by Karen Jonson
Finally, he finished and Vishi took his tray away. He turned his attention back to the halva and scooped out a spoonful. Slowly, he put it in his mouth and chewed. He swallowed and looked at me. With his free hand, he shot me a thumbs-up signal and everyone laughed. My whole body slumped in relief. I could not have been happier in that moment. He continued eating until the bowl was empty.
I had made it through this trial by fire—and relatively unscathed.
33
Barsana Dham in the News
Rolling with the Punches
WHEN I ARRIVED AT THE ASHRAM in early 1993 there was an undercurrent of hush-hush scuttlebutt about an article that had appeared a few months earlier in the local daily paper.
It was only by chance that I learned about the existence of the newspaper article, since Swamiji had strictly forbidden the devotees from talking about it.
“What’s it about?” I asked one of my ashram friends.
“We were told not to talk about it. But it was pretty negative,” she said, conspiratorially. “Some former devotees from Philly turned on Swamiji. One of them had some mental problems.”
Naturally, I was curious so I asked some of the other devotees. But no one would share any details. They just said, “You don’t want to know,” or “They can’t hurt Swamiji; they are only hurting themselves,” or “It’s a transgression to talk about it.”
As luck would have it, my public relations seva projects for the ashram provided me with access to the computer room, where all of the media files were stored. One day, while looking for something else in the large, four-drawer filing cabinet, I found the article for the Austin American-Statesman. Titled “Swami’s Planned Hindu Temple is Center of Speculation,” the article cited three former followers who claimed to have had bad experiences with the organization back when it was headquartered in Philadelphia in the 1980s.
There were comments from former devotee Joe Kelly, who started an anti-cult organization after leaving Swamiji: “My involvement, in some ways, was one of the most devastating experiences of my life. I’m very suspicious of this organization as a benign religious group. I was frightened by what I saw around me, which was people giving up their total will to the system. I consider it very much a cultic group.”
Former devotee Diane H. likened her year with the society to spiritual rape. “He told me if I ever left him, I would spend the next 500 lifetimes as an insect,” she said. “It’s funny now, but it wasn’t then. I actually had nightmares about that for awhile. He had a hold on me.”
The reporter of this story mentioned a woman quoted in a Miami Herald article from 6 July 1989: Cassandra T. said during her two-year experience with the organization “it controlled her mind and almost ruined her marriage to a nonmember.”
Swamiji was defended in the article by three of his followers, including his main preacher at the time, Sureshwari Devi (formerly Meera Devi): “He’s so inspiring. To us, his whole life is dedicated to God. He’s very much a fatherly figure in a spiritual sense. He guides us to God. We’ve never been perceived as a cult by any people I know. We’re teaching a very traditional path. Any group has disgruntled former members.”
Devotee Raj Goel said the ex-devotees “misunderstood the guru-disciple relationship, mistaking advice for commands.” He added, “To run any organization you need money, and this is all pure charity. But Swamiji would never force how much you give and what you give. I give whatever I can afford and what I think needs to be given at the right time.”
In the article, Swamiji’s responses seemed evasive. On why he chose to build his ashram in Austin, he said simply: “Austin chose us.” When asked about his detractors he was quoted as saying: “Ridiculous. All ridiculous statements.” He also commented that his detractors “are very prejudiced people.”
Despite the revelations, the only negative impact the article seemed to have on Barsana Dham was lower attendance at the organization’s first public event, the temple’s groundbreaking ceremony—which was held in 1992, just before I arrived. However, after that the number of visitors who attended events and satsang steadily increased over the years.
After that article, Barsana Dham worked proactively on its public image. The work paid off when Austin’s alternative weekly paper, The Austin Chronicle, ran an article on 9 December 1994— and a photo of the temple making it on the cover. The article, written by Bill Crawford, was positive. The only negative comment was when the reporter stated the people living in the ashram looked like “dorks,” no doubt referring to our drab, “modest” attire. We reveled in the good publicity and rolled with the one negative comment. After all, one devotee pointed out that DORK simply stood for: Devotees of Radha Krishna.
It was easy for us to re-cast every seemingly negative comment or event into a devotional context, because we believed people out in “the world” could never understand the divine work going on inside the ashram gates. Our party line was that other people just didn’t “get it.” Meanwhile, we staunchly believed Swamiji possessed the power to override the negative effects of critical detractors. He successfully convinced his followers that negative perspectives were all part of the package of following a true God-realized saint.
As he often said, “There will always be negative forces at work against the divine forces.”
34
RV Rides Come
RV Rides Go
DAILY LIFE IN THE ASHRAM was mostly boring, but Swamiji liked to have fun and, when he was in residence, often created amusing diversions that charmed us.
There were occasional picnics all over the property, such as by the river or near a field of bluebonnets in the spring. Occasionally we’d have impromptu ice cream and potato chip parties (an ashram favorite) after evening satsang outside behind the temple to celebrate some random event, such as the completion of a milestone in the temple building project.
