The Burn Zone

by Renee Linnell

  I wore a sexy brown backless dress with beautiful bronze strappy high heels. He wore dark jeans with a pale blue long-sleeve dress shirt and a sport coat. He looked handsome. He appeared nervous. He ordered a bottle of Dom Perignon. Halfway through dinner, he asked me if I noticed anything different about him.

  I did not.

  He wiggled his left hand a bit.

  I still didn’t know what he was asking about. He wiggled his hand again. Then I noticed his ring. It was the dragon ring, designed by Shiva. It was beautiful. It used to be silver; now it was gold. Lakshmi wore a gold one. Shiva wore a gold one. Shiva’s consorts each wore a gold one. And now Vishnu had a gold one. He explained the fact that his ring was now gold meant he was close to Enlightenment.

  I wanted one. Silver or gold, I did not care.

  Then he looked at me and said, “Renee, you are magnificent. I love you. I’m in love with you.”

  Before I could respond, he raised his glass of champagne and said, “To us.”

  I sat across from him and decided he truly was very handsome, incredibly sexy. I decided he was a good man, an honest, hard-working man and that he would take good care of me. Everyone in the sangha looked up to him. The military guys practically worshipped him. The female students swooned over him. And Lakshmi clearly saw him as incredibly powerful and evolved. Any issues I was having with Vishnu must be problems with my own ego, I decided. If I ever wanted to change, if I ever wanted to take my life to the next level, this was my chance.

  I’m going for it, I thought to myself, no turning back. I suddenly began enjoying the evening and looked forward to the rest of our night.

  We went back to his house after dinner. He poured more champagne, and then we went down to his bedroom. It was the first time I had ever been down there. He was right: He had a bed, queen-size, no headboard, in the middle of what would be an otherwise empty room except for a dresser, in the basement level of the house. The bedspread was dark blue and some type of cotton/polyester mix. Not very inviting, but not the concrete bunker I had imagined. He put on classical music.

  I asked if we could change it. If I was really going to do this, I needed something unromantic. I was going to have to jump over my own walls, and the only way I knew how was to resort to the behavior I had learned in Hawaii: remove my mind and heart from the situation at hand. I asked him to play some techno. It was loud and took my mind off what was happening.

  Sex with Vishnu was the same as the kissing: detached, rough, and sloppy. It was the kind of sex that is meant to be hot and heavy but is obviously just forced acting, purely physical, with no true emotional connection at all—none of the feeling of loving the other person so much you simply want to get as close as your two physical bodies will allow. There was just a strange, distant, insecure separateness, along with animal-like or porno-like grunting from him, and it was over. He didn’t use a condom and ejaculated inside of me. I had not expected that. This was the first time a man had ever ejaculated inside of me without a condom; it would be dripping out of me all night long.

  He fell asleep immediately. While he snored, I looked up at the ceiling feeling used, alone, afraid, violated, and disgusted.

  I wanted to love him. I wanted to be insanely attracted to him, but I simply wasn’t. When he was dressed up, on stage, protecting Lakshmi, I did love him; I was insanely attracted to him. But when he was with me, in moments like this, I was repulsed. I tossed and turned all night and thought about sneaking out while he was asleep.

  I woke up the next morning exhausted and drained. He was filled with life and energy. We had sex again before we got out of bed. It wasn’t any better. I went home and cried. And then I took a nap. And then I reminded myself that I was “The Chosen Child,” that I had yearned for a Vishnu of my own, and that I had gotten what I prayed for. I decided to embrace it. I decided to focus on the positive. I decided I would find a way to love and be attracted to Vishnu even if it killed me—exactly what I had done at dinner the previous night, exactly what I had done after Valentine’s Day, exactly what I needed to do in order to keep walking this crazy path to Enlightenment.

  As time passed, I became more comfortable around Vishnu, more confrontational. I told him that if he truly loved me, he had to treat me better. He tried. He would have dozens of long-stem white roses delivered to my home, usually after we had an argument of some sort. He told me he loved me, but he also insisted I do all of his errands, buy all of his groceries, cook his meals, clean his house, and lug his briefcase like a Sherpa. Maybe this was all very sexy to him, but it sure as shit was not sexy to me. I hated it.

