The Burn Zone

by Renee Linnell

  And then the Teacher starts showing you your ego, the ways you need to change. Slowly but surely, she points out all your flaws.

  “Only a true Teacher will be this honest,” the guru says.

  The flaws get pointed out one by one. The self-doubt starts to set in. Next comes “the occult” or some sort of dark force, maybe “the devil.” Anytime your intuition tells you to run, to get away from the Teacher, to get away from the group, you’re told it is occult forces trying to knock you off the path, or it’s the devil trying to make you fall. You start to see everyone outside the group as the enemy. Friends and family become the enemy. You believe “they want to knock you off the path,” “they don’t understand,” or “they are trying to steal your energy.” By this point, your entire foundation is gone, your entire sense of self is gone, your intuition is gone, your life is gone. And you cling desperately to the only thing you now trust: your guru.

  Chapter 20 Outcast

  When Vishnu fired me, my whole world came undone. I was suddenly on my own again, and my clarity that I had done the right thing faded quickly. I began to doubt myself again, wishing I had kept my mouth shut, believing my huge ego had knocked me backward. To make things worse, Lakshmi convinced the women in the sangha that I was a witch, a sorceress, and that I was energetically manipulating all of them. They shunned me.

  According to her, I was responsible for everything going wrong in everybody else’s life. Lisa, my best girlfriend in the sangha, looked at me with contempt and fear. Dayna, Lisa’s sister, accused me of “showing up in her attention” every time she was having sex or meditating. I still had no idea what this meant. How does one “show up in somebody’s attention?” What the hell does that even mean? Was that something I could do? And why on earth would I want to? None of my female sangha mates would talk to me, and most of the men turned their eyes from me as I walked by. According to Vishnu, I was manipulating them, as well, making them all want to sleep with me.

  Again I had the same decision to make: let this break me or pull myself up by the bootstraps and continue on with this crazy path. I continued on. I simply refused to quit. I opened my computer and applied to job after job after job. I got no response. I needed someone to talk to. I had no idea whom to trust. I wished I hadn’t pushed all of my friends out of my life. I wished I had stayed closer with my sangha mates. I called Bruno, hoping he would still be there for me.

  “I need to talk to you,” I said, crying.

  “Come over,” he said immediately. “Let’s go for a walk in the park.”

  When I got there, as we stepped out his front door toward the park, I turned to him. “I was Vishnu’s consort.” I said.

  After a pause, Bruno replied, “I don’t know what that means.”

  “I was sleeping with Vishnu. I finally told him I couldn’t sleep with him anymore, so he fired me.”

  Bruno stopped breathing and turned bright red.

  “That man was sleeping with you?” he screamed, outraged. “I want to kill him.”

  I started to cry, and Bruno wrapped his arms around me, pulled me into his chest, and held me.

  “And,” I wailed into his arms, “Lakshmi is telling everyone I’m a witch. Lisa thinks I’m energetically fucking with her and everyone else. Lakshmi says it’s my fault that she and all the women are gaining weight.” I looked up at Bruno with tears in my eyes. “Am I a witch?” I asked him.

  “No,” he laughed. “No, Renee. You are not a witch. Or, if you are, you are a good one.”

  He laughed some more.

  “Renee,” he said, holding me to his chest, “you are the kindest, most generous, most giving person I have ever met.”

  He walked me into the park, and we sat in the grass.

  “I hate Vishnu for sleeping with you,” he continued. “I had no idea. He is such a hypocrite. All he does is tell the security team how we are not allowed to use our power to sleep with women. What an asshole. And, if anyone is a witch, it’s Lisa. Come on, we need to move.”

  He led me further into the park, and we practiced karate until we were exhausted. Then we walked to get pizza. We laughed a lot. I felt a lot better. Bruno was in the group because it was fun for him. He got to be part of the security team, he flirted with the female students, he felt great when he meditated with Lakshmi, and he loved all the outings. He barely read the books and barely watched the movies. He sure as shit did not alter his life the way I had. To him, it was all a fun adventure. He could never understand why I took it all so seriously. Now, at least, he had a bit more understanding. I told him about my new task, about how much it scared me.

