True Tales

March 1, 1971, 4:00 AM

I wake up to the sound of jingling bells and an unfamiliar voice gently saying, “Sat Nam, it’s time to wake up!” It takes me a few moments to remember where I am. I am lying on a hard wood floor, in my old cotton sleeping bag from so many childhood camping trips, my head resting on my bundled jacket. The soft murmur of footsteps vibrating through the floorboards rouses me further, as others, in the ashram known as “The Olive Branch,” rise to shower and get ready for sadhana.

I arrived at the Olive Branch late the night before, having taken the RTD bus from Westwood Village, where I had been staying with my sister Nancy and her roommates for four or five weeks. I had the address on Olive Drive written on a scrap of paper and had taken the bus all the way to the corner of Wilshire and Olive in downtown Los Angeles, not having a clue that it was a completely different location, miles from where I meant to go. It was after 9 PM, and the bus driver didn’t have the heart to leave a teenage girl, with nothing but a bedroll, a backpack, and a guitar, on a deserted downtown street. He finished his route and then drove me all the way back to West Hollywood, right to the Olive Branch. I never realized until years later what an angel Guru had sent to bring me safely to His door.

I “ran away” from my parents’ home as soon as I finished high school, guided by a force unknown to me, to seek a new path. I lived in a commune in Northern California, hitchhiked alone back to L.A. to be with my sister and now, after a few yoga classes, here I am in the ashram. My “room” is a corner on the floor in the dining room and I’ve been given a shelf in the hall closet for my few belongings.

I feel like my whole life is about to change.

Pulling myself out of sleep, I make my way down the dimly lit hall to use the shower. More people I do not know, smiling, saying “Sat Nam”. Sitar music and the soft scent of incense waft out of the room at the far end of the hall. From another room comes the sound of a couple chanting together. Peeking in the bedroom right by the bathroom, I see the walls are painted in bright swirling colors with cosmic looking figures and symbols. Someone really spiritual must be living in there! Finally it’s my turn for the shower.

Dressed and ready, I walk back down the hall to join the others in the candlelit sadhana room, bare except for a bright blue shag carpet, a large potted palm in one corner, and a long low altar at its head, simply adorned with candles, pictures and a few thriving plants. I notice on the altar two photos of a bearded and turbaned man I do not know. Peering at one of the pictures, it seems like he is staring right back at me as if he’s known me a thousand years! Who is he? Maybe he is the Yogi that my yoga teacher, Baba Singh, has told us about.

I join the others, sitting in a circle and a guy named Craig tells us to bring our palms together at the mind nerve so we can tune in with “Ong Namo”. His eyes have that unmistakable sparkle of someone who has used a lot of psychedelics.

A whole hour of yoga? That’s what he said. Well, I’ve taken Kundalini Yoga classes for five or six weeks, I know how to do that. But my God, everyone is breathing so much harder than we ever did in class! They sound like steam engines! So, I try it too. Wow! After three minutes of spinal flexes (that was three minutes?? Felt like five, I am certain) Craig finally says to inhale deep. I feel the breath expanding my chest, filling me up, and I inhale more, and more and stretch and stretch my spine. And then, like a shooting fountain, I feel a rush of energy and a resonating “buzz” throughout my body, and… whoosh!

I am gradually aware of sensations in my feet. Yes, someone is rubbing my feet with soft hands. God, my whole body is tingling inside and out. Where am I? I hear a woman’s voice, “She’s coming back.” And that voice, sounding so far away, I realize belongs to Craig’s wife, Diana. Opening my eyes, our gazes connect. She gives me a smile and says, “Don’t worry; this happens sometimes when people first start doing yoga.”

Craig instructs us to sit up for the Long Ek Ong Kars. I have chanted this before at yoga class, but just for a few minutes. I hope I don’t pass out for this one too… so embarrassing! We are going to chant it for an hour, too. I have never done anything like this ever in my life. Inhale deeply. Exhale. Inhale deeply, and begin… The others are all chanting so loudly and powerfully, and I find myself swept right along into it. Before I know it, the hour is over and now, just lying on my back, my eyes closed, drifting into a conscious sort of sleep, I can still hear chanting, striking and resonating with my heart’s chord. I feel crystal clear, so high, dreamy, awake… I can’t believe I can feel this way just from chanting.

I have known that some spirit or angel has been guiding me for a long time: the voice I heard on drugs, telling me to stop and that I no longer needed to use drugs. The voice that spoke to me through dreams, warning me of things to come. The hand that protected me at times of gravest danger. The bus driver who brought me home. And I am home. Thank God, I am home.

* Olive Branch Ashram members when I moved in:

Hari Arti Kaur and her younger sister (the room with the incense)
Craig and Diana Schnur
Dale Sklar (Bhai Sahib Dyal Singh)
Janet Spagg (Wha Guru Kaur) (the one with the painted walls in her room)
Mike and Peggy (couple chanting in the bedroom)
James Stewart
A few others I don’t remember

Within a few months Baba Baaz (Dr. Waheguru Singh), Pink Krishna Kaur and Krishna Singh, and Sat Purkha Singh moved in, too.

Diana Schnur painted the mural on the outside of the original Guru Ram Das Ashram at Melrose and Robertson. She also painted the ten Sikh Gurus, all ten within a few short weeks, just in time for the opening of the new Guru Ram Das Ashram, in the Spring of 1972, on Preuss Road (these now hang at Yoga West in L.A.) Hari Arti Kaur was Baba Singh’s fiancé and accompanied him to all the yoga classes he taught to take offerings at the door and serve prashad at the end. James Stewart, Craig Schnur, and Danny Hammer (Siri Ved Singh - he didn’t live at the Olive Branch but came to visit almost every day) started a business together in the Olive Branch garage called “Sat Nam Products”, selling snack size mixes of nuts and dried fruit to health stores and colleges. After I moved in to the Olive Branch I helped them with packaging (but never got paid!). Janet Spagg was a musician and artist. She composed the “Noble Woman” song, and many others not so well known, but just as clever. James Stewart and I became close friends. Yogiji used to call him Onion Singh. He had put himself on an apple diet for a long time and was as skinny as a bean. Sometimes he would eat just 3-4 almonds for breakfast! His health had deteriorated so much, Yogiji told him to eat lots of onions. At  barely 18 years old, I was one of the youngest members of the ashram. Dale Sklar was the youngest, at 16. Within a short time Dale became Dyal Singh, and then Bhai Sahib Dyal Singh. Danny Hammer and I eventually married, but that’s another story.