was not a big deal for me. I smoked pot and did LSD and drank lots of booze, but they were never my priority, as they were actually part of the reason I joined the ashram, feeling them to be just not enough to satisfy my soul. Mostly drugs and alcohol were something to divert my attention from being bored. So giving up drinking was easy. I could take it or leave it. Another regulation required for living in a temple and taking initiation was to give up gambling. Well, I was too cheap to ever gamble in the first place. I never wanted to give away the money I worked for and I never won anything in my life. So those were the four regulative principles one followed to become an initiate. I followed them with not much problem, only a little. But as time went on, the fear of going again to the womb would not stop me from fulfilling my desire for the pleasures of the flesh. If I gave up sex, even though I was desiring it immensely, out of fear of taking birth again, it would have made me miserable. Who the hell wants to live a life full of misery? I certainly didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t! I wanted sex and I finally told myself, fuck it if I have to come back again, over and over and over again to yet one more womb or tomb, for that matter, Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m going to get laid!

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So I figured my success in this lifetime would probably not be happening. I was definitely going to have as much sex as I could possibly get. Fear was not gonna stop me. I began to realize, fear would not allow you to have love, as well. Fear is the actual barrier repelling the courage to get love. It will stop you from exploring the depths of your soul. It will stop you from getting out of a bad situation. It will stop you from associating with the type of people who can help you move forward to reach your goal. It will stop you from learning. It will stop you from loving yourself. It will stop you from saying no when no is the only solution to a peaceful situation. And as I found out many years later, it will stop you from reaching the highest goal of Raganuga Bhakti or love and devotion with extreme attachment to the Supreme! So after around three and one half years, Fear did not stop me from leaving!

I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t belong here!â&#x20AC;Š

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Chapter 14

The Escape I left one morning after realizing Rusty was trying to get the other woman thing going on or the other woman was trying to get him going on. Honestly, I did not know what was up, but I made up my mind to leave. And that was not why I left. Actually, I was very sad to leave him no matter what he was doing. I spoke with him about the possibility of us leaving the movement together, but he did not want to go. (Same as in Puerto Rico) One very unfortunate thing was that he was becoming way too influenced by the cult and was treating me with a condescending attitude. I forgave him because I understood, but I could no longer take that kind of behavior. So, yeah, I was somewhat pissed at him and gave up trying to talk to him about the situation. My astrology chart said I was â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;unfaithfulâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; yet I never cheated on any man, ever! I finally understood what it meant. I was never really in love with just one man for any length of time. At first I gave my love, then I would get disappointed and it went away. But I was not leaving Iskcon to seek love from another man or at least I did not think I was. Truth is, that may have been part of the reason I left, because Rusty and I lacked in communication

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and sex. (Remember I said, even as newlyweds we only had sex two or three times a week?) And the trust connection between us was lost because of the cult. I therefore knew I needed to leave on the sneak, otherwise, he would try to stop me. So for weeks I let the subject lie and simply kept going to the airport to distribute books as if nothing was happening. But I was planning my escape the entire time. And this time I began to embezzle money. I started taking a little every day so it would not be noticed and carefully hid it in our home. At the time we were living in an A-frame cottage on the Tennessee farm. I think there were five A-frames on the farm where married couples lived. In the downstairs there was a wood stove, a couch, some chairs and a few bookshelves. It was not a real home in the sense that I spent time decorating it. It was not mine. It was just a simple ashram-style room. Upstairs was our bedroom where we put a mattress on the floor. We basically lived upstairs in the winter months, as the heat rose from the wood stove downstairs to keep us warm. Our clothes were stacked in milk crates that someone stole from somewhere. The only decoration was a stained glass window hanging I bought that produced colors as the sun entered the room. Cows wandered outside on the rolling hills of the farm and feasted on the clover we planted for their enjoyment and our milk. We were careful to keep all wild onions out of the pastureland because onion milk tasted horrible! Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d had it!

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Wildcats were heard near the window at night. Once I actually saw one on the ground below as we heard her scream and awoke with fear. Those hills were full of critters, some showing themselves and some hiding. We carried water from a well to our home and washed our clothes by hand. When we went to the bathroom, it was either in a chamber pot inside, an outdoor toilet or the woods outside. That has got to be the worst thing about simple living. I could never get used to the bathroom situation. Later I found living on a boat could be similar! The bathroom thing was not fun! I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t cook in our little A-frame and we always took our meals from the temple kitchen. There I cooked breakfast for about 15 people on a wood stove. One devotee chopped and split wood for the cooks so every morning we could easily build a fire and make bread or cook some type of kitchri (a dahl and rice mixture) or some sweet cream of wheat. Since we had cows, we had plenty of milk, cream and butter. Three times a week we would churn the cream to make butter and we did that with an old fashioned butter churner, bobbing a stick with a masher at the bottom up and down in a tall, thin, wooden tub. It was fun to see the butter forming in pieces or small blocks we gathered and mashed together for later use. We used the buttermilk that was left for making bread and soups. During season, when the blackberries were ripe, we would make blackberry ice cream. The cream would be so thick that butter pieces would be floating on top.

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On weekends I would cook a Sunday feast with some of the other devotees, as was traditional in all Krishna temples. I would cook chapatis, dahl, rice, vegetables and sweets all on the wood stove. It was amazing how peaceful living in the country could be with simple living and high thinking, as my spiritual master called it. We grew our own wheat for bread and when the wheat fields were full and green, they glowed in the sunlight. Occasionally, when the crop was young, we let the cows into the wheat fields to graze as that was their favorite food. Purple clover was their second favorite and it grew everywhere. Creeks flowed through the property so there was never a shortage of water. Tennessee gets a lot of rain. Wild flowers grew along the streams and fresh peppermint was in the water everywhere. If two people were in love, then this could have been a wonderful place to raise children. But I was not feeling love from Rusty, only the influence of the cult on his saddened mind. Rusty said I was just being critical and I would surely pay for my doubts. I could not let fear control my behavior. I could not just believe what I was told. If you are religious, you do what you are told. If you are spiritual, you do what you feel is right. I was spiritual and he had become religious. Day after day I drove from our farm to the Nashville airport and sold books to many different people, gradually holding a little back for myself. Johnny Cash bought a book from me one day without question. He simply put the book under his arm,

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grabbed his wallet and pulled out a twenty and said, “Thank you, ma'am” as he walked away. Such a great soul, I thought! I met Chubby Checker, who wasn’t chubby anymore and Dolly Parton who was too busy to talk. The Nashville airport was an exciting place to work. Back at home I pretended I changed my mind about leaving. I did my work and rubbed my legs as I was in so much pain at the end of the day. I was always walking and selling books. What I didn’t realize at the time was I had arthritis. Later in life I found out that I was suffering from childhood arthritis from the time I was 10 years old. My parents took me to several doctors who explained I simply had growing pains. They were wrong. By the time I was in my 40s I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis and realized it had been part of my life since I was a child. But who knew back then that children could have the disease. Rusty thought I was being over dramatic and needed attention more than medical care. He was wrong. That’s the thing about relationships, with anyone, we don’t really know what the other person is thinking or feeling and therefore we simply judge or speculate about their condition. We are usually wrong. We don’t believe the other person because we don’t feel it ourselves. Too bad! Since Rusty had become indoctrinated by the cult he quit treating me with respect and treated me more as an unintelligent woman who needed guidance and protection, and when he spoke to me it was to condemn me for the thoughts I was having about

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the institution. He would preach to me that I should have more faith and everything would be all right if I only followed the leaders. What a shame! I began to see what being brainwashed was all about. I knew I was brainwashed, but upon realizing it, that’s when I wanted to get out. He didn’t seem to know it. I was seeing right through the patriarchal system, the embezzlement shit, cult domination and covering my head bullshit. I could have cared less about whether or not a man got a hard-on when he looked at me. I was seeing child abuse everywhere and I was fried! Worse than an egg! More like a lava rock! So, there we were, living on the farm that Atlanta set up near Nashville, Tennessee and I was traveling to the airport every day to sell books. I was stashing money and planning my escape. Rusty was studying construction techniques because he was put in charge of building the temple on the farm. He knew nothing about building, but he was determined to do the right thing and went to the library day after day checking out books, studying how to build a structure. And in the end, I went back years later to find he had done an amazing job! But it’s easy to hide something from someone when they don’t communicate with you and when someone doesn’t communicate with you, there is really nothing you can do about it. He was born on August 20th, putting him on the cusp between Leo and Virgo, so his personality traits were an enigma. He would sometimes appear like a Leo, lion and lamb and sometimes a

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Virgo, critical and energetic. He never talked about dreams of the future and things he wanted to achieve. He seemed to have become simply a follower of the religion. Whatever the religion said, we did. I wished he were a truth seeker, as I was, someone who was philosophical, and kind and horny! Rusty had become someone different from the shy man who didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t want to go to the temple with me when I first went. He was brainwashed through and through and was proud of his male dominance. It really turned me off when I witnessed his behavior. But the sad thing was that I lost my marriage, my partner in life and I was losing myself, so one day, I just left.

THE ESCAPE

I had to escape, remember? I was in a cult and was not allowed to leave with any dignity. I was controlled and told if I wanted to leave to â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;enjoy the material world,' I was in maya (illusion). Friends, leaders, shit, everyone would try to talk you out of it, but I knew I had to leave. I was trapped in this society where I was working my ass off making $200 plus a day, turning the money over to others and losing my happiness, little by little. Rumors were flying around about leaders who were taking the money and running. At first I thought it was their maya or illusion and they would suffer for their actions. (That was the cult talking in my head.) Then I began to resent it and resent that

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my hard earned dollars were going to some asshole. When I finally left I reserved only around $300 for myself, sewn into the waistband of my pants because I was going to hitch-hike, plus an additional $100 in my bag. The morning came and my plan was firm. I was driving to Nashville, taking three other women with me, so I had the keys to the car. Under a collection of books and an old blanket in the trunk of the car I hid a tent, sleeping bag and a backpack with some clothes, toothbrush, etc packed away securely and I was ready to go. I walked into the airport with the three other women, our book bags over our shoulders, ready to start distribution. As soon as we walked in, I gave the keys to the car to another devotee and said, “Here, can you hold the keys while I go to the bathroom and then maybe you can drive home?” “Sure,” she said, never thinking a thing about it. I just zipped out of her sight quickly and of course she never realized I was headed for the exit to the airport. I went straight to the car, having purposefully left it unlocked, grabbed my things and left. As I looked around, I remember thinking, “How was I going to get from the airport to the freeway to start hitch-hiking?” You know how airports usually have these long entry ways leading up the Departure/ Arrival sites and after that was another long road leading to the freeway exit? Finally, I decided to take a cab. My heart started thumping and I could barely breathe as I realized I would have to go back to the entrance of the airport to get a cab and a devotee

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might be there looking for me. But why should they? So I took a deep breath and made my move. I got in the cab and asked the driver take me to the freeway. He kept asking where I was going and I said, “I’m not sure what exit it is. I’ll let you know when I see it.” After about two or three exits, I told the driver to pull over and let me out on the shoulder of the freeway, that I was going to hitch-hike from there. He was shocked, of course. He didn’t want to let me out on the freeway saying, “But miss, that would be very dangerous!” However, he took an exit and let me off at the top. I paid his fare and from there, I walked back down to the freeway and stuck out my thumb, scared of everything, but knowing I made the right decision. I was free at last! Was I going to hell? Probably, but what could I do? It didn’t take long. I was cute and sexy, 26 and a half years old, and was immediately picked up by an older man in his red pickup. I was lucky. I could have been raped or worse, killed, but God must have been protecting me because I only met nice people along the way. And where did I plan to go? Honestly, I wasn’t sure exactly but was thinking about the mountains in North Carolina. I just knew I had to get the hell out of there. I didn’t want to go home to Alabama and hear the rants of my parents so what would I do? I think my reasoning was I would simply camp out for a while and be in solitude until I decided on my next move. I packed a map in my backpack and I headed towards the Appalachian Mountains.

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I owned a really cool two-man tent and a good down sleeping bag I bought before I ever joined the Krishnas. I packed a small stove and one pot to cook in and also eat with. I spent the first night sleeping in someone’s front yard. Their home was actually across the street from a small campground where I planned to go, but there were guys camping there and drinking and before I knew it, they were knocking at my tent asking me to come out and play. So, frightened I said, “Sure, but hold on a minute I need to check with my friends who are across the street.” They weren’t suspicious, but I was still nervous. I went up to the door of the home and knocked. When they came to the door, I told them the situation and asked if I could put my tent in their yard close to their home. They agreed. They stood on the porch and watched as I went back to get my tent and made an excuse to the guys. “Don’t be a party pooper!” they said. But I was in no hurry to get raped and when people are drinking, well, you just never know what might happen, and I was already traumatized from the day’s adventure. At this time in my life I was getting pretty good at lying, lying to save my soul and lying to save my life, not lying to pump up my prestige, and I needed to rest that night, so I lied. The next day I traveled from Tennessee to North Carolina and landed in a small town called West Jefferson, north of Boone where there was a university. There I met two cool guys who seemed totally harmless. They were at the store in town, loading up on beer and groceries as they were renting a cabin in the woods. Seemed their goal in life was to stay drunk and stoned. I

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didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t care. They invited me to stay and I felt rescued from the hell I had just escaped! In the front yard of the cabin were two huge cherry trees. Down the hill to the right was a nice hippie couple who came to the mountains on the weekends. Up the hill was an older guy who was an amazing artist and he grew beautiful flowers, marigolds, purple petunias, fuchsia, climbing vines, pink honeysuckle and huge marijuana plants. They also heated and cooked with wood, living simply off the land with a full garden of peas, tomatoes, zucchini squash, onions and rhubarb for pie. Life changed after that. It was sweet and simple. I got hooked up with one of the guys, a sweet ex-Viet Nam serviceman and relaxed into their lifestyle of pot, nature, herbs, organic vegetables and natural healing. Hippies were all over the mountains in those days living the natural lifestyle, outdoor toilets, heating with wood, making lots of cherry pies from the loaded trees and smoking lots of pot. I cooked for my new friends and told them about my cult experience with the Krishnas and they were both amazed by the philosophy and shocked at the cult. The artist friend told me I was a hypocrite, telling them about the Krishna lifestyle and how it was superior, but yet I was doing something totally different. He was right. I was being hypocritical. I could not see the forest for the trees. I was totally confused. Then I got pregnant and did not want to have an abortion, so nine months later, a child came and nothing was ever the same

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again. I had a beautiful little daughter, as sweet as those cherry pies herself and I felt it was my duty to tell her about God. So, explaining myself to my new lover, I left, for a while. But this time I was not running from, but running back to the temple. I wanted my child to know Krishna. I wasn’t sure how I was going to accomplish that, however, because I didn’t really want to live in the temple again, so I went back and forth from my lover to the temple because I also wanted my child to have a father. By that time, the temple could have cared less what I did. Truth was, they could see I was independent and would no longer do what I was told. I was no longer a money-making asset. They knew by then they could have no more control over me, so they didn’t try. A woman has to take care of her child. Nevertheless, by this time, I was messed up! Really! I was confused about life, children, men, religion, work, chauvinism and everything. And really, I don’t think any of the authorities at the temples actually liked me. What was I thinking? Did I think they would just forget I left and forgive everything? I was never really welcomed back. I was a traitor and I gave birth to a child with a man who wasn’t my husband. My poor parents, who were already devastated by my joining a cult, were now trying to be supportive of my being a mother with a child that was not from my husband. Having a child makes you realize lots of things about your own parents. And my parents put up with a lot! I was seeing their good side when before all I could see was their lack of understanding of something other than

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Christianity. That was my stupidity. But I knew their bigotry and wide-spread prejudice would probably never go away. When my daughter was born, things changed with both them and me. They wanted a grandchild and I began to realize they knew much more about children than I did. They showered love on my daughter like I couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t believe. In that way, they were great. It was like a buffer came between us. Yet I would still have to deal with their bigotry and self righteous behavior in an area of the country where no one wants to change. But I was changing.â&#x20AC;Š

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Chapter 15

The Struggle with Reality Larry and I were living in Charlotte, NC, where my daughter was born. That was cool, but I missed the devotees. What can I say? I missed devotional service even though that service was situated smack-dab in the middle of a cult, and regardless of the fact that the cult was patriarchal from the top down. When you are wrapped up in a society where truth and beauty and wisdom are the center of every conversation, you just get bored with the mundane talk of everyday issues about material pursuits. Think about it. What do we actually talk about every day? I’m a foodie, so surely I’ll be talking about my newly created sandwich with goat cheese and sun-dried tomato tapenade. You are a stock broker, so you will be talking about where the market is going or the price of gold. We talk about our jobs, weather, vacations, children, money, cars, government, shopping, the price of groceries or gas and so on and so on. No doubt all these conversations are interesting, and can even be useful, but I’ve just got to say, I needed more! I needed to talk about who I was, where I came from and where I was going. I needed to talk with

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other people who were thinking about evolution of the soul instead of the latest leather jacket craze. I really needed someone I could talk to about Krishna. No one in the work-a-day world wanted to hear anything about Him. As soon as I would try to start a conversation, people would shut down or change the subject. So, off I went with my daughter and my daddy man, first to the Tennessee farm, then to the Mississippi farm, then back to Tennessee, then we went home to my poor parents in Alabama. What I did to my sweet child by dragging her around, only God knows. She doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t remember. When we arrived in Alabama my father said we could stay in their cabin on the lake near the Tennessee farm. I grew up going to that cabin every weekend since I was five years old. I learned to swim and water ski in that lake, and I also learned to play badminton in our back yard. It was definitely my second home and I wondered why I had not thought about going there before. So, my daughter, my daddy man, Larry and I moved there and tried to make it work. While we were there, Larry went to school to study a trade. We both decided we needed to go to therapy. I was messed up from being in a cult and he was messed up from Viet Nam. The therapist got me started in the right direction. She gave me books to read and we talked about cult practices as my eyes opened, letting me know I needed to make some resolution, or find a balance between my practice and my material life.

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I thought the therapy was good for Larry, but the doctor prescribed some serious anti-depressants to help him cope. Larry was an extremely intelligent young man with an off the scale IQ of around 130, however he could not figure out what he wanted to do with his life. In the service he was a linguistics expert but out in the real world, he was clueless as to what sort of occupation or career he would pursue. He was a sweet guy with a smile that spread across his face. Although he was an Aquarius, he looked like a Leo with a strawberry-blonde mane that curved around his cheeks and beautiful green eyes. But he was very disturbed for some reason. He seemed to have extremely low self-esteem maybe caused by childhood factors. But he liked his therapist and I liked mine. Things were going pretty good. We were a young family and we were happy. Larry taught me the basics of photography and we spent lots of time roaming through the woods, taking pictures of wild flowers, bugs and special herbs I wanted to learn about. On Sundays, we would go to the farm to hang out with devotees. Rusty was gone by that time. He took off to southern Alabama to live with relatives and work in property management not long after I left Tennessee. I felt like I was finally reaching some balance. I planted a large garden, studied and collected herbs, dried and canned vegetables and played with my daughter who was the heart and soul of my life. Sex was almost non-existent with Larry. I just couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t seem to get the whole enchilada. Happy home life, temple nearby, but no sex.

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Then one night, as was my usual habit, I laid in bed with my daughter reading her a story and nursing her to sleep. Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s nothing like seeing a contented sweet child fall away from the breast and just give it up. I gently got out of bed, so as not to disturb her and walked to the kitchen passing Larry as he lay sleeping in the next room. When I got to the kitchen, I opened the refrigerator and got out a little milk so I could heat it to help me fall asleep. I poured the milk into the pan, turned the fire on low and went to the table where a short and concise letter lay in front of me. He was sorry, he said, but he could not continue to cope with the uncertainty of his life and the guilt he felt for not being psychologically sound for his child and me. Beside the letter was an empty bottle of pills prescribed by his therapist. My heart stopped! It froze, if only for a few seconds, I swear I did not breathe. I ran to his side and shook him and tried to talk to him. He muttered some gibberish I could not understand and then passed out again. I shook him again. Nothing. What was I going to do? We were in the mountains, in the country with only a few people around. Would they help me? I had no clue, but I had to find out. I ran to the neighbor up the hill and told him the story, as my daughter lay sleeping in her bed. He went back to the house with me and between the two of us, we got him down the stairs of the house and into the back seat of the manâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s crew cab pick up truck, wrapped in some blankets with pillows raising his head. Then, I ran back to get my daughter and

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put her in a baby carrier and we took off to the closest hospital, around 15 miles away. The doctors there got him stabilized by pumping out his stomach and inserting saline or something to flow through his veins. But he was unconscious. The emergency room personnel put us in an ambulance and we drove with the siren going full blast to a larger city over an hour away. Lights were flashing, sound was loud and both my daughter and I were traumatized as Larry lay unconscious. Poor guy. I felt hopeless and guilty myself. Had I done anything to cause this? I am a strong woman and maybe he felt inadequate around me. Suicide is so horrible because it affects everyone around the person under the spell. Did I make him feel guilty about not being a natural devotee himself? Did I make him feel he was supposed to be a vegetarian when he could have cared less? Was it my fault? I found out later this was not the first time he tried something foolish like that, but it still did not relieve my guilt. He came out of the coma after around 24 hours. He was embarrassed and ashamed, and I was scared to death. The doctors didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t do much but give him more drugs in that stupid hospital. He said the only thing they did was send him to a group therapy session for one hour a day. The rest of the time he was free to do whatever he wanted. He was in the hospital for a while, drugged on thorazine while some doctors met with him occasionally. I hated those doctors and I hated myself. I was feeling that I got what I deserved for leaving Rusty. I was sad for Larry, but no doubt, I was selfishly sorry for myself and my

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daughter. He managed to get better, to go back to his school program while he worked, and to keep up his therapy. But I was starting to question myself. What in the hell am I doing with this man? He tried to commit suicide, for godâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s sake! Would he try it again? What will this do to my daughter? Will she become like him? I was completely freaked out and afraid inside, feeling I could make only bad choices for men in my life and I needed to stop trying to get others to be spiritual with me, so once again,

I Escaped!

Larry drove to work one Monday morning as I gathered our things and my daughter and I left for California. It was planned, of course. We first went to the Tennessee farm where we met another couple and their son to travel together. We worked our way across the US selling incense in parking lots to buy gas and food. We were eating cottage cheese and chips and driving long hours at a time. We got stuck in a snow storm in Flagstaff, Arizona, a charming situation to be in, so we got hotel rooms and hunkered in for the night. The next morning I put chains on my car and told my friends I wanted to keep going. They wanted to stay. I picked up a hitchhiker and smoked a joint with him and felt for the first time since Larry made the effort to off himself, that I finally relaxed.

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I drove through Phoenix and arrived in Los Angeles where the temple gave me a place to stay for a while. I put my daughter in kindergarten and went to the airport to sell books. I was allowed to keep a portion of my sales for myself. Soon enough, I had earned enough money to get our own apartment and some used furniture. I took in a roommate to cut my expenses and things got gradually calm. I had moved around so many times since my daughter was born, being completely imbalanced and unstable, that I made a vow to stay where I was for at least two years before I made another move. And I did. My daughter was getting happy with school and young neighbors to play with. I got a job with a floral design company and bought a sweet little MGB convertible allowing my daughter and myself to take rides up the coast and through the mountains on weekends. I loved California! I loved the ocean and felt for the first time ever, I was home. I was making new friends, my daughter met other kids to play with and life was good. Sometimes on weekends, I would put her on the back of my bicycle and we would ride to the beach to stay the entire day. We were both happy and calm. For me, at the time, men never stopped in my life. My sexual desire was always on fire! I think I exuded lust! When I first arrived in California I hooked up with a man named Damodar. He was good looking and brilliant. He was a writer, artist and a cinematographer. I swooned! He was a real intellectual, but a bit of a nerd! We spent a year together having lots of sex and philosophical conversations until Madhukar came along.

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Madhukar was an Italian man who worked as an Architect. He was a very good looking man, well-groomed with a nice short beard and dark brown eyes. He was stalking me from the house next door and was determined to make me his own. He did. I should have known right then that stalking is a bad sign, but I couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t believe how badly he wanted me. And do you think that relationship worked out? Fuck No! He was controlling and dominating and that didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t work for me at all. But I married him and after three years in California I found myself in Colorado and splitting up with legal husband, number two. Notice a trend here? I Escape and find myself in the arms of another man, then back to a temple and on and on. I was sure I had lost my mind. People were right! Cults would mess up your life. But what should I do? I remembered what it was like to die and take birth again and I made that promise to Krishna and, I was actually attracted to Krishna and Bhakti Yoga, the yoga of service and devotion. It was much like the Christianity I was raised with, except that this yoga cult knew who God was and described how He was blueish in color, wearing yellow garments with a peacock feather in his hair and fish earrings swinging from his ears. He plays a flute that charms and mesmerizes everyone who hears it. He has 64 wonderful qualities, four more than any other incarnation. Evidence proved that He was the Supreme Personality of Godhead! And He, Himself declared He was the source of everything to his dear friend and devotee, Arjuna. I was

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done for. I could never leave Him. But I wanted have some kind of normal life at the same time. Colorado seemed like a good place to raise kids, so I stayed. As a single parent, I was pretty lucky. I got a good job as a secretary to the president of a bank, sent my daughter to a Montessori school and led a simple life. I visited the temple in Denver and even hosted a few devotees in my home from time to time as they traveled through. Simultaneously, I worked as a Resident Manager for the apartment community I lived in. I started my own wholesale food service business and was doing very well. Then the desire for a relationship struck again. I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t think it every really goes away for a woman. This time I was looking for a husband and father for my child. I met a man who was friends with the devotees, but not in the movement himself, so I thought that would be a perfect balance. He was kind, we had mutual friends in Florida and it appeared he was at least favorable towards the Krishna movement. I married him, he adopted my daughter and together and we had a son. He was a great father, but he was an ex-pharmacist with a drug problem. It didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t seem to matter, however, as he was a responsible man and a good provider. He was working as a baker when we met, saying that baking was mixology, just as was pharmacy. Later he went back to pharmacy and worked as a hospital pharmacist, but after some time together, he didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t want to hear about Krishna anymore. How could I not talk about truth and self realization? That was who I was! But apparently he only

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went to the temple because his good friends were there and because he liked the food. He didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t really want to learn about KC (Krishna Chandra). I sorrowfully kept my mouth shut, but tried my best to convey truth to my children. At this point it would seem I had completely forgotten about my promise in the womb, but I had not. It was always there in my mind. I camped a lot in those days, being so close to the beautiful Rocky Mountains. I set my tent up by a stream where I was not afraid to drink the cool, rushing, clear water in the creek just outside my tent. I collected wild strawberries and made a vow to identify at least one new herbal plant, either edible or medicinal, each time I camped. I discovered wild celery, lettuce substitutions, and herbs. I read that aspirin was made from a willow tree and if you chewed on a small branch it would relieve pain. I gave it a try and it worked. I would commune with nature in my own way and often think of the experience that started my journey. But things were different now and I was giving up my own desires for the responsibility of raising children and I loved my kids!â&#x20AC;Š

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Chapter 16

Prince Charming Husband number three was a good man. We were together for around 7 years, but his behavior towards me was changing. I was focused on my children, their school, their diet, their friends and their spiritual education. I worked hard as a Marketing Director, a real estate sales person, a publisher and a restaurant owner in the end, but I was sick of being criticized for everything I did. The verbal abuse never seemed to stop. After a few of years, we fought constantly. He pushed and shoved me and choked me and then one night he pushed me too far. I called the police. Things kept going downhill until one day when I took action. We were living in an old house and there was no heat in the bathroom. He told me that in order to help keep the bathroom warm, I should leave the water in the bathtub after bathing. So, one day, I did. Afterwards he flew into a rage yelling at me, chasing me around the house (for leaving the bathwater in the bathtub) until I ran out the back door and spent the day in a parking lot at the local grocery store chain, crying. I returned much later that day to his changed behavior, silent and afraid to make a wrong move. When he went to work that evening, you guessed it, once again,

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I Escaped! Number four, if you’re counting.

I took the children and went to stay with a friend. Lucky for me, she was working at the safe house in Boulder, Colorado as an intern for psychological counseling and was compassionate to my situation, especially since she had seen my husband’s violent behavior firsthand, as well as his passive aggression that was killing me. She gave me professional advice and that was the end of that. I demanded he move out and I moved back in with the kids. It took nine more months of therapy to start some kind of normal life again. Truly my life sucked, if it weren’t for my kids. I loved them so much. They were the light of my life. I occasionally went out on a weekend night when the kids were with their father, but mostly I was home helping with homework and being a mom, you know, cooking, cleaning, washing, putting to bed, reading stories and all the things mothers do when they love their children. Then Along Came Sex - REAL SEX - for the first time! You would think I would have given up on men by now, but no, not me. So here I go again. My Latino finally showed up! (Remember the gal in the property management job who said her latino boyfriend made love to her three times a day?) From time to time I would visit the Krishna temple in Denver, Colorado although I was living north of Denver in the college town of

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Boulder. One day I went to the Krishna ‘Sunday feast’ and while there, he spotted me right away and I noticed him as he checked me out. He was so gorgeous, I couldn’t believe it. Why does that guy keep staring at me? I thought. I was flattered, but more than that I was ‘flushed’. I could feel his desire for me from 25 feet away! I later referred to him as Ricky Ricardo because his looks were so exceptional. He walked up to me as I sat with my daughter and said, “Is anyone sitting here?” He sat down next to me. I didn’t know he was Latino. I thought maybe he was middle eastern but I was wrong. Boy was I wrong! He was the answer to my prayers. He was a devotee and a Latino. He was not fanatical but very liberal and most of all, he was in to me! I actually didn’t put too much thought into it at first because I didn’t trust myself with men anymore. He wrote down my phone number, but that didn’t mean he would actually call, so I just let it go. But he did call and I was surprised and delighted. Things went slowly at first, talking once or twice a week until we finally made a date. Then things moved very fast. On our first date, he took me out to hear jazz at the Hotel Boulderado in Boulder, Colorado and we slept together that night. I joked with him that he was a dream come true with Krishna beads around his neck and leopard skinned bikinis under his pants. He was philosophical, talented, sexy and gorgeous! I was done for! Three times a day was normal for him with incredible endurance. On top of that, we spent many hours talking about our spiritual beliefs. But there was more! He had an incredible

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voice and was an amazing jazz keyboardist. He was a college graduate with a major in voice and a minor in English. He could improvise any jazz song he wished and he often did as he played out with different groups and I adoringly looked on. In the mornings he would make love to me, sing to me and grab me and swirl me around the floor, dipping me and kissing me and professing his love. He sang Krishna songs and he played jazz standards, both. He relentlessly fucked me three times a day and I don’t think I’ve ever been more in love, although by then my lovers were beginning to add up. The numbers were mounting, but do me a favor and don’t count! Ok, I’m gonna count later. This Latino lover would take me out to hear jazz on weekends and when we were invited to formal Christmas parties, he would wear his own tux and he looked amazing. I was so proud to have him by my side. We spent years together, working as well as loving and going to the temple to hear about Krishna. My son was playing hockey and he loved sports, so we enjoyed going to games together. But all is never perfect. Even though I probably spent more time with him than anyone (around 13 years), nothing seemed to work out in “love and war” for this lady. Maybe this is where I began to realize, for real, my only true relationship was with Krishna, just as my spiritual master said. Because although he was an amazing sex partner and an incredibly talented jazz musician, singer, and spiritual partner, we disagreed on something major. No two people are alike and no one person can be everything for the other person. He was a cheapskate and

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would never take me out to dinner, only Taco Bell. Now thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not much of a problem for two people who love each other, it just made me realize that Prince Charming was here and yet he was not at the same time. But there were other issues of course. He abandoned his three children. I could never respect a man who did that. I couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t help it. And finally, drugs took him away. He started doing lots of cocaine as the prices fell to an all time low and then, he was gone. Ok, here is the count. (Lovers, not all husbands) Number one was sweet and kind and loved me more than I knew, yet he was a lamb when I needed him to be a lion. Number two was a strawberry-blonde genius Viet Nam vet. Number three was a good looking, blonde-haired, green-eyed devotee who served as the temple president in the Washington, DC. He earned his graduate degree in Cinematography from Columbia University in New York. He was a writer and artist, but made me feel inferior to him. Number four was interested in meeting me while I was with number three. He called me to schedule an appointment to measure for curtains in his apartment as I was making extra money from sewing at the time. It was a ploy to get to know me. I never made any curtains for him. He continued to stalk me by moving in next door and flirting with me daily even though I was living with number three. He professed his extreme attraction to me and persuaded me to leave number three and go with him.

