Foreword

I posted these retreat diary entries just as I wrote them, without editing or commenting. To me, two major themes stand out.

First, the entries illustrate what I consider a profound submission to the ordeal of spiritual life in Adidam. I re-read my entire diary after transcribing the retreat portion; the level of service was "all-pervasive". I was no dilettante, merely turned on by the teaching word; I truly served with my life and being for those intense years.

Second, the lengths I went to in order to find something "wrong" about my practice. Kanya Tripura gives a presentation about the presumptuousness of the devotee. The next day I'm presumptuous. There were many entries in which I searched for the "ego within". There was an eagerness to "be" the ego, because the community and even the guru required it of you. This understanding came up quite a few times while I was a practicing Daist. I remember thinking that if a devotee actually practiced perfectly and actually realized the "truth" that no one in the community would be capable of seeing it, let alone acknowledging it.

I don't really consider myself an "anti-Daist". From my point of view, I'm just trying to "map to reality" as accurately as I can. I'll also point out that one can get a lot of positives out of the experience of being a Daist, if one really gets down to it as a form of profound discipline. This is what I did and I know I'm a better person for it.

However, I also see that the idea of meditating upon the body of the realizer is inherently flawed. What occurs, generally, is the objectification of the guru. On the one hand, Mr. Da says "don't get cultic", whilst on the other hand he says "worship my bodily human form"!

It doesn't take a genius to realize that these two concepts are inherently contradictory. Of course, in the context of a sincere, practicing devotee, one who has entered a profound trust of the guru, it is nearly impossible to resolve this dichotomy without questioning the guru's veracity.

Personally, I never gave a damn about the 7 stages of life. To me, all that stuff was (and still is) a red herring. I had been attracted to the radical argument from the beginning. I didn’t want no stinking stages. The only reason I cared about “level of practice” was because that was the only means to access, at least for us peon-types (not for the celebrities, who would often get a "free pass").

I am anti-Daist in the sense that I see the whole charade as a karmic event now. Devotees of the Daster have some kinda karmic thing going on with him. From my point of view, what was useful was the intensity of submission to what he instructed. With that total submission came the inevitable crisis of the failure of that instruction. In that sense, I was served by the process, because I can see that it’s nothing but a load of bullshit. If one is truly honest, then one is willing to throw that bullshit away. The guru is the bullshit. Garbage and the Goddess? The guru is the garbage and should be thrown away.

Of course, Franklin Jones is another matter. I feel for the guy in many ways. But now he has tons of exploitation karma he has to work out.

Seems fair to me.

—Trans-Daist Dave (August, 2000)

April 2, 1990 (Monday)

We´re in LAX awaiting departure for Nadi. We´re on a QANTAS 747B, a VERY big plane. The feeling is ecstatic, we´re all intoxicated by Sri Gurudev.

Before leaving Seattle, we had a ceremony for Judith to release her in her death transition. It was an extremely potent ceremony. At one point I intuited Sri Gurudev´s form in the chair which had the Blessed Murti. His Presence was tangible and obvious, yet subtle. That´s the Mystery of It.

It´s really great meeting these devotees on the way over. I´m looking forward to getting to know them and sharing our love of Sri Gurudev.

I´ve lost some of the anxiety about the ordeal we´re about to engage in, since I´m feeling His Bliss so much. Ron W. gave good advice before we left—he said “just surrender”. That´s it, really. That´s what it always comes down to.

Val C. asked me to do the Prayer of Changes for him while at Love-Anandashram. That got me to thinking/feeling that I´d like to pray for all the Seattle devotees while I´m there and beyond. I´d like to continue that as a part of my life.

April 6, 1990 (Friday)

Arrived last night at Love-Anandashram just as the sun was setting. The island looked extraordinarily pristine and was surrounded by the prettiest, warmest, clear-blue water imaginable. The island itself seemed to shine with its own light and those that met us at Homecoming Wharf seemed to glow with that light also.

We were immediately taken to Paduka Mandir which is a small, round building with a thatched roof. His Presence in that room was extraordinary. Everybody felt it, and I had no need to ask them if they had. We were all so quiet in there, sharing the World-Teacher with each other.

The first person who really talked to me on the island turned out to be Jeff P., the person I was to find and deliver a letter to from Darryl K. That´s the way this whole journey has been going, things and events seemingly working out by themselves. For instance, when we finally made the decision to take two cabs to Suva from Nadi, I hopped in one of the cabs with two of the ladies, and off we went. When we were nearing Suva, the cab driver asks, “By the way, where am I going?” He didn´t know where our office was, and I certainly didn´t. I was able to find the phone number quickly, but just then one of the ladies said, “Isn´t that the other cab?”, and it was. We hadn´t seen it the entire trip, but now we could ask the other driver where we were going, and thankfully he knew. We were also trying to make a 1:00 deadline to reach a chartered plane. Everything worked out and we got to Taveuni that day.

All through this journey I have felt ecstatic. One moment that stands out is doing yoga at LAX, in the international area. I had gone up to an unused dining area and could see most of the international ticket counters with all the people from everywhere below me. The routine seemed to do itself as my mind became quieter and quieter. It was fun as we kept meeting the other devotees arrive as we waited for our flight to Fiji.

On the chartered flight to Taveuni, we could see the shadow of the plane on the clouds and water, and, perhaps because of just the right atmospheric conditions, a perfect halo appeared around the image of our plane. This halo soon turned into a brilliant rainbow halo and I could not help but see it as a cosmic mandala, surrounding and protecting us all. Om Sri Da Love-Ananda Hridayam.

