East/West

Atahualpa and Pizarro.

Pizarro pleads before Charles of Spain, it is 1528. Charles is in good humor as a son has just been born.

Pizarro, "In the kingdom of Peru there was not only gold to be gained, but souls for Christ and territories for Spain."

He had touched a sensitive spot. He had discretely reminded the Emperor of the spiritual mandate he held from the Pope. . . .

Charles agreed and they went to Peru.

In Peru the brothers regent of the Inca empire, Huascar and Atahualpa, had entered into a vicious quarrel. Atahualpa seized the kingdom . . . Pizarro arriving from Spain let out a rumor among Peruvians that he was Viracocha the god of Tiahuanaco, who was white skinned. Pizarro had canons and Viracocha controlled the thunder. Powder horses and shining armor, . . . the apparatus of terror was ready. . . . with his armor on and with horses Pizarro march his men over a desert and into the mountains to talk to Atahualpa. Ambassador de Soto went into the Inca camp and dazzled them with a display of horsemanship, his stead being an animal they had never seen. Because some of his men had fled in terror from the approaching horse, Atahualpa had them executed in front of de Soto. He then agreed to the ambassadors request to meet the next day with Pizarro.

The Spaniards were outnumbered by one hundred or even two hundred to one. Pizarro contrived to have the meeting in a large square of Cajamarcos the abandoned Inca town where his conquistadors were bivouacked. It was a large open space surrounded on three sides by low rectangular buildings. The central building opened on a spacious courtyard planted by trees. The artillery, cavalry and infantry were all hidden.

"But Pizarro made his dispositions for battle only after putting everything right with God. The day that was being prepared was for Spain, certainly, and also for Francis Pizarro, but above all it was for the cross. Father de Valverde confessed the soldiers and captains and celebrated Mass by torch light. All the conquistadors took communion but it was Pizarro and not the Dominican who served the sermon."

They waited for sunrise. Some five thousand troops had come to the town with Atahualpa officer's Ruminagui. They plugged all the crossings by which the Spanish could leave the town. Some diplomatic jousting occur as Atahualpa expressed his regrets about not attending through a messenger. Then surprisingly he accepted and invitation to dine with the foreign leader.

"Evening came. A rustle of feathers and fabrics announced the arrival of the Inca. Three hundred Indians dressed in red livery led the procession, sweeping the earth with palm leaves so that no impurity would soil the feet of the royal escort. Next came slaves bearing golden vases and silver hammers. . . . Finally, borne on the shoulders of his principle dignitaries, came Atahualpa's palanquin, decorated with parrots feathers and sheets of gold. The procession reached the Cajamarca square: it was empty. He entered the courtyard that lay before the palace: it was deserted. What silence there was in this square, only recently alive with voices! then the Inca leaned toward his courtiers and asked them, "Where are the strangers?"

Pizarro and his men were posted inside the palace. The Spanish army was hidden in neighboring buildings. Ruminagui and his five thousand soldiers surrounded Cajamarca.

"With a crucifix in one hand and the Bible in the other, Father de Valverde left the palace and came face to face with Atahualpa. the silence became deeper, if that was possible. Valverde began to speak. First a lesson in catechism: the mystery of the trinity, the creation of heaven and earth, original sin, Christ's redemption. Next a lesson in politics: the Pope, Saint Peter's successor, had divided the world among his Princess and had alloted Peru to Emperor Charles V. Finally an ultimatum: if Atahualpa refused to submit to Charles' representative, he would be forced to do so. The Inca was stupefied. . . . incredulous.

He asked for more information. How did this stranger get his knowledge? "From this book!" the Dominican retorted, holding out the Bible. Atahualpa took it, turning it over and over in his hands, . . . then threw it on the ground. Outraged by such sacrilege, Valverde picked it up and retired in all haste into the palace . . . and gave absolution to all the Spaniards, "Salid a el-que you os absuelvo."

Then Pizarro waved a white scarf. It was a prearranged signal, and from the top of the fortress a musket shot answered. . . . A melee followed and the Spaniards killed an incredible number of Inca and took Atahualpa captive, . . .the Peruvians were surprised by the lack of relationship between the conduct of the Spaniards and the ethics that they preached. Under the Inca regime they had been more faithful to moral laws and more respectful of other people's property and woman. . . . The room in which the Inca was imprisoned was 7 yards long by 5 yards wide and Pizarro proposed that if Atahualpa could fill the room with gold he would be set at liberty. To what height? The Inca raised and arm: six feet. The Peruvian monarch had wagered on filling 70 cubic yards with gold. In two months gold was brought from all over the land from Quito to Cuzco, and the room was slowly being filled. Atahualpa was confident. But another of Charles' men Almago had just arrived with one hundred and fifty men and was demanding a share. Pizarro lost his temper. . . . de Soto had contacted Huascar, brother of Atahualpa, and found that he too was willing to pay the Spaniards to repurchase his crown at the highest price. A few days later Huascar was smothered in his prison in Cuzco on Atahualpa's orders. The order for gold was fulfilled. Atahualpa, of course, was then garroted and, at the insistence of Father Valverde, burned at the stake. The Spanish became masters of the Inca empire.

****

New scientific outlook on mysticism. There is a new breed of thinkers who have taken science and endeavored to use it to discover the life and the soul in the world. Frithjof Capra in his Tao of Physics and Gary Zukacs Dancing Wu Li Masters showed that modern theory of quantum mechanics resembled Eastern mysticism. The flow of elemental forces and particles resembled the idea of the dance of Shiva. Rupert Sheldrake tried to show that there was a morphogenic field in which once a form had evolved in nature it somehow facilitated reproduction of this form even at considerable distance. With this theory he could account for simultaneous discoveries. Karl Pribram made progress in neurobiology toward a holographic theory of brain/mind functioning, and David Bohm proposed ideas about a world with implicate (hidden) and explicate (obvious) levels of the real. The implicate order was enfolded into the structure of the real, in the same way a drop of paint could be stirred into ice cream. Ilya Prigogine theory of 'dissipative structures' contributed to the reenchantment of nature. Life 'eats' entropy. Even molecules do not just interact with their neighbors, "but also exhibit coherent behaviour suited to the needs of the parent organism. W. I. Thompson in "the Time Falling Bodies Take to Light," introduces anthropology from the light of his studies with Muktaananda. These along with Charles Tart, Ken Wilber, Rene Weber, Stanley Kripner, Gregory Bateson, and so on made up the intellectual cutting edge of the Age of Aquarius. It was a composite picture drawn from them that made "mysticism" appear sensible and scientific to me.

Ashtavakra. This is the story of a man who is born with ashta-eight, vakra-bends or eight twists in his limbs. When he was in the womb he could hear his father talking. His father was a real blunderer with the Satsang (conversation about the philosophy of Oneness). Every time the yet to be born genius heard his father's mistakes he got a little twisted. Later Ashtavakra becomes a great sage. The Ashtavakra Geeta (Song of) is the scripture created after the legend. It is pure knowledge, its focus is the highest points of Advaita, directed towards the final resolution of the yogas. This tractate is so elevated that it seems to be for those only who have reached some level of accomplishment in their path. It is like this. Some people are ignorant lets face it. We are just ignorant and we should do something about it. We know it. So we study. We read and we memorize, we work with it, and eventually we have satisfied ourselves that we have learned that which we knew to be our shortfall. The job is done. But Ashtavakra would have us say, "There's no problem." There is no real mind to have this problem. Now you could excuse yourself and remain ignorant this way. Who bothers for Yog Saddhana (the path of Yog and the efforts required). There is nothing to be done. I know that it is all one already. Yes intellectually you know. But can you see that moment to moment?

