Maharishi & Me
Page 12
In 1973, David showed up in Seelisberg with an electroencephalograph (EEG) machine to measure brain waves. He theorized TM meditators would demonstrate brain wave coherence between right and left hemispheres.
David asked me to try his machine. He attached many electrodes to my head and I went into deep meditation. That evening at dinner David rushed toward me. “Come to my office tomorrow. I want to take more readings.”
At the end of my third session, David said, “Take a look at your brain waves. Never seen anything like it. Maharishi’s really impressed. Your brain waves are now famous.”
“Wow. Really? Show me,” I said.
“Look here, Susan. During each meditation your brain waves are perfect sine waves. That means perfect Alpha state.”
At dinner Reginald stopped me as I was headed for tea. “There’s the girl with the celebrity brain waves. Everyone’s talking about them.” I smiled at him.
That night I went to Maharishi’s meeting room, hoping someone would mention my brain waves. David tried to discuss the EEG project, but Maharishi kept pointedly interrupting him mid sentence. I waited until everyone left.
“Maharishi, David measured my brain waves. Did you see?” I asked eagerly.
“It’s not important.” Maharishi scowled and waved me off in a dismissive gesture. I stumbled out of the room, tail between my legs.
Maharishi never let me keep a swelled head for even five seconds. He crushed every bud of ego aggrandizement before it blossomed into full-blown conceit. Other devotees, infinitely more smug than I, didn’t appear to get such dismissive treatment. It seemed my great honor to enjoy the blue-ribbon prize for ego squashing.
It wasn’t long before someone else’s brain waves were more spectacular than mine, anyway—Theresa Olson.
One night I went to see Maharishi after his evening meeting. After he said, “Go and rest” about five times, eventually everyone left—except me.
Maharishi asked, “Yes, what it is?”
I replied, “Maharishi, I’ve decided I never want to marry. I want to be celibate for the rest of my life and work for you.”
“Hmm?” Maharishi asked. “The boys don’t bother you?”
I said, “I don’t see how they could.” Just as these words rolled off my tongue, a forceful thought attacked my mind—EXCEPT REGINALD. It was such a loud, powerful thought that I surmised, My God, Maharishi can certainly hear this thought. Eek!
“What is your education?” Maharishi asked.
“I attended art school in California.” Why did he ask that? I thought. Doesn’t he think I’m educated enough to make a decision? So I asked, “Should I go back to college?”
Maharishi then paused for some time and considered it. “No,” he said. “That is not necessary. You are a very good artist. We will talk about it again later. Come tomorrow 10:00. Now go and rest.”
We never discussed my brahmacharini (female celibate disciple) aspirations again.
When I noticed some Staff members’ parents visiting Seelisberg, I asked Maharishi for permission to invite mine. He agreed. They would stay in the quaint Hotel Bellevue down the hill, by the railway’s upper terminal. The last time I’d seen them was in Spain. We’d spent a few days sightseeing in Madrid and Toledo.
When I told Maharishi my parents would arrive tomorrow, he answered, “I will meet them privately.”
Next morning, Maharishi called me to the Finance Office before I had a chance to see my parents. He chose that day of all days, of all months, of all years, to spend the entire day alone with us four Finance Department women. We met Maharishi from midday until late night, while he scrutinized every speck of minutia about every financial file ever created, and he made reams of notes about everything (I kept the entire pile of notes).
That night, just before leaving the Finance Office, Maharishi said, “Go and rest. Tomorrow I will meet you here again, 10:00.”
I said, “Maharishi, my parents are in Seelisberg and they want to see me. Can I go sightseeing with them tomorrow?”
“Your parents are here?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Then spend the day with them. Bring them to the hall at 8:00. Come here next day at 10:00 and I will meet you.”
So I went sightseeing with my parents, boating on Lake Lucerne and visiting little villages around the lake. That night I introduced them to Maharishi in the lecture hall. He said to them, “Very good. Very good. I will meet you privately.”
