by Jayanti Tamm
I rebooted into a sari, feeling the yards of fabric, constrictive and confining. When my mother escorted me into my first meditation, she insisted that I rightfully resume my old seat in the second row, behind Prema and Isha. I couldn't tell her that I didn't want to sit so close to Guru's scrutinizing gaze, where my sloping posture would be read by all those seated behind me as tangible proof of my fall. Instead, I nodded in agreement. Passing the tennis court guards, I caught their surprised faces at my appearance and their subsequent nudges and side-of-the-mouth comments. These grown men, with their receding hairlines and expanding waistlines, acted like catty schoolgirls relishing gossip and glances. When they spotted me watching them, they clumped together in a tight pack. As we walked farther into the premises, a few disciples looked very confused at suddenly encountering someone on the official out-of-the-Center roster at a meditation. Not taking any chances by risking the offense of talking, or even looking directly at an ex-disciple, they turned their backs to me, engaged in a vague object that suddenly held paramount importance. My mother, aware of the growing awkwardness, locked her arm through mine in a tight, protective hold, rambling about how excited Ketan would be to see me. Her clutch tightened as Ketan strode in flip-flops, sipping a coffee. With a wave from my mother, Ketan approached us. It was the first time in months that I had seen him without his dashing into an activity to avoid spotting me straight on.
“You look different,” he said to me, attempting to sort out my specific alteration.
I stared back, wondering if he might guess the filthy truth about my changed self.
My mother burst through the friction with an unlinked anecdote about burning dinner. When a young disciple told Ketan it was time to rehearse Guru's play for that evening's performance, Ketan left. While I had been away, a large contingent of new, young, eager disciples, most from eastern Europe, buzzed around, joining the important singing groups, working in the divine-enterprises, and whittling their way into Guru's tightest circle. This new crop of disciples hurried through the crowds, oblivious to me, assured of their important role in preparing for the evening function. Instead of feeling jealous, the shield of anonymity felt fleetingly comforting. For all they knew, I was a nobody, a brand-new disciple.
Moving inside the tennis court, I was not the only changed entity. Any and all signs of the old tennis court had been stripped away, from the net posts to the white lines. The green clay rectangle that for years bounced serves, top-spin groundstrokes, and Guru's famous tricky underspin drop shot, as well as my own practice and play that had soaked up so many endless hours, now was partially covered with a tarp for seating. The clear dismantling of the court felt final, as though another identifiable and concrete feature of my former Center life had been permanently eradicated.
Outside Guru's open-air pagoda, four white chairs were positioned as seats of honor facing the stage. Flowers flanked the carpeted area, and next to Guru's throne was a massive gold easel with an elaborately framed photograph of Guru bowing and shaking the hand of Mikhail Gorbachev, the former head of the Soviet Union. When I whispered to my mother that I would rather stay in the back, she clamped my arm even tighter, chiding me not to be ridiculous, and escorted me toward my former seat.
Bandhu, the head of Guru's public relations team, and three of Bandhu's assistants accompanied Guru to his throne, talking rapidly. When Guru sat down, he called for different disciples, inquiring if they had all the arrangements ready. Tonight, yet again, was another function in honor of Nadia, a petite Muscovite and high-ranking official in Mikhail Gorbachev's foundation. Ever since Gorbachev's tenure as head of the Soviet Union and lead international newsmaker, Guru had wanted to meet him, but the blockade of Kremlin bureaucracy was impenetrable. It wasn't until Gorbachev left office, opened a foundation, and toured on the lucrative lecture circuit that Guru's public relations team began their relentless campaign to bring Gorbachev and Guru together. Although Guru had always avoided all forms of political activity, even with regard to volunteering or donating to charities, he observed that donations of a certain level proved an expedited invitation into powerful circles. Soon disciples in Centers all over the world were regularly instructed to send money to New York that would be collected and then presented to The Gorbachev Foundation. For disciples, too, the more money they gave, the more it pleased Guru, and for Guru, the more money he transferred to the foundation, the more it pleased the chief fund-raisers. Suddenly a correspondence blossomed, beginning with simple thank-you letters signed by Gorbachev that Guru read and reread aloud at meditations.
