1970, Rishikesh: At Chotiwala Restaurant a teen in costume rings a bell with each customer’s arrival. Photo courtesy of Jared Stoltz
Under continual construction, Maharishi’s ashram was a maze of gravel paths, streams, waterfalls, trees, flower gardens, and cement buildings painted in pastel colors. The place buzzed with scrawny men in dust-covered dhotis, and grimy turbans to absorb the sweat. Squeaky, rusty wheelbarrows filled with bricks or cement competed with animals crying in the jungle and the constant commotion of Hindi.
Potentate of his motley kingdom, Maharishi held court, sitting cross-legged on his deerskin draped over a chair, one knee propped on an armrest, scrutinizing every brick laid and nail hammered, yelling and gesticulating wildly, overseeing the entire circus—a mad contractor directing his crew of lunatics. Or so it seemed—especially with streams and waterfalls misengineered to flow against gravity and unlevel ponds filled halfway with cockeyed water.
That was how I got introduced to India.
Maharishi lectured once or twice daily to his 108 students from thirty-five countries. The remaining time we spent in deep meditation. Every day I rose early, used an outdoor toilet and communal washbasin, took a cold or lukewarm outdoor shower, and “rounded” ten to fifteen hours, wrapped in blankets in my cold room.
We were housed in single-story, concrete, U-shaped barracks (puris). A front porch, three steps up from the ground, lined the U. Its roof extended overhead, braced by slender pairs of pillars. A dirt path lined with whitewashed stones or bricks connected the puris.
My scantily furnished room, about eight by twelve feet, consisted of cinder block walls, cement floor, a wooden plank bed with a thin mattress, shelving, an unusable electric heater that blew fuses, a wooden table, a chair, and small filthy windows covered with cobwebs.
Monkeys bounced and made a racket on my roof daily. Peacocks screeched and displayed feathers. Crows cawed a deafening shriek. Skinny water buffaloes and mangy dogs snoozed in inconvenient spots. Centipedes, scorpions, spiders, and snakes invaded sleeping quarters and inhabited meditation caves.
Locals washed my laundry by beating it on rocks at the river. Clothes reappeared smelling like dirt, stretched out of shape, and filled with sand—but neatly pressed! A tailor sat on the ground, operating a hand-driven sewing machine by turning a wheel. I had no money for tailor-made clothing. I did, however, purchase three cotton saris.
Peter Russell from Great Britain (later a well-known spiritual author) directed the kitchen. Shaped like a trident, the leaky-roofed dining room had three wings—one for smokers, one for talkers, and another for silence, which Maharishi encouraged. I ate in the talking dining room, since keeping my mouth shut was never my strong suit.
Hot buffalo milk, hot tea with milk, and Ganges water (pumped up from the river) were distributed in stainless steel cups. Bland, overcooked vegetables devoid of spice (nothing like exotic delicacies served in Indian restaurants) were served on stainless steel trays. And reporters said Ringo couldn’t handle “spicy food” at the ashram? That’s a laugh!
1970 Rishikesh: Maharishi’s lecture hall. Photo courtesy of Jared Stoltz
Lectures took place in a drafty, high-ceilinged hall with whitewashed cement walls, dirt floor covered with mats, a platform decorated with potted plants and flowers, high recessed windows where birds nested on the ledges and flew to and fro, and concrete “caves” in the basement, for cool meditations during hot weather.
Maharishi sat cross-legged on his deerskin and white-sheet-covered stuffed armchair on a raised dais before Guru Dev’s picture. His microphone and flower vase rested on a white wooden coffee table. A handful of white-robed brahmacharyas (celibate disciples) assembled cross-legged on the platform.
1970: Rishikesh lecture hall. I am pictured with long hair in light-colored sari seated on floor near stage. On stage l. to r.: Jerry Jarvis, Maharishi, Brahmachari Satyanand, Brahmachari Devendra, unknown, unknown, Brahmachari Nand Kishore.
Photo courtesy of Jared Stoltz
From there, Maharishi imparted the wondrous esoteric knowledge I hungered for. I imbibed his wisdom as a calf laps up mother’s milk. I sat cross-legged front and center, on a floormat between the four steps up to Maharishi’s platform and a hundred chairs behind me in the hall. I stared at Maharishi like an awestruck, infatuated teenager, never averting my gaze. Drinking him in. Soaking him up. Wallowing in him.
