The Burn Zone

by Renee Linnell

  A few weeks later, I moved into my new house, before it was finished. And then, before I had even unpacked boxes, I flew to Florida for the weekend. When I returned Sunday night, I pulled into my driveway and noticed the garage door was up. I also noticed the door from the garage into the house was open.

  I was pissed. The workmen must have left it open.

  I pulled into the garage, and then I immediately locked my car doors, reversed into the street, and called 911. First, I said, “This is a non-emergency.” Then I said, “I think my house was broken into,” and explained the situation.

  The woman told me to stay in my car with the doors locked and wait for the police to arrive. Two officers arrived. They told me to stay in the car while they walked around the side of the house. They were gone close to ten minutes. When they reappeared, the one who approached my car had a horrible look on his face.

  “Please tell me you just moved in,” he said.

  “I did.”

  “Please tell me you did not move any of your belongings in yet,” he said.

  “No,” I told him, “everything I own is in there.”

  “Was,” he said. “I’m so sorry, it’s all gone.”

  I walked inside with him. It was all gone, just like he said. It was like a scene out of How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Not only were my computer monitor and keyboard gone, but all the cables were gone. Everything in my bathroom was gone: the toilet paper and electric toothbrush, the tampons under the sink and the towels. My pillows were gone, sheets gone, bedspread gone. All of my boxes of files were gone. The wall art was gone. There was a lone empty hanger in my closet.

  And there was a big pile of shit, in the middle of the living room.

  The police wouldn’t leave me there alone. They were going to fill out a report and wait until I had company.

  I called Bruno; he didn’t answer. I called again; no answer. I called again; no answer. On my fourth try, he answered and, in a very exasperated voice, said “Renee, I’m on a date. I will call you later.”

  “No!” I cried. “Please, I need you! My house has been broken into, and everything I have is gone. The police are here. I don’t know what to do. Please come.”

  When he arrived ten minutes later, he hugged me. He talked to the police, and then he sat next to me on the curb, under a huge Torrey pine tree, as we waited for the police to finish the report.

  “This is Divine Intervention,” I said to Bruno. “I prayed for this. I wished that I could start all over. After I got ordained, I wished that everything I owned would go away.”

  He looked at me like I was crazy. “I have no idea how you are handling this so well.”

  “It’s so insane. It’s so over the top. It has to be Divine Intervention,” I said.

  “I can’t sleep here,” I blurted out next.

  “First of all,” Bruno said, “I’m cleaning up the pile of shit.” He went inside and came out a few minutes later.

  The police left, and Bruno and I walked through the house. We locked all the doors, turned on all the lights. He invited me to stay with him, but Lakshmi and Vishnu had taught us to not stay with other people so I refused. I checked into a hotel for the night instead.

  I went back home the next day and called the insurance company. I cleaned up the house; the floors were filthy. And then I took a long, hot shower. What was I going to do? While in the shower, I had a vision. It was of New York. And I suddenly thought, What if my life abruptly changed and I had to move to New York? Wouldn’t that make this all so much easier? Wouldn’t that be fun? What if I could start all over in a huge city where no one knew me? I could be anonymous. I could be free.

  Chapter 21 Karate

  “I do not want to fuck any of you, so stop trying!” Vishnu screamed at the women in his karate class. “If I see your tits or your pussy in my attention one more time, I am going to kick you out of the sangha!”

  We were all kneeling in seiza, getting ready to bow out at the end of his class, when he had suddenly started yelling. He said students were being inappropriate with their energy. And then he screamed, “Renee, you are the worst!”

  My spirit crumbled. My heart broke. I felt humiliated. From my knees, I responded “Osu, Sensei.”

  He continued, “Stop pretending like everything is fine and you are happy. You think you are so great. You think you are so evolved. You have been shoving yourself into everyone’s attention. You want everyone to want to fuck you. The only reason you have light is because of me. That is my light flowing through you. You are this close to being thrown out of the sangha!”

  I replied “Osu, Sensei.”