There were larger celebrations, such as for his birthday, with music, dances, and performances by talented devotees. At my first ashram “party,” I thought: “Wow, this place has everything, including entertainment, all contained within the 200 acres.” It was strange to think of us enjoying our own private corner of the world, while the rest of the people carried on as usual outside of our gates.
Several times we even slept outside with Swamiji, Boy-Scout style. Whenever he announced we were having a sleep-out, the devotees would spring to action, setting up a bed for him, usually on the cement slab we used as a patio, called a mandala, located behind the dining hall. We would lay our sleeping bags, blankets, and pillows around his bed, women on one side and men on the other. We would all jockey for positions closest to him. He would arrive late and climb onto his plush bed, then begin regaling us with commentary and stories. Someone would bring us freshly popped popcorn and lemonade. Finally, he’d say, “Okay, time to sleep.”
The sun would not even be up when Swamiji would wake up, climb off the bed, and depart for his bedroom. The rest of us would either go back to our rooms or continue sleeping outside until it was time for satsang.
Of all the fun things we did with Swamiji, there was nothing better than when he purchased a well-worn old recreational vehicle to transform into a chariot for his latest idea—an annual parade of the Radha diety. The plan was to tear off the RV’s roof, walls, and guts, and build a float-type structure on the chassis. But that came later. As soon as the RV arrived, Swamiji began taking groups of devotees for joy rides around the property. We would all squeeze into every available nook and cranny inside the vehicle, bodies smashed together, and shriek and laugh with delight throughout the ride, which typically lasted fifteen to twenty minutes.
The rides became a daily adventure, with Swamiji always adding some new twist. When the inside of the cabin got too crowded, he had the men make more room by ripping out the guts of the cabin, including the built-in table, seats, and cupboards. Soon, it was just a large rectangular shell with beat up, patchy carpet. When he saw that everyone was falling all over each
other as he maneuvered the vehicle around tight corners at high speeds, he told the men to nail wooden beams across the cabin, so that people would have something to hang onto as he made harrowing fast turns.
One day he started driving into dead branches, knocking them off trees. The crash and crunch of the wood thrilled everyone. We started scouting for them. When a devotee spotted a dead branch, he or she would yell out, “Swamiji, there’s one.” He would turn on a dime and aim dead center for the offending branch, often rocking the entire van on the bumpy ground underneath. We would laugh and scream all the way as we tilted and swayed and hung on for dear life.
One day, a particularly stubborn branch ripped off the ladder as Swamiji drove under a tree. Someone yelled out that we had lost the RV’s ladder. When we looked back, we could see it dangling from the branch, swaying in the breeze. It was a particularly ludicrous and hysterical sight, apropos of the entire crazy adventure with our wild guru.
When he returned to the front of the temple, we would all file out in a long stream of humanity. One time we looked up and found dead branches sticking out all over the vehicle, including a large one lodged in the roof’s air vent. Another time the windshield cracked from the impact of a branch. That was the end of the RV rides, because it became too dangerous—even by Swamiji’s standards. Soon the van was retired as a source of amusement and put to its intended purpose. A few devotees stripped it down to the bare metal and built an ornamental structure on top. From then on, we brought the “chariot” out of storage once a year and decorated it with flowers and fabric for the annual chariot procession.
For this event, the former RV was driven around the property in a more dignified fashion—a single entity in a one-float parade—with devotees chanting and dancing all around it.
35
Waiting for Grace
Hope Springs Eternal
WE WERE ALL WAITING TO BE GRACED by Swamiji. It was the carrot at the end of the stick that kept us all going in an otherwise brutal environment.
Every devotee yearned to receive the grace required to enter the divine world for eternity. Our belief that we would soon receive Swamiji’s grace gave most of us the strength to endure any and all challenges we encountered on the path. But along the way, some gave up the ghost and left the ashram, usually disappearing, belongings and all, in the middle of the night, never to be seen again. Eventually, even three of Swamiji’s ordained preachers disappeared, every one of them with little or no explanation.
The true believers stayed, accepting that Swamiji was gracing us in innumerable little ways all the time. When he talked to us, touched us, fed us his leftovers, gave us instructions, or made us laugh—all of these were flashes of grace. However, these fleeting blessings were only a temporary high, like a shot of whiskey or a hit of cocaine. But the feeling would fade all too quickly. I might have felt terribly guilty about my own lack of sustained happiness from Swamiji’s ongoing benevolent gestures if it wasn’t so obvious that no one else was retaining that loving feeling either. Even people who seemed to be showered with his attention on a regular basis, ultimately appeared to be as bereft of grace as the rest of us. Yet most of us persevered, living in hope.
It wasn’t for lack of trying on the guru’s part—at least not according to him. Swamiji told us over and over: “The guru is always gracing. Receiving grace is your own effort. You only need a pure heart to scoop it up. The more pure your devotional heart, the more grace you can receive.”
He often used the analogy of going to a river to collect water. If you took a teacup, that’s the amount of water you could collect. But if you took a barrel, you could collect much more. “Your devotional heart is the vessel. However pure it is, is how much grace you can receive.” He told us that a pure, receptive heart that could hold an unlimited amout of grace was one that had surrendered completely to the guru. So, naturally, if the grace didn’t seem to stick, it was our own fault.