The next day we finance women met Maharishi again, from morning until late night. He never made it to the lecture hall, where my parents and a hundred other people were waiting. At the end of the night, he said, “Go and rest. I will be here at 10:00 tomorrow.”
When Maharishi arrived at the Finance Office the following morning, I told him my parents were leaving the next morning.
He said, “I will meet with them privately today.”
During the lunch break I phoned the Bellevue and invited my parents to the Sönnenberg to meet Maharishi. They waited in the hallway right outside the door all afternoon. Finally, our finance meeting ended that night, and I reminded Maharishi about my parents. He said to his skin-boy, “Call Susan’s parents in.”
He answered, “They were here earlier, but now they’re gone.”
Maharishi scowled at his skin-boy. “Why you didn’t tell me they were here? I will meet them later.”
I walked down the steep hill to the Bellevue. My parents were in nightclothes, getting ready for bed. “Why didn’t you stay? Maharishi asked for you,” I said.
“I knew we should have stayed. But your father wouldn’t,” Mother said.
“I’m not gonna wait around all day for that shtunk,” Father said.
“He’s not a shtunk. He’s a saint,” I said.
“We were in the lecture hall with him. We saw how everyone prays to him,” he said.
“They’re not praying. That’s an Indian greeting, with palms together,” I explained. “Why don’t you get dressed and go see him?”
“For what?” he said. “We came to see you. You’ve been with him all the time.”
“Can’t we get dressed and go back up there? I want to meet him,” Mother said.
“I don’t,” Father said.
“Then I’ll come in the morning and we’ll have breakfast,” I said.
I trudged back up the hill, my mind screaming. Why is my father so stubborn? They came all this way, for what? I wish they would just … Urrgh.
The next morning, Maharishi came into the Finance Office to meet us four women.
He said, “Susan, where your parents are, hmm?”
“They left this morning for the States,” I said. He didn’t respond.
Once again Maharishi met us four women privately until late night. Just before he left, he said, “Go and rest. I will meet you 10:00 tomorrow morning. If I’m not here on time, then start without me.”
For the past four days we four women had arrived on time at 10:00. Maharishi arrived one to two hours late every day. Because of his consistent tardiness, and his implication he’d be late again, we decided to arrive at 10:30. By that time Maharishi was in another room, meeting another group.
Maharishi’s skin-boy told us, “Maharishi came to your office at exactly 10:00 sharp. When he found no one there, he went into another meeting.”
He never returned to the Finance Office nor met our group privately again. It seemed the entire purpose of this marathon was to block me from seeing my parents. Did he think I was too dependent on them? Was his purpose to burn off my karma? Was it a test?
During the four-day confabulation, Maharishi’s favorite disciple Jemima Pitman, a lovely woman from England whom he called “Ma,” was present at times. At one point he said to her, referring to the meeting: “Now we have to go through this misery, but it is necessary.”
I wonder why. Nothing came of it—except a pile of Maharishi’s notes that I collected, which were never used.
I wanted desperatel
y to get closer to Maharishi. I felt I must stay with him and devote my life to TM. One night in Seelisberg I was waiting in line, as usual, to greet him after his evening meeting. He handed me a rose and said, “Come to my meeting room every morning at 9:00. Everyone who is in charge of something must come.”
I was flabbergasted. I thought, This is my dream come true.
11
WHAM BAM, EGO SLAM
1973 TO 1974
One starts to think as the master thinks, act as his thoughts dictate. The process of attuning one’s desire to the desire of the master takes one through all the culture that is necessary to live Infinity in every impulse.
—MAHARISHI MAHESH YOGI
I could hardly believe Maharishi said to come every morning! My fanciful twenty-five-year-old brain imagined this was my big opportunity. The next morning at 6:00 I dragged out of bed, showered, and did my TM program: asanas, pranayama, and meditation. I hated getting up early after Maharishi kept us up well past midnight.
At 8:55 I rushed downstairs to his meeting room. Ten people gathered, including Hannah, Reginald, Lars, Kristina, and Thomas. Maharishi said, “Come, come,” when he saw me. “You and Kristina will be in charge of communications. You will read the mail to me every morning.”
