Reentering “the world” after more than a year in relative seclusion felt like being thrown into space and then falling, falling, falling into an endless  pit within the earth.

After the first burst of euphoria, when I stayed with Celeste and her mother in Brooklyn, followed by the long Greyhound ride back to Ohio, there was nothing to hold on to.

I was no longer in a nest of kindred spirits, and meditating alone is more strenuous than when sitting among others.

There had been moments in the ashram when I had wondered if there was a potential career path as a professional swami. Ponder that. Perhaps combined with poet.

Back home, I saw how far I had come from my upbringing in a straightlaced mainstream Protestant milieu.

There was no going back.

In the meantime, I had to see if I could reconnect to working in the news biz again or whether I could venture into fresh fields. Whatever developed needed to happen soon.

~*~

The time with Celeste was intense, passionate, somehow heightened by knowing we were heading in differing directions. I recall our time in the Brooklyn Museum, especially in its fabulous Asian art galleries. There were also the bagels from a grimy store under elevated MTA rails and I had to agree that those were the best, anywhere, despite appearances. And the next morning, when we rode the subway into Manhattan for parting, I saw something ahead on the tracks that became the prompt for my first novel, Subway Hitchhikers, now revised into Subway Visions. She then caught a bus to Virginia and the new principal guy in her life. (How she was able to be so open with me continues to amaze.) I spent the rest of the day wandering around Gotham, the Cloisters art museum, especially, and then took an overnight bus of my own west. It was a wild ride.

Looking back, I was molting or perhaps hypersensitive to everything. Even listening to my beloved classical music had to come in steps of reacclimatizing.

~*~

Trying to write anything in my hometown was difficult, though I did start with drafting the subway fantasy.

In my journals review, I’ve been surprised how few entries actually existed. We didn’t have much privacy or personal time, for one thing, which may be the reason that so much of what I did record was during trips out from the center.

I did find that some notebook pages had been ripped away, not by me, indicating snooping. Now I’m wondering if entire journals had been deep-sixed by interlopers.

Still, somewhere, I had enough to draft my novel Yoga Bootcamp and its predecessor, Ashram.

Frankly, I never found the Poconos as magical, beautiful, or spiritually high-vibed as Swami did.

Much of the perspective that has turned up since, in personal encounters, Facebook exchanges, or long phone calls, has made me feel right in limiting the scope of the novel to a single day. As one fellow disciple told me, I was there at the golden moment before many complications arose.

I do feel vindicated in my observation that Swami’s declaring herself a swami and then ordaining us was a mistake. I didn’t know how sharp her break from her beloved guru was.

In posting these, I also sense a rightness in my decision to change most of the names away from our Sanskrit yogi names.

I have had some rich conversations with people who have resided in other monastic communities, including an Episcopal convent.

Quite simply, the experience changed my life’s course.  

As a household, we decided to enroll in a Red Cross first aid course taught by a Seventh-day Adventist couple. I think it took place in the local volunteer firehouse, though a bond developed when they learned that we were, like them, vegetarians.

They even had all of us over to their house for dinner, which introduced us to the Loma Linda line of meat-free alternatives, something that came in handy when we had others join us for Thanksgiving dinner.

Here’s something we heard from them.

“Why, I have a little riddle about a sheik,” said a smiling Mister Banks in his happy old man shrill whine. “You all like riddles, doncha? Well, see if you can answer this one.”

As he then related, a wealthy sheik had two sons who had become very possessed by racing. They spent all their hours with their horses and with gambling and made life very miserable for their father, what with their racing and carrying on at all hours of the night and day.

When the old man died, he left a will decreeing that his sons should race from Mecca to Medina and that the one whose horse came in last should win the entire sheikdom.

The sons set off and raced the first day, coming to the stop of their first night with their horses all lathered up and both the horses and their riders exhausted. Perplexed as to how to conduct the race and win, they consulted an ancient holy man in the grove of the oasis. “What should we do? If we both try to come in last, we shall never finish the race and the sheikdom will belong to nobody.” The ancient seer told them to come to him the next morning, that after a night to meditate on their dilemma he would have an answer for each, to whisper in their ear.