After careful research, Bandhu and his assistants homed in on Nadia as an especially close adviser of Gorbachev and the courting began. First-class tickets from Moscow to New York, lavish gifts, and endless flattery, including having disciples serve as Nadia's personal chauffeurs and lackeys while in New York, left Nadia championing Guru to her boss. After hundreds of thousands of dollars, Guru procured his first meeting with Gorbachev. It was in a Manhattan hotel, and the agreement was that one photographer was allowed, but no video cameras. Despite that, Guru told Bandhu to keep a video camera hidden, to capture each and every moment for posterity. Though the meeting only lasted a few brief minutes, enough photographs were taken to document every second of their encounter. The photos and the contraband video were both immediately splashed onto all of Guru's public relations materials, proving Guru and Gorbachev's intimate friendship.
When Nadia arrived with an entourage, Guru stood to greet her, bowed deeply, then walked her to the white chairs in front. I expected Guru to meditate, but that never happened. Instead, I watched Guru's lavish show, a continuous patchwork of disciples to perform songs for Nadia, skits about Russia, and video compilations of Guru weight lifting.
By the end of the function, Isha placed a box in front of Guru for more donations to The Gorbachev Foundation. My mother tucked fifty dollars into my hand for my contribution, and I joined the line of other disciples waiting to have their moment of recognition, of being at the center of Guru's attentions, if only long enough to drop money into a box. I paused before Guru, flaring with the instinctive ache of needing his personal validation of my return, my place, and my attempt to mask my simultaneous dread, but when I dropped my money in the box, Guru still did not look up. I reclaimed my seat, wondering if Guru would ever talk to me again. However, after Nadia was presented with the overflowing cash stash and the function ended, Sarisha said I was invited to Guru's house. Guru had recently changed his house gatherings to be alternative evenings with either women or men as part of his imposed clamp-down against men and women interacting. That night was the women's turn. Lying on his couch, Guru waved to me when I came in, and smiled. And that was enough. The other women, after seeing Guru welcome me, freely motioned me over and offered me a seat.
Guru read aloud his latest thank-you letter from Gorbachev, with the inclusion of thanks from Gorbachev's wife for all the gifts that he had sent their family members. Everyone burst into applause. Clearly pleased, Guru smiled and jiggled his feet while reading it three more times. Guru's insatiable urge for celebrity endorsements disturbed me. As the supposed direct representative of God on earth, why would he possibly need or care about a quote praising him from random people, famous or not?
Bandhu bounded through the door, presenting Guru with updates on his other main target: Princess Diana. According to Bandhu and his contact with Radhika, a London Center disciple assigned to cover all of Guru's public relations work in the United Kingdom, their meeting was officially set. Guru sprang upright, slapping his hands on his thighs. Everyone stood up, wildly applauding the news. I, too, stood up, not wanting to expose myself. I clapped gleefully along with everyone else, but I couldn't help but wonder why Princess Diana, with her chosen charities and protective charge of her children, would want to meet Guru. Wasn't his vision of the world just too different from hers? I wondered if she knew who Guru actually was, and what kind of fabricated presentation she was given that persuaded h
er to meet him. She didn't seem like someone willing to endorse a group that banned the Internet, TV, movies, music, newspapers, radio, political activism, mixing with the opposite gender, and all forms of free speech. Although I cheered with the others, I wished I could have warned her about Guru and the organization she thought he represented. Princess Diana was a woman with people clamoring to exploit her, and I knew that Guru, in his own way, by sneakily using her quote and image as a public endorsement, intended to do exactly that.
Weeks later, the meeting with Princess Diana was over. Against the express wishes of the princess, Guru had instructed Radhika, the only person at the meeting besides Diana and Paul Burrell, her infamous butler, to record the meeting secretly, as well as to smuggle in a camera and plead for a few photographs to be taken. Diana reluctantly agreed and stiffly posed in her pink suit with her fixed smile as Guru leaned extra close to her, clutching both of his hands against his heart, smiling in wide triumph. Shortly after, Guru's hottest release, a book that included a full transcription of their supposedly private meeting in Buckingham Palace, was on sale for all disciples to buy.
