ENTER SHAKTI

Back in San Francisco things never quite got back to normal. I did keep up with a class or two but Santa Cruz became my main focus. My great friend Joel Roberts who was a commercial abalone diver rented an apartment in an old Victorian house on Beach Hill where we had center meetings. Nirbachita and I made the old apartment into a divine respite from the world. We also rented a room at the local community center as we had for years. A transplanted Hiedleburg disciple, who was the defacto singing group leader and music director in SF, and I would poster for the class that me and Nirbachita would give on Tuesdays. My sister and I drove down there 3 days a week with some moderate success. At the restaurant I was still working full time and on the weekends Nirbachita and I were having our lucrative garage sales. Guru at one point gave us money to buy a car after Nirba's got wrecked so we could continue our center building.
I was doing deliveries 6 days a week at Ananda Fuara restaurant in downtown San Francisco as I had been for 3 years running. I loved San Fran with its old back alleys named after mistresses of long forgotten mayors and its gritty and visceral big city nature. the bike deliveries was a job I pretty much created and ran and loved. The manager there at the time was the usual petty tyrant. Controlling micro manager that was sure that everything would fall apart if she wasn't there. She also had a knack for "loosing" large amounts of money at Costco. I had to constantly and instinctual growl at her so that I could continue to love my job. I knew it was just her nature to rob everybody of their creative freedom. I wouldn't let her have mine. I noticed how guru systematically put those types in charge. I observed that a powerful happy center was not so much the goal as an atmosphere where people had to seriously overcome a daily petty tyrant. It made sense in an evolutionary sort of way but it was not the way I would have run it. It seemed that disciples were always kept at the boiling point and for this stage of learning it was necessary, it had a Utility as my brother Yogaloy would say. Things after I got back started to become burdensome for me. Before everything was easy and I was happy. Slowly but surely everything that use to give me joy and energy started to take it from me. I live with disciples went to center meditations with them, sang with them, ran with them, worked with them etc. This use to be a joy and now it began to feel like a prison. I felt watched and fet a true need for my own space. My hip began to feel odd about this time and I began getting chiropractic work done and started becoming interested in bodywork, massage; Feldenkrise and Cranial Sacral Therapies in particular. These were total taboos in center life. Any touching of anyone else or being touched by any one else.
On the road I was a madman, I rode fast and hard and was out of control on the bike. I truly loved riding with the messengers. They were cowboys, the ones that were actually athletes. The Goth delivery guys dressed in mid 90's irony didn't inspire me much. I liked the hard riding seriously not serious delivery guys who had good bikes painted with neon spray paint or covered in electrical tape that loved hills almost as much as they loved going through red lights or secretly hanging onto car fenders. They locked their bikes to pipes sticking from walls or railing as a statement and I could see It had a mystic with all the suits in the financial area. Part of them, their very DNA wanted the cowboy like off the grid freedom of messenger life. Red light green light all the same. Side walk, street, one way or two all of that was meaningless. The art( and it was an art) was don't get hit and don't hit anybody. I was in super shape and was also swimming everyday before work as my mom was working at the central YMCA in downtown ( word of advice about the YMCA in San Francisco...shy away from the steam room ) I was also starting to wonder what it would be like with a girl friend. One day out on my ride I past a 20 year old prostitute who was tight bodied, fresh and cute. She was high and happy and had her shirt on backwards and inside out, with the nipple of one of her small breasts poking out of a hole in her shirt. Next thing I knew we were in someones yard away from the world making out like demons. I almost tore her shirt off I wanted her breasts so bad. It took all of a second fully clothed for me to finish after her pants came down. I didn't want sex as AIDS was at its height in San Francisco at the time. When she said: "fuck me" that was the buzz kill for me and I quickly paid her and finished my delivery ( food delivery). When I got to the restaurant again I felt what I can only describe as being flooded, no, blasted with love from an external source. The next few weeks were like I was waiting for the axe as I knew Guru was aware of my dalliance. Guilt and fear in a very basic crude form were beginning their end-game with me. " I should have taken the Blue pill'

THE CRACK APPEARS.

