The Abode of Yoga

I had waited on the street in front of Progress-Promise for Guru's car to arrive before going upstairs to the meditation hall. Ranjana was coming up the stairs just behind me. "I hear that someone is going to get their name soon," she said. I turned in the stairwell. She had a twinkle in her eye. "Don't say that," I said in a mock complaining voice. Ever since Guru had given Giribar his name a few months earlier I had been doing my best to keep a lid on my own rising expectations. "Well, that's what I hear," Ranjana continued with a smile as she entered the girls' shoe room and went into the meditation hall. Great! Now, instead of going in and having a good meditation, I was going to sit there obsessing about whether tonight was the night. Ranjana was Guru's personal aid. Guru had a number of disciples -- men and women -- who served him directly in one capacity or another. But nobody was physically closer to Guru for more time than Ran...

For a California boy, New York in the dead of winter was a fun place to be. For the four or five weeks that Guru was out of town, my life was routine and quiet. I'd get up and meditate in the morning and get to the Smile for work by 8 a.m. I'd work until closing at 4 p.m., and then usually go for a run. For dinner, I'd usually head over to the other disciple-run restaurant, Annam Brahma . As an employee of the Smile, I paid only half-price for any food that I ate there (a courtesy that the Smile also extended to the employees of Annam Brahma). Without Guru around to set the agenda, the evenings were usually open. Invariably, however, I'd head back to the Smile at some point each night to help the night crew with their chores. Until Guru returned in mid-January (1985), it was a Spartan existence. Aware that it was temporary, I loved it, and it made Guru's return that much sweeter. With his return, Jamaica came alive. Most week nights there were functions at Progress...

In December 1984, Rick and I both went to New York before Guru went on his annual Christmas Trip. It was an important trip for both of us. For me, the trip was important because I was offered a job -- albeit a temporary one -- at the Smile of the Beyond. The Smile is a vegetarian diner in Queens run by disciples. At that time, a disciple named Shushoban managed the Smile. He was going on the Christmas Trip, though, and asked me whether I'd be willing to stay in New York and fill in for him. Of course I would! If I played my cards right, I figured that I'd be able to extend my stay in New York all the way until April. Perhaps that would be long enough, I thought, to "make myself indispensable to Guru" (which, according to Jigisha , was a prerequisite to getting permission to move to New York permanently). So, for the few weeks before the Christmas Trip began, I spent a few hours each day training in the Smile. Aside from Shushoban, the full-time day crew consisted of...

Of all of the extraordinary individuals that I've known -- in and out of the Center -- I'm not sure any of them compare with Anugata. I'm sorry that, at least early on, I was not a better friend to him. In times future, I imagine that some people will look back and marvel at Anugata's impressive physical achievements. As a youth, he was a tennis champ. In the Center, he ran countless marathons and ultra events (including running across the Sahara ). He swam the English Channel. And now he's got Mt. Everest in his sights. (Great photo of Anugata in the Himalayan foothills from one of Jowan's galleries .) In my imagination, however, I see Anugata standing naked before a mirror. Looking at himself, he repeats the mantra of the ancient jnana yogis: "Not this, not this." To me, Anugata has always seemed a sage. My earliest memory of Anugata is as a storyteller. He told great stories from the Mahabharata and the other epics of Indian mythology. There was a ...

I don't remember August Celebrations that year (1984). From Pulin's kidnapping and rescue my memory skips to the fall -- my last as a California disciple. I was back working for Rick and living at his house, which also served as the San Jose Sri Chinmoy Center (despite the fact that it was actually located in Cupertino). By then, our little Center had grown. We did it not by giving classes and recruiting new disciples that way, but by attracting disciples from other Centers to move to ours. The number one attraction being the generous hourly rate Rick paid his landscaping employees. I don't want to exaggerate the size of our group -- it numbered maybe just north of a half-dozen -- but we had been hovering at around three people for such a long time. By that fall, aside from me, Rick and Elizabeth, there was Nick (a great runner and infectiously funny guy, originally from Seattle), Tony (a Lebanese-born guitar player, one of our only two new recruits), Sultana (a 90-plus ye...

Guru's house had the atmosphere of a command center, which is exactly what it had been turned into since Pulin's kidnapping. Though it had only been a few days, a rough picture of what had happened to Pulin was already taking shape. Apparently, Pulin's parents had asked him to meet them at a restaurant in New Jersey. Pulin never returned. His parents were " deprogramming " him. By the time Jigisha and I arrived at Guru's house, Pulin's location had been confirmed with the help of a couple of private investigators. He was inside a house in Jersey. Just as quickly as Jigisha and I had arrived at Guru's house, we found ourselves being piled into a car with a bunch of other guys on our way to the Garden State ( cue Sopranos intro ). Our immediate destination was a small hotel room crammed with 30 or 40 other disciples located a short distance from where Pulin was being held. The mood was tense. One of the older New York disciples ( Dhruva ) was on the pho...

