I do have some copies of parts of the old Forums so inspired by PatD's reminiscences I searched and I found. Only the formatting has been changed and spaces added between words to PatD's post. For those who do not know about Monty Python the last post is an edited comedy routine. Back in 2002 some people thought this was a put down on the memories of 1972. I haven't laughed so hard in years this morning at 7:35 when I came across it but then I loved the original.
What I Did On My Trip To India In 1972
Date: Fri, Jan 18, 2002
From: OTS
Subject: What I did on my trip to India in 1972
When I think back to my second overseas trip in my young life, a 21-year-old travelling to India for the first time, basically I just get the urge to go to the bathroom. I was a guest of the Living Lord, Satguru and Perfect Master, soon to become the Maharaja of Malibu, who had come with more power than ever before -- more than Jesus, more than Bud, more than Krishna. And what a host! Some seven Boeing 747 Jumbo Jets filled with hippies and church ladies descended on this Third World power, the largest democracy on earth. (My father, OTS, Sr., asked my hometown friend while I was gone, "Henry, can you tell me why OTS went to India? Did he leave a coat there? A hat?" My Dad, a comedian, was totally stumped as to what possibly was the pull so far away -- what was the matter with the Catskills? Atlantic City?) Maharaji called it "spritiual boot camp" but it was really a physical boot camp -- nothing really spiritual about it. He showed up once in a while, but I guess he couldn't take the smell either and so he stayed at his birthplace home in Derha Dun during most of my visit.
I was there for two weeks at the Punjabi Bhag Ashram in New Delhi and four weeks at the Prem Nagar Ashram in Haridwar, in the Utter Pradash (e)state. I was there with my friend, "Punjabi Bob" and a few other thousands lost guests who all wondered what the hell they were supposed to do all day now that we're halfway around the world. I did nothing . . . but lost 25% of my bodyweight. Well, I was busy (detailed below), but I did nothing. We even got to sleep one night on the filthy floors of the Delhi Airport because our return flight was postponed for 24 hours. (I guess we just didn't call ahead to check our flight status.) Most of us were so sick, we didn't even care at that point. Nice.
Yes, the country stunk, smelled like dung; yes there were large cows and crowds of kids and humans with large amounts cooking equipment piled on their heads running loose everywhere in the streets, including tons of Tibetan refugees selling knitted hats and sweaters, yes it was hard to breath as there were no paved roads -- only heat and dust; but, yes I felt secure under the auspices of The World Peace Corp. (WPC) and its fearless leader, Philadelphian Steve "Lemon" Moscowitz (a friend of "The Chicken Man," Phil Testa?), but I digress. In the Andrea Erickson format, let me give you a typical day during my journey to this Far Eastern "holy land." Let's start at midnight and work our way around the clock.
12:00 Midnight: Having dressed in all of the clothes I had brought to India all at once, I settled into my thin noninsulated Sears® Junior Scout sleeping bag, which lay on soft dirt in the middle of a large open-sided tent with about 500 other people in rows of dirt trying to sleep while shivering in near freezing temperatures (as we were just at the foothills of the Himalayan mountains). [Almost sounds like the Al Q prisoners at Guantanimo Bay, Cuba, no?] It appeared that much of the loose dirt somehow had miraculously entered my mouth, nose and lungs and made me cough for about four weeks straight without stopping like my fat aunt, OTS, Sr.'s older sister, who smoked three packs a day of Camel-no-filter cigarettes. Black lung, brown lung, red lung -- your call.
12:20 A.M.: Cramps began AGAIN, but I had to ignore them. Too early to start the trek to the latrines. Stare at dirt; continue constant coughing. (Bare light bulbs burned brightly everywhere during the entire four weeks day and night in our romantic hideaway on the Ganges, making it real hard to sleep if you could stop coughing.) Tried to keep my shorts clean. People everywhere were starting to sneeze, cough and vomit at an alarming rate. [By the way, they've never heard of "tissues" in India. The sounds were loud and people just couldn't control themselves or beat their sickness. This lasted all month long.