Guru was a prolific tennis player at that time. 60 or 80 games a day wearing all his disciples out. As a tennis court guard after all the morning duties were completed, the inevitable and always highly enjoyable games started. Four square, kick the can or whatever dreamed up games we played before Guru got there; which could be hours or minutes. It always involved a profuse amount of laughing. During celebrations Guru was mostly like clockwork unless some center drama developed or world event occurred. When the gate opened and the crowds moved in and Guru got there we became ushers, ball boys, score keepers and sometimes Gurus opponents on the tennis court. There were also the other types of court guards mostly locals who were the coffee drinkers who sat at Gurus gate and exchanged gossip and pastries. I guess they were higher on the Totem pole but I had no interest in that Totem pole.
I wasn't into Tennis enough to be a scorekeeper nor could I play much of a game of tennis but I sure did love being a ball boy. It was truly an art. My brother Yogaloy was a master at the ball toss to Guru and before I was called down from the stands to be a ball boy I use to admire the zen like quality of his throw. When Guru raised his hand for the ball it should only bounce once and drop right into his hand. When a ball wasn't going to make it or it was out we would be off in a dead sprint before a ball even hit the net. The trick was to always get the ball before it bounced twice. I was the master at the full tilt 2 finger cross court grab. Or the 2 fingered Louie. (we had names for them) It is a full sprint take off, computing your ground speed and that of the balls trajectory, while skimming the ground with the two fingers open to snag it in mid air with out looking; coming to a graceful controlled stop on the other side. These were not rules this was dictated by pure fun having. All I knew it was my salvation. I truly had the attitude that it was karma yoga and nothing else. I got to sprint after tennis balls for hours and goof around on the down low while the other disciples had to sit in the August heat in perfect whites and saris with folded hands for hours. I would never have made it.
When you crash and burn in New York it is always as spectacular and just as intense as the highs are. After the grenade guru rolled into my ear, and my subsequent earthly impact it was hard to keep my eyes from roaming around. If you let the eyes roam you are inevitably going to find someone who is letting their eyes roam and that shit gets thick fast. Also in a high profile fishbowl job like a ball boy there are always girl eyes on you so you always used your peripheral vision. I was too exhausted to keep up much of a defense and being a hopeless romantic type I wanted some eye candy so I glanced around. There was a girl that was supposedly similar in physical appearance to the soul of the sacred Ganges river. I saw her before I heard the hype. She strolled into an evening function at the tennis court in a cotton Indian homespun sari with a simple floral pattern. Thin waisted full midriff exposed, dark featured almond eyes, nose ring and barefoot with a snake toe ring. She was my kind of trouble. Dont get me wrong I was a good disciple for 9 of my ten years. 19-28 I never once considered having a girl friend. But when I was not on my game I thought about women, I guess as all guys do. Anyway that day on the court she came slithering through the upper balcony of the tennis court and I just couldn't help but follow her Sari trail. When Guru was playing, or when in gurus presence I would always maintain strict focus and thought discipline. What made this day different was that as I sat there I consciously and fully gave into that Tantric beauty. On the next high speed reach down my back tweaked for the first time in my life. On my subsequent plane ride home with my back on Ice( I kid you not) I sat next to a professional Tantrika. She was personally employed to prince Albert of Monaco and said that disciples from Germany had been ringing his phone off the hook for weeks trying to get him to meet Guru. She said they were relentless and shameless. She had not a hint of embarrassment at relating ( after she found out I was celibate) all the esoteric of techniques of her trade. I just acted like she was an accountant relating her balance sheet, but I probably had that " Oh My Stars" look.
In hind sight from a fear/guilt perspective( a necessary state of mind of a junior aspirant ) one might say Grace left me. When I consciously was disobedient, and "Hostile Forces" attacked. Not the case. I broke my psychic vessel I think on that day or cracked it at least. A state I would have to return to and repair on my own one day down the sweep of years. It was the beginning of my taking up and shouldering my own Karma. I had opened the door to the Laundry room.

