True Tales

I tried to write this story from the perspective I had at the time and because of that I’ve used the names of people as they were then known. Danny is now Siri Ved Singh. We were married for almost 14 years. A few years later in 1987, I met and married Gurujodha Singh, and that’s another story (soon to come).

Alone on a Hill

Danny and I got married by a judge downtown on July 2, 1971, while Yogiji and everyone from the 3HO L.A. community were at Summer Solstice. Then, when everyone returned and Yogiji was back from his summer travels we got married again, along with three other couples; this time by Yogiji.

Danny and I met the night after I moved into the Olive Branch Ashram in West Hollywood. I lived there for four months, doing sadhana every day and taking at least one yoga class a day. That was my life. Once married, it was just the two of us, way up on a hilltop in Laurel Canyon, in a little studio apartment under his parents’ home, surrounded by trees and greenery, with his parents upstairs. He drove his old red Toyota down the hill everyday to go to work for Sat Nam Products. I stayed up in Laurel Canyon, playing house, playing the guitar, playing with Pookie our Siamese kitty, alone with the fungus growing under the sink, in an ex-bachelor pad with no furniture, half under the ground, hardly a window, and the smell of old plumbing. His parents were very welcoming and accepting of me. Even so, I felt alone, isolated, and not sure of what I’d gotten myself into!

9006 Phyllis Avenue, West Hollywood

Hari Arti Kaur, who was head of the Olive Branch Ashram, still kept in touch with me, and Danny and I went down for sadhana most mornings. She called me one morning to say that they needed help over at the Phyllis House (where Yogiji lived). His secretaries (Susan, Premka, Black Krishna and Shakti) all had jobs during the day and sometimes they needed someone to “babysit” Yogiji, to cook, answer the phones, answer the door, etc. She explained, “I’m making a schedule for a different person to be available every day. Can you take Tuesdays? All you have to do is call them each Tuesday morning and ask if they need your help. OK?” Without hesitation, I agreed.

I was pretty excited to do this, but scared too. I hadn’t really met Yogiji. I sometimes thought that he didn’t even know who I was. I’d been to his UCLA Extension classes at the ashram on Melrose, taken a White Tantric Yoga course in the Spring and then, of course, he married Danny and me. During the Tantric course he walked on my back during a break and then pressed his finger at my third eye during an exercise reminding me to “Meditate.” I was now glad that I would get to serve him, and also get out of the dark apartment up in the hills.

Tuesday came, and I called. I called every Tuesday morning, dialing the secret phone number Hari Arti gave me, with a woman always answering, “Sat Nam.”

I’d say, “Sat Nam. This is Corinne. Do you need anyone to help today?”

The reply would be something like, “Who? What? No, we don’t need anybody today.”

After the third or fourth week I heard a man’s deep voice answer the phone, “Sat Nam.” My first yoga teacher, Baba Singh, lived in the garage of the Phyllis House, and I thought it was probably him, but also thought not.

With not a lot of confidence I asked, “Baba Singh?”

And the voice replied, “No, this is your father.”

“My father???”

By muffled sounds I could tell he had handed the phone to someone else, I think Premka, who asked me, “Who are you and why do you keep calling?” Evidently, Hari Arti never mentioned to any of Yogiji’s staff that I would be calling! So, I explained the whole thing. After a little discussion with others that I could not hear she returned to the phone and said, “OK, why don’t you come today at about 9:00?” Danny said he would give me a ride down.

As it turned out, they asked me to come every Tuesday for two or three weeks, and then they asked me to come every day.

My duties varied, depending on who was there and what needed to be done. Every day I cooked something. I learned bit by bit. Yogiji was eating a rice dish with lots of veggies and mushrooms in it. It had many different spices, chilies, and cooked in a strong onion and ginger broth. It was really good with cottage cheese, which is how he liked to eat it. Sometimes he came into the kitchen and made something or showed me how to make a dish he wanted. His sister was visiting for a while, and she showed me how to make a really, really delicious lentil soup called dal. Sometimes I helped with ironing (although I don’t think Premka was happy with some scorch marks on her silk clothes from India – she never said anything, but didn’t give me any more of her clothes after that). I also answered the door, answered the phone, took messages, and was available for Yogiji if he needed anything at all. The phone always seemed to be ringing, either the pay phone in the kitchen, or his private line, and he took every single call, even when he was in the bathroom. I would just hand him the phone as he cracked open the door.

One morning I saw him sitting on the hardwood floor in the hallway, with his legs stretched out in front of him, leaning back. He raised his legs up and held his arms out parallel, doing a sort of push pull with his legs, holding the posture. He said it helped his digestion. In that same hallway sometimes he would stand on one end, and I on the other, and we would stretch and roll his turban. I was really not much help with this, since I had never done it before, but he didn’t complain or make me do it over.

One afternoon he was so tired, he called to me as he was entering his bedroom and said, “I am going to sleep. No matter what happens, do not let anybody in the house. Even if God knocks on the door, don’t let Him in.” About an hour later, someone knocked on the door. I peered through the peephole and saw it was Stephanie Raskin. I whispered through the door, “Yogiji is very tired and doesn’t want to be disturbed at all. Even if you are God, I can’t let you in!” Her arms full of bags of supplies, she gracefully convinced me that she would not make a sound. She tiptoed in, went through the “secret door” and put all the things in the garage. Then she tiptoed out. I don’t think Yogiji heard a thing.

The Secret Door

To get into the garage, you walked in the front door of the house. Immediately straight ahead there was a little coat closet. All you had to do was walk into the coat closet and behind the coats and things in the closet there was a little doorway cut into the wall with an Indian bedspread “curtain” hanging over it. You would just walk through that to step down into the garage.

The garage was lit by a bulb in the ceiling and was stacked with the past of all Yogiji’s staff. His secretary Susan had boxes of old stuff, clothes, old jeans that she was saving just in case they ever fit again, record albums, furniture, God knows what. Baba Singh had a foam mattress tucked in a corner with a loft above it for more storage. There was a little desk with a lamp and a red IBM typewriter against one wall. That was Premka’s office where she sat and typed. She was working on a book that would be called “Peace Lagoon.”

Dream State

The Phyllis house had two bedrooms. Yogiji slept and meditated in one and the other was used by his staff at night. It also served as a sitting room for him during the day. Looking in one afternoon, I saw him asleep on the bed in there, sprawled out on his back, his legs apart with one foot hanging over the edge, his arms thrown overhead, sinking into the pillows, and completely blissfully asleep, off on some travels … I stood in the doorway and gazed at him with awe; he was so beautifully asleep.

After a while he woke up, and went to meet with some guests in the living room. I stepped into the bedroom, still filled with his presence, and laid myself down on the bed where he had slept, and stretched my arms up in the same place where his had stretched, closed my eyes, and tried to imagine what it would feel like to be him, in that blissful space, and I found myself drifting away with these thoughts.

The next thing I knew was the stern sound of Yogiji’s voice just a few feet away. I opened my eyes and popped my head up. There he was, standing in the doorway, his hands pressed up on either side, standing over me! He seemed like a mighty radiant giant towering above me. Quickly sitting up, I was half awake, half in dream, half in shock that he had caught me napping and was trying to understand what he was saying to me. My mind would not work! His words were coming in my ears, directly to me, and I could hardly understand a bit. It was like he was talking to a part of me that was not on the surface and no matter how hard I tried I could not hold on to the meaning of his words. He told me things of who I am, and who I will be, what my destiny is… and all that I can remember clearly are his parting words as he turned and left the room, “And don’t ever tell anybody what I have said to you today!”