April 7, 1990 (Saturday)

Meditation is middling. I have felt the depth of meditation start, but it doesn´t continue into depth.

-oops- just had a deep meditation. I sat in a chair, so I didn´t become distracted by pain. I waited until sitting became distracting before using the chair, but I definitely felt like I was “wimping out” by using it. It´s clear, though, that it is useful and serves feeling-Contemplation.

I´ve been experiencing some very mild kriyas, including one in this afternoon´s meditation.

I feel so alive here. The more you respond, the more you´re given. I keep finding His Strength comes to me and refreshes me. I just want to intensify practice as much as possible during these three weeks. I feel His Transformative Power already alive in me and want nothing but for it to continue for the rest of my life.

Chanting is a very effective form of self-forgetting for me. This morning in chanting, I found that the more energy I gave the Murti, the more energy I had to give. And when the energy is really flowing like that, I´ve already forgotten myself.

I have begun to use conductivity more intentionally after talking to Daniel B. Specifically, I use it at the beginning of a meditation in order to balance myself.

I observed jealousy in regards to Peggy in meditation this afternoon. It is something I have to work very intentionally with. I guess it´s because I intuit that she is a great devotee and will progress very quickly. The jealousy comes from not wanting to be left behind. But all I can do is submit the feelings and the thoughts again and again (and for real). I feel the strength of my intention and feel enlivened by it.

April 8, 1990 (Sunday)

I have mixed feelings about using the chair. It seems useful to have to transcend the pain in the knees, but it can get so bad that it feels ludicrous. I sat in the chair this afternoon and basically had a crummy meditation. The mind wandered lazily. The thing about pain is that it focuses the mind so beautifully.

Tomorrow we should have our first Darshan. I want to be as fresh as possible for it. I think that I might use the chair during chanting or the full cycle of Devotions or some presentation.

I haven´t had much in the form of the doubt mind arise, but I have been sexually distracted. It´s not even that I´m horny, but that I´m looking for female consolation. I definitely observe it as a search, but haven´t fully realized that it´s suffering.

Chanting has served me greatly again. At a certain point the room just fills with Him and the energy given to the Murti comes back magnified. Interestingly, I noticed that when His Energy filled me, the pain in my knees eased significantly. I was able to continue sitting much longer than I would have imagined.

So the BIG OBSTACLE seems to be pain. I haven´t felt like leaving at all, though. On the contrary, there is very much the feeling of being Home at last.

April 9, 1990 (Monday)

Well, it´s incredibly difficult, but when the moment passes, I notice I´m very happy. It seems impossibly difficult at times, but the only option in those moments is to surrender or struggle. I´ve been able to consistently surrender so far, but a couple of times I started to struggle. The greatest news I´ve heard so far is that the knees stop complaining after a week or so.

I´m fasting today because we should be having a Darshan today, but I might continue it to accelerate the purification. I know from experience that fasting makes sitting much easier (as well as yoga, etc.).

During the Sat-Guru Murti Puja this morning, I noticed that Kanya Tripura´s attention was fully on Sri Gurudev´s Murti throughout. I understood at the heart that that IS the epitome of the Way. It IS really nothing but complete immersion of attention in Sri Gurudev. It is in essence extraordinarily simple, but the practice is difficult when you encounter the profundity of Narcissus.

NOTES GIVEN:

You do not come to be acknowledged. You come to acknowledge Him.

Still, it is somehow easy to forget Him (I have difficulty confessing this), even while so close (100 yards) to Where He Lives. But perhaps I am confusing forgetting Him with mindless contemplation. The reason this is coming up is that I just did some service and didn´t “think” of Him. However, His Feeling is here, even if I don´t “think” of Him. I forget to feel Him at times, though.

Just had Darshan. We didn´t know until literally the last minute that we were going to. Then we moved pell mell to the Giving Coat. Within five or so minutes, Sri Gurudev came in, absolutely Radiant. What a more than wonderful vision He Is! I feel absolutely in love and committed.

I cried a lot. I fasted today to be clear for His Transmission and I think that it helped. I felt His Purifying Force purge my body. My hands and feet went numb from the energy, a feeling very similar to what happens in rebirthing. I practiced conductivity and breathed in and out with the energy. It was very Blissful and Gracious, as He did everything.

I had my eyes closed most of the time. But I opened my eyes to see Him Gazing at me with Great Sorrow. I closed my eyes again almost immediately and continued to surrender. He is Absolutely Beautiful, but I am more attracted to His Presence.

To backtrack a bit, we all got to offer our major gift at His Feet. It was absolutely mindblowing. What an extraordinary vision! His Form actually Radiates, it´s perceptible. I don´t know how to describe it, except that His Body is light.

Thoughts came straggling up, but I would practice using the Sat-Guru-Naama-Mantra and surrender everything to Him. It was all so Blissful!

When I received Prasad from Him, I couldn´t look in His face, but He actually did Glance at me oh so briefly. Then He lightly tapped the cookie into my hand.

Then the most magnificent part came. After all the Prasad had been passed out, He just stood there, obviously granting us just a bit more Darshan. But then, He seemed to crank it up, and His Vision became brilliant. In that moment, surely there was no doubt of God. I wept again and thanked Him for the Mystery of my being in His Physical Company.

