The next volume was undated, except one entry in late November.
The inside front cover was inscribed “Swami Jnana-Devananda into winter: ashram,” something added later.
Mostly quotes: Zen, Ginsberg, Hutterites, etc.
Includes Swami’s return from her first India trip.
~*~
Only Christ is arisen? Ignores the greater evidence of reincarnate lamas.
Swami, to disciple undergoing many tests (i.e., struggles): “Enjoy them!”
Traveling out, to support followers in “the world” and to distribute pamphlets about our programs:
WASHINGTON DC, a Tuesday in November
White House a surprise … zipping thru Georgetown and out, suddenly, turn corner, this ivory phantom! Expected much official buildings first, but just the monstrous ancient cake of Executive Office to prepare one for the icon itself
DC’s “42nd Street” just three blocks from the Executive Mansion
… what happens to the minds of the power elite who see all of these monuments at their command – the vast sweep of parks, White House tucked into one corner, Washington and Lincoln memorials in the middle, the Capitol on the other? A new Rome!
(encounter with York, Pa, and its oldness in rolling farmland)
Levi-Dev: When you try to find shortcuts to your meditation practice, you will miss some of the most delicious & precious steps in your spiritual growth.
In Japanese, prajana means wisdom!
~*~
Swami Lakshmy: I tell you India is a civilized country. America is uncivilized India is civilized because you can walk the streets at night without fear. You cannot walk the streets of an American city at night without fear. America is an uncivilized country because we do not respect human life, because we are a fearful people.
The falcon rips the wayward rabbit but cannot stop the cloud.
How do you write down the sound of your laugh, the taste of your smile?
Appenzell Lutheran, Reeders Methodist. Our neighbors.
Deer Park
Where Buddha sat
dogs now bark
The Swami/Levi relationship / mother/son oedipal stuff, statistically more aberrant than the homosexuality she calls sick? I judge, too!
Fern: Sometimes I wish I had known you before you came to the camp. You must have been pretty fascinating.
Swami: You write like the Wall Street Journal: very well but not colorful.
Beatrice: “It’s amazing how everyone has changed in a year. I wouldn’t have believed such a change is truly possible if I hadn’t seen it in the people at the ashram. Everyone is so much more remote, distant.”
[Incinerated]
~*~
From Spiralbound Yoga, with commentary from now.
Jnana's Red Barn 