by Andrea Kitt
First thing in the morning we would gather in the satsang room to sing ‘arti’, a traditional Indian song of many verses, praising the Master. A silver tray was covered in petals, and in the middle of this a small cone of cotton-wool soaked in clarified butter was set alight. We would take it in turns to swing the tray in front of the altar as we sang, offering our little light to the great light of God. The flame rose and fell, and our voices rose like angels. Now that my love for Maharaji was growing I began to put my heart into the words, exercising those heart muscles that had lain dormant for as long as I could remember.
There followed an hour or so of meditation, sitting cross-legged on a cushion wrapped in a blanket. Again, because we were all concentrating on the same thing there was a peaceful, harmonious atmosphere; and the fact that I didn’t want to be seen to wriggle too much helped me sit extra still. There were fresh flowers on the altar; a candle glowed beneath Maharaji’s picture and he gazed out at us benevolently. The satsang room in particular was kept spotlessly clean, and decorated simply but beautifully with pictures, cloths and flowers.
During the day, either we went out to work or we were given tasks in the house or the office, then every evening there was satsang, either at home or in a local hall, and after that meditation and sleep.
14
Hindu Festivals
I am amazed, looking back, at just how many foreign festivals I went to – let alone those in this country. Florida, Rome and Marbella I went to several times, then there was Dortmund, Essen, Munich, Geneva... and I know my travelling was quite modest compared to some. I rarely saw much of the places themselves, but entered into a world of premies, sometimes sleeping on-site or sometimes taking over large hotels, our schedule dictated by the times that Maharaji was available to come and be with us.
With each festival my confidence grew. Because I became so joyful and so much more in touch with my natural self whilst in this large group of people, I inevitably sometimes shared my joy with strangers, and found that no harm came to me. It used to be that I was only comfortable talking to one person at a time, then slowly this expanded to two and then three or four, until I amazed myself by being able to address a small group – not just in the formal situation of satsang but in social conversation. This was partly due to the practice I had in nightly meetings, and the occasional chance to get up and speak in a larger more public venue, but I do also remember festivals being milestones. It was a bit like being brought up all over again, this time in a large family with a loving parent who supplied the right balance of structure, opportunity and reassurance.
There was one occasion in particular that gave a huge boost to my confidence. A benefit of being in the ashram was that from time to time Maharaji held ‘ashram meetings’, which were a wonderful opportunity to see him in a much more intimate setting. One of these took place at a Holi festival in Rome, the meeting being held in an upstairs room of the indoor amphitheatre that had been hired for the duration. I stumbled forward bravely between people sitting on chairs and others on the floor, and managed to find somewhere reasonably close to the front. We all listened to him speak for twenty minutes or so, then he asked if anyone had any questions, and I decided to take the plunge. I said something like, “Maharaji, I really want to surrender to you but then all this stuff comes up and stops me surrendering...” A moment before he had been larking about, teasing someone who had asked a rather odd question; now he swiftly changed direction, looked straight at me and gave me a long, serious answer. The gist of it was that I must let go – of all my little stories, my sense of ‘me’ – give it all up and become a part of the love and grace of God, in which there was no conflict or suffering.
That night when he came on stage in the big hall I had an unusual feeling in my body and mind, and after mulling it over for a few minutes I realized what it was: for once, I felt no fear. I was free; I felt normal. When he had finished speaking there was a great surge of sound and I cried out loudly and wholeheartedly with all the other premies: “Bhole Shri Satguru Dev Maharaj Ki Jai!” again and again, which means all praise to the Perfect Master. Then we sang to him: “The Lord of the Universe has come to us this day...”
It’s a fantastic feeling, thinking you’ve found the Lord of the Universe – not just in spirit but in person – and that he is going to save you from yourself and save the world from evil and destruction. I have every sympathy with religious people; it’s so wonderful to believe. The only trouble is that religion, by its very nature, separates us from each other... unless we are prepared to accept that there are many masters, and even then... Why do we need a master? A guide perhaps, but it is rare to find someone in that position who doesn’t fall prey to some extent to the temptations of power, and of course when reams of people are looking for someone to look up to, then the two fit together like hand and glove. How I see it now is that this was a part of my adolescence, and that it was particularly fervent because I was still seeking some good parenting.
