Maharishi looked at the painting and sort of crossed his eyes. “That depends on if they like it, hmm?” he replied.
What’s that supposed to mean? Who are “they?” I wondered. It didn’t cross my mind that this was Maharishi’s polite way of saying the painting was crap.
I asked Jerry Jarvis, “Can I place the painting on the mantel?”
Jerry replied, “Why not? It’s a good painting.” A few days later I found the painting in the cabin’s spare bedroom, stuffed in a closet.
Soon Jerry’s wife, Debby Jarvis, banned me from doing housework in the cabin. A teenager with mousy-blond straight hair, named Mindy Leibowitz, replaced me. She was also granted the privilege of ironing Maharishi’s clothing. Still, determined to get into his graces, I remained undaunted.
In the lecture hall, Maharishi sat on a deerskin placed over white silk fabric that covered his couch. The silk and deerskin purportedly shielded him from bad vibes. Above his couch, Guru Dev’s painting reminded us of his cherished lineage, India’s Shankaracharya Order, from which Maharishi claimed (controversially) that TM arose.
In his melodious voice, Maharishi addressed his swarm of dropouts: “In this Leadership Training Seminar, our goal is to gain efficiency in life, to learn to lead our fellow men in the art of living in happiness. The ultimate goal of life is absolute bliss consciousness. All else is secondary.
“We should contact and befriend the leader of cosmic life and tune into cosmic intelligence. Therefore, in order to be leaders, we must communicate with God, hmm? We must get in touch with infinite bliss consciousness on all levels: intellectual, emotional, and environmental.”36
My mind perked up when Maharishi said, “communicate with God.” That’s what I always wanted. Can he teach me how?
Maharishi continued, “A good leader makes his followers feel they don’t have to undertake anything strenuous. We must show the world a pathless path. The goal is omnipresent and the path is within, hmm?”37
I hung onto Maharishi’s every word. To my mind, he held life’s greatest mysteries. He was going to transform the world. Intoxicated by his mystique, enraptured by his wisdom, I flew to Elysian Fields on wings of adoration.
Talking for hours with no break, Maharishi gestured animatedly with his muscular arms, large hands, and thick fingers. The rest of his body remained still, legs in pretzel position. He used a flower as a prop to illustrate fine points of Indian philosophy. Often he played with his beads. The audience barely moved. They seemed entranced, in rapt attention, hanging on every word, taking notes—or nodding off.
Sometimes Maharishi’s scrawny Indian cook named Dunraj, wearing what resembled an oversized cotton diaper (dhoti) and long cotton shirt (kurta), walked onto the stage and offered Maharishi water in a sterling silver cup and white cloth napkin to wipe his beard.
Maharishi often opened the mike for questions.
“What to do about noises while we’re meditating?” a man asked.
Maharishi answered, “Take a neutral attitude towards sounds.”
“If you die before attaining enlightenment, what should you do?” an older woman asked.
“Feel the presence of God around you.”
“Please describe where we go after death.”
“The cause of rebirth is the unfulfilled state of life. The inner man, dweller in the body, is like a dweller in a house. When the house collapses, he collects all that is precious and runs out the door. Whatever is last idea at time of death decides the direction. If we remember a dear cat, we go to life of cat. Whatever has been dearest in life, what we cherish most. Physical machinery starts fading and what fades last will be deepest impression. In meditation we store more and more deeply the impression of transcendental consciousness. The impression becomes so clear that it becomes permanent and dominates all others.”
“Do you believe in reincarnation?”
“I am opposed to it … One carnation is enough.” Another time he declared, “Reincarnation is for the ignorant” (which means, after attaining enlightenment, we no longer incarnate).
“What is destiny or fate?”
“It’s our own influence that we create for our surroundings to help or hinder us. This influence is created by our own thoughts, words, and actions.”
“What is free will?”
“Well, you see, it is like this. Absolutely everything is fixed, and absolutely everything can be changed at any time.”
“Why is there a population explosion?”