  Well, I loved the attention. I loved being part of the Lakshmi and Vishnu team. I loved my elite status. But I hated being treated like a servant and a concubine. And I hated the way he kissed and touched me. I simply could not get used to it; I could not understand how a man his age could be so lacking in this particular skill set. And I could not understand how a man would think it was okay to have his girlfriend be his servant. It just made no sense.

  My intuition told me to run, but I heard Lakshmi’s voice saying, “This path is incredibly hard. You will want to quit. Only if you are doing this for others will you stick it out. Only if you are doing this for others will you do what it takes to change.”

  I was doing this for others. So I convinced myself my task was to take care of Vishnu. I convinced myself that this was my selfless service, an extreme way for me to “sand down my ego.” I had been reading about Sri Ramakrishna cleaning the latrines with his long hair in order to sand down his ego. If he could do that in India, I could certainly do this.

  And so I stayed.

  And then Vishnu became our Spiritual Teacher.

  By this time I was practically living with him. He told me the week of the event that Lakshmi would not be flying in to teach, that he would do it instead. I helped him prepare. Suddenly, he was taking Lakshmi’s place, and I was taking his. I cooked him dinner before the event, then I rode with him to it. I was escorted by the security team the way he and Lakshmi would have been. I sat with him in the green room, and when he entered the ballroom, I walked behind him, dressed in a gorgeous suit with my hair slicked back in a low ponytail, carrying his briefcase, struggling in high heels to keep up with him.

  When everyone stood up as we entered, they stood up for us. I sat in a designated chair in the front row. When he ended the first half for break, I followed him out of the room. We repeated the same entrance and exit the second half of the night. My status had been immediately elevated in the eyes of the other students. Suddenly, it was very clear to the rest of the sangha that I was a part of the inner circle. The volunteers had probably suspected it, but up until now it had been mostly hidden.

  Vishnu was a disaster on stage. He was nervous and awkward. He shook his leg and clicked a pen for the entire three-hour seminar. He constantly moved and fidgeted, in ways that created weird shadows on his face, making him look distorted and grotesque. The event was a shit show. And, to top it off, at the end of the second night, he demanded that everyone stand up and bow to him—low, Japanese style, the way you would bow to a Japanese emperor. I was appalled. Lakshmi had never asked us to stand and bow. We did so because we adored her, and when we bowed to her, it was a slight tip of the head over hands pressed together in namaste. It was never a full-torso bow. It was never subservient.

  When Vishnu and I got back to his house that night, I couldn’t look at him. I made myself busy cleaning up his kitchen, until I simply couldn’t hold it in.

  “Lakshmi would never make people bow to her.” I blurted out. “Lakshmi would never end an event the way you did.”

  He replied, “Well, it felt right to me. We’re both tired; maybe you should go home.”

  Lakshmi called me the next day to ask about the event. I told her we all missed her terribly. I also told her about Vishnu demanding we bow to him. She went quiet. Then she sighed and said with sadness in her voice, “I was a bit worried about that.” And
then she quickly changed the subject.

  The next month, Vishnu taught again. This time, he insisted that everyone bring a notebook and write down every word he said. The man never stopped talking. Ever. He told me that when he talked, he was getting a “download” from God. He called his ramblings “Master Teachings.” The students pulled out notebooks. We wrote down what he said.

  Many of the students were upset. They asked when Lakshmi would return. He got annoyed and said he couldn’t answer that. Many of the senior students quit; those who had looked the most forlorn on the Egypt trip left first.

  “We didn’t sign up for this,” they said. “We signed up to be taught by Lakshmi.”

  But, where was Lakshmi? Nobody knew. It looked like Vishnu was now going to be our regular Spiritual Teacher. And our sensei. This meant we were his captive audience at least four days a month.