Similarly, established religions have their part to play but are only a stage in mankind’s evolution. A more evolved human being is respectful, even in awe, of God or spirit or nature or life or whatever he or she calls it, but rather than projecting all this wonderfulness onto one person and treating them as a deity, tends to feel, to quote a well-balanced friend of mine many years later, “Well, I suppose he’s as much the Lord of the Universe as anyone else!”
The most glorious and memorable festival of all was ‘Hans Jayanti’ in Kissimmee, Florida. Once a year we gathered to celebrate the birthday of Maharaji’s father, Shri Hans, and on this occasion the huge, outdoor location was attended by over ten thousand premies. Here the ashram meeting was out under the hot tropical sun. Again I glimpsed something amazing, awe-inspiring, deeply healing. For once in my life I felt I was in the right place at the right time. There was nowhere else I wanted to be: I would have been content to sit there for ever. There was God, and here I was sitting at his feet. I had arrived; all was well.
The days melted into each other, warm dawn followed by hot day and balmy night; pottering around the site, eating lunch in the food tent or buying cookies from the stalls, listening to hours of satsang from mahatmas on the big stage, then Maharaji each evening; singing songs, going back to wherever I was sleeping, meditating, then starting all over again.
Of course I remember the highlights, but I also remember the reason these meant so much to me was that I was still fundamentally lost and depressed. I lived from one festival to the next, the longing I had developed early in life now all focused on Maharaji. When I gave satsang, I often still wept for a few minutes to start with, trying to break down the wall that I was so used to living behind and express something more real. I found big festivals challenging because there were fewer opportunities to share my feelings in this formal way, and without being able to give satsang I could easily get all bottled-up inside myself again. But slowly I was finding more ways to escape from my lonely tower.
On the last day Maharaji was due to make a tour of the entire grounds so we could all get the chance to be close to him for a few moments. As I walked through the orange grove, the whole scene felt biblical. There was a timelessness, a feeling of inevitability, of destiny. I found a place close to the track that circled the perimeter and waited. Everyone was silent; then I noticed premies further along scattering flowers, bowing down, touching their heads to the dry earth; and slowly, slowly he approached, sitting high up on a flowered throne on a vehicle bedecked with flowers. He was wearing his Krishna costume: a magnificent golden crown and golden trousers, with festoons of red and gold flowers around his neck and chest. He looked at me; he smiled. My world was complete.
I can’t explain this magic. There were no doubt many reasons that I experienced what I did, such as that I so very much wanted to, and that there was something missing in my life; but as well as all these there was something mystical, something beyond my understanding, and I don’t want to be a traitor to myself by d
enying that. In everything that happened for the rest of my life, inside and out, there was never anything quite like those experiences of darshan. In time I became more grounded, shared a lot more human love and felt fulfilled in a lot of ways, but still in my heart I treasure the wisdom that these moments gave me: the glimpse of something greater, and of something within myself that bowed down before it with such sweet humility and love.
Another time in Miami I can remember returning to the premie house where I was staying, having seen Maharaji that afternoon. I came in, lay in the hammock in the living-room and attached my walk-man to my ears, listening to devotional songs. As I closed my eyes and breathed in I felt the life energy pour into me, then pause for a moment; then a delicious gush of love flowed from my heart. I lay like this for about ten minutes, breathing in and out, and slowly became aware of a hilarity welling up inside of me... until all of a sudden my physical boundaries melted away: I was huge, and yet minuscule at the same time. I was a part of everything and everything was a part of me. I smiled and breathed and smiled, aware at last that there is no separation: that guru and devotee, mother and child, you and me, are all games we play; that in reality we are all one.