“If a man follows the natural course of evolution, he eventually evolves into a celestial being. Similarly, the lower species evolve into human species. Now man is jammed up because he’s not evolving fast enough. The lower species continue to evolve, but man remains stuck on the human level and doesn’t evolve to the higher celestial levels.”38
The seminar continued—lots of meditation, lots of lectures, lots of sex. It was always like that, but not Maharishi’s fault. He emphasized how precious this time was and urged us not to “socialize”—his euphemism for sex. But his hippie followers possessed decided reluctance to keep their flies zipped. “Free love” was their chosen modus operandi.
“On this Seminar we must stay one-pointed. No distractions. No socializing,” Maharishi said. “Now is the time for meditation, for you all to become leaders in the Students International Meditation Society.”
Maharishi explained the “rounding” routine. One “round” consisted of yoga postures (asanas), breathing exercises (pranayama), meditation, then lie down ten minutes. Upon rising, we would sit up in bed and meditate five to ten minutes, then round until lunch, round again following the afternoon meeting until dinner, and lie down after lunch and dinner. After the evening meeting, we would go quickly to bed.
At that time, virtually no one practiced yoga or meditation in America. There were no yoga studios. We were yoga pioneers.
I followed the routine, just as Maharishi advised. I could follow orders if I liked them. And during that month, yes, I did remain celibate, unlike my roommate, whom I inadvertently walked in on one night, and noticed way too many extremities bouncing up and down on her bed.
Maharishi explained that during the course we might experience “unstressing,” a.k.a. “unwinding.” This meant going slightly nuts as we released trauma lodged in our nervous system. Because of our overly sensitive state of mind, meditating several hours daily, we were warned not to make any life-altering decisions during “long rounding.” Maharishi said, “When the Ganges floods, it stirs up a lot of mud.”39
Before leaving Squaw Valley, Maharishi interviewed those wanting to become Initiators. For some odd reason, these interviews transpired in the back seat of a car. Each interviewee took turns sitting next to him.
When my turn came, I said, “I’m the one who painted your portrait.”
“Good, good,” he said. “You want to teach meditation, hmm?”
“More than anything in the whole world.” My sappy, starry eyes, and the swell of energy behind them, flashed so brightly that surely they must have blinded him.
Maharishi shuffled through my application form. “Then you will come to India to Teacher Training and then teach in Colorado.”
“Colorado?” I balked. “I don’t want to teach in Colorado. I live in California. I don’t live in Colorado. I’m gonna teach in California.”
He glowered, as if a disobedient child needed spanking. “You will teach in Colorado.”
I didn’t respond, but my mind rebelled vehemently. Going back to Squaresville, Colorado and my hypercritical, faultfinding parents was way below the bottom of my to-do list. Evidently, that’s why Maharishi told me to do it.
Though all dreamy-eyed in fantasyland with hearts, lollipops, and rainbows about traveling to India, hanging out with Maharishi, and becoming an Initiator, I certainly didn’t want to follow his highly inconvenient, annoying advice. Truth be told, I was childish and clueless. What I lacked in experience, I made up for with pigheadedness.
After the course, I returned to my quiet life in my back-to-nature home. Every bit of extra cash went toward taking meditation retreats, including a two-week course taught by Brahmachari Satyanand in summer 1969 in Squaw Valley.
Satyanand was a direct disciple of Maharishi’s guru. After Guru Dev’s death, he got married and went into business. When his wife died, he planned to move to Benares (now Varanasi) and wait for his own death. (Varanasi is deemed the holiest place to die.) But Maharishi laughed and called that a “stupid waste of time.” He asked Satyanand to join him. Satyanand accepted.
I spent much of my free time volunteering at the TM Center on Channing Way in Berkeley (a two-story stucco building, previously a sorority house). As a Meditation Checker, I guided meditators step-by-step through the process. I also taught yoga asanas. One day Donovan, the singer-songwriter from Scotland, appeared out of nowhere to get checked. Wow, I get to meet this cool rockstar—or so I thought.