  “If anyone can pull it off, you can,” he said. “And, Renee,” he added, “if you hate all of this, just quit. It’s not the end of the world.”

  But, to me, it was.

  My job search was not working. I sent my resume everywhere, but no one called me back. I was failing at my task. I was going to screw up my karma yet again. I called a temp agency. They asked me to e-mail my resume and complete an online test of Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and Outlook for Windows on a PC. I had been using a Mac for years, and I barely knew the Microsoft Office Suite. I pulled out the PC I had purchased for my Oracle class, plugged it in, and started the test. I knew none of the answers, so I googled all of them. The test was timed. I did very poorly.

  The next day, I called another temp agency, and they asked me to come in. I wore an Armani suit. I was interviewed by a girl ten years younger than me. She asked me a ton of questions. The most awkward were “Why did you leave your last job?” and “What were they paying you?” Because I was boning my narcissist boss and nothing seemed like terrible answers, so I sidestepped the questions.

  I said, “Because I was ready for a new challenge” and “I prefer not to answer; the going rate.”

  She seemed satisfied. “I need you to take a few tests,” she said, “to see your Microsoft Office proficiency. It shouldn’t take too long.” She showed me to a small room and turned on a computer. And then she gave me the exact test I had taken the day before, the one I had googled the answers to. I have always had a great memory. I aced the test.

  She called me back into her office and said, “I have a job you may like. It just appeared. The pay is much less than what you are used to, but you can start immediately. The woman is going on pregnancy leave.” I had no idea what she thought I used to get paid, but she apparently thought I had been paid well; my expensive Armani suit had become my ally. I swelled up with pride. I had done it! I left her office with an interview the next day.

  The job was actually more like four jobs. My titles were Administrative Assistant, Fleet Manager, Training Coordinator, and Claims Manager. I worked at the corporate headquarters of a national company, assisting six senior executives, managing a fleet of three hundred vehicles, dealing with insurance claims, and coordinating the training for new hires. It was a hell of a first job. I loved it. I worked my ass off, and the people loved me. I was constantly laughing because I had no idea what I was doing, but everyone was so willing to help, usually after laughing at me first.

  I woke up each morning at 4:30 and meditated. Then I drove to the beach and surfed in the dark, with the moon setting and the sun rising. It was so cold I could see my breath as I waited for waves. I got home by 6:30, showered, ate breakfast, dressed, and got in my car by 7:30. I always arrived to work early and I used my one-hour lunch break and my two ten-minute daily breaks to study, cramming homemade meals into my mouth as I did so.

  I left work at 5:30 and drove an hour in traffic to computer school, eating my dinner in the car on the way. I got home at 10:00 each night, exhausted. I ate again, showered again, and meditated again for thirty minutes. I usually went to bed around midnight. On Saturdays, I got up at 3:00 a.m. and flew out of town to put posters up for Lakshmi’s events, returning Sunday evening. I did this for three months. I was on a mission.

  Surprisingly, after the trauma of being so close to Vishnu and Lakshmi, these thre
e months seemed like the happiest in my life. I was growing again in new ways. I had found and kept a corporate job, and in doing so, I was liberated from the fear that I would not be able to support myself if I couldn’t dance. I couldn’t thank Lakshmi enough for giving me this task, for liberating me in this way, and my infatuation with her grew stronger.

  In mid-January of 2010, my temp job ended. The woman I was replacing came back from maternity leave. I decided to go to computer school full-time. We had another Power Trip coming up in March, this time to Bhutan, and I did not want to take a job that wouldn’t allow me to go. The computer school I chose offered a certificate in computer information sciences; it took ten months to complete. I went every day from 9:00 to 5:00, and I loved it.