THE FULL MOON

All I know is that I was fully happy in the Sri Chinmoy Center. My inner life was a flood; steady and powerful and my outer life was dynamic, creative and alive. I was happy. I first moved up to the prestigious San Francisco Center from a satellite center of San Jose. In its heyday S.F.Center had 5 or 8 divine enterprises and a large core of accomplished go getter types men and woman, The Marathon team was making money with its races, and the center disciple count was up around 100 people. The jewels in the crown were the wood shop and Dipti Nivas Restaurant on Church St. run by the Santanas. With its dynamic work force, successful businesses and money it was starting to supersede New York Center I was told. When the Santanas left and the Center leader ran off with a younger woman leaving his wife, the whole house of cards came down. I was shocked to find it like a ghost town. It was just a shell of its former self. The center was mostly female owned and operated. The few men that were left in the Center were henpecked hermits. I figured that the soul of the SF Center was still powerful and Dynamic and so it probably wanted to be again. Also I was 19 and on Friday night I didn't want to sit and read anecdotes I needed a few buddies to go see movies with. So from then on I was a headhunter, recruiting the best kids from centers all over to SF Center.
A few short years the SF Center was thriving again. it was a true renaissance. the singing groups were the best in the Center. the marathon team had 10 races a year and was doing well. Ananda Fuara Restaurant that had its humble beginnings out in the endless fog bank of the outer sunset district had just moved downtown to 9th & Market St. The disciple count was way up again, all was right with the world and the possibilities seemed endless.
Personally I was giving 5 classes a week which meant postering for those 5 classes 2 of which were in Santa Cruz a small coastal town 100 miles south of the city. My sister Nirbachita and I were determined to see Santa Cruz fly. We already had a small apartment and a few disciples. I was on my game, I was in great physical shape dynamic creative and inspired.
It was during this period at an August Celebration in New York City that I got a message from Sri Chinmoy via the usual delivery boy. The message was some thing to the effect that I wasn't doing anything in the center and that I was displeasing him. The experience that followed was very interesting. I watched this message( which was more like pure Intent wrapped in words) float into my ear and go off like an atom bomb. It psychically and integrally dismantled me like a tactical explosive. I knew the opposite of the message was true and as it had such a powerful effect on me I was interested in the intelligence behind the move. I got angry and felt unfairly punished. The Celebration was a high and It was like getting an engine shot out in a plane and going down in a spectacular fireball. It was artful. I didn't understand at the time I was just broken and confused. I was like a flat tire with all inspiration bled out of me. This is what I would call the beginning. Or more precisely the fireball that would eventually result in the Phoenix. And it was deliberately set in motion.
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INTRO

I have not read Jack Kornfeilds book: " After the enlightenment time for the laundry " but I under stood the concept the moment It drifted into my ears as I have lived it. I am also not a great reader of contemporary spiritual thought but as is my practice of keeping up with my hyper processing evolution, I seem to be up and already practicing what is most current. I spent 10+ years as a monk in the Sri Chinmoy Center. A celebate and a vegetarian, I was also a committed athlete, singer, artist and writer and a professional dishwasher. Yes I went pro and I love shiney pan bottoms and stainless steel to this day.
My understanding of the concept of "After the enlightenment "etc. is that after one touches ones divinity and becomes somewhat firmiliar with it one is ready to begin to process, realease and bring up to snuff all the levels of his or her existance. Bare the brunt of ones own karma if you will. This is a multi leveled party be sure, full of detours and unwanted guests. Everything embarrassing and dark come to play in the light, often oddly enough by trying to stop it. As a devoted disciple of my self, under the house of Chinmoy Kumar I began at 19 in earnest to uncover divinity and it's well kept secrets.