Jung: archetype and shadow. Carl Jung the famous and most lovable Swiss psychologist proposed that each human psyche contained some remnants of myth and history stored within its bourn. We have dreams which resemble the common myths of our past because we are assembled from the past and are evolving into the future. These archetypes teach us profound things about ourselves and the human race. They appear in dreams very lucid, very vivid, and are beacons for our continued growth. The myth is a historical note.

One day at Quebec Avenue, where both Govinda and I were living, I had come down from upstairs to make lunch. As I entered the kitchen Govinda saw me and as he was want to fool around, he pretended to be surprised and scared, and said, "Lookout! It's the death dog!" My name was Nachiketa and the story behind that is given above. The death-dog theory is in the story of Yama and the fact that Swami Satchitananda had used the metaphor often for the God-dog dichotomy while this is how SCS projected his name through that metaphor of Satchitananda. The idea is that if you have a picture of conditions on earth as they are and they seem to be deplorable, yet if you turn the picture over to the other side you get a picture of not dog but God! It was frequently coin in Shyam Space to use this expression. Note that SCS had stuck his tongue into Govinda's mouth and the fact that tanga means error. He put his tongue into Govind's mouth and then Govind spoke for him.

"THE first mortals born into this world were the children of the Sun god, and were known as Yama, the Hindu Pluto, and Yamuni (Yami), his sister (the River Jumna). As Yama was the earliest born so he was the first to depart this life,' and as he discovered the way to the other world it is only to be expected that the Vedas should invest him with the dread office of conducting the dead to the home which he has made secure for them," from the myth of Yama in Hindu World, an encyclopedia.

"At death all souls go direct to Yama. The journey takes four hours and forty minutes to accomplish, and so a dead body must not be burned until that time has elapsed. Immediate judgment takes place on the arrival at Yama's abode of the dead man's soul or spirit. The way there is fraught with danger."
 

As the meditator progresses the three states of consciousness waking, dreaming and deep sleep are gradually transcended. One dreams and one's subconscious are revealed to the waking consciousness. This requires a lot of strength and honesty on the part of the meditator. He must be able to deal with the shadow side of his own self. In the practice of the Yoga one makes constant efforts for purification of the mind. This means forgiveness and acceptance of one's own person. As he/she progresses in stages of self revelation he will see more and more of his own characteristic and will have to either accept, transform or wash off those parts according to their type or nature.

For the most part the practice of meditation and the philosophy of oneness (Advaita Vedanta) fosters a smooth growth towards maturity and evenness. The characteristics of the true being are evolved with power within one's own nervous system through repeated transits into the peaks of human existence. Sat- truth, Chit-consciousness and Aanaand-bliss becomes ones core characteristics. That means all the qualities and characteristics which we generally hold to be desirable in a human being will be fostered at the same time. These are love, awareness, strength, tolerance, happiness, peacefulness, goodness, compassion and so on. Therefore the transmutation of one's soul through the practice allows one to turn up and out the collected faults and painful impression and fire them up with a dynamic bliss bearing consciousness generated through concentration in the Satchitaanaand.

Tripura Rahasya, Or The Mystery Beyond the Trinity, translated by Sri Swami Ramaanand Saraswati, T.N.Venkataraman, Tiruvannamalai, India, 1971.
 

Hemalekh a beautiful damsel born out of wedlock in a tryst between a Vidyadhari (a celestial woman) and Sushena, King of Vanga, married Hemachud son of King Muktachud. [After marriage Hemalekh had advanced rapidly in meditation and was often going into Samadhi.]

The infatuated young Prince noticing that Hemalekha was not as amorous as himself. Feeling that she was always unresponsive, he asked her in private: "My dear! How is it you are not as attentive to me as I am to you? Thou fairest of girls with radiant smiles! How is it that you are never keen on seeking pleasure of enjoying it? Are not these pleasures to your taste? You look indifferent even during the greatest pleasures. How can I be happy if your interest is not awakened? Even when I am close to you, your mind seems to be elsewhere; when spoken to, you do not seem to listen. As I hold you in close embrace for a long while you seem unconscious of me, and then ask me, "Lord when did you come?" None of the carefully planned arrangements seem to interest you and you do not take part in them. When I turn away from you, you remain with your eyes closed; and so you continue whenever I approach you. Tell me how can I derive pleasure with nothing but an artists model which is what you are, seeing your indifference to all enjoyments. What does not please you cannot please me either. I am always looking up to you, trying to please you like the Kumuda lily looking up to the moon."

(the Kumuda lily only blossom and night and is said to be enamored of the moon)

"Speak dear! Why are you like this? You are dearer to me than even life. I adjure you! Speak and so relieve my mind."

[Well Hemalekha had been raised by her foster father as forest sage Vyaghrapada. The wife then educates her husband on matter of Indian philosophy and in the end Hemachud passes into Samadhi himself.]
 

"the following are instances of that state: when a man remains un aware of in and out' for a short interval and is not overpowered by the ignorance of sleep; the infinitesimal time when one is beside one-self with joy; when embraced by one's beloved in all purity; when a thing is gained which was intensely longed for but given up in despair; when a lonely traveler moving with the utmost confidence is suddenly confronted with the utmost danger; when one hears of the sudden death of one's only son, who was in the best of his health, in the prime of life, and at the apex of his glory."

"There are also intervals of Samadhi namely the interim period between the waking, dreaming and deep sleep states; at the time of sighting a distant object, the mind holding the body at one end projects itself into space until it holds the object at the other end, just as a worm prolongs itself at the time of leaving one hold to catch another hold." (this is actually a type of clairvoyance)

The attainment of the state of Samadhi and entry into a stage of purity of mind meant increase in base line happiness and increasing mental power. As the practice continues one begins to encounter the miraculous within oneself and within the world. It can be a moment of great joy to realize the depth of the wonder of creation, or it can be a total paranoid hang-up, according to how you take it. Getting caught up in the miraculous powers is even worse than any ordinary involvements. Psychic things can inflate the ego so badly that you'll never get off.
 

"Obstacles to Samadhi. If the mind does not succeed in becoming established in Brahma after it has been detached from the world, it often lapses into a state of sleep or torpidity. A kind of stagnation sets in. The aspirant is reluctant to make fresh efforts. His progress is slowed down, or may feel distracted by ideas for the most part petty, inconsequential and insignificant. They may be a result of the aspirants futile talk or meaningless actions of the past.. Or seized by a violent attachment (kasaaya) to a long forgotten experience. Or may feel quite satisfied with the enjoyment of an inferior bliss (rasaavaad) or a foretaste of the Bliss of Brahman, and often be unwilling to make further efforts to make the goal. The practice of austerities strengthens the will." From Atma Bodh, Shankaraacharya

. . . and for all and all you night just become:

"a glittering joker dancing in the dragons jaws" a line from the singer song writer activist Bruce Cockburn.