Already enthralled with Maharishi, I became more so in this secluded, idyllic atmosphere of heavenly serenity. Just “being” was enough—with nothing to do and nowhere to go. Just “be.” In love with Maharishi. In love with everything and everyone. Quietly in love. I was stoned, mellow, in a perpetual orgasm. High on Maharishi, or high on consciousness, perhaps.
Meditating in this holy place, I drifted gently and placidly into a paradise of the mind—peaceful, deep, and euphoric. Cares vanished. Tranquility abounded. My body throbbed with blissful intensity. I meandered around pastoral surroundings, dazed and intoxicated. Fragrant flowers, lush foliage, exotic scenery, and charming creatures became all the more enchanting and ambrosial.
Generations of souls seeking spiritual enlightenment in austere caves along the Ganges pulsated in the roaring river and clamoring jungle. The mysterious echo of gurus and disciples reverberated throughout these holy lands for as long as India has existed.
Now I was part of it.
Thank you, beloved destiny, for guiding me here.
1970 Rishikesh: TM Teacher Training Course group photo.
Fellow student Susan Schmidt loved giving Maharishi flowers. Though it was winter, every night in the rose garden behind the lecture hall, she would find a rose to offer Maharishi. Often he would play with her roses during his lectures.
For several days Maharishi lectured about the absolute-unmanifest-being and the relative-manifest-duality. The big question was, “How does the absolute manifest?” Maharishi declared it was simply its inherent nature to manifest. Jim McFadden, who fancied himself a great intellect, debated with other students and became livid at Maharishi. He insisted, “It makes no sense. You can’t say that.”
1970 Rishikesh: group meditation. I am seated on the ground in second row, second from right, with curly hair in light-colored sari. Brahmachari Satyanand and Jerry Jarvis to right of Maharishi. Terry Gustafson, (Jojo in Beatles song “Get Back”), to left and above Maharishi. Photo courtesy of Jared Stoltz
Meanwhile, I watched Maharishi playing with Susan’s rose. He said, “No. It’s the relative and absolute, the manifest and unmanifest.” Maharishi continued to drive home his point while plucking petals from the rose. With each petal he picked, the petals didn’t fall into his lap. To my mind, they seemed to disappear.
With no petals left, Maharishi pointed to the stem and said, “You see, you see? The unmanifest. See? See? He cracked up with the most mischievous look on his face. As he continued pointing at the stem and saying “the unmanifest,” he started laughing so hard, his whole body shook and he nearly fell off his chair.
At the end of his talk, Maharishi stood up. No rose petals fell from his dhoti. After the lecture, Susan Schmidt searched the dais. She found no petals on the floor, on his seat, or on the silk sheet covering his chair. The petals had simply vanished.
This was how Maharishi demonstrated the “manifest” and “unmanifest.”
A great saint lived in a cave near Maharishi’s ashram. Tat Wale Baba was born in about 1890, which would make him eighty years old, yet his body looked about thirty-five. He never cut his matted hair. He was a stern-looking character, hardened by renunciation and austere subsistence in forest life.
1969 Rishikesh: Tat Wale Baba in yoga posture at age eighty.
1969 Rishikesh: Tat Wale Baba lecturing at Maharishi’s ashram. www.gutenberg.org/Tat Wale Baba: Rishi of the Himalayas by Vincent J. Daczynski. Copyrighted; Free Use
One sunny day a fellow student and I walked a couple of miles into the hills above Maharishi’s ashram to visit Tat Wale Baba.
All we found were Hindi-speaking men dressed in rags who said he wasn’t there. Finally we got the message across—we wouldn’t leave until we saw him.
We were invited into a cave, about twelve by fifteen feet, with a natural rock shelf he obviously used as a bed. Tat Wale Baba sat in a full lotus pose, his naked body ash smeared and his long hair in thick dreadlocks draped over his shoulders like snakes crawling onto the dirt floor. His copper-colored face emanated glorious radiance, the light that issues from a soul of profound brilliance, chiseled by asceticism, spiritual practices, and devotion to God.