When they came the next morning, he whispered something to each one, and they quickly mounted and resumed the race with more fervor and enjoyment than ever.

What did he tell them?

Well, see if you can guess the answer. I’ll even give you a clue: it was only two words. While you’re trying to figure that one out, I’ll tell you another.

He made some pun on kismet, which means fate, and “kiss the corn on my kismet,” or feet. All faces turned down in sour disgust at the attempted humor.

Mister Banks was unfazed.

Well, I have another sheik story. It seems this man was traveling with a sheik and his nomadic tribe across the desert. Because the man knew he could be robbed and murdered for the money, he gave it to the sheik for safekeeping. Shortly before the end of the journey, he asked for his money but the sheik ignored him.

A little later, he repeated his request.

Finally, the sheik told him he was sorry but he didn’t have the money. It had been stolen.

The man was flabbergasted and downcast: it was his money to return to Europe.

Ah! But the sheik told him not to worry, that he would find it in time.

The sheik assembled his tribe and explained that five hundred dollars had been stolen from him, but if it were by his pillow in the morning, he would not ask who the thief was nor would he be punished.

But morning came and the money was not there.

The sheik again assembled his tribe and announced, Alas! The money is not back. The thief must be found and punished as an example to all. My camel is very wise, he said, and my camel can tell a liar. Every person in this tribe, he solemnly declared, must come to my camel and, holding its tail, must swear that he did not steal the money. We will meet at nightfall and I will know who the thief is.

When evening came, the sheik lined up his tribe. Walking along the line, he suddenly stopped, drew up his sword, and screamed: Ah, you infidel! Repent or I’ll sever your head! On your knees and repent, or you’ll never speak another word!

“Yes, yes, Master, I stole the money. Forgive me, please,” cried the unfortunate man.

Now, quickly! Run and bring back the money, every penny of it,” ordered the sheik, and the man returned with the five hundred dollars.

The European, grateful for the return of his money, was astonished. “Tell me, O sheik, how did you know it was this man? Surely your camel did not tell you.”

O, no, it was quite simple. My camel is dumb, but my people do not know that. So I placed peppermint oil upon its tail, and everyone whose hands touched the tail smelled of peppermint. But the thief was afraid to touch the tail, so when I came up to him in the line, I knew. It was simple, my friend.”

Now, what was the answer to the riddle? I almost gave it away a while ago. Well, I guess I’ll tell you, just before you leave.

Whereupon, I said, “Mister Banks, we very much enjoyed our dinner,” and beginning to move as if it were time to depart, he grabbed my arm and started laughing.

Gee, I didn’t realize I said that until I had said it. Since we don’t want you to leave, I guess we’ll just have to tell you the answer.

“Change horses.”

~*~

From Spiralbound Yoga, with commentary from now.

PERFUME SAGE – a phrase from Yogananda.

Sivananda’s books reflect self-torture. Sex is evil, noise is awful, greed is terrible. Don’t enjoy!

In the valley, the ridges are blocked by trees or buildings. Or even little rill hills rather than distant views and vistas.

Water is suspended and sparkles before crashing and going on as if nothing had happened.

Serpents of water spiral around rocks and slither hissing away.

Where do we go from here?

Question: “What would Nikki think if you got married?”

“That’s her problem. She’s been in New York and could have taken a bus out, it’s two hours, but she’s afraid to. I’ve got my own life to live.”

Myth rather than Belief.

Hindu gods and goddesses rather than Boddhisatvas ….

Maslow’s “optimal people” as models for others.

Good hokku are full of overtones.

In Japanese, no articles, almost no pronouns, few distinctions like singular or plural, prepositions after nouns, kireji (“cut words”) untranslatable but often indicate an unfinished sentence or an elusive force / no relative pronouns: modifiers must precede the noun / normal Japanese sentences end in verbs.

Find beauty in things not inherently beautiful.

When am I going to leave? My heart is no longer here. I need a place for my books and records, a place to not feel threatened. I’m almost 25 and still no where.