1982 in Ottawa. The YMCA down town where I used to swim to heal my back. In the sauna. A large bearded man sitting and we talk. I mention meditation. He was in Vietnam and tells me that before combat his group (platoon) used to sit in a circle tuning in and meditating for a couple of hours. Then they would move into the jungle and do what they had to do. There were implications of this about meditation and violence and the use of meditation that moved me to change my directions in Shyam Space. I really wasn't very conscious of this but it did happen. Same with the stay at the hospital where my room-mate and I used to talk. He had a motorcycle accident and had broken a few bones, and needed therapy to get him walking again. He came over afterwards we had both left the hospital and gave me some dope to smoke. His girlfriend was called Mara which brought to mind the death in the name, Maaraa in Hindi. Even then I thought it peculiar that death should come over to the ashram after the hospital and that changed the tone of my understanding sufficient to wonder what others do in Shyam Space about dying.

Simultaneously there was R. M. French and the Way of the Pilgrim and the Philokalia which introduction I credit to Francis Piscopo. Also I was introduced to Gestalt psychology by a student at the ashram. Moreover SCS had recommended that I have on operation on my back and this really set me to think that there was something wrong. I could do it the yogic way but it would be slower and would put me in touch with another guru. SCS did not want me at the ashram as people were bringing me food and in many ways just being present was something like what SCS had not hoped for. If I started doing satsangs he would be find it irksome (invidious) because he wanted complete control. Therefore he wanted to get the operation not only to blame any outcomes on my doctor but on western medicine and that would get me up and out of the ashram and working for money that he would have later. He was convinced that I could be rich.

When Nancy came back she came back with many spooks. Before that was when I had the dream. About the cats on the neck (at Regents St. earlier) where Shyam just looked and did nothing. And the other dream about Nancy as the raggedy-anne. She had typhoid and might have died. I sometimes think maybe she was given typhoid and maybe it was right then and there that she would have spooks on her as she returned and then left for Montreal. All this I figured out later that the spooks in Shyam's "heavens" were so bad as to kill someone so they could parasite them in the Space.

They ended up on Mukti and then Savita started blaming me and then he wrote that I wasn't a demon in case I came to hear about it. Then maybe Mukti had written or whatever and then Gibbie came along and took her with him after his father had died. I had left in spring 1982 for that horrible stay in Toronto.

"I don't know anything about the suicide of Hume Wright except that he blew his head off with a shotgun purchased by Girdhar. I am not aware of any connection to Shankar or First Avenue. Please fill me in on the details.

You probably know that Girdhar is in Federal prison doing a couple of years time for international drug trafficking. Speaking of the law of Karma, you might be interested to know that Kamla is involved with Gagan in Kullu and they are both looking happy. Two dim-wits made for each other, I think."

I was living at Q. Avenue in Toronto. I had been at Ottawa but had been suffering from a back problem that keep me on the floor for about seven months. I was living beside the ashram on First Avenue in Ottawa and had suffered through the problem. When I go to TO I found that Doug and Becky were living with Vivek a former student of Shankar's in Ottawa. Although I had quit smoking Becky was still on the weed. Bansurya used to come by now and then and they would go upstairs and smoke a spliff. I used to partake of a bit and Bansuria had always put a bit of tobacco in with the spliff. Slowly I started to smoke again. Vivek had made some kind of deal with Doug and Becky where he was a kind of butler. He did chores. He didn't pay anything to Doug for his stay in the house. I used to catch that guy at keyholes. He used to go out with a woman who was a Bahai. She would go in his little room at the end of the hall way and they would talk and whatever. I always wondered when he said that he was teaching her Yoga. Anyway as it turns out I was slowly getting involved with Becki and she had been involved with Vivek as a paramour, something I didn't find out about until later. They didn't let out their secrets with Vivek and I only came to figure it out by chance.

Perchance I had met that woman called Lakshmi from the Baba hari Dass house. (I went to see Baba Hari Dass once in Toronto to get some ayurvedic medicine for my bowels. I worked! He was a beautiful guy). I had a dream the night before and I saw Lakshmi coming in a dream, she rolled some things from her hand into my lap and smiled on me. It wasn't money. Then the next day I ran into her in Kensington market. We went for tea at a health food place. She told me that Vivek had said to Lakshmi that he had slept with (sexed with ) Becki. It seems that Becki and Doug had not been getting along as he was beginning to manifest his homosexual inclinations and they both were striving for some sort of celibacy or continence in some way. In the end Doug and Becki had sort of come to an understanding about it and I suspect that he had played the field with his fantasy guys from the office and she had begun to use Vivek's talents to satisfy her sexuality. In that way they would remain together as a working team and Aaron would not be losing one parent or another. I had come down from Toronto on the basis that I just stay and they pay the bills. They wanted an long time Shyam to stay at their house and I had gone, from Ottawa in 1982, springtime, to live in the West end of Toronto near Royal York. Becki and I had managed to get very close and there was a moment in which she had just started to massage my neck and had nestled her bosom into my back and was talking quietly . Doug was in the room as well as a couple of others—Yashoda, and maybe Premma or someone. It was at supper time, her bosom on my back. I was quite turned on but when I looked up at Doug I saw that he was getting very uncomfortable and she was not minding it at all.

I was living (1982) with Doug and Becky Carson (Dayal and Becky) at Quebec Avenue 'ashram'. She had an abortion. The telegram came from India informing her that she shouldn't only after she had the abortion. She had already had Aaron. She was married to Doug and there was no reason to have the abortion. So he sends the message afterwards. She had written a long time before. So he connives with it. Becky was having trouble with the sexuality in Shyam Space. I heard that she had gone to India and had started to lose the hair on her head, which I was told was the effect of 'some strange disease.' In 1982 also she had gone one Halloween to a disco with Doug and Marut and had gone in a sheer white shift. I was at the house when they came back and she walked into the back room where a few of were sitting playing cards and she showed herself off to us. She didn't dance, but it was are obvious that she cared nothing about the idea of conventional propriety of Ashrams. Nina was like that at 108 First Avenue Ashram in Ottawa. She was always saying to people that she didn't want to know herself as a woman and yet she would wear lycra bras under sheer white blouses and you could see her nipples easily.

Doug had already done something which she was going to make him pay for. Alas poor Aaron. I knew him from a very young age. Doug was fostering wearing dresses when the guy was just three and four years old. Nature and nurture? He was bringing him up to be gay. I saw a lot of Aaron. I never saw anything in him that from his karma or whatever that he should be gay. He was normal young man. Slowly and slowly Doug was bringing him up to express his so called leanings. Tarot cards were his toys, not toy trucks or other boy thins. Sweet peep young thing. In the end Doug and Becki had come into my room and the conversation was so heated Becki got a rash on her neck. Doug yelled at me for one whole hour before he stopped accusing and turned to Becki and says, "I didn't know that Becky, shy didn't you tell me. He was verging on crying and she was looking at him as if he were to shut and stop his dumb movie right this minute. He got up and left and Becki turned to me and said to me,

"What shall it be. "

"We shall have to carrying on that 's all. I am going to leave and you settle with Doug."

She was angry for all that but just bowed out in time to let her tears and anger out on something else. At least it was decisive. I left and I didn't feel to be paying Doug for the back rent. I had left bookshelves and a Braun juicer and they still claimed money from me. I paid them for the phone bill and said that they had promised free rent. There was this chincey little item in their accounting that said. "Aaron gets food free from the rest of us."