  It also meant he was harder on me. Now he was “more exhausted” and had “more pressure” on him. He needed me to cook for him and wait on him more often. He suffered more “occult attacks,” so he was nasty more often. I felt as if I was dating a five-year-old. His moods were mercurial, his temper tantrums rampant.

  We had another Power Trip coming up, to Australia, and everyone hoped Lakshmi would be there. I had no idea where she was, but I was so busy planning and organizing the trip and struggling through my feelings about Vishnu that I had little time to focus on her. I assumed she was meditating her way toward becoming a Mahasiddha (an even higher level of Enlightenment) and that we would see her again once she had reached the next level.

  A few days before the trip, Vishnu called to tell me he wanted me to fly with him instead of with the rest of the sangha, to help him set up. He booked us both first class tickets and spent much of the flight sitting cross-legged with his hands placed on his knees and his eyes closed, meditating with a ludicrous grin on his face. He kept the dome light on overhead, illuminating himself. The flight attendants must have thought he was crazy. I was embarrassed and shrugged each time they gave me a WTF? look.

  We had been in Sydney less than 24 hours when I discovered that Lakshmi did not know I was there with him. When she’d call, he would motion for me to leave the room. As I walked away, I overheard him speaking to her coldly. He was mean and authoritative. He spoke to her as if he was the Spiritual Teacher and she was his student.

  The afternoon of our second day we were sitting outside at a café by the water, halfway through our meal, when he went quiet and then started to cry. He told me Lakshmi was possessed, that she was not really Enlightened. He told me he was probably going to have to “go on without her.”

  I had no idea what any of this meant, but I did know that she had taught me to meditate. She had taught me that God was within all of us, and if we just got still enough, we could feel Him/Her. She had taught me that Enlightenment was real, and she had dedicated her life to finding students like me and showing us The Way. There was no way I was going to leave her behind to be possessed by herself, whatever the hell that meant.

  “Can’t I stay behind with her?” I asked. I didn’t even know what “stay behind” meant, but if it meant me living with her and helping her by cooking and buying groceries, and running errands, well, I was basically doing that already for him, so why not move in with her to do it?

  He began to cry again. “I’ll stay with her, too. We won’t abandon her.” He grabbed my hand. “I’m so relieved to hear your reaction. Shiva had told me I might have to leave her and become the Big Dog, but now I realize that Shiva was wrong.”

  What the fuck was this man talking about?

  He shifted his mood to manic and ordered champagne to celebrate. I drank until I was drunk. I hated this man. I could not wait to see Lakshmi. I prayed she would appear when our event began.

  The next day, Vishnu flew to the Outback just before the rest of the sangha arrived in Sydney. We would meet him there the following day. Lisa, by now one of my closest sangha mates, and I were roommates and once she arrived and Vishnu left, it felt so good to be a “normal” student again. I could let my guard down. I did not have to be perfect. I spent the day and evening with all of them, walking around the harbor, going out to dinner.

  But as I watched all the other students and heard them speak of Vishnu and Lakshmi with such reverence, my thoughts and feelings shifted. I was excited that I had a special little secret. I was Vishnu’s consort. It made me see him through their eyes and it flooded me with love for him. As I spent the whole day with my sangha, I noticed how much I had grown apart from them, how much more comfortable I felt with Vishnu. When he called me that night I told him I missed him so much it hurt. I told him I was falling in love with him. And I meant it.

  Chapter 14 Consort

  The flight to the Outback was early; Lisa and I both fell asleep on the plane. When we landed, Vishnu was in the airport waiting to welcome all of us. He flushed red when he saw me. I wanted to run up to him and throw myself into his arms, but instead, I smiled and approached him the way a regular student would, with distance and respect. When we got to the hotel, Vishnu called a meeting in the event room with the volunteers. We sat in chairs facing him, listening as he went over the details of our week there.

  I sat next to Seth, who had become one of my favorite people in the sangha; I adored his girlfriend, Tiffany, as well. At one point, Seth said something funny, and I turned to him and smiled. I even reached out and touched his arm. He was always cracking us up and I greatly appreciated his humor.