Who am I? poet, journalist, playwright, copywriter, copy editor, essayist, critic, novelist and short story writer, artist, calligrapher, designer, typographer, teacher, monk and swami, philosopher and theologian, political scientist and urban economist, man of letters, music and music critic, historian, Quaker, cook, laundryman, cleaner, woodsman, naturalist, chemist and biologist, astronomer at times, dreamer and idler, architectural addict, hiker and swimmer, chess player of sorts, dabbler, claimer of new responsibilities though slovenly accountant and bored by business (except as econ), gourmet and ignorer of food (unless I’m fasting), organizer and promoter / nervous and roving, homebody without a home, hungry for love or attention and too demanding for a mate, confused and angry, a fukkin’ prince or sunshine stompin’ through life.

Is the devil a demon?

In Manhattan, in television interviewer David Susskind’s office. Joan Kennedy, the power sitting back and watching: subtle and sharp, how do we react to Swami and to each other. Sam Zurich the star questioner, hot and cold and in the spotlight, dressed casually but expressively, easy and irreverent, interested and bored, cut us off with more questions … Joan has a dream office, to my eyes. The show passed on airing us.

Swami tearing into me again, yet reads my palm: “You’re gonna be great.”

Yet, from Bharati, “Why don’t you ask her for a week or two to work on that novel? It couldn’t hurt. When I was working on a piece last September, it got many things out in front of me and I grew a lot.”

“Jnana, nobody is holding you here. We’ll give you anything, just name it, to keep you here, if it will make you happy.

[What I see now is that I had no idea of what I wanted to write. Perhaps if I wanted to really do the inside-yoga volume?]

My last meditation with Swami: all her energy lifting me, a swell, bodiless: nothing mattered: pure energy, pure orgasm: fear and doubt and delight and ego …

Owe camp $30, I presume for bus fare and food … and escaped almost unnoticed, like the anonymous wind.

Leaving the ashram is like breaking off with a lover: emotional and fear of freedom.

Characters: pig-pen, the mouth, mastah sigh, mr. meticulous, boots and whip, sentimental slob …

“Works of art are generally formed through integration of two incompatible elements, one of these being an attempt to communicate and the other, an artistic structure that contradicts the communication … The harmonious compound formed by these two elements has qualities found neither in nature nor in human affairs, and hence it can communicate no information about real facts. But it can draw on our unorganized memories and embody them in its own structure, evoking thereby deep emotions in us.” – Michael Polanyi, “What is a painting?” in The American Sholar, Autumn 1970 …

“Among hunting tribes there exists a custom according to which, before the men set out for the hunt, the women must dance and create an atmosphere of sexual excitement; the hunters, however, may not have intercourse with the women at this time but must satisfy their sexual excitement by killing animals. Frazer reports that the Nutka Sound Indians were compelled to refrain from sexual intercourse during the week of the great whale hunt. … The identification of women with prey is partly connected with the beginnings of the sex struggle.” – Ernst Fischer, The Necessity of Art: A Marxist Approach

“Zen monks deliberately seek to outwit their thinking facilities by immersing themselves in practical acts – gardening, tea drinking, fencing, archery, and the prosaic details of everyday life – in the belief that in such pursuits the instant of real experience will at some point manifest itself.

“This practical, if non-rational, doctrine has permeated great areas of Chinese and Japanese life and art, and is especially well exemplified in the type of painting known in Japan as sumiye, in which the artist working with ink, sets an instantaneous impression on paper and is prohibited by the nature of the medium from going over or altering the strokes his brush has applied. … Life … delineates itself on the canvas called time, and time never repeats: once gone, forever gone; and so is an act: once done, it is never undone. Life is a sumiye painting, which must be executed once and for all time and without hesitation, without intellection, and no corrections are permissible or possible. Life is not like an oil painting, which can be rubbed out and done over time and again until the artist is satisfied. With a sumiye painting, any brush stroke painted over a second time results in a smudge; the life has left it. All corrections show when the ink dries. So is life. We can never retract what we have once committed to deeds; nay, what has once passed through our consciousness can never be rubbed out. Zen, therefore, ought to be caught while the thing is going on, neither before nor after.” – Winthrop Sargeant, “Profile of D.T. Suzuki,” The New Yorker, August 31, 1957

[Incinerated]

~*~

From Spiralbound Yoga, with commentary from now.