  I was meditating almost two hours a day and in computer school full-time. I was still remodeling my house because it had been stripped to almost nothing and had to be finished in order to comply with the building code. I was on the board of directors of a nonprofit and working at a tech start-up company and co-creating Lighten Up! Enterprises. How on earth did I have the time to shove myself into anyone’s attention?

  I sat there, kneeling on that hard wooden floor, in the dance studio I had worked in for close to ten years, my hands in fists at my waist, my back straight, my heart breaking, saying, “Osu, Sensei” over and over as he yelled at me in front of everyone. As soon as we were dismissed, I ran to my car and drove home, to my empty house with the dojo I had built for him.

  We had karate class the next night. I dreaded going, but I knew I had to. Some part of me knew I had to show up. I ironed my gi, combed and gelled my hair, and drove to the dance studio. I stood in line with the other students until we were admitted in. No one spoke to me. And then I went to the back corner of the studio and quietly started stretching on the floor, wondering how I would ever make it through the three-hour class. I bent over my outstretched legs and silently sobbed, feeling so out of place and so hated.

  Suddenly, I heard a timid voice asking, “Renee, would you help me with a kata?”

  I looked up, startled. A senior student was standing over me. She had so much kindness in her eyes.

  “Yes,” I said. “Of course.”

  I stood up and dried my eyes. We began the kata side by side. Quickly, another senior student approached.

  “May I join?” she asked.

  “Yes, of course,” I said.

  Then another and another and another asked to join. Soon, the junior female students walked over. Quietly, they joined in, as well. These women were backing me. Quietly, and in their own way, I could feel their support. I could feel them holding me up, like they were saying, We’re so sorry. We have no idea what is going on, but it is not true and it is not fair. In unison, side-by-side, as one entity, as woman supporting woman, we all performed an ancient dance of power. We bowed at the end of it. I turned to face them. They smiled at me, with love in their eyes; I smiled back with love in mine. And then Vishnu started class. It was the last karate class I ever took with them. I got thrown out of the sangha the following month.

  Part 3 Crucible

  “It is in the nature of things to be drawn to the very experiences that will spoil our innocence, transform our lives, and give us necessary complexity and depth.”

  —Thomas Moore

  Chapter 22 The Task

  It was August 17, 2010, a month after Vishnu screamed at me in karate class. I had decided I was going to love my life as a computer programmer and throw all my energy from meditation into building an exciting new career. I was almost finished with my CIS certificate and was enjoying my internship at the tech start-up. I was really proud of the apps I had designed for Lighten Up! Enterprises. I had recovered from the humiliating karate class. My sangha mates had suddenly befriended me again after that, and I was in the process of replacing the furniture and clothing that had been stolen. I was leaving Office Depot with a new laptop PC when my cell phone rang. It was a private number.

  “Hello, Renee. It’s Lakshmi,” she said.

  My heart began to pound. “Hello,” I replied. I immediatel
y pulled over into the parking lot of a Pancake House. I held my breath.

  “I have a new task for you,” she said.

  My body began to tremble. This woman, my Spiritual Teacher, my guru, had blatantly ignored me for over a year and now, all of the sudden, a phone call. Adrenaline flooded my body. I was terrified. Another task? What next?

  “You need to go get an MBA,” she stated. “Not just from any school, from a really impressive school with an accelerated program. And you need to start in January.”

  I was still holding my breath.

  She continued, “But, this is not the task . . . this is something you must do in order to start the task. The task is to start a company, any company you want, and make $10 million dollars net—profit after taxes. Once you do that, you will be able to do anything there is to do in life, including attain Enlightenment. Do you have any questions?”

  The first thing that came to mind was my sangha, all my friends in the meditation group.

  “Can I still attend the monthly meetings?” I asked.

  “No,” she responded. “In fact, you have forty-eight hours to say good-bye to all of them. You cannot contact any of them after that. This program, Renee, is too coddling for you. You need to apply these teachings in real life. You need to learn to draw from the Source. Anyone who knew you five minutes ago will hold you back.”

  “What about the company I started? Can I still be a part of it?” I asked.