I said, "that ridiculous. I have no intention of paying for Aaron's food, on top of it all."

I went to Montreal for a time in 1983 where I met up with Margie Gillis again. I fell in love with her— Canada's darling of the modern dance world. We knew each other from way back and she had become very famous in her sphere. I was psychological support for her for a while as she went through the end of her relationship to Jack Udhashkin, which was just breaking up after seven years. I was brooding inside myself a lot.

There was an incident were I dreamed that I visited her. I was walking around her apartments which used to be on St. Lawrence street. There was a double length sausage dog there. Little teeny feet on a very long dog. That morning I called her up and she invited me over. She put on an album the title of which I forget. There was this same dog on the back of the album. There were sixty-four of them in an eight by eight pattern. I was tickled that I had had such an obvious snap shot of a future event in my dream.

Margie was very refined, very astute sometimes, and at other times child like, not childish but child like. Her openness left her unprotected, and then she was sometimes too frail. She was trying to manifest more executive power now that she and jack had split up. I could feel her look at me sometimes her spirit was so powerful. It happened that we had gone to see Pam's Fashion show which was done in the disco lounge of a local hotel. After the show there was open bar and dancing. Margie and I danced for quite a while. She told me she doesn't try to keep the beat, but she dances to the mood the theme. After that I used to say jokingly that I danced with the great Modern dancer Margie Gillis, as if to say that it was on stage somewhere! Margie had seen Swami Shyam in Actonvale many years ago. Perhaps 1970. This was before she was in China and danced. Her mother had been interested and he had been at their house. She really disliked him, but could not explain why. I didn't know how hurt I was inside at the time so I didn't give her enough on that and eventually she and I parted.

I felt that I couldn't keep up with her. In her world I just couldn't operate. There was very little I could do together directly, although we enjoyed. Cf. Gail Barnette

An interesting thing happened to me during the heat wave. It was an incident that really showed me the value of meditation and the center that I had developed. I had been out all day in the mid summer sun and was very dehydrated, when I came home I got into a stroke from the heat and started to shake and breathing was very erratic. I lay down on the bed and tried to rest but my mind went suddenly out of control. The most heinous negative evil thought I have ever heard myself think at my worst moments all suddenly went by on parade. I nevertheless did not identify with them but remain conscious of each thought and as it was generated I turned it back toward the center. At every turn I applied the thought of Oneness to whatever I observed. It was a strange phenomenon. It is similar in concept to the psychological technique of pair a relaxation response with a problem area as for example a phobic pattern. It is desensitization. The problem area of thought or mind is permeated by calm by the center and released. Meditation creates a center, a little space of pure energy and satisfaction or peace and this can be extended throughout the consciousness. The whole mind takes on the color of joy and then is extended into the pure being which is beyond any color. There is no hidden pain or fears etc, and we are free from our own compulsions, inadequacies and so on, and achieve a real and lasting balance in life.

The trend of the age is that many people are almost embarrassed to speak about the role of love in their lives. They do not understand love in either the personal sense or the universal or transpersonal sense. More particularly the problem is that there is no real understanding of personal love unless there is a very good direct experience of the universal. In those days one could often be called upon to make a speech. The satsang had become a sort of talk-show where students were called to the front of the group by Shyam or others who were operating a satsang in Canada. Often I would make up speeches as I walked about, or sat on the bus, or even when I was swimming.

Because meditation accesses the Satchitaanaand space, we experience directly the hidden ground, and begin to live from day to day the feeling of divine love, and bring the power of it to the relative world. The power of this love is in healing the ailing soul which has gotten buried in the pain of the loveless and godless life which is immersion in the world. The Guru's love has that healing power. His vibrations alone will make you feel easy, peaceful, happy, content, centered, and so on. This divine love is the foundation of the devotees relationship with his teacher. Love is never separated from wisdom. Without wisdom we get happiness only by chance. Without wisdom love is mere foolishness and leads only to pain after pain. Through meditation and through the Guru we recover the true love in our lives. This does not only mean that one has to abjure all one's relationships but that all one's relationships are fulfilled. With enlightenment there is no separation and no end to love. Meditation: Simple, Easy to Follow, Practical, Rewarding, Effective.

I was frequently writing little speeches in my mind, usually with the thought that I would have to have something to say in satsang sometime. Self realization or enlightenment is of course the ultimate goal of every man and woman. There is nothing higher than this in life. It is as if there are two directions of growth; up and out.

The upward motion is increasing and expanding consciousness and the outward motion means more and more experience, detail, complexity. With self realization the upward motion is finished while the outward motion continues into even greater spheres. In this self realization pure consciousness is revealed as the very root of existence internal or external to mind. This consciousness is pure knower and as such is underlying space of mind and is the actual source from which the fabric of ego is woven. To experience this is to know it. There are many ways to arrive at the experience—almost as many as there are people. Almost all those ways include some practice of meditation. it is because meditation is historically proven as a safe, effective and efficient transformer of consciousness. it renews energy and eases pain, clarifies the memory, increases perception & understanding. Start meditating today. Begin from where you are.

One day when I was in Montreal, Gyaanindra had come round and we had been talking at my house. I had liked him as he was a brilliant man and had traveled a great deal meeting many spiritual teachers. He had said that his father had committed suicide and it was Giridhar that had bought the gun for him. Giridhar had said to Gibbie that Hume, his father, had asked him to get the gun for him because he was going hunting. Another thing Gyaanindra said was that Shyam had once offered his daughter Rekha to him in marriage. He looked at me in a very intense way and I could scarcely say anything. My thought was then that it should have been thought a privilege. But Gibbie knew something else. I was in the habit of writing these things off as simply "blowing the mind" the concepts or the habits of mind.

In the fall of 1983 I began serious work on Christianity. I continued with it full time until the mid winter of 84/85 when I discontinued it and went to Montreal to start a business.

The outcome was the book Shyam had referred to. The Mystic and Christian dialectics or Christianity: the religion without Self realization. The differences between the 'philosophia perinea' and the corporate church. The difference and the similarities between spirituality and religion. Religion: Because the Christian must make a leap of faith over reason in order to be faithful he has difficulty understanding the overall truths of "religion' as a generalization. Because he must just accept without question his religious dogma, without being able to verify for himself the truth of his religion ( and therefor his whole life) he is constantly struggling with his intellect to cover up any discrepancies. These discrepancies have been appearing by the legion not only from without the church but from within in.

There appears this philosophy

"nor is he the unfathomable Being with which the man achieves mystical union in meditation; he is the absolute other, which can be believed and not seen"
" the absolute gap between finite man and infinite God made any traditional bridge-building between the two on man's part futile"
-Kierkegaard?

NEWSFLASH
 

Ronald Reagan calls the USSR the Evil Empire. Reagan subscribed to the theology of pre-tribulation rapture. This Biblical interpretation, popular throughout the history of Christianity, holds that the return of Christ will begin when believers are 'raptured' into heaven and rescued from a seven year period of "tribulation" involving worldwide war, famines and natural disasters, culminating in a Final Battle between two superpowers that will destroy the planet. Pp 131

Then, at a lobbyists' banquet honoring Mills (pro-tem president of California Senate), the senator asked Reagan whether he had ever read chapters 38 and 39 of the book of Ezekial in the Old Testament. Reagan reportedly replied:

"In the 38th chapter of Ezekiel, it says that the land of Israel will come under attack by the armies of the ungodly nations, and it says that Libya has now gone communist, and that's a sign that the day of Armageddon is not far off.. All the prophesies that had to be fulfilled before Armageddon have come to pass. In the 38th chapter of Ezekial it says that God will take the children of Israel from among the heathen, where they have been scattered, and will gather them again in the promised land. That has finally come about after 2000 years. For the first time ever, everything in its place for the battle of Armageddon and the second coming of Christ."