  Soon, we were dismissed and went to our rooms. Vishnu was talking to the security team, so I smiled at him and walked out with the others. I figured I would get alone time with him later.

  As I entered my room, the phone rang. It was Vishnu. He started screaming at me. He said Seth was in love with me and that I was encouraging it. “You need to stop blowing your pussy all over the place,” he yelled through the phone. “Shut it down right now!” He hung up.

  I slid to the floor and began sobbing. “Blowing my pussy all over the place?” What did that mean? I couldn’t understand what had just happened. Seth was not in love with me; he was in love with his girlfriend, who was on the trip with him.

  Lisa walked in just as I hit the floor. “Honey!” she exclaimed. “What’s wrong?” She ran to me and sat by my side. In between sobs, I told her everything—that I was Vishnu’s consort and it was a huge secret and no one could know and that he had just accused me of making Seth fall in love with me. I told her about the vulgar language. I told her I didn’t understand what I was doing that was so wrong.

  Her face turned red. She hugged me and held me and said, “There is a lot of energy here. He is probably very stressed. Don’t take it personally.” Then she smiled and said, “You’re Vishnu’s consort. That’s really, really cool. Renee, that’s a huge honor. You should be proud of yourself; not many people could handle that much energy.”

  She gave me chocolate and made me instant coffee from our mini bar and made me laugh. She reminded me that this path was supposed to push us to our breaking points, so that we could be Free. “This is all part of The Path,” she said with a sparkle in her eyes. I felt a lot better.

  The phone rang again.

  We both stared at it and then looked at each other.

  “I guess I should get it,” I said. It was Vishnu. He told me to go up to his hotel room. I didn’t want to see him, but I went. That’s what consorts do.

  Vishnu opened the door and let me in. The sight of him made me sick. We sat on the back of his sofa, and he asked if I had fallen asleep on the plane.

  I told him I had.

  “You got slimed by the occult,” he said. “You will have to be very careful. You are making mistakes. You cannot afford to make mistakes. I forgive you.” Then he grabbed me and kissed me—another rough kiss, gagging me with his tongue.

  He looked at me longingly and said, “I wish you could stay.”

  Fortunately I could not. We had an event to get ready for.
I wiped my face off and went back to my room.

  The phone rang again. It was him.

  “That kiss was so hot, so romantic,” he said. “You drive me crazy. You are magnificent. I love you. Go buy flowers and vases for the event room. I told all of the students to bring some from Sydney, but there aren’t enough.”

  We were in the middle of the Outback of Australia. I didn’t have a car. Where the hell was I supposed to buy flowers and vases? I ran around the resort in 120-degree heat looking. I actually found some and bought everything I could find. I filled the room with flowers and just barely had enough time to shower, get dressed, and arrive on time to the event.

  Lakshmi walked onto the stage, and we all gasped. We had not seen her for so long. She shined with gold light. The energy coming off her seemed even more intense. As we began the first meditation, I closed my eyes and felt myself transported to the top of Uluru. I had a vision of myself in between Vishnu and Lakshmi, holding hands on top of that massive rock, spreading gold light in waves across the Outback. I was filled with peace and love and the feeling that everything would be okay. Lakshmi was back, and it was magical. She seemed much more powerful; she must have been away meditating, just as I had imagined. All of my worries disappeared.

  Vishnu sat on stage with her, but instead of guarding her as he usually did, he sat in half-lotus on his chair, with his eyes closed and a smile on his face, his shoes placed side by side on the floor beneath him. When the event ended he walked Lakshmi out of the auditorium, but quickly returned and asked me to join him for dinner; he apologized again for his outburst, telling me he had been under occult attack. He was so sparkly, so full of light, and looked so masculine and so handsome. I was so filled up with love from the event. I agreed.

  At dinner, he held my hand under the table and even leaned over and kissed me, not worrying whether any of the other students saw us. As he walked me back to my room, he looked at me yearningly and said he wished he could spend the night with me.