14 Ellen Schector Vraja Academy 10th January 1981 |
|||||||
Ellen was the girl at the typewriter when I arrived yesterday. She is to give the next Interview, but as she offers me tea she starts making conditions. I know it’s a matter of nerves; I am told not to ask her this or that, or rush her, to be patient, not to call her by her Sanskrit name, to promise to send her a copy of the transcript. What else can I do but agree? We move out of the shade into the pale winter sunshine. Sri Pad Baba passes carrying an armful of office files. No, no, everything is fine — I assure him — we really are, finally, well almost, ready to start…
I grew up in a family of Jewish atheists with strong humanistic values. The primary target of family jokes was God and religion. All this was in Chicago where I was born 31 years ago. I don’t trace my connection to India far back; it was more after LSD that I began to have longings beyond America and American life. How old were you when
you started LSD? I had no idea what to do with my life or how to get to that level of consciousness I had tasted. I didn’t know if anyone else was having this experience or not or if one was supposed to talk about it. I continued taking the drug as I was eager to reconnect to the positive aspect of it but had more bad experiences. It came to the point when I had to accept that my survival depended on not taking any more. I tried getting back to that high with grass, but I easily flipped back into the negative state: Oh, my God! — I’m here again and I’ve always been here. The word flashed through my mind: Insanity — this is it! Although I was in a vulnerable state, I got back into college, studied, did some service with kids who were wards of the State and some work with old people. A lot of my friends were moving into the country, building their own houses. I visited a friend and had the sensation of being in touch with myself; it was so quiet in the country I became aware of an inner dialogue. This was a turning point for me. I bought some land, and knowing that I would have to work making a garden, took to yoga to strengthen my back. At the end of the yoga class there was ten minutes meditation. Where was this? Where was all this? However, when I moved into the Ashram, the turmoil came back intensely, and was so unexpected — I never thought I would have to face that again. I had enough perspective to know it was a cleansing process. Every vulnerability within me was having to come out through meditation…to become strong one has to face every weakness. So in a way I was able to withstand it. There was a song Ram Dass popularized: Rejoice in the Lord Always. I remember one night walking the streets singing this song, saying to myself: Rejoice always, not when you are happy but when you have to accept painful things…recognize it, tolerate it. I was crying, but I kept on singing. Twice I packed my things with the intention of leaving the Ashram — not that I had anywhere to go, but I knew I had to get out. I had reached my limit. But then something worse would happen, and I would stay. Things would ease up. Then the stress would come on again because the compulsion returned, and I was eating and eating and eating, gaining weight. I kept saying: I don’t want to get fat again, I can’t face it…that nightmare is over! The critical point came when I learned my brother was to get married. I was so happy; there was no question, I would go to the wedding. But here I was getting fatter and fatter, and I couldn’t face being with the whole family obese. I couldn’t go, yet I couldn’t not go either. The pressure was building — I didn’t know what to do. Finally, I addressed myself to God: Whatever You want to make me go through, I’ll go through. It was a release…not that I stopped being compulsive. But I accepted the fact that I was going to be fat. And I got fatter and fatter, fatter than I had ever been. I was very unhappy — that was the surface, the emotional state. I cringed if my friends wanted to be affectionate or to touch me. I couldn’t talk about my condition. But underneath all this I had a connection with myself, and the discomfort was surface: that gave me the ability to survive. If the inner connection would not have been there I know I would never have survived. Living in that Ashram was nice but not fulfilling. After two years I was able to leave. I had wanted to come to India, so now I took a job, worked seven days a week to save enough money. Within a year and a half I bought the ticket and came. What did you have in
mind? Did you have any plan
when you arrived? What sort of weight were
you? And now? But with all this new-found
bliss, did you stop looking for the inner bliss? But I started to long for the Himalayas. So I spent a month at Badrinath(1) and ran into someone who had a new book by Ram Dass on Neem Karoli Baba(2). I read it; it was a mind-altering experience. I felt a strong pull towards Neem Karoli Baba. This helped me counter the Krishnamurti concept of the guru-disciple relaltionship being void. I had no doubt how high a guru can be, so then I wanted to get close to Maharaj. This is why I came to Vrindavan — his samadhi is here. But as Neem Karoli
Baba left the body years ago, do you not feel the need for a living teacher? So India has proved to
be a tremendous experience for you. Now that you are stable,
do you still watch your diet? As a final question can
you tell me how you come to be staying at Sri
Pad
Baba’s Academy? That was like a light flashing on, for that’s why I came to Vrindavan; and here was this other guru talking about it. Sri Padji told me someone had read parts of this book to him; he spoke warmly of it, then said: You can stay here if you want, or I can speak to the people running the guest house so that you can stay on there. That was the second light flashing on — he was giving respect to my relationship to Maharaj. He was saying: I’ll give you everything I have here, but if you want to stay there, I can arrange it. I moved here next day, started my Hindi, started doing some typing for the Academy, started to get to know Sri Pad Baba, and I would say that he is the first person I have met in India who fulfills my idea of the kind of teacher I wanted to learn from. There have been so many turning points since I arrived in India, but now I am thinking: O.K. I’m here. It’s happened. This is what I came for. Ellen is happy with the way the Interview went — she says she trusts me, there’s no need to send her a copy of the transcript. I can’t help thinking that if everyone is going to make such conditions I will have to get a secretary. Radha Dasi has made me supper and we are waiting for Asim; he’s late, so she talks, not too freely but — well — perhaps she might let me press the magic button, but no. Isim is now so late we accept the fact that he is detained somewhere. Radha Dasi I see is firm… she is not moved to change her mind. She says: Why not stay on an extra day and catch Asim tomorrow? Good suggestion. I I explain that I must catch the morning train to Agra as a friend has promised to meet me at the station so that I can stay with the family...and I do not have his address, so I really must be there. I say goodnight and go up to my room. Vrindavan has an atmosphere of its own, but I am leaving with only three Interviews instead of the predicted four. I set off in the morning never-the-less with a promise. When I tell Sri Padji he should verify or deny the many stories that are growing up around his extraordinary life, he replies: What I have to tell cannot be said in one hour — you will have to come back to Vrindavan again to hear all that. Yes, God willing, that will be something worth going back for.
|
|||||||
© Malcolm Tillis 2006 |