True Tales

In the luxury of hindsight I am able to appreciate unfolding and intertwining patterns of experience in my life. Each segment seems to be a prelude and preparation for the next. I am forever fascinated by the great tapestry of which we are all a part. Here’s a bit of what led up to that first yoga class I wrote about in “The Yogi, the Savages, and Amazing Grace.” 

I grew up in Newport Beach, California surrounded by the sea. As a child I played and boated upon the beautiful Pacific Ocean and as a teenager learned to surf. Surfing became my first religion for it was where I worshipped and experienced God as Nature. I believe it was there that I prepared for my later years of “riding the cosmic waves” of yoga, meditation and Gurbani Kirtan. The metaphor has served me well, for in order to find the center, the heart, or the “eye of the needle” whether in the sea, in life or in kirtan, or in the healing practice I once had, I can only do so through a certain type of intelligent surrender. An educated mind inspired by intuition is an elegant tool. Yet in the those times when my mind is directed by ego I fall out of that subtle place of equipoise and Grace as demonstrated by falling off a surf board or falling out of faith. Each carries immediate and unpleasant repercussions. I have learned, of course, that the juice truly is in the journey. So here is a bit more about mine.

I was reluctant to go back so far into the “hippie” years, but after seeing several documentaries on PBS about those heady times, I realized it has been 40 years since the “Summer of Love.” Although it seems so far in the past particularly since the present with Summer Solstice and White Tantric Yoga is such a powerful realization of those glimmers of hope we could only peek at in our dream of the Aquarian Age, lo those forty years ago. 

I began my travels the day I graduated from high school in 1962. Although Southern California was an idyllic location that thousands were streaming into, I was propelled from its beauty in search of something deeper. From the earliest sixties a longing for a world beyond this one began to resonate within me and my journey became one of seeking the truth. Although the truth was as yet undefined, I knew I would know it when I found it.

Decades before I’d ever heard of a hukam, I took one from a directory that listed all the colleges and universities in the United States. I wanted to test what I then called “fate” and see if indeed it did exist. I decided I would close my eyes, open a page, point, and when I opened my eyes go the college that “fate” had designed for me. So I did, and I did.

I went to a small college in the mountains of Western North Carolina where I pursued all aspects of the arts, cultural anthropology and metaphysical studies in the hope of gaining entrance into a realm I knew existed but could not find on the sunny, happy, partying beaches of Southern California. Although I was not alone in this pursuit it was the early sixties those of us on this path walked had not yet found each other and were still finding the path out of ourselves.

ABOVE: Palenque, as it is today, a well-groomed tourist destination.

Restless to travel, I left college after two years and went to Mexico City to study Flamenco dancing. In one of my journeys through Mexico I went to the Yucatan Peninsula where I had my first real metaphysical experience at Palenque, a Mayan ruin that had recently come to attention among archeologists but not yet the general public.

I was traveling with two archeological photographers at the time and we arrived at night after several days journey from Mexico City by car with no maps or frame of reference other than what we could gain from local stops along the way. We had no idea what to expect and being too excited to sleep, hung in our hammocks imagining what the day might bring. Finally, at dawn as the jungle mists lifted like curtains upon time, three distinct and overgrown pyramids were revealed. With a long slow inhale of breath we watched as though ours were the first eyes to fall upon Palenque since it had fallen asleep centuries ago. The silence was as opulent as the jungle it was set in. It was a place to listen rather than speak, so in acknowledged silence we each were drawn to our “own” pyramid. I was drawn to the far left structure.

After climbing the outside steps I found a kind of anteroom near the top with a descending staircase into what could have been an inner chamber. I decided to stay in the antechamber, which still held a view of the jungle’s canopy, and the ability to make a quick escape if need be. There were plenty of snakes, jaguar and other creatures whose world we were invading and whose wrath I had no intention of awakening. Adventure is one thing, fool heartedness is quite another. So after checking to make sure no wild creature was about to pounce I settled down, became as quiet as I knew how, and waited for Nature to reveal her secrets.

ABOVE: Another view of Palenque. 