While I slid into my former routine as a full-time vagabond, carting myself to all of the functions, races, and singing practices I could, Guru focused on expanding his Princess Diana triumph by acting as a go-between for the princess to meet her humanitarian idol—Mother Teresa. Guru's own opinion of Mother Teresa had drastically changed over the years. He initially described her as a charlatan who used food and shelter as bait in order to convert India's suffering masses into surface Christians, but as Mother Teresa's missions gained international prominence, Guru turned off his criticisms and turned on his efforts to meet her. The tiny woman in the white sari and white habit was initially uninterested in Guru as well, but as both became more savvy in their tactics, Guru found his entrance by presenting her with the U Thant Peace Award, an award of his own creation, and a large donation to her Indian missions. In return, Guru added her complimentary quotes and photo to his ever-expanding collection. Still actively pursuing his ultimate goal of achieving the Nobel Peace Prize, Guru's manifestation team sought a letter of recommendation from Mother Teresa for the official nominating committee in Oslo. Princess Diana readily accepted Guru's gesture of arranging a meeting between her and Mother Teresa. I understood that it was all part of his larger plan of establishing more and more publicity-equity for himself.
Now nearly every function was dominated by visits from celebrities, from A-listers all the way to loopy local characters. Most of the meetings were formulaic and quick, centered on the bait that the celebrity was invited in order to receive the Oneness-Heart Award, in honor of the person's achievements and contributions to society. Lulled by accolades and confirmation of their greatness, luring public figures was surprisingly easy. With Ketan heading the team of disciples actively inviting celebrities to receive this award, as part of the endlessly repeated ceremony, the stars climbed up Guru's special one-arm weight-lifting platform that budged up a rickety inch to signify that they had been lifted, and then an award was given, a song sung, and many photographs taken. From Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins to Jeff Goldblum, Yoko Ono, and Sting, each day heralded a new visitor. The more photos and quotes added to the PR materials, the more convincing and legitimate it appeared to other celebrities. Soon Guru hosted Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. I wondered what these men who championed freedom and liberty would say if they knew that Guru praised his devotees for rooting through the garbage of fellow disciples accused of the offense of drinking a bottle of wine or complaining about the Center. I was quite sure that these elements of the Sri Chinmoy Center were not highlighted in the glossily produced materials about the Ambassador of Peace. For Ketan, the apparent new mission of the Sri Chinmoy Center as a special events headquarters for celebrities was more than he could have ever hoped for. Being sent on special urgent missions from Guru, such as flying out to Malibu to hand the actress Judith Light an envelope inside which contained her spiritual name, was perfect for him. I didn't know how other disciples felt about Guru's new focus. It wasn't something to be openly discussed.
AS ANOTHER BIRTHDAY approached, I wished I was near the end of my life rather than barely halfway toward middle age. I imagined myself in my thirties, forties, fifties, sixties, and seventies reciting poems for Guru with the rest of the children's group, then shuffling back to my assigned seat. My destined future existence—an exact replica of my current one—was numbing. Caged and kept, I inhabited Guru's exquisite prison. Void of any spiritual drive, any longing for a higher power, I realized that nothing had made me happy. Neither being in nor being out of the Center had offered me a sense of belonging, of comfort. On the day of my twenty-fourth birthday, while most of my contemporaries in the outside world were finishing graduate school, getting engaged, buying apartments, eagerly embarking on life's possibilities, I realized I had already died.
10
Cartwheels in a Sari
YOUR MINDS ARE POISON. SUCH POISON,” GURU SAID, holding the microphone too close, causing it to squeal with feedback.