Under Swamiji’s tutelage, I lived believing that my devotional heart was a sun-baked stone—incapable of retaining even the smallest drops of his grace.
36
Guru Bonding
Fear and Longing
UNLIKE MANY OF THE OTHER DEVOTEES, I rarely had a problem understanding Swamiji’s English—which I took as a badge of honor.
I also had an unusual ability to remember things he said nearly verbatim. I was always surprised by how many devotees misunderstood him when he gave us some bit of wisdom, instruction, or scolding. I became known for my unique listening and retention skill, and some devotees regularly called upon me for clarification on what Swamiji had said, especially if there was more than one version making the rounds.
While my special gift garnered me some small level of notoriety, by no means did it get me any closer to Swamiji. That was the primary desire of all devotees: to have something, anything, that gave them a reason to talk to him or get them the ultimate prize—spending time with him in his bedroom, his inner sanctum. The people who spent time close to the guru were the envy of the ashram. Swamiji’s favorite devotees, besides the preachers, included a small group of people who ran businesses that supported him and his organization. Next in line were followers with special skills such as construction and sewing.
During my fifteen years in the ashram, my one-on-one interactions with him were like crumbs: I would hungrily gobble up each one, and eagerly wait for the next morsel. Few and far between, these little nuggets never satisfied fully. Nonetheless, I savored my moments with him. One day Prabhakari asked me to edit Swamiji’s next book, an encyclopedia (as he called it) of India’s history and the history of Hinduism. I took the task to heart since she had told me he had asked for me to do it. For the next week and a half, I spent several hours each day on his opus, ignoring my own work responsibilities. Then Prabhakari called me to Swamiji’s bedroom to discuss my edits.
I felt the usual mix of excitement and fear to be entering his private chambers, like Dorthy entering the room of the great and powerful Oz. I trembled as I kneeled down on the floor next to him and bowed.
He took one look at me and said, “Oh her? I thought it was the other Karen.”
My heart sank. He didn’t want me, after all. However, he reviewed my edits anyway as I sat there feeling dejected. Once he was finished, I was summarily dismissed with a nod.
Another brief interaction occurred out of the blue when I was alone in the kitchen one day. Swamiji padded in as I stirred a pot of soup. He wandered around looking at everything. All the drawers and cupboards had labels, and he was reading some of them aloud. He stopped at one drawer with a quizzical look. “Micro dishes?”
“Those are dishes for the microwave, Swamiji,” I said, thrilled to have a reason to speak to him.
“Oh, I thought they were just really small dishes.”
We both laughed. Then he walked out of the kitchen, leaving me to revel in my good fortune to have spent a few precious moments of quality alone time with my guru.
Once I was passing through his sitting room on the way to the prasad room. There were only a few people sitting around him. This was always considered the greatest of times for devotees, to have him virtually to oneself without the usual crowd of devotees. I sat close to his feet on his right side. Someone brought him a peppery snack. He ate a couple of pieces, then glanced at me. He handed me a piece. I put it in my mouth. It was bitter and unpleasant. I coughed and struggled to swallow the food, knowing it was his offering to me.
“Do you like it?” he asked.
“It’s a little bitter,” I admitted.
He laughed. Everyone giggled. Someone had left a box of high-quality chocolates on his seat. He opened the box and picked out a piece. “Here, eat this,” he said, holding it to my mouth.
I opened my mouth and he put it on my tongue. It immediately melted into a puddle of succulent cocoa, drowning out the bitter flavor. “Is that better?”
I smiled. “Yes, Swamiji.”
“Good. Here, have another
one.” He held another piece of the chocolate up to my mouth, followed by another and another. “Is that enough? Is the bad taste gone?”
I laughed. “Yes, thank you, Swamiji. It’s much better now.”
“Great!” he exclaimed. Then he got up and walked out of the room. I felt like I was floating a few inches off the ground.
The other devotees glanced at me with envy—it was a look I was used to giving, not receiving.
37
Misadventures in Photography
A Lesson in Humility
ONE OF SWAMIJI’S FREQUENT LESSONS he drilled into us was to be humble, stating it was an essential quality for reaching God.
I received a major lesson in humility when he told me to learn photography shortly after I moved to the ashram. Swamiji liked all events and celebrations documented on film and video. While Prabhakari handled video, no official photographers lived there. One morning in the prayer hall, he looked around the room and asked, “Who is good at photography?” Devotees began citing themselves or others. I sat quietly.
Swamiji listened to some of the names called out, then looked right at me. “What about you?”
“I used to take photos for my college newspaper.”
“Great,” he said. “Study photography for the ashram.”
Those five simple words kicked off a stressful three months during which I tried to become the best photographer possible. However, bad karma or just bad luck worked against me. It didn’t help that many of the other devotees were jealous. Suddenly, everyone was a photographer, racing around with cameras, taking photos of Barsana Dham for Swamiji, hoping he would tell them to study photography instead of me. But for every package of prints brought to him, Swamiji would barely like one in the whole pack.