After some time, as I was studying the walls, another veil seemed to lift, a veil of perception. I began to distinguish several carvings on the thickly covered inner walls, but one in particular caught my attention. A figure that resembled those I had seen of Shiva. I was astonished that so ancient a people, oceans away, could have possibly traveled the seas to India to exchange mythological symbols. It was only years later that I learned of the collective unconscious as described by Carl Jung and the works of Joseph Campbell who explained how shared symbols can come about. At the time, however, I had read none of these things, yet it was as though a gong was struck within my mind and another dimension of insight was opened. The resonance of revelation that there was indeed a connection between cultures, between times and between lives had an experiential profundity that altered the trajectory of my life.

As anyone who has been in the jungle can attest, it grows with an almost carnivorous voracity. So it was in this environment that the cycle of life seemed to further reveal itself through the lush vines that were growing up the stones as though they were consuming them. And in a sense they were. I could imagine the vines as fingers of the hands of the masons that had quarried and carved the large stones centuries ago.  Masons whose lives had long past, and whose bodies were returned to base elements, mingled with the earth, fertilizing the soil that now gave rise to the vines which in turn seemed to reclaim the stones back into the earth from whence they had come. I saw the march of the entire Mayan civilization into and out of its classic existence, and further realized that the journey has been repeated over and over, throughout centuries, cultures and continents.  Certainly not an original thought, but at the time it was for me. I trust and treasure such revelations that have come to me experientially and for which my mind has not been prepped academically or altered chemically.

For me this was a pure vision and as such was the affirmation I sought that the invisible world did indeed exist. And that it could be made visible when I walked with a heart open by intention, in a manner so as to leave no footprints, with eyes softened by the subtle and with ears attuned to silence. What I have come to learn about these visions is that they are personal and have been like a prelude to a symphony, or the amrit vela of a day. 

That is why in 1965, when the first of the “lost tribe” spontaneously began to wander into Golden Gate Park in San Francisco and meet each other for the first time, the reunion was so ecstatic.  At that early point, there had been no press coverage, no flyers, not even word of mouth to make an announcement. Yet souls gathered. The people who showed up in those early days did so through their intuition, the soul’s silent language. This was the basis for the trust among ourselves and what was unfolding within and between us. We loved sharing our ideals in the beauty of Nature, exploring our belief in a power greater than our own and delving into timeless and sacred wisdom. We were looking for a greater truth and we cleared our lives and our minds to receive it.

The tragedy of these times was that without a true teacher, without a strong discipline our ecstatic reunion soon deteriorated into Dionysian dissipation and our lofty vision was corrupted before it even had a chance to take root. I cannot adequately express the sorrow I felt at this loss. Some of us took to the hills to try and lead a more pure life in harmony with Nature. I was with a small group comprised of six couples that moved to Northern New Mexico to try and carry on the dream of our generation.

This dream for a better world is something we were cognizant of and committed to. We were vegetarians, took sweat lodges, fasted, did yoga from a book, studied with the Hopi and whatever indigenous shaman we could find. We had read that in order to attain God consciousness one had to go from individual consciousness through group consciousness. We tried very sincerely to create a group consciousness amongst ourselves but ultimately we could not overcome our egos, as much as we tried. We realized we needed a teacher, and we had read in Autobiography of a Yogi “when the student is ready the teacher appears.” We sincerely tried to prepare ourselves. Our last day together we fasted, we prayed and we held one last sacred peyote meeting with the intention of calling our teacher to us.

Peyote is a bitter desert cactus button used by shaman to further an initiate’s vision quest or to liberate souls stuck in limbo. My understanding of the way we were taught was to gather in a circle around a fire and sit for the night tending the fire and drumming. Through the rhythm of the drums and the light of the fire souls could find their way to the fire, be purified by it, then rise with the smoke through the hole in the center of the kiva or teepee into the great beyond. We were probably mixing media and disciplines, but that was what I understood it to be. One thing you never were supposed to do was break the circle. It would be like breaking a White Tantric Yoga line.