“Come,” he said. “You want food?”
I nodded. He muttered in Hindi to the men in rags. They brought chapattis, vegetables and rice served on banana leaves, and tea in stainless steel cups. We ate the simple repast the Indian way—with our fingers.
He invited us to meditate in two small caves about a hundred yards from his cave, down a steep hill. In a haven of infinite peace and comfort, Mother Earth enveloped me in deep silence—profoundly serene and intensely vibrant with spiritual grace and energy. My mind melted into a liquid sea, an ocean of unfathomable stillness, flooding every recess of my being.
I returned to Tat Wale Baba, who was seated outside on a rock. “Come and join me,” he said. “Live in that cave and become my disciple.”
I said, “I’m from Maharishi Mahesh Yogi ashram.”
He got quiet for a long time, as if considering it. Then he finally said, “You are very much devoted to Maharishi.”
There I am, far left, with long curly hair, looking at Maharishi. Jerry Jarvis is on the right, laughing.
I am in the far upper left corner, with long curly hair. Brahmachari Satyanand and Jerry Jarvis are to the right of Maharishi.
During the course, we celebrated the Hindu festivals Mahashivaratri (the night of the great Lord Shiva) with a candlelit ritual, and Holi (the spring festival) with a moonlight boat ride. Many students still clung to Western religion. But I was rapidly becoming a Hindu. Maybe I was a Hin-Jew, though the Jew part was vanishing.
We learned how to teach TM, give lectures, and chant the Sanskrit puja—an invocation ceremony performed whenever TM was taught, in gratitude to the “Holy Tradition,” Guru Dev’s lineage of masters. We were given rules regarding conservative dress code and behavior: For women, this meant modest dresses, and no trousers, jeans, or shorts. For men, this entailed suits and ties, but no beards or long hair. Maharishi was known for transforming tens of thousands of hippies into straight-laced, law-abiding TM representatives.
By the second week of April 1970, the course was officially over and nearly everyone had left the ashram. About fifteen people remained. Every night we assembled on Maharishi’s bungalow roof and read passages from the Vedas.
One such night, electric bulbs strung on wires illumined the trees surrounding the cottage. From my vantage, the trees appeared tipped with gold. That night Maharishi drew an analogy between these trees and higher states of consciousness.
2001: Maharishi’s bungalow rooftop at his abandoned ashram in Rishikesh.
Jerry Jarvis, my Initiator and SIMS president, looked at me, speaking loudly enough for Maharishi to hear, “Some artist should paint a picture of this.”
The next day I drew a rough colored-pencil sketch of dark trees illumined with golden light under a moonlit sky. I showed it to Maharishi.
He smiled and said, “Good, good. Explain.”
I pointed to the picture. “These trees represent states of consciousness. This tree represents Cosmic Consciousness. The second one is God Consciousness, and third is Unity.”
Maharishi giggled and showed it to Brahmachari Satyanand. They laughed and spoke in Hindi. Maharishi gazed at me with sparkling ebony eyes. “Where are the people? All the people should be in the picture.”
All the people on the roof that night? I thought. There’s no way! I can’t do that!
I started to say, “I don’t think—”
Maharishi interrupted me. “Put all the people in the picture.”
My mind couldn’t wrap around such an unattainable task. Drawing all the people was entirely beyond my capabilities.
Another of Maharishi’s tests. This one would continue for years.
Besides Maharishi and a few brahmacharyas, only six people remained during sweltering April. Maharishi sent us to visit the famous saint Anandamayi Ma (bliss-permeated mother). A chapter of Yogananda’s book Autobiography of a Yogi was devoted to her.
Beside ourselves with joy, we six packed off in two taxis, bouncing along endless dirt roads, climbing into Himalayan foothills to Dehra Dun. Sitting cross-legged on a mat, we waited for darshan on the porch of the saint’s house at sunset.
Anandamayi Ma finally appeared: simple, radiant, and blissful. Her ancient face, brilliant and lustrous, was carved with wisdom. She wore a plain white cotton sari with a yellow Turkish towel draped round her neck. She perched on a cotton mattress atop a wooden cot. Her husband sat down on a nearby chair. Blessings and divine grace poured from her. Visitors asked questions, which she answered in Hindi sprinkled with Sanskrit. A German disciple informed the Blissful Mother we came from Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s ashram.
