Kindergarten

In kindergarten, I was taught to squeeze to the left side of my chair in order to make room for my "Guardian Angel" to sit. Deeply impressed, I took these instructions very seriously. I remember consciously and obediently forming the secret habit of leaving space beside me for what the nuns and priests told me was God's heavenly messenger and special protector, my personally assigned guide and helper.

My child-like imagination took to the winds! I remember writing with my left hand so as not to bump this angel with my elbow. And, he followed me everywhere. In church, I tried to impress him with how straight I could kneel. I remember the smell of soup in the convent where we had our school lunch together. I remember drinking from the small bottles of coffee milk--those thick glass bottles with the wide mouths--all the while, my Guardian Angel sitting beside me.

I don't know when I left that ritual behind, or when that delightful childhood game faded away, but I remember exactly when the memory of it was awakened. It was August 1980. It was my second day in Herrekan. It was almost sunset. I had just climbed the 108 steps from the riverbed to the hilltop ashram. I was sitting in the shade on a stone ledge, leaning back against a wall.

It felt so wonderful to breathe and relax, and to feel myself settling in to what felt like home after the long trip from America. And, I was still savoring the memory of my first meeting with BabaJi the day before. The feeling of complete freedom and total safety was beautiful.

The Italian woman, who told me that she had been BabaJi's disciple for 8 lifetimes (I remember saying: "You must be a slow learner!") was screaming at me as if I had just committed a mortal sin!

She was threatening me with a stick. "Do you know where you are sitting? That's BabaJi's room behind you! You can't sit there! What would BabaJi say if he knew you were sitting there! Get out of there right now! (She was the official self-appointed hallway monitor at the ashram. I came to call her the police woman.)

For some reason, I was never given that sheet of paper with all the ashram rules on it, though it was given to everyone to sign upon arrival. Well, in less than a day, I had managed to break every single rule there was. I had been getting on her nerves more and more with each passing hour, and now she was at her wit's end. Needless to say, she was none too pleased to have me there!

I was noticing her dark eyes and her angry look, when I flashed on Sister St. Cyr: a witch of nun who presided over me in the 5th grade. For a moment, I was plugged in to every time that I had ever been scolded as a child.

"If BabaJi is who I think he is," I scolded her back," then he already knows I'm sitting here! Now go away and leave me be!"

A moment later BabaJi came whirling around the corner of the building. She began to prostrate herself and attempted to kiss his feet. But he walked right past her and snuggled up along side me on the seat. He curled up like a cute little boy, his eyes sparkled, he giggled like a child in church! The moment exploded in a gentle burst of white light! And I was back at that kindergarten desk. I was looking into the loving eyes of my Guardian Angel!

Everything stopped. He was, in that moment, the most beautiful man I had ever known! And, I realized that he was inside of me! He was right there in my head and in my heart, witnessing every thought that passed thru my mind, noticing every picture that flashed in my head!

I couldn't hide! He knew everything about me! He knew everything that had ever happened to me. He knew everything that I had ever thought, said or done. He was aware of every desire, every secret! And more than that, much more important and more amazing than that--in spite of that--he was loving and accepting me completely, without judgment!

The feeling of total, unconditional love was incredible! I was truly at home for the first time in myself and in this world. We chuckled together over the police woman. Then he sent me to have chai with the workers. The taste of that first glass of sweet spicy Indian tea sipped in the shade of that warm lush mountain forest, comes instantly to my tongue to this day.

At the ashram, I floated without the need for food or sleep. Every moment was a miracle, every day a mystical wonder! I re-lived the Sacraments of Baptism, First Communion and Confirmation! It was as if the Catholic Church had me "going thru the motions" of those ceremonies. Those hollow rituals were now being filled with sacred meaning. I was being filled with the Living Spirit behind them!

On my way to bathe in the river one morning a few days later, he called me to him, tapped me on the belly with the back of his hand and said: "Go and meet "Makan Singh!"

In that moment, my bodyweight left me. I felt light as a feather and fast as the wind! I began to jog down the path on this mission from God to meet Leonard Orr. My childlike imagination took to the winds! And I began to fantasize...