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Boy was I deluded! I was so deluded that I married him. That one lasted about a year. Number four was also very good looking. He was tall, dark and handsome. He was sexually driven, a good quality for me and was my main focus and my reason for choosing a man in my life, other than his spirituality, at that point. But I didn’t really love him and I don’t think he loved me. He just wanted to own me, to be his eye candy. The first four were all Krishna devotees (Larry tried hard to become one) and by that time I was ready to get away and meet someone not connected with the devotees and their and patriarchal behaviors. Number five was a Pharmacist who was working as a baker because he lost his license due to drug abuse. He was talented and charming. He could bake a perfect loaf of bread, make beautiful danish and he possessed an incredible work ethic with stamina. He got clean and sober and got his pharmacy license reinstated. He was a good father to my children, providing for them very well. We were together for seven years. Then there was number six, my ‘Prince Charming’ who in the end turned to cocaine at the age of 55 tearing us apart. We were already on the ropes, but that became the final blow. So there I was, addicted to sex and becoming addicted to alcohol. Just give me a bottle of wine every night and I could manage. At one time I looked at receipts in my checkbook (back

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then thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s how we paid for things) and saw to my amazement how many checks were written to Discount Liquor. And where was my intelligence? Did I simply give up on my spiritual goal and forget my promise in the womb? Kinda. What was I supposed to do? My children were my number one priority, but my sex desire was gnawing at me and I was simply becoming more and more of an alcoholic every day. I was confused about my life, but satisfied with my wine. I was pretty much done with men, just give me some Rioja from Spain. From age 48 to 54 menopause took over my persona. Then at the age of 54 my heart and eyes began to wander again as I began to feel myself getting wet for the first time in six years. I tried to start a long-distance relationship with an artist devotee man from Canada. Thank God that one didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t go anywhere. And then finally I was alone. I wanted to be with a man but yet I was afraid. It was evident I was not capable of making a good choice where men were concerned, so I decided that making money was better than having a man at this point in my life.â&#x20AC;Š

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PART III OUT OF THE FRYING PAN AND INTO THE FIRE

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Chapter 17

Erotic Massage On one visit to India I stayed for six months and while I was there I studied massage therapy with an Ayurvedic doctor. I found the technique to be quite amazing and rejuvenating. Two women would pour hot oil down my spine and then both would rub simultaneously as I drifted into a trance-like state. They used pressure along the meridian lines to calm the nerves and pushed the fluid up and down the spinal column. They oiled and rubbed the joints to keep movement elastic. They pushed the lymph fluid throughout the body to strengthen the immune system. They did reflexology on my hands and feet and finally, they worked my neck, my head and my face until I felt the Gods had showered me with a sandalwood oil bath and kissed me with pearls as they finished the massage. The doctor there actually made his own oil using herbs, sandalwood and yes, pearls. I studied with this doctor and his assistants for six months and then headed back to the US. I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t think I could really make any money doing massage, so I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t try. When I returned from India I worked for a friend as a Consultant for her catering company. I worked in the restaurant

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and food service business for 21 years so I had no doubt I could do it with excellence. Trouble was, after about one year, she decided it was too much work and not enough money. I could have told her that from the beginning, in fact, I think I did. So I started looking for a job. My experience was in food service, property management, photography, publishing, flower arranging and sales but I could not get a job. By this time I was 52 years old and was competing with 35 year olds for the same job. I didn’t get it. I was smart, attractive, well spoken, experienced and well dressed but I could not get a decent job. So I thought, I may as well try to do massage. I borrowed my roommate’s massage table and set it up in my room located outside of the main house in a small cottage, the perfect size for a single bed, a small bistro table, a counter with a sink, room for oils, etc., a nice window for lighting, a massage table and a bathroom. I put an ad on Craigslist and my life changed forever! And I mean changed! Men, men, men! My phone was ringing 15 times a day. I thought I would offer a cheap massage because I didn’t have any massage experience, but what I did have was the experience of age. Why not take advantage of what I was and be proud of it? I thought. So I advertised as a “Mature Masseuse” and holy shit, men of all ages were calling me. At the time, younger men were curious about the ‘older woman’. They were right to be curious because experience in all areas is good thing.

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My first client was a metro sexual guy. He had painted toenails and shaved legs. Nice guy, got a hard-on but I simply laughed to myself and ignored it. I also massaged women. They were nice, but didn’t call as often. One lady I massaged, a nurse, appeared to be stoned, in another zone. As I massaged her, I noticed marks on her arm and realized they were from needles. It was humbling to be so close to the reality of people’s pain and their need to escape and it came in many forms. I did my best to give her a very relaxing massage and from time to time spoke very sweetly to her. Another woman I massaged was on leave from the army. Sorry, I forget the fucking conflict the United States was in at the time. But she talked about her experiences, her father, who was also in the army and finally the horror of Guantanamo, where she was stationed. As she talked I understood one of the worst things she experienced was the treatment from her own fellow soldiers. She was raped and harassed and the fire of her enthusiasm completely left her, she explained. As I massaged her, she expressed she was “keeping her chin up and finishing her commitment.” Although she was cheerful on that day, I could feel her pain as well as the pain of the nurse. She returned around three more times and then I never saw her again. It was interesting being a massage therapist, because a therapist would actually be the correct word. Not only was I drenching these thirsty bodies in hot oil and pushing lymph fluid, strengthening the immune system while working along meridian lines to calm nerves, I was listening to their painful stories and

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my heart was feeling the pain right along with them. I spoke softly so as not to disturb their peaceful massage and when the massage was over, I gently kissed them on the forehead and said, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re done.â&#x20AC;? Without knowing what I was getting into when I started this profession, I found I was actually following my true nature as a compassionate therapist. As I look back on the profession, I could see my life was actually geared towards service to others. I owned and operated a vegetarian food service business for twenty-one years in Colorado, constantly considering the needs of others. I worked in property management as a leasing agent and manager, helping people to find a home. Now doing massage, it was a good feeling to know I was once again helping others. My heart swelled with the feeling of self satisfaction and I was understanding my real career path in life. I would never be wealthy, but I would be happy serving others. As I started massaging, however, I was beginning to notice a trend. Daily men were trying to get me to give them a happy ending. I refused to do it. I was paying my rent, going to yoga classes daily and gradually realizing I could make a living at this. I did not need to do anything else. Life was starting to get good again as my children were now grown and I was on my own with some money. I raised my prices to the normal rate for hourly massage and was doing anywhere from three to five massages a day. I paid off some debts from my period of time being unemployed and bought myself some new linen clothing, in the relaxed style I preferred which was very expensive. I put flowers

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on my table every day and was feeling all right. (Sounds like a Joe Cocker song, right?) But, those hungry men kept asking for something ‘extra’ at the end of a massage when their penis was hard as a rock and they wanted to explode. I stood my ground and would not touch their genitals. I was shocked and embarrassed that a man would even ask me to do such a thing. “No way,” I would say. “If you have got to take care of yourself, go in the bathroom and have at it but just please clean up after yourself.” No one wanted to do that. They insisted I should do it. Some of those same men returned time and again and each time I refused. Then after about six months, I began to understand why many women left the profession. I was ready to leave it too, but I couldn’t get a job and even if I did, I was used to living on much more than an hourly wage, having run my own business for at least 21 years. Then one day one of my regular clients pulled out $120 and laid it on my massage table saying, “Please, I just need someone to touch me. It’s been so long. I’m divorced and have small children and I am not ready to get into a committed relationship bringing someone else into my children’s life right now. They are already traumatized.” The truth was, I did not know how to give a hand job. I gave pretty good blow jobs, I was told, but I had never given a hand job. I put these men off and refused to do the deed for six months, but this time I became calm within myself and thought, I’m old enough to do this. I’m now 54 and have no boyfriend and the

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truth is that I don’t really care. It’s just a dick and it’s not like I haven’t seen my share. By that time in my life I had already been in six long-term relationships with a few rendezvous in-between and had no problem with dicks. Actually, I was quite fond of them! So what’s the big deal? Just get the cash, try it and see how you feel afterwards, I thought. So I did. Very sweetly I told that first man, “Look, I don’t know how to give a hand job. If you show me, I’ll do it.” He agreed and that was that. My first hand job was done and really it wasn’t any big deal. I didn’t get excited. It was just like being a therapist to the very end. But men think very differently and here I have some stories to tell, but that will come a little later. Guys were willing to pay lots of money for that stuff! I was regularly getting a good amount of cash for a massage with a happy ending and sometimes I got rather large tips on top of that. I was convinced God didn’t care what I did for money as long as I didn’t hurt anyone. As my spiritual master said, He only wants your heart. With my age, 54 at the time, I was pretty sure I would not fall in love again, either, so I was not looking for a relationship with any of these guys. I was still attractive, but men my age were looking at younger women anyway, so what the hell? I was ok with my decision to go ahead and make some money. Just as I was beginning to add the happy ending to my therapeutic massage, I tuned in to Showtime on TV where I saw two women doing a Hand Job Seminar for a group of about six women. They were all seated in a circle around a table with six

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dildos on top, complete with balls. All the women looked wellgroomed, respectable and innocent, ready to learn how to please their boyfriends and husbands, or at least I thought that was the scene. Stupid me! The teachers, both beautiful ladies, stroked and pulled and tickled and squeezed as they showed how to make a man cum with your hands. I was so naive I couldn’t believe it. I never knew massage was associated with sex in any way. But evidently it was. So I began to put my knowledge to work and men were benefiting from my hands. Before long I was doing very good and my financial troubles were gone. I did, however, run into some very different types of men and some very strange types of behavior. Here are some stories. No need to judge. Just enjoy! One day a nice looking, well-dressed man showed up in a suit and asked if he could take off his clothes in the bathroom. I said, “Sure. Would you like a towel?” He said, “No, I’ll be fine.” When he came out he was wearing around $400 worth of ivory satin lingerie, including silk stockings! My mouth gaping open, I said, “OK, that’s beautiful, but what do you want me to do?” “Oh nothing much,” he said, “maybe you could just take it off of me, one piece at a time as you massage me.” He laid $200 on the table. Thinking that it was a pretty harmless request, I agreed, and there was no problem. He didn’t try to hurt or molest me, he was just in to his lingerie. As he left, I asked what he did for a living and he said, “I own an auto parts store. Sometimes I wear the lingerie to work and no one ever knows.” Guess he’s not going

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to communal bathrooms, I thought, but I laughed inside. You never know who you’re working with or living next door to. After some time I began to have nicknames for some of the guys. ‘Wiggly Butt’ was one. I started off each massage with a back rub, then arms and down to the buttocks. Sometimes it got weird. Men would start gyrating their butts, moving them around and up and down until I couldn’t do the massage. At one point I walked around to look at one man’s face and said, “What the hell are you doing?” “You don’t like it?” he said. “No, you look ridiculous and I can’t massage when you’re moving all over the place.” But the poor guy couldn’t stop himself. So, I got him off and got him out of there as soon as possible. But the sad thing was that this was a definite trend with some men. Some did it a little and some did it a lot. I hated it! They looked absolutely ridiculous and I didn’t want any part of it, but I tolerated, usually making some comment like, “Could you not wiggle your butt so much, please.” Doubt that any of those guys became regulars because I was plainly annoyed. Afterwards when it happened, I’d just think to myself, “Oh God, another wiggly butt!” What I didn’t realize at first, but later began to understand was that the men who did that could have cared less for the massage. (Well, not all, but most.) They just wanted some sort of sexual release. So I simply relaxed, because everyone has their ‘thing,’ but I found the wiggling very difficult to deal with and that was my ‘thing.’

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There were lots of strange happenings, not bad, just strange. Some guys had dicks that curved out instead of in. Some guys were extremely hairy. Some revealed big moles that needed to be removed. Some were fat and some were skinny. Some exposed their very little dicks but most men were just kind of normal. Most all of them thought that getting them off excited me, but I was just doing the job. Men didn’t understand. What turns a woman on is a kiss behind the neck or some sweet compliments, not the size or shape of their dick, although that doesn’t hurt. Size does matter. So guys, I don’t mean to burst your bubble, but you’ve been watching way too much porn if you think a simple massage therapist is like the ones you see on your pornography station. The hardest part of the job was a client with ED, Erectile Dysfunction. Geez, I had to learn to work miracles! And these guys ranged in age, too! I definitely saw a number of 40 year-old clients with ED. Not sure what that was about. I think some of it was steroid use, guys with lots of muscle but tiny dicks. Men getting a divorce or horrific troubles at home often experienced difficulty getting it up. Some problems came with low self esteem and I felt so bad for those men. Other problems were because of diabetes or some health issue. While in this business I paid attention to anything online or on the news concerning men’s erectile problems. Studies found 40% of men in their 40’s have it, along with 50% of men in their 50’s and 60% of men in their sixties, all of them showing symptoms in

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varied degrees. I’ve sure seen my share of it. But I’ve also seen 75 year old men who were hard as a rock and they said they took no help from Viagra or anything else. I saw one client who had a penal implant. He pumped it up with some sort of attachment before he arrived and let it down after his orgasm. He didn’t have any fluid either. But before he told me I said, “Your cock is as hard as a bone. I have never seen a cock like yours!” “It’s a penile implant,” he said. Oh, I thought, ok, if that works, why not? I learned to deal quite well with ED, but it takes lots of energy and effort to help these men. I definitely worked for my money. In order to get the blood flowing into the dick, you need to hold the base like a ring with your thumb and forefinger, as you gently apply pressure. You can stroke it firmly with oil from bottom to top slowly swirling your hand so your client will relax and trust you. Gradually, gradually, you can increase the pressure and finally you can increase the speed as he gets harder. Most men like their balls played with, although I have met some who did not. One thing I learned from the Showtime Seminar was when a man cums, his balls will be drawn up and he will become tight in his scrotum. So, a technique to help him get hard is to gently do this for him. You squeeze his balls together and push them up. Mostly, with these men, you just need to be patient. Its hard as hell to turn a limp dick into a hard-one. And women, be careful! You think you’d like an older man, but if you like a lot of sex, maybe you should re-think that

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decision. I have talked to so many men who were on my table, there is something I KNOW for sure! Older men want blow jobs or they want you to be on top doing all the work. So, if you’re in to older men for the money, maybe you don’t care, but if you’re looking for a true partnership, maybe you should re-think it. Personally I liked to get pounded! And these older guys are too lazy to pound you and pump you, or they are just too tired. So, you guessed it, I was interested in younger men! Erectile Dysfunction is real. I called it God’s cruel joke. A man desires sex until the day he dies, but can’t get it up. A woman doesn’t really desire it much in old age but can get slippery wet in a moments notice, if treated right. I was convinced it was simply God’s Cruel Joke! And maybe there is a reason men get ED. My thought, although I never took the position to educate the men, was that the very best thing a man could do would be to withhold his semen so it could rise to the pineal gland and nourish his consciousness, as described in Tantra yoga. Thus he could have a lot of sex, building his strength, but only releasing his semen once or twice a month. “The simple principle of tantra yoga is: whatever can take you down can also take you up. The way a man usually sinks in his life is through food, alcoholic drink and sexuality. Tantra yoga uses the same three vehicles to help a man’s energy rise up. Unlike sexuality, which tends to find release at the lower level of the energy system, tantra is about building energies to the fountain-head of the uppermost

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dimension of the energy system, so one’s energies spill from the top.” Isha Foundation website. Take you down? Ok, that’s funny! Moving away from erectile dysfunction and on to something else, there was still much to say. Men usually all said the same things to me like, “What gets you excited?” or “I like seeing your ass.” Or, “Why don’t you want me to touch you?” or “Does this turn you on, when you’re rubbing men?” or “Do you like my dick?” or “Why don’t you let me massage you?” I get it with men. They’ve been watching lots of porn and hoping to have a similar experience. God created men to think that we think like they do. But we don’t. I understood their dicks got hard many times during a day (that is for those who could get hard). And women’s bodies are the absolute symbol of sex with curvy hips, hard nipples and that soft sweet vagina hidden beneath their skirts. Guys just can’t get enough. Even just looking at pictures or movies does it for them. So, they think we also get excited in the same way they do. We don’t! I didn’t. As I said earlier, shower me with compliments, show a real interest in me, kiss the back of my neck, stare in my eyes, tell me how pretty I am and you pretty much got me, at least for the moment. That was how I felt. Just seeing your body didn’t do it for me or any woman, for that matter. Of course, a nice body is good and much better for sex, but I would never have married a man just for his body. And in reverse, I learned that most men preferred a woman’s body over her face, if given a choice. I was learning a lot!

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While doing Erotic massage I thought I would also do some Erotic Photography. Well, why not? I was already doing erotic massage and I found I was very creative with a camera. I loved photography and putting together a studio with four different backdrops and different props was fun and exciting. I used the studio for both massage and photography and did quite well. On one wall, I placed a mirror with a small but beautiful flower arrangement and a lamp so I could take pictures of people looking at themselves in the mirror. Another wall was a window with curtains and blinds I could open or close. Still another was a burgundy red backdrop and a tie-dyed blue backdrop and the last wall was simply white. I also bought a beautiful espresso-colored leather club chair with an ottoman where I worked on my laptop when I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have a client and used as a prop for photos when I did. I thought I would mostly be photographing women in lingerie for their husbands, and I did, often, but little ole naive me didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have a clue what was in store for her. Most of my clients were either prostitutes or cross dressers. The prostitutes and dancers were easy. They knew how they wanted to pose as well as how to make themselves look good and I moved them and posed them and put them in just the right lighting. The cross dressers were fun because they would bring two to three different outfits and use all my backdrops and props having the time of their life! After all, who can they show off to? They needed an audience and I provided both the safe audience and the photos.

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Then there were the, you know, not really exhibitionists, but guys who wanted great naked pictures of themselves and their parts. Well, maybe they were exhibitionists. I told them to bring a hat or scarf and some sunglasses or a nice wine glass for props. They loved it! More than anything, I think the guys were simply doing it for the experience and some even came back for a second and third shooting! After the shoot, I downloaded the photos to my computer, burned them a disk and then erased them from my computer. If I wanted to use someone on my website, I got their permission in writing. Not perfect, but good enough! Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve got to admit it was fun! I never knew what to expect, for sure, but all of the guys were very respectful to me. Maybe it was because I was in an exclusive office building in an exclusive part of Los Angeles and they expected the best and they got it. So I had both men and women photography clients and men massage clients and they were all willing to pay. I was having fun, making money and being a therapist at the same time. Men talked to me a lot. I was actually a good therapist. They basically told me about their sexual fantasies and the problems with their relationships. Younger guys in their thirties would talk about the type of women who were available in the twenty-first century, saying they were shallow and mostly only cared about how much money you made. One guy told me he was very wealthy, but purposely acted as if he were average just to check to see what kind of woman he was dealing with. What has become perverted, is that a woman is naturally a caregiver and a child-

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bearer and she needs to know that she will be taken care of if she gets pregnant. She has to sell herself, in a way, to find the type of man who will take care of her if she has sex with him. Actually, this seems almost unconscious on the women’s part and naturally intrinsic. And times were different. With smart phones and the internet , both sexes changed, some for good and some for the worse. From doing massage, my advice to women is to be honest. If you meet a guy you like, tell him your likes and fears, not on the first date perhaps, but most of all don’t try to fool him. If he is smart, he will see right through you, and don’t just go around looking for someone to live through vicariously, but instead get your life on and be proud of what you do and who you are. You can’t do anything about the current culture we live in where men are afraid to commit. You really can’t blame them. If they put everything into a marriage, they lose half when they divorce. Of course you lose too. Everyone loses. And my dear sisters, if you have been married for 30 years, then good for you. You are doing better than most. You’ve managed to get through the tough times and you’re still married. If you don’t want to have sex anymore but you still love him, for God’s sake, help him out! Give your man a blow job! What the hell? He will never give up the desire for that extra special feeling. If you do not, he will eventually seek out an escort or a massage therapist, or worse, have an affair. Now, if you don’t care, ok, but if you don’t want another woman taking care of his needs, then take a deep breath, try to understand and make him happy!

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He loves you and believe me, that’s ALL he wants. Well, except maybe a good meal. I didn’t mind Erotic Massage, but I didn’t want to make a career out of it. I felt the same about Erotic Photography. What I really wanted was to get back into another relationship and another career. I was lonely now. My children were grown and I was alone. I made a few friends who also liked jazz and were philosophically minded. I learned to go to Happy Hour and talk to strangers while I drank my wine and ate a light dinner. I was practicing yoga on a regular basis, except when I was too hung over. Wine was becoming my best friend. I didn’t want to have sex with any of my clients cause that would make me *@*# a prostitute? But I hadn’t been with a man in around seven years and my body and soul were starting to beg for attention. What could I do? You can’t force a relationship and I was just not the type to have sex some guy I wasn’t attracted to. I tried, but at the last minute I would make up some excuse and, yes, I would escape! I almost got raped by one guy, having lead him a little too far, so I decided to cool it and wait for the right person to come along. But how long could I wait?

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Chapter 18

A Sociopath & a Sailor What the hell? You have to eat, sleep, work, exercise, get some fresh air, laugh, talk, read books and so much more in life. You can’t just practice renunciation and do nothing else. (Well, some nuns and monks do maybe, but I was just not there.) So I liked to sail. And I had a mouth like a sailor. You may have noticed, already. I’ve water skied, snow skied, played tennis, golf, softball and basketball. Couldn’t run, bad joints, but I loved to ride a bike, swim and dive. Basically, I was athletic all my life. I couldn’t help it. So from the first time I sat on the beach and looked out at the ocean to see beautiful sailboats, I was positive I wanted to sail. I sailed with others on a few whale-watching trips and even took classes at CAL Berkeley in the marina where I learned how to rig a small sailboat and catch the wind. I was a natural. I sailed in Colorado on lakes and flipped the boat once, but managed to get back in and take off again. I wanted to sail, but I also wanted to live on a boat as well. My idea was to buy a houseboat and keep a small sailboat beside it. I’ll roll off my houseboat, jump into my sailboat and take off, I thought. It didn’t work that way. And my

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houseboat wouldn’t go out in the ocean so at some time I would have to sell my houseboat and buy a sailboat. In the meantime, I began to meet sailors and power boaters as I traveled from Berkeley to Marina Del Rey once a month to stay on my boat. The lifestyle was charming, I must admit. I was in such bliss being out on the water, I could stay there all day reading or chanting, working on the boat or watching sunsets from the deck. I flew from San Francisco to LA once a month and stayed around 5 days. Then I began to wonder why I was living in northern California, so I moved to LA. No escape this time. Just a good move! I got an apartment close by my boat. Then I took the boat out of the water to re-power it and it ended up being out way too long, sitting in a dry dock as I went there on weekends and poured more money into it than I cared to say. In the meantime, I was hanging out with other boaters I met through my blue-eyed, story-telling mechanic friend, Jerry. The crew of boaters he knew were from different yacht clubs or just lived nearby in the marina. Most owned boats then or in the past. The word was “the first best day of your life is when you buy your boat and the second best day of your life is when you sell it.” Boaters would meet daily at Cafe Escobar for Happy Hour and I also attended a few times a week. Our bartender was friendly and gave us a seriously good pour. We were one happy boating, drinking family. Then enters the Sociopath. Guess I had another lesson to learn, as if I hadn’t learned enough. No, I had to fuck a sociopath! Well,

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all I can say is that I must have been desperate. Who would go out with an undoubtedly desperate man but a desperate woman? But he was hot as hell! Six feet tall, broad shoulders and guess what? He was another Latino. I got wet just looking at him! He was sitting at the corner of the bar drinking his rum and coke. Occasionally he would go outside and smoke a cigarette, then return and order another drink. I wondered if the drinks were really weak or if he was in a hurry cause he was downing them faster than drinking water on a hot day. I was drawn to him instantly like a powerful magnet. He wore a white dress shirt, crisp and bright against his dark hair. He was staring at me as I sat with my mechanic friend, and I couldn’t keep my eyes off him. At one point I got up to go to the bathroom. When I returned I stopped at his corner of the bar and said, “You’re too cute to be sitting here by yourself. Why don’t you join us?” He stood up faster than basketball player being sent in to shoot the last score of the game and followed me to my seat. There was a vacant seat beside me, a very convenient situation. He sat down, grabbed my attention and started asking me questions as if I were the most interesting person in the world. He was consuming me! He was a charmer, all right, and I drank it up, not even vaguely thinking he might be conning me. But I did not have much money, so he had nothing to gain from me financially. Therefore, I was just lapping up his attention, enjoying the moment and thought it was just bar conversation. But, as the afternoon went on, he acted like he was sincerely interested in who I was and

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what I was doing. I was blushing and my heart was throbbing as we talked. Very quickly I discovered he was 20 years younger than me. I knew I was older, but I did not realize it was by that much! What the hell? I thought. I need to get laid and why not by someone younger? It seemed to be the fashion of the day anyway. And I was still doing massage, so basically I couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have a boyfriend. No man would want his girlfriend touching other men. There are many implications to that. So I wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t looking for a relationship, but I did want to have an affair, and the longer it would last, the better, I thought. I just wanted to have fun. Yes, I wanted to fuck him, not marry him! He asked me to go with him to his sailboat, but I was moving the next day, so I refused. He did everything he could to persuade me, a bad sign within itself at that point. If you knew someone was moving the next day with tons of things to clean and pack, would you try to get them to change their mind and go out with you? Only if you are a person with no empathy, a person who was selfish. But I was flattered, so you can know for sure that the very next Friday I was at happy hour again and ready to go! And he was there waiting for me. That very first night I should have walked away. I followed him in my car to his marina where we walked to his boat. Along the path I saw a Mexican guy who did some work for me on my boat. I should have left at that exact moment because my gorgeous Latino started accusing me of looking at another man, maybe even flirting with someone else and we barely new each

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other, never even kissed. When we finally did, the kiss was poor to mediocre and the sex was, well, it was fair, just a little awkward. Sex for me the first time with someone new is always awkward. I have to be really attracted to someone to sleep with them and that hadn’t happened to me in years. (Oh yeah, I said that already.) So I should have left, but I stayed! He was 6 feet tall, 190 pounds and very good looking to my eyes. When he spread my legs, he was in for a real treat. I was dripping wet and ready. We fucked three times that night, and once again the next morning. He didn’t want me to leave. It was Saturday and he just wanted to lay around all day and do nothing. (or something) I thought he was nuts, but I was extremely curious about how many times he could actually do it. I was not used to just laying around, however, doing nothing all day, so I needed to move. I was very active and could not sit still. My heart was still racing when I left to get a manicure/pedicure and pick up some groceries to take home saying I would return later and I did. His sailboat was nice, but the engine barely worked. Typical problem for many boats. Salt water takes its toll on engines and when they are not used on a regular basis, they seem to freeze up. The first time we went out sailing it was with someone else’s outboard he borrowed. One night soon after we first met, we were talking about going out sailing very soon as we sat drinking and talking on his boat. All of a sudden he began to get shifty, standing up, looking outside, moving here and there. Finally, he said, “Lets go out.” I tried to dissuade him because he was

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definitely drunk, having consumed at least a half bottle of rum. But once he made up his mind, that was it. His reasoning was, I discovered, he wanted to go out at night so no one would see him if he screwed up his departure. He was new to sailing and his ego wouldn’t stand for others to see him make mistakes. I thought to myself, Ok, I hope I don’t regret this, but I can swim and we have life jackets. Frankly, I was unable to come up with a good reason to get out of there, as he was extremely controlling right from the start. What happened? We beached! He was drunk as shit as he headed out to the main channel. I said I would take the helm as we raised the main sail and I was confident enough in my own ability to take charge of the boat. As we rounded the corner of the breakwater he shut off the engine and said, “Let’s just hang here for a while.” What he didn’t know was - you don’t just hang out in the entrance to the breakwater and there is usually not enough wind at night to actually sail. Without a motor we started to drift into shore. He panicked as he tried to start the motor again, to get us out of the tight situation, but the motor wouldn’t start. Freaking out, he called in a ‘may-day’ and then jumped out of the boat as we got closer to the shore and it was evident we would be on the beach within five minutes or less. For those of you who don’t know, beaching is serious shit! It can cost you a thousand dollars or more to pull the boat off the shore and sometimes the boat may even have to be destroyed in order to remove it. If that happened, the city would charge you a

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fine of up to $25,000. But this guy was lucky. Not sure what was up in his karma like that, but he seemed to get away with all kinds of stuff. The Sea Tow Rescue vehicle arrived shortly and Mr. Right managed to hold the boat back so the keel didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t get totally buried in the sand. The young man who pulled us off the ground and towed us back to the dock was very aware of the drunken sailor in his presence. Drunken sailors are everywhere in the marina. I was not drunk, just totally embarrassed. The only damage his boat suffered was a bent rudder. Unbelievable luck! And more luck, the $1000 towing bill was covered by his insurance because a boat on the beach is a hazard to the public! He made up some lie to his neighbors about how the rudder was bent and one kind young man agreed to fix it for him. He worked in a welding shop near the marina. My Latino, Aric or number seven or my Latin lover said thank you to the young man and promised to buy the guy a case of beer. He never did. That was number seven, selfish to the core. Why didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t I leave? He was highly intelligent as far as ability to learn goes, but he had no common sense. He usually watched documentaries instead of bullshit tv and was always learning something new, but he had no sense of right behavior. He said the wrong things to the wrong people at the wrong time. I was thinking to myself, he was probably one of the most egotistical men I ever met, with no compassion at all. So why did I stay? I knew why I stayed! He looked at me like he was undressing me with his eyes and his

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desire for me was making me melt. I needed sex in a big way and this man was the man who could deliver! I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t think his bad behavior would affect me because I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t intend to stay with him for long. And then there was sailing. Sailing was like one step away from heaven in my mind. Moving along across the blue ocean with white caps splashing in your face, your hand dragging overboard feeling the cool, rushing energy of the water run through your fingers and the sun shining brightly on your head was pure paradise. The feel of the wind and the sun and the water combined with the beautiful white sails full to their brim was romancing me along with his eyes. We would go out sailing often in the beginning, sometimes three or four times a week. Sometimes we would pull sail and sometimes we would just motor out around the breakwater to watch the sunset. We anchored out just beyond the entrance to the marina on several occasions, went swimming and spent the night anchored just to experience the adventure of it. We sailed to Redondo Beach and anchored out as well as Paradise Cove in Malibu. Each adventure manifested its own special magic and special tragedy. Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d been stopped and searched by the Harbor Patrol, chastised for not having our registration numbers displayed on the boat and as stated above, beached. Lover boy seemed to invite trouble or problems wherever we went and in spite of my doting on him, he would accuse me of being attracted to other men, all the while threatening me by flirting with other women. It was confusing

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and messed up and just wrong from the beginning, but as I said, I needed to get laid in a bad way, so I put up with it. Also, I think I was feeling like I would never find love again, so why not have some fun. After six men, I was pretty convinced I did not believe in love anymore. So the adventure continued. While heading to Malibu, we got stuck in kelp. That is not so unusual. It’s happened to many people. But in the first two years of sailing together, we gained ten years worth of boating experience. We anchored at Catalina and woke up to screaming neighbors as our anchor came loose and we were drifting into a $300,000 yacht while we were taking a nap. He lost his atomizer after a drunken night in Catalina. He went on the emergency channel for boaters with his vhf and asked for help and lucky him, someone brought a new atomizer straight to our boat. We thought we would have to go to another port to the hospital and were freaking out because he couldn’t breathe. This guy wasn’t even Irish, so where the hell did he get his luck? We went out sailing one Sunday afternoon and our lust took us down to the main cabin to have sex. We were surprised by someone screaming “get out of the way, we’re racing!” We were actually in the path of a sailboat race. On one trip to Catalina we were fucking in the cockpit as we sailed around the island and a sheriff’s helicopter few closely over our heads. Sailing and fucking was a frequent activity. One neighbor pointed out we were now members of the ‘Sea Level Club’ versus the Mile High Club and we definitely were! He was always horny and I loved

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his constant desire. We would have sex while we were sailing, while he was driving and I even met him during his lunch breaks from work and did it again. When we weren’t sailing or having sex, we drank and played cards. I have to admit, we had so much fun playing poker, black jack and crazy eights. He taught me how to play chess. He played often since his childhood and was actually pretty patient with me. I think that is because he held a drink in his hand. One night we played strip poker when he undressed me and dressed me and undressed me again. We played like kids, me sitting across from him in lingerie while he drank me in with his eyes. “Shouldn’t I get dressed in case someone drops by,” I said because crazy boaters would definitely drop in on a Friday night? But he would say, “No, I just want to look at you while we play cards. I’ll get rid of anyone who may come by.” So he kept me in lingerie and high heels on a 27 foot sailboat and I was loving it! As much fun as we experienced and as much adventurous sex as we enjoyed, the four-year relationship was both heaven and hell. We sailed around 3 times a week. We fucked around 3 times a day. It was tumultuous but exciting. But as time went on, we began to fight like crazy. Both of us were jealous. I had plenty of reason to be as he would do other women when I was unavailable. That drove me crazy! If I got pissed and left his boat, he would go out to the bars and try to pick up another woman. Sometimes he succeeded, but some women would turn their heads when he entered the room and when he opened his

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mouth, they would walk away. His ego was so out of control! But there were many desperate women out there who, like myself, needed any attention they could get and as I said, he was hot! When he couldn’t pick up another woman, he came to find me. Mr. Latino was simply mean! He was mean to his parents. He was mean and rude to his employers (got fired from every job he ever worked in, admittedly). He was mean to people on the docks, rude to people at the yacht clubs, mean to other drivers as he drove his car and mean to anyone who did something he didn’t like. On the other hand, he could be amazingly kind. He would look me in the eyes for hours and ask if I was comfortable or happy. How the hell was that possible? This became more confusing as time went on. He was mean to me and yet showered me with more affection than I ever experienced in my life. I was in ecstasy when he showed that amazing display of love and I was in agony when he tortured me by flirting with other women in front of me. I wandered how this could be possible. He would ask me, “Do you love me, Amy?” And I would respond, “I love a part of you.” “Why are you with me,” he asked? “Sex, sailing and sleeping together,” I would say, “the three s’s.” I knew I didn’t really love him, but as I found out much later, I was certainly addicted to him. Amy’s Addiction - should be another book! As we fought, the violence reared it’s ugly head as time went on. He struck me across the face and red, sore handprints

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appeared. I had never been hit by a man before and swore I never would be. He cornered me on my boat and talked to me for hours, while my back was up against the wall, until I gave in and forgave him. But it happened again and again. I left him. I went back. I got a restraining order. He made me relinquish it. I left again. He drug me back to his boat. I left again. He broke into my boat and hit me again, until I finally put him in prison. The last time we were together was one June when we went to Catalina Island off the coast of Los Angeles. We went to both Two Harbors and Avalon. Then we sailed to Newport Beach and got a mooring there for a few days. We explored new places and watched seals swirl through the water as a red sea produced fluorescent streaks lighting up the marina that weekend. We shopped for groceries and cooked dinner as well as watched movies via his solar panel electricity. We sailed back through Long Beach in rough waters and reached Marina Del Rey around 3:00 in the morning. It was fun, but weird. The whole trip he was guarded and controlling as if he was planing to do something when we returned. I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t think he was planning violence, just a clean break from me, with all the cash he could squeeze from my pocket. But the day after we returned he started checking his bank account. His balance showed only $35 and he was somehow shocked. He kept me up against the wall of his boat talking to me and drinking into the night, pissed off at me, his parents, his previous employer and basically the whole world until he got the

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courage to do what he wanted. He slapped me, punched me, choked me, threw me against the wall and finally cut me. I dared not try to leave his boat as I knew that would make things worse. After choking me with no results for some time, he finally gave up and passed out. I am quite sure he wanted to kill me and I know the only reason he didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t was because he was afraid of the consequences. I was ready to die and prayed to Krishna to go ahead and take me, but Krishna had other plans. I woke up the next morning and poked my head out through the hatch over the forward. I was aware that a lady on his dock ran every morning, so I waited for her to pass by and very shortly, she did. I showed her my cheek which was red and blue and the size of a baseball and used the hand sign for a phone, mouthing for her to call the sheriff. Within 20 minutes, I poked my head out again to find a sheriff with his gun pointed towards the boat. He mouthed the words and motioned for me to come out of the hatch. It was too high up and I could not maneuver my way out without number seven hearing me. I ducked back in and sat on the edge of the bed for a moment until lover boy jumped up. He pulled back the hatch in the companionway and took off two door panels to find two sheriffs pointing their guns at him. That was the end of that. I was hauled off in an ambulance while he sat handcuffed in the back seat of the sheriffâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s car. He got a three year sentence but only served a year and a half. I, once again, escaped! But this time I escaped with my life.

