LEARNING FROM THE SOMMELIER

I had been meditating since age 13 but it had been an hourly twice daily event for 9 years at the time of my move to Santa Cruz in 1995. I was not aware of psychic or energetic interactions between people or environments at the time I moved to Santa Cruz. It wasn't non-awareness of energetic movements, more precisely I just hadn't been taught to attach attention to these interactions or to that faculty in an outwardly focused way. Eileen by her very nature was sensitive to relational energetics, and her years of Reiki energy work had sharpened her faculties.
In the Bhagavad Gita Sri Krishna does a great double-speak when Arjuna asks him which path is superior that of action or that of contemplation. Krishna was in a hell of a bind. He had to get Arjuna, who was waxing emotional in the midst two surly armies, to nut up to the business of killing of family members ASAP. Yet he could not help but extol the directness of the path of contemplation. Sri Chinmoy in his teaching about things psychic was very reminiscent in that. Guru was chock-a-block with occult visions and antics of his own, or that of past realized masters. However in his instruction to disciples he would always sternly warn against any kind of development of occult capacity. For the years before this I had used my psychic focus inwardly to cry or strive upward or to create and identify with expanse. What Guru didn't say was that years of meditation develops these capacities automatically.
Eileen pointed out things that she observed and I would observe and see if it rang true with me. I learned many a Jedi trick from her. She was also a little lover pie and seriously intrigued by me. She saw me in a way I had not seen myself, as a man. She was personally interested in me. A new concept for me.
For the previous 9 years I had been a kid. Girls had Cooties. Also to consider is that for the 8 or so years I had taught public meditation classes. At these classes I engaged many people but all with the intent of service to the spirit. I had noticed a certain focus in the eyes, a wide open stare that I understood as someone receiving light. I wasn't aware of my doing anything but I was holding a space. To hold this space I needed to keep myself out of the way so Yoga spirit could give what it needed. Yoga spirit was feeding them. So when Eileen became attracted to me personally it threw me a bit at first. It re-engaged my outer identity in a deeper way, a personally intimate way, and that in turn dusted off a few core insecurities that had been shelved during my center years.
It was the Triptophane in the hot chocolate or the whiskey-magic of her warm dark eyes but I agreed one night to pull into a shaded ocean overlook on West Cliff Dr. If I wasnt aware of my Pranamaya Kosha ( Energy body ) before that night, I sure was aware of it now!

LIGHT BEGINS IT'S DESCENT

My boss at Hobies in Santa Cruz was a stunningly beautiful woman named Eileen. She was a classic 18th century Lunar beauty. Doe eyed, soft bodied, porcelain skinned brunette with plumb purple lips like those in paintings by John Waterhouse. To say she was easy on the eyes is a super understatement. My eyes wanted to leave my head and go home with her. She was engaged to a man who was living in Colorado and attending music collage. I was still a disciple and a devoted one. I didn't let my thoughts move in her direction most probably because I never even considered that she would be interested in me. Also her beauty was inspiring to me not so sexual it seems in hind sight. I was about as Yang as they came back then. My evolution was looking toward the feminine and feminizing my nature or as I like to think of it as polishing the rough stone. I was very interested in massage and advanced body work modalities at which she had studied a few. She was an advanced Reiki practitioner, and hypnotherapist to name a few. I was a more interested in Feldincrise method, Cranial Sacral Therapy and Rolfing, more physical healing modalities.
My job there was great and I soon had cash coming out of my ears. I was a good worker and the crew there was a bunch of Mad college kids. I just couldn't believe people drank that much. Sometimes rolling in almost black out drunk in wrinkled shirts and stained ties. I However bought three classy white linen shirts and kakis that I ironed and starched daily. I had also began working with a local tie maker and had a amassed a collection of stellar silk ties. The reader should understand that before I took to the renunciates life I wore nothing but Armani which was a relatively obscure designer back in 1985. I went into the Sri Chinmoy Center and basically lived in sweats and tee shirts for 10 years. So the opportunity to show my style I was more than enthusiastic about. And an ironed apron without having to ask is the way to a restaurant managers heart.
I didn't drink but I loved how freaking nuts and sweet these kids were. They went to live shows, music festivals, local dive bars and always knew of a house party. I remember getting a ride over to Joel's house after shift and having 8 or 10 Jose Cuervo bottles rolling around at my feet. The shifts at Hobbies were long and busy and we all had alot of fun.
Eileen was a great manager, good with power, good moral and team builder, and she trained me well. After shift one day as she helping me with ticket count, she just looked at me and said: " What's this energy we have between us?" I was a bit oblivious as at that time I really had not learned to identify consciously psychic interactions. I was aware of them I just didn't pay much attention to them. I responded: "Uhhh,.. hun?"
She began to tell me about the frolicking that our energy bodies had been doing since we first met. I recognized that I had a deep connection with her. Often after I had left work her face would appear in my mind and I would feel a heart flutter. We started having hot chocolate dates at Mr. Toots in Capitola. She was a bit of a nerd and was a Scrabble super freak. She was also a professional singer with an operatic voice and loved Renaissance fairs, and an ex-lesbian. Oh yeah and we both went to the same High school; Archbishop Mitty in Cupertino. After shift one day she invited me to go with her to see a movie but the theater was closed. She suggested we drive to San Francisco to see it at a theater up there. The Theater was 3 blocks from Ananda Fuara restaurant and I was afraid of being "busted".
Obviously not that afraid. She had a fiancee and wasn't a cheater, I had a vow of celibacy. The forbidden fruit thing was thick on both sides. We hugged a lot that night and I held out for a few weeks but I was a marked man.
It was a disciples duty in the center to rat out other disciples if you even think they are doing something on the sly. I had busted some disciples in San Francisco a few times. A policy I thought was repulsive, but I understood it as order maintenance. Also I had busted my ass for years to bring disciples and build San Francisco Center and it seemed better to talk to my brothers or sisters first before throwing the grenade at them. So if it wasn't in my face I didn't care. There were a few people in the center just loved to tattle for anything. It was a malicious pleasure and I didn't understand why Guru didn't take them to task. One evening my buddy Golapendu and I were out looking for a "flick". We bumped into a prominent doctor disciple with his bombshell date in front of a theater. We ratted and Guru did nothing. I didn't really care. From it I learned people were held to different standards. I knew that the disciple "rules" were a blanket set of rules to keep a general sense of order and discipline, mostly aimed at the budding Yogis. An understanding arrived at by reading about Ramakrishna's life with his disciples and other Masters. Blanket rules were just that. People's inner life's were all so unique and their connection to the divine so differentiated that hard and fast rules, especially in the advanced stages are absurd, and detrimental to growth at some point. Morality becomes not so much a set of rules but a thing between the Divine and the yogi; a moment to moment following. It is a trial and err process where by which the intermediate yogi slowly becomes more efficient and tight with following the way.