I stayed for about twenty minutes afterward, mindless and happy. I still feel His Sublime Bliss. Truly it pervades this place, but now I have been initiated. I will always be able to locate Him wherever I go physically.

April 10, 1990 (Tuesday)

It´s funny, but somehow you keep expecting it to get easier, but it never does. My legs were relatively okay in meditation and fine during the Murti-Puja, but then my back started giving me problems. Well, no matter what arises, it´s all to be transcended.

In the midst of TAPAS, there is a certain awakening which is mindless. To transcend the pain, you must be mindless. But it doesn´t change the pain—it transcends it—and it´s the most difficult act imaginable. Inherently difficult if you assume you are the one who is doing it. That is why surrender is absolutely necessary.

I had a small kriya in meditation this morning. I found that I preferred to visualize Sri Gurudev from yesterday´s Darshan. At certain points, there were vague wanderings in the mind. I say vague because they are incredibly random and creative and often have nothing to do with anything. It is my creative distraction—perhaps I should have a discipline to channel my creativity. The wandering comes when I am simply weak. I do feel myself getting stronger (I just broke a one day fast).

It´s funny—earlier I said that it never gets easier, but something occurs in consciousness which allows the difficulty. When the difficulty is allowed, a mysterious joy is revealed. I just discovered this in the mid-morning meditation. I´m saving my knees as much as possible outside of meditation and it´s helping a lot. But there is still the difficulty. It seems, though, that after a while the body-mind just gives up its protestations (progressively). I noticed how happy I was to allow the pain to be and simply relaxed into it while Remembering Him. I can see that this is the process that will unfold before me. Eventually, by His Grace, it will reach the profound level of undiminished Happiness no matter what arises.

—Feeling very happy—very relieved of the small self. The third meditation revealed something very practical. That is, if I focus on keeping my back in its proper position, the knees take care of themselves. The trick is that the proper position seems odd, I have to apply myself to it. But when I do, it feels right on. The meditation wasn´t great, but what was revealed should immensely help meditations from now on.

April 11, 1990 (Wednesday)

Last night´s evening meditation was difficult because I didn´t use a chair previous to it. I notice how much attention I have on the comfort of the body. However, my interest is in adapting the body as quickly as possible to the rigors of retreat and feel that I am close. James A. told me that the pain goes away in about a week. But then I suspect that the difficulty shifts to the psyche. I haven´t had too much psychic crap come up—what has come up I just surrender. But I have a sense that I´m suppressing the deep stuff.

My heart has been open plenty. There are times when I wish that it was open more, but I don´t feel “dead” like so many confess. There is a sense of patience coupled with faith that He will do what´s required as long as I simply and continuously keep resorting to Him. So don´t be in a hurry, but do everything you can to speed the process along!

The second meditation was very good. I felt my love for Him very strongly immediately and felt energies in the body, which is relatively unusual for me. Then I spontaneously began to praise Him and the energies increased. I long ago ceased to care about energies in the body, so they didn´t distract me at all. This didn´t feel like the typical love-bliss loss-of-mind meditation at all. I was aware of the mind “lurking” in the background, but there were very few thoughts. It was work, this meditation, and I conducted the breath very deeply (or WAS conducted very deeply). Towards the last fifteen minutes the knees started to hurt and attention was more bodily oriented. I feel that great purification is being done and this mediation was an example of it.

The chanting really moves me into feeling-Contemplation. Today it was quite profound. I became absolutely mindless. The rhythm and praise of Sri Gurudev has an accumulative effect. I feel that I am being immersed in Him. Even using the mind to write these words is a bit difficult.

April 12, 1990 (Thursday)

Well, I´m starting to cycle through some negativity. I couldn´t meditate the last two times yesterday and the chanting was weak, I thought. Mary told me that she thought the chanting was wonderful, so it just shows how much subjectivity can rule perception. This morning´s meditation was plain difficult, as well as the puja, but again I started to awaken to the acceptance of it as difficult. It is the non-consoling position. I can understand that it is the way, and really a great Gift, but nonetheless it is very difficult.

So after this difficulty the morning chanting was very deep and moving. I was very served by the demonstration of devotion by Daniel B. and Stephan, who both sat in front of me. Just seeing the bodily demonstration of devotees teaches this body to submit.

My meditations are becoming very simple—they often wind up as mere submission to pain. The pain is useful because it burns up reactivity. If you can sit with pain, you learn reactionlessness. Thoughts come up, but not with much force. I do find it difficult to locate Sri Gurudev, but I feel that this is the process that I should be going through. When I come out of the hall, I AM REALLY thoughtless.

Darshan should be in less than three hours. Chanting this morning again served greatly. Meditation is an ordeal of purification, but chanting often leads to deep feeling-Contemplation.

—No Darshan. Nobody really knows why, except that He didn´t feel a certain response from the world-wide community.

I guess I´m “stuck”. When I´m sitting, I´m just sitting. But I don´t feel dead. And few thoughts arise. And I´m not concerned about it.

That´s the thing, I don´t feel concerned, but perhaps I´m not feeling.

I guess I´m feeling very tired. I´m not really sure what to write, but I´m supposed to be writing at this time.

In meditation I´m submitting, but it´s an extraordinarily difficult submission to pain. During this last meditation I visualized everyone from our region and thought of their names as a way to stay in contact with Sri Gurudev. I´m not sure why I´m not feeling anything right now, but it might be that I don´t want to lose face and let the buried emotions out. The thing is, I´m completely unaware of or have completely deluded myself about these feelings. I´m not really sure what they could be. It seems I´ve already gone through every emotional crisis there is. Are there really any more?