  Meanwhile, Lakshmi gave us a task to break off into groups and start companies. By this time, Lisa was talking to me again, although she kept her distance and always looked at me as if I was going to pull out a wand and turn her into a frog. I formed a group with her, Paul, Matt, and another sangha mate named Leslie. We named our company Lighten Up! Enterprises and decided to build iPhone apps that made people smile. I designed them, and Paul wrote the code.

  Working with the others was not easy. Lisa had grown increasingly pessimistic. She was also depressed and fat. In fact, most of the other women in the sangha continued to grow rapidly in size. More and more, they resembled the senior students in the group, the ones we first met in Egypt: fat, grumpy, mean, lethargic, and depressed. They dressed like Lakshmi had suggested, in large pants and tunics that looked like sacks.

  Lakshmi insisted her mission was to empower women. She suggested we always wear makeup but that we keep our bodies covered. She told us to stay out of bars and off the Internet.

  “Dating,” she said, “is a tremendous waste of your energy.”

  She taught that sugar helped battle the occult, which gave everyone permission to binge on cookies. Her female students were growing larger by the minute, unhappier by the minute.

  I began to understand more why, after twenty years on the path, the senior students looked so forlorn. Everything that brought us joy in life was somehow off limits because it would drain our energy; the only things left were meditation, work, and food. Plus, as women, we weren’t allowed to be sexy or beautiful at all. Lakshmi drilled into us the idea that if men looked at us they would put lines into us and we would lose our power, and that it was our fault if they did look at us.

  The larger and bitchier the women got, the more they hated me. Lisa spoke to me when we had our company meetings, but she sat as far from me as possible and made sure to disagree with everything I said. I kept to myself. I stopped talking to the other students. The only people who did talk to me were the guys on the security team; we had grown close during our beach training, and they seemed to feel bad for me.

  By the time our Bhutan trip rolled around, I was told via e-mail to sit at the back of the meditation events, even though I was already doing this. I was given a room to myself and constantly assigned to the bus that had no Teacher on it. Neither Vishnu nor Lakshmi would look at me.

  To me, it was just as well. I was so happy to be in Bhutan and completely overjoyed to be in a room by myself. The country was magnificent: lush green forests against snow-capped, jagged mountain peaks; bright, clear rivers rushing between towns; exquisite temples, precariously perched in mountain caves thousands of feet above ground. Many of the caves were said to be created by the energy blasting off the back of the Indian tantric master Padmashambhava as he meditated for months high above the villages on mountain ledges, flooding the country with his light. I could feel his energy permeating the land.

  I spent most of my time meditating in my room or walking around in the gardens. I ate alone. I went to the events alone. I felt so close to God in those amazing mountains that nothing was going to upset me. I often chatted with the Bhutanese staff, listening cheerfully as they told me what it was like to live in Bhutan, about how they revered their king, who had abdicated the throne in order to go off into the mountains to meditate, but not before he provided free schooling and healthcare for everyone in the country and established something called gross national happiness as a way to measure the success of his country, instead of GDP.

  One day, Vishnu noticed our guide sitting with me for lunch. It was the first time someone had joined me. Afterward, at a temple, one of our drivers came up to me and spoke to me as if I were in charge of the group. He covered his mouth while talking to me and asked how long I planned to stay and when I would want the bus ready to depart. He backed away as he left.

  Vishnu noticed this, as well. He came up to me and said sternly, “It is my light flowing through you. Stop using my light to get attention. These men should not be talking to you. I do not want to see this happen again. You are blowing my light through your pussy. You need to shut it down.” He walked away.

  It was the first time he had spoken to me since our phone call seven months ago. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and asked God to please guide me. I turned around and walked to a boulder outside. I sat down and looked up at the mountains. How on earth was I doing anything with my pussy? Lakshmi and Vishnu kept coming back to that. “Blowing light through your pussy”—what the hell did that even mean? I was dressing like an old fat lady. I barely left my hotel room. I had not dated or flirted for close to a year. The only way my pussy could be more shut down was if it was sewn up or removed completely.