Mills recalls that Reagan said:

"Everything is falling in place. It can't be much longer now. Ezekial says fire and brimstone will be rained upon the enemies of God's people. That must mean that they'll be destroyed by nuclear weapons. They exist now, and they never did in the past..

Ezekial tells us that Gog, the nation that will lead all of the other powers of darkness against Israel, will come out of the North. Biblical scholars have been saying for generations that Gog must be Russia. What other powerful nation is North of Israel? None. But it didn't seem to make sense before the Russian revolution, when Russia was a Christian country. Now it does, now that Russia has become communistic and atheistic, now that Russia has set itself against God. Now it fits the description of Gog perfectly." P132

In 1980 while campaigning for the presidency, Reagan appeared on Jim Baker;s PTL network and told the audience, "We may be the generation that sees Armageddon." Jerry Falwell recalls of 1981 conversation with Reagan in which the President said, "Jerry, I sometimes believe we're heading very fast for Armageddon right now." Diamond here quoting from James Mills, "The Serious Implications of a 1971 conversation with Ronald Reagan," san Diego magazine, August 1985

Well that is enough to scare you for a life time. The fact is there is no winnable nuclear war and the inception of nuclear will inevitably lead to nuclear winter. Nuclear winter means 80-90% probability of destroying all human life on the planet. Nothing left but cockroaches and weeds.

Fundamentalist christianity: It frightened me. The thought of such an awesome enterprise as trying to take on Christianity. It seemed to me that there was a real need for it though. The fundamentalists were about to nuke us all in order to prove themselves. They were institutional paranoids. What could I do? I started to work seriously on the problem. I went to U of Toronto one day and wandered through the campus visiting the various theological colleges. I was dead broke and couldn't even afford a membership for the libraries. Both Trinity (Anglicans) and Regis (the Jesuits) allowed to borrow from their libraries without paying. That was very Christian of them I thought.

Elaine Pagel on Gnostics: The Gnostics are very like the old style of Yogis. The early church had been quite virulent in trying to extirpate their influence from the Mediterranean basin. The mystic: in fact the church didn't like mystics at all. A mystic is here defined a someone who believe in direct communion or union with God. A direct experience of God on communion is OK by the Church as long as you don't try to say that you were one with him. Unity with the Lord is heresy. That unity of essence is reserved for Jesus. That is called Hypostatic union and even this was hotly debated within the Church. The Vedanti (myself) says that union is the basis of all being. Snorting retort from Christianity is that is paganism and the dreaded pantheism. Not so say modern interpreters of the Hindu and Buddhist traditions, it is not pantheism at all but more at panenthiesm. God is still transcendental. The Hindu's feel they own Jesus as a mystic, "I and the father are One." And they lean heavily on John. The church is greatly perturbed by this appropriation of their Jesus.

M. Asked me one day, "what is so good about Yoga and why do you do so much of it?"
I answered him, "I can remember a few days in which I felt that good that if I had lived only for those days then I would have to say my life was worth living."
He smiled, "Hmmm, I'm impressed. That sounds like a good reason."
 

Peter and Simon magus: The Acts of Peter, Peter and Simon Magus have been dueling for the allegiance of the people.

"And by the following day a large crowd had assembled on the Sacred Way to see him fly. And Peter, having seen a vision, came to the place, in order to convict him again this time; for when Simon made his entry into Rome, he astonished the crowds by flying; but Peter, who exposed him, was not yet staying in Rome, the city which he so carried away by his deceptions that people lost their senses through him.

So this man stood on a high place and seeing Peter, he began to say: "Peter now of all times, when I am making my ascent before all these onlookers, I tell you: If your God has power enough—he whom the Jews destroyed, and they stoned you who were chosen by him—let him show that faith in him is of God; let it be shown at this time whether it be worthy of God. For I, by ascending, will show all this crowd what manner of being I am." And lo and behold, he was carried up into the air, and everyone saw him all over Rome, passing over its temples and its hills while the faithful looked towards Peter. And Peter, seeing the incredible sight, cried out to the Lord Jesus Christ, "Let this man do what he undertook, and all who have believed in you shall be overthrown, and the signs and wonders, which you gave them through me shall be disbelieved. Make haste, Lord, with your grace; and let him fall down from his height, and be crippled, but not die; let him be disabled and break his leg in three places!" And he fell down from that height and broke his leg in three places. Then they stoned him and went to their own homes; but from that time they all believed in Peter." From The Other Bible, Willis Barnstone ed.,Harper & Row, San Francisco,1984
 

There the man about to take my order the co-owner of the cafe, by God what a shock, the bane of my life, the M. of the darkness. The entertainment to superstars like Johnny winter, Jimmie Hendrix and Janice Joplan. M. had been the "I can get anything you want" type. He has many talents. M. I had known for so long and had started the hippie thing together but had slowly become associated with too much of the last part of the seventies and the punking of the inner city of the middle eighties. He had said that he had turned to Tibetan Buddhism in the end but I thought his knowledge of it was purely decorative. He was still drinking, but had given up the scag. This is my karma? I should hit the trails. M. had friends.

George Penner son of a missionary couple that had been resident in India in the southerly part. He was brought up in India and was very character of character., Eau de latest U-know. Zaza. Mm mm mama, check this out M., Bourbon. George was the other owner of his restaurant. Lived at their house for a while. M. had a girl friend and lived on Spadina. I lived at Major St..

At Major there were six or so people sharing a house. We had one common kitchen downstairs. There were some arguments but by and large it was quiet. Charles Bull a young theology student of the Anglican tradition and scion of the family of an Anglican priest, a man of considerable prestige and importance in the university area of Toronto. Charles said that it was "providence" to him that he should meet me. Across the hall there was a Chinese Canadian student , who used to do temple dances of recent Christian vintage in the local churches. She said that there was quite a bit of resistance to her doing so even though as dances go it would have been more like the Tibetan traditional folk dance than Saturday night fever. What 's the matter with the Dance of the Twelve stations. Upstairs there was a woman who made my heart ache. Her name was Lynn Jones, of Welsh origin?

There was a certain young man that I knew in Shyam Space as it is called —the collection of students, admirers and devotees that surround swami Shyam. His name was Jyoti. He used to sing and play guitar and he was really pretty good. He has a wry sense of humor and he had a creativity that was the envy of many. He was a very loving guy and was very wise for a man of only 21 year or so age. He even looked like a sage when he was in his late teens, a sort of Gandalf look rugged due to his early calamities of the complexion that teens so often suffer. An acne severe enough to classify as small pox. He was of Jewish origin and had bar mitzvah'd at one of the most exclusive synagogues of Montreal. I used to spend many pleasant hours with him in conversation and making jokes. We loved each other in good for a long time. Like young brothers. It kept happening in late 1983 that I would run into him in the huge sea of people in Toronto at very diverse places and it happened so often that I thought that was "providence" as Charles put it, a sort of meaningful coincidence that was beginning to nag at me.