April 13, 1990 (Friday)

Big-time breakthrough. After finally realizing that I was stuck, I sincerely felt into it, not as a problem, but simply as what it was. I was answered very clearly when I asked to be relieved and feel Him. Last night there was a breakthrough with acceptance of pain in the knees and a real adaptation that had occurred. This morning´s meditation was by far the best of the retreat—I was immediately drawn into Him very deeply. There was great Love-Bliss and I felt intoxicated with Him. The unusual thing is, I had full bodily awareness throughout, and often had my eyes half-open. I can´t explain it, other than it was a great Gift.

There was a moment when I started to submit the feeling of Love-Bliss itself and suddenly the feeling of Him was greatly magnified. From that point I practiced with submitting everything that arose.

It´s evening time and I´m very, very tired. After this morning´s breakthrough, I have felt continually eroded. The Master once said you need a strong ego to become enlightened. Well, I´ve got a strong ego, and I mean that in a relatively positive way. No matter what arises, I just keep plodding forward. My mind will come up with all types of escapes, but by the Grace of the Sat-Guru I ignore them.

What I mean by having a strong ego is that I tend to be so sure of myself. I´ve noticed that people in the community don´t particularly like that quality and it´s probably because I´m doing some superior number. I do notice that there is a part of me that automatically assesses people´s weaknesses and strengths and compares them to my own. This doesn´t universally happen, but does occur with certain individual types (probably the types who do similar assessments). I don´t know what to make of it, really, but it is obviously Narcissus and I must relinquish the habit.

I´m noticing that I´m eating too much. It´s not like I´m really stuffing myself, but food is one of the few consolations around. I particularly noticed today that I would keep on eating after feeling full, just for the entertainment value of it. But I can see the sorrowful need motivating the activity. Now that I´ve observed it, I really just have to practice with it.

What else is going on? I tend to take credit for Sri Gurudev´s Gifts. When He Gave me the meditation this morning, I didn´t overtly do that, but there is the feeling of pride there. I have to remember that I am nothing but an instrument.

April 14, 1990 (Saturday)

Morning meditation was another great Gift. Yesterday´s experience was continued, but this time there was silent instruction as to how to conduct (breath) Him. It started out the same way with feeling Him immediately and then breathing Him in, but what occurred was HOW to be responsible for this myself. Yesterday´s meditation got mediocre in the last 20-30 minutes, but today, because I was learning how to be responsible for the process myself, I was able to sustain it all the way through. Pain came up in the last 20-30 minutes, but I noticed that proper conductivity relieved it.

The mid-morning meditation was extra-long. I could properly meditate and commune with Him for the first half hour or so, but then it became a matter of struggling with pain. I was very happy that I could self-generate the practice to the extent that I could, and that apparently this Gift is something that might continue with my responsiveness.

PRESENTATION BY KANYA TRIPURA at Taken to Heart

The presumptuousness of the student-beginner.

Intensive listening-hearing process is level one—this leads to the Gift of hearing.

The first great Gift is hearing—it creates a fundamental change to how you respond to all that arises.

Effects in His Company are inevitable—He doesn´t want to hear about them. What awakens is the natural ability to self-transcendence.

Live as an ecstatic—do not suppress anything that you feel about Him.

Self-observation and self-understanding will appear in His Company. This needs to be communicated.

Listening?self-understanding?hearing

The humility is not present when the devotee is presumptuous. Only the Sat-Guru knows what is necessary for you. To come to Him as if you know what you need is offensive to the Sat-Guru.

The process is very different in each person´s case. The guru assumes your form—that´s the process.

Self-observation and self-understanding IS the guru and serves to dissolve the body-mind.

Level 1.2 has an intensive diary discipline.

Observation comes to the point of observing that the body-mind itself is the self-contraction.

Hearing means you no longer have to go through these cycles of observation. You no longer search within the being because you have observed that it is all self-contraction.

Allow the crisis to occur.

It is NOT an analysis of CONTENT. When all that you suffer from your own activity has no more concern to you than a slight stomach ache—that is hearing. Presumptuousness bypasses the crisis.

Through devotion, self-understanding and self-observation occur, not through the mind.

Level 2 is the “will be seeing” level. There is the tendency not to truly observe yourself.

The purpose of Darshan for the student-beginner is INITIATION.

It is not useful to grant a lot of access.

We must practice listening-devotion. Self-observation and self-understanding are being GIVEN.

True Hearing is direct self-transcendence in every moment. Without this, the devotee cannot make right use of Sri Gurudev.

The disciplines must be lived as self-transcending practice.

He is undoing the karmic process of rebirth. This is the greatest process that exists and has never existed before in this purity.

Self-understanding Ministry. Seeing Ministry.

The process of the dissolution of self. Love of Guru is how you stay with Him. Devotion is necessary.

If you move the Heart of the Guru, His Grace flows to you.

Sadhana is complete from the beginning. He can only respond to devotion. The guru is truly blissful, the only Bliss.

The Sacrament of Universal Sacrifice in all meditation halls.

You must practice for the purpose of being prepared for Darshan.

You must invoke Him for real and not by rote. The same goes for meditation halls every day.

You must cultivate and preserve Sri Gurudev´s Presence in your halls.

Every hall must be served by puja, in which He is invoked and received.