August 1969: TM Initiators at Squaw Valley. First row l. to r.: Colin Harrison, Nadine Lewy, Brahmachari Satyanand, Jerry Jarvis, Prudence Farrow. Second row l. to r.: Pearl Shipman, Telia Maher, Helen and Roland Olson (hosted Maharishi in Los Angeles), Debby Jarvis, Walter and Rae Koch, unknown. Back row l. to r.: Pete Ports, unknown, Paul Horn, Nini White, Robert Winquist, Tom Winquist, Al Bruns (Prudence Farrow’s husband), Terry Gustafson (Jojo in Beatles song “Get Back”).
I checked Donovan’s meditation, just like anyone else’s. As I led him through the process, he had a deep experience of transcendence. When the session was over, I said, “I love your music. It’s really groovy, especially ‘Catch the Wind.’ Are you enjoying your visit to California?”
“None of your business,” Donovan snapped and bolted for the door.
Boy is he rude or what? I thought. What a snob!
I wondered whether I would act similarly if I were a rockstar. How exhausting to constantly get barraged by people you don’t want to talk to! But was that an excuse? After all, I was an idealistic young woman, volunteering to perform a service of which even the great and mighty Donovan deigned to avail himself.
Despite many setbacks, over a couple years I managed to scrape up money for the TM Teacher Training Course. However, after applying and getting rejected from three courses in 1968 and 1969, I gave up on getting accepted—at least for the foreseeable future.
However, amazingly, in November 1969, I received a letter from SIMS National Headquarters, 1015 Gayley Avenue, Los Angeles:
“Your application has been accepted for the course in India which begins January 7 and will be completed April 7, 1970.” Finally, fourth time’s a charm! This was the first course younger applicants were permitted to attend. I was twenty-one and would turn twenty-two in India.
After my initial dance of glee, my mood changed drastically when I realized, since I expected it would be six more years before I would be accepted for the course, I’d already spent the money so painstakingly saved. But I did phone my parents. A couple days later my mother called back. “Susan, you’ve got some stock that we never told you about. Since it’s your money, your father can’t very well object, can he?”
I was glad to spend this money on what I believed was my most holy goal of becoming an Initiator. What’s more, my mother agreed that traveling to India would be good for me. (Reality was, she was relieved I was no longer taking drugs, dressing like a wild hippie, screwing everything in sight, and all the other groovy things we did in the 1960s.)
It was December 1969. I was all set to go, with my course fee and plane ticket prepaid. I flew to New York to catch my flight to India.
I bundled up on a snowy day to take a pilgrimage to the hallowed halls of New York art museums. I’d always been an artist, and I believed works of art to be blessed acts, yielding sacred relics.
The Guggenheim was where I met him. Friendly and attractive, he invited me to walk around the museum. I enjoyed his company. He was highly knowledgeable about Klee and Kandinsky and other artists. After we ascended the spiral ramp and talked about the paintings, he asked if I wanted tea at the coffee shop. We had a bite to eat and continued our conversation. He seemed a completely rational individual. But at the end of our conversation, he said something so bizarre and shocking that I decided he must be out of his mind.
PART II
BLISSED-OUT
Cosmic consciousness, two hundred percent of life, means fullness of inner silence and fullness of outer activity.
—MAHARISHI MAHESH YOGI
www.gutenberg.org/ Tat Wale Baba: Rishi of the Himalayas by Vincent J. Daczynski. Copyrighted; Free Use
5
HOME TO INDIA
WINTER 1969 TO SPRING 1970
The life of a disciple is on the tender thread of love that connects his heart with the heart of the master. It is on the tender link of intelligence that connects his mind with the mind of the master.
—MAHARISHI MAHESH YOGI
The seemingly sane stranger at the Guggenheim turned to me and suddenly declared, out of nowhere, “Meeting you today is no accident. I was sent here to give you a message.”
Sent here? I thought. By whom?
“This man you’re going to study with in India is not as he appears to be,” he continued. “You must cancel your trip now. Do not go to this ashram. You’re not the first person I’ve told. I’ve warned others on their way to his ashram. I was sent to them also.”
What? Is he nuts? I thought. His alarming message made my mind numb and mouth frozen. I couldn’t utter a word.
He then stood up and walked out the door.
I was left in the coffee shop, stunned and paralyzed. No. He must be out of his mind. This isn’t really happening. He’s just a lunatic. This can’t possibly be real.