15
The Stalker
Something happened to me in Newcastle ashram that I must tell you about, for its repercussions carried on for the next ten years. I was busy in the kitchen one day when there was a ring on the doorbell and a young Irishman stood there with all his luggage, telling me he had come up from London to join us in the house. I knew nothing about this but had no reason to doubt it, so I invited him in, sat him down in the kitchen and gave him a cup of tea, trying to be as kind and welcoming as I could.
He was very direct and was soon asking me about my experiences with Knowledge, so I shone my light a little in his direction, describing the peace I felt inside and the love I felt for Maharaji. We were encouraged to give satsang as often as we could, and this seemed like an ideal opportunity. Presently Mid, now acting as housefather in this far-flung establishment, came home; Paddy, the newcomer, was directed upstairs where he unpacked his things and settled in the boy’s room.
Over the next few days Paddy kept asking for my company: he would send messages downstairs for me to come up and talk to him in his bedroom, or knock on the door of my room and ask to come in. At first I was flattered: I was often too shy to talk to people, and being asked questions gave me an opportunity to express myself. But the fact that he was asking me and nobody else began to feel uncomfortable.
Then he started sitting behind me in the meditation room. Every time I was there, he was there. I became afraid to go in by myself. I didn’t know what to say to him. He wasn’t exactly doing anything wrong, but his attentions were starting to feel peculiar. And then he began to follow me to work.
By this time I had found a job in a Day Centre a short bus ride away, where me and three others were responsible for the entertainment of a group of elderly ex-psychiatric patients. We made a good team; I enjoyed sharing my creativity with these people, and was fascinated by their different personalities. I particularly remember a woman called Alice who really did live in Wonderland, regularly looking up from what we were doing with wide-eyed enthusiasm towards the door as she imagined her long-lost husband coming to greet her. We made collages and baskets, did knitting and sewing, and sometimes had a sing-song and a knees-up with an old fellow at the piano.
Paddy followed me to the bus stop in the morning, and was there waiting for me when I got off the bus at night. Sometimes he would come in while I was working and leave odd offerings at reception, such as 3 wilting daffodils or a dyslexic note asking me to meet him later. I carried on being ‘nice’ for as long as I could, then I made a few brave attempts at being assertive, telling him I didn’t want him following me, trying to persuade him he wasn’t doing himself any favours because he was beginning to annoy me, that his constant attentions were actually unkind.
He was a tough little man with dark hair and dark eyes in a face that had a strange way of distorting, reminiscent of a face in a horror film in which a character who has seemed benign suddenly turns into something evil. It was more subtle than that, and at the time I only got a glimpse of it, but it frightened me. Though his eyes looked at me intensely, it seemed they didn’t see me at all. And certainly he was utterly immune to my appeals. I began to dread his Northern Irish lilt. I even shouted at him a few times as we stood at the bus stop, which was quite a breakthrough for my spiritual, peace-loving self. But he stood there like one of the goblins from my childhood nightmares, grinning inanely, refusing to budge.
Eventually Mid got him to pack his bags and put him on a plane back to Ireland, and of course I thought that was the end of it all, but as you shall see he turned up like a bad penny years later, and then again, and again. I paid a high price for my naivete, and certainly learned in the end to be more discriminating about who I chose to share the treasures in my heart.
So I did my little tour of the country, which lasted a couple of years, then came back down to live in a large old house in Streatham. I think Sandra had quite a strong say in bringing me back to London, and deciding what I should do. Sandra had a strong say in everything. A lot of people found her overwhelming and bossy, but I found that some people like that – provided they didn’t remind me too much of my mother – were stimulating to have around, their vibrancy contrasting nicely with my more tranquil nature. I knew Sandra from the London ashrams I had lived in before, and had formed a bond with her around festivals. I wouldn’t say we were exactly friends, because ashram premies didn’t have friends as such, but we were allies with a common aim, and in this respect I found her extremely useful.
