My Mother My Mirror

by Andrea Kitt

  On the final day there was a ‘darshan line’. Darshan is a Hindi word meaning the presence of the Master, and the line was the line of people queueing up to spend a moment in his presence, perhaps to kiss his feet. A small stage had been erected on the campsite with a well-guarded back entrance so that Maharaji could arrive unhindered. It was made to seem rather like a womb, in that a long tunnel of fabric was built leading to and from the stage, with carpet underfoot. Devotees formed a line stretching across the site and leading to the entrance, where someone given the job of security guard made sure we removed our shoes and ushered us in. Others stood discreetly every so often along the inside of the tunnel, smiling quietly and encouraging us to keep moving.

  It was a magical feeling, treading softly one step at a time along the carpet, about to come face to face with Maharaji for the first time. The atmosphere was thick with love, and with the fragrance of lilies. We trod slowly and the tunnel seemed to go on for a long time, always curving so that I couldn’t see very far in front of me. I breathed deep and slow, and prepared myself as best I could, trying to maintain a sense of openness and humility. Then at last I slipped through the final curtain and there he was. He was huge, glowing, golden. He looked at me, and it felt like a miracle. There was no question of what to do; my body keeled forward and I touched my lips to his stockinged foot. Then a moment later I was floating back towards the outside world, light as thistledown. I came out the other end laughing, and fell into a stranger’s arms.

  Externally, everything we did was highly unconventional, at least in the West, yet thinking about it perhaps it’s not so different from how people in their twenties normally behave, only usually we don’t notice because it happens within the familiar context of our society. There is a need to belong to a group, to believe strongly in something and be convinced you are right, to be included, to feel a sense of purpose and worth, to be at peace with oneself, to have fun... When this involves getting a job, going to the pub and to football on Saturdays, nobody bats an eyelid. But for many of my generation that just wasn’t enough.

  This festival marked Maharaji’s marriage to the lovely blonde Californian lady, Marilyn. She gave satsang several times and spoke touchingly about her love for him. Prior to this there had been a presumption that the renunciate life was preferable, with the traditional ashram lifestyle, but now that Maharaji had broken with convention and got married, many premies followed, including Mark and I.

  It was a strange logic that made me marry Mark. I had never really been in love with him in the way I had with some of my previous boyfriends, but we were extremely fond of each other and very good friends, and because I had found love in my own heart I reasoned that he was as good a person to share it with as anyone else. Plus the fact that ‘growing up and getting married’ was something I had always presumed I would do, and this seemed a good time to do it.

  So on a warm and sunny September day in 1976, when I was 21 years old, we were married in Codicote church. Mark wore a blue velvet suit and I wore a long pale blue Indian dress with silver patterns and winged sleeves. The blue matched our eyes. Our bridesmaids were my youngest sister Martha and Mark’s youngest sister Rachel, and I made them matching dresses out of sari material: deep blue and pink with gold spots and stars.

  It was a wonderful day, and a wonderful party, and the old vicarage lent itself to the occasion like a dream. The front doors were open and people wandered out onto the tiled terrace and the Cumberland turf, chatting and laughing, eating and drinking. Carmen and I had been cooking for weeks. I made a lot of delicious pizza with a cakey olive-oil base and heaps of succulent vegetables and cheese on top; also rich apricot cheesecake with a nutty brown base. We made a stand with lots of shelves and asked everyone to bring a cake, so there wasn’t one wedding cake but lots of different ones, and we cut them together – Mark on one side and me on the other – slicing through them one at a time.

  I loved the fact that so many different sorts of people were there and everyone was happy together, from Shelley’s tiny stepdaughter Katherine to Patsy Lyle from the Montessori school, from our hippy house-mates to my respectable uncles. And of course I sailed through them all feeling special and proud.

  We had a small swimming-pool in the garden at the time, four foot deep and fifteen foot across, and there was much splashing and larking about in there. Then when it got dark there were fireworks on the lawn.

  By this time Carmen and Shelley, the Adam and Eve of my early years, had been through a painful separation and divorce. Carmen was breaking free, exploring more and more outrageous brands of cutting-edge psychotherapy such as Gestalt and Primal Scream. Some of her experiments involved taking lovers, and it all got too much for my relatively conventional father, who with remarkable efficiency went and found himself a pretty lady called Ann with completely the opposite personality: much more the serene, Venus-like woman reflected in his early sculpture.

  One of Carmen’s lovers invited her to live with him in Florida, so she agreed to go for a three month trial period, leaving me and my friends to take care of six-year-old Martha and the twelve-year-old twins. I look back upon those months as a sort of golden age of the Codicote house. It was so great to have the whole place to ourselves!

  Shelley had already moved out, and his studio was now occupied by a commercial artist, also a premie, known as ‘Skweek’ because of his high-pitched voice. He had turned what used to be the game parlour into a colourful Bedouin tent, with steps up to his bed, where he specialized in deflowering young ladies. In the main part of the studio he had a large easel, and he used a combination of brushes and sprays to create crisp, surreal pictures, comic-book style, of fantastic landscapes with beautiful heroes and heroines. The flat at the back of the house, where there had been a more conventional tenant, was now occupied by Andrew Strange and his handicapped daughter Marcie. Then there was of course Mark and I, and a lovely man came to stay called Mid (David Middleton) who was the one who had given LSD-flavoured satsang in the Luton ashram.