1982: I stayed in Kensington Market with M. The M. Here I had a run in with my old friend. He had gone down the pipe. For a long time but now seemed to be trying to recover himself. Still the wonderfully entertaining and sometimes caring individual I knew him to have been, he could get himself into a nightmare state on no time. I couldn't be around him anymore. I went and lived by myself in a room and wouldn't talk to him. We made up later and I decided he should learn some Yog so that he could put his life back together. It would be a long uphill climb for him. I couldn't see him putting much time in at the ashram. But I taught him what I could. It was my form of compassion. Even though he was no longer the sort of person I wanted to befriend I still felt ties to him, Karma. After a while I began to wonder if I wasn't going downhill with him instead of him uphill with me. I wrote to Shyam. He wrote me back. Saying it is good work to try to improve the consciousness.

1983 the Fall: once I had been out calling around for a room and there was a house full of people up in the North end of Toronto. So I had intended to go up and look at the accommodation. They had put it off many times and then had suddenly called and said that there was going to be a party . And that I should come if I wanted to see the place. I went with a then friend of mine Debbie Selinger and it was a sort of yuppie wine and cheese do with perhaps 30 people there. A room had been cleared for dancing and I had danced a bit with Debbie. It was no smoking but they had provided one room upstairs. I was smoking again in those days and had gone up with Debbie. There I met two people who had known some of the Shyams that I knew. One was Sebua Marsh and the other was called Scott something. (at this time I think I was staying down at 39 Kensington with M. and George.) There was also a guy who had dread and looked exactly like Dikpal. He would do services in the community like driving around picking up day old bread from the bakeries and distributing it to the local food drives. Scott had known Shankar and was saying that he was OK with it. He had gotten into Tai Chi and Push Hands especially and did not want to get any further involve in Shyam Space. He was a good man to men and we had tea a few times before he disappeared into northern Toronto and found no more time to down around kensington.

Sebua had said that she had known Jaanki Chick and Victor XXZ who had dragged her into some strange group that was getting into occult things. She didn't want to know about them or their new found Guru Swami Shyam. After having listened to the histories about the group I had to admit that I wouldn't want to have much to do with the group that they were so enthusiastic either, Sebua did not want to get involved with me either if I was to be a member of the same Guru school. Too bad for me because I found her so attractive that I wished that I were not broke, down and out in Toronto, and on top of it all, showing signs of loving some group that her former erstwhile companions were involve with. She later got involved with Sant Takur Singh who was to become the offenders of woman and children in the minds of Montreal's Denise Trudeau. I feel sorry for that woman to have been failed by schools twice in her life and wish her well in seeking new teachers. Don't give up because you run into a bad apple Sebua. enlightenment is there for you . In your eternal dowry or treasure chest is the choice for freedom and the power to Realize eventually, if not sooner. It was such a very coincidental thing to meet these people so suddenly an in the oceanic people space of Toronto— suddenly two people connected to Shyam sitting in the same room. Saying you know Swami Shyam I know Swami Shyam and here is what I know and the news is not so good. Ever bad reference I get about Shyam Space diminishes its value to me.

Jaanki Chic in a cult where they were verging on black magic. I had spent some time with her in Kullu. Sebua didn't say so but I gather the tone of their sacrifices was not so noble. She a and Victor Levetski had arrived in India while I was not there. I met Jaanki only after Victor had been sent back. Victor had gotten nutty over there had started to get into the sort stupid thing as what happens when some people do acid. Thinking he can fly and jumping over a balcony, alternatively "cosmic" and then suddenly heavy and sometimes with some insidious suggestions of power and dominance, getting weird. He was ushered to the nearest airport. "this meeting must have been arranged from above." I thought. I was yet to understand how crucially all was.

19.3.83: My meditations had been progressing. In the fall of 1982 I felt myself to be in a new layer of consciousness. When I would close my eyes it would seem to me that I was blue sky or a point in the blue sky and that I could see the horizon around me. It was very peaceful and the calmness of the mind was pure grace. On occasion something would appear in my minds eye from outside the domain of my physical senses, perceptions which proved to me that I was not just in an imaginary space. For example I was meditating one day in my room of the second floor. Suddenly I saw someone's eyes in my mind. Then the door of the house opened and someone came in. It was a woman who lived with us. She came up directly to my room, and knocked. I explained this sequence as follows. She thought of me before entering the house. When she did I saw her eyes. It is a symbol of the fact that she was looking for me. At other times the mind would be so placid that I would have an image of something I had seen during the day float into the mind. It was like a ball of paper unraveling by itself and having flattened out presenting itself on the mirror of the mind. It appeared to come from the bottom of a pool and like a leaf floating to the surface slowly presenting itself.

Other things happened. My sleep changed and I would find that I was conscious while asleep. Even the dreams were more plastic, more symbolic, more vivid. At the same time events in my life began to be or synchronistic. I was beginning to understand that expression which had bothered me so much in the past, "it is all perfect." Seemingly disconnected events could be strung together to show a deeper meaning to life. I felt that I was living my archetypes. The subconscious had arisen and I was beginning to live on a mythical plane. It was a job to keep the superstitious elements out of my mind. Chop wood and carry water. Simplicity and earnestness were necessary to keep from getting fascinated with my own inner works. In Zen Buddhism, they say that all visions and voices are just more illusion. They call it Makyo. Yet through these many epiphenomenon I was deriving great meaning from my life. I was dissolving as they say. But at the same time I felt that I had more work to do. It was not time for me to dissolve. I don't know why. Perhaps I was just a fool. There is nothing greater than Self-realization. With the entry into the divine all is accomplished and all satisfaction is given. No one should seek any further than to know this unity of Being and Consciousness. It is true bliss. Yet my destiny and my Karmas were calling and I had to persist.

1983: Isaiah: reading Isaiah made me ill it was so heavy. It was chapter after chapter of threats and invective. Scarcely a kind word, barely a word about the Joy the feeling of love. It was the sounds of a very frustrated man cursing everything that gets in his way. "this is a prophet?" I wondered.

Montreal: terre etoile a new age center which had a restaurant and bookstore plus and meeting room. I used to take my lunches there.

1983 Maalaa (Rosalee) came back to Montreal from Columbia and stayed at Hampton. She had been to Ganesh's ranch in Bogata with her cousin Nirmala. She told me she had nearly gone nuts at their ranch and she couldn't figure out why it gave her the creeps there. And then she wouldn't talk about it and she went back to Kullu and came back in 1985 and was the space-leader at Marriete after both Mahabir and Devidnra had left. She was the best because she was very talented and could sing and dance and loved children. In 1983 I had gone around with her and her child of 9 called Carrie who was a beautiful soul. Rosalee had left her husband for Shyam and the child was missing her quite a lot.

1984: channelers and prophets. The new age is upon us and a new bread of hucksters has grown up. The Bhagavad Geeta tells us that 'worship' or this kind (channeling) is tamasic (of a lower order and without much merit). Whole books are written through the use of channels. The tendency is to believe that these are somehow more important than ordinary human intelligence. Perhaps this is an extension of the inspired state. Yet even a disembodied being incarnates from time to time. Even a Ramtha must reincarnate in order to reach the final Liberation. The greatest of intelligence comes from this experience which is a natural human event - the experience of Self-realization. A prophet is really one who knows the state of Unity as his own nature.

