Ganeshpuri Ashram 1971-1974

Culture Shock:
On the most  basic levels it was an enormous adjustment to live in the Ashram in Ganeshpuri.  I lived   in a dormitory with l5-20  girls from all parts of the world.  Our only personal space was the top of our bed with  a basket  underneath for our belongings. We were asked to wear traditional Indian sarees, as the Indians could not cope with the western girls’ custom of  wearing no bras, revealing tops and figure hugging clothes.  Modesty was unquestionably  the valued  traditional Indian feminine trait,  and a huge learning curve for most of us.   Who had even heard of the word   “modesty”? We were  fresh out of the “bra burning” demonstrations and sexual revolution of the women’s liberation movement of the  late sixties in California.

 But like any zealous reformee,  I got right into it, and before long I was the one  smugly telling  the newly arrived girls , “You must wear a bra, and cover your breasts “ as I handed them a saree, petticoat and blouse from a chest of clothing  that had been left behind by some other departed visitor.  The salwar-kameez – a long wide top with loose panats  that girls wear these days were not even commonly worn except by school girls. 

Sarees are   six meters of cloth wrapped in a very elaborate and somewhat precarious  manner.   They are very difficult to wear  elegantly  without tripping  and pulling the whole thing down around your feet.   Wearing a saree forces you to mince and  sway slightly as the front pleats fan out, and the long tail thrown over the shoulder moves with your walk.  The Indian women always moved elegantly and delicately, whereas we tripped, were at the mercy of safety pins to hold slippery meters of cloth in place.   Then on top of having to walk with great care not to disgrace ourselves,  we had  no choice but  to use squat toilets, and managing the saree with squat toilets, and the water business, ( no  such thing as toilet paper existed in those days)  required elaborate yoga-like maneuvers for the most basic business of the day. 

We had to eat sitting cross legged on the floor  from dried leaves ,  unfamiliar spicey food with our fingers, without , of course,  wasting even one grain of rice!     Baba would walk amongst the rows and inspect that we were not wasting any food. 

 The daily schedule of   activities involved   sitting  cross legged  on a stone floor in the temple  for hours chanting  hymns and prayers in Sanskrit.  (Some English transliterations were provided and eventually some translation which only provoked more confusion and consternation!  The prayers we were chanting often were extremely foreign in their concepts – about devotion, surrender and to deities who we knew absolutely nothing about.  ) 

Every aspect of life in the ashram was a huge adjustment.  Indian protocols are very intricate, particularly around the handling of food, and what one did with ones’ feet.    I felt anxious much of the time afraid I was  doing something dreadfully inappropriate (which was frequently the case.)  I felt like I had  regressed  to the stage of  kid in kindergarten.   Most conversations around Baba took place  in Hindi so we never knew what was going on or being said.   The translator who translated Baba’s occasional question and answer sessions seemed to have a rather condescending attitude towards us westerners as though we were barbarians.   Within the ashram  men and women were segregated and  were not really allowed to be seen talking with one another.  

Early morning we did manage to escape across the road to the grotty  chai-wallah’s shop for dosas,  a flat rice pancake, or idlis, a rice cake with spicey sambhar and sweet  chai.  Along with the food provided in plates and glasses of most questionable cleanliness, we were able to  partake in a huge amount of  therapeutic debriefing.  It felt like these sessions helped to retain our sanity as our western civilized natures were being systematically obliterated  in such a completely strange environment.    

Our day began at  4 a.m.  in the morning when  a beautiful chant resounded across the entire ashram “Nityananda Mahan….”  We would roll out of our narrow cots, pull out the bundle of clothes that had been neatly folded the previous night so we could easily find what we needed in the dark.   We then made our way   down two floors into the courtyard, where the smell of the morning purifying incense and oil lamps greeted us.  We walked through the garden to the ladies bath house.  I loved that  early morning walk without any torch, appreciating the quiet, and the varying light according to the phases of the moon.  The quiet, the starlight  and moonlight, the  intoxicating smells of the flowers in the garden, incense, all contributed to a beautiful introduction to our day.