  I remember the ease of it all: the way I could either join in a conversation, or sit on the edge of a conversation quietly listening, or drift off and do my own thing, always knowing there were friends around should I wish to join them. We cooked big pots of stew on the Aga, shared satsang, and discussed the meaning of life. Sometimes we drove around in Andrew’s big car, three of us plus Marcie on the bench seat at the front, shopping or visiting. And sometimes at home we would break off into pairs and sit staring at each other for hours, in the same way Mark and I had done at Common Rise – exploring the other, like a sort of external meditation. I hadn’t taken drugs for a few years at this point, but Andrew could sometimes still be found wandering around the orchard at the back of the house with dilated pupils, wondering at the magic of it all. And there was a bit of a dope scene going on in the studio at night which Mark sometimes joined in, but I usually meditated and went to bed.

  When Carmen came back from Florida, disillusioned with her lover, we all had to go our separate ways. Mark and I moved to Berkhampstead to lodge with an Eeyorish chap called Vick. There was a big Divine Light Mission centre in Hemel Hempstead and we became involved in that community. I longed to go deeper and deeper, to get more and more involved in the whole thing, inside and out. I would sit in the broom cupboard for hours at a time, on a cushion and underneath a blanket, looking and listening, tasting and feeling, loving the enormous sense of potential, of creativity, that I had lost somewhere long ago and was now beginning to find.

  Meanwhile Mark was spending more and more evenings back in Skweek’s studio; and one night, barely nine months after our wedding, he came back and told me he had fallen in love with someone else. It was remarkably amicable. I was on the verge of falling in love with Maharaji, and was, if I was honest, already losing interest in married life. I packed up my things and Andrew drove me to Bristol, where I stayed my first night with Adrian, the man who had first given me satsang, and his new wife and baby.

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  Ashrams

  Within a day or two I had found myself a bedsit in the basement of a large Victorian house, with a sink and cooker in a cupboard, and a bed which I somehow contrived to stand on two tables and drape curtains around so it was a cross between a four-poster and a cabin bed. Outside the French windows was a short path leading to a shed where another premie lodged. He was a smiley, lively Peter Pan sort of man who wrote lovely devotional songs. I was a little shy of him.

  Bristol had a thriving ashram which I went to regularly. It was at this time that I began to wonder about devotion. I had been enjoying the meditation, satsang and service, and had a lot of respect for Maharaji, but up until this point had big reservations about the way some of the premies adored him so totally: would do anything for him, even lay down their lives. And yet it did seem to make them incredibly happy.

  I held a picture of Maharaji and stared at it for a long time. His eyes seemed to be looking right into me, loving me; his face pulsated with light. I had heard a lot of satsang about surrendering to Maharaji, giving up my petty individual ego; and I had always gone along with it, agreeing that our neurotic mind was a nuisance and to allow a higher power to move through me and guide my life was a good idea. But to make no division between that higher power and this Indian boy, however lovable, was another step entirely. Yet I felt myself pulled in that direction: I wanted to believe it, I wanted to be let in on the secret that these others shared. I wanted to fall in love.

  I got a job in ‘Herbies’, a wholefood shop run by a premie called Rupert, who was a sensitive man and often anxious about his responsibilities to his wife and three children. Every morning before we opened up we would take it in turns to speak for ten minutes or so from our heart, just to check how we were with our practice of Knowledge and our relationship with our guru. This time was invaluable to me. Having just left Mark, as well as the part of the country I had grown up in and all my friends and family, I often began by having a bit of a cry, and Rupert was fine with that, respecting it as part of the process. Once I had expressed my sadness I found the words flowed easily. Slowly I was learning to find my voice, and discovering that I was capable of deep feelings and clear thoughts.

  There was one time when we knew a lot of the premies were going to a festival in Miami, but had decided it would be irresponsible to leave the shop, and in any case would cost too much money. Then at the end of the day, as Rupert was cashing up, we both became overwhelmed with a feeling of, ‘What’s this life for anyway?’ He looked at me and I looked at him and we said, “Let’s do it!” So taking all the money from the till we drove quickly to the airport and soon found ourselves two standby tickets.

  I think this one was a ‘Holi’ festival. In India they throw coloured paint and powder at each other to celebrate the coming of the spring. In our case, all the premies dressed in pale, loose and easily stainable clothes, and we went to a stadium which had been kitted out with powerful water canons. When Maharaji turned up he had a whale of a time sprinkling colours and sparkles into the water and shooting at us all, to symbolize being drenched by his grace. There were thousands of people at these events and I had been to enough of them by now to realize I got a lot more high if I was near the front, so my experiences varied from times when I was so far away it was a bit disappointing, to those when I was close enough to see the expressions on his face and have some sense of a connection, however fleeting, between myself and this glorious being. When this happened I was in heaven.