Malachi martin: The Encounter: this book affirmed for me that the Children of Abraham, the Jews, the Christians and the Muslims speak a language of power common to their traditions. Martin charts this in the text and the resemblance between the three traditions, the common elements are extraordinary. They resemble each other and they speak the same way. Our way is it. God chose us. If you don't agree you go to Hell. Even Christianity which should be a religion of love and prayer, became an authoritarian incorporation. Power and the law are the domains of these three. When they are juxtapostioned and compared as in comparative religion the true irony of the resemblance is seen clearly. How could three different religions of the book be so power seeking and manipulative. How could you possibly decide that one of them was the 'true' faith.

Greeks and Romans. In Christianity there are two different streams of thought. The greeks favor the concept of unity with God in his energies. The Roman Christians were more pietistic, more corporal anthropologically and more transcendental in the divinity. God was more remote to the Roman Christian less immanent. The closer one gets to India the more closely the faith appears to be mystical. The Greeks were less structured and freer, less dogmatic. They had worked out a concept of spiritual guide (Startzy) which resembled the Guru system. I favored Greek Christianity over the Roman.

This was a time in which I felt that my work on myself had born fruit. My mind was becoming very pure and a feeling would come over me from time to time of being happy without any reason. I was still corresponding with Shyam quite often.

Early 1984 Jitendra: Manoj's best friend after JM. Find him with a bottle of Scotch at the kitchen table. Comes around one day with Native Canadian who is supposed to be a psychic and asks if we want a reading. Take one look and say no. Apparently the woman was only inspired when she drank so he got the bottle to keep her going while he got the knowledge from her. He is supposed to be an astrologer. He is just a fool with it. Uses the I Ching which he carries in his hip like a gun. Never gets very deep into and it is a scam with him. He is gross and course in his mind and a burden on the ashram. Lives in dirt. A gadget man and fixit type without any great skill.

Feb. 19, 1984
Dearest Nachiketa,

Everything is going just perfectly for you. Your letter was very good -- I have been waiting a long time. You just remain one- pointed as you are and all the health and happiness and clarity will unfold and envelop you and radiate clarity around you.

You must know I am always one with you and never separated by any distance of bodies. The consciousness is One. Unlimited, that you are, That I am, and so whether I come or do not come to visit you are held in my heart along with all my own Selves everywhere. But it is a nice hope and good cone.

I like your idea for a book. Go ahead with it. Since I alone am everywhere, so I am not separate from Christ. You can write about your knowledge, and send me some pages when they are written.

Your letter has please me, Nachiketa. Keep meditating and cultivate good habits. Have Satsang with those around you and cultivate those thoughts which create joy, love Peace, Oneness and Divinity around you and in your own Head-space. This will always help you and unfold the vision of Oneness that is Shyam.

With Love,
Your Own Self,
Shyam

(his signature)
 

Religion in the Secular City
Harvey Cox, Simon and Schuster, New York, Pg 65

My second reason for doubting whether fundamentalism can succeed in making contribution to post modern theology has to do with what might be called its "political apocalyptic" belief that the end of the age is near. This Christ-is-coming-soon eschatology not only discourages any kind of work for constructive change, it can also produce a kind of overheated fatalism: if the big bang is going to come, then let it happen soon."

Pg 66

"In the region and subcultures most influenced by fundamentalism this sense that we are in the last days, coupled with a kind of vertiginous fascination with the prospect, is widespread even among people who do not attend church."

Pg. 66-77

"The trouble that is spreading the bad news of immanent nuclear war can become self-fulfilling prophecy. When fundamentalism ceases to proclaim the central kernel of the biblical message - that God calls human beings to repent, to change their evil ways, and that God's grace makes such repentance possible - then Christian fundamentalism forgoes any claim to being a Christian or biblical theology. It has opted for a low-grade kismet, an it's-all-in-the-cards fatalism that produces cynical sense of powerlessness. It has become a religious pathology.

If its fatalistic side predominates, then fundamentalism may become one more factor in depriving us of any future at all."
 

Huxley ,Per. Phil. & Global problems:

"The reign of violence will never come to an end until first most humans accept the same, true philosophy of Life; until second, this Perennial Philosophy is recognized as the highest factor common to all the world religions; until third, the adherents of every religion renounce the idolatrous time-philosophies, with which in their own particular faith, the Perennial philosophy of eternity has been overlaid; until forth, there is a world wide rejection of all political pseudo-religions which place man's supreme goal in future time and therefore justify and commend the commission of every sort of present iniquity as a means to an end"(8)
 

Ecology. Ever since reading Silent Spring by Rachel Carson in 1968, I had been increasingly aware of the dangers of manufacturing just about everything. I was slated to become a chemical engineer and had dropped out. A chemical engineer is one who designs processes to mass produce the chemicals that Ms. Carson was so distraught over. I was glad that I had dropped out and refused to participate in the whole industrial ruin of the planet.

Feminism. The feminist were becoming a big force about this time. I sympathized with them and read what I could on it. German Greer. Then they began to splinter into little pockets of radical this and that. I didn't know what to do. It was damned if you do and damned if you don't. Try to open and door for someone and they think you're a male chauvinist. Then at the next stage someone else thinks I'm lacking in manners. I began asking what I was supposed to do whenever I met a woman. Do I buy the tickets. How do you feel about me treating you in such and such a way?

Vision of computer: One day as I was thinking about my career in business I had the idea that I might get a minicomputer. Suddenly it appear on my desk and it seemed very real.

Vision of pope: On the same day I was thinking about religion and Christianity and I saw the pope appear with his robe and his mitre, his crosier in his hand. I felt disgusted with this extravagance and display of worldly power, I went up and took the crosier out of his hand and broke it across my knee.

Dialectics. This is a philosophical pursuit of the differences and similarities between world views. Theoretically people love the 'truth'. Almost everybody thinks that the way they live in somehow reflects the truth. Muslims and Christians all feel that they are doing the right thing. Yet they are in conflict. Thoughts systems are possessions and are intensely guarded. In order to convince someone of a view that may prejudice his own he has to be first sold on the idea that eventually he will get more out of the change than he will out of clinging to the old system. Nobody wants to know the 'truth' if it doesn't increase him. With so much ego involved, where so much power lies, the struggle for the truth becomes political. Vast teams are necessary to argue for one's position. It's a business. Do you know how many theologians there are in this world? Every religious system has a full time team busy supporting the faith. Every political system has a team as well (in democracy it is pretty diffuse -distributed between the courts and external affairs, secretary of state, treasury boards etc. - and the universities play a large role). The struggle for the truth becomes like the clashing of galaxies. How simple it is in comparison to find a personal truth through meditation and direct experience.

Yet I did not neglect to experience church once again and had gone to a Candlelight ceremony with my young friend Charles Bull, a theology student. In this ceremony all the lights are turned out. One big candle is introduced from the back and is brought down the isle with chanting. All along the pews individual tapers are lit, with which the communicants have been supplied in advance. Soon the whole church is luminous with hundreds of candles. There is a short homily and more hymns are sung. Eventually the overhead lights are restored and the faithful embrace their neighbors on the left and right. It was a beautiful occasion.