1:00 A.M.: Weaker and weaker as the cramps became just too much to bear and I was running out of clean underwear by the minute, I began my hourly trek to the latrines and up a wooden ramp, which was like climbing a mountain after a few weeks. The latrines were built by Indian premies to resemble Western toilets (with sitting capabilities), but they were just a little off on their calculations, and, if you sat down on these red brick structures, you had just as a good chance of completing your seated task as you did of falling through the seat hole into the troughs below, which worked as a gravitational irrigation/plumbing system. The shit ran downhill, in short. Therefore, after a few days, we just squatted on top of these brick things like the Indians. Don't forget, however, that there was no paperwork to complete. Just a clay jar with purple colored disinfectant water to wash you left hand after you were done. Walk slowly back to open-sided tent in the dark cold of night as the cramps stared up yet again even though I just went and hadn't even gotten back to my sleeping bag yet.
2:00 A.M. - 4:00 A.M.: See 1:00 A.M.
4:30 A.M. Awakened by the mysterious and enchanting sounds of monks throughout the valley praying and singing Arti and other prayers from neighboring ashrams and homes. Another trip to latrines.
5:00 A.M. Kneel under a four-foot high spicket of cold water and "bathe." Or, if you were a polar bear premie, walk to the Ganges River on the property and dunk yourself in the freezing melted Himalayan snow -- now called the Ganges River. In either case, wash your clothes while their still on your body, wrap yourself in a very used towel and dress for the coming hot and dusty day in as little clothing as possible.
6:00 A.M. Sleep deprived, cranky and cramped, sit down among 500 others for a nice quiet 30 second meditation and then a 59-1/2 minute snorefest.
7:00 A.M. Go get your wheatberries and buffalo milk topped with sugar. Daily. What a buffet treat.
8:00 A.M. After another visit to the latrines (after a few days your hands are almost permanently dyed purple now), get ready for the day. Go to satsang given in Hindi, which I didn't understand. Four hours of it. But I was told it wasn't the words, it was the VIBE. Or, listen to Professor Tanden rant and rave in broken English about enlightenment. He was a "householder" premie who ran Divine Light Mission in India and was MataJi's main flunky. His son, evidently, had hashish smoking problems with the law. He was sort of like the clown act at the Barnamun & Bailey circus. He never got any jokes and was a sort of country bumpkin that we all came to enjoy.
Noon: Lunch, hot chilies, vegetables and dal on rice served on a leaf. No utensils.
12:18 P.M. Run to the latrines.
12:30 P.M. Delirious rest.
2:00 P.M. Visit the Rose Garden and the beautiful premies who tended the roses. Rows and rows of beautiful sweet smelling multi-colored roses. Caught of glimpse of Mata Ji laughing and tossing and re-adjusting her sari over her head, which she did about 45 times an hour. She had a great laugh, but a bitter disposition, it seemed. Played favorites. Could be mean. Liked Professor Tandan. Wore out-dated but fashionable eyewear. Sang like her son (could break a window during the high portion of her rendition of that old spiritual: "Apni Haste".)
3:00 P.M. After a few stops at the latrines, more incomprehensible Hindi satsang or a Knowledge Review in Hindi, again with no translator. Clear as a bell. The demonstration of the Nectar technique by Mahatma Ramanand while continue to speak in Hindi only should be part of a Saturday Night Live Classic skit.
4:00 P.M. After having delusional cravings for pizza, green peas, oatmeal, a cheese sandwich on toast, tomato soup, anything Western, I stop at the canteen and purchase some Indian-made "Western Potato Salad," which was made with potatoes, ghee, corriander and love. Sold-out many days in a New York minute.
5:00 P.M. Dinner. See lunch
5:18: P.M. See 12:18 P.M.
6:00 P.M. Dropped dead before satsang for an hour.
7:00 P.M. Satsang time. Perhaps a young Padarthanand in pigeon English or and old Ramanand pulling on his big ears and making faces and laughing for 15 minutes.