  Back at the shop, days were spent either ‘bagging up’ all the beans and rice, nuts and raisins at the back, or serving customers at the front; and sometimes helping Mad Mike in the basement where he baked hundreds of indigestible pizzas. Along with the pizza in the shop window were trays of thick and delicious date slice, and Rupert told me I could help myself. This was not such a good idea.

  I was still having trouble with my eating, trying to keep the food in my bedsit cupboard down to a bare minimum. Occasionally, on a bad day, I would go on a confectionery crawl. Embarrassed to buy too much from one sweetshop, I wandered the city from shop to shop, buying a Mars bar here, a Cadbury’s fruit’n’nut there, a Toffee crisp at one and a Kit-kat at another. And though this was of course not the only reason I began to think about moving into the ashram, it was a factor. It seemed that having other people around was the only way to stop me over-indulging.

  So I joined a group of people in a terraced house in the suburbs of Bristol which they were planning to turn into an ashram. Within a few weeks all the bedrooms had been occupied and the official stamp of approval had been given. By now I was working in the fashion accessory section of Lewis’s department store in the centre of town, the date slices having become too much for me; and soon after I moved in a meeting was held in which the housefather told us we would from now on be handing all of our wages into a central fund, some to be used for the running of the house and for food and so forth, and the remainder to be dedicated to the Mission. We would no longer have any money of our own.

  I can remember lying in bed that night, feeling so happy. I felt as if I was on the brink of an adventure into the unknown: that in handing my life over to a vast and benevolent power, anything was possible. It was a huge relief to let go of little me and my little wants and needs and focus on something greater.

  My intentions remained clear and sincere, but after a few months that particular ashram really started to get to me. The housefather and housemother were always at each others’ throats, bickering and shouting. And if they weren’t wrapped up in each other they were wrapped up in their own importance, flinging out instructions to the other members of the household with no awareness of anyone as an individual, let alone any kindness. Maharaji’s teaching did tend to be that if you found the love inside then everything else would just come naturally, but with these two it definitely didn’t, and living in the same house as them was becoming unbearable. There was a festival coming up in Wembley, and London was buzzing with preparations, so one week I pocketed my wages and jumped on a train.

  I thought it would be easy to join one of the London ashrams, but my escape was viewed as a serious breach of trust, and it took me several more months to find my way back in. I had to start back at the beginning, attending meetings for people who wanted to join the ashram, listening to mahatmas tell me what an honour it was to have the opportunity to dedicate my life, how it required complete and utter commitment and was not something to be taken lightly.

  Finally I found myself ensconced in a big, dark house in Burlington Gardens, Chiswick with a bunch of girls, and a seven year stretch of renunciate life began. So far as my family were concerned, I had disappeared: I didn’t even go back for Christmas. Now my life really was just satsang, service and meditation, and it suited me fine. My inner world had always felt more real and reliable than the outside, even if sometimes I was sad, and going even deeper into that quietness was a natural thing for me to do.

  Maharaji was by now beginning to make mahatmas out of Western premies, and calling them ‘initiators’ – later to be changed to ‘instructors’. One of my strongest memories from Burlington Gardens is a time when one of these people came to talk to us about the possibility of taking this ultimate step in dedication. An initiator had absolutely no personal life; they moved from one town to another, or to different countries, giving satsang and revealing Knowledge. I remember listening solemnly, wondering if one day I would take this enormous step in devotion, awestruck by the mystery of it all, tempted by the sense of liberation and the possibility of coming even closer to the source of all love.

  From this time on, location and occupation become a bit of a blur... I was ‘in the ashram’, so where I went and what I did was irrelevant, the only important thing being that I was in meditation and my life was dedicated to Guru Maharaji. I know that after several months in Chiswick we moved to Hammersmith, Wembley for a short time and then somewhere else in London, after which I was sent up to Newcastle, t
hen Edinburgh, Manchester, and finally back down to Leigham Court Road, Streatham.

  In London I did a lot of temping in offices and the odd catering establishment, in Newcastle I worked in an office close to the river Tyne and then found a job as occupational therapist for ex-psychiatric patients, in Edinburgh I sold tickets and souvenirs at the castle, in Manchester I attempted to sell life insurance, and by the time I was back in London it had been decided that I was probably best placed in the kitchen, where with one or two others I cooked every day for the 25 residents plus guests.

  Ashram means ‘shelter,’ and it worked well for me as a haven from the big, bad world. As with meditation, different people used this structure in different ways according to their needs. Some people concentrated much more on service, and some felt that the only important thing was to get as close as they could to Maharaji himself; for some the emphasis was on spreading the word, whereas others liked to get into positions of authority where they could wield some power. Years later I heard of people who were completely flaunting the system and had love affairs and shady financial deals going on secretly behind the scenes, but at the time I was completely unaware of this. My priority was to feel safe and protected in a place where I could slowly find my heart, my voice and my confidence.

  The fact that we all had the same focus and intention and that people were generally willing to do what they were told meant that things ran pretty smoothly, with each day structured in a similar way until it came to a big event, when we would all turn our energies in that direction.