As soon as Guru spoke, I stopped listening. Undoubtedly, it was to be another lecture about impurity, disobedience, and destruction. After Guru announced his New Year's message, disciples banded together in a sense of panic. Guru's usual New Year's message was an aphorism promising the upcoming year to reveal boons such as elevated states of consciousness and newfound wells of aspiration. The message, read at a final public gathering prior to Guru's departure for the annual Christmas trip abroad, assured disciples and seekers of another year frosted with special favors from the Supreme. This year's message, however, tore off the layer of promised bliss, dunking it instead inside a vat of doom. A warning of possible spiritual obliteration, Guru's manifesto was the first of many scoldings and lectures on the same theme repeated that year. During functions, Guru constantly sermonized on the slothful state of his disciples. Night after night, the disciples lowered their heads, absorbing Guru's poundings on how deliberately disobedient and recklessly negligent they were in all matters pertaining to their inner lives. I believed I was the only person who wasn't rattled to the core. To me, this was not news, and I no longer cared or wanted to even hear about it.
Guru tapped the microphone. After a long pause, he said that out of his infinite compassion, he was giving the disciples the secret to regaining their inner progress.
“Inside your heart, deep inside your heart, beneath its insecurity, there is still hope. That hope is still pure, still good,” Guru said.
The audience, after having readied themselves for another barrage about their corrupt vital, body, mind and heart, sat up straighter. I blankly stared ahead.
“You must forget your current age, forget your age. All of you, no matter how old, must be, act, and become like seven-year-olds. Girls and boys. All of you should be like seven-year-olds. Seven-year-olds live only in the heart, the heart. No mind. No mind. Act and be like seven-year-olds,” Guru said.
He unzipped his electronic synthesizer from its custom case and taught two new songs: “I Am a Seven-Year-Old Boy,” and “I Am a Seven-Year-Old Girl.”
I mouthed along. I was past listening, letting his words affect me. I could sit for hours before him as he talked, but it was as though I was far away beyond hearing, beyond his reach. As a child, to fill the uninterrupted hours of silent meditation, I had played games in my head, but now I dwelled constantly inside a dark cavern of quiet, remaining empty and void. Blocking out what I didn't want to hear was easy.
When Guru instructed all the disciples to soulfully sing “I Am a Seven-Year-Old” every day, I dismissed this as just another task to pile onto Guru's litany of mandatory daily duties that would soon enough rot into neglect. If disciples had performed all of the prayers, poems, songs, and chants that Guru had urged as part of their daily rituals, they would never have time away from their shrines to eat or sleep. But this directive was different.
That night when I e
ntered the tennis court, I was shocked when some of the women in their fifties and sixties who brought their own folding chairs and specially designed orthopedic back support pillows had changed the style of their gray hair from an understated bun to pigtails. Other women entered with new pink Hello Kitty backpacks worn over their saris. Groups clustered, giggling together. To my horror, someone carried in a baby doll dressed in a polka-dot sari. The men, too, huddled in circles; some played jacks, cheering wildly. Others held a skipping contest up and down the driveway. This looked absolutely psychotic. I panicked at the spectacle around me.
I sat in the back row and watched Sarisha circulate through the aisle using a high-pitched baby voice to collect money for “a speshwel pwasad in gwatitude to Guwu.” Scanning the gathering of disciples digging into their purses and wallets with their smiley excitement, I questioned when this shift of receiving Guru's symbolic words on a literal level had occurred. I knew that in religions such as Christianity and Islam, long-standing debates raged between believers who read their sacred texts literally and those who viewed the same passages metaphorically, but we had understood Guru's messages to be metaphoric directives. How had the disciples collectively decided to turn this into a practical instruction and enact skipping and baby talk as a route to salvation? This bizarre impersonation of seven-year-olds, this mad stampede toward the inner child, made me wonder if it was their defense, protective armor, against the maelstrom of demonic destruction promised by Guru in his New Year's prophecy. If so, then their desperate tenacity felt sad, and the idea of joining or even supporting them repelled me.
I now understood that by rejoining the Center I, too, lived like a dependent, mindless child. Until that moment, I had not witnessed the absurdity of my lifestyle. Stripped of all pretenses, the reality horrified me. Nothing about being a seven-year-old—naive and malleable—felt appealing. I did not want to neglect and shut down my mind, giggling blankly. I had been seven once, and I had no desire to return to that age. My numbness toward Guru and the Center subsided. I loathed everyone and everything around me.