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Here is the important part of this insane sexual, sailing experience. This may have been the final lesson I needed in this lifetime to make me stop and think (for real) about what the hell I was doing with my life and would I ever fulfill my promise made to the Lord in the womb. I was getting myself mixed up with all sorts of crazy men, trying to find happiness, trying to get some satisfaction, trying to be at peace, but at that time, all I could get was therapy and boy did I need it! During his time in jail, I was provided with free therapy by several organizations set up in California after the OJ Simpson case. Group therapy was available weekly as well as individual therapy. I was fortunate to meet a wonderful therapist who worked in prisons for years and he turned my head around in as little as four months. I learned a life lesson that was both useful in my material life as well as my spiritual life. That lesson was about Sociopaths. My doctor explained, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Sociopaths, more commonly known as Psychopaths, have a Limbic System that is not fully developed and therefore it is not attached to the frontal lobe. This usually happens in infancy when an infant experiences rejection from a parent or inconsistent acceptance. Sometimes it causes the child to hate authority and manipulate other people to get the love and attention they desperately need to be complete. They are in constant need of attention and acceptance and therefore are not able to empathize with others.â&#x20AC;? OK, I was not a doctor, so I may have some of that wrong, but my therapist explained this to me

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over and over again. I researched the subject online and tried to understand and think I got a pretty good grasp of why a person becomes a sociopath. I could understand there was a physical reason for this lack of empathy. Because it is physical, sociopaths cannot be helped or changed. My therapist said, “I’ve worked with prison inmates for years and I know nothing can be done to help them because the limbic system in their brain is not developed. Nothing can be done!” Now because I believed in Karma and Evolution of the Consciousness, I also believed that a person could be born with this defect in their brain for some reason, some karmic reaction from previous actions or maybe even mercy if a person could ever learn a lesson from such a physical malady. God would be very cruel if He simply randomly handed out bad brains causing criminal behavior. There has to be some kind of karma involved. Everyone should know exactly what is a sociopath for their own protection, so I am going to provide you with some research information from “The Sociopath Next Door, Who is the Devil You know?” by Martha Stout. This was one of the books recommended to me while I was in group therapy. A few of the quotes were taken by unknown authors online.

HOW TO RECOGNIZE A SOCIOPATH

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1 - What makes the sociopath dangerous is they have no conscience whatsoever, no remorse, no empathy, no emotion to constrain any of their acts even if the act causes great harm to their closest family members. 2 - How do we recognize the remorseless? One of their chief characteristics is a kind of glow or charisma that makes sociopaths more charming or interesting than the other people around them. They're more spontaneous, more intense, more complex, or even sexier than everyone else, making them tricky to identify and leaving us easily seduced. They may seem too good to be true. 3 - Fundamentally, sociopaths are different because they cannot love. Sociopaths learn early on to show sham emotion, but underneath they are indifferent to others' suffering. They live to dominate and thrill to win. 4 - They are controlling, selfish and even cowardly, often hiding when others confront them about their behavior. 5 - Because these people do not feel any empathy, they think no one feels empathy. They believe when others show empathy they are just faking it. Therefore you will hear the sociopath say that only he or she is ‘genuine.’ They will even admit to not feeling guilt and say that because they admit the truth they are ‘genuine’ whereas other people are ‘fake’. And, they truly believe it. 6 - Psychologists refer to these individuals as having reptilian brains. This is because reptiles will eat their young. The

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sociopath has no conscience and no empathy. Reptilian brain? I get it! 7 - Be Careful! They will put you in danger, destroy your property and do whatever it takes to meet their needs. It does not matter if they are your boyfriend, son, or father. It does not matter if they are your girlfriend, mother or daughter. They will hook you and draw you in. You will have what is known as the Stockholm Syndrome. You will be addicted to your abuser. 8 - Sociopaths will sometimes try to isolate you. They will be overly demanding of your time and must be the center of your attention. They usually control finances, the car and the activities you partake in. They may become angry if you show signs of independence or strength. They are always ‘right’ and have to be in charge. Their mood switches from aggressive to abusive to apologetic and then loving. They may punish you by withholding sex or emotional intimacy or play the ‘silent game’ as punishment when they don’t get their way. 9 - Psychopaths/sociopaths are diagnosed by their purposeless and irrational antisocial behavior, lack of conscience, and emotional vacuity. They are thrill seekers, literally fearless. Punishment rarely works, because they are impulsive by nature and fearless of the consequences of their actions. Incapable of having meaningful relationships, they view others as fodder for manipulation and exploitation. 10 - Can psychopaths be successfully treated? According to psychiatrists, they cannot. Shock treatment doesn't work; drugs

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have not proven successful in treatment; and psychotherapy, involving trust and a relationship with the therapist is out of the question, because psychopaths are incapable of opening up to others. They don't want to change.

Aric said he wanted to go to therapy with me, but when we tried, I found he slanted things in his favor to the therapists and I felt ridiculous. So, a sociopath may say they want to work things out, but believe me, they only want to work things in their own favor. They want you to change. The word ‘antisocial’ was confusing to me as I studied the characteristics of a sociopath (#9 above). I thought that actually he was very social because he was constantly looking for some kind of excitement to do with other people. I found out, that is not what antisocial meant at all. The term simply referred to the fact that the sociopath doesn’t care if they hurt you. They have no ability to care about anyone. Therefore, they are called ‘antisocial.’ My poor Latino, (and I use the word poor realistically because I feel bad for people like that), was definitely a sociopath. It is amazing he is not dead yet. (It was amazing I was not dead at that point either.) I first noticed lack of empathy when he was talking on the phone to his parents. I couldn’t believe how he yelled at them and belittled them when he didn’t get something he wanted. “I want you to get my old tapes out of storage and bring them to me next weekend,” he’d say. “Why should I go

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scrounging through the storage shed for those? Why don’t you do it?” his mother would say? But then, guess what? She’d do exactly what he said, thinking her actions might win his affection, but it never did. How many years did his parents go through that? When he wanted something from them, he would be very nice. I would sit and watch him in disbelief. Then their birthday or a holiday like Christmas or Thanksgiving would come around and he would never even give them a call. He demanded they cater to his every need and they did, yet he did nothing in return for them. For a non-sociopath or someone who has never been associated with one, what happens is the victim remains stuck in a pattern of catering to the needs of the sociopath. They have no clue what is happening to them and they suffer time and time again. I saw it with his mother, oops, who was younger than me, poor woman. You love your children no matter what they do and I saw her relentlessly try to help him. His history of violence with both his girlfriends and other males was lengthy. A long record of arrests, or rap sheet, as it was called. As I sat with him, night after night, I listened to stories of how he hung one woman over a balcony until the neighbors called police. He pushed another out of a car at the speed of 25 miles per hour and fought with one woman so violently, he punched out the window of her car as she was trying to drive away from him. He told me how he fought with friends and how he was in a gang, and fired a gun into a dormitory for his initiation. He cheated on every woman he was ever with and put

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his young daughter in harms way. By the time he was revealing all this to me, I was already stuck in the Stockholm Syndrome, addicted to my abuser, and if I tried to leave, he would stalk me or come to my boat and drag me back with him to his boat. He used to tell me he was different and genuine. Now I understand how it is he thought he was so different, because he truly didn’t care about how others felt. “Nobody really cares,” he said, “everyone is faking it so they will look good in the eyes of other people.” He truly believed he was the only honest and genuine person he knew when he was the one faking emotion. He always tried to isolate me and control my actions. I could not go to the grocery store without him. He wanted to do laundry together. He didn’t want me to run errands on a Saturday but to stay with him all day. No matter how many times he was arrested, he never seemed to learn his lesson. He continually speeded, ran traffic lights, drove drunk, stole others property and would never change when punished by authorities. One night, after having gotten a ticket for running a red light and he was about to lose his license, he decided to take his four-wheel drive through the middle of a park after a rain storm, thus leaving huge grooved tracks in the grass. What if he were caught? He never seemed to think of that! I always liked the TV show, Criminal Minds, but after my relationship with number seven, working with my therapist and reading two books on the subject of sociopaths, I began to pay a lot more attention to the stories told on the weekly series. Stories

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of sociopaths were told about both adults and children. One story struck me as proof solid the sociopath is somehow damaged and cannot change. That story was of a young boy around 10 years old who killed his younger brother by stuffing broken model airplane parts down his mouth. The mother and father were torn apart and frantic because if found out, they would lose that son as well as the son they already lost. But the child, unconsciously, was able to function normally and killed his brother without any remorse whatsoever. And in addition to that, he allowed his parents to take the blame. Funny, we donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t think of children as being sociopaths, but if the lack of maturity of the limbic system happens in infancy, then throughout childhood a parent will see cruelty in their child they will not be able to understand. All they will know is they did not teach the child these values. The child, as he or she grows, will learn how to â&#x20AC;&#x153;fakeâ&#x20AC;? a caring attitude, knowing their parents expect it, but that is all it will be, faking.

Demons and Devotees

The Vedic literatures describe constant conflict between Demons and Devotees in the material world. Honestly, I could never understand the nature of a demon. Hopefully that is because I was not a demon myself. But I could not understand what would cause a person to be so cruel. Ok, we all have the propensity to do some evil, maybe to cheat on a test or lie about an affair or even take something that does not belong to us, but

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most people try to control these temptations and become better souls. Demons seem to take pleasure in taking advantage of others. So now, I acquired this understanding of sociopaths for the first time in my life. I received the great, good fortune to get addicted to a sociopath and get a much better view of reality. There really are demons on planet earth! I didn’t want to believe it, but they are real. And there are different studies and opinions about how many walk among us. Some say 4-5%. Others say 10%. When I look around, I wonder. Looks like more to me. But the truth is, we all have a little devil in us, so it’s really hard to tell. I was at the end of the line, the end of my rope and I started to wake up and realize, after this last experience with a sociopath, I should be done with trying, without thinking of the consequences to myself, to find the perfect love of my life. The perfect love of my life already revealed His Self and He is Perfect! Why would I look any further? Of course the answer to that is because I have this human body and I’d like to have that love right now with another human body and not some time in the future when selfrealization comes. You were lucky if you have found a human love in this lifetime that lasted. I actually met a few people in my life who stayed with one partner. At least, it appeared that way. And did this experience make any difference in my adherence to my promise? Yes! But I still couldn’t fake devotion and I could not act out of fear. And here comes the amazing part. My desire to find the perfect male in this material world was finally — naturally — falling away. Thank God! I was quite convinced

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there was no perfect love in this plane of existence. Not that I still didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t want to get pounded!â&#x20AC;Š

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Chapter 19

Who Can You Trust? Jesus Christ! Hare Krishna! Whatever! Did I learn anything from all these relationships and cult experiences? Was I evolving? Cause I surely had plenty of opportunity to gain some wisdom by the time I hit 60. One thing I realized for sure was, for the most part, I could not trust anyone. My spiritual master told me when I was very young, but I kept trying, so I guess I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t believe him. I put my trust in sociopaths, alcoholics, drug addicts, thieves, cults and our imperfect society instead of God. After all I experienced, I was ready to check out! To be completely alone! But I realized I needed other humans. We are not an island, right? No man is an island. Somehow I needed to understand how I could live in the world but not of it. I wanted to realize that humans are not perfect. They make mistakes. I reconciled how good people could be trusted to a degree but otherwise, I should not expect anything. It is not their fault. It had nothing to do with them or me. It was simply a matter of everyone being absorbed in their own shit and being human and humans make mistakes! Problems came when I expected too much from others. I expected them to be perfect. The fault was within me.

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Inside of myself, I really expected or hoped people would do unto me as I did unto them. (The Golden Rule) But that didn’t happen. I wondered where that expectation came from? My heart was ripping apart. Where was the love? Where was the love? Where was the love? You might be able to trust someone who doesn’t want anything for themselves, I thought. Who would that be? Some of the sadhus are selfless and advanced in their goal for self realization. Others are simply out to get your money. In my opinion, that would make them not a sadhu. Everyone has to take care of themselves first, but for a real sadhu who depends on God, they will take care of themselves without hurting others. You could probably trust that person. But you couldn’t expect anything from them. Its like they were on another planet. And why would you need to trust them. The only thing you would want from them is their wisdom. And if they are still on this planet, then they have not achieved perfection anyway. You might be able to trust a Buddhist monk or someone who is seriously practicing dharma. Anyone else? Sure, but they are few and far between. A person basically needs to be pretty much selfless to be trustworthy and honestly, I began to think it was unfair to expect anything from anyone, so what would be the need of trust? Was it fair to ask a friend to take care of my valuables when anything could happen? And why did I need valuables? All you need is love, right?

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Shit was going on in my head like that, swimming deep in my throat and drowning in my stomach as I was losing faith in humanity. It was my problem. I turned my face from the good instruction of my spiritual masters and I got hammered! I was astounded to know I was devoured by the desire for emotion. I wanted love and affection and kindness from everyone I met. After Number seven went to prison I met a really cool guy in the marina. He came by often as he said he was helping a friend with his boat in my area. He gave me his phone number to call him if I needed any work done, brought me some Chinese take out dinner once, helped me clean my boat and acted as if he were an ordinary guy, just doing good deeds. He was driving a new white Porsche and sported a brand new dingy the day I met him. One day, he asked to borrow my outboard motor as his was in the shop. “Of course,” I said, “I’ll come to your boat and pick it up tomorrow. Where is your marina and what is the name of your boat?” He gave me an answer and guess what? You’ve got to laugh at how stupid I was. The marina was there and so was the boat, but it did not belong to him and that was the last of that! He was gone. Tried to call, but of course, he didn’t answer. $600 up in smoke! I let it fly. Didn’t bother calling the sheriff. Don’t even remember his name. And he could have been lying to me about that anyway so what was the point? I saw him around 4 years later at Subway, eating lunch in some work uniform with other men. He smiled at me, as he was a natural flirt and con till the end, probably not remembering where he knew me from and I

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just kept moving. Funny thing is, I had the slightest internal vision of him working some labor job because he was on probation. Intuition. I sold my car to a regular barfly at the Chart House where boaters went for Happy Hour. He captained a 100 foot boat from the California Yacht Club. I said, since we knew each other with many of the same bar friends, I would work a deal with him. I knew him for around 5 years, I guess. I asked for $1600. The car was valued at $2300. He gave me $1000 and stiffed me for the balance. Only much later did I realize he was addicted to cocaine as well as alcohol. Boy, I scored on that one! I was an idiot to think I could actually trust him. Lilâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; ole me was bound to run into some people who were crooks. I was from the South and we were charming people, innocent and sorry to say, somewhat gullible and naive, the perfect victim for a con artist. I noticed everywhere that everyone was only out for themselves. And why not? Who else was going to take care of them? Especially in Los Angeles where they have more than their share of sociopaths who would steal the clothes off your back. Marina Del Rey sheltered its share of criminals, I found out, the hard way. Many of these guys, probably mostly men, lived on boats because it was cheaper than getting a studio apartment in LA. They possessed no ambition, no hobbies or sports interest. They mostly just drank. So I met a few, cause I was drinking.

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Sociopaths are very expert at being con artists. You really needed to meet a few in your life before you could understand. But I don’t advise it! The first con I met was going to replace the engine in my houseboat. Instead, he used my boat to live on while I was in San Francisco and then he stole $3000 from me for an engine he purchased that didn’t work. He probably got it for free and pocketed the money. His only response was a shrug of his shoulders. And you really could not trust cops. The sheriff’s department in the marina was a joke if you got something stolen or damaged. They wouldn’t waste their time on that. They only responded to calls of serious emergencies. They were required to or they would get fired! I learned never to trust a cop! I used them when it was necessary, but once it backfired on me. They blamed me for something I called them about. So, if you were forced to use one, what could you do? But I learned never to trust one. I met one lady I honestly trusted with heart and soul. She was a sweet Armenian lady from Iran and a real devotee. She was not fake in anyway, always giving to others and praying and doing the right thing. When she was a young, married woman, tragedy struck in her life. She was living in Hrisikesh, north of Delhi along the Ganges doing some work for her guru in the 80s. One night, she and her husband heard some noise in the kitchen. Her husband got up to check it out and was bitten by a poisonous snake. She immediately got him to the hospital where he got treatment, but died shortly after. She was left to raise her son

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alone and never re-married. Her sister never married, though a beautiful woman, who was equally kind. The two lived in Vrindavan together and were some of the most dedicated and giving women I ever met. She took care of the leasing of my apartment for me for nine years while I was in America. She took her 10%, made regular reports to me and returned every dime to me when she decided to do something else. But she was not just a good business woman, she wanted to do it as a service. Her whole life was about service to God and to the devotees. I could trust her. But she was rare. She was very rare. Hereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the thing about people you think you can trust. They are human. Even if they mean well, people make mistakes. Accidents happen. They are not in control of the material nature around them, so ultimately you can only trust the person who can be in control of time and nature. That person would not be human. That person would be god. So, there I was, OUT OF THE FRYING PAN AND INTO THE FIRE. I left swindlers in the church and found more in the marina. Now some people, as they get older and have experienced as much as I had, would get bitter and cynical. I could easily have fallen into that category, but it didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t feel good inside. So I made a decision to think differently. I resolved to love myself and trust myself. I would be kind to everyone, even though I could recognize they were a con artist. I would politely say, no, Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m not interested, and when they tried to become my best friend, I would always be a little too busy.

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“Sorry, I am working on something right now and don’t have time. What are you working on? Well, I prefer to keep that private, but I will call you if I can spare some time.” And, of course, I never had the time. Did that make me a cold person? I hoped not. I hoped it made me wise. My heart told me to be kind and help others when possible, never expecting anything in return. But my heart also told me my only real friend was my Supreme Self, my sweet lord, Krishna, and to think anything different was a grand illusion that would simply get me into more trouble. I felt like I had experienced twenty lifetimes in one, and I realized that when someone said, “Trust me,” I should run as fast as I could in the opposite direction.

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PART IV

YOGA OF THE HEART

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Chapter 20

Bhakti Yoga What is Bhakti Yoga? I understood my real purpose in life was service to God. But how could you serve someone you couldn’t see? It was confusing, yet daily I was getting more and more information on who God was, and how I could begin to ‘practice’ serving Him in order to get a taste for devotional service. In the beginning I realized the only person I wanted to serve was myself! I wondered why the Hare Krishnas, as we were called, didn’t do the prescribed Hatha yoga simultaneously with our Bhakti We should have! Many do. The positions are meant to help your spine get straight and breathing helps free your mind so you can meditate. I read the paperback book by Patanjali with the yoga sutras and understood a little, but it seemed complicated and did not really address the emotional part of connecting with God which was what I personally needed to hear. The process prescribed by the saint, Patanjali, was as follows: 1. Yama

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Yoga deals with human evolution. It starts with advice on harmonizing the external and internal life while living in society. It helps to create a harmonious and peaceful society. There are five yamas – Satya (truthfulness), Ahimsa (nonviolence, not hurting other beings physically or mentally), Asteya (non-stealing), Aparigraha (not taking more than what one needs or not accumulating beyond ones needs) and Brahmacharya (a balanced sexual life, meaning control over your senses and living without over-indulgence. It can also mean celibacy for renunciants and monks). 2. Niyama Similarly, there are five Niyamas contributing to the personal mode of conduct. They are Saucha (cleanliness or personal hygiene, including mental purity), Santosa (means contentment), Tapas (self discipline), Swadhaya (means self-study, or studying the nature of one’s own mind and doing inquiry into one’s own reality) and Iswara Pranidhana meaning total acceptance of life, facing all life situations with equanimity. 3. Asana The next step is called Asana or postures. Asana means a posture that is steady and comfortable. Asana is an essential step towards the higher practices of yoga. Asanas can be meditative poses aimed towards attaining strength, balance and steadiness. Apart from the spiritual benefits, each Asana can have particular health benefits too.

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4. Pranayama Pranayama means the regulation of breath. The breath and mind are closely related. If one can control the breath, one can control the mind. Pranayama gives steadiness and calmness to the mind. Our health improves, one gets clarity and experiences a sense of well being. Only a calm mind can go inwards. An agitated mind cannot be meditative. 5. Pratyahara Pratyahara leads the mind inwards, preparing it for meditation. In pratyahara, the mind is withdrawn from the senses and the sense objects, yet remains fully aware of the inner processes. 6. Dharana Dharana has to do with concentration. This means absorption. If the mind can be absorbed on an idea or an object, it is called dharana. 7. Dhyana Prolonged period of dharana leads to Dhyana. This is real meditation. It is the absorption of the mind on one object, or idea, without distraction for a prolonged period of time. It is continuous and without break. 8. Samadhi The last stage of Yoga is called Samadhi or super conscious awareness. As one proceeds on the path of dhyana or meditation,

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a point comes when one loses self-consciousness or the sense of â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;. Samadhi is the highest stage of self realization, the final goal. Then, the Bhagavad Gita described four spiritual paths of karma-yoga, raja-yoga, jnana-yoga and the highest was described as bhakti yoga.

Karma-yoga, or the yoga of action, seeks to eradicate the ego. It is the ego, born of ignorance, that binds us to this world through attachment. Non-attachment to the results of action is the goal. Karma-yoga believes the ego is the sole problem. But when transformed through yoga, the same ego becomes a friend. The process is gradual, as with all the processes. Raja-yoga seeks to attain the knowledge of the Self within. Since it is ignorance that binds the human soul to the world of dreams and desires, only Self-realization can dispel this ignorance. To attain Self-knowledge, raja-yoga asks the seeker to develop strong will power by the relentless practices of concentration and meditation on the Self, with the support of pranayama, or control of breath, asana, or control of posture, and an uncompromising adherence to austerity and self-control. According to raja-yoga, eradication of the ego through karmayoga is a long process, and most seekers do not have the patience to endure the sacrifice it calls for. Raja-yoga contends, the mind is generally too weak and perverted to follow the path of reason, or

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jnana-yoga. Impurities of the mind are too deeply imbedded and cannot be uprooted simply by reason. Jnana-yoga is the path of knowledge. The darkness of ignorance can only be dispelled by the light of knowledge. It calls for the practice of discrimination between the real and the unreal, renunciation of all desiresâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;both earthly and heavenlyâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;mastery over the mind and senses, and an intense longing for Selfknowledge. The mind does not give up its attachment to worldly pleasures unless it has tasted something greater and higher. Selfknowledge, according to jnana-yoga, is true liberation. Bhakti Yoga is the path of devotion. This path of bhakti is more likened unto Christianity. While practicing devotion, one simultaneously does the practice of all the above, eradicating the ego, trying to understand the self within and acquiring real knowledge from the Vedas or from wherever God gives it.

Bhakti yoga is the practice of devotional service and concentrates on gradually attaining pure love in the heart, which is normally full of unwanted things. This devotional service is not only trying to serve God directly, but starts with serving God through helping others to understand this path as well as to help others by giving them spiritual food (food that has been offered to God, thus no karma is acquired). The philosophy is, if you do something just for yourself, you will enjoy or suffer the results of

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that activity, but if you do something for the pleasure of God, the only result will be your own enlightenment. Also, if you eat only for your own pleasure, you will get the karma from killing the food, plant or animal. If you eat food that is first offered to God, then there will be no karma because you are not acting only for your own pleasure. This process is very gradual as well. We do not give up our desires instantly. How could we? But as we gradually experience the ecstasy and the natural high derived from Bhakti or devotional service, we lose the desire for lesser things. This process is theoretical. I definitely experienced the bliss or I would not still be working on it, but I had not achieved the perfection of losing all material desires. I was working on being steady, number five. Amy was still up and down, up and down and up and down! With all this information, I still needed more clarification and I finally received that from my Siksha Guru. This finally started to give me some real faith, unlike the faith from the beginning of my search. He spoke about the actual process of how one comes to the absolute truth gradually. I was amazed! It made me feel I could actually have a chance to achieve the goal, whereas before, I thought it might be attainable for some, but certainly not for me. Srila Narayan Maharaja quoted from Madhya Lila 23. 14-15

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“In the beginning there must be faith. Then one becomes interested in associating with pure devotees. Thereafter one is initiated by the spiritual master and executes the regulative principles under his orders. Thus one is freed from all unwanted habits and becomes firmly fixed in devotional service. Then, one develops taste and attachment. This is the way of sādhana-bhakti, the execution of devotional service according to the regulative principles. Gradually emotions intensify, and finally there is an awakening of love. This is the gradual development of love of Godhead for the devotee interested in Kṛṣṇa consciousness.”

There it was! There was my answer as to how, if ever, I would achieve the goal and it was described in nine steps. Srila Narayan Maharaja personally told me I needed to work on number five, firm faith or steadiness.

1. faith comes first, then 2. association with a pure devotee 3. practice of devotional service comes next 4. unwanted habits disappear 5. faith becomes firm or steady 6. taste for service to Krishna gradually develops 7. then we become attached to Krishna 8. emotional affection comes into the heart and

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9. prema or love finally appears

So, this was Bhakti Yoga. This was how I was going to fulfill my promise. I was in ecstasy just knowing the process and what stage I was in. Life was becoming promising and my doubts were gradually clearing. Bhakti yoga was for me!â&#x20AC;Š

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PART V REALIZATIONS FROM THE PLANET EARTH

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Chapter 21

Religion is the Opiate of the Masses

While on the journey to find absolute truth and free myself from the tomb and the womb, realizations came to me in waves. One major realization was about religions. That was because I was in one even though my associates said it was not one.

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I had been surrounded by religion since I was born, as most humans are. I told my friend one day, “I hate religion! It just separates people, everyone thinking they are better than the other.” She replied, “Yes, it separates them, but it also brings them together.” Well, shit! I couldn’t deny that. But let me just paint a picture in your mind. Here’s a Hassidic Jew with curls as sideburns, some sort of hat and long black clothing. Then there’s the Catholic priest with his black uniform and white collar and the nuns with cape-looking covers and big hats. There’s the Muslin man with his squared off round hat and his long tunic. His wife is wearing a black burka with her mouth and nose covered and her eyes peeking through. There’s a Buddhist monk with his head shaven and orange robes and beads. Close to that, the Hindu monks wear orange robes, some with shaved heads, others with a pony tail in back and some have dreadlocks down to their knees. How about the American Indian Priest and all the feathers, beads and bones! Each particular article of clothing is there to say, “We believe this.” These costumes say, “I believe in Mohammed, or I believe in Krishna, I believe in Jesus Christ, I believe in the Sun God, I believe in Nirvana.” Honestly, who gives a shit? Should you wear your religion? Should you mark you face with three vertical lines or two horizontal ones? Should you bow down to pray three times a day or go to confession? Maybe I should go to confession but the poor priest might be there for a while.

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Nevertheless, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s probably all good if it helps you to connect with God as you understand Him/Her and you donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t criticize others. Elevated souls do not criticize other religions, so I have heard. If you believe in God and have started some sort of process to reach the ultimate Truth, then you are evolving. I did not need to criticize you for your beliefs, because at least you were doing something. Good for you, but I thought humans in religious costumes looked like monkeys who found different costumes in a box and were parading around in them, not understanding what each costume meant. Why did I feel that way? Because I honestly felt your beliefs or religion should be your private business and to wear costumes can be an egotistical effort to say you are better than anyone else or it simply separate you from others. I did realize all the people wearing these statements of their religion were not egotistical about it, but some were very humble. So there were two types of people who dress up in their religious garb. And, I realized different religions considered that their costumes were practical for their particular practice. Hindus, with their orange robes, needed to have as few possessions as possible. Simple cloths tied around them, with no stitching was pretty renounced. Thin cloth in hot weather also worked well. Muslim women covered their bodies from head to toe in black whilst they were decorated with sequins underneath and thought they were being chaste for their husbands. The list goes on.

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In both Vrindavan and Mayapur as well as a few other places in India where westerners joined the community and adopted the dress, it was a bit of a different story. First of all, it was being respectful to the others in the community. Then, well, when in Rome. If you are living in a foreign country with a completely different culture, there is certainly no harm in adopting the standard dress. It can be both practical as well as kind to not draw attention to yourself. It only becomes weird according to the time and place. It becomes weirder when it is part of your ego. But about religion, Krishna said to Arjuna, “Give up all varieties of religion and simply surrender unto Me,” Bhagavad Gita 18:66. I liked that. Did he really mean it? Again, as far as I know, He is the only person in history with balls enough to say, “I am God.” (There’s that sentence again! But it is sooooo true.) So, I wondered, if Krishna says to give up religion, then why has a religion sprung up around the words He spoke to Arjuna with more rules and regulations and practices than you can count? Hindus published books with all the religious processes you needed to follow. And why? Was it because we needed to turn our seven deadly sins into seven virtues? No harm in that, but when my religion tried to intimidate me in order to get me to follow the rules, or told me there was no chance for redemption without following their regulations, I definitely had a problem with that and that is what the cult did. It used fear and intimidation and in the end, only we were responsible for our own ascension or salvation. It used rules

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saying you were required to use this hand for one thing, the other for something else. You needed to wear clay markings all over your body and if you didn’t sip water with a name of god with each sip, your offerings would not be accepted. If you didn’t decorate your body with clay before you chanted the mantra, it would not be effective! Really??? What about love and affection? What about doing something from your heart? All those rules and regulations were more of a distraction than an aid for me. You weren’t supposed to take your meditation beads in the bathroom, yet one of our most elevated grandfather guru’s hid himself in a latrine in order not to be bothered when he chanted. And did we really need a religion? Did we need a ritual to help us cross the ocean of material existence? It was nice to know we had a spiritual guide where we could go with our questions and maybe take gifts and donations to that person for their generosity, but did that guide need a format and a building? Did his instructions need to be packaged in the robe of a ritual? Krishna didn’t think so. Why did we? Actually, we humans probably could not reach our goal without guides or gurus to help us along in our search for truth. We go to astrologers for advice, architects to help us build a house and doctors to tell us what kind of medicine to take, so if we needed a teacher to help us cross the ocean of birth and death, we needed a guru. But religion was just a big reason to start wars and wear costumes as I saw it. Nevertheless, it pretty much did it for everyone, the masses, as it were. It didn’t do it for me.

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If there was a drug for everyone, an opiate, it was probably religion. Here’s the thing. We were all convinced our religion was the only true, and real path that would get us to the destination we wanted. And I was sure it was true. Each religion has its own destination, like Nirvana or Heaven and for my community, it was Vrindavan in the spiritual world. And maybe we needed a road to get there, so there was nothing wrong with a taking the right direction, but we were all running around in circles preforming all types of rituals and ceremonies and sacrifices and wearing all types of robes and headgear and I wondered just how crazy we must look! I could see a picture in my mind’s eye of a higher species in ethereal bodies looking down on humans and scratching their heads, thinking, “What the hell are they doing?” If they were angels, hopefully they would have compassion on us poor deluded souls! But they may have been thinking, “These humans should just take some LSD and really get high. That is guaranteed!

