The Abode of Yoga

Back at Guru's memorial, Saraswati said something else to me that stuck with me. Remember that over the memorial weekend, Saraswati had been trying to enlist my help in getting her nephew, Pinak -- my sister's then-boyfriend -- to come to New York to see Guru one last time. At some point that weekend, Saraswati had brought the situation to Ranjana's attention. Apparently, there had been some discussion between them about my family: me, my brother Jeevan, and my sister Nirbachita. In what I then took as a friendly effort to butter me up, Saraswati told me about a part of that discussion. "Ranjana said," Saraswati recounted, "that Guru had told her that there was a strong connection between you and your family and her." While Saraswati and I didn't dwell on the subject, it did remind me of the fact that I hadn't yet seen Ranjana at the memorial. As it turned out, I never would. I must have greeted and hugged a dozen or more of my sister disciples ...

Maybe it was the effect of the adrenaline that was about to pump through my system, but I no longer remember why we were in a seedy Queens bowling alley late at night. Perhaps it was to scope out a location for one of his world records. I just don't recall. Nevertheless, Ashrita and I stood at the bowling alley's front counter -- engulfed in the sour odor of smelly feet emanating from all the used bowling shoes behind the counter -- speaking to the attendant. Well, "speaking" is putting it nicely. In fact, we were arguing. For some reason, the scumbag behind the counter was giving Ashrita a ration of shit. It quickly devolved into a real confrontation for two reasons. First, the attendant was becoming extremely aggressive. Second, Ashrita -- while not reciprocating the aggression -- was also not intimidated. I stood next to him, ready to rumble and feeling pretty certain it was going to go down that way, but Ashrita was intensely calm. At one point, when the attendant...

While Jayanti's book is ostensibly about "growing up cult," it's also at least as much about how difficult it is to leave the Center. Which leads me to write about another unconventional theory of mine: that implicit in joining the Center -- or any other spiritual path -- is the notion that some day, you should leave it. When you think about it, this notion doesn't sound as if it should be controversial. Would you, for example, go to college intending to remain a perpetual student with no intent to ever graduate? No doubt, there are some people who do that very thing, but I think we can safely say that they are the exceptions to the rule. College is a means to an end, not an end in itself. The same is true of the Center. The goal of discipleship isn't to be a disciple (or at least it shouldn't be). The goal is to be a master, by which I mean the goal is to become a person who has developed some sense of mastery over oneself (and not necessarily a spiritua...

For those of my friends – inside and outside the Center – who are worried about the effect Jayanti’s book might have on Guru’s legacy, the most disconcerting allegations are those of Guru’s meddling in the affairs of parent and child. Up front, I think we must acknowledge that such meddling would not have been possible save for the acquiescence of the parents themselves. Parents in the Center were not required to offer up their children to be raised by Guru. Nor do I think it’s fair to say that they were even encouraged to do so. (To be clear, Cartwheels makes no such claim.) And, as a matter of fact, most parents did not relinquish control of their children to Guru. In this respect, the Rocherolle family is a good example. While there were many differences between them, the Rocherolles, like Jayanti’s family -- the Tamms -- lived in Connecticut, had two children about the same ages as Ketan and Jayanti, and were in the Center throughout the 1970s, 80s, and 90s. Yet, the Rocherolles ...

Ours wasn't the only family drama quietly playing itself out behind the scenes of Guru's memorial. Like Saraswati, my old friend Ketan was also grappling with the possibility that his own family members would not attend Guru's memorial services that weekend. In Ketan's case, however, there was no possibility that his mother or sister would make an appearance. On October 11 -- the very day Guru passed away -- Ketan's sister, Jayanti, gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. Still in the hospital with her husband and mom by her side, Jayanti wasn't going anywhere. I'm not sure Jayanti would have been inclined to attend Guru's memorial services in any event. In the years since she had left the Center, Jayanti had gone to college and graduate school, become a writing professor, and started a family of her own. She had also signed a book deal with Random House. Jayanti had written a memoir about growing up in the Sri Chinmoy Center. Though it wouldn't hit s...