INDIVIDUALIZATION

I was cruising along California St. after a steep climb up Van Ness St. to a delivery. I took Hyde St. down, my favorite high speed descent back to Ananda Fuara Restaurant at 9th & Market St. Halfway down I detoured cutting down a quiet street toward home when I drove by a young bored hooker in a doorway. She said something and I stopped. She asked if I wanted sex, I said no but that I did want to touch her cute body. She pulled me into a quiet mostly hidden apartment building entryway and put my hands on her breasts. She was sweet and soft, and most accommodating as I was a bit timid. When I rolled away a couple of minutes later I was freaked out. I felt out of control, and strangely exhilaratingly alive. The encounter was totally random and in the moment. I had barely gotten back to the restaurant Ananda Fuara from my delivery when Ashrita, Sri Chinmoy's secretary/bag man called with the message that Sri Chinmoy wanted me to pick a center in California and go there. No explanation.
It was instantaneous as I knew it would be. I waffled as to the center I would move too but in the end the choice was a no brainer. It had to be Santa Cruz. My sister and I had established a center there. It was a 1 bedroom apartment on Beach Hill section of Santa Cruz and it had good light and a garden view that stretched all the way around. My sister and I had meticulously painted it and had a luxurious blue carpet installed wall to wall over double padding. The center had no furniture, just pillows everywhere.
I moved into the center in Santa Cruz immediately and began looking for a job.I had not had a job outside the center since 1986, which was 8 or so years previous when I was 18 and worked in a Gelato shop in Los Gatos. I had done a lot of construction work but mostly restaurant work. So I got a resume made by my sister who was way more savvy in the job world than I was.
Joel was a disciple in Santa Cruz and very successful commercial abalone diver and my great good friend. He lived in Santa Cruz and was the centers most generous patron. Joel was a stud, always in great shape, always up to have adventures and fun(like me). He would stay with me in the city after a dive trip. We would always have fun. As a diver for California Red Abalone he had to brave some very cold and sharky waters. So he carried a Glock 9mm hand gun in a special pocket in his custom wetsuit as it was effective under water. Some times we would sneak down the coast shoot bottles or go to the beach. We would see midnight movies and eat in late night diners: kids stuff. He lived in Santa Cruz payed the center rent every month. As it turns out I moved down there at the closing of the Red Abalone season so Joel was soon to leave for a 2 week warm up trip to Cabo San Lucas Mexico followed immediately by 2 1/2 months of uncrowded surf in Nosara, Costa Rica. He had a cool studio right on West Cliff Dr. by the ocean and drove turbo Saab. He gave me the keys to his car and told me to watch the place. He had Cable TV and a VCR so I was more than happy too. There I was dropped in Santa Cruz summer paradise.
I looked vigorously for work but it was the end of the summer and restaurants were cutting summer staff as the tourist season slowed. I began to surrender to a rigorous discipline of swimming, running, and writing at the beach and cool coffee shops with nightly therapeutic videos at Joel's pad. It was hell and heaven. To quote a line from Sri Aurobindo's epic poem "Savitri": " His day's were lonely, and splendid like the Sun."
My money began to run out. Joel was always flush with cash and was always cursed with change. He had seemingly endless coffee cans of silver change. This proceeded to keep me fed for 2+ months with a steady evening diet of spaghetti ($1.50) and marinara sauce($2.50) maybe a salad with lemon juice and olive oil ($3.00) A handful of quarters and I was set for the evening.
I wrote like crazy. Something about creative activities that help the process of life move forward. It's a magic that seems to grease a forward evolutionary momentum. I went through all the stages of death and finally surrendered to no job and hours of quality time. It might seem like a no brainer to some but my life in San Francisco was intense. I worked 8 hours a day 6 and sometimes 7 days a week for the past 7 years straight at Ananda Fuara restaurant. And it wasn't for the $1.50 an hour. In my off hours I logged 30+ running miles a week. Swam 4 miles a week in the pool, transcribed music for publication, sang in a singing group and a ensemble group, helped manage a road running club, put on garage sales to fund my 3 to 5 meditation classes that I and my sister did a week which means I had to poster for those classes every week. I could go on add nauseam but you get the picture. Working hard was easy for me, Not working that was real work. The feeling and pressure of group living, being watched, feeling closed in by disciples and the constant stress of community activities gone in a second.
In early October I got up early in the morning and after a great meditation there it was like a Mike Tyson hook. The confident, divinely inspired urge to get a job that very day. A few hours later I was a waiter at Hobie's Restaurant in Santa Cruz. The beginning point of my reentry into the world.