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Chapter 22

The People You Meet Along the Way I’m pretty sure that most, if not all of the people we meet along the way have come in to our lives for a reason. I first wondered about my parents, grandparents, sibling, aunts, uncles and cousins. Wow! In my case, that was a lot of people, six aunts and uncles, 21 cousins and one sister. And I must have learned something from all of them. I was born in Alabama. Yes, you guessed it, I was born into the land of hatred for minorities and ignorance of equality. I have to wonder why. What lesson did I need to learn from that? Some of these people are truly narrow minded, hypocritical, bigoted and self righteous beings, but not all. My mother was from a family of Primitive Baptists. Every Mother’s Day, our entire family on my mother’s side went ‘down to the country’ for a type of family reunion. There was an old white church with a cemetery in back and picnic tables in front. My memories were ones of both being astonished, and humored. When we arrived, we would go out to the cemetery to put flowers on our dead ancestors tombstones. OK, that was cool. I didn’t

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know them, but my mom was happy to be paying respects and I kinda got it that I had a grandfather once. My cousin Nancy and I would run around the cemetery and read the names and laugh and then look at each other scared we were laughing at the dead. So much fun! The adults would go in the church and sing notes. Yes, notes. Fa-So-La-Te-Do-Re-Me. I couldn’t believe it. It was the funniest thing and the most astonishing thing I heard in my life. Maybe there was some hidden esoteric meaning to singing notes that even the members of the church were not aware of. I mean, Re or Ra being the sun, etc. Nancy and I would go outside of the church and play while we laughed at the adults. One Sunday I remembered someone spitting out the window and it landing on Nancy. Whatever she spat was brown. Ugh! We were all dressed up in new frilly dresses our mothers made for us and we were horrified by the uncouth behavior of these adults. Evidently the old women and men liked something called ‘snuff’ and they spit out this stinky, yellowish-brown juice that came from the snuff they snorted, a type of cocaine, I guessed! Tobacco based. Nancy figured out it was an old woman dressed in black sitting by the window who spat on her. A black widow! And to this day, my dear cousin still recalls the black widow and laughs till she cries. After their service was over, everyone went to their respective cars and brought out table cloths and tons of food, fried chicken, ham, deviled eggs, potato salad, baked beans and lots of other picnic food, plus pies and cakes to drown all your sorrows like

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coconut flake cake, southern pecan pie, lemon icebox pie, chocolate cake and on and on and on. Everyone was in bliss with all that luscious food and sugar, awaiting only on a prayer before they dug in. And the prayer came next. An old minister asked for the blessing of God and the blessings of all our dead relatives or ancestors and all the community and God bless the children, the sick and invalid and the soldiers and maybe that was about it. Then we ‘dug in‘ as they said in the South. Afterwards, the adults talked while the children played and we took the long ride home when the sun was going down, falling asleep in daddy’s 1952 blue Ford. On my mother’s side of the family there were four sisters with their four husbands and fourteen cousins, my sister and myself being included in that figure of 14. My grandmother lived until the age of ninety-nine, so she was with us for many years. We spent Christmas at aunt Georgia’s home, Easter at aunt Aucie’s, Thanksgiving at aunt Joyce’s and grandma’s birthday at my mom’s (aunt Lauretta). Ages of cousins varied by probably as many as 10 to 15 years, Eddie being the oldest at around 20 and Kay being the youngest at around four. Did I learn anything from my aunts, uncles, cousins, parents and grandparents? Of course. From Nancy I learned how to laugh. And how to be mischievous. From my aunt Aucie, I learned not to smoke! I mean, what is up with chain smoking? Didn’t she want to breathe clean air for five minutes? Guess not, cause she lit one

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after another and died very young of lung cancer. My cousins were so unique, the football star, the shut in, the adopted kids of a guy in prison. On my father’s side of the family was my grandmother and his three sisters and their husbands. I had seven cousins on his side of the family who all lived in the country and were pretty wild! One cousin was into explosives and blew himself up along with a few others. One female cousin stole her mother’s credit cards and bought everything she needed for a lifetime and nothing was ever done about it. Another young cousin, Michael, was slaughtered at ‘Hamburger Hill’ in Viet Nam and I went to his funeral where the casket was never opened. It was a military funeral with a twentyone gun salute. What a sad day! His mother, Betty Jo, whom I used to call from time to time and was the sister of my father. Her husband was an herbal doctor who followed in the footsteps of his father who owned a hospital in Mineral Springs, Alabama on, you guessed it, a mineral springs lake. His father was somewhat famous at the time and saw patients from all over the United States. He was killed in some kind of police chase where I believe he was trying to kill someone else who was sleeping with his wife, or maybe it was the other way around. His name was Andrew Melvin Price who was famous for his medical practice at the time. My uncle, Bruce Price, saw patients on Sundays only and worked for Boeing making airplanes during the week. In my

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twenties, when I was searching and living in Krishna temples, I became very interested in herbal and natural medicine. Then one day I remembered my uncle was an herb doctor! So Larry and I and my daughter went to spend a few days with my aunt and uncle at the Springs. He showed me books, we talked about how to identify and gather the herbs in the area and he even diagnosed me as being deficient in vitamin B and iron. Unfortunately, he died too young with a heart attack. For years after the Viet Nam conflict I would call my aunt Bet on Veterans Day. She was a great southern woman who made her own peach wine and Sarsaparilla tea. My sister died at the age of 33. What did I learn from her? Her life was so sad. She was always overweight, from a toddler, so I knew it was genetic. But I have to say when she died, it nearly killed my mother. The greatest pain in this material world must be the pain of losing a child or having something horrible happen to them you can do nothing about. How does a mother cope with that pain? She never got over it. Never! Anyway, my sister was very jealous of me. I was cute, popular and she was overweight and sick. Believe me, I think about life with her often. Those years formed who I was in many ways. I became ashamed and embarrassed to be pretty. I was embarrassed to be talented and athletic. Basically, I was holding back on who I could have been. I allowed myself to start gaining weight around the age of 12 when entering into puberty. I began to lose my self esteem. Food was what my family loved, and I

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began to love it too, but I could remember a time when I cared little about eating. My mother would constantly have to badger me about finishing my meal. But with my families love of food and my sisterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s weight problem, I joined right in to the madness and before I knew it, I was damaged. I lost and gained weight the rest of my life. Then I looked at my neighbors, school friends, teachers, social clubs and boy/girl relationships. We cross paths with so many people in a lifetime there is no wonder we canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t remember them all. But I do believe they all have something to teach us. Maybe we learn, maybe we donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t. Then marriages, new towns, jobs, trips, and camping trips, moves, all contribute to the whole of who we are. So what is the purpose of it all when we just have to die in the end? I learned from my mother not to be self-righteous and bigoted because she was. She was meticulous in cleaning and sewing and I learned that from her. My father was a god man, always going to church and taking care of others. He loved to fish, swim, play cards, golf, tell jokes and dance. He loved sports, played baseball as a youth and even as an adult. He loved it that I was athletic too. I definitely took after him in that respect. From him I learned many lessons of course, but one major one was not to procrastinate. It has served me well. My sister taught me compassion and empathy. I was always making an effort to protect her from cruel people who would criticize.

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But here is the interesting thing. Most of the lessons learned, I learned in my old age as I looked back at my past. I’ve learned to pay attention from my mother. From my mother I also learned cliche’s like, ‘A stitch in times saves nine’ or ‘Don’t count your chickens before they hatch.’ I learned not to criticize others from my father and my mother. I learned steadfastness from my father. I learned to give up my low self esteem from my sister. I learned not to feel guilty for being the cute one in my family, well, actually, maybe I didn’t learn that one at all. The people you meet along the way are there for you and you for them, I was convinced. It only made sense. Sometimes we learned from embarrassing stuff we did. Sometimes we learned from things we did right. In high school I was elected Head Cheerleader. There was another girl who felt she was more qualified and made every effort to defame me, but it backfired against her. It turned out, I was happy and worked hard while she became known as someone whom others couldn’t quite trust. Of course I wanted the position of head cheerleader, and I was humbled to get it and yet I could see how her jealousy was eating her alive. Lesson - jealousy will destroy you! In college I got mixed up with some girls who thought they were ‘cool’. Right. I went with them one day to a trendy dress shop where I was challenged to steal a swim suit. Everyone was doing it. I stole this really hot turquoise bikini with lemon yellow trim. Afterwards, I went swimming and hung the swimsuit on the clothesline outside. The next morning, the suit was gone.

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Someone had stolen it from me. Lesson; DON’T STEAL. Your actions come back to you. “Instant karma’s gonna get you!” (John Lennon) I was so embarrassed and ashamed. I already felt guilty but knew instantly how I was getting my due long before I ever heard of the word ‘karma’. And as I looked back, I wondered if the owner of the boutique hadn’t followed us home to take back her goods. Wow! That was humbling. I was given an extremely beautiful and talented roommate in college. She was a classical pianist (Sandy, mentioned in the story of Purple Haze) who went on to become somewhat famous in her symphony orchestra. She came from a middle class family while I came from a lower middle class one. Late in my life, I was understanding how it could be very dangerous having friends who may look down on you, if only in a small way. This woman both wanted me as a friend because I was popular and cute, but didn’t want me as a friend because my parents didn’t have enough money. Lesson; hang out with like-minded people who love you for who you are, not what you have. I was popular in college, was elected ‘Freshman Favorite’ and won awards in high school, so looks were not a problem for me. But I honestly had no clue what my talent was. Was I just a cheerleader and nothing more? Shallow! I simply couldn’t imagine I would have to take care of myself, especially coming from the South. Everyone got married there and their husbands took care of them. So I wasted way too much time in school, looking for boyfriends. I spent all my years in college not

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knowing what to do. As a result, my low self esteem only seemed to double. I was good at sports, tennis, golf, water skiing, etc., but I thought I was not very intelligent. (I later found I was definitely wrong.) My grades were horrible and my teachers affirmed my stupidity. Realization came to me about my intellectual abilities much later in life as I easily passed my Real Estate Broker’s Exam and Insurance Broker’s Exam, when others continued to fail. I was not stupid at all. I simply did not apply myself when I was young. I was mostly bored. Why did I listen to others? I went into business for myself in Food Service and made a very good living for around 21 years as a somewhat accomplished entrepreneur and published a number of magazines. Yet damage was done to my self esteem very early on and that is a hard thing to repair. Lesson; Don’t make men the priority in you life, denying your own talents the chance to thrive and don’t ever let others tell you ‘you can’t,’ because ‘you can!’ In business I hurt feelings as I fired employees who couldn’t do the job properly or were too slow, unfocused and perpetually late. I was sometimes very impatient with incompetent or slow people. I did not know how to let people down gradually. I tried to be kind, but honestly, there is no easy way to tell a person how they are not helping you run your business the way you would like. And this is serious because you are dealing with other peoples lives and their livelihood. I fired one man who was slow and talked constantly instead of working. His wife was pregnant. I waited until after the baby was born and Christmas passed, but I

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had to let him go. Lesson; if you’re going to be in business, you will probably be SHREWD and others will get hurt as a result of you’re moving up in the business world. This human life must be for the lessons you learn, from your cousins, your friends, your teachers, your parents, your children, your husband, your bosses, your employees, your acquaintances, the clerk at the store, the bartender, the mechanic and others you meet along the way. Otherwise, what is the point? Who were the other people I met along the way? LOL. My husbands and boyfriends to start with, as I have already described. But here are the lessons learned. My first was a high school lover, turned Coast Guard Navigator, turned Krishna devotee. My second, although not actually married was the Viet Nam Vet. My third live-in boyfriend was the cinematographer, writer and artist. My fourth lover and second husband was an Architect. My fifth major relationship and husband was a Pharmacist. My sixth lover, not husband, was the jazz keyboardist and singer, and my seventh lover was the sociopath. Seven is an octave, right? Done! I hoped! Definitely learned lessons from each one of them. With Number one, I learned to teach what I know, because he didn’t and he had so much to give. Number two, I learned you can’t cop out with suicide, war sucks and you really have to focus on a career because we have to make money in this life, like it or not. Number three, I learned to believe in myself and my godgiven intelligence. Number four, I learned to think very hard

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before I commit to something and to not let someone’s obsession with me be the reason for my commitment. Number five, I learned to bake bread, cookies, cakes, puff pastry, Napoleons and Danish. I learned the secrets of different doughs and batters and temperatures to bake each item. I made pastry creams, cheese crackers, pies and ate them all! That didn’t help my self esteem. But I mostly learned from this man how criticism is extremely harmful! He nearly destroyed me at the time. But he became a good father, good provider and a good man, I think. With Number six, I learned to use my talents for God. And I don’t mean singing in a choir. I mean, if God has given you something, double it! And with Number seven I learned that Demons are Real! So from four husbands and three live-in boyfriends I learned to teach what I’ve learned, hold my life sacred, write, think first before making a decision, bake, don’t criticize others, to appreciate jazz, and to stay away from sociopaths. They are everywhere! Orgasms I learned from the girl next door. From bosses I learned to be kind, give expert instructions, be patient, and be fair. From children, I learned everything! With friends, I learned to sail, to play golf, to write, to clean, to get what you need and to tell stories. Instead of simply being quiet at happy hour, I told stories. One lady friend who is published told me, “Everyone likes to be entertained.” I wanted

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to be an entertainer, therapist, spiritualist, chef, sailor, and friend. I think I was.â&#x20AC;Š

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Chapter 23

California Dreaming I loved living in the marina in Los Angeles, surrounded by happy go lucky boaters and sun seekers. (Regardless of the crooks) Everyone seemed to be happy. I liked being around happy people. I made lots of friends when I was there, although, I knew they would be temporary. Friends are like two logs floating down a river. Sometimes they come together and sometimes they are apart. Krishna is supposed to be the One that is always with me. I hadnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t realized that yet, so instead of sitting at home alone and getting depressed, I went out to happy hour and met so many people, got so many invitations and life became exciting! The California lifestyle was for me. Alone was starting to feel better, and I was seriously enjoying myself because in Los Angeles you meet many very interesting people with great stories to tell. Captain Jerry was one of those people. He said that I needed to be careful if I ever told anyone about him because I could get killed by someone who might be looking for him. I believed it.

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I really liked Captain, who wore many hats. He was my mechanic, fisherman, cruise ship captain friend who referred to me as his ‘next ex-wife.’ He was an old sailor who lied about everything and everybody, but could tell some of the most amazing and funny stories you ever heard. I do believe some of them were actually true, because from time to time, he would call a witness in to verify his story. He even told stories to others about me, in front of me that were true, but some were not. I just let those go. One night we went to Playa Del Rey together to meet some friends for dinner. He was buying round after round of drinks and shots. I stopped drinking because I was driving. But Jerry got really trashed. Afterwards I said I would take him home so he wouldn’t have to drive. At the time, I lived in a garage apartment with a double bed mattress on the floor in one room. We both pretty much passed out on that mattress. The next morning, Jerry swung his legs around to get out of bed and go to the bathroom. “The boats sinking!” he shouted. “What?” I said. “The boat is sinking. We’ve got to get out of here!” I raised my head up and realized we were in my apartment, but there was about two inches of water on the floor. Seems the sprinkler system outside the garage ruptured and it was flooding my apartment. “Jerry,” I shouted, “we’re not on a boat, we’re in my apartment.” “Well, then your apartment is sinking!” he said. Captain told his share of Bar Stories, never ceasing to amaze me. One story took place in Mexico, just after he returned from

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Viet Nam. He was sitting at the bar talking to a friend on his right when this guy butted in between him and his friend to order a drink. Jerry looked around and saw there was plenty of room at the bar, so he figured this guy was up to something. He made an effort to ignore the guy to no avail and then finally asked his friend to move down to the other end of the bar. They did and when they did, the asshole moved right along with him. Captain said, “You got a problem with me?” The guy answered, “Yeah I do” and pulled out a knife. “I’m gonna rip you to pieces with this dagger!” Captain reached in his back pocket, pulled out a Derringer and shot the guy right between the eyes. Lucky for the guy, Captain was having a bad day and the bullet went in and out at an angle, through his eyebrow and out behind the back of his ear. The guy lived. Captain did go to court, of course, but the case was dismissed as self defense. Another bar story was shocking and funny. Captain was sitting at a private club when a regular biker member kept yakking on and on about how he hated his hair and how much he was sick of it and how it was bothering him. Seems the guy sported quite a long pony tail. After listening to him go on and on for half an hour, Captain pulled out his knife, walked to over the guy, cut his pony tail off above the rubber band, handed it to him and said, “Here, you don’t have to talk about it anymore!” The guy, in shock, said and did nothing. Love Captain Jerry. You gotta laugh cause nobody else would do those crazy things and nobody else could get away with it. Jerry was not a big guy

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either. He was around 5’8” with big blue eyes to die for and was not afraid of anything, well, that I know of. According to him, he must have owned at least 50 boats. Truth is, he called every boat he was working on ‘my boat’. He was a sailor and fisherman but he also worked as a bounty hunter and a mercenary for the government in reconnaissance. Yeah, that’s what I wasn’t supposed to reveal, but nevertheless, I got his permission, a while back. It took knowing him for 9 years before he finally revealed his scandalous profession to my virgin ears, as he explained why. It seemed people he got involved with, or their relatives, might want revenge for the work he did, so he needed to keep his exploits a secret in order to stay hidden. He simply said he worked for the government under the disguise of a merchant marine. I always thought he was with the CIA. He wasn’t but he did work for the government, as well as I could tell, and he was working within the merchant marines. His team used merchant marine ships to go into places where he needed to do a job. It all started, according to him, a long time ago when there was a colonel in the air force who found him, and asked him to do a job and offered to pay him very well. They knew Jerry was working as a bounty hunter previously. So that is how he got his start in mercenary work. He’d been shot eight times and showed me the scars to prove it. And his good friend, who worked with him in the business verified everything. That friend got half his ass shot off! Just had to tell you. Not many people know that

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one! He laughs about it. I mean, how many people joke about getting their ass shot off? And, he did! But this guy just loved being on the water. The last time I was out with him, we delivered a 42 foot yacht from San Pedro to San Diego. He truly knew what he was doing on the ocean. He was raised on large fishing boats, going out with his father and he had been on the ocean ever since. He knew engines and that made him a pleasure to be with. When you’re way out in the sea and your engine breaks down, Jerry could be your savior. We spent many hours talking as he worked on my boats and we took trips to Redondo Beach together. They say you can count your real friends on one hand. I agreed. But I must have only three fingers! Anyway, I met some really good people in my life. There were some great people in the marina I met while sipping wine at happy hour. One friend made a joke out of everything. I’m kinda like that too. Honestly, I’m not sure if we took anything seriously! That would be Don. He introduced me to Denyce who always gave up her apartment as a ‘flop house’ after a party. I new a sailor woman who owned a boat named Invictus. That would be Pamela. She said what she wanted, when she wanted and at the same time seemed to avoid offending anyone! She was a real person and a true sailor from the heart. She liked to stand in the companionway as we sailed so as to get you a beer or take your empty bottle. Last time I went out with her she was feeling exceptionally well and kept flashing her tits as we journeyed into the sea. She was a member of a

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yacht club and had ‘reciprocals’ with other clubs, so we sailed to Redondo Beach and continued our party at the club there. She was a member of the Sea Level Club, too, having done it out at sea multiple times. Then there was Blair. Blair worked in the New York Philharmonic for twenty-one years as an oboe player. She left New York and moved to California where she went to Stanford for a Journalism degree. She wrote a book called “Mozart in the Jungle, Sex and Drugs in the New York Philharmonic.” Blair was a real trip! She professed to have slept with over one hundred men before she ever left prep school! She married Bill who professed to love her novel, then royally screwed her both in marriage and financially. After some time, she sold the movie rights of the book to HBO. HBO sold the rights to Amazon and the story made it on Amazon Originals. I saw the pilot but I didn’t keep up. Show won 2 Golden Globe awards! Blair was another happy hour friend. Nick Coster, who was a Broadway actor and in the Santa Barbara soap opera for 30 years, became a fun friend, always drinking champagne and getting naked. He sailed with my friend Don back from Catalina Island to Marina Del Rey wearing nothing but a pirate’s hat! I saw the pictures! Gonzo and Leslie hosted everyone at the Pacific Mariner’s Yacht Club. We were always invited when they were there. The club became known as Pickled Mariners as everyone was usually drunk known to fall off bar stools. But they hosted lots of fun

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events like dingy hors d’oeuvre parties where everyone brought their small boats and rafted together as they passed around drinks and gourmet snacks. They played a game called Poker Run where they went from yacht club to yacht club on dinghies, picking up a card at each stop and when they reached home base, the winner got a bottle of Gran Patron Tequila, sharing it with everyone. There were many open nights with bands playing outside under the stars overlooking the yachts and I definitely attended a few! The marina was one big party starting with happy hour a couple of times during the week and then partying all weekend. A typical weekend started with Friday night happy hour, followed by a Harbor Cruise on someone’s boat, then back to late night hour happy hour and then finished out the party on another boat! That is if you could make it that long. I usually called it a night around nine. But there have been times . . . I could tell some pretty bad stories about myself! Saturday was usually Bloody Mary’s and errands then Saturday evening would be a BBQ on someone’s boat or at Denyce’s place overlooking the water. (And yes, you can barbecue vegetarian style, and we were in LA where there were many vegetarians.) If we were lucky, the party kept going on Sunday morning with Sunday Brunch. I wondered at times, just how long could I keep up this lifestyle? I was usually the first to pass out on Denyce’s couch or stumble back to my boat. Don liked to do Traveling Happy Hour on the Water Taxi. We would grab a drink at Jamaica Bay Inn, get on the water taxi, go

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to Tony Ps and grab another drink, get on the taxi, grab another drink at El Torritos, get on the taxi one more time until we were back at our original destination feeling pretty damned good and get one more drink at Killer Shrimp! The water taxi was a great way to be on the water and not have to be an irresponsible drinker. Don Juan, we liked to call him, was the oldest of our group and yet seemed to have the most energy. When the evening was coming to an end for me, around 9pm, he would want to go dancing at a place where octogenarians met on Friday evenings. I lost one close friend who was a true jazz buddy. Number six gave me a real education in jazz standards and this lady and I went out often to hear great players. We discussed personal growth and right action, but we conflicted when we talked about god. She did not believe in a personal god. I did. We definitely disagreed! Seems she thought, “We were in control of our karma, meaning, if you don’t allow bad things to come into your mind or your aura, then bad things won’t happen.” I agreed, but I mostly believed in the “5 factors of action”. And here they are: These five different factors, according to the Bhagavad Gita, are the determining factor in the results of our activities. They are: 1) the body, 2) the performer (you), 3) the various senses (sound, smell, etc.), 4) the many different kinds of endeavors (in anger, in love, in work, etc.) and the fifth factor, the quintessential is 5) the Supersoul.

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To explain further, I need to tell you about the “Brahma Samhita,” 5.1, wherein the purport states “Although the place of action here refers to the body and the performer the soul, these 5 factors jointly contribute toward the success or the so called failure of any activity. Let us look at a practical example of how this is true in the material world. Let us say we are in a job. First and foremost, we have to be in the right job, but just landing the right job is not enough. What the individual does with the given opportunity of being in the right job through his or her various endeavors, by appropriately engaging both their perceptive as well as working senses, is entirely up to the individual. Having done all of this correctly, success is still not guaranteed as there is something beyond our control and that is the Supreme Will. According to the authority of Vedas, not a blade of grass can move without the supreme sanction of the Lord.” Now what this means basically, is I believed in a Supreme Super-soul that I am a part of. A person who does not believe there is a God who can have any form or will of its own, believes everything is Energy. Energy does not have a WILL. It is simply based on the principle of action and reaction. If you put out good energy, you get it back, you know, the laws of nature, “The Secret.” I also agreed with this, but I believed no matter how much good energy I put out, sometimes the results of my activities were simply not in my control. There was another factor however, that something is left up to the divine. The fifth factor of action.

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I new one great woman whom I met in Vrindavan and then spent time with in California. She laughed when I spoke with the mouth of a sailor even though we were smack-dab in the middle of a spiritual community. I was basically a non-conformist and so was she. I didn’t like to wear my religion, so I didn’t care for the traditional dress or clay markings associated with my beliefs and she kind of agreed. She was someone whom I could tell anything and I could tease her about her own shit and she didn’t get angry. I looked through my contacts in my email and realized most of the people I knew were really kind of past friends or acquaintances whom I spent some time with at one time or another. If you moved around like I did, you accumulated a lot of those past friends. Sometimes I wondered why I never got an email from any of them. I tried to stay in touch, but, whatever. It’s sad. So, I was thinking about aloneness, again, and dreaming about California while I was in India. All that partying was great, but in the end, I was still alone. After seven serious relationships, I was alone, but I was not unhappy about it at all. I did what I wanted when I wanted! And besides, My heart was changing as I went deeper into myself, realizing the name of God and God were one and the same. Krishna, Krishna, Krishna. Ahhhhh! Uuuuuu! Mmmmm! Some seekers are truly loners, living in the forest or in a cave or maybe just staying in their apartment and rarely coming out except to buy supplies. Well, we DIE ALONE, right? So maybe

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we should definitely get used to spending some time by ourselves. I tried it on for size. I found if I either left my boat or my apartment I would spend money anyway, so if I wanted to save, I needed to stay at home a little. But my inherent need for social interaction was definitely there. And then, when I went to the Holy Dhama, Vrindavan, I wished I could be hanging out at the bar and talking to strangers for a while, maybe with an ice cold Sangria! BFF? Best Friends Forever? . . . I think I needed to learn to love myself. My real Self was my best friend!â&#x20AC;Š

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Chapter 24

Visions I was really weird. Maybe you figured that out already, spiritually minded with the mouth of a sailor. I had visions, too. The experience of what it was like to die and take birth again was not one of those visions. It was a Remembrance, an anamnesis. I worked with a group in the early eighties called the EMIN, that studied everything esoteric in order to get to the real meaning of a thing. You could call it occult study because it investigated all sorts of hidden phenomena. In this group I saw Merlin or Mr. Magic literally stir up a fog in the middle of a meeting until I could not see the feet of anyone in the room. One night our â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Guide,â&#x20AC;&#x2122; as he was called, by the name of Tagir, and who was also nicknamed Mr. Magic, formed the group in a circle and began to walk around the circle, talking about things that would seem irrelevant, but were actually esoteric. He spoke of simple things like noticing the number of steps up to your apartment door and the meanings of different colors in flags. He talked about noticing everything around us, like how the hummingbird flew and the bear walked. As he walked the fog gradually filled the floor and I shook my head, opened and closed my eyes

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because I was sure what I was seeing was a product of my vivid imagination. Gradually it became very thick and was all around the floor. I actually saw the same thing in the movie “Merlin” years previously. Before his talk was done, the fog literally rose to the knees of all sitting in the group so I asked the person sitting next to me if she saw anything unusual, and of course, she had not. After the class I told Tagir I saw a fog around the floor of the room we were in. He simply said, “You saw that?” “What does it mean,” I asked, “we’ll talk about it later,” he said. We never did. I’ve seen other things as well, like . . .

Rock-a-Bye Baby

I was in an EMIN meeting where we were trying to understand the nature of different fairy tales and nursery rhymes. We would repeat rhymes over and over and let them resonate within us. At one point, we were rhyming, “Rock a bye baby, in the tree top, when the wind blows, the cradle will rock. When the bow breaks, the cradle will fall and down will come baby, cradle and all.” Silly rhyme, I thought in my conscious mind. Who would write a song about

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a baby falling out of a tree. Then it hit. It was quick, but it was real. The vision appeared. I saw the tree is the body of a woman, two legs for the trunk, the arms were the branches and hair, the leaves. The woman is pregnant, so the baby is in the (tree top). When the wind blows, (the parturition that propels the baby downward in the birth canal), the cradle will rock (yeah, labor)! When the bow breaks, (the cervix opens completely) the cradle will fall, (the water breaks) and down will come baby, cradle and all. (Birth) I stood silent in amazement wondering what I had just seen or experienced. It must be true, but what a strange way to write about birth!

Saturn in Crystal Meditation

On another occasion I experienced a completely different type of vision, experience or actually, it was both. Again, I was working with this same group. I went with Tagir to someone’s home in the mountains west of Boulder, Colorado one evening. There, someone asked Tagir if we could do a Crystal Meditation. He replied, “Do you have a crystal?” The woman who lived there retrieved it. “I will need some alcohol to cleanse the crystal and a clean cloth,” he said. Tagir cleansed the crystal and set it on the coffee table. We all gathered around as he lit a candle and placed it by the crystal. “I want you to stare into the reflection of the

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candle light in the crystal,” he said, “and think of something you want in your life like clarity, or wisdom, etc. Close your eyes and go to a sacred space or somewhere you have been before and can imagine, like a mountain top or a river. Then, after some time, allow yourself to receive what you have asked for. But, before we get started, you must promise to come back when I ask you.” He went around the room and asked each one of us individually if we would come back when he asked and we all agreed. The meditation began as he guided us by saying, “Now, focus on the light from the candle reflecting in the crystal. Be very calm and still and simply focus on the light in the crystal, not the candle light, but the reflection of the candlelight in the crystal. Sit straight without crossing your legs or hands or eyes. Everything should be open, as this is Electrical Work”. After some time, maybe five minutes or more he said, “Close your eyes and go ahead and go to that special place you want to be and meditate on the quality you are looking for in your life.” Everyone was very silent. The process was quite calming. I began to meditate on a special place I remembered, a spot in the Appalachian Mountains in North Carolina where the ground was soft from all the fallen leaves over thousands of years. I hiked to the top of the mountain and sat down, cross-legged, completely relaxed and focused on what I wanted, to be secure in myself. Insecurity plagued me my entire life and it continued to cause discontentment within me. (Remember my not feeling good about being cute because of my sister?)

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As I meditated, two things happened. On my left, in the sky, 5 elementals appeared. Don’t ask me how I knew they were elementals. I did not know, yet I did know. They were five different pale-colored triangle lights, like angels watching me, protecting me. Then, a soft darkish cloud with a silver-white lining appeared on my right and slipped in underneath me. Instantly, I was floating on the left side of Saturn. I experienced complete peace, feeling like a star, yet I could never explain the experience. All I could say was it was amazing! I noticed the rings around Saturn were orange and purple. I knew nothing about Saturn before and had no clue if those colors were accurate or just a figure of my imagination. Anyway, I was content to stay and never come back, but something inside of me knew that was not what I wanted and it was not what I was going to do. As Tagir began to speak again, I remembered my promise. “I want you to start thinking about coming back now,” and then finally he said it. “Come back.” After the experience he asked if anyone wanted to explain their journey. Others spoke about something a lot less ethereal, but something along the line of a cool river flowing over rocks, etc. I decided not to speak, thinking my experience was so intense that maybe I should just keep my mouth shut and reveal it to Tagir later. Outside the bathroom, however, after everyone got up for refreshments, I told my good friend, Homer. He didn’t seem very impressed, but just after the end of my story, Tagir came out of the bathroom, having overheard everything, and said, “Amy, why

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didn’t you tell everyone? That was amazing!” “I didn’t want to seem special, I said and I wasn’t sure I should speak about Saturn especially because I didn’t know what colors the rings were and I was concerned I would look stupid (insecurity, you know). I was just waiting for someone else to tell an equally amazing experience and then I would speak.” “Amy,” he said. “You have just traveled to Saturn.” “What were you asking for?” “I was asking for security, to be confident and secure within myself” I said. Tagir looked into my eyes and said, “That is what Saturn is all about, complete peace within, a transition to a higher plane of existence.” Oh, I thought. Something must be wrong with me. I am seeing people’s auras all the time now and I can still see trails as if I were tripping on acid. I am having all kinds of realizations and visions. But acid flashbacks were not the reason for my visions. I was different, weird.