If we came down at this time there was water that had been heated with a fire under the big tank….that was our precious hot bath in a bucket.  We poured  the water over our body with a large cup, applied soap and then rinsed off.  After drying off and dressing in fresh clothes we made our way to the temple  for the morning arti,  standing prayer to the Guru in the temple followed by  sweet steamy chai  served in the dining hall.  Then back to sitting in the temple and   chanting Guru Gita and other chants  in Sanskrit for one and a half  hours.  It concluded with a rousing chant Shree Krishna Govinda, which was accompanied with drums, cymbals and a lot of joy.  What a wonderful way to start the day.  Then  out the doors of the temple into  morning, cool and crisp, raining, or already warm, depending on the season.  We crossed the street to the chai wallah, had our breakfast and furtive sharings about what we were feeling about everything we were adjusting to.  Then  back to our assigned seva, or  work, more chanting, lunch, rest,  more work,  more chanting, dropping into bed at 8.30 at night.   Through all of that  there  was not one second of familiar  activity. Except for the furtive  therapy  sessions over chai in the tea shop. 

 Not surprisingly,  I was undergoing  a huge identity crisis,  I did not know who I was any more. I felt civilization as I had known it receding.  I had been an independent career woman with my own car since teen age, travelling around the world.  Now here I was living under the domination of a dictator guru… a most kind and  benign one,  fortunately, but very strict. There was no room for individual free will.  I could, of course have chosen to leave and return home, but inside I knew that what was happening to me, as difficult as it was. as strange as it was-- was extremely precious. I could not even imagine what I would return to as I had quite consciously left behind a value system that I had found  untenable. 

Sometimes on weekend, when a lot of visitors came I would fanaticise about returning to the west to a civilized existence. (for me civilization was represented by things like pizza, cheese, ice cream, movies, going to the beach, swimming.)  These dominated my fantasies.    I would feel  that perhaps I would never leave India, and that civilization and freedom were  lost to me forever. At one point I went and offered my savings into the office as a donation, so that I would not even be tempted to leave.  That did leave me in a really restricted position, without money to buy extra food, medicine when I got sick and certainly a return ticket. 

On one trip to Mumbai for some visa business, I purchased two lovely china tea cups and saucers.  I had a small heating implement that boiled water, and I could make tea in my room with powdered milk.  That was my sole method of retaining some link with a civilized world that  seemed to be receeding further and further  away.  A refined cup of tea with a friend goes a long way in providing some level of comfort. 

Living with no spending money provided a valuable learning, though one in retrospect I would not subject myself to again.  When one has no money it’s pointless to have desires as they can’t be fulfilled, so it did have the effect of quietening my mind somewhat.  But then I came to learn certain lessens that come with poverty and complete lack of free will – and a kind of empathy for others who were in such condition, not by any choice or whim.

But in reality I was undergoing the  classical existential crisis whereby one begins to seek answers to  the most pertinent questions that are posed  in the beginning of the Upanishads  :  Who am I?  Why am I here?  What is my relationship to this world? 

Actually I had been asking these questions to myself since I was a teenager, and traversing  my way through American society.    Prior to this what I looked at and tried to pursue as a good  follower  of  the  “American Dream” had only come up with disappointment, growing disillusionment and  the other classical Vedantin response to self-enquiry,  “Neti, neti,-- not this, not this!  Surely there is something more to life. 

  Here at last there was a possibility of some intelligent and meaningful response by being utterly subsumed in the yogic lifestyle of the ashram with a most generous hearted and loving Guru. Here we were living in an environment that was focused on the pursuit of the highest ideals of life as conveyed in the  ancient hallowed Indian philosophies.

To try to fit in, I carefully observed  how the Indian girl  behaved.  They  were so feminine!  I had never seen such beautiful girls, in their colourful sarees, with silken black braids (made shiny and fluid  by doses of coconut hair oi)  swinging down their backs often wrapped with fragrant flower garlands.  

  I tried to imitate  how they wore their sarees,  how they walked up the stairs sighing “Oh  Babaji”  in rapturous tones,  how they  sat down to eat.  I desperately  attempted  to turn myself into a clone of  a demure  Indian  female devotee. But when I looked in the mirror I saw my unruly  blonde curly hair sticking out in all directions, the saree hanging very precariously  off my shoulder,  bunched around my waist and felt terribly out of place.  Gone was all my pride from years of having  been a fashion model and stylist always dressed in the most elegant  selections  from New York and European  designers. I had always felt confident when I entered  a room that people would look and appreciate what they saw.  Now  my  whole world seemed  to have turned  inside out and I felt foolish, diffident, and insecure. I feel fortunate that Baba took the role of a kind and patient father during that period.  I felt,  in fact, he  endeavored to support and help my spiritual growth recognizing that the situation was not easy for us westerners choosing to stay long term in a foreign culture and  adjust to a fairly rigorous  life in the ashram.