Wow, that’s the job Maharishi had with Guru Dev! I thought.
The meeting lasted until 2:00 in the afternoon. Then Maharishi said, “Go and eat.”
The following morning I rushed again and got myself to the meeting by 9:00. Kristina and I prepared the mail. Maharishi kept us until noon, but never asked about the mail. Lacking rest and meditation, I felt edgy the rest of the day. But I must do this. This is the way to get close to Maharishi.
The next morning I tried to wake up early, but got up at 8:00. Oh no. I can’t finish my TM program on time. I’ll go late to the meeting. When I showed up at 9:30, Kristina said, “I’ve already read the mail to him.”
I wondered when these people had time to sleep, eat, and meditate. How can I keep up this pace when we don’t get to bed until 2:00 a.m.?
The next day I slept until 8:00 again. At 9:30 I arrived. No one was in the meeting room. “The meeting’s already over,” Hannah told me. “You missed it.”
What a bumbling fool and failure I am! I thought.
I couldn’t handle staying up late, getting up early, waiting in Maharishi’s intense madhouse, trying to read the mail, waiting again, trying again. Embarrassed and ashamed, I didn’t return.
Oh God, this was a test and I failed, I thought. How do these people do it? Then it struck me. Maharishi often used to say, “When I was with Guru Dev, I didn’t meditate much.”
It’s not important, Susan. You just missed your chance to do the job Maharishi did for Guru Dev. Add that to your list of wasted opportunities you’ll regret for decades.
Strangely, as I write this, I now realize I loved and valued meditation more than hanging around Maharishi! I was nothing but an introvert. Let others get up at dawn and stay up half the night, competing for Maharishi’s attention—for anyone’s attention!
Maharishi always made so many changes to my Holy Tradition painting that during my stay in Semmering, Austria, I decided to paint cutout figures and place them on a separate background. This way he could move them like puzzle pieces. So Maharishi spent two hours alone with me, moving them around my pencil-sketched background until he settled on their placement. After that I started a background with a stream, trees, flowers, and animals. I didn’t get far. I was too busy in the Finance Office.
Though I knew virtually nothing about accounting, Maharishi called me to his meeting room and said, “Now you will choose which company will audit us.”
Audit us? I thought. Why?
Hannah, Thomas, and I interviewed two Swiss accounting firms. I had no clue why I was meeting them, why anyone would audit us, or what criteria to use to evaluate them. After the meetings, Maharishi called us back in. “Which firm should we hire, Susan?”
Me? He’s really asking me? The last person on earth he should ask? Is he serious?
I blurted out, “It seems to me, Price Waterhouse.”
I didn’t know which firm to hire. I’d never heard of the other firm. But I had heard of CPAs that appeared yearly on television, counting votes for the Academy Awards. If they were good enough for Hollywood, I guessed they were okay for Maharishi.
This was another test I probably flunked. I’ll never know.
In winter 1973, Maharishi called me to Hertenstein, a small hotel on a tiny Lake Lucerne peninsula. Its ferry dock was marked by a lovely white statue of Virgin Mary amidst flowering bushes. Mark Twain called Hertenstein peninsula “the most beautiful place on earth.” Maharishi described it as “filled with very deep silence.”
From November to December 1973, Maharishi sent me on a whirlwind rail tour of Switzerland. My assignment was to supervise the administrators managing Teacher Training Courses in Villars, Valbella, Engelberg, and Interlaken. Yet I knew nothing about these operations. Since I was the most improbable candidate to oversee these highly experienced administrators, I started to wonder what drug Maharishi had been smoking to exhibit such lapse in judgment! But seriously, maybe he had good reason, to be revealed. Finally it was—but not as expected. With Maharishi, rarely was anything as expected.
In December, when I arrived in Interlaken, I got a strange feeling to stay and help the Swiss woman in charge, Greta. She somehow convinced me to take her place, while she ended up in Hertenstein with Maharishi.