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Chapter 25

What is a Life? One day I sorted through my father’s memory albums. There were pictures of his Navy ship and articles from his baseball conquests. Seems my father was a very accomplished baseball player, being an exceptional hitter, scoring 4 runs in one game and was noted to be a force in the infield like no other as a first baseman, according to a newspaper article I found. He played on an American Legion team and because his record was so amazing, he was inducted into the team for his ship, the USS Philadelphia in the navy. He told the story this way. “I enlisted when I was seventeen,” dad said, “I went for basic training where I stood in line to get weighed, checked out medically and given my uniforms. Afterwards, they told me to go to the mess hall, so I did. I grabbed a tray, went through the line and sat down, not knowing anyone around me, of course. Over the loud speaker, someone was calling my name, saying, ‘is Bill Williams here?’ I froze with fear as I thought, oh shit, I wonder what I did! I slowly stood up and said, ‘I’m Bill’. An officer walked over to me and said, ‘Bill, I understand you’re a pretty good baseball player’. ‘Yes, sir,’ I replied. ‘After you finish

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your meal, please report to the athletic office. We would like you to play for the navy on the USS Philadelphia team.â&#x20AC;&#x2122; Our team won championships in its division and we played often until I was shipped out.â&#x20AC;? I sat with my kids at home one afternoon and asked my dad to tell this story to them in hopes they would remember him one day when he was dead and gone, but I also made a video tape of the experience turning it into a DVD later. Who knows how long that technology will last? But my kids have it and my dad is no longer in that body. So if they want to remember him, they can pull out that DVD and try to find a player. I went through the albums and tore out pages to save and pages to throw away. What a tragedy to think that his life or any life for that matter, was in the end summarized and documented in the pages of a Photo/Memory album, now being torn apart. I made different stacks of photos for both of my children. If my children do not have children, I am hoping for a few moments in their life they will appreciate these sweet memories of my dad. If they did have children, I hoped they would pass the stories on. But the experience made me feel very minute, very small indeed. What is a life, after all? You are born, you go to school, you meet the girl, you get married, you go to war, you play sports, you have children, your children grow up, you grow old, your wife dies, your kids leave town, your friends die, and finally you die. In between, you had so many wonderful experiences with so much fun and so much pain. You go on summer

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vacations, you buy a new home, you go dancing with friends and you teach your children how to swim. But what was it all for? It seriously broke my heart to think of everyone who, life after life, had so many hopes and worked very hard and loved very much and tried to do the right thing and worked to support a family and cried when his children didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t appreciate him and found some happiness and danced and laughed and played golf and cried and then died. Then I wondered about my own life . . . and dying.â&#x20AC;Š

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Chapter 26

Criticism The older I got, the more realizations I had. Things were beginning to ‘sink in’. One realization was about criticism. It goes out of me, goes in to you, bounces back to me. We all criticized. And don’t think we didn’t! You could feel it as soon as it came out of your mouth! We all criticized each other. One teacher told me, “You think you don’t judge others? Every thought you have is a judgement.” My siksha guru told me, if you criticize someone, those bad qualities might come into you. So there we go. How did we deal with it? How would we become aware of it and change it? My only solution was to be compassionate and forgiving. Ok, we can say, “Look at him. His parents were alcoholics and he is an alcoholic too. He is worse because he is living on the streets, is dirty and is wasting his life.” Now we can’t help someone who doesn’t want to be helped and we can’t go around trying to save everyone, so what do we do? My only solution was to have compassion. That sounded pretty vague, I admit, but it went a long way. If I saw someone lying on the street, drunk and dirty, I thought, There, but for the grace of God, go I, and all of a sudden, my harsh judgement and criticism just

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flew out the window. I could have easily been born in an unfortunate circumstance. Maybe I was in a previous life. Maybe itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s all karma when a person is suffering. Maybe he hurt someone else in his past life and he is getting hurt in this one. Thinking in that way did not help me to be compassionate. And, if I thought I was any better, then I was truly only deluding myself. I may have been there before or I may be there in the future. So criticism appeared to be a like a vortex sucking us into a hellish, dark place where anger causes us to rip each other apart like wild animals fighting for bloody food. My teachers taught me about the word Paramahamsa. The word hamsa means swan. Swan-like people are called Paramahamsas, parama meaning supreme and hamsa meaning swan. A swan will find the nectar, even in a dirty place. What that meant to us is if we elevated our consciousness, we would become like the swan, looking only for the nectar in the lotus, looking only for good in others instead of searching out and emphasizing the negative things, because we all know the negative things are there.â&#x20AC;Š

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PART VI

INDIA

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Chapter 27

India “Asia . . . when all my dying days are through, I run to you.”

In 1981 Steely Dan recorded a song called Aja, but it was pronounced Asia (I think it was the name of a Chinese woman). And, the words were actually, “When my all my dime dancing days are through, I run to you” but I never seemed to get the lyrics right back then. Maybe my ears or my brain were always a little crooked. I looked up ‘dime dancing’ to find out it meant someone who danced with women who didn’t have a partner, for money. Now what did that have to do with India? Nothing. But for so many years I thought it was, “Asia, when all my dying days are through, I run to you,” and that made perfect sense to me, as I wanted to be done with dying and taking birth again. For me it meant when you’re done going through the wheel of Samsara, the wheel of birth and death, you will go to Asia for the answers how to ‘get off the merry-go-ground,’ and how to stop this process of dying. You’ve got to laugh at yourself sometimes,

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and I could be crazy, but I liked my lyrics more! Anyway, thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s exactly what I did! I decided to go to India. I was hoping my dying days were through (dime dancing, too) and I would not go back into the womb only to return once again to the tomb and then again to another womb. Starting in the mid sixties, Indian gurus were constantly coming to the United States. Many people were accepting a guru. There was my guru of course, Bhaktivedanta Swami, but there was also Paramahamsa Yogananda and Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Bhagavan Sri Rajneesh and others, so why not go and check out why India was so special? Why did these holy men come from this part of the world? What was so special about India? So I went to find out! Don or Dasahara went with me. We were stunned! India is the most amazing place I have ever visited! The dichotomy between rich and poor, demons and devotees and happiness and distress was almost overwhelming and definitely surprising! In the course of one block you would find a beggar with one hand and a businessman in an Armani suit. Little girls, barefoot with dust in their hair came up to your car at traffic lights to beg for rupees. Rickshaw drivers peddled through the crowded streets to earn 50 cents. On the opposite side there were stunning hotels with shops bursting with deep blue sapphires, luscious green emeralds and pinkish red rubies. Their floors were all milky-white marble polished to a high gloss and the ceilings were decorated with crystal chandeliers, reflected in the shine of the marble below. Polished silver urns on pedestals lined the

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foyers overflowing with pink lilies and golden freesia. The women employees were dressed in flowing silk saris with powder blue paisley prints highlighted in burgundy. They all wore golden earrings and matching golden bangles, jingling pleasantly as they walked across the room with graceful elegance. If you were a well dressed person, you were treated with respect and ushered into the dining room and seated behind starched white tablecloths and bright red roses. Then you were graciously served coffee from a silver pot with small pitchers of fresh cream. The experience of all this luxury for the first time in my life was an absolute delight for the senses and an unexpected pleasure as we slid into the Imperial Hotel to find a Thomas Cook. Back in 1997 there were no debit cards, so we traveled with travelerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s checks and cashed them as needed. After cashing our checks and having a continental breakfast, we headed back out into the street to explore the shopping. Right outside of the Imperial Hotel was the Tibetan Market, a line of shops with brass deities and jewelry, leather belts, silk scarves and amazing carved wood furniture and figurines. Scooting down the block on a wide skateboard device was a small young man with only limp twigs for legs, begging for whatever coin you might give. At the end of the corner was a snake charmer. I only saw this guy twice in all my trips, but I saw him that first time and was amazed those guys were really real! And still alive! I stood back as he played his clarinet-type wind instrument, known as a Schnei, and a cobra came swaying out of a basket while people screamed and gawked

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about. I really didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t need to see more, so I quickly crossed the street and kept going. Walking down the street was a dark man with dreadlocks down to his knees. He was dressed in pale orange robes and walked with his gaze looking nowhere but yet he seemed determined and steady. Yogis and sadhus were everywhere, mixed in with the businessmen and local vendors and they were everywhere at the train stations and temples. Such were my first impressions of the land of the holy. As I traveled I found out what many people say is true, you either love it or hate it, or, you both love it and you hate it. I did the latter. Part of me wanted to get the hell out, but the other part of me was fascinated and curious. And that was just the city. The small villages, I found were where the real sadhus lived and practiced their meditation. There was no question about it, that was where the serious seekers and teachers seemed to congregate and there was a reason. History told us the Gods visited this planet and many stories were told of those Gods visiting the continent of India. Some said their feet never touched the ground. I wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t there, so I couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t personally say. But everywhere you went, especially in these villages, there were special holy places where these gods were reputed to have performed some past time, some special merciful activity or some miracle as we would have called it. Pilgrimage was about going to see these holy places with a qualified guru who could tell you the story of what happened at that location and hopefully you

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would be inspired to become a better person, to evolve, to grow and to achieve your highest goal. I heard about this process of pilgrimage and hearing from sadhus or holy men and women from other devotees. It would be enough to keep me going back I was told, and I was hoping it would be true, cause I surely wouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t go back for the pristine white beaches and the pina coladas by the swaying palm trees! Don and I left New Delhi and headed to Vrindavan via taxi. Vrindavan, the birthplace of Sri Krishna, was not exactly what I expected. Maybe I thought the spiritual world would have been transported there and everything would be glowing the same as it was 5000 years ago when Krishna actually appeared. And maybe it was, but I sure couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t see it. What I found was a 500 year old village with broken brick structures, open sewers, wild pigs and yes, there were also beautiful peacocks, the Yamuna River, sweet smelling champa flowers and beautiful marigold garlands interspersed with roses and lotus flowers everywhere you looked. The local vendors were cooking up large pots of hot milk for their patrons to drink before bedtime or they were making milk sweets at night. As they stirred their milk, they held the ladle at least 30 inches high and let the milk fall back in to the pan as they continued to stir. The sight reminded me of a milky waterfall and the Milky Way all at once and made my mouth water as the stream disappeared into the pool of hot liquid. The milk was flavored with cardamon and sugar and the aroma was absolutely divine.

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Cows roamed the streets freely, so you had to be careful where you stepped. Shit was everywhere! Monkeys were very mischievous, swinging from trees to fences and all the while keeping their eyes open for a nice ripe banana you might be eating. One monkey jumped on my back, reached over my shoulder and grabbed a bag of fresh bananas out of my lap while I rode in a rickshaw. It scared the hell out of me, but at the time they seemed to be harmless. Here was the cute thing, all the Indians around me stopped and stared to see my reaction, then they laughed hilariously as if to say, “Welcome to the land of the monkeys and the cows!” These Indians were always watching foreigners to catch their reactions to their culture and atmosphere because they knew we came from a foreign land and would probably be shocked and angry or we would just laugh it off. I laughed. What else could I do? Don and I took our first trip to the shopping area in Vrindavan known as Loi Bazaar on a horse-driven cart. We thought how romantic and sweet, to have a horse-driven cart. As we rode towards the bazaar we began to smell something pretty bad. I thought it was maybe the horse who farted and Don and I laughed as we discussed the horrible odor. I was wrong! I held my nose and waved my hand in front of it, to the driver, using a type of sign language, since I didn’t speak his, and the driver pointed to the sewers to show us the cause of our misery. It was the open sewers with pigs eating out of them! Shit! We continued the journey, looking around at all the colorful cloth

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hanging from the fronts of the shops and the highly polished brass bells swaying in the breeze along with all types of copper cookware and other supplies displayed in an artistic fashion to catch your eye. But with the smell and the pigs and the cow shit everywhere, the monkeys fucking on all the rooftops and the hawkers yelling at us to buy their wares, we were more than ready to get back to our hotel. When we returned to the temple complex, we headed straight for our room and froze with the realization we were in major culture shock! All we wanted to do was to go to sleep, so we did. The next day we were guided by devotees to some of the more nectarian parts of town. We discovered the Yamuna River with sadhus praying at the bank, peacocks roaming the nearby fields, temple bells ringing, and some special places like the Krishna Balarama tree where both a black and white tree were intertwined with each other. This was in an area called Raman Reti. The words Raman Reti meant ‘soft sands’, a name that was quite suitable because the surrounding ground was filled with the softest sand imaginable. The sand was much softer than the sand you would find at the ocean. It was hard to explain. We visited our guru’s Krishna Balarama temple and found ourselves feeling the pure ecstasy of Vrindavan. At the temple the deities were decorated in beautiful yellow silk garments covered in white champa flowers, crystals, pearls and golden ornaments. The devotees were chanting the sweetest mantras with melodies sounding like a Mozart concerto, while a solo devotee played his

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violin. We quickly forgot the open sewers and were in love with Vrindavan. I still, however, laugh at myself when I think of my naivety. I asked the guy at the front desk of our hotel where the laundromat was so I could wash my clothes. He kept twisting his head and saying, “Madam, I don’t understand.” Over and over I tried to explain until a passerby stopped to inform me there were no laundromats. We would need to wash our own clothes by hand or send them out to a dobi (laundry man). “Oh,” I said, “where do I find a dobi?” After leaving Vrindavan we traveled through Delhi and then by train to Varanasi where there were many Siva and Durga temples. Amazed at the huge gongs and drums and the sheer magnanimity of the temples, we were in awe. Then some Shiva priest chased us out of a temple shouting. It scared the hell out of us and we ran like thieves who had just stolen some valuable gold until he reached out his hand gesturing we should give him money. We did not know we were expected to give a donation everywhere we went. We were just sight seeing. We jumped into an auto rickshaw to go back to our hotel and found the driver was not taking us to the hotel at all. Instead, he was taking us to some shop where we would find the most luxurious and expensive silk saris available on the market. We were not rich and even if we were, what would I do with a silk sari? I preferred blue jeans, remember, although we did wear the customary clothing while we were in India. We quickly got out of there and he then drove

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us to some cottage emporium filled with Indian handicrafts, again at the highest prices in town. Funny thing is you can find these same artifacts in America at specialty stores, so why should we buy something we would have to lug back home? We soon found out the rickshaw drivers made deals with the shops that they would get a little something when they brought potential customers to their shop. The driver had no intention of taking us back to our hotel. He would have just driven us around from shop to shop until we bought something. I finally yelled at him with a few choice words I learned in Hindi and he gave up and took us back to the hotel. When we finally got back, I refused to go out again. Don wanted to go out at night and explore, but I found an english-speaking history channel program on TV and decided Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d stay in while he did his own journeying. Later we tried to cross the Ganges to find a train-booking agency and were told three different directions to go leaving us thinking we were crazy for ever coming here. Anyway, we crossed the river on a ferry with our suitcases and camera equipment, etc., and began to walk through a horrible slum-filled neighborhood with poor people cooking on a small stove out in the open beside a plastic tarp hut. They actually lived in those lean-tos. There we were, rolling down the walkway with Pierre Cardin suitcases and a new Canon camera thinking we were about to be jumped and mugged and left with nothing. But that didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t happen. Instead, we found the train-booking office and met a nice British woman there who just came from working with

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Mother Teresa for around 5 years and was now heading back to England. She told us a few wonderful stories of how they were working to help people who couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t help themselves. So that is how we saw India. One moment we were freaking out in the scariest slum in India and the next moment we were sitting next to a woman who was serving a Saint! After booking our train, we headed for Calcutta. When we arrived, we were at Howrah Station which I quickly translated into Horror Station. As we were pulling into Calcutta, men with red jackets and read scarves were coming on board and grabbing our suitcases before the train even came to a full stop. Scared the shit out of me. An Indian man who spoke English let us know he was a porter and was just looking to carry our suitcases for a fare. Fair enough. But could they be trusted? The skinny-legged guy put one large suitcase on his head and rolled the other one behind him while carrying small suitcases at the same time and was trucking through the train station so fast we almost had to run to keep up with him. We were afraid he would steal our suitcases and have a great time selling everything, but at intervals he would stop and turn around to see if we were following. You just never knew who you could trust in this world and as we found out in time, it was usually not the vendors, but probably the porters and other people who didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t want anything from you, just your money for their service. But Horror Station was sensational! People were running everywhere and shouting and there were so many people that they were pushing and shoving to get where

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they wanted to go. When we finally left the platforms and headed into the main terminal entrance, I thought, At last, we can be at peace for a moment, until men started running up to us from all directions, shouting “Mayapur? Mayapur?” At first I thought someone must have sent a driver for us and then I remembered no one knew we were coming. Before I could even gather my wits about me to figure out we needed a taxi for our trip to Mayapur, north of Calcutta, at least 8 different guys were trying to bargain with us for taxi fare. Again, scary as shit! What the hell is going on in this country? They started shouting prices and competing with each other. We didn’t even have to bargain, we just took the lowest price I’m not sure that was a good idea. The driver we hired, was not the one we bargained with. Evidently there was a broker who got jobs for his drivers. The guy who ended up driving us was completely illiterate and driving like he was in the Daytona 500, but his Daytona speedway was a two-lane road with hundreds of large trucks that he kept passing whilst blowing his horn constantly. We found out later, blowing the horn is required because nobody stayed in lanes and drove like civilized human beings! The trip took us four hours, four hours of hell! We finally arrived in Mayapur to find a mystical paradise. Coconut trees and banana trees were everywhere with beautiful temples surrounding the Ganges River flowing swiftly through the land. People were walking around in flowing saris and robes in an atmosphere completely devoid of the chaos we just left. The

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air was filled with the scents of flowers and incense. Bells were ringing and sweet music filled the air. Just another trip through hell to once again experience the divine. Was that what India was all about? It seemed like every time we went through a hellish situation, the end result was like heaven! The sweetness of Vrindavan, the saintly nun and now the mystical atmosphere of Mayapur! In Mayapur, Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, reputed to be the Divine incarnation of both Radha and Krishna combined, appeared approximately 527 years ago. The town was set along the Ganges River with ferries that carried people either up the Ganges or across. The river intersected with another river called the Jalungi. What was amazing was, where the rivers intersected, you could actually see very plainly the two different colors of the rivers. The Ganges was a golden green while the Jalungi was darkish blue. Seeing the confluence was a first for me. There was a line, as if drawn on a chalkboard between the two rivers. How does that happen? We did the usual, checking into our room, getting a bite to eat and then started taking in the sites. How could I explain something magnificent? The main temple was huge with Radha and Krishna on the main altar, with Their eight principal gopis, all around 5 to 6 feet tall. They were decorated with silks and flowers and jewels to keep you mesmerized. And that was just one room. In the other room there was Lord Chaitanya and his four main associates on the altar. They were all golden polished

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brass and around four feet high. There was a large deity of Narasimha on one side of the first temple room. He was the halflion, half-man incarnation who ripped apart the demon, Hiranyakasipu and was reputed to provide protection for the community. Across from the temple we entered the Samadhi of Srila Prabhupada, a huge round planetarium-type building with beautiful paintings in the central dome of all the ten major incarnations and with angels showering flowers down on the central altar. Around the edges on the balcony were diorama depictions of events when our spiritual master brought Krishna Consciousness to the West. And the place was so incredibly stunning with marble, chandeliers and paintings we could only stop and drop our mouths in amazement. Is this what I paid for, I thought, when I was selling all those books? I found out in later years you should probably get a guide if you want to get the full value of any historical place or museum, but we didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t. We took off across the Jalungi River by ferry to see what was on the other side. We touched land and began to walk down a path through a village where people were weaving cloth. The sound of the weaving machines clacking was rhythmic and trance inspiring as we walked. Huge skeins of purple, turquoise, red, yellow, orange, blue and pink yarn were hanging on clothes lines hung from tree to tree, drying in the sun. Vendors were selling cloth, bananas and dobs of coconut water as we walked. Some old women and men were sitting on the

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porches of their homes spinning cotton thread. Colorful parrots were chirping and moving from tree to tree as we reflected on our amazing fortune to be able to see such a beautiful and incredible place as if it emerged from a distant past! But the reality was it had never changed. Homes made from Ganges mud and cow dung with thatched roofs were surrounded by level, hard ground filled with rice drying in the sun, occasionally raked to make beautiful patterns as if they were part of a Japanese garden. Goats were running here and there while children chased them to tie them up and get their milk. Marijuana plants were growing wild alongside sugarcane fields, and sadhus were everywhere chanting their mantras, some with vertical paint stripes on their foreheads and some with horizontal stripes, each with their own meaning. After leaving Mayapur, we traveled by train down the coast of the Bay of Bengal to a place called Puri. As we traveled south to Puri, we found everywhere, vendors, hotel owners, rickshaw drivers and even some brahmins were eager to sell you their goods at probably twice what they were worth just because we were white-skinned. Puri, also known as Jagannatha Puri, was located south of Calcutta on the Bay of Bengal and the ocean there was quite turbulent. By then we were starting to get used to the chaos. We swam in the Bay of Bengal with 4-5 foot waves, toured the exterior of the Jagannatha temple (westerners were not allowed inside), and took pictures of the colorful women carrying large

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pots on their heads filled with water or bundles of cloth or even large pans filled with cow dung for drying and burning at a later date when they cooked their whole wheat chapatis and rice. But Puri exhibited its own weirdness. There was a huge population of people with elephantiasis and leprosy. People sat in the marketplaces or in front of the temples holding out their stumps or showing us their elephant feet so we might feel sorry for them and give them money. I began to feel if I gave charity to everyone who was deformed in India, I would go broke, being a simple middle class American. It was true we made a lot more money in those days than the poor class in India, but it also costs us a lot more to live in the West. We realized, however, you must have compassion and do what you can. Many years later, after meeting my second and sikhsa guru, I was told to give only to the old people or people who could not work. I tried to follow that practice. We headed back to Vrindavan, going through Bod Gaya where the Buddha attained enlightenment as we traveled north once again by train. I made a schedule for us and Lord Buddha was definitely part of the agenda. Traveling in India was more than a westerner bargained for, but you soon learned to tolerate the differences in culture. If you didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t, then you would go crazy. I think you had to be ready for anything if you were going to make that kind of endeavor. I was by that time.

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There would be other trips in the future where I would head north and find a mystical place called Dev Prayag, north of Hrisikesh, where the golden Alakananda River met the blue Bhagarati River at a point, water swirling around in a ten-foot diameter like a huge vortex and coming out a golden green color, flowing south as the Ganges. From a cliff high above you could look down to see the seeming miracle of the amazing confluence. There were caves under the cliff where renunciates lived (or were they just beggars)? It was really hard to tell. Everyone was begging from you, especially those who were skinny renunciates or simply pathetic con artists. On top of the cliff was a temple of Ramachandra who was the God king who appeared on this planet before Krishna. The story was, He came to this confluence to bathe and purify himself after killing the demon Ravana. When Don and I arrived back in America and were living in Colorado at the time, we were surprised at how quiet it was. There were no people screaming in the streets, no horns blowing and all around us was very peaceful. It was like we were in reverse culture shock after having spent three weeks in chaos. Anyway, that should not discourage you from going to India. It was the spiritual experience that changed you and made the whole trip worth while, so what you needed to do, if you decided to go, was to go for the right reason, the spiritual goal in your life! Not the luxurious summer vacation!â&#x20AC;Š

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Chapter 28

South India On my ninth trip to India, I decided to head south. And traveling in India can be very hard. The hardest thing is you donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t speak Hindi, although I made an effort to learn over the years and knew a few words. But as I traveled south, I realized I also didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t speak Kanada, Malayalam, Tamil and something else. It was very confusing when this was one country with so many languages! Anyway, you booked the best train fare you could get (you needed to book in advance to get anything decent - Indians loved their train travel) and off you went! I flew south to Bangalore to take a train from that point. I soon realized even though the South is supposed to be a more civilized part of India, it was still India. The problem was having white skin. Everyone was trying to make money from you by charging you double or triple what they charged Indians. Fair enough when things were different, but did anybody know the economy in the US had taken a severe dive since 2008? And by this time I was realizing there were more rich Indians than I could count. They were not at all concerned about the cost of rickshaws!

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The horns would drive you absolutely crazy and God knows what they did to your eardrums. It became an established part of their culture because no one stayed within the designated traffic lanes and they didn’t even look to see if someone was coming when they pulled into traffic. It was the responsibility of the person at the rear to brake for you or, you guessed it, blow his horn! I bought ear plugs to deal with the extreme stupidity, thanks to my friends’ good advice. And the interesting thing was these guys, driving like maniacs and blowing their horn every two minutes, didn’t know they were doing anything wrong. On large government trucks there are signs saying, Blow Horn in order to keep from having a serious accident when someone wanted to pass. You lived with it. It was part of life there. Bangalore was interesting. No bicycle rickshaws there, only motor. People were nice. There were many tall office buildings and modern apartment buildings. I stayed in an area where there were American businesses, nice restaurants, coffee shops, etc. and yet I booked a place that was a dump. You never knew. Best thing is not to pay until you check out. I learned a good lesson. From Bangalore I went to Mysore - the area known for sandalwood. I thought I would check out a factory that made soap, and incense, but things turned out very differently. I checked into my guest house (very nice room and staff). They gave me a tourist book and I began to read about the area. Mysore was an amazing place with spiritual temples dating 750-1000 years old. Not wishing to waste my precious time, I

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picked up the phone and ordered an auto rickshaw for a quick tour of a large Durga temple and a stone carving of Shivaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Bull, Nandi. Every time I traveled in India was a surprising adventure and this time was no different. You just never knew what to expect, and the circus started right there. The rickshaw driver picked me up with his own agenda. (I should have known better as I hired drivers like that in Delhi, but he caught me off guard.) We start heading towards the local tourist temple called Chamundi Durga on Chamundi Hill. I was agitated cause the driver kept stopping along the way. I was thinking he just wanted to extend his time for more money, but instead he guided me on an excellent tour, speaking perfect English. He had been born and raised in the area and knew everything about its history. He first stopped at a large lake where he began to tell me about the legend there. Apparently, the lake is filled with alligators. They sometimes come up on the banks to sun themselves and visitors can see them, he explained. The crazy thing, I thought was, people rent paddle boats in the lake. What?!?!? Paddling across the lake when an alligator could easily turn you over and have you for lunch? The fish must be abundant there because he said there were no incidents of attacks whatsoever. Then he began to explain how that particular lake was one of the largest migration lakes in Asia for birds migrating from Europe going south, to somewhere. This usually happened in February, he said and then in March, all of a sudden, millions of

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butterflies would appear at that same lake! He explained if you go to the other side of the lake at that time, gold and purple, turquoise and pink butterflies would mob you and stick all over your body, from head to toe, from the crown of your head to the tips of your fingers, causing you to feel like an angel with wings about to lift off from the earth and fly away! Ok, I’d heard enough, I thought. Not even sure if my brain could contain it all, but I asked one question. “Are there any tigers around here? Everywhere I see restaurants referring to this area as the jungle!” He answers, “Oh no madam, there are no tigers here.” I thought, Ok, I guess it’s a safe place when he said, “There are only cheetahs.” I’m thinking, oh really, only cheetahs, eh? Then he explained they only come out at night to hunt peacocks and turkeys and other small animals. Their bones are found here and there in the ‘jungle’ in daylight. Ok, an animal has to eat. Cool. You won’t find that happening too near Los Angeles, I thought! India is definitely different. Then, as we headed up the hill towards Chamundi Durga, he stopped again. I’m thinking, What are you doing now? I just want to go up the hill to see the temple! Big mistake on my part. Once again he began to tell me a story. “See this broken branch? This is a sandalwood tree. People will see it and break off a branch, thinking they will take a souvenir home and it will smell good eternally. What they don’t know is the fragrance doesn’t come until the tree is mature and at that time, the tree is very large.” He brings the branch to my

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nose, scrapes it with his key and says, “Do you smell anything?” I say, “No.” But here is the amazing thing! I do smell something! I smell the whole mountain! It is the sweetest smell I have ever smelled out in open space. How can a mountain smell so good? I found out later, it was not only the sandalwood trees, but the abundance of jasmine growing everywhere! I could smell it a block away from a garland stand where vendors were selling those beautiful wreaths to offer to the Gods in the temples and I could smell it that morning on the way up the hill. But wait! There’s more! Sounds like a commercial that if you order right now, you will get two at the same price, you only have to pay shipping and handling, right? But yeah! We go on up the hill and as we reach its summit, he begins to talk again. He tells me the story of Chamundi Hill and Chamundi Durga. The temple was stunning! 1000 years old, made of clay, egg shells, egg whites and seashells. Really? Egg shells and egg whites? Ok, what next? Well, there was plenty, but here’s a little information I thought was interesting. You saw this huge temple from the distance and you thought it would be gigantic inside. There is a zig zag line of pilgrims waiting to get in, at least 500 to 600 people deep. Then, when you finally get in, you realize the huge temple is only a gate. The doors to the interior are made of pure silver and are carved with different forms of God in His /Her respective incarnations and are about 20 feet tall and 6 feet wide times two doors. The deity inside is maybe only 2 feet high, located in an

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area about 8’x 8'. I thought the deity was going to be at least 10 feet tall, being in such a large temple, but it was still amazing and I’m glad I went. So much more to tell, but, you know, you had to be there. We headed down the hill and there lay the 16‘x25’ bull carved out of one huge black stone! Or was it carved? Maybe it just appeared. I was beginning to believe in miracles. Seems that before Chamundi Durga appeared, there was a Shiva temple in that location, thus the large black bull, Nandi, who is the carrier of Shiva, was awaiting His master. There was a fantastic story of how Lord Siva left the area and Chamundi killed a demon there and the temple was constructed in her honor. There are amazing God stories all over India. We headed back down the hill to town and the driver took me to check out a special incense shop where an old woman is rolling the dung by hand. I declined to buy and they think I’m weird, but I was used to getting the same quality incense for a lot less in Vrindavan. On the way, we went through a Muslim area. OMG! I thought burkas were prominent in mostly muslim countries, but here they were, in groups of 6 to 8 women shopping at stores where the clothing was made from shiny silk, embroidered satin, sequins and jewels. This was a contradiction to me, covered in black but yet sequined underneath. Yeah, I got the reasoning. Only their husbands should see them in sexy or beautiful clothing, but why give the husband that much power? This

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seemed a recipe for male dominance and abuse to me. Sorry, the whole submissive thing wrenches at my gut! For my first taste of South India, I found a vegetarian restaurant and ordered idli with sambar and a crepe-like sculpture called a dosha with coconut chutney on the side. This was their traditional breakfast. I delved into it with real curiosity. The idli was some sort of steamed rice cake and the sambar was a very spicy hot tomato sauce. Interesting, for sure, but it would not be my first choice in world cuisines. The dosha was a sweetened, crispy, white flour crepe fried in ghee and swirled upwards like an eight inch pyramid. Again, it was both delicious and beautiful, but that would be the last time I ate one. I was thinking with all this wheat growing here, why are they using tasteless white flour? It would be much better with whole wheat flour. After all, I just spent miles and miles of traveling on the train, looking out at coconut trees, banana plantations, wheat fields, rice fields and sugar cane. But the most disappointing thing of all was the coconut chutney. There I was in the land of coconuts and the coconut chutney was salty. The coconut was dried and pulverized with some herbs so you hardly knew it was coconut at all. Now, I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t mean to insult a country or regionâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s cuisine and I knew many people loved South Indian cuisine, but really? I was hoping to taste something akin to coconut cream pie or macaroons, especially with a sweet crepe! Oh well, I learned something every day as I traveled.

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Not sure why, buy Mysore left a huge impression on me, more than most places. Here goes just one more little detail! Dobs with a squeeze of lime - 15 rupees, but it didn’t end there. When you finished the coconut water, the vendor (wala) took the dob back from you, broke it open and scrapped out the soft coconut meat with a broken portion of the nut shell. Then he squeezes a little more lime on the luscious sweet pulp and hands it back to you. Oh yeah! sooo good! I never wanted to take a bus in India before. I’d seen them passing cars, swaying, overcrowded and wheels loose. Nevertheless, I wanted to go to this one place really bad, so I took a bus, the only way to get there unless you wanted to get a taxi and pay $100. It turned out ok. Burka woman sat next to me. She was a school teacher and very nice. Transferred to another bus in a location where the children wanted a pen or pencil from America. Their habit was to collect those things from foreigners. Cute, I thought. The bus finally landed at my destination - 23 km south of Mysore in a place called “Somanathapuram” the literal translation meaning “nectarian place of the lord.” Soma means nectar, natha means lord and puram means place, and it was a place of nectar in a grove of coconut trees, existing all alone in an isolated forest. There, in that grove, was a 750 year old temple taken care of by the Archeological Department of the Indian government. The name of the temple was the Keshava Mandir. There was a guide (for a fee) to take me around. I arrived just

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before they closed at sunset and the sky was leaving a pink glow on the ancient temple. It was beautiful! Shades of yellow, gold and pinks surrounded the sun as it slowly faded in the West and the guide gave me a private tour. I could try and describe it, but I canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t describe it. I will, however, say this. I felt like the place was from another planet that appeared from the sky and landed in this beautiful coconut grove. The entire complex was on a base of a pink granite star and it glowed in the setting sun. The three-domed temple housed three deities, two original, 750 years old and one replica because the original was stolen by the British and is now in the British museum. Around the perimeter of the complex were 64 chambers where 64 demigods resided, all gone now. And finally, the carvings in the temple were perfect with tiny holes you could pass a toothpick through for air circulation, as was demonstrated by my guide. Demigods, as well as the 10 major avatars or incarnations of Vishnu, were carved into the temple from top to bottom. Pictures were allowed, so I took as many as I could before the sun forced me to return to my hotel. Leaving Mysore, I traveled south on the train to Kannur where there were trained dancers who channeled the different gods. These dancers, with their huge headdresses and painted faces, felt the god come alive within them and in trance began their performance. They danced from December to February and during that time they were required to be clean in body, mind and soul. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We are a vehicle through which people can thank the gods

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for fulfilling their prayers and granting their wishes.” Quoted from “Nine Lives” by William Dalrymple. Unfortunately what I saw was they were a vehicle to take your money. I laughed. What’s new?!? I read his book before I left for South India and made sure I could schedule a visit to the dancers. Kannur lies next to the Arabian Sea where the views were outstanding, so it was a good stop. From Kannur I traveled south to the ashram of Ama, said to be an incarnation of the Divine Mother, and got a shakti hug. I definitely believed she was empowered. The feeling was indescribable as she was talking with others, laughing as if she were in a restaurant drinking tea when all of a sudden she would grab you around the neck and hug you saying something in your ear in Malayalam. Later I found out what she was saying was “Oh my daughter. My darling daughter!” Stunned in ecstasy, I staggered over to an empty seat and sat mesmerized for around 45 minutes until I finally got up and walked outside. Wow. She was real! That was my second hug from her, the first one was in Berkeley, California. I thought if I ever got another chance, I would definitely get another one! You could understand why people stood in line silently for hours waiting for their turn to get her Love. Her ashram, also located by the Arabian Sea in Kollam, was in the middle of a coconut grove with a canal to the East where boats rides were sold to tourists. Since I was a sailor, I checked out the one and only marina in all of India located in Cochin just

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south of her ashram. There were 34 slips but only 6 boats. One of those was from Alaska. While there I asked the dock master why there weren’t many sailboats. He explained that people were concerned about sailing the South Indian seas because of the pirates from Somalia. “Really?” I explained, “I knew two people who were killed by those pirates. My sailing instructor in Los Angeles and his wife took another couple with them as they sailed their 60 foot yacht delivering bibles to other countries as missionaries. I didn’t know her, but I worked with Scott for six weeks taking a sailing class from the Coast Guard Auxiliary at the Del Rey Yacht Club. He was charming and captivating, a wonderful man.” Anyway, the marina was pretty empty and my thoughts of moving south in India and living on a boat in that location quickly faded. I really wanted to be in Vrindavan if I decided to move to India. Besides, India did not appear to appreciate sailing yet. If they ever did, I thought, the marina was excellently located with a Yacht Club for sailors. Below that is Allepey, the Venice of India, where there are canals with boats designed to mimic the gondolas found on the canals in Venice, Italy. In addition, there was a houseboat community I wanted to check out. These houseboats were huge and nothing like the one I lived on in California. They were more like hotels! Very interesting. I made three more stops before I headed north again. Kovalum Beach was a tourist area, almost to lands end, with a great sandy cove and lots of europeans staying there for the winter. Located

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in the state of Kerala, it was famous for their Ayurvedic treatments and massage therapy. Yep, got a great hot oil massage with a special session for Shirodhara therapy where a therapist drenched my third eye with hot herbal oil streaming from an upside-down tear-shaped container with a hole in the bottom. The constant stream of the hot therapeutic oil put my mind at ease while two ladies gently rubbed it into my forehead, my temples and my scalp. The experience was heavenly. The purpose was to decrease the vata or air in your head that causes ailments. Luxury! I would do it again, but with a place providing a 20-gallon hot water heater so you could wash your hair for as long as you liked. The next stop was at the very tip of India where the Arabian sea meets the Indian ocean and the Bay of Bengal. Kanniyakumari is the name. That place exuded power! The energy at the confluence was so strong it felt like it could have been the center of the universe. The waves crashed against each other with a violence that made me shudder! I knew a girl from my marina in California who sailed the Indian Ocean where her boat capsized and I remembered her as I glared at the sea! By that time, I was getting much closer to the equator, so the sun also made itself brilliantly known. What can I say? I really liked that place! There was an enormous statue and museum dedicated to Swami Vivekananda and another one dedicated to Mahatma Gandhi . I visited the tributes briefly and paid my respects.