As mentioned before, I had discovered that the closer I was to Maharaji when he was speaking, the deeper my experience; and Sandra was a hustler. Bright beady eyes, nicely styled red-brown hair and smart clothes, she had spent many years in America and had interesting tales to tell from the Haight Ashbury days. She was alert and dynamic and forward-thrusting, and knew which strings to pull and how to be brazen and defiant. Trotting along in her wake, and using a bit of my own guile into the bargain, I got into some juicy positions, and loved it. It wasn’t just Sandra and I, there were often up to half a dozen desperados in the front-seat brigade, all women apart from one.
The first tactic was to turn up at the door before everyone else, then unless we had managed to reserve seats beforehand, to walk boldly down to the front as if we had, and more often than not there were a few spare ones we could occupy. We never went as far as to push someone else out of the way, but we did have rather the air of the handbag brigade. It might sound terribly selfish – perhaps it was – but I was desperate. It was unimaginably important to me to be close to Maharaji, and with so many followers the opportunities were few and far between. For years afterwards I would have dreams about getting to the front of a hall – sometimes thwarted, sometimes fulfilled – and the good dreams would give me the peace and reassurance that I craved.
So Sandra pulled a few strings and got me living in Leigham Court Road, Streatham as live-in housemother. It was a big place to look after so there were one or two others who didn’t go out to work, and apart from some cleaning my main job was to cook. For this there were always two of us, and we soon learned that in order to maintain harmony one person had to be in charge while the other one did as they were told, so we took it in turns to plan the menu. Sometimes my assistant would be an ‘aspirant’ – someone who had not yet received Knowledge; often I cooked with Gisela, a sturdy German girl who specialized in wonderful puddings: apples baked in apple-shaped pastry with spicy filling and beautiful pastry leaves on top, hazelnut galette made with melted chocolate and cream...
Sandra made sure we had a generous budget, and we would scour the international deli’s on Streatham High Street for interesting cheeses, spices, vegetables and fruits. Sometimes we went as far as Covent Garden, where as well as picking up fruit and veg in bulk we would b
uy armfuls of cut flowers to be arranged in big bowls and vases with ‘oasis’ and displayed in the satsang room, around the house, in the bedroom of a visiting mahatma, or at public programs.
I was still suffering from food guilt. Before this time I had never dared eat pasta for fear that the evil whiteness of it would bung me up. A large tray of cheesy lasagne finally tempted me, and I found to my surprise that it tasted very nice and didn’t appear to do me any harm. It was good for me to be surrounded by food every afternoon. After various inner arguments I began to relax a little more and allow myself to eat biscuits when I wanted to, then tried linseeds and psyllium husks to relieve my constipation; but living amongst so many people, it never got too intense.
The reason for my bowel problems was definitely nothing to do with my diet, but because of a deep-rooted depression and fear. Often it was not until I had sat and breathed for an hour in the morning and begun to feel my inner vitality that I would feel my innards loosening up, and even then I could sometimes go for days before it was released. I became obsessive about my morning cup of tea, so that even when I went away to a festival I would take teabags and powdered milk, and once a little camping gas stove, which got confiscated on the plane. If I could find no way to make tea then I would go to endless lengths to find a cup of coffee, terrified of prolonging the horrible bloated, toxic feeling that came from my inner deadness.
Paddy turned up once at Leigham Court Road. I think he just happened to see me on a rare occasion when I was out in the middle of the city, and of course once he knew I was in London it was easy for him to find out where I lived, through the premie grapevine. But there were plenty of people in the ashram to send him packing, and on this occasion he didn’t come back.
Finally my heart began to feel so full that my eyes began to stray. It’s all very well focusing all your love and devotion on a guru, but it can be frustrating. The time had come to share it with somebody I could talk to and see and touch, and there was a man living in the house whom I found very attractive. I didn’t have too much trouble with my conscience. Although I had dedicated my life, I knew that it had to be genuine, and had enough faith in myself to believe that I was ready for a relationship and that I could love a human being and still be devoted to Maharaji.