Victoria-Jungfrau was (still is) a grand, luxurious hotel. Antiques adorned many of its varied sleeping rooms. A splendid ballroom served as the meeting room. One beautifully appointed sitting room, about fifteen by thirty feet, was furnished with valuable antiques. The hotel manager demanded I lock it and post a notice, DO NOT ENTER.
Keeping this hotel in order was a big responsibility. Staff was a joke. Whenever I checked on so-called housekeepers, not once were they cleaning rooms. They were flopped on beds, meditating or listening to the radio. Soon I had a rebellion on my hands, since I had the gall to insist these lazy meditators (earning credit for a Teacher Training Course) arrive on time, get off their skinny butts, and get to work.
I tried to persuade course participants to sleep at night rather than play cards, party, and engage in sexual escapades. And filthy squatters decided to bring their entire flock from Germany to camp out and leave giant water spots across the elegant parquet floor of the hotel’s largest sleeping room.
Eventually I gave up fighting all these losing battles, and the TM Movement had to pay thousands of dollars in damages.
One day I received a message from Maharishi: “Take all the Initiators on a rail tour to the top of the Jungfrau.” So I arranged this unbelievably expensive excursion for hundreds of TM Initiators taking an advanced course. Early one morning, off we went.
The Jungfrau railway ran into and through tunnels in the Eiger and Mönch mountains, with two train stations right inside the Eiger. At those stations, passengers detrained to view spectacular scenery through panoramic windows carved into the rock face. As the train chugged along, passing out of the Eiger over the snowy landscape and upwards to the Jungfrau peak, something unusual happened.
The passengers were standing up, hanging out the windows on the east side of the railway cars, pointing toward the sun. Something looking like pale blue, pink, and gold angels encircled it. An exquisite, celestial exultation pervaded the air, as we ascended the mountain escorted by the spine-tingling sight of ethereal beings of light.
On the summit, the highest railway station in Europe, lay a magnificent glacier of immense magnitude, like God had spooned out a giant serving of vanilla ice cream and left a glistening indentation in the perfect, vast whiteness. Nothing existed but that pristine, seamless, snow-covered landscape and its utter stillness.
I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and entered a realm beyond this physical plane, drinking my fill of the rarified air in that spiri
tually charged atmosphere. Subtle sensations and waves of serenity pulsated a heartbeat of mystic quietude in and around me.
The sun glistened like diamonds on the endless sea of whiteness. A gentle wind caressed my hair, stirring and intensifying the crisp, invigorating life-force energy that suffused this purest, high-altitude troposphere at the pinnacle of the world.
“Maharishi wanted me to tell you that he will arrive in Interlaken next week, along with hundreds of people, to launch a Vedic Studies course. Maharishi says all the course participants will have to double up to accommodate the newcomers. Don’t tell them yet,” Maharishi’s skin-boy Edward Tremblay told me over the phone.
This news left in its wake simultaneous explosions of elation and devastation. At first, Maharishi’s arrival seemed thrilling. Then reality sank in. Though it appeared a marvelous turn of events, and I should have felt grateful, I felt terrified. How will I handle this onslaught?
Everything ran so smoothly in my neatly organized hotel. The idea of mass chaos overwhelmed me. A bomb was about to detonate in my pristine world. No, I can’t have a confusing jumbled mess. I’ve got to organize this massive barrage of humanity well in advance!
As days rolled on, pressure closed in around me. My mind envisioned every kind of horror when hundreds invaded the Victoria-Jungfrau. How will I match them with roommates? What if people complain?
I felt I couldn’t wait another second. In a panic, I grabbed the microphone and announced the great news. Maharishi would soon arrive to teach a special Vedic Science Course. “He’ll be bringing many people with him. So you’ll need to double up in your rooms. Please hand in slips of paper indicating who you want to double up with—”
“Double up in our rooms?” one man shouted in interruption.
“We refuse to double up,” another chimed in.
“We paid for single rooms,” someone else yelled.