I was sitting on the couch in one of the disciple boys' houses in San Francisco reading when Jigisha came into the room. We were about to head back up to the S.F. Center for another day of producing copies of cassette tapes of Guru's flute and esraj music to bring with us to New York in a few days. Jigisha (picture by Jowan ) had just dressed after showering and he was standing in the adjacent kitchen looking at me. I didn't look up, but I could still see him standing there in my peripheral vision. Then, I felt a penetrating-type of force upon me -- similar in feeling to what one might have felt from Guru during a meditation with him. I could also see Jigisha's physical form expand. I had heard rumors amongst the other S.F. disciples that Jigisha had some occult ability, and I thought that he was consciously trying to impress me. I refused to give him the satisfaction. Instead, I continued looking at my book, pretending to read, as if nothing was happening. At a time i...

Upon return home, the big news was the announcement that Guru would give a "Peace Concert" in Los Angels later that summer. The concert would coincide with the 1984 Summer Olympics, which were also in Los Angeles. As I recall, Guru challenged the California disciples to get at least 7,000 people to attend the concert. While the German disciples had recently been successful attracting large crowds to Guru's concerts, I thought it improbable for us given Southern California's thoroughly worked new age marketplace. Nevertheless, the call went out for volunteers. The leader of the San Diego Center had rented a small, two-bedroom apartment in Anaheim and promised to provide free room and board to any guys who wanted to go down there and help. Two days later, I made the seven hour drive south in my 1965 Ford Falcon. When I arrived, I became one of eight or so guys sharing that tiny apartment. It was a great group, though, largely made up of the same crew that had made up o...

On the plane ride back to California from April Celebrations 1984, I was both exhausted and exhilarated. It had been the busiest Celebrations of my discipleship and by its conclusion I had been exposed to some of the best men I'd ever meet. By years end, my goal of moving to New York permanently would be near fruition. That, however, was in the future. On my flight home, all I could think about were the previous two and a half weeks and how busy I'd been. Not only were there the typical morning and evening functions of Celebrations, but I was also now a permanent member of the tennis grounds crew. That meant that I not only acted as a ball boy during the hours that Guru played tennis each day, but I also started learning how to prepare the clay court for play beforehand. And then there was the singing. I was now a member of the S.F. boys' singing group. Months before Celebrations started, Guru gave us some 50 Bengali devotional songs that he wanted us to perform. So, one m...

Shortly after Guru arrived at Progress-Promise, it was apparent that something significant was happening. He was very quiet and serious -- grave, even -- as he entered the hall and shuffled up to the stage. Almost immediately upon taking his seat, Guru began meditating. After a few minutes, and without a word, Guru picked up a pen from among those gathered next to his throne and began drawing on an oversize piece of paper. The silent drawing went on for some time. There was tension in the room. When Guru finished drawing, he simply let the paper slip from his fingers almost carelessly, where it floated down in front of him onto the carpet. Then, Guru began intently meditating again. After a few minutes, Guru announced that Phanindra was dead. He had been killed in an avalanche while skiing in the Alps with his father. I shared floor space with Phanindra in the room of a local disciple on my two most recent trips to New York ( April and August '83 ). He was a young, sharp-featured...

My next trip to New York started so well and ended so badly. On December 3, 1983, I arrived to a cold New York for my first visit to Guru outside the normal Celebration times of April and August. I was very excited. So excited, in fact, that it was the only time during my discipleship in which I kept a journal, from which I'll include a few excerpts. As my first journal entry for the trip illustrates, my immediate impression upon arriving in Queens was the intimacy -- there just weren't the hundreds of visiting disciples around as would be normal during Celebrations. December 3 . After arriving in New York this morning, I went to Progress-Promise, where Guru was singing songs with a bunch of girls on stage. Guru then asked people to come up for prasad. When I received mine, Guru asked me whether I was the only one from San Jose. I said no. As I was walking away, Guru mentioned God's Orchestra. He said that he had liked my role. I wish to be always unconditionally gratef...

I had mixed emotions upon returning home to California after the 1983 August Celebrations. On the one hand, leaving New York was a bit of a let down. One minute I was down on the tennis court throwing tennis balls to Guru, and the next minute I was 3000 miles away in my room in Cupertino. By being in California, I was missing things. It wasn’t as if Guru had stopped playing tennis when the Celebrations ended. On the other hand, being back in California for me was almost -- but not quite -- like being a big fish in a little pond. The regular attention Guru had been paying to me gave me some status. Like I mentioned before, I felt like I was a made man (in a spiritual sense). In a real sense, I was coming into my own as a disciple. Instead of being a 16 year-old, new disciple dependent upon the numerous adult disciples surrounding me for access to Guru, I was now, two years later, in the driver’s seat. At that time (fall 1983), the California Centers -- which included SF, San Jose, Sant...