  “No,” she said. “You have to leave it. You have forty-eight hours to turn it over to your partners.”

  “Can I still send you tuition?” I asked.

  “No,” she responded. “It is no longer appropriate.”

  “Can I ever be a part of the program again?” I questioned.

  “Once you have made $10 million after taxes, you may contact us again,” she replied.

  “How will I know where to find you?” I asked.

  “You’ll be able to,” she said. She made some comment about remembering who it was that had empowered me to do this task and something about sharing some of the money. Then she said, “Vishnu is also on the line. Vishnu, do you have anything to add?”

  “Hello, Renee.” He sounded defeated, dejected, as if he didn’t want to be part of a phone call that was sending me away from the group. “No, I have nothing to add.”

  Then, suddenly, he said, “You should still practice karate. You are very good at it. Find a dojo wherever you go.”

  He sounded like he was going to cry. Then, quickly, with a saccharine and poisonous “Welcome to your new life,” Lakshmi hung up the phone.

  I sat there in the parking lot, dazed. And then I started to cry. My life, as I knew it, was over.

  This wasn’t really a “task.” This was her way of throwing me out of the sangha. But I couldn’t bear to see it this way, not yet. If I was going to survive, I had to see it as a quest, as part of my path to Enlightenment. And I had to believe I would be assisted by my Enlightened lineage, that I was taken care of.

  I called Bruno and asked him if he would meet me at my house. I was crying again. He could barely understand me.

  When I got home, he was already in the driveway, sitting on the curb. I got out of my car and sat next to him. I told him about the phone call; that I was leaving. We both started to cry. “You have to leave?” he asked me. “You’re not allowed to even stay in contact with me?” he cried.

  “Yes, Bruno, I have to do what she says,” I replied. “I’m so unhappy. I have everything—everything—and I’m in hell. I can’t bear to live in these mind states any longer. I’ll do anything to transcend my ego.”

  The next day, I quit my job. I quit computer school, where I was nearly finished. I said good-bye to my few close friends in the sangha, not able to tell them anything besides “Lakshmi gave me a new task so I am going to disappear.” I wrapped up and handed over my role in Lighten Up! Enterprises. And then I listed my dream house, the one I had just moved into, the one I had imagined building my whole adult life, for sale. I booked a plane ticket to the Northeast and I left two days later.

  I started in Boston—my roots, where I was born. I visited Harvard and MIT. Next, I went to New Haven, to see Yale. I cried my guts out there, trying to meditate on the floor of my hotel room. I couldn’t imagine spending two years there with a bunch of twenty-something-year-old kids. But I was going to do it. If God wanted me there, I was going to stay. I finished crying and started to meditate. I vowed that if God had New Haven in my plan, I’d spread as much light as possible in New Haven.

  But when I finished meditating, New York was in my mind. I googled hotels in New York, and a great deal at the Four Seasons popped up. I reserved my room, then I bought a train ticket for 6:00 the following morning. I immediately felt better. I remembered my vision. I could handle New York. Suddenly, it all felt right.

  I arrived at the Four Seasons and got upgraded to a suite—no charge. It was gorgeous!

  “This is not the poverty path,” I remembered Lakshmi saying. “Everything is vibration, and the more you surround yourself with highly vibrating energy, the better you will be able to meditate.”

  I went down to the restaurant for breakfast. The hostess’ last name was Rama (a Hindu deity and an incarnation of Vishnu). Another sign. I felt so supported. My heart glowed. I was headed in the right direction. The signs were there. I ate a delicious breakfast, and I cried again, but this time tears of joy.

  “It does not have to be hard anymore,” I reminded myself. “I do not have to suffer to find God.”

  After breakfast, I took a taxi to Columbia University. The campus was in full bloom. I found the business school, and as I approached the door, a hawk—glorious, huge, fierce, and mighty—landed in front of me on the statue in front of the school. I dropped to my knees in the grass and cried with gratitude. If this wasn’t a sign, I did not know what was.