I bolted upright and stumbled after him. I rushed out the door, calling for him in the icy dusk. Where’d he go? No sign of him anywhere. I walked back into the museum and collapsed on a bench.
Nothing will stop me. I’m getting on that plane tomorrow, no matter what. So, whether this divine visitation (I believe it was a visitation) was a warning or a test, I did board the plane, and I did arrive at my destination.
Mother India. Finally home. That was how it felt. Home, after a long absence, to a place so oddly familiar.
The pungent perfume of New Delhi: marigolds, turmeric, burning cow dung, jasmine, urine, mustard seed, melting candle wax, feces, coconut, saffron, sandalwood incense, coriander, hot ghee, cumin, boiling peanut oil, water buffalo milk, beedies (Indian cigarettes), fennel, and paan (spiced chewing tobacco) filled the air.
I welcomed India’s clamoring symphony: Hindu women chanted mournful bhajans in high-pitched voices. Peddlers hawked their wares. Indian radios blared. Bicycle bells ring ring rang. Muezzins moaned in prayer. Rubber bulb horns beep beep beeped on motorized rickshaws. Taxi horns honked nonstop. Water buffalo hooves clip clip clopped. Temple bells chimed. Pundits intoned Sanskrit hymns. Animated voices spoke hundreds of dialects.
Taxicabs veered sharply, barely missing cows parked in the center of the road. Water buffaloes sauntered, swishing off flies with their tails. Motorized rickshaws madly zigzagged around traffic. Mercedes trucks, horns screeching, belched black soot. Bullock-drawn wagons plodded while black Indian-built Ambassador taxicabs followed at two miles per hour. Bicycle rickshaws trotted along, bells ding ding dinging. Buses clank clanked along, sagging from mountains of luggage precariously perched on roofs.
In the jungle-covered Himalayan foothills, Maharishi’s Meditation Academy, Shankaracharya Nagar, was built on a 150-foot cliff on Manikoot hill, overlooking the Ganges from its eastern bank. Across the river downstream stood Rishikesh (Hrishikesha), a holy place of pilgrimage and haven of yogis, ascetics, devotees of God, and begga
rs. Hrishikesha is an appellation of Lord Vishnu, meaning “Lord of the Senses.”
There were three possible ways to get to Maharishi’s ashram in 1969: via a narrow auto bridge crossing the Ganges downstream at Haridwar, followed by a drive up a thirteen-mile, winding, potholed dirt road; or Lakshman Jhula Bridge, a narrow footbridge upstream, followed by a two-mile walk along the shore to a steep, rocky footpath; or a small ferryboat from the west bank.
Opting for automobile access, I rode from New Delhi on a nail-biting six-hour bumpy adventure of 150 miles, with the taxi driver weaving perilously to avoid every conceivable breed of vehicle and beast of burden, while leaning incessantly on his horn.
Finally, I arrived at the fourteen-acre Academy. In 1961 Maharishi leased the parcel for twenty years from Uttar Pradesh State forest department. In 1963 tobacco heiress Doris Duke “anonymously” financed building the ashram. When an Indian Swami asked for the same grant as Maharishi, Doris disavowed all association with Maharishi and TM.
The land was bordered by a dense, dusty, teak forest interspersed with evergreen rosewood (sheesham) and inhabited by langur monkeys, elephants, tigers, crows, peacocks, parrots, vultures, chipmunks, pythons, and cobras. Further north, jagged Himalayan peaks touched the sky.
A few huts comprised Shankaracharya Nagar, housing Maharishi’s brahmacharyas and staff, post office, commissary, and laundry. Upstream to the north, the ashrams Gita Bhavan and Swarg Ashram were decorated with sculptures of Hindu deities and murals illustrating the Hindu scripture Bhagavad Gita. At the entryway to a fly-ridden hole-in-the-wall restaurant, Chotiwala, customers were greeted by a fat head-shaven teen wearing a topknot, dressed in fake sadhu garb and garish makeup. Across the river resided a small Shiva temple and Sivananda Ashram: Divine Life Forest Academy. Distant chanting and tinkling temple bells wafted across the river.
Maharishi & Me Page 5