Cleaning should be done by the priests.

Fully effective puja should be done in every hall.

Chanting should occur during the Sat-Guru Murti Puja.

April 15, 1990 (Sunday)

Invoking Him via the breath continues to work, Gracefully. This morning I was tired near the end and the effectiveness of it was diminished. But I am joyful that I have been Given such a Grace.

Kanya Tripura´s presentation was most effective yesterday. I AM a presumptuous character. I deny it because I am not aware of seeking spiritual experiences and the fantasies I have about being an advanced practitioner are fantasies about EVENTUALLY being an advanced practitioner. But inherent in that fantasy is the presumption that I have something or anything to do with my spiritual destiny. I do not. Only the Guru has something or anything to do with my spiritual destiny. I have everything to do with my own suffering, egoic destiny, but only the Grace of the Guru will lead beyond material existence. The presumption is heinous and obstructs His Transformative Transmission.

And I feel relieved. I felt relieved mysteriously during the presentation. Then, Grace of all Graces, we were invited to a most sublime, spontaneous Darshan of Sri Gurudev on His porch in the village.

We all lined the road leading to the house and chanted “Love-Ananda Gurudev”. His car passed , but I doubt if anybody could see Him. But when He got out, He was most Visible and liberally Granted His Darshan.

A fine, misty rain appeared out of nowhere IMMEDIATELY upon His appearance and showered His Blessings on all of us. The wind picked up and its energy was enlivening.

We gathered around the porch and approached 2-3 at a time to offer our gifts at His Feet. He was a most Blissful Presence. I felt both calming of the mind and stimulation of the mind. Later I had diarrhea. When we had Darshan on Monday, I fasted, and I´m sure that it increased sensitivity and reception of Him.

I have begun to see this struggling, starving character that I am and animate. I know that by only His Grace I will be released of it. And it can already be the case, if I just allow it to be so.

I could feel that He was working with all of us. I feel that as a lifting of psychic burden at His Sight.

I am VERY, VERY happy that the Gift of invoking Him is continuing strongly. Self-forgetting is occurring and self-understanding is arising.

Well, all three meditations have been full and happy. Conductivity is key, but a sublime, very relaxed state is reached at a certain point in which conductivity need no longer be practiced so profoundly. I also got the feeling that people were reacting to my rather deep breathing. It doesn´t come regularly, but rather randomly. Still, I had the sense that it was becoming annoying to some. When it is occurring, I just want people to intuitively understand and begin it themselves.

The process is simple. Merely feel Him, breath Him in, and submit profoundly. Your breath will do whatever´s appropriate as you keep profoundly submitting attention.

Studying the Love-Ananda Gita is so different now that I´m here and going through the great ordeal of retreat. He says that to contemplate His Spiritual Presence, one must be relatively free of the distracting power of attention. I feel that what is awakening in me IS contemplation of His Spiritual Presence, but don´t know how that jibes with being a student-beginner. I just know that it is Grace-Given and corresponds to my consistent resort and practice.

This has been a beautiful, happy day. The retreat today seems so easy (relative to the beginning!) and I´ve looked forward to and enjoyed very much all the events. It is such a pleasure to be always giving attention to devotional activities and sharing good company and His Great Company.

At times it has been so difficult that I was crazy and just wanting to get away. But I have always felt His Love for me and His Regard for me. I know that He has used Skillful Means to bring me to this point. I have utter faith that He will Give me what I need, when I need it.

I´ve wanted very much to be able to somehow stay here and become a resident, but it could be that I will be more useful in Seattle. I do feel that my practice is on fire and I simply wish to keep it going in this circumstance. I´ve always asked Him to Give it to me as fast as I can stand it. Well, we´ll see what happens.

April 16, 1990 (Monday)

The love-bliss continues, but there was pain again in the second meditation. It´s the epitome of testing. It´s very much simply the transcendence of pain and pleasure in feeling-Contemplating Him.

I got to talk to Stephan this morning about what was occurring in meditation. It seemed like I really should communicate it somehow. I wrote two letters to Sri Gurudev, one on Friday and one on Saturday when the process was first initiated. But what more could I tell Him other than it was continuing?

Yesterday was a real Grace—everything was easy and full of Bliss. I even started sitting in a modified half lotus that was easy to sustain. Perhaps the artful mixture of sitting positions is the key to sitting all day with minimal pain.

I remember the moment when I first started abstracting the world. When I was about 7-8-9 years old, I was walking home through the snow and was suffering it. I then imagined what it would be like when I got home and how pleasant it would be. When I got home it was indeed pleasant, but mom had also made some hot tea for me which I can still taste to this day, it tasted so hot and good and sweet. Well, I was suddenly an abstraction addict, living in a fantasy world. I realized I could avoid living in the moment if I just imagined something else. Soon I was projecting myself into the future, the far, far future, in order to avoid the painful present. This was my serious activity from then on. It´s how and why I became such a science fiction fan and why I developed such a rich imagination.

We DID have Darshan today. The body-mind started cramping up hours before, so I intuited that it was going to be a difficult one. I had also been praying for the crisis of true Hearing. But I had no idea how difficult it was going to be.

After yesterday´s ease, today has been extraordinarily difficult, particularly the Darshan.

Sri Gurudev walked into the Giving Coat with a most Ferocious expression on His Face. He really meant Business. And my legs were hurting already—it was truly the complete opposite from yesterday.