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Finally I headed north to Madurai where the famously gigantic temple of Durga resides, and by that time I was completely burned out, with train travel, with rickshaws and with the Indian culture. Just get me back to my apartment in Vrindavan where my friends are from the West, I thought. So I called my travel agent, grabbed a plane the next morning and I was gone. There is always so much more to tell about India than a person can describe to their friends, but I tried. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d traveled a bit and every place displayed its unusual characteristics, but India was without a doubt the most exotic culture experienced to date. Would I advise you to go? Not sure. You would have to be pretty transcendental or you might â&#x20AC;Ś never mind.â&#x20AC;Š

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Chapter 29

Some Things Changed & Some Remained the Same Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. You would think I would have been able to make up my mind! My second guru (known as a siksha or instructional guru) told me I must become steady. My kids kept telling me, “Mom, you are much happier when you are doing your Bhakti practice. You keep going back and forth from Krishna to extreme enjoyment of the material world. What are you going to do?” They were right. Admittedly, I felt torn apart. I wanted desperately to enjoy this beautiful world and god gave me every opportunity with sailing, lovers, great cuisine, great music and enough money to enjoy luxuriously from time to time. But no matter how much god gave me, it never filled the empty space within. I could feel the big space in my heart begging to be filled with stories about Krishna. The problem was, I was really turned off to the religious process practiced in Iskcon and Gaudiya Math. I just didn’t want to be a part of any religion ever again, especially one that claimed they were not a religion. I was different. I wasn’t entirely sure about the deities either, although my spiritual

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master authorized their worship as a method of learning to serve god. I could offer respect to the deities in the temples, but I could not worship the ones in my home with all the rules and regulations required. I could offer my food to them, talk to them and maybe offer some incense, but that was about it. I mostly found myself talking to my pictures. If god is everywhere, then He can be in a picture or a statue, right? I could not follow the prescribed process to wear clay on my face. Didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t believe in it. Religion. All I could do was to chant and hear from a real sadhu, not a poser. I hoped my meditation would deepen if I gave up my bullshit and became focused. I knew if I went to India I would be able to hear from those sadhus that were sincerely making an effort to help others go deep into samadhi. I needed to find those devotees who were humble to associate with. I could not deal with ego-filled patriarchal teachers. I needed sincerity beyond religion. From time to time I would think Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d found someone who felt like me and then I would be disappointed, so rather than be with certain types of Krishna devotees, I preferred to be with non-devotees or to be alone. Maybe that would change if I went to India at this stage in my life to actually retire and get serious, like George Harrison became serious after he was stabbed in his own home. I was at the point of wondering if I should make a pros and cons list. In my mind I did. If I sold my boat and moved to India, the pros would be: I would have a free place to stay. I would be around devotees who wanted to talk and hear about Krishna. I

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could be alone to write. I would be able to travel from time to time. I would not have to do massage for men anymore. I could make an effort to chant continuously. I would face the fact that death was coming and would prepare for it. The cons were: I didn’t like the Indian culture. I was too far away from my children. I didn’t have a car. I didn’t speak the language and it was difficult to learn. The sad thing was my children really didn’t care what I did. They were used to being without me and I was really no longer a part of their life. I basically only saw them once a year. It was the same with my father. I realized, sadly, I was completely alone. Whiny, whiny, whiny! That’s the last time you’ll hear that pity shit from me. The truth was, I knew I was more fortunate than most people on this planet because I was in touch with reality instead of being completely covered by illusion. I was fortunate to have been given amazing enlightening experiences and to have met great teachers. I lived towards the end of the Golden Age of Kali Yuga with acid, spiritual masters, and truth raining down on the world with overwhelming generosity. I was truly blessed. Hopefully my children would benefit from my dedication, austerities and sacrifices one day. They would certainly have nothing to gain if I simply kept up the lifestyle I was living. The lifestyle alone might have hastened my death and left my kids following in my example. Iskcon was changing. By this time in the movement, everyone knew how hard it was to practice pure devotional service and to

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give up the desires of the material world. Practically impossible! Devotees my age were going through their own shit, and some a lot worse than mine. Their husbands left them and married younger women. Their children were flipped out on serious drugs, couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t work and were on SSI. Some witnessed suicide of someone they loved, children were in motorcycle wrecks and some were simply living on the streets. Not to say there were not devotees who were very successful financially and spiritually. There were. Those devotees usually went back to school to finish their degrees and get good jobs or they started their own business, as I did. Rarely was anyone my age pretending to be a brahmin anymore. Everyone needed to work. Those who actually possessed the nature to be a real brahmin worked on the altars in western temples or took off to India to become a serious monk. The Cult thing pretty much disappeared by 1995. Remember I started this thing in 1972? By that time, the organization had been sued by parents whose children ran away from home at 17 years old to join the movement. As well, people like myself wanted to raise their children in a good atmosphere and they left the movement to get a job and, you know, pay for school, clothing, diapers, food, housing, cars, and gas. So, the controlling â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;headsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; of the cult lost their power. What were they to do? If they wanted to bring new people to Krishna, they were forced to give up the cult thing. And, pretty much, they did, but not completely.

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What they did not give up, and my guess is they never will, is the patriarchal structure of the religion. Women within Iskcon rarely gave classes. In some of the temples, women were not allowed to be the lead singer in a call and response congregational chanting forum. Men still propagated the philosophy that women were less intelligent because they were emotional. They expected the women to keep their sensual beauty hidden so the men would not be sexually agitated. Men required their wives do as they said and their duty was to serve their husband. A woman who refused to be the puppet required, took the chance of being beaten. I experienced this on a visit to India in 2013 when a young woman came to me looking for a room to rent to get away from her husband who was beating her and treating her like a slave. She was a 30 something woman, an intelligent and beautiful yoga teacher from New York who was not having it! Patriarchal religions were very common in Kali Yuga. Nuns petitioned the religious community regularly to get equal rights for preaching in Catholic churches for years. Some succeeded, some did not. These things you know and I don’t need to reiterate. My mission here is to say that, “Some things changed and some things didn’t.” The cult thing was mostly gone but not entirely. The patriarchal thing would be around on this planet for a long time to come, although changes were being made daily, yearly. Patriarchy would not go away until Satya Yuga. In addition, cognitive dissonance still permeated the culture. You dare

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not say anything controversial and god forbid if you actually heard from a guru outside of the established community. But the bottom line was, as long as I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t cause any trouble, no one would bother me so I decided to retire . . . in the association of Hare Krishna devotees, in Vrindavan, India. All I wanted to do was hear the magnificent and heart-melting stories about Krishna that made me swoon with tears of love. Where else would I get that opportunity? Vrindavan was the place of Bhakti, the place of real love! But how would I accomplish retirement? I still owned a small yacht in the marina in Los Angeles and boats were usually hard to sell.â&#x20AC;Š

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Chapter 30

Retiring to India My condo was waiting for me in Vrindavan. In 2001, right after the 911 incident, I bought one of the exclusive Iskcon condominiums thinking I may retire in India. I was following Srila Narayan Maharaja at the time and my whole understanding of self realization had matured with bliss. I had the cash and it seemed it would be my best retirement plan, not having a 401K or some pension from a company like my dad had from the railroad. The condos were set up on a Betnam system, meaning that since a foreigner could not buy property in third-world countries, they would buy a long-term lease. You could then take your condo and remodel the inside and add extra features to make it comfortable and functional for your own needs. This may or may not have been a good idea because, unlike buying real estate, you can only sell it two more times or sell it for the balance of the 75-year lease. I was the second owner. If I sold it, the next person would not be able to re-sell it at all, but it would go back to the Trust when they expired. (This may be changing in India, so I was told.) I liked the devotees, but I also wanted to sail and be in clean air with civilized people. My mind

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was still vacillating back and forth between staying on my boat or going to India to live. So I made the decision to put both my boat and my condo up for sale and whichever one sold first, I would live in the other. I was leaving it up to Krishna. The boat sold in eight days. It looked like I had made a good investment in the condo after all because it was paid for and it was the best community in town with lotus pools, a great courtyard for plays and concerts, a guesthouse with an international restaurant and guards everywhere. A generator comes on within 30-60 seconds after the power goes off and believe me, it goes off often in India. I bought a new air-conditioner, a new washing machine and hot water heater and a new refrigerator. I furnished my flat with beautiful wicker furniture, upholstered with a thick burgundy fabric. I bought an american-style double bed mattress with wicker shelving and a wicker dresser. I made beautiful curtains, painted a few off-setting walls and decorated with peacock feathers, silver vases and brass bells. Now, to be respectful, I couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be drinking wine every night, nor could I bring a strange man home with me to spend the night (too many people watching me), but both of those things I could do without. Age kinda worked out a lot of things for me, right? So I was taking pleasure in researching, reading and writing, and because my home was rent free, I could travel from there to see places I wanted to see like Italy and Egypt. Besides, the atmosphere was filled with the holy names. Everywhere you went, someone was saying, Radheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;

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Radheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;, Hari Bol or Hare Krishna. You were constantly reminded of the lovers hidden in the kunja forests of Vrindavan, waiting on you to find them in your heart. I believed retirement would be good. The people in my community were kind. I not only knew the people in my community but in other communities around the area from all over the world, having traveled with them to different seminars over the years. I had friends from England, Spain, Venezuela, Canada, Australia, Greece, France, Russia, Iran and all over the United States. It was quite a cultural experience and a spiritual one as all of us coming together had one thing in common and it was Krishna. We were really attracted to that beautiful blue guy playing His silver flute, dancing through the forest and playing with the gopis. If you wanted to connect with old friends, Vrindavan was the place to be, because most all devotees eventually went there to visit and some went every year to do parikrama and honor their guru. I realized the Vaishnava devotees were some of the most wonderful people in the world. Not only were they making an effort to become self-realized themselves, but were helping others. In addition, they were treating the planet with kindness, not using chemicals to fertilize and were planting trees and taking care of cows. These devotees were kind to all living entities and believed we were all one, in that we were all of the same spirit. They fed hundreds of thousands of people all over the world for

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free when possible and happily chanted the names of the lord constantly while dancing in pure bliss. They made every effort to see the good in others and to never criticize. They were giving their lives to the service of God. The president of the Iskcon Vrindavan temple was a very humble and kind man and the managers at my community were sincere. Something inside of me had changed. I kind of wanted to be alone. Guess I was accepting my fate! Me, the devotee turned party girl in my fifties, hitting happy hour every weekend and a few times in between, was happy to retire. My lifestyle in California was fun for many years and one never gets tired of Sunday Brunch on a yacht in Southern California. But there I was, living on a sailboat, sailing in the Santa Monica Bay, going to happy hour in the afternoons, checking out great jazz events, going to free concerts in the marina park or Santa Monica pier, watching fireworks on the 4th of July, barbecuing with friends and going to an endless stream of invites, checking out museums and new restaurants and yet there was just something missing. You know what I mean? Everyone feels it, that emptiness we are making every effort to fill with friends, lovers, music, drugs, athletics, art, vodka and so much more. I admitted to myself I was living in a sort of paradise, but my God, I gained 40 pounds with martinis and fine cheeses. Something had to be done. Although all that laughing was very much needed by me, I needed more. I made some great friends, true spirits, and for that I was thankful, but my heart was changing. Besides, I had just

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turned 65 and was ready to get serious about my promise. The trouble was, how does one leave paradise to live in a place likened unto the middle ages? The truth was, I wanted both. I wanted to continue sailing all through my life but my desire to go deeper within myself and possibly find real self realization was beginning to burn in my heart. My original retirement plan was to live part of the year on my boat and part of the year in Vrindavan, but the income was just not there for me to do as I wished, and I was ready to make a change for the benefit of my soul. So I moved to Vrindavan, India, the Holy Land. All my dying days were coming to and end, I hoped, and I thought I needed to take this old age thing seriously. I didn’t want to take birth again. What did George Harrison say in “Give me Love”? “Give me love, give me love, give me peace on earth. Give me light, give me life. Keep me free from birth.” I keep thinking of that song! Maybe GH had the same experience as me. I never got the chance to ask him, but I remembered the terrible womb and didn't want to go there again! In addition, the sheer pain I saw all around me in this world was enough to make me curl up in a fetal position and cry. Everywhere there were people crying and dying of a broken heart. There were bullies causing major pain to other living beings. There were cripples, cancer laden adults and children, obese people limping around with canes, down syndrome, victims of abuse, the poor and the hungry, races being

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discriminated against, the mafia in many countries, cleft palates, loneliness and the list went on and on. So how could a kind God let us suffer like that? Eventually we learned we do it to ourselves, life after life. But who was to say we were doing the right thing when we tried to change. I wanted to help others, but how? If I gave money to the alcoholic lying on the street, wouldn’t he simply do more harm to himself? What kind of philanthropic work could I do? If I had good money karma, how would I use it to help others? Were the wealthy who didn’t help others simply using up their good karma only to find themselves in trouble in their next life? I didn’t want that. But as a devotee, I didn’t need to focus on philanthropic work to do right by others. Instead, I could actually help people by giving them knowledge of Krishna. Karma would no longer be something I would be concerned about. If reincarnation was true, then we were put in situations for our learning. And if reincarnation were true, we are reaping the benefits of the good deeds we have done, as well bad. I was beginning to see this world for what it really was, a place of learning, and I thought I had learned enough lessons, persuading me to get out! This material world was a perfect school, but I wanted to graduate. After years of enjoying every pleasure I could possibly imagine and squeeze into my life, all the while engaging in some spiritual quest and making an effort to do some genuine service to God and humanity, I was now making the effort to spend my final

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years in that serious quest for samadhi. Different paths have different explanations or conceptions of samadhi. My chosen path taught the trance-like state of samadhi is â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;absolute absorption in my personal relationship with the Supreme.â&#x20AC;&#x2122; And how did I know what my relationship was? My guru told me, and my desire for that type of relationship seemed natural. But not only that, I had a glimpse of my spiritual form during a seminar in Florida when I was with my Guru. I also had a glimpse of Krishna during a time when I was doing so much service, transcribing lectures, that when I threw myself down on the bed to finally rest, a glimpse of Krishna appeared for only a second and then was gone. These glimpses were not just visual, but encompassed love, sound, light, ecstasy and truth. Hard to explain. In my glimpse of Krishna, I simultaneously realized He was non-different from His Name and His Beauty and His Love. These experiences were definitely not material. They were way beyond the sensual experiences of this body. Anyway, great sadhus or holy people lived in India. They went there to become absorbed in the holy places where saints and gods appeared. They went there to hear from other saintly people who only wanted to speak of truth. They went there to teach what their guru taught them and they came there to give up their material body. I wanted to seek the association of those sadhus to absorb myself in reality. But I still wanted to sail. I still wanted to stay in a five-star hotel and order room service. I still wanted my

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cup of coffee! I wasn’t sure I would ever be a traditional renunciate. Now, I was not an advocate of renunciation, ever. If you have to renounce something by force, then you are simply not done enjoying it. So, all renunciation was false renunciation, in my opinion. What is real is when a person has no desire to enjoy an object or activity anymore, understanding it will not bring them the satisfaction they require at that point in their life. Renunciation is when you are truly ‘just done’ with something! Some call this practice Tantra yoga. I only briefly studied it, so I am not sure of the technicalities, but what I was realizing was, I may have been done with some of my material desires, but definitely not others. What I knew was I was tired of pursuing them only to find some mild intellectual or sensual satisfaction and left feeling empty in the end. My siksha guru said we did not have the ability or power to renounce our sensual nature, but we must try, and by trying, our guru would be pleased and ask Krishna to help us. In Bhagavad Gita, 3.33, Krishna said, “Even a man of knowledge acts according to his own nature, for everyone follows his nature. What can repression accomplish?” This verse appeared to me to be about trying to become something you are not, like a dancer trying to give up dancing and become a mathematician, but it also showed the futility of trying to renounce. My point is that we could not renounce our senses, nor could we renounce the nature we have been given, but what we could do is to occasionally fast or restrain

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our senses for the pleasure of god, nothing more. We could do a little ‘sacrifice’ for the pleasure of the absolute. I was trying by fasting two times a month and on other special holidays, as well as chanting as many mantras a day as my mind would allow. But was I completely renounced? Just look at Sex. Could I have renounced it and gone into a cave to meditate? NO! But what I had to do to get good sex was ridiculous. I usually found myself in a relationship with someone whom I simply did not respect or really love. First husband just didn’t do it often enough, though he was a really great man. Then, the second relationship was a real basket case emotionally from Viet Nam or something. I was not sure why. Then there was one guy with the masters degree in the arts who was never quite sure if he wanted me for anything but sex. Number four was more concerned about owning me than loving me. Number five criticized me and treated me like a dog. When I wanted sex, he was too drugged to care. Number six was pretty damn good. We were together for 13 years. I finally bingo-ed! The sex was great, but as it turned out, he had a habit of going to strip bars and having girls give him private dances and who knows what else. Made me feel inadequate. Then I met the sociopath, number seven. I became addicted. Already told you that story. Sex was frequent but by that time I had begun to learn some lessons about men and about myself. I had a few short-term affairs after that and finally I thought, “I think I am done!” I used the word “think” because I didn’t want

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to curse myself. All I knew was I was done with pursuing men just for sex and as far as a relationship was concerned, I was happy living on my own. I did what I wanted, when I wanted! My whole point in this sexual dissertation was to explain my understanding that there was no such thing as renunciation. You simply lose desire for a thing and you move on to something else. Sex desire rarely goes away. Even as I approached old age, I had not completely given it up, but it was gradually diminishing. I wondered if my age had much to do with my sex desire waning or if I was actually realizing the ! Then I went and had a sex dream. I’m working on something electric in a public place like in a cafe where there are other people in the booth next to me. I’m trying to skin back the plastic on some electrical wire so I can connect it to ‘something’ to make it work. (Skinning back the wire has its own sexual connotations.) One guy comes up to me and says, ‘You’re cutting the wire too short. Joe is just outside. He is an electrician and will be glad to do it for you.’ I say, ‘no, that’s ok, thanks. I’ll figure it out.’ But Joe walks in and of course is this hot, younger (forty something) guy with dark hair and broad shoulders and says, ‘Here, let me do that.’ I relent and say, ‘Ok.’ He pulls out the proper tool and starts pulling back the plastic from the wire as I sit and watch him work. As I watch, I begin to notice his dick is getting hard. My breathing changes and I’m starting to get wet. ‘Oh no, this is not right, I think.’ But obviously he thinks this is great. All of a sudden he stands up

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and his dick is right in my face. The rest is pornographic. Well, maybe that part was pornographic too. I laughed when I woke up thinking, yeah, connect the wire to something meant ‘to me’! I have amazing dreams! Now does that sound like a woman who is renounced from the material world and all it’s pleasures? My dear God, how does one ever give up this material world for the pleasure of Your company? I did not know. Certainly old age did not keep me from being able to perform or enjoy sex. Old age doesn’t dissipate your desire for sex but hopefully it makes you wise. And in that regard, whatever you do, don’t do it in a cafe! What I knew, however, was I was no longer willing to put up with the bullshit and lack of affection just so I could get laid. And that did not mean I was really done with the pursuit of happiness in the form of sex. Would I pursue it again? I could actually say no at that point. The thing was, and you have to laugh at this one, if the right person came along, I thought . . . you know, prince charming . . . , I might have jumped in feet first again but I would never again pursue it. All someone would have needed to do was to charm the wits out of me and all my so-called wisdom would have gone right down the drain! Good thing I knew there was no prince charming, until I meet my eternal lover, that is. But I looked at the men around me and saw their shit before they ever open their mouths. I was just not interested in getting into a relationship with any human. Sex was a different issue. I once heard Aphrodite was the name of the Goddess who had lots

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of sex but was never attached to anyone. “Fully and joyously sexual, Aphrodite remains Virgin in that her sexuality is unbridled, untamed, and her own. Though married to Hephaestus, according to Olympian mythology, she is neither submissive or faithful to him. Though she is a mother, her child Eros, Love or Desire, is but a reflection of her sexuality.” This quote is from Wikipedia. Honestly, I thought I was a little too old for that one, but I could see myself in that role. After all, sex was good for you, right? It was the attachment that killed you! So there I was in the holy land of India. Not completely renounced, but ready to approach the last stage of my life, the stage of absorption. And in the midst of the holy land, I was in one of the most holy places, the place where Krishna displays his past times with his consort, Srimati Radharani. A new chapter was beginning. My desire to connect with Radha and Krishna was growing daily. I was happy. But, as I made an effort to retire in Vrindavan, I realized I still had salt water in my veins and I was not sure I could stay there. Money had a lot to do with my choices for retirement, as it did with everyone’s choice. Would I have been on a yacht in the caribbean if that were possible? Something tells me that experience would have gotten old, as well. Absorption is the goal I was driven to attain, so I was going give it a try. But while I was on this side of the world, I planned to complete my Bucket List, if possible. I had already been to London and Paris

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and experienced the museums there and more recently had returned from Madrid and Barcelona. My hope was to visit Italy and Egypt before the age of 70. But for some time I decided I would stay in the holy land, hear from the sadhus , chant and save money.â&#x20AC;Š

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Chapter 31

The Challenge As time started to pass, each day was becoming a challenge, even though I was initially happy about my retirement. The culture was starting to take its toll on me. There I was, 8,000 miles from home, Los Angeles to Delhi and I was having problems with gratitude. I realized I was not being very grateful for the wonderful place I have been given to live, in a spiritual community where people actually seemed ‘happy,’ if you could believe that. On bad days I focused on men who drove up within a foot in back of my rickshaw and laid down on their horns. I began to resort to different methods to release my frustration. One was, I turned around and stared at the driver and gave them the finger. The other thing I did was to shout at them like, “What the fuck are you doing? Can’t you see we are blocked and we would like to move as much as you would?” Finally, I was plotting one day to take my captain’s whistle off my key chain and walk to the car behind me and blow the whistle as loudly as possible in the ear of the person driving, then kindly say, “How does that feel?” “Thik hai?”

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Within a very short time, I developed a habit of calling the local Indians ‘Neanderthals’. Sometimes I thought I might have been one myself as I was losing my composure instead of merging in the absolute of transcendental peace that I intended to do! I was obsessing over these people peeing in the open sewers right in public. The beggars were shoving their dirty hands in my face and acting as if I owed them something. The rickshaw drivers would quote you a price and then argue with you about the final amount when they dropped you at your home. Everyone was yelling at each other. Young men rode their motorcycles so fast I was sure one would knock me over one day and my head would spatter across the asphalt. There was no speed limit anywhere in Vrindavan and young men drove however they wished with no care for the consequences. Everywhere people required you remove your shoes, yet shoes were getting stollen all the time. And there were so many people who walked around barefoot anyway, when they entered a temple or specialty shop, their feet were filthy without shoes. It made no sense! The Indians were really beginning to annoy me. They had a habit of asking you “how much you paid?” (funny English, but that’s how they said it). It was embarrassing really. The porter who brought in your purchases from Delhi, the maid, the night watchman and even your next-door neighbor wanted to know “how much you paid, madam?” I was beginning to say things like quote them an exorbitant price, or tell them it was none of

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their business or tell them it is rude of them to ask or tell them I’d rather not say. But basically, everyone wanted to know your business, whether it was how much you paid for your new chair or if you had company last night or what temple you went to and on and on. Vrindavan is a small village, right? I guessed I would get used to it, but at that time, it was annoying the hell out of me. I just want to go out to my car without anyone staring at me, start the engine and drive to Target. Problem was, I didn’t have a car, everyone was staring at me and there was no Target. Nothing happened on time in Vrindavan except the temple arotiks (ceremonies for the pleasure of the deities). Those were on time to the second. But you asked your tailor when your curtains would be done and here’s what happened. “They will be ready in only two days, madam.” Four days later you would stop by his shop to pick up your curtains and he would say, “Most definitely they will be ready by Friday.” You go back Friday and he says, “Sorry madam. I will definitely have them tomorrow.” Again, I was devising my own way of dealing with these things. “You must bring them to me then, as I have paid rickshaws twice to get here and I am not paying again.” Of course he brought the curtains to me the next day and asked me to pay for his rickshaw! I did. I understood these people have never had a Time Management course. They did not have a To Do list and therefore, they did not prioritize. They did have good memories, but they didn’t seem to have a care about being late. They thought you should expect it.

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One day I was walking home from the market when a car drove up behind me and blew his horn for a solid 15 seconds. I turned around to yell at him and he actually drove his car into my leg. I was not sure why, but I was actually shocked. I shouldn’t have been. I knew it was possible that one day I could get hit. He backed up and drove off. I limped over to the office of my community and sat down in a chair on the veranda to rest for a few minutes before I made my way back to my apartment. As I sat there, tears started to well up in my eyes that I could not control, until my whole face was wet. I was sick of this dirty, uncivilized village where I was supposed to be retiring in bliss. I tried to cover my face with my cloth, but my nose was running and I had to keep wiping it. My leg was aching and I was not ready to walk when my friend and teacher, Prem walked by. “What’s wrong” he asked? “Are you o.k.?” “No, I said. I hate this place! The people are driving me crazy! Why couldn’t Krishna have appeared in a beautiful place with nice beaches and the ocean? These people are uncivilized. Some man just hit me with his car because he was in a hurry and couldn’t wait till I got out of his way. On top of the culture, I am experiencing PTSD, post traumatic stress disorder because I was addicted to a sociopath who hit me. I’m having panic attacks at night and I can’t breathe. I think I’m going crazy!” Prem answered, “Hey. You’ll be ok. In the first place, you are right. The people here are uncivilized, and they are very difficult to deal with. They are simple villagers without any education

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and without any worldly experience. Until you get adjusted, you will need to leave the country from time to time. Go to the states or Europe or somewhere. Afterwards, when you return, you will gradually be more forgiving. But Amy, it is your mind that is giving you the real trouble. I may be able to help you with that. You will need to absorb yourself in the holy name. You may think it is impossible, but actually it is very possible, if you try. Let me tell you a story.” He continued, “ You know Lord Shiva has three aspects. The first aspect is called Sadha Shiv, the original Lord Shiva and Sadha Shiv is Vishnu Tattva or Narayan Himself. There are some past times associated with Him. In one past time, Lord Shiva became very attracted to Krishna and wanted to experience the emotion of the gopis. He therefore approached Yoga Maya who has her form as a Tapasvini, a renunciate with saffron cloth and pure white hair, and prayed with folded hands, ‘Dear Purnamasa Devi, I want to take part in the rasa lila’. She replied, ‘It is possible, but you cannot enter in the male form. You have dreadlocks and ashes smeared all over your body with cobras around your neck. You will have to change your form to enter the rasa lila. Come with me.’ She took Lord Shiva to Brahma Kunde and dunked him in the lake. When he came out, he had a beautiful gopi form. He then quickly went to Vamsi Vat to join the Rasa Lila that evening. Krishna played His flute to steal the heart of the gopis. He played ka la, soft beautiful notes to steal the hearts of the gopis who are known as bauma drisham, or those who

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look sideways. They look sideways at Krishna because they are married to others and they cannot look directly at Him. Their mothers in law would become very upset. In sanskrit, the long i in drisham. is pronounced eee. Then mano haram, Krishna’s flute stole the hearts of the beautiful Vraja gopis. Mano means mind and who controls the mind? The god of the mind is Chandra. In sanskrit, chandra is one dot above a letter sounding - ng. Therefore, Srila Sukadeva goswami wrote in code in Srimad Bhagavatam the sound of Krishna’s flute which is - ka la ee ng kling which is called Kam Bija.” “The guru gives this mantra to his disciple which takes that disciple and drags her slowly or quickly to Vrindavan, to Vamsi Vat so she may have the opportunity to take part in the past times of Krishna. So Mahadev, Lord Shiva, heard the sound of Krishna’s flute and hurried to Vamsi Vat. Krishna and all the gopis began to dance but Krishna noticed something was different. The gopis looked around and noticed there was one gopi no one knew. That gopi was Mahadev. The other gopis questioned her as to her name,village, husband and mother and law, but Lord Shiva had no answer. The gopis began to hit her because they feared she was a demon in the disguise of a beautiful gopi who might try to attack Krishna. Lord Shiva began to cry and prayed to Purnamasi, Yoga Maya, to please save her. Yoga Maya came there and said, ‘Please stop at once. This is my disciple.’ Then Krishna came and said, ‘You cannot enter the Rasa Lila, but you can stand on the outside and watch. You will

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be the guardian of this past time and you will make sure from today, no one will enter who is not qualified.’” Lord Shiva, eternally stands outside of the Rasa Lila arena and is known as Gopeswara Mahadev. We all pray to that Mahadev, please bestow love for Radha and Krishna and open the door for us to serve them in Rasa Lila. Then Prem continued, “The next generation down from Visnu Tattva is Shiv Tattva and in that form, Lord Shiva is called Shambu. When Mahavishnu wants to create the universe He glances in the direction of maya. His glance carries the power of time and also carries the jivas, or living entities. His glance has an aura around it and the aura of that glance is called kal purusha, the male principal of time personified. This is Shambu who carries the glance to the shadow of Ramadevi. Ramadevi is Maha Vishnu’s direct shadow, and this shadow is maya or illusion. Vishnu cannot be in touch with maya. He therefore glances towards Ramadevi and maya is her shadow. Then Shambu carries the glance of Vishnu and unites with Mahadev. Vishnu cannot be in touch with maya in any way, so the expansion of Vishnu that can be in touch with maya is called Shambu. This Shambu is the ingredient cause of the material world and maya is the efficient cause and by their union, the whole material creation comes into existence. Prakriti (this material nature) is in equilibrium and when that equilibrium is broken by time or kal purush, then the material modes of nature, satva - goodness, raja - passion and tamas - ignorance, appear.

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Lord Shiva is called the greatest devotee because He is doing this service. Lord Shiva is also called Ahankar Svarupa. He is the origin of the false ego or ahankar. Ahankar means aham (I am) and kar(the doer). A real ego is good, but the false ego is the concept that I am in control of my world. If anyone does yoga in this world they can elevate themselves from identifying with the physical body and the mind. They can go up to the stage where their chitta (consciousness) is completely illuminated by satva (truth). Buddhists are called Bodhi Satva because their intelligence is illuminated by satva. But they cannot go further than this because the original ahankar is Lord Shiva himself. Lord Shiva enters into the conscious of the living entities and they identify with the ahankar and think they can act separately. “Then what happens? Lord Shiva is the enjoyer of the material energy. He is the bonafide, authentic enjoyer of maya. Maya is His shakti or energy. It is perfectly legitimate for him to enjoy his shaki because she is not different from him. But when Lord Shiva enters into the consciousness of the jivas (living entities), they identify with him thinking, ‘I am the legitimate enjoyer of the material energy.’ That is why we are all in illusion, because Shambu is in our consciousness causing us to believe we are ‘the doer.’ And even if we rise all the way to the understanding we are not this body and mind, we can fall down once again because the jiva thinks, ‘I am liberated.’ I am the enjoyer of this material world. Lord Shiva is still there in her consciousness and He is not going anywhere! That is His service to Krishna, to live within the consciousness of

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the living entities and give them the illusion they are the enjoyers of the material world. That is what the living entities want and that is why He is the predominating deity of the mode of ignorance. He is keeping us in illusion because we want to believe we are in control. “So we should understand very clearly that only when one has devotion to Lord Krishna, Lord Shiva says, ‘Ok, my job is done. Good bye.’ He leaves the heart of the living entity and the living entity has no more false ego.” When Prem finished his story he said, “Amy, the only way illusion will disappear is if you become absorbed in the reality of the absolute truth of Radha and Krishna. Would you consider chanting 64 rounds of japa every day for the next month, only 30 days? Every year I encourage those who hear from me to do the same. I myself am chanting 64 rounds daily. If you will try, I think it will change your life.” He then helped me back to my apartment and left. On that day and for 30 days after, I faithfully chanted 64 rounds each day which took me around 5 hours, sometimes more. The result of that chanting penetrated deeply within my heart as I realized, when you make a vow to chant 64 rounds a day, it has to be your first priority. It is not practical when you are working and raising children and taking care of family needs. But when you retire, it is possible. And also, the commitment of chanting and giving priority to the Holy Name, caused me to have respect for the Name. All the names of god are non-different than that

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form of god. By chanting the names of Radha and Krishna I began to feel oneness with the Divine. I began to feel the love. I began to have respect for the Name and it caused me to want to chant even more.â&#x20AC;Š

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Chapter 32

Festivals The residents of Vrindavan lived for their festivals! Every week there was something different to celebrate. With so many Gods, it was no wonder. And with every God came 20,000 gurus who all celebrated a birthday or disappearance day. There were seasonal festivals, festivals for cows, festivals for springtime, festivals for weddings, and so many more you could only wonder what was coming next. In the rainy season, a â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Green Festivalâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; was held when everyone wears green and all the deities in town are covered with bowers of green leaves and have green clothing, as well. Who needed a television? One night I experienced something different. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m not sure if this festival was celebrated all over India or just in different areas, but the event was two-fold. The Chandan Yatra Festival and the Akshay Tritiya Festival both happened on the same day. Akshay Tritiya, according to the Vedas, is the day when the universe is created. It is also the day the Ganges descended to earth. It is reputed that this is a good time astrologically to start any new venture. If you started a project or a journey or a new job on this day, your venture, project or job would be successful. So it was said.