  I watched students come and go; I listened to the sparrows chirping in the bushes. I knew I had found my school. Next, I meandered through the pathways and read plaques that held sayings like God and wisdom united or some such spiritual talk of combining education and spirituality. It all added to my belief that I had found the perfect school for me. Plus, Columbia had an MBA program starting in January.

  Next, I found an apartment. Within thirty minutes, I had signed a year’s lease and paid a security deposit and first month’s rent. Now I had to get into Columbia.

  I flew back to California, ready to get my ass into Columbia’s MBA program. I had no idea how difficult that would be. I wrote the worst application possible. I took the GMAT multiple times and never got a grade good enough for Columbia to even look at me. Plus, I wrote the truth on my application essays: That I was thirty-seven years old and had no idea who I was, that I was searching and I was asking them to please teach me. I had traveled to over fifty countries, I had started five businesses, I spoke two languages fluently, I graduated Magna Cum Laude with a double degree, I had been a professional dancer and an entrepreneur and a published author, and I had sponsored charity events and humanitarian projects all over the world. But, no I was not an automaton. And, no I was not a finance person. And, no, I did not fit in a box.

  I mailed off the application and called a moving company, sold my car and bought a plane ticket. I arrived in New York twelve days later.

  When I got to my new apartment, I had two e-mails waiting in my inbox. The first was from the moving company:

  Your stuff will arrive tomorrow between 9:00 a.m. and noon. Please make sure you have an elevator available.

  The second was from Columbia:

  Thank you, but we have no interest in a lost thirty-seven-year-old dancer searching for Truth.

  They didn’t really say that, but it’s what I read. I had been rejected.

  What the fuck do I do now? I asked myself on the floor of my empty apartment.

  Days went by. I got sick. I stayed in bed and threw up a lot. And cried and cried and cried. And then I called And
re, my hairdresser and my one remaining friend. He was the only person I had not pushed from my life, because he had not been in the sangha, and I saw him so rarely that he never fit the “old friends will hold you back paradigm.” Andre was the only person who knew where I was and what I was doing. I hadn’t even told my brother, Gary.

  Andre said, “You can always come home. But since you’re there, why not take that test again and take your time and fill out a good application? Don’t rush it and do it all shitty; take your time and do it correctly. Oh, and go find a yoga studio immediately.”

  He was right. I found a yoga studio the next day and took a class and instantly felt better. I signed up for a GMAT prep course. I began going to prep classes two nights a week and hauled myself out of bed at 5:00 a.m. every single Saturday to traipse through freezing rain and snow and ice to the testing center where I took the four-hour practice GMAT, every single Saturday, with people sitting next to me, moaning while rocking back and forth and pulling their hair out. And I studied. I studied my ass off. I found a karate dojo and started taking classes five days a week. I was back. Working towards my black belt, working towards my MBA, walking my path to Enlightenment in New York City, Baby!

  Two months later, I took the GMAT again. And I got the same fucking score as the first time.

  I cried some more and almost gave up. It was almost January. I was failing my task. I was ruining my karma. And then I heard about Columbia’s School of Continuing Education and their Business Certificate Program. I thought, If I can get my foot in the door at Columbia and do well in some business classes there, maybe I can get into their MBA program. And so I applied . . .

  Chapter 23 Determined

  I got in. To Columbia University, one of the most prestigious schools in the world—at thirty-seven years old and with a background in dance. This path seriously rocks, I thought to myself as I read my acceptance e-mail. I set off on the first day of school, with my new backpack and all my books. The forecast called for freezing rain and ice pellets. I didn’t even know what that was. I dressed warm and carried an umbrella, but the second I stepped outside my umbrella got blown inside out and broke. By the time I got to campus, I was soaked. When I opened the door to the building, I could hardly move my arms because I was so cold and my clothes were so wet and heavy; I got stuck in the door, heaving it open only to have it swing closed on my back pack and pin me, obstructing the traffic of all the young, cool students rushing to their next class. I held back the tears as the kids pried me out of the doorway so they could get by. And then I sat through a ninety-minute Calculus class, not understanding any of it, shivering in my wet clothes, with students half my age.