I had experience of many religions. I visited and read, watched on video and heard tapes, of many different saints within the eastern and western traditions. I was especially enamored of the Yogis. Satchitaanad seemed like a grandfather to me. I had gone to see him more than a half dozen times. Shree Chinmoy was also an uncle in the faith. I saw him almost as many times.

I saw sant darshan singh who had become the head of the Beas River Satsang of the Sikh tradition. We hugged when we met. I felt an affinity for him. The Sikh tradition is a mixture of Hindu and Moslem faiths and I was sympathetic to much of his philosophy. I saw videos and read a few books of the maverick American Guru Da Free John. He writes well. I hope that he can run a clean machine and doesn't get caught up in name and fame. In the Korean Zen tradition Seung Sahn Suensa, delighted me with his crisp repartee and smiling face. He glowed, no doubt about it. For Zen too I feel an affinity. Particularly Zen Mind beginner mind of Shirenryu Suzuki .. Who stayed in Califirnia. Bawa Muhyadeen whom I saw on a video is a Shaikh and very traditional. He is supposed was supposed to be nearly 100 years old when I saw him in 1982. He didn't look older than sixty. As a matter of fact he looked like a teenager with a white beard. The Sufi Pir Vilayat Khan, I found a most likable man and a very good speaker. Again I felt and sympathetic resonance for the Sufi community. There were a few good "yoga" teachers in this world Shree Chinmoi , Gurumayiee and Muktananda , Satchitananda or Baba hari Dass, Iwas in the Like a bee going from flower to flower stage.

I went to see Joh. And Ger the other day, because Joh had said she might 'word process' my book for me. This book was the dialectic between the Christians and the Vedantis. It never got beyond the research and the outline. But she was concerned. She said if I was going to do a media trip with it like the southern Baptists raking over the masses, if I was one of these types she wasn't going to help at all. People are very wary of "religion" these days. People are tired of being bilked. Do you think 500 years of inquisition might be the reason. Or the fact that the church so hypocritically conspired with the aristocracy to keep the serfs bound and enslaved to their manorial Lords. Or the fact that the church abrogated the holy spirit to itself, claiming themselves the sole gate to God and Heaven - that there was no salvation beyond the church. So I'm not surprised that religion gets a bad name in Joh's books. But I think that God had gotten a bad name through the actions of the priestly class. A class that had for the greater part forgotten any part of the true spirit of Christ and had no right to interpret God's word to the people. The original message was thoroughly blotted out through there using it to further their won self-interest. Whatever good there was in Christianity has become very difficult to find because people are so alienated.

All these things may seem very distant to us in our own day to day lives. But they were very important in their own time. The French Revolutionaries and the Marxists both were very conscious of the many errors of the church. Christianity is not the only religion however. Other religions have similar histories. Islam in particular, where even in recent history thousands of Bahai's have been executed. I believe that Buddhist have been persecuted in China by Confusionist, and so it goes. So why would anybody believe in religion? Or believe in the God as taught by the religion? There are many reasons -- some of them good and some of them bad. Sometimes people go to church because they like to be with others, because it is comforting, yet they don't believe that much. They think there is a Supreme being but don't believe there are miracles. They go because they find wisdom in the bible even though there is a lot that they don't agree with. Others go because they have intuited that God exists and have occasional flashes of truth (precognitive dreams, or near death experiences) about it that makes them resolve to do something for their souls. They are compelled to anyway by their spiritual nature. Their spirituality must have an outlet somehow! People invariably at some stage or another need to express their spiritual intuitions in some concrete way. In fact some of us are compelled to seek very deeply, overthrowing all other interests in pursuit of the One — the Absolute one. So we suffer religions because it is the most immediate expression of god to us. But in the end there is always the apprehension that the experience of God is unmediated. There is no need of religion in the end. If anyone is tuned into God what need is there for a path to God. That of course does not happen very often. Personally I believe that to befriend a saint is really the best thing you can do for your spirit at the outset. Hug a holy man (as well as a tree), he needs your love too.

Adam and eve. This is perhaps the most perverse myth in existence. Eve is made to look like the demise of Adam. An afterthought. She has no place of her own. Man is supposed to remain unaware refusing to know good from evil. With this myth all woman in Christianity are compared to the Virgin Mary (who is logically necessary to give birth to the 'Lord'). Women start to become classified as Mother Mary or Mary Magdalene's. Virgins and whores (supposedly). God created everything twice according to these first two chapters. The central most point of the text seems to be SIN and GUILT. You are sinful and guilty. You disobeyed and are condemned until you start to work for us. You can't know for yourself, just take our word for it. Don't eat that apple and know good and evil for yourself you'll become like us (the priests not gods). What hateful conclusions we have to come to with it. With the idea that the essence of man is Pure Consciousness you have basic equality and fairness between the sexes. As I read the following I always come to the same conclusion. Shame on this god, shame on this religion. Why didn't god say, "there is only one god and it is I," instead of "you shall have no other gods before me." This myth is a reconstruction of the story of Gilgamesh and what very different implications it has.

Genesis Chapter 2: 15 The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it. 16 And the LORD God commanded the man, "You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die."
18 Then the LORD God said, "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner." 19 So out of the ground the LORD God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. 20 The man gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every animal of the field; but for the man there was not found a helper as his partner. 21 So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then he took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. 22 And the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. 23 Then the man said,
"This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; this one shall be called Woman, for out of Man this one was taken."
24 Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh. 25 And the man and his wife were both naked, and were not ashamed.
Chapter 3: Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God say, 'You shall not eat from any tree in the garden'?" 2 The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; 3 but God said, 'You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you shall die.' " 4 But the serpent said to the woman, "You will not die; 5 for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." 6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate. 7 Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves.
8 They heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the LORD God called to the man, and said to him, "Where are you?" 10 He said, "I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself." 11 He said, "Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?" 12 The man said, "The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate." 13 Then the LORD God said to the woman, "What is this that you have done?" The woman said, "The serpent tricked me, and I ate."

14 The LORD God said to the serpent,
"Because you have done this, cursed are you among all animals and among all wild creatures; upon your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. 15 I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will strike your head, and you will strike his heel."
16 To the woman he said,
"I will greatly increase your pangs in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children, yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you."
17 And to the man he said,
"Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten of the tree about which I commanded you, 'You shall not eat of it,' cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life; 18 thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. 19 By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return."
20 The man named his wife Eve, because she was the mother of all living. 21And the LORD God made garments of skins for the man and for his wife, and clothed them. 22 Then the LORD God said, "See, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever"— 23 therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken. 24 He drove out the man; and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim, and a sword flaming and turning to guard the way to the tree of life.

It was an interesting thing that there were four rivers of the garden of Eden. A commentary on Genesis that I read said that these were the Tigris Euphrates, the white Nile and the blue Nile. I picked up on it why those and not the Nile, Tigris, Euphrates, and Indus. I realized that the Indus was not included because of prejudice. Incredible as it sounds the commentator was not able to include Indian civilization within the beginnings of mankind. Yet the map shows that the four are in the same general area which were fertile river basins connected by land. Excavation has shown that there were Sumerian types in Harrapa and that Harrappan artifacts were present in Sumer and Elam. Of course we still haven't included China within our Garden. Is society really becoming global?