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The Chandan Yatra Festival was the main event in Vrindavan. The idea behind the festival was that, marking the beginning of the extremely hot season, the deity in the temple is covered from head to toe in sandalwood paste. Sandalwood paste, mixed with saffron and camphor cooled the body, and people used it in India for thousands years, for exactly that reason. Later it became more of a worshipful gesture rather than something practical. For a solid month, an area in our temple was roped off where at least a dozen people were grinding sandalwood on flat stones until there was enough paste to cover eight deities that were at least five feet in height and numerous 10 inch deities. I only saw this in pictures, so I thought I would check it out. In the morning I ran into my friend who said, “Oh yes, what we do first is visit our own temple and then travel around Vrindavan to visit as many of the other main temples as possible.” “Cool,” I said. “Count me in.” But in Vrindavan, you never really knew what would happen when you left the comfort of your home. I was pleasantly surprised on that occasion. We first saw our deities, gloriously drenched in sandalwood with decorations like stripes and flowers and jewels all made of the paste. The temple was crowded as expected because we were somewhat of a novelty here, being the minority, you know, basically pasty white with some Africans and some Chinese. We were also the home temple of A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami who spread Krishna Consciousness all over the world and everyone wanted to see his temple. So, we were used to crowds. And it

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was definitely crowded. You literally needed to push your way through hundreds of Indians to get a view of the altar. But it was worth it. The imagery was stunning! And the flower decorations were dripping off the canopies and forming curtains as backdrops and enclosures. Smart phones were popping off pictures from every visitor. We made our way through the crowd and outside to hire an auto rickshaw for a ride down to the center of town where all the old deities (and I mean 500 years old) were located. We checked out one temple, then another and found ourselves in the middle of the downtown district. (This was a village, remember, dirt streets, monkeys, cow shit and all.) The streets were barely wide enough to get one car through and there were no cars that night. A hundred thousand people or more were crowding the streets, Indians, Europeans, Russians, Americans, all mixed together like a thick pudding moving from one temple to the next. If you didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t flow with the crowd, youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d be pushed aside or maybe even trampled on or tripped over. The people were mad with joy, if you could possibly imagine. They were so happy they were dancing and twirling around in circles and raising their arms with shouts of exhilaration. This pudding of people were literally being stirred by volunteers as they guided us here and there. On top of the genuine joy of the people seeing their beloved deities covered in sandalwood, the locals were offering service to the pilgrims. As we walked down the street, groups of people were offering us flavored drinks and sweet pastries. Local

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vendors put large fans in front of their shops to cool us off as we paraded by. One vendor set up his fan with scented water so that the fan blew a fine perfumed mist on us and you can bet we stopped to take that in. Then another local held a bowl of sandalwood paste mixed with saffron and camphor and with a small flower was decorating the heads of everyone who stopped to absorb the cool feeling of the heavenly mixture. When the aromatic paste hit my forehead, it not only cooled me instantly, but lifted my spirits so high I felt like I reached an ethereal plane of existence! What could I say? Another old man stood outside of the Radha Damodar temple with a large hand fan and was furiously waving it to cool the pilgrims as they left on their journey. I turned to my friend and said, â&#x20AC;&#x153;These people are mad!â&#x20AC;? and she knew what I meant. The love was overflowing, and why not? This was, after all, the home of Bhakti, the yoga of devotion. The next big festival would be the Swing Festival when the small Radha and Krishna deities would be brought off the altar and people would stand in line to take their turn swinging their beloved Lords. Sweet and beautiful! Unbelievable devotion! Then, there was the Boat Festival where the entire center of the temple area is flooded with water and covered with rose petals as the small Radha Krishna deities are pushed through the cool water in their own special boat for all their devotees to see up close. It would take a whole book to tell about all the wonderful celebrations in the holy land of Vrindavan, the land of devotion

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and protection of the cows. I was happy to be living in Vrindavan, but felt my devotion was lacking when I saw these mad Indians running to see their favorite deities and giving a portion of their income to each and every deity they visited. I thought to myself I would never have a chance to see my lord because I did not have enough desire. Anyway . . . the days passed and I was becoming accustomed to the madness and love flowing throughout the entire town.â&#x20AC;Š

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Chapter 33

The Little Things This is what not judging a book by its cover was all about. Here in Vrindavan, they used a broom consisting of stalks of broom corn tied together with some sort of binding tape around them leading up to a handle that makes you bend over to be able to sweep the ground. When I first saw people using them and they wanted to give me one to use, I thought they were nuts! Why didn’t they have a regular broom like we used in the US with a long handle and thicker brushes that wouldn’t fall off while you worked? Turned out I didn’t know what really worked. Then I realized the dust in Vrindavan is so fine that a broom like we have in America would just scrape right through it and leave most of it on the ground, looking as if I were trying to make some sand art as done in Buddhists monasteries for meditation. And, when you ‘broom,’ you kinda need to bend over anyway to get under everything because the dust goes everywhere! This little bunch of leaves was exactly what was needed to keep my floor clean. Little did I know.

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But what does it all mean? We are so quick to judge and think we know best and in India, more than any place in the world, you will learn that you don’t know shit! Americans especially, felt our lives were extremely convenient and if others didn’t follow in our footsteps they were just crazy. And believe me, I was so thankful for the conveniences from home, but when you are in another country, sometimes other things just worked better. When in Rome, right? I wanted to wear my western t-shirts and bluejeans in India, but the cloth was so thick I would have melted in them. Therefore, nice thin cotton clothing worn in most of India is usually much more comfortable. It can be very humbling. It is the little things that sometimes teach us the lessons we need most. Time is another thing that taught me many lessons in Vrindavan. I am an on-time person! My father taught me to be on time and taught me if I couldn’t make my appointment, I should call ahead if possible and notify the person. I believe in that whole-heartedly. Therefore I have gone almost stark-raving mad here in India with their lack of a time schedule. I first noticed it when I was staying at a guest house and the inn keeper was about to take me and drop me off at a shopping area. He told me to get ready and then we would go. I went to my room, showered, did my hair, put on fresh clothes and went back downstairs. I said, “I’m ready.” He said, “Just relax. Drink some tea.” Relax, I’m thinking? Tea? I’ve got a list with at least a dozen things I need to get done and you just want to sit around and drink tea?

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But that was the lifestyle in India. I came up to a traffic light in Delhi and looked across the street to see the directional sign saying, “Relax” instead of “Stop”. I had to laugh, and I mean really laugh at myself! The signs actually said walk and relax instead of walk and stop! It may seem insignificant, and really it is, but those were the little things that changed you when you were in India. It was the culture. In America we were on fast forward most of the time or at least until it was happy hour. So it is extremely hard to adjust to another culture where people do not bother making a to do list, and don’t drink their coffee till around nine or ten in the morning. I would have been completely dragging by that time. I was addicted to coffee first thing to wake up my sleepy brain! I was traveling on the train one day from Delhi to Mathura, a 3hour trip that turned into a 5-hour trip. When I was finally about to pull my hair out, I stood up to stretch and walk around a bit. I moved my seat, as most seats were empty. Evidently, this train is notably late and thus the empty seats. The young gentleman who helped me on the train with my luggage came and sat beside me and we began to talk. He was going to his home in Agra from northern India for the Holi festival. Holi is another big festival all around India where people throw colored dyes on each other in commemoration of Radha and Krishna doing the same. Some of the dyes are powdered and some are in large squirt guns shooting bombs of hot pink liquid color to drench your body, hair and clothes.

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He wanted to know about my feelings about India and I told him a few different things. I loved the sweetness of the people and their spirituality, but getting things done here was like moving in slow motion. What I could get done in Los Angeles in three hours might take me three weeks here. I asked him about his travels and he revealed he was going home for the holiday and said there were few opportunities to go home to visit as there were only 25 holidays a year in India. My mouth dropped as I said, Whaaaaatttttt?????? I explained that in America we only celebrated around 8 holidays a year except Valentine’s and no one took off work to celebrate the lover’s holiday. He was astounded. Only eight? That was another ah-ha moment for me. Can you imagine getting 25 holidays a year? No wonder it took them so long to get things done! I wondered if those were paid holidays. Maybe they were paid for government workers. What a huge difference were our cultures. Was one better than the other? I didn’t know, but I thought you kind of leaned towards the culture you were brought up in. Nevertheless, here I was in India trying to adjust to their culture and having a few realizations in the process. It was the little things that sometimes changed you. World travelers have been adjusting to other cultures since we poor souls found out the world is round. In the end, it is better to do what they do in their country instead of what you want to do when you’re in their homeland. You know, when in Rome. I was adjusting.

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Chapter 34

It’s A Jungle Out There And that’s the truth! Living in large cities, we have forgotten the real nature of this planet. Of course you can call the city a jungle, like New York, and it is, but that is not what I’m talking about here. I’m talking about planet earth, the real jungle. When I went into my kitchen sometimes, late at night, I could hear all the little creatures in Vrindavan doing their night time thing. Sounded like there were millions of little crickets or some kind of bugs all talking at once. I always thought doing that would be an invitation to dinner for the frogs. Maybe the frogs are part of the noise I was hearing. Maybe the bugs want to be eaten, or maybe God wants the frogs to eat. Their croaking invites the snakes to have dinner and the movement of the snakes catches the eye of the eagle who gets a mouth full and sleeps until the next day when the hunter walks by and shoots him with a bow and arrow and he falls from the tree. When jungles were ‘torn down to put up a parking lot,’ thank you Joni Mitchell, or lets just say big cities, much of the food was gone for those animals living mother nature’s way. In Vrindavan

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or other villages around the country, that is not the case. Right on the edges of the village are all sorts of wild things, not just the monkeys. I definitely would not go trucking off into the middle of a beautiful field of blooming yellow mustard plants. I thought about it once to get my picture taken in the midst of the golden yellow glow, but changed my mind and simply stood on the edge of the field with the plants in the background. Shit! There are snakes out here, and who knows what else. Maybe the glorious peacocks with all their royal turquoise and deep blue feathers have those snakes as a snack, because peacocks are everywhere too, but I’m not going to take that chance. In India there are tiger reserves in different areas of the country. Conservationists have made sure certain areas are not disturbed by capitalists who are looking for the next opportunity. I was happy to know these creatures existed and was glad they didn’t live next door to me. My point is, there was still a world full of wild creatures existing out there, all around me. Sometimes I forgot it when I lived in the gorgeous Marina Del Rey in Southern California, but I wondered what it would have been like to have lived many years ago in Kali Yuga when there was no technology and safe shelter and you were forced to look over your shoulder constantly to make sure you wouldn’t be the next one for dinner. And don’t think it didn’t cross my mind what might have lived underneath me when I lived on my boat. If I failed to clean the bottom for even one month, I could hear fish nibbling at the barnacles in the late afternoon. What the heck is under the sea?

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One year the marina was filled with the most beautiful pink jellyfish. They were swimming all around the docks and looked like angels, gracefully moving their sheer bodies like wings as they moved up and down and in every direction. The bellshaped body propelled them but their tentacles were reaching out to sting and capture their prey. In my mind I wanted to drop my hand in the middle of the water to feel that body that looked so gelatinous, but I knew those angelic looking creatures would be the cause of lasting pain. They were a beautiful site, but jellyfish sting! Small sharks were seen in the marina from time to time as well and didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t care that you were human and are not supposed to be their daily meal. So it was a jungle down there too! The description given in the Srimad Bhagavatam of Vrindavan when Krishna was on the planet was a jungle, but a charming jungle with honey dripping from the trees, fruit and flowers on every bush or tree with a fragrance so sweet they could be smelled from a distance and a taste so mellow that you smiled just thinking about that mango as your mouth watered from the thought. Wild creatures were in that jungle too, but they were more interested in seeing Krishna dance through the forest than they were in harming you. The deer, the squirrels and the rabbits all went running to get a good look when Krishna and Balarama were taking the calves out to pasture. Sounds like the Bambi movie, right? Maybe it was or is like that. If I ever made it to that jungle, I prayed to never

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leave. In the meantime, I went in the kitchen late at night and wondered, what the hell is in that jungle out there!â&#x20AC;Š

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PART VII

SEEK & YE SHALL FIND

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Chapter 35

The Truth in Plain Sight Knock on every door. Turn over every stone.

Upon retiring in Vrindavan I began to research many different things. I had plenty of time. It was great! I researched astrology and the occult sciences. I dove into the study of Egypt and finally I discovered the secret of the time-frame for the fourAges. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d heard, the truth hides itself in plain sight, but what did that mean? And, did we really want to know the truth? Once again I realized I was alone because I wanted the truth, regardless of where it came from. And I was getting it. I was discovering something amazing! The fog was clearing from my eyes as I studied day after day and researched until my head was bobbing at the computer, my butt was sore from sitting so many hours and my eyes were beginning to blur. I looked around me and saw things that contradicted what I was taught by my spiritual master thinking, Oh My God !!! What have I found? Every day I researched, I found more things within my religion that simply didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t add up. It all started because when I looked

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around me and could see we were not going deeper into darkness as was proclaimed in the scriptures I studied, but as a culture, we were becoming more and more enlightened every day. We were moving out of the age of darkness known as Kali and into Dwapara, the energy age, evidenced by wifi and internet as well as many other technologically advanced discoveries entering into our daily lives like smart phones and even smart cars. And on another front, my guru propagated the theory that men were more intelligent because their brain was larger. What a crock of shit! Of course, we could not blame him. The whole of India propagated this theory. However, from studying Egypt, I realized that clearly men were more controlled by left-brain functions and women were more controlled by right-brain functions. The proof was everywhere. Right before our eyes. Even in the pre-dynastic times of Egypt, a man was considered to be more advanced spiritually if his right brain was more like that of a woman. And there I was. Right in the middle of this crazy cult trying to extract real truth while surrounded by a bunch of would-be sadhus who were influenced by an angry pandit named Chanakya who said you should beat your wife. How would I deal with this? The goal of a real sadhu is to attain liberation and not to discover other truths, so no fault should be attributed to them. But many lesser would-be saints were very proud of their knowledge of scriptures, accepting translations without question

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and considering themselves to be much more intelligent than any woman. But for everyoneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s joy and strengthening of faith in the absolute, the truth needed to be exposed. Thing is, who was I to do it? Who would believe me? Why should I care? But I did care and I could not keep sitting in conversations where people spoke about being in the age of darkness when I was completely aware that we had moved into the energy age. I wanted to share my research with others and help them to realize how we had been brainwashed. But I knew that I would be seen as a traitor or dissident. Cognitive Dissonance, the cult characteristic where devotees were not allowed critical thinking, was in full bloom. Critical thinking was condemned and I was condemned before I even started. But the truth was obvious. It was lying right before our eyes. Someone had to do something! and I could see the illusion was so thick that no one cared to investigate the obvious discrepancies in our scriptures, lying right before their eyes. So once again, I jumped in.â&#x20AC;Š

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Chapter 36

The Great Year

This could be confusing if you let it. But it is really easy to understand if you try. What I discovered was, both our sun and our dual star Sirius, rotated around each other in a period of 24,000. This period of 24,000 years caused the different ages on planet earth. As the suns get close together, the Golden Age is predominant. Then as they start to move away from each other, the earth experiences a Silver Age, then a Bronze Age, and finally at their furtherest point away from each other, they are in the Iron Age where consciousness is diminished by 75% or more. That time is known as the dark ages or Kali Yuga. In their rotation, Sirius and our sun leave their distant locations, traveling rapidly towards each other once again, thus ascending towards Satya Yuga. In this way the yugas are constantly ascending and descending as the suns revolve around each other.

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The calculation of the ages was based on one full cycle of our sun making its revolution around Sirius and was known as the Precession of the Equinoxes as the earth moved through each of the 12 astrological constellations. I discovered during my lifetime we were moving through the end of Pisces and beginning to move into the age of Aquarius. (From right to left below. - thus the term precession.) &

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The 24,000 year cycle goes through one constellation for a period of between 2000 to 2160 years, slowing down during the Iron Age and speeding up during the Golden Age, thus you have different opinions of the exact timing of either 24,000 years of 25,920 years. The four ages and their characteristics are as follows:

Satya Yuga - the Golden Age - the Spiritual Age, is known as a time when people lived long lives, filled with peace, living in full consciousness, using all of their senses and 100% of their brain. Everyone was equal, so there was no hierarchy. Their spirituality was at the height of awareness and society was matriarchal. Meditation was the process of Ascension. Treta Yuga - the Silver Age - the Mental Age, ushered in patriarchy and consciousness was diminished by 25% as kings appeared and warring began. The performance of opulent yajnas or sacrifices was the method for Spiritual Advancement. Dwapara Yuga - the Bronze Age - the Energy Age, further diminished consciousness to 50% and rulers and kings were becoming more and more treacherous. Gods and Goddesses were worshipped in the form of idols in temples with great festivals and ceremonies for advancement in Spiritual Life. Kali Yuga - the Iron Age - the Material or Dark Age, brings about an ignorance of spirituality so strong that most people cannot understand the most basic principles of consciousness and

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have mostly lost all spirituality, being diminished by 75%. Chanting the Holy Names was the method of Self Realization.

By this chart, adapted from Sri Yukteswar Swami’s description, I could see we had moved out of Kali Yuga and were ascending upwards into Dwapara Yuga and things were getting better in many ways. I could personally see this all around me. The energy age was in full swing and yet my peers were saying we were going deeper into the age of Kali. Discovering this from my simple internet searches was one of the most satisfying and enlightening discoveries of my life. Why? Because, since I was 23 years old, I was told the ages were much longer than this 24,000 year revolution, information I found very disturbing and inconceivable. The numbers were staggering! From “The Holy Science,” Sri Yukteswara Swami wrote, “astronomers have been guided by wrong annotations of certain Sanskrit scholars such as Kulluka Batta of the dark age of Kali Yuga, and now maintain the length of Kali Yuga is 432,000 years. A dark prospect and fortunately, one not true.”

How Sanskrit Scholars Mis-translated the Time Periods of the Yugas Thinking that human years were daiva (demigod) years, translators of ancient scriptures multiplied the human years times 360 days.

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1. SatyaYuga - - 4800 Human Yrs x 360 days =

1,728,000 Yrs

2. Treta Yuga - 3600 Human Yrs x 360 days = 1,296,000 Yrs 3. Dwapara Yuga - 2400 Human Yrs x 360 days = 864,000 Yrs 4. Kali Yuga - 1200 Human Yrs x 360 days = 432,000 Yrs

One more proof of the 24,000 year precession of the equinoxes is the time frame given by Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakur, my beloved great grandfather guru, in his introduction to the Krishna Samhita. There he described, in the form of a chart, the Ruling Dynasties and the time periods when they ruled. There was no mention of 432,000 years or 864,000 years or anything so outrageous. Below is a list made from the chart provided by Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakur in the introduction to the “Krishna Samhita,” describing the ruling dynasties to date.

Dynasty’s Name, Meaning of Name Duration of Rule - Date Began 1. Prajapatis, Rule of Sages - 50 years - Began - 4463 BCE 2. Manus, Rule of Svayambuva Manu & descendents - 50 years - Began - 4413 BCE 3. Demigods, Rule of Indra and others - 100 years - Began 4363 BCE

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4. Vaivasvata, Rule with descendants - 3465 years - Began 4263 BCE 5. Outcasts, Rule of Abhiras, Sakas, Yavanas, Khasas & Andhras - 1233 years - Began - 798 BCE 6. Vratya, Aryan castes - 771 years - Began - 431 CE 7. Mohammedans, Patans & Moguls - 551 years - Began - 1206 CE 8. British, British - 121years - Began - 1757 CE

Sri Yukteswar Swami’s calculations and Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakur’s Dynastic Rule Chart are basically the same and are described below. Yukteswar Giri - Silver Age 4500 BC Bhaktivinoda Thakur - Chart, 4463 BC

Also please note that Sri Yukteswar Giri (1838-1914) and Bhaktivinoda Thakur (1855-1936) lived around the same time period. Bhaktivinoda’s chart is dealing with Dynastic Times - Not Pre-Dynastic Times known as the Spiritual Age or Satya Yuga when there was no ruling class and there was no need to have a written language. Once again, from my understanding of Satya Yuga, there were no rulers in Pre-Dynastic times (thus the classification pre)

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because there was no quarrel! Everyone was equal and society was Matriarchal. (Right Brain) Rulers did not appear until Treta Yuga, the Silver age. If you add the 4,800 years of the descending cycle of Satya Yuga to the figures above, you will come up a little short of 12,000 years so the calculations are not perfect, but NOWHERE does Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakur say anything about 864,000 years in Dwarka Yuga or 1,296,000 years in Treta Yuga before the beginning of Kali Yuga.

Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakur also described in his introduction to â&#x20AC;&#x153;Krishna Samhita,â&#x20AC;? that the battle between the Kauravas and the Pandavas took place 775 years after the victory of Ramacandra over Lanka.

However, most Hindus insist that Sri Ramacandra was born over 2,000,000 years in the past! Someone grossly miscalculated! For those of you who never heard of Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakur, he was considered to be the Seventh Goswami who wrote astounding books and songs giving us an intricate path to achieve union with god. Was this chart given by Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakur too much for the devotees to reconcile? What scholars, philosophers and spiritualists all agreed upon is, we did not have all the answers to the history of mankind on this earth, especially since we were just coming out of the age of darkness when our capacity to understand higher truths was

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diminished by 75% or more. But philosophers and astronomers explained that even in the age of Kali, there were a few great souls who were given this secret knowledge of the ages. Pythagoras and Plato were two. Sri Yukteswar Swami may have been another. Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakur appeared to be another. But I asked myself how these ancient philosophers, as well as current era mathematicians and astronomers, came up with this 24,000 year cycle. It was simple: They observed the constellations move one (1) degree every seventy-two years. There are 30 degrees in one constellation, thus 72 years x 30 degrees = 2160. Twelve constellations in our zodiac x 2160 = 25,920 years. The adjustment for 24,000 years is made because the suns (stars) speed up as they get closer together. Then, these scientists and philosophers checked that figure against Sri Yukteswarâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s calculations and accepted it to be true. I personally needed just a little more information because I was still under the influence of the cult teachings myself. Finally, I found Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakurâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s description of the time when the earth came under the rule of kings, known as the Dynastic Period. That did it for me! So, unfortunately, the society I was a part of (in and out) for many years, believed in the erroneous calculations made by Kulluka Batta because our spiritual masters simply accepted the calculation without question. After all, knowledge was passed down from teacher to teacher for thousands of years. Our spiritual masters were obviously more concerned with giving Bhakti

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than they were with the time periods described in their translations. Why should they challenge those calculations? Anyway, fool that I am, I dared to tell the truth of what I discovered. I began by telling my closest friends. They were skeptical. Then I found one scholar from Sweden who read my booklet on the subject and was 100% convinced that I had found the Amazing Truth of the Ages! His influence amongst the (large brain) men in Iskcon started the conversation rolling. But most of the cult, as you can imagine, were not able to accept the findings. They adamantly opposed the truth lying right before their eyes, without even investigating. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Condemnation without investigation is the height of folly!â&#x20AC;? Einstein said. This is what cult consciousness did to people! It stopped people from questioning. I expected nothing less. I was right. But for myself, I was delighted to have discovered this truth. When we began to ascend in Dwapara Yuga, I could feel a shift in my consciousness. Something happened around 12/21/2012. I was researching like crazy and it all started making sense! Understanding was getting easier! And why did I care how long Kali Yuga lasts? Was it because I could see for years we were plainly not moving backwards but forwards and I needed to prove it to myself? After all, I would be dead and gone when things really started to improve as we moved closer to Sirius, although I was already feeling the effects of the ascending age. So I wondered why I cared? For some reason my heart was overjoyed at the thought that there was a

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much better chance of reaching my goal if I returned to this planet directly after this birth, as we were moving closer to Sirius. The Bhagavad Gita states that we ‘take up where we left off’ spiritually, and I was depending on that to be true. It would be wonderful if my spiritual understanding carried forth in an age when consciousness was developed 50% instead of instead of being stuck at 25% or less. If I did not lose any spiritual advancement when I took my next birth, the chance for me to become enlightened with the ages progressing towards Satya once again, would be a great help and not a hinderance from a devolving Kali Yuga. I mean, if I were becoming less and less able to understand truth as Kali advanced, then what would be my chance in the next birth to achieve the goal? Not very good. So, KNOWING that Kali was over - made me feel GREAT! I just needed to keep practicing my meditation and hopefully, eventually, go deep into samadhi, maybe even in this lifetime. My faith and hope were increasing.

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PART VIII

GOING HOME

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Chapter 37

Winter Break After a few years of living in the holy land, my sailorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s mouth was almost gone, but the extreme cultural differences were taking their toll on me, so I saved my money and bought a nice sailboat in the Caribbean to live on for a while. I flew into San Juan, Puerto Rico to visit the temple I once helped start and to revisit the island. My goal was to visit the marina, make a few friends and get some help buying the right boat. It was a good plan. I met a nice guy who was both a sailor and a surveyor, so he helped me pick out a nice Catalina 30 with a diesel engine. I was familiar with this boat as I sailed on one with the Womenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Sailing Association out of Marina Del Rey, CA. The inside was roomy and the engine was quiet. I worked on it for three weeks, installing solar panels, a wind generator and radar. My thought was to take a long cruise, hopping from island to island, stopping at every port along the way, until I reached Trinidad and Tobago. I was in no hurry, being happily retired. My solar panels were working beautifully, so the only expenses were a cell phone service for emergencies and children , diesel fuel, a new battery if needed, a few meds for

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what ailed me and food. The wind generator kept my engine powered, so I was ready to go. I started my journey on November 27th, from San Juan. My sails were full as I was getting good wind and I headed towards the US Virgin Islands. I was so happy to be out on the water again but a little nervous taking a long journey by myself. I prepared as much as possible before I left with equipment and supplies and I felt pretty safe. Besides, I bought a great longdistance vhf radio for any emergency. My water maker took the salt water, removed the salt and gave me fresh clear water. I filled up my jugs with filtered water when I was in port. I flavored some of my water with peppermint leaves given to me by a friend for a refreshing drink. To conserve, I washed in salt water and then wiped down with purified water. If I ran out of shampoo, I washed my hair with clean sand and peppermint water and it worked quite well. I was already accustomed to using sand paper for an emory board to file my nails down and keep my feet free from the crust naturally occurring from living in sandals. Ugh. I learned that one in India. I kept my sunglasses on a tight cord around my neck because without them I would have surely gone blind. I only kept a few articles of clothing for summer, two sundresses, one jacket to match both, two pairs of shorts, one skirt, two pairs of long pants and four tops. When sailing you always need a sweater and a windbreaker with some waterproof pants and jacket. I kept a broad-brimmed hat on my head with a chin strap to keep the

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wind from blowing it away. One must be careful with getting too much sun in the twenty-first century as our ozone is still somewhat depleted. Since I was in the caribbean, there weren't many cool days, only when a rain storm passed through. The warm air did good things for my arthritis and I hunkered in on cool evenings to read a book. Watching the stars from the ocean was a gift from God. After a whole life of not knowing what was above me, I was now beginning to learn the constellations and stars in the sky. I hoped to get a good telescope soon, or one day, but for now I was using a small one from a Marine store in the states. The skies are so free from pollution when you are away from land, you can see everything! When pulling into port I took my dingy and paddled into the local restaurant area to set up a small table with a colorful umbrella to sell gemstone earrings I made along the way. (Auto pilot helped so I could have my hands free.) I bought all silver fixings with stones like garnet, lapis lazuli, tiger eye, amethyst, rose quartz and crystal. I only accepted donations and didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t charge a fixed price, convinced Krishna would give me what I needed. He did. The people I met were kind and generous and always curious to hear my stories. I told them about sailing, about my experience with my gurus and about India. They laughed at the stories of the monkeys and were sad about the Dead Dog.

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Gradually, I made my way down south meeting an old sailor in the Virgin Islands named Santoz who was as free as a bird. He expressed his desire to sail with me to St. Kitts and I agreed, as it’s a long sail from the Virgin Islands. I made him some basmati rice, spiced with fresh ground coriander, and filled with peanuts, raisins and coconut. A little coconut oil enhanced the flavor and a touch of raw sugar balanced the yin/yang. We laughed and traded stories as we moved slowly through the caribbean waters. Santoz told a story one evening leaving me laughing into the night. Seems he was hired to deliver a brand new 64 foot yacht from Los Cabos to San Diego. He took a buddy with him for his crew while the owners stayed in the main cabin below as the evening grew dark. In the middle of the night, near the entrance to a port, they saw some crew unloading huge timbers to be ground into pulp. “Hey!” shouted Santoz, “can we get that timber from you? We can sell it at the next port and make some good money for ourselves.” The guys agreed and Santoz and his buddy pulled up alongside the barge and unloaded The next morning, the owners came up and said, “What happened? Where did all the timber come from?” “You didn’t feel those huge swells? It was all we could do to keep the ship under control. Things were flying everywhere! Don’t worry, we’ll get rid of them for you, no problem.” There was a little damage to the deck of the boat, but, he said, “The owners blew it off, we put a thousand dollars in our pocket and headed on up to San Diego.”

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Ethical or not, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a real trip to hear the stories of pirate sailors, and all lifetime sailors are pirates of some sort! When we reached St. Kitts, we pulled into port and I bought him a shuttle ticket back to his home. All was good. The boat was still in good shape! Sails were still strong and it was great to have some company.â&#x20AC;Š

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Chapter 38

Sailing I’ve experienced the sea as smooth as glass and as rough as a roller coaster, so I was cautious as I made my way into the unknown. Having already experienced two gales I didn’t relish getting into another one any time soon, so I checked the weather report with my handheld VFH radio, kept charged by my solar panels. All was good, but I kept my storm sail ready, just in case. The wind was gentle, but I moved along at around six knots, keeping my compass set to 75 degrees southeast. I stopped at every port, rested a few days, sold my earrings, then moved on to the next port, picked up supplies, rested and took off again. I liked those stops, meeting locals and selling my earrings. Sometimes they built large fires on the beach, played their instruments, sang and danced. In the evenings, when I couldn’t keep my eyes open anymore, I pulled out a sheet and my sleeping bag and laid it on the cockpit. Making sure both my anchors, both bow and stern, were secure, I drifted off to sleep under the stars. Sometimes I used the autopilot and radar and continued to sail overnight. I always wore a small inflatable life vest when I was sleeping in the cockpit attaching a tether to my waist. You

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never know if a rogue wave would be heading your way to give you a rather strong broach while youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re sailing. My radar guaranteed it would sound an alarm if there was anything within 600 feet from my boat. I needed to trust. It didn't happen. I checked the shipping lanes on my charts and took precaution not to go through one while I was sleeping. I finally learned to navigate by the stars, using a sextant so I used both the stars, my compass and my GPS, constantly checking my location. When I got disoriented from not seeing land, I tended to get nauseated, so using the stars was a great comfort and guide. Many times in the past I was sure my compass was wrong and I was heading in the wrong direction, but I was the one who was wrong, so I vowed to trust my instruments on this trip. I got my true north synced at the harbor patrol before I left San Juan. What else could I do? I got pretty tired between ports so I would sometimes stay a week or more before starting out again. Sailing in the big blue ocean with spray splashing in my face, the sun on my head and the wind on a beam reach made me smile inside as I laid back with the wheel in my hands, chanting my mantra and meditating on my love. When the urges of the body wouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t stop screaming at me, I went down to the galley, auto pilot engaged, and made a bowl of cereal with coconut water I stocked up on in the US VI. Bread is something I saved for ports, but mostly I ate toasted oats, nuts, and dried berries with bananas. When I was in port I made

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some banana bread with my solar oven and it lasted me for a week. No more dairy, coconut was taking its place. I often made my favorite black-eyed peas with a little salt and coconut oil, but it only lasted for a few days without refrigeration. That was ok. It was easy to cook, and I was a happy. I cooked on a cheap natural gas stove on the boat. If I expected to be out at sea for any length of time, I hoped to catch a fish and if not, I drank a protein shake I made from whey protein isolate. The coconut oil was great for my skin. It both oiled and moisturized. I took a swig of apple cider every morning for my minerals and ate the edible seaweed I grew to identify. The days were long and the nights were short so I exercised while sailing by constantly tacking and adjusting my sails. I went up and down the stairs in the companionway, chanting with each step, keeping my legs strong and flexible. My body was a chariot and it needed to be oiled, exercised frequently and cleaned to keep it healthy for my soul, especially now since my body was aging. When I was in a foreign port, I tried to get a good massage. The island girls were strong and sweet and were happy to meet people traveling through their little spot in the universe. I saved my meager social security income for fuel and boat repairs and as you may have heard, there are always repairs to be made on a boat. Sails rip, rigging rusts, batteries die, lines rot and leaks come. I kept some 5200 on board to seal cracks or holes worn from stanchions. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d learned a little about my diesel engine and kept it serviced and running for those much needed and

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unexpected moments when the wind dies and you are just about to hit another boat. Oh Shit! In one port I met another old sailor woman like myself who retired from the rigorous tasks of pulling sails and grinding winches herself but wanted to ride with me to the next port. We talked into the evening and laughed until we cried (about men, of course) as we both fell asleep on the cockpit. She gave me five pounds of dried coconut flakes, two pounds of cashew nuts, raisins packed securely in a plastic tub, a pound of sesame seeds and some exotic spices. She brought two bottles of French wine from Martinique, sharing the delicious fruit along the way. When we parted, she offered me her blessings for a safe journey. Namaste. A storm arose one afternoon and lasted through the evening. I tethered myself to the boat, put on my life vest and held on for dear life to keep my baby from capsizing. That was definitely the hardest part of my trip. Being old, your body hurts. There were definitely times when I thought I would go overboard. After the storm, my main sail showed rips in three different places, water storage containers floated in the ocean, having fallen from the deck and I lost a small cooler I neglected to tie down. The storm took its toll on me, not being young anymore. I was so exhausted after the incident I could barely move. I fell asleep in the sunlight, thanking God for the experience and recognizing it could have been a lot worse, and I mean a lot worse.