My knees were on fire. But His Attractiveness was greater, and I made the commitment over and over to stay with the pain and feel through it to Him. It was the most difficult and exhausting meditation I have ever had.

I am extraordinarily tired, but I am clear nonetheless. My intuition keeps whispering to me about another state that I could become aware of, if I would just allow it. It REQUIRES the cessation of seeking for which the crisis of Hearing serves. Perhaps the exhaustion I feel is the exhaustion of the search, the wearing down of the illusion that happiness can be found in the endless field of opposites.

Strength is found in exhaustion.

April 17, 1990 (Tuesday)

The legs are quickly coming back now. It´s obvious to me that the lesson is that submission to attention in the conditional realm IS suffering. The Gift is to have that understanding bearing down on you, but you would go mad if you had no Resort. This is an extraordinary ordeal made possible only by Grace. My heart is broken in understanding and love. Really, it all seems so senseless to me and I suppose it is. But what does reason have to do with it? What is this Resort to the Unconditional Reality? How can it be an activity?

This morning´s meditation was difficult to get going in, but eventually I began to commune with Him. It probably took about half an hour to get to the point where I could feel Him in the midst of conductivity exercise. I think I am making an error in focusing so much on conductivity. After all, it is a secondary and SUPPORTIVE exercise. But I know that it is essential.

The second meditation took a while, too. But I was definitely feeling Him right away because I started crying. The body-mind is falling back in place. I asked Allen to massage my back a bit, and that helped. We also had laying on of hands while contemplating Sri Gurudev.

I am more naturally inclined to submitting to whatever arises. But a certain level of pain is just what it takes to drive me mad—but it also drives me forcefully to resort to Sri Gurudev.

The third meditation was not the same, but I did feel Him in a mediocre fashion.

April l8, 1990 (Wednesday)

Last night´s meditation was profound (for me, that is). We had been chanting in the hall prior to the fourth meditation and last night we really let it pop and invoked Him tremendously. When meditation began, it wasn´t long before I was deeply in feeling-Contemplation. It was so easy because the feeling of Him was already tangibly obvious. The interesting thing about this is that most of the time I had my eyes half open and even thoughts came up with semi-regularity, but they were usually thoughts about Sri Gurudev or loving thoughts or feelings for others in the room.

The same occurred this morning. One of the difficulties is that I am very sensitive to others in the room. For those who are also in feeling-Contemplation it´s great, but for those who aren´t, I can feel their difficulty and I´m also aware that they are aware that I´m enjoying a sublime state. I keep breathing at times as if to breath the entire room and to help everybody fall into Him. I´m sure there´s some truth to this.

Oh yes, the legs are completely fine now. Last night, towards the end I felt a great heat in my feet and a pain in the knee came up, quite severe probably, but I was less identified with it than I was with the bliss.

Another interesting fact is that I was bent over, àla Ramana Maharshi, during most of these two deep meditations. It seemed more conducive that way and I didn´t even notice it until I had been in the position for a long time. My back has been difficult since Monday´s Darshan.

April 19, 1990 (Thursday)

Woke up at 3:00 and had a painful bowel movement. Last night´s supper was two slices of bread and a very bad tasting potato soup eaten in about five minutes, because we were rushed to get to the arati.

The form just keeps carrying us through the ordeal. That´s what it´s for, I reckon.

It took a long while to get going again in meditation this morning, but it did finally occur. Last night took some work, too, as it seemed the room was very sluggish. There is no doubt that the quality of participation in the room is key to any apparent individual´s experience. When I get home, I would prefer to meditate alone than with a mediocre group. But there will be times when meditating with less serious people will be of real service.

Han got up in the middle of last night´s meditation and I didn´t know why, but I became pretty disturbed by it. I asked him this morning and he said he was just replacing the flower from the top of the Murti. I was relieved that it wasn´t something he was in the habit of doing. I was disturbed because it was hard work getting the room into a sensitive space. It´s a fragile space sometime, as it was last night. After he replaced the flower, the room was no longer conducting and the rest of the meditation was pretty mediocre.

I´m in a complacent place. I´m not feeling Him very strongly now. Invoking Him through chanting and conductivity works, but my heart-response is starting to lag. It is clear that I want to commit myself to Him for the rest of my life, but everything that comes in the way of that is coming up. There are lots of things, small things that don´t add up to much and I´m not very concerned about. But what I´m discovering now is boredom. I can invoke Him and be with Him in my limited way, but then the ego wants to know if that´s all there is. The ordeal is simply the revelation of Narcissus and the ego is not that interested in all that and would like something good and stimulating. Paradoxically, I´ve really enjoyed the lack of stimulation.

We were Given Darshan on the porch of Indefinable again. We didn´t know if it would happen, of course. We were in the Giving Coat for about an hour simply waiting, then chanting to a puja, then running to Indefinable.

April 20, 1990 (Friday)

I´ll continue about the Darshan. We´ve had some really wild and crazy days lately. So we were chanting and doing puja in the Giving Coat—

Boy, we´re not getting much time to write—to continue—

We were chanting when Stefan comes running in and says Sri Gurudev is waiting for us on the porch of Indefinable and to drop everything and to run to Him—don´t even stop for your shoes! Of course, this fills us with excitement and we´re soon floating down the lawn toward Indefinable. It was—no other word for it—magical. Later, the

—interrupted again—

It felt like we were coming home at last. I could see Him there, sitting on the porch, simply waiting for us. Everything was forgotten by the mere sight of Him. We were all ecstatic and crazy. It didn´t matter. There was no experience. That was the Gift.