In Indian  culture, a woman travelling alone so far from family was simply unheard of.  The Indian women  seemed horrified when they  asked me, “Where is your husband? “  “Where are your parents?”  My parents in turn, back in Idaho in the U.S .were appalled  at what I was doing. My father was doing a lot of soul searching thinking they had gone terribly wrong in their parenting that I should have left my successful career, and was living with what I am sure they thought was some kind of religious cult.

Doing the recording and writing work put me into close  contact with Amma Trivedi,   Baba’s secretary  who recorded much of Baba’s life in various movies, publications and reports including the Gurudevani magazines.  She was a former Sanskrit professor in Bombay, and was  simple,  efficient, down to earth, and helped me a lot to adjust to life in the ashram.  She was another person that I could attempt to emulate in trying to mold myself into the acceptable disciple. 

  

Baba had an extraordinary capacity for direct personal relationship.  I am sure every person in the ashram had a similar experience – that he entered deeply into relationship with them,  wherever they were at.      He didn’t hold back, he met every person in an intensely personal way.

Such an intense personal relationship with a teacher  turns  one inside out.  There was no hiding  any of the most petty, primitive emotions.    He could always  read my mind and let me know he knew what I was thinking.   Baba seemed to enjoy playing with our childish jealousies, he would play little tricks on us, as he would also with the ashram dogs and even the elephant.   Then he would chuckle  about our reactions in a loving sweet way.  He seemed to find great humour and entertainment in the endless drama of our primitive reactions like jealousy  and pettiness, and in that way taught us to see ourselves clearly,  and  not to take our own melodramas so seriously. 

  One time  I had flounced up to him where he sat   on his perch in the courtyard .  He had just returned from a visit to Bombay to which I had not been  invited.  I was quite put out and said to him,  “ I’m leaving the ashram”.  “Jao”, he said,  gesturing  dismissively.  No satisfaction there to my petty display,  he just waved me off.    Later he came up to where I did my writing work and put his face very close to mine.  “That’s not love, that’s jealousy,”  he laughed very sweetly  and walked away.

 I was horrified to be so exposed, but later on I was  grateful that he had helped point my attention towards one of my biggest obstacles to having a peaceful mind and a genuine loving heart.  Only by him exposing the problems was I then   able to take responsibility and work at reducing that particular trait that has caused me a lot of unhappiness.  Ultimately what I am most grateful for are the times when he expressed his genuine concern for my development by pointing out my faults, as painful as it could be at the time.  It was never done with unkindness or judgement, just an encouragement to be  the best I could. By pointing out my faults in such a loving manner in retrospect I could see that he was a genuine loving father who was not afraid to take our  his “chotta guru”,  his stick after my blind spots.  It was also consoling when we began to study some classic texts, to   understand that negative emotions are the norm for all humans beings,  and that the whole purpose of sadhana,  spiritual practice  was to purify them and replace them with  uplifted positive qualities.

On one occasion I was in a rather black mood and went looking for Baba with the hope of being pulled out of it.     He happened to be sitting on his usual spot in the courtyard surrounded by a group of disciples.  There was no speaking, Baba seemed to be manifesting a state of sahaj-samadhi  (natural Samadhi).  As I came near, apparently my  black mental state emitted vibrations that  were disturbing as Baba looked at me and said “Nickalao ” – (get out) and waved me to leave.  I went into the garden feeling quite rejected, but as I observed my inner state, I could see that he had spoken directly to my inner negative state, as it was gone.  I felt he showed me a skilful means for dealing with such states.  He didn’t want to sit with them, why should I?  When they arose, rather than letting them hang about, I just told them, “ get out.”

Even with all of this inner turmoil and outer tapasya (friction created by challenging conditions)  I look back on that  period of my life l97l-l974 as the most profound and happy.   I was in a beautiful home with the perfect father.   I felt safe and protected and that I was living a meaningful life.

