memories.....REVISED 2-06-010

from time to time i pick up whatever paper is around and write something down...here's something i found that i wrote on Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2009, almost a year ago. often what i've written neither makes a lot of sense nor seems as significant as when i wrote it, for whatever reason. but this one seems important enough for publication. if not for others, at least for myself.

Realization has seemed to come very slowly for me. It has been 32 years since i went, in a rather desperate attempt to get myself centered, to Prem(Rawat)'s house in Malibu. the journey started out in San Antonio with a group of Premies traveling by car to Los Angeles who offered me a ride. in my stressed out state, i was not able to stay in the car, and abandoned ship in the middle of the night somewhere in west Texas. a few feet from the highway was a railroad track upon which was parked, with engines running, a 3-engined freight train. the engines seemed to be empty, and shortly after i climbed up into one of them, the train began to move.

the train arrived in the Los Angeles rail yard very early in the morning of the next day. the diesel smog from all the idling trains there was so thick, i had to drop my gear and literally run for the hills for fear of asphyxiation. i hitch hiked my way up to Malibu in the warm December afternoon. i asked someone in a parking lot where the Guru lived, and made my way up the hill to the house.

by this time i was feeling rather elated about having made the trip successfully, and more than a little bit nervous. i don't think i had thought too much about what would happen if i actually got to Prem's house, so i was not really prepared for what happened. i rang the bell. a young man answered and politely asked me what i wanted. i told him i was hungry. he went back inside and came out some time later with a banana.

i spent the next weeks hanging out in Malibu, sleeping in a half-submerged sailboat on the beach. one day, i went up to Prem's house and rang the bell. a different young man answered the door and we had a short conversation, this one more relaxed than the first encounter i'd had there. soon i heard Prem's voice summoning the guy. he went inside, and i went on my way. another day i collected wild mustard plants from the fields around and brought them up to Prem's house. they were politely accepted. some time later, i was talking to one of Prem's cooks and asked him about Prem's food. he mentioned that one day, Prem had requested Mustrard greens........

i went to satsang at the Masonic Hall and tried to get established in the community. but then, an announcement was made that Prem was doing a program in Portland, and i decided i needed to be there......

Thinking about it now, after having spent 28 years living relatively comfortably indoors in San Francisco, it is obvious how ridiculously confused i was during that time. how much worse things could have gotten if i hadn't been able to find Prem's house, and if nobody had wanted to answer the door there when i rang the bell!!!!........as my 94 year old blind, bedridden, and nearly deaf friend Marguerite used to say 'Ain't life grand!!'