I´m noticing that my body-mind has adapted quite a bit to the form. It is possible to get complacent and that has happened a few times, but I keep pushing by my nature. And yet, there is also a tendency toward boredom (!), which is surprising to me because I´m almost never bored. It comes up from a lack of stimulation and predominantly from my mind being put on hold for so long.

April 21, 1990 (Saturday)

Last night the new retreatants arrived. I could feel how hesitant they were to join our ecstasy. In meditation, it was particularly dead and it didn´t help that the guy next to me was breathing in sharp staccatos randomly. I hope this isn´t his usual. I used ear plugs this morning, but I feel that they cut me off from everyone. I like to hear the breathing (or lack thereof) to feel the mood of the room. Then I can work (breath) with what´s there as we all practice feeling-Contemplation of Sri Gurudev. Last night I simply very purposefully worked the breath without getting very meditative myself. But I know what conducted breath should sound like, so I mimicked that. It did move the room into a more meditative feeling, but I myself did not “go in”.

I had also switched beds and it turned out that I was much more uncomfortable. However, the form gives you strength and you just keep being lived by it.

I am noticing that I long for deeper feeling-Contemplation of Sri Gurudev. When meditation doesn´t deepen, I long for it to. When it does deepen, I long for it to be more profound. I don´t care about experience, but I do want to feel Him most profoundly. That´s why I don´t have as many “great” leelas to tell because I only get a kriya here and there. I just feel Him ever more profoundly. And I guess I´m not as patient as I should be. After all, all will be Given in due course.

The boredom I mentioned earlier is the impatience of wanting meditation to become profound. But as I write this, I can see what I really need to do is simply accept the great Gifts that have been Given and relax into them with patience and joy. I have asked Him many times to let the process occur as fast as I can stand it and I´m sure that it will be Given that way.

It´s starting to feel like the crisis of the second Thursday. I´m not feeling Him and techniques are not helping. I´ve adapted strongly now to the discipline of sitting. I can sit all day with only slight discomfort and slight need to change position. But that´s what it comes down to for me—techniques, callousness, dryness, “just enough”.

April 22, 1990 (Sunday)

Meditation didn´t happen this morning. Basically, I just sat there. Towards the end, when it became apparent that meditation would not occur, I began thinking about the cartoons, thinking of how to rewrite them. Thinking about how to be funny. I almost never engage in purposeful thinking in the hall anymore, so this was real unusual. Interestingly, during the recitation of the Hymn of the True Heart-Master, I became quite meditative in an instant.

It´s much easier to deal with this mediocrity because the body has adapted to sitting all day. Strangely, though, my butt hurt in meditation and my knees were fine. I thought, “How ludicrous!”

I wonder how much truth there is to the psyche of the new group bringing the energy down in the hall. After all, most of them are probably struggling at this stage and most of them are men, most of whom are generally less sensitive than the women. I know there´s something to it, but I must treat it as a challenge and not wimp out. But it´s difficult. And who knows what kind of difficulty I´m bringing to it all?

NOTES FROM SRI GURUDEV

Community—not a utopian ideal. A form of tapas that requires self-transcendence. Criticizes the REACTION to community.

If you´re having difficulty with the community, you are having difficulty with Sri Gurudev.

Ashram form should be lived everywhere.

Serve His Mission. You´re not here to be liberated—you´re here to do His Work. His Liberation is a Gift.

Anger—forgive and forget—or rise up to love and compassion and MORE.

This year, 1990, is the empowerment of the regions. Strength of devotion in community.

This is the only way to live—utter devotion and attention to Him—all the crap will fall away.

Resident of a community. Living in community is very basic and should not be bypassed. He feels the community is not organized and strong. You are not prepared unless you are a member of the community organization.

==

Well, I´ve rediscovered knee pain. We had the extra-long puja this morning because it´s Sunday and then we had an hour-long presentation by Daniel B. and then went right to another puja and meditation. So from 5:00 to 12:00 we were sitting except for walking between events and morning exercise.

The ego is wearing down again. I do have a strong ego. It´s like I want to start crying about something, but don´t know what. It would be pretty great to hit a crisis right now and expel something. The thing is, I don´t have any idea what it may be.

I don´t think I even need to know what it is—I just need a crisis. I need ecstasy, I need to lose myself. The search winds down.

[Jim Steinberg gives a presentation on the last page of the Dawn Horse Testament. Mostly about taking of the name “Kalki”. Jim ends up saying that “Mankind is the avatar. Mankind must save itself by its own practice.]

April 22, 1990 (Sunday) [continued]

I´m going through the motions somewhat. I´m very aware that Thursday is the last day of retreat. I´m not embracing the ordeal as I was. It´s not that I´m suddenly not heart-felt, but I´m tired and would like to integrate what´s occurred. But there are two formal Darshans yet to go and I feel the need for a crisis to occur. Again, I don´t know what the crisis is, but it has something to do with this tacit sense of arrogance that I've become aware of. It´s below the verbal mind, so I have been generally totally oblivious to it, but I can´t help but see it now. Even still, it´s not like an overwhelming aspect of my character, but it is deep and entrenched. I have a strong ego, and that is part of why. It is competitiveness, dog-eat-dogness that I have created a highly complex structure of justification and delusion, in order to be generally unaware of it. This is so because this activity directly contradicts the person that I think I am, which is loving and kind and unobtrusive.