Sadly, throughout the night it became obvious we could not hold the energy and people began to leave the circle. By pre-dawn’s light only one other and myself remained. We both had tears rolling down our face with yet another heartbreak at our failure to keep our generation’s dream of the ideal alive. When I walked out of the teepee I saw hundreds of souls, like little candles, stilled in their march toward us. Called by the peyote for their liberation, but unable to enter the fire because we could not hold the circle. I felt as though I had betrayed a nation of innocents. I fell on my knees and vowed to dedicate the rest of my life to liberating the souls we had called, whatever the cost. Souls whose hope had been awakened and who had come with faith yet were now more saddened than if they had never been called.

Later that morning the six couples that comprised the Juke Savages said goodbye and took off in six different directions; some to Woodstock, some to Minnesota, some to Oaxaca, some to Northern California, some to Los Angeles. The man I had been living with for over two years decided at that moment to break up with me and within an hour everyone was gone and I was standing in the Abiqui house by myself. At that point in time we’d been living so far off the grid I had only the one dress I was wearing, a sleeping bag, a green woolen shawl from Mexico, a bamboo flute I had made and a copy of the I Ching. It would be hard to describe how totally desolate I felt.

I walked out into the desert, fell on my knees yet again and pleaded, “God, whatever your name is, you know who you are. I’m asking with all of my being for your help now.” Almost immediately I intuitively “heard” a voice and “saw” a face that said, “Come to L.A.”

I said, “What, are you kidding me? L.A. is Sodom and Gomorrah. This desert is the most truthful and real thing I’ve ever found.”

The “Voice” responded, “Well, you don’t have to come, but what you’re looking for is here.”

With nothing to lose I walked down an arroyo that turned into a dirt road that turned into a two-lane highway with an old pump gas station. Just as I was walking up to it a big hippie school bus pulled up and they asked where I was going. I told them L.A. and they invited me to hop on and that they would give me a ride. That’s how things happened in those days. I was pretty close to a total melt down and the only thing that kept me together was reading the I Ching constantly. I read one hexagram after and pretty much had it memorized by the time we reached L.A. It has served as a great source of grounding and wisdom ever since.

After a week on the road, we pulled up to a big house in the Hollywood Hills called “The Castle” and found “coincidently” gathered there all of the Juke Savages who one week before had gone off in different directions thinking we would never see each other again. Amazing were the tales of how each of us ended up there even though we thought we were going elsewhere.

The next morning we all went to “The Yogi’s” yoga class and discovered that indeed, “when the student is ready the teacher appears.” And oh my, what a teacher! It was there in that first yoga class, when I closed my eyes, I got the big neon sign and crashing cymbals announcing, “THIS IS IT!” The thing I’d been looking for all my life. I still didn’t know what to call it but knew it by its nature and how it so fully impacted me. When I opened my eyes and saw this big, dark, scary man yelling at us I thought, “He doesn’t look like a holy man, he can’t be our teacher.” Yet as soon as I closed my eyes the truth was clear. The inner/outer sight contrast was also a big indication for me of where the truth lies.

In those early days, for those of us who wanted to walk a spiritual path, the way was rarely convenient, certainly not conventional, and often foreign to popular conceptions. I sometimes wonder where we found the courage. But then I remember that we were young, we had nothing left to lose, and our teacher had immeasurable spiritual strength and moral courage.

As a postscript, I came to him in March of 1969 and by the time we took him to New Mexico for a hippie Summer Solstice three months later, he had already taught us several mantras. One amrit vela in Tesuque I went outside and climbed on a big rock and started chanting long “Ek Ong Kar” and within an hour all those souls from the Peyote meeting three months before came and were liberated through the light of the Nam.

So if you wonder why I believed in Yogi Ji so thoroughly it’s because of my experience of the truth and power of what he taught. How many prayers were answered and visions fulfilled. The most profound of things I saw him do was hold the space and ground the energy for what was left of my generation. I experienced him rebuilding, rebirthing and delivering us to the divinity and dignity we sought but could never have found on our own. It was impossible not to fall in love with him as a father and as a teacher, but he always remained a nation unto himself and directed us back to ourselves and to God, which ultimately, is what we had come for. Meanwhile, we rejoiced and continue to rejoice in this tribe of the golden chord.