After an hour, the Blissful Mother turned to us and instructed us to convey the following message to Maharishi. She placed palms together above her forehead in pranam (bowing) gesture: “Namah Narayana, Namah Narayana, Namah Narayana.” (I bow to the king of the universe.)
It wasn’t until I got back to the taxicab that it hit me.
6
MELTING IN MAHARISHIVILLE
SPRING TO SUMMER 1970
It is a miraculous transformation of the personality, once one has raised one’s level of breath to the level of breath of the master’s heart and mind.
—MAHARISHI MAHESH YOGI
When I returned to the taxicab after visiting Anandamayi Ma, an enormous wave of bliss struck like lightning. Bliss was her name, and bliss was transmitted. Waves of ecstatic exhilaration filled me with a yet undiscovered depth of inner intoxication. My heart burst like sunrise, radiating joy. My body melted into a sea of flowing liquidity, peaceful and graceful. Ananda—bliss.
April was hot, 110 degrees of stifling jungle heat. Life was sluggish. Maharishi took us six devotees on an overnight junket to a British hill station in Mussoorie, with refreshing Himalayan breezes.
We stopped at an overlook to drink in the snowy, awe-inspiring peaks. Maharishi’s gleaming dhoti fluttered in the breeze and shimmered in the sunrays. His hair flapped in the wind. I recalled Lost Horizon by James Hilton. Maharishi’s majestic figure before the breathtaking Himalayas made me feel, I’m in Shangri-la now. It’s here, with him.
In a Tibetan colony, hawkers sold silver jewelry, jackets, trinkets, sweaters, and boots. Smiling, rosy-cheeked Tibetans, with black straw-like hair and round brown faces leathered from harsh climate, donned colorful, embroidered cotton frocks embedded with little round mirrors.
Behind the Bamboo Curtain of Communist China, Tibet’s borders were closed. Millions had been slaughtered, thousands of Buddhist monasteries destroyed. These refugees were fortunate to escape.
I felt wildly attracted to Lars, one of the six remaining in the ashram. We shared a room overnight in Mussoorie, but nothing happened (if it had, I would have put up no fight!). His long blond hair, thinning on top and arrow straight, fell over his right eye and caressed his shoulders. His hazel eyes sparkled with an impish glint. Like many on the course, he’d grown a full sandy beard and mustache. He wore lightweight white cotton pants, a colorful long kurta shirt, and canvas sandals. His voice sing-sang with a thick Dutch accent, and his ready, easy laugh snorted like a rebellious donkey.
Lars and I decided to take our own excursion—back to Anandamayi Ma. Just as we arrived in Dehra Dun, the Holy Mother was boarding a taxicab. We followed her cab along potholed dirt roads until she arrived at her new ashram, a picturesque, pristine setting, brimming with evergreens, flowering trees, and waterways.
The Mother got out of her taxi and toured the property on foot, shouting orders to construction workers. What impressed me was how much she reminded me of Maharishi, as if one and the same—constantly giggling at some cosmic joke, and that mischievous twinkle in her eyes, endlessly playing a trick on somebody.
One of her disciples told us, “You know, Ma never had a guru. She was always God-intoxicated, even as a child. At an early age she began communicating with spiritual beings. Those were her gurus. The guru dwells within us.”
I asked him, “She contacts divine beings directly?”
“Yes, she’s in God realization since very young,” he replied.
I thought, That’s what I want, to hear the divine Voice.
It was April 19, 1970. For us staying at the ashram, it was time to become Initiators. We younger course participants would become Student Initiators. We could teach people below age thirty.
Amidst a grove of trees at the edge of the bluff overlooking the Ganges, Maharishi’s cottage comprised a small meeting room, tiny bedroom, bathroom, small kitchen, office, and porch above the kitchen. An outdoor staircase led directly onto the flat roof. Basement walls were tiled with Ganges rocks. In that “cave,” Maharishi performed pujas.
Circa 2008, Rishikesh: Maharishi’s abandoned bungalow, forty years after the Beatles visited. Panoramio/by Achyut41
Maharishi & Me Page 6