  I breathed in the fresh air and closed my eyes. I felt at peace. I would be okay. I wasn’t sure how, but I knew I would somehow be okay. I turned my light down even lower, became that much more invisible, just as I had around my mother. If I could utterly disappear, I wouldn’t upset these people so much. Me just being me clearly enraged them. I spent even more time in my hotel room. I arrived to events at the very last minute. I spoke to no one.

  Toward the end of the trip, we had a very special meditation event. The hotel Lakshmi chose was exquisite. Halfway through the event, she explained that it had come to her attention that some of us may want to be ordained as monks. An ordained monk herself and apparently given the authority to ordain others, she stood from her chair.

  “I have decided to ordain you tonight,” she said. “You made it all the way to Bhutan. If you are in this room you are dedicated.”

  We gasped.

  “Those of you who would like to be ordained, please stand and approach the stage.”

  I stood at once. I walked to the end of my aisle, and then, when it was my turn, I approached the stage. I had wanted to be ordained since the first day I heard the term “ordained monk.” I walked to the front of the room and bowed low in front Lakshmi. She dipped her head slightly to acknowledge my bow. I raised my face toward her. I couldn’t help myself; I loved this woman with all my heart. Even with all the wicked things she had said to me and about me, I still loved her. I believed she was my Teacher and that she was helping to liberate me. I believed her when she said I misused my energy. I was going to learn how to control it, no matter what it took to do so. I believed that she was sanding down my ego.

  With her finger, she dabbed a drop of oil on the space between and slightly above my eyebrows, my third eye. She chanted something I could not hear. As she touched me, I felt my entire world change, as if I had just been blasted into a different realm. I bowed low before her, backed away from her, and then sat back down in my seat, trembling. I was crying and shaking. I had just instantly and radically changed my future.

  Twenty-two years after starting my spiritual journey, I had just taken the step that, in my mind, dedicated my entire life to God, to Enlightenment, to upholding Truth. My life had now officially become an offering to the Divine.

  I will do whatever it takes, I thought. I do not need to surf anymore. I do not need to dance or travel. I do not need my family or a man. I do not need to date. I will be celibate. I can be celibate. Unless I find a similar Being, someone else walking a spiritual path and dedicated to Enl
ightenment, I will be celibate. My life can be work and meditation and karate.

  I wanted so badly to be like the saints I had read about, to spread peace and light and love. By the end of this trip, I was sure I wanted to spend the rest of my life alone and in the service of God.

  I had sold my little house and bought a larger house that I was remodeling. I was building my dream home, and without even realizing it, I had been remodeling it to resemble an ashram. In the back of my mind, I was building it as an offering to my Teachers, imagining that they may some day forgive me and want to live there with me. I designed the living room to be a dojo for Vishnu. I had a heavy punching bag in a closet that rolled out into the middle of the room on a track. I designed the master bedroom with Lakshmi in mind. I built her a steam shower, with a huge bathtub. I built her a meditation nook. I figured I could live in the guest bedroom at the back of the house.

  I took my ordination seriously and truly considered myself a monk. In further self-denial, I forced myself to believe I was changed, radically this time. I was now utterly dedicated to God and solitude. I wished I could start over in life. I wanted to erase everything. The saddest part is, I wanted to erase myself. I was so sure I was all wrong the way I was.

  I imagined being left behind in Bhutan, to meditate in a cave for the rest of my life. Or being dropped off in Asia, nameless, with no documents and no one who knew me. That is the only way I could see me not being me anymore—not being so flawed, with so much darkness, so . . . human. I returned to California. I rewrote my will, leaving the house and seventy percent of my inheritance to Vishnu and Lakshmi.