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After two months of sailing and stopping at different ports, getting supplies and selling jewelry, I finally came into Barbados where I called the Harbor Patrol with my VHF. They guided me to a safe anchorage not far from shore where I dropped both anchors and rested gently near a sandbar. My keel was short, a shoal keel, which allowed me to go into shallow water. I took my dingy to out around forty feet to drop my bow anchor, then got back in the boat and started the engine, backing up just a touch to set the anchor. Putting the other anchor in my dingy, I paddled out to drop it in the water about 25 feet away from the stern. I started the engine again, moved forward just a touch to set the stern anchor. This kept the boat from swinging from side to side and rocking with the waves as well as keeping my boat in one place. Two guys and one gal from the Harbor Patrol were surprised and happy to hear about my long trip and congratulated me on my courage at this age. I was pretty happy about it too. My plan changed after the long, solo journey and I decided to stay in Barbados, rest and focus on my meditation and forget time existed anywhere other than in someone elseâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s mind. After a few months, I thought, Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll do some island hopping to feel the wind in my sails once again, but for now, its local produce, local people, local stories and meditation.â&#x20AC;Š

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Chapter 39

Love in the Caribbean In Barbados I swam every day and the water was fabulous! On March 30th, I flew to Colorado to first visit my children for a few weeks and then returned back to the island in mid April to make plans to sell the boat. I hoped to return to Vrindavan in July for the annual Rupa Goswami Conference, but until that time, I woke up every day just before the sun rose and went deep into meditation while chanting the Holy Names. A light breeze was blowing one morning at the end of April as I took a deep breath and did some stretches in the cockpit. The air felt great! I made myself some nice black coffee and the aroma, carried by the breeze, surrounded me as I took it out to the cockpit. Uuuummm! The tide was low that day giving me a bit of a start. I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t want to damage my keel. When the tide rose I thought, I could pull in my anchors and move out a bit. But for now my anchors were dug in deep, one at the bow and one at the stern and the boat lay perfectly still. I grabbed my Tulasi beads, walked outside and offered my prayers to the Sun God. Then I settled in for a few hours more of meditation. Life mellowed like fine wine with

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melted brie and my heart was still, as I softly chanted to myself, sometimes in silence, sometimes just under my breath. I went deep inside my soul and felt humble and blessed to have no desire to go anywhere or do anything. The deeper I went, the more still I became and bliss was growing daily. The peace and transparent warm water were amazing in the caribbean and I realized this was the best thing I could have ever done for myself, but I knew it was temporary because I wanted to return to Vrindavan. I meditated for a few hours that morning in peace and went very deeply into a trance. Thoughts of Radha and Krishna were filling my mind and sometimes I couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t tell whether my thoughts were imaginary or real. Around 10:30, I put on a bathing suit. There were small yellow and silver fish swimming around the boat and I thought I would swim with them. The water was cool, the color of turquoise, and I could see the bottom as I climbed down the steps. Swimming felt so good as the water rushed through my limbs and enlivened my whole body. I thought Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d stay in the water for a while and watch the fish scavenging for morning breakfast. I climbed back up the swim steps and grabbed my snorkeling gear. Krishna was showering me with kindness and I felt bathed in the sunlight, the wind and the water. Oatmeal was easy for breakfast. I lit my gas stove and it cooked in only five minutes. One mango was left in my fruit bowl, so I cut it, and laid it on a plastic plate decorated with sea shells. I offered a prayer in thanks for the blessings and settled

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down to taste the sweetness of Krishnaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s mercy. Afterwards, I grabbed my favorite book and dreamt of Krishnaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s rendezvous with Radharani and her maidservants. Lost like being in a dream, I forgot the time. The sun was starting to rise high in the sky as I came back to consciousness and I thought I should probably get some more fruit. So I grabbed my little backpack, and sarong and descended back down the swim steps to walk in to the shore. The water was so shallow there when the tide was low that walking was easy. It was only around 100 yards to the shore and the exercise was exhilarating. I developed the habit of chanting one mantra with every step I took, in my mind, so I was chanting all the way. Vrindavan was in my heart, even though my body was in the caribbean. As I reached the shore, I wrapped my sarong around my waist and noticed a group of people gathered around in a large circle with some flower decorations hanging from the trees along with twinkling lights that looked like fireflies. Butterflies were everywhere and the air was surcharged with beauty. Large bowls of fruit were placed here and there, and buttery looking balls were being passed around as everyone laughed and smiled and popped one of those balls into their mouths. They turned and looked as I started to walk by and motioned for me to come over. It looked as if it might be a birthday party as the guest of honor was being decorated with all kinds of ointments and flowers and was being perfumed with crystal perfume sprayers. Smoky

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incense filled the air and pink petal showers were blowing in the light breeze. Bright green parrots and beautiful blue songbirds filled the trees and small animals like white rabbits and fuzzy squirrels were moving in close to the crowd. Everyone was so happy as I walked up and the guest of honor turned to smile at me. In absolute and unbelievable shock and astonishment, I fainted and He came over to pick me up. His love and beauty and sweetness were so strong and overwhelming when I awoke that I fainted again as he reached for me and pulled me to my feet. His complexion was a blueish black but shined like the sun. His smile was filled with love and kindness and mango juice was dripping from his lips. I felt like my heart was my entire body and it was warm with peace. He picked me up once more and I noticed how soft his hands were and I swooned at the black curls surrounding his face and the golden fish earrings dangling from his ears. The fragrance coming from His body sent chills up my spine and the hairs on my arms stood on end. Tears flowed from my eyes as I was flooded with the knowledge of Everything. His hair was decorated with peacock feathers and pearls and there was a sparkle in His large, lotus petal shaped eyes that made me faint, yet one more time. He embraced me to His heart and gently gave me a kiss on the forehead and yes, I fainted again. The love of my life, Sri Krishna had just appeared. When He picked me up again, He directed my eyes towards all of his cowherd friends, parents, and gopis who were all

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stunningly beautiful and blissful. I first noticed the golden complexioned Radharani who smiled at me with a love that felt like melting butter. She was more cooling than millions of moons and the compassion in her heart brought tears to my eyes. I could feel ecstasy both within me and without of me as I noticed Srimati Radhika stealing glances at Sri Krishna through the corner of Her large blue eyes. Then, the women motioned for me to come over and sit with them as someone was about to speak. Gradually my mind was becoming absorbed in my surroundings and I forgot all about my fruit, the sailboat, the ocean, the fish or my morning coffee. Somehow I thought I was someone else. I looked down and I was wearing a multi-colored silk gopi skirt and choli decorated with pearls and crystals, sparkling in the sunlight. There were hundreds of tiny little pleats at my waist making the hem of my skirt full and flowing. My hair was decorated jewels in the part and there was a sheer, and iridescent scarf covering my head, with tiny white jasmine flowers and miniature pink lilies forming a wreath on top. I was feeling shy and looking down but I could feel His eyes on me and my heart was jumping with joy. Honestly, it felt like my heart was pumping love instead of blood. I was thinking, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Who am I?â&#x20AC;? and then I remembered. My name is Sukhada and I am only eleven years old. My favorite dress to please Krishna in the moonlight is a translucent, crystal white. He loves me in white and thinks I am full of color, therefore I wear white on full-moon nights, the vessel for all color.

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I make Him laugh and He loves the way I like to swing him when he is with Srimati Radharani. He wants me to be with Him and Radha as they swim in the beautiful lake known as Radha Kunde. I remembered diving deep into the crystal waters to see their legs wrapped around each other, feeling as if His legs were wrapped around mine. Krishna kept looking at me with His large sparkling eyes, love radiating from His face with His smile. I now knew life without Him would not be possible. He is the cause of my existence, my bliss and my eternal truth, my Sat, Chit and Ananda and my eternal lover. Looking inwards as if through another set of eyes, I saw my body lying on the beach, still in the bathing suit and sarong, with a smile on my face, as if I had reached eternity. The memory of my life was fading because my mind was now absorbed in the glowing blue light coming from that dark skinned lover who sat across from me, wishing He could take me in his arms once again and kiss my face and hold me tight, but he knew we were in public and it would embarrass the others. Time is moving slowly now, as if it is not moving at all. I have not forgotten my previous lives, I just donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t care to think about them when Absolute Beauty and Love surrounds me, so the memories fade as if they never existed and I am simply Here Now. I slowly walk towards Sri Rupa Manjari, who is focused on the tiny sweat beads collecting on the forehead of Srimati Radharani. A silver-handled peacock feather fan appears and I fold my

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hands, tilt my head and pray to Sri Rupa to allow me to fan Srimati. Rupa Manjari stands back, offers me a sweet smile, hands me the fan as I begin to serve. Krishna notices and shoots me another glance that feels like cupids arrows piercing my heart. He loves me! I feel it all over my body! Another Manjari takes my fan and she begins to offer service to Srimati. Sri Rupa offers me a seat and instructs me to listen to the story about to be told. I sit in trance, melting with love as the speaker begins. The story begins, full of sweetness and magic, and I can’t keep my eyes off Krishna. The speaker starts with the story of Krishna’s birth. Everyone there is glowing like a sun, filled with joy and knowledge and existence. It is Krishna’s birthday and the eldest brahmin starts the celebration with the desire to explain the name of Krishna. “The word Krish means ‘to attract,’” he says, “and also this verbal root indicates ‘existence’. In other words, it is the very nature of existence itself to be all attractive. And when one becomes acquainted with real existence which is so attractive, then ‘na.’” He continued, “Na means nirvriti or ananda, joy. It is the very nature of reality and existence to be attractive and full of joy. So the reality, far from being some kind of homogeneous force, actually has personality. Reality has personality. And the personality of reality manifests in so many different forms to enjoy transcendental past times in different ways.” “There are many incarnations glorified throughout the Vedas such as Rama, Narasimha, Vamana, Matsya, and Kurma. But all

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of these incarnations are the angas or extensions of Krishna who is the original personality of Godhead, from whom every other incarnation has emanated. So the word anga means expansion or arm of Krishna. And Krishna has millions and millions of expansions. But the form of Krishna alone is the only embodiment of all transcendental relationships.” “If we analyze the various past times of the different incarnations, we will see in Narayana there are two types of rasas, (relationships) shanta and dasya (neutrality and servitude). From the stories of Ram, we find neutrality, (shanta) servitude, (dasya) friendship, (sakya) and parental (vatsalya) moods. But only in Krishna do we find all five Rasas (shanta, dasya, sakya, vatsalya and madurya) Madurya meaning the conjugal relationship, are present. All seven secondary rasas are there complete in their fullness as well and therefore, it is considered that Krishna is the Supreme Personality of Godhead.” He explains on this day, it is tradition to discuss how it is that Krishna incarnated in this world. There in the midst of all the devotees were Madhu Kanta and Snigda Kanta, two cowherd boys who were requested to retell the story of how Krishna appeared on this earth. Madhu Kanta said all the Srutis and all the Puranas have glorified the Yadhu Dynasty where Krishna appears. “The crest jewel of the Yadhu Dynasty and the embodiment of all virtues was a king whose name was Deva Midha Maharaja. Deva Midha Maharaja used to reside in Mathura with his two wives. Although he himself was a

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Kasatriya of the warrior caste, his first wife was a Kasatriya but his second wife was not. She was from the Vaishya caste. She came from the cowherd people.” “After being married for some time, each of his wives bore him a son. From the first wife a boy was born and his name was Surasena. When Surasena grew up, he had a son named Vasudeva Maharaja who married Devaki. Now from his second wife who was a Gopi or cowherd woman, he also had a son and that son was given the name Parjanya. According to the Vedic conception of lineage at that time, the son would accept the occupation of the mother. Parjanya baba took up residence in Mahavana, across the river from Mathura. He was a very pious and religious person. Even from childhood, he attended to the needs and desires of the brahmana caste and especially the Vaishnavas. Throughout his life he would personally perform puja (worship) of Lord Narayana. He was always satisfied and happy with this performance. His mother’s dynasty was also known to be very pious and famous throughout the world. In his mother’s dynasty there were not only cowherd people but there were also very learned pandits and therefore all the virtues from both the generous cowherds and the learned pandits were manifest in Parjanya as he grew up.” Madhu Kanta explained that Parjanya’s particular caste was called Abhira, a sub-caste who lived in a Nagira or village. Madhu Kanta explained that Manu or the first human was given the laws for governing society. In one scripture it is stated that if

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Lord Brahma wanted to perform a yajna or sacrifice, he would need to have a wife. So at that time, Brahma desired to perform a yajna, so he accepted the hand of a Gopi woman and through the tradition of different castes coming together, this lineage became known as the Maha Abhira. That dynasty was to become the Dynasty where Krishna would appear. These Maha Abira were not ordinary cowherd people, but extra ordinary cowherd people who were pandits. They were also called Dwija or twice born as they knew about the Vedic knowledge. They were a very pious and very learned race of people. Hearing this, Madhu Kantaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s brother, Snigda Kanta asked his brother to go on and please tell us more. So Madhu Kanta began to explain how Krishna came to be born in this dynasty. He said Parjanya babaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s prosperity surpassed the prosperity of all the other ordinary gops in the world. And this is not astonishing because he used to protect the cows and his own people in a very exemplary way. He used to give respect to everyone, unconditionally and he was very generous. And from his own cows he would supply milk to everyone in his district, for free. In this regard, he was also like a parjanya meaning like a cloud. From a cloud so much water will flow and from Parjanya, so much milk would be given away. Parjanya was generous like a cloud in so many ways. The word yasya means fame, and in fame he was like Pralada, the famous devotee of Narayana born of a demon. In his pratigya, staying true to his word, he was like Druva who

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inherited the pole star. In his influence, he was like Pritu Maharaja, to his enemies he was seen as Bishma, the great warrior and to his friends, he was like Shankar or Lord Siva who is very easily pleased and gives blessings to anyone. In dignity, he was like Lord Brahma and in teja, his effulgence, he was like Sri Hari himself. So gradually Parjanya grew to be extremely prominent by his virtues and all other cowherd communities would come and take shelter of him. Upon seeing the great influence of Parjanya, Ugrasena, the emperor of the Yadhu Dynasty wanted to honor Parjanya Maharaja. So Ugrasena himself gave Raj Tilok to Parjanya. Raj Tilok is compared to a Coronation Ceremony. When someone becomes a king, you give them a crown, but in India one king would pass the honor of being king to the next king by giving them the Raj Tilok. Tilok is a marking usually placed on the forehead with some special substance like kum kum (powder from the stamen of a lotus flower) or sandalwood paste. In this way, he made Parjanya the Emperor of the Kingdom of the Gops. This was very unusual as kings were usually only from the Kashatriya caste and not from the Vaishya or cowherd caste. Parjanyaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s wife was the very best of all women who were endowed with feminine qualities and her name was thus Variesi, meaning superlative or the best of all. Parjanyaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s wife delighted the whole universe by giving birth to five sons, beginning with Upananda. Many poets at the time composed songs about her because she was so qualified and about Parjanya who was so

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generous. When the five sons were born, one poet or bard composed a poem saying, “Just as there are five forms of the Supreme Truth called Kriya, Amodha, Pramodha, Ananda and Brahma, in the same way, these five sons of Parjanya were not different from him but were five forms of Parjanya himself.” And in this way, the poets glorified the five sons of Parjanya and Variesi. The poets said it was as if the verbal root Nanda or Joy had assumed five forms, Upananda, Abhinanda, Nanda, Sananda and Nandana who were Parjanya and Variasi’s five sons. And it was said although Parjanya had a great amount of wealth, his greatest wealth was his sons. Madhu Kanta continued the story saying, just as in the different types of opulences like fame, wealth, strength, renunciation, intelligence and beauty, beauty is the most prominent, in this way, among the five sons, the greatest treasure of Parjanya Maharaja, one was prominent. That was Nanda and not only was he born as the middle son, he was the center of everyone’s attention. His heart was so full of affection for everyone that automatically everyone would remember him. They couldn’t forget him for a moment. But Nanda himself would increase the happiness of his other brothers who never felt any jealousy or envy and were themselves always thinking of the welfare of Nanda. What was it about Nanda that made him so attractive and virtuous? Madhu Kanta explained, if a person is always engaged in the service of God, all the great qualities of the demigods will

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come into that person. This was the prominent quality of Nanda, the middle son, that he was so devoted to the service of Lord Narayana that automatically all the wonderful qualities came into him. During Madhu Kanta’s narration, Upananda turned to his younger brother Abinanda and said, “Do you know how it is this cowherd boy speaking, knows so deeply the hearts of others? How does he know how deeply we feel?” Abinanda then spoke to Madhu Kanta and said, “Please, what more can you tell us about this subject?” Then Madhu Kanta spoke again saying, there was one very influential cowherd who had a daughter and he offered his daughter to Nanda. This daughter controlled every member of her family by her wonderful virtues and only by hearing about her, one became famous. Who was this daughter whom by just hearing about or seeing, one would get fame or Yasya? Her name was Yasoda, one who gives fame to everyone. So just as Nanda was so loved by everyone in the kingdom, Yasoda, was loved as well. On their wedding day, everyone was overjoyed with the glorious event. Gradually, the years went by and Parjanya grew old and desired to give up his kingdom and pass it on to his eldest son. All the great Kashatriya kings, learned brahminas and citizens were present for the coronation when Parjanya gave the Raj Tilok to Upananda, his first born son. After Upananda received the Raj Tilok, he spoke privately with his father and his father gave him permission to do something.

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Then, all of a sudden, in front of all present, Upananda called his younger brother Nanda to his side and very lovingly took him upon his lap . With great affection, he took a Raj Tilok and put it on the forehead of Nanda and passed on the position of King to his younger brother. When he did that, Nanda was very embarrassed. No one expected this, so now Upananda had some explaining to do. Upananda stood up in the assembly and said, “Oh generous and liberal-minded sadhus, when I did this, I did not do it without thinking about it very carefully. When it comes to a proper succession, the real ‘essence’ of succession is sneha (affectionate) succession. My younger brother, Nanda, is the object of everyone’s affection and therefore the succession should come to him. And the reason he is the object of everyone’s affection is that he knows how to reconcile. Whenever there is any conflict or issue, he never takes sides, but rather he sees everything from the point of each individual person and he can expertly reconcile the situation in such a way where everyone is satisfied. The ability to reconcile is the very svarupa (form) of honoring the living entities and this is the special quality that is in Nanda. So if a king is to rule over his citizens, the most important quality he should have, is this embodiment of respect for everyone in the art of reconciliation. And furthermore, even by my name, I should not take the position of being the king. Why? My name is Upa Nanda and Upa means to follow or assist. So from my name

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alone, I assist and follow Nanda or Joy. I am Upananda, the follower of Joy.” Madhu Kanta continued, “When Upananda spoke in this way, the people began to clap and there was a loud drumming in the sky as flowers showered down on him for his amazing and great intelligence and this loving deed. And Nanda Maharaja in the future would never do anything without first taking permission from his older brother, Upananda.” And just like the demigods who showered flowers on Upananda and Parjanya and all the brothers and wives of the dynasty, the people there in front of me where I sat that day (wherever I was), offered jewels from their heart to Madhu Kanta who told such a sweet story. Madhu Kanta continued, “Nanda Maharaja was as prosperous and fortunate as his father except in one area. He did not have a child. Both he and his wife Yasoda were starting to get old yet still they had no child. The residents of his kingdom were very worried because they loved Nanda and Yasoda so much. They were hoping a wonderful child would be born to carry on their lineage.” Snigda Kanta then asked his brother, “Why did they not do a sacrificial performance to bring forth a child?” and Madhu Kanta replied, “Because even if they did a yajna, it would not bring forth the right fruit. One day, Yasoda and Nanda were in a private place and were discussing things together. When they were getting ready for the yajna, Nanda first had to make a vow. He

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said to his wife, “As I was making my vow, I saw a boy who was out of this world! I thought, by doing a yajna, I could never get a son like the son I saw in my heart, because by doing a karmic yajna, you will have a son who is born according to karma. But this boy seemed to be someone from beyond this world, so such a son could never come from the performance of this material yajna.” Yasoda said to Nanda, “Please tell me more. What was he like?” Then Nanda explained, this boy was of a dark complexion. He was very restless and playful. He had very large lotus eyes and he was playing in your lap and He was drinking the milk from your breasts. I cannot understand whether I was dreaming or whether I was awake. What do you think?” Yasoda said, “Actually, my dear husband, this type of experience is neither a waking experience or a dreaming experience because to be awake or to be dreaming are the functions of the mind. And I have also had this experience but I was just too shy to tell you. I saw that beautiful boy playing within my lap and I became overjoyed. Then I thought just to give up the idea of having a child altogether if I could not have that child,” and Nanda said he felt the same. Then she said, “To have a son like this could only happen by the will of Narayana. The only way to have a son like this would be to please Lord Narayana and therefore, we should follow the Ekadasi and Dwadasi vow” (fasting on the 11th day before and the 11th day after the waxing and waning of the full moon). Nanda Maharaja said, “What you have said resonates within my heart.” So for one

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year Nanda and Yasoda observed very strictly the vows of Ekadasi and Dwadasi. One night they both had the same dream at the same time wherein Lord Narayana appeared to them saying their desire to have that son would be fulfilled. They immediately went into the assembly hall and told all the residents who were very joyful at the news. During that assembly, a beautiful elderly lady entered who appeared to be a renunciate and she brought with her a young boy. Everyone in the assembly stood and gave all respect as they walked in and she began to smile affectionately towards the residents. She said, “My name is Purnamasi and I am a yogini who knows about destiny and the knowledge of astrology. This young brahmin boy with me is Madhu Mangal and his nature is exactly like the nature of the great rishi, Narada. Between the two of us we have a special type of nature. And that nature is that if we see anything in our inner vision, then that thing becomes true.” She looked at Nanda and Yasoda and said, “You are about to beget a son who will give joy to the entire universe.” Her voice was so resonant, that all the residents knew her words were true and she was Yoga Maya herself. “Then, on this day,” Madhu Kanta said, “the 8th day of the dark fortnight in the month of Shravan, August-September, we are celebrating the glorious day Yasoda gave birth to that beautiful blackish boy,” and Madhu Kanta finished his glorification of Krishna who was still stealing glances at my heart.

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The whole community was overjoyed with his story and gave their blessings to Madhu Kanta saying, “May you have a long life!” Everyone began to sing a loving song about Krishna, their hearts filled with joy. And my heart was joyful as well, as I could not keep my eyes off the effulgent blueish, blackish Lord of my life who was dressed in pale yellow silk and was looking shy and embarrassed. I became slightly confused for a moment and then the next thing I knew, I was following Srimati Radhika and Sri Rupa Manjari through a narrow mountain pass on Goverdhana Hill called Sankari Khor where Krishna was blocking our way. He wanted to charge us passage for crossing his land as we brought fresh milk back from the cows to our homes in clay pots on our heads. He was arguing with Srimati Radhe’ but I could feel his eyes on me when . . . . .

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Zero

Here Now I’m not entering into another womb . . . . . I have transcended the world of birth and death, the Wheel of Samsara. Eternal reality is here now. I am Here Now. I was waiting on death to take me through the Tunnel of Remembrance and plant me within another womb, but it didn’t happen. I am Here Now, with Radha and Krishna. I no longer remember my past lives. I have always been here. I am HERE NOW. I am home!

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GLOSSARY Age of Aquarius - The Age of Aquarius is the 2,150-year cycle following the Piscean Age. Bhagavad Gita - song of God Age of Pisces - The Piscean Age is the 2,150-year cycle following the Age of Aries. Pisces is the age of Jesus the Christ. Ages of Time - 24,000 year circumambulation of our sun around our dual star, Sirius produces 4 different ages. When the suns or stars are close together the age is divine. When they are far apart, the dark ages ensue. Anamnesis - A remembrance, triggered by some outside factor, usually of a past life. (Greek origin referred to by Plato) Satya Yuga - the Golden Age - the Spiritual Age, is known as a time when people lived long lives, filled with peace, living in full consciousness, using all of their senses and 100% of their brain. Everyone was equal, so there was no hierarchy. Their spirituality was at the height of awareness and society was matriarchal. Treta Yuga - the Silver Age - the Mental Age, ushered in patriarchy and consciousness was diminished by 25% as kings evolved and warring began.

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Dwapara Yuga - the Bronze Age - the Energy Age, further diminished consciousness to 50% and rulers and kings were becoming more and more treacherous. Gods and Goddesses were worshipped in the form of idols in temples with great festivals and ceremonies. Kali Yuga - the Iron Age - the Material or Dark Age brings about an ignorance of spirituality so strong that most people cannot understand the most basic principles of consciousness and have mostly lost all spirituality, being diminished by 75%. Akasha - Everything occuring in our personal world and in the physical universe is recorded in a dimension called Akashic Record. Ascension - The spiritual raising of consciousness. The ritual of the ascension is reuniting and becoming one with God, the raising of the Kundalini or reuniting with Godhead. Aura - Radiant light or electromagnetic field surrounding the physical body. Brahmachari - celibate student Buddha - Buddha means 'the enlightened one.â&#x20AC;&#x2122; Buddhi - intelligence Christ - The word Christ comes from the Greek word Christos, meaning 'anointed'. The sacred fluid, or kundalini rises to the crown chakra where a soul can leave the body at will.

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Cycle of Yugas - Precession of the Equinoxes. There are twelve astrological ages, each lasting about 2,150 years, in the zodiac. An entire cycle of twelve ages takes about 25,920 years to complete. Correction to Cycle - As the revolution of the equinoxes gets further away from the Grand Center, the suns slow down. As they get closer to the Center, they speed up so the correction to the time for the Precession of the Equinoxes is 24,000 years. Darshan - To view or meet with. Usually referring to the spiritual master or the deities on the altar. Dwadasi -Sanskrit for twelve, is the twelfth lunar day of the shukla (bright) or krishna (dark) fortnight of every lunar month in the Hindu Calendar. Dwadashi is especially suitable for the worship of the sacred Tulasi tree much like Ekadasi is especially suitable for the worship of Vishnu, with fasting preferred in place of Ekadasi. Ekadasi - Sanskrit for Eleven, also spelled as Ekadasi, is the eleventh lunar day of the shukla (bright) or krishna (dark) fortnight of every lunar month in the Hindu Calendar. InHinduism and Jainism it is considered a spiritually beneficial day and is usually observed by a partial fast or a complete fast. Elementals - Nature spirits. The five beings of earth, air, fire, water and ether. They are the fairies, sprites, and leprechauns who have other forms as well.

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Etheric plane - Highest plane in the dimension of Matter. This is the world of the Ascended Masters, their cities of light, the Heavenly Planets. Go- cow Gop - cowherder Gopa - cowherd boy Gopi - cowherd girl Great Year - Platoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s name for the 24,000 year cycle of our sunâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s moving through all 12 zodiac signs and around Sirius. Great White Brotherhood - The Great White Brotherhood is an organization composed of Ascended Masters (male and female), Archangels, angels, advanced spiritual beings, and elementals. They are not affiliated with any one religion and work to assist mankind in all wholesome endeavors. The word white refers to the aura of white light that surrounds them. Hinduism - The oldest religion in the world. The earliest Hindu texts, known as the Vedas were given to seven Rishis, seven stars, at the dawn of time. Jesus - Jesus the Christ (World Savior, Wayshower) teaches us the way to become the Christ. Jesus is the sponsor of the Piscean Age, thus the fish symbol in Christianity. Jiva - The living entity - the part and parcel of the Supreme Karma - The law of cause and effect. Kirtan - congregational chanting or singing

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Krishna - Lord Krishna is the eighth incarnation of Vishnu, the second person in the Hindu Trinity (Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva). His form is known as the Personality of Godhead, whereas other forms of God have other functions. Kum Kum - Red powder made from different substances Kundalini - (Sanskrit, 'coiled-up serpent.') The sacred fire found in the base-of-the-spine chakra; the light of the Divine Mother. When it rises from the base to the crown chakra it quickens and awakens each chakra along the way. LSD - Lysergic acid diethyl amide is a psychedelic drug known for its psychological effects which can include altered thinking processes, closed- and open-eye visuals, an altered sense of time and spiritual experiences. LSD is a non-addictive drug. Maha - great Mystery Schools - Retreats of the Great White Brotherhood where the ancient Holy Science was taught. Became known as “the occult.” Many teachers of the Holy Science were crucified or killed. Nirvana - a state of bliss or peace, oneness with the Absolute aspired for by the Buddhists. Parjanya - cloud, name of Krishna’s grandfather Pratigya - true to word Puja - worship or sacrifice Raj - a king or royal

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Reincarnation - Rebirth of the soul in a new body. The soul of man or woman returns to the physical plane in a new body. (The soul of man or woman is the feminine counterpart of the masculine Spirit.) Samadhi - complete absorption in oneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s mantra or god Sannyas - a renunciate, usually celibate Samsara - the wheel of birth and death Satya - Truthfulness or goodness Shakti - energy Shiva - Shiva means 'auspicious,' 'kind' or 'friendly.' Shiva is known as the Destroyer. As the Third Person of the Hindu Trinity, he destroys the universe at the end of each world. Shiva also keeps our mind in illusion. When you have perfectly surrendered to God, He goes away. He can no longer bind us. Siddhi - perfection Sneha - affection Soul - God is both masculine and feminine. The soul of man or woman is the feminine counterpart of the masculine Spirit. Spirit - The masculine polarity of the Godhead. Life Force or breath of life. Spirituality - Spirituality is not religion. The term spirituality is defined as an individual's search for the divine. It involves having direct mystical experiences with God leading to transcendence or liberation.

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Svarupa - form Srimad Bhagavatam - known as the 5th Veda - beautiful God Surya - Sun God Teja - effulgence Thik Hai - good is - its good or simply, ok. Tilok - clay marking Vices - Also known as the seven deadly sins. Virtues - Opposite of vices, truth, generosity, beauty, austerity, joy, courage, strength, stability, perseverance. Yajna - sacrifice Yamaraja - the God of Death Yasya - fameâ&#x20AC;Š

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References Videos The Pyramid Code (Parts 1-5) by Carmen Boulter, PhD, YouTube The Secrets of the Egyptian Pyramids Revealed (no credits given) YouTube All Religion Comes from Ancient Astrology (no credits given)Youtube Prisca Theologia by Santos Bonnaci, YouTube Know Thyself by Santos Bonnaci, YouTube The Great Year, unknown, YouTube

Movies Ghost Defending Your Life Time Bandits

Songs by George Harrison All Things Must Pass

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Awaiting On You All My Sweet Lord Give Me Love Across the Universe

Books The Srimad Bhagavatam, translated by Srila A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami (also known as the fifth veda) The Bhagavad Gita (As It Is) translated by Srila A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami The Brahma Samhita translated by Srila A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Sri Krsna Samhita by Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakur The Holy Science by Sri Yukteswar Swami Monkey on a Stick by John Huber and Lindsey Gruson The Sociopath Next Door, Who is the Devil You Know? by Martha Stout

Lectures Srila Bhaktivedanta Swami, Srila Narayana Maharaja and Srila Prem Prayojana Maharaja.

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Picture of George Harrison in Vrindavan, courtesy of Romburu dasi. Picture of Battlefield Chariot with Krishna and Arjuna, unknown origin. Picture of Brain and Eye of Ra, Santos Bonacci.

Drawing of Rock-A-Bye Baby and Religious Opiate by Amy Williams. Diagrams of the Great Year and the Yugas by Amy Williams