April 23, 1990 (Monday)

Had a deep, inconsistent meditation this morning, with two kriyas. I´m starting to get the infamous “dead butt” disease. I´m also going through some negativity. The only thing to do is work through it, essentially. That´s really what it´s all about, a lifetime of sadhana of working through all this negative action that you are unconsciously generating. If I take it one day at a time, I´ll be fine. But I had to freak out by visualizing an austere life forever and that doesn´t appeal at all. Yet I am drawn to renunciation.

The chanting this morning was very masculine and reflected the quality of just forcefully working through the negativity. I am aware of being annoyed at the new group of men. I can see their devotion, but I am critical of their slow, lumbering bows and prostrations, the way they take up more room than they need, and Nachson in particular who was critical of me because I wanted to sell my chair. “You should just give it away.” Maybe.

I am not sitting up straight much of the time anymore. The knot in my neck [this is an old biking injury] affects a whole line of muscles down my back. It´s something that I´d eventually like to have loosened, but it seems as difficult as transcending the ego. While I´m at it, I´d like to be purified of the Candida also.

I felt stuck, so I asked Stefan if I could talk to someone before Darshan. Then the second meditation was pretty good—I felt relieved of some of it. I think it´s a matter of staying with it—I was starting to think about it ending.

Fantastic Darshan. You start thinking that you´ve received all you can take, when more is Given. I experienced Him as a descent of Energy into my body. Prior to that, I had noticed how the mind keeps one from receiving Him by interpreting all motions as originating from the mind. Then the wind picked up and seemed to descend with Great Force on the Hall and at the same time He entered me.

April 24, 1990 (Tuesday)

To continue with the Darshan—much was revealed to me as well as receiving energy in the body and great feelings of devotion and love. I saw how the mechanism of the mind is a great force for keeping me from feeling Sri Gurudev. But Sri Gurudev is an immense, immense Force for which I am beginning to become aware. The force of the mind is extraordinarily powerful, but Sri Gurudev is much more powerful. But it takes everything He Has.

What I saw was that the mind assumes responsibility for all the movements of the body. This is why the mind is doubtful that one can be moved by Sri Gurudev. So whenever there is the possibility to be moved, the mind goes through its number, notices that it has nothing to do with it and then presumes that it is being faked. This short-circuits the process. What I was Given in this Darshan was the ability to see the activity of the mind. In so seeing it, I was suddenly free to be moved in all kinds of ways by Sri Gurudev.

The big moment came where I had sensed Him coincident with the wind and rain. Then He descended on the Hall as well as my body-mind, entering me with a Force that pushed my head to the ground and purified the body-mind. My hands went numb and I hyperventilated and cried deep, sobbing gasps. After that subsided after a while, my heart was wide open. The mind was really going, but it was easy to turn it to praise of Sri Gurudev. I continued this as I gazed at Him in absolute love. I think He looked at me, but I´m not sure because my eyes were half closed and I was looking at His entire Body and not His Face.

He handed out Prasad and left. I fully prostrated, but then got up to see Him walking away. I began hyperventilating again. I noticed how the mind wanted to question it, but I didn´t mind.

Now today, the two meditations have been wishy-washy. I´m reaching some depth, but coming out quickly and being superficial. My mind is active today.

We circumnavigated the island. It IS very big and Forceful. I felt a sense of my own destiny in relation to it.

The third meditation turned out very good. It started out extremely mediocre and then the mind was particularly jazzed up. I couldn´t help but notice that this was suffering and I very much wanted to be relieved of it. So I re-engaged the work of invoking Him. It is always through the breath. I notice how people just don´t breath. Everyone wants breathing to just happen. You have to breath consciously in order to conduct His Presence.

April 25, 1990 (Wednesday)

The fourth meditation also was a lot of work as well as this morning´s. They weren´t as profound as the third, but they relieved me of much mind. It´s the non-consoling place, but you have to become sensitive to your every day state of suffering in order to endure the release of it. It´s like fasting, but now I´m fasting the mind.

We had a surprise Darshan in the middle of the second meditation. We knew it was possible, but I had the distinct intuition that someone would come into the hall to tell us and that´s what happened. It was very simple and sweet. I was just happy to see Him and enjoyed His Complete Indifference.

April 26, 1990 (Thursday)

Today´s the last day. Yesterday we had Darshan at Indefinable, somewhat formally, but late at night. I was very grateful for this one because it was mostly deeply meditative. Had one strong kriya.

This morning we had a lot of special events. There was a Murti Puja at the Paduka Mandir. We all sat outside and sang “The Way Is Sacrifice of Self”. I had an intense kriya, not exaggerated, but very powerful when Kanya Remembrance and Kanya Tripura circled the temple ringing the bell. The sound of the bell seemed to be three dimensional and penetrated my head piercingly.

Then we had a fire puja like the one we had yesterday for the new moon. This one was more powerful to me. Basically, I became deeply meditative. That´s it, although I did have a few kriyas.

A lady named Christine from Holland says she has no interest in experiences, but she keeps having them. I feel the same way. They´re nice in feeling that something is REALLY going on, but the understanding is that they can be distracting.

April 26, 1990 (Thursday)

All night travel to Taveuni and then an immediate flight to Suva, where I am now. Very difficult night on the boat because there was no way to lay down comfortably to sleep.

I have no remorse about leaving Sri Gurudev´s Physical Company, because I feel Him so much more as Presence (and consistently).