There was a rhythm of life at the ashram that flowed from one day to the next, one season after another.  The flow was predictable, the heat of the summer broken by the first rain, that brought everyone out dancing on the road in front of the gate of the ashram. Then there was  the ‘exraordinary fragrance of the mogra and other blossoms of the monsoon season, the bells and conches that marked the events of our  daily activities.  And of course the inward purifying effects  of the on- going chanting and meditation allowed the Kundalini to do  its purifying work,   I spent many hours meditating in the beautiful meditation verandah or the  cool, dark cave below,  and my mind and heart gradually stabilized into  peaceful  joy. 

The  conditions in the ashram of those years  were particularly conducive to deep spiritual practice and profound meditation.  Most of the time,  very few people were living there.  Our seva duties were not overly demanding, the many hours of Sanskrit recitation purified and stabilised the mind so that one could enter into deep states of meditation. Gradually the gross level of kriyas, movements of the inner Kundalini began to subside, physical movements became less disturbing, as the nadis were purified,  the inner pulsations  became subtle waves of bliss.

The inner confusion began to dawn as   clarity and vividness.  The limited I- sense  that had felt threatened by the tumultuous upheaval of emotions and loss of comfortable references  began to find refuge in   insight and stillness  that was becoming the inner environment of natural yogic awareness.  Qualities of devotion, bliss and serenity  replaced the previous negative feelings of contraction .  The expanded consciousness felt ancient and familiar. The experiences that manifested during that period  were below any level of  words  –  could not  really be described.   The  concept of a yoga-brashta  one who practices yoga in one lifetime and does not culminate his/her sadhana is again born in conditions to continue the practice was clearly  outlined in the Bhagavad Gita.  It  made complete sense to me.  This yogic life had eclipsed any other self identification and seemed ancient and familiar. 

The peaceful environment was only occasionally marred by minor sibling snits that arose out of jealousy between sister yoginis.  One woman described it 

thus, “My blissful samadhi  cannot seem to withstand the slightest interaction with another human being.”

 Even in a yogic paradise, our personal perversities prevailed.  I witnessed several such  altercations  that took place early morning in the ladies’ meditation room.  They unfolded  something like , “You are sitting in my meditation seat!”,  etc. etc. etc. --   grist for the mill of sadhana as Ram Dass had said in his book.   Also a good reminder that there was much refinement of our self-centred  emotions  still to be done, lest we interpreted our blissful meditations  as some greater level of meditative attainment. 

Baba  was uncompromisingly   strict about the ashram disciple.  Several times I found myself sitting on   the curb outside the front gates of the ashram because I had blatantly resisted  going to a chant when the ashram was filled with visitors.  I found it suffocating to stand in the hall crowded  with too many bodies   that  reeked of rancid coconut oil.  When  I was found in the garden or outside of the gates,  I received the message that Baba had told me to go live in Bombay, I was not fit for living in  the ashram.  Eventually as it got dark outside, some Indian devotee  would come out and tell me  kindly that  Baba had given me permission to return back inside.

There was a dramatic incident with a visiting sadhu who came to the ashram during that time.  The ashram policy was that visiting sadhus could stay for three days and received food and new clothes if required.  One particular sadhu came and it seemed that he made further demands on the ashram, and it came to Baba’s attention that he was asking for money.  Baba said to him in uncompromising terms:   “You just want money to buy ganja, I have given you what you need in food and clothes, we will not give you any money, now go.”

But this sadhu wanted to display to Baba that he was not  just an ordinary ascetic, and he would get  revenge for being treated what he thought was unfairly. He parked himself in front of the front gate of the ashram, and set up a kind of malefic  tantric shrine indicative of placing a curse on Baba that he would be carried out of  the ashram lifeless.  He sat there for a couple of days and everyone who came and went from the ashram or passed by was very aware of him and his malicious  intent.   After a couple of days, Baba came out of the front gate  and grabbed him by the arm and ushered him into the back garden area.  There were several boys there with Baba and they handed a shovel to the sadhu, and Baba said, “You dare to place a curse on me for your own wicked ends, now dig a pit that we will bury you in.” When the sadhu could see that Baba  had clearly overpowered him, he became terrified and began to weep and grovel at Baba’s feet  protesting his apologies and asking Baba;s forgiveness.   Baba finally relented  and the boys ushered the terrified man outside of the gate, and Baba told him to disappear and never dare to return to the ashram.