9:00 P.M. Arti (15 minutes in Hindi, 15 in English).
9:30 P.M. Chitchat. Jokes. Gopi Gossip amongst ourselves (sample topics included: the infamous suitcase with jewels and watches and cash smuggled into India on one of the Jumbo Jets that the Hindi press caught on to; premies who were sneaking out and smoking dope at the Ashok Hotel in New Delhi, premies who were going into town and buying food to eat off-sight. A real felony.)
10:00 P.M. Final trip of the day to the latrines.
10:30 P.M. Bed time. After the thousands left the big open-sided tent and the dust was sufficiently kicked up so you couldn't even see the stage any more, it was time to roll out the old Junior Scout sleeping bag and hit the hay, I mean dirt.
11:00 P.M. Meditation on a stick.
11:25 P.M. Pray to Jesus to get me the fuck out of here! Start to cramp up again, but fall asleep with dirt in my tears.
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Date: Sat, Jan 19, 2002 From: housemum
You started something. Remember those things we used instead of toilet paper? Lotas, I believe. And the left hand/right hand taboo.
When I arrived at Punjabi Bagh, this mahatma came up and pranamed to me and my baby and said (supply accent) 'I remember your baby from its last life. It was a great mahatma! It has come home.' A lot of the mahatmas I met had been followers of our goos father and hadn't spent time with da lil goo. They just showed up for the westerners.
Remember those tongue scrapers?
Date: Sat, Jan 19, 2002
From: Carl
Subject: Random memories of 1972 India trip
Yes, the spicy smoky dirty fragrant air. Can't ever forget it.
Pandemonium at the airports, the 'in-charge-jis' running around oh so self-importantly.
Lots of bindis and tilaks on the foreheads of many of the premies. So earnest, so sincere, so foolish, so doomed.
Later, mahatmas everywhere, down from the hills, in from the hinterlands, and in such variety of hairstyle, or lack of same. The color of their saffron robes varied as well, some washed out, some vivid, one or two yellow, and also with the white-robed mahatmas-in-training, or almost-mahatmas. There was that westernized Indian mahatma -- Ashokanand? -- who always looked extremely worried to me. He had written a longish intellectual poem that got distributed, all about the mind being like a two-way mirror.
There was an ancient yellow-robed mahatma, who also wore very thick lensed black-rimmed glasses, who hobbled into view now and then. It was whispered both approvingly and incredulously that he hadn't ever 'expelled semen' in his whole life. He was venerated on that account, apparently. He didn't appear to be in the greatest of health, in my opinion.
There was the time an Indian premie brother literally took me by hand, as in hand-in-hand, to walk about the grounds on some errand. I was a bit abashed at that, my western-enculturated homophobia not yet burnt away. And he was rather cute, too, so I was struggling with that. It may have been the first microscopic creak of the opening closet door, I don't know.
At Prem Nagar there was an effort to control our energies into varieties of 'service'. I worked for a while in the sick tent, slinging inexhaustible buckets of diarrhea out to the brick shit sluices out back for disposal. I figured that service might 'please the Lord' (Who knows all things as Witness to my every move and every thought), to see how nobly I had sacrificed my reluctance and ego, as in the satsang story we were frequently told of the king who had to do a similar penance for years before receiving knowledge in the ashram of his guru, and who was rewarded with a bucket of shit 'accidentally' dumped over his head by the guru's wife, the king uncomplaining and even rejoicing in his great fortune, having successfully passed his 'test'. I considered myself lucky.
I remember lingering over the scriptural sayings and quotes painted in black along the sides of the silvery driveway border stones, leading up to the little fountain with a ceramic four-faced deity sitting on a lotus. I don't remember any water spouting in the fountain; it seemed dry and grimy as I recall.
There was an occasion when we were gathered outside the ashram for darshan of Mata Ji. She had Jacques Sandoz sing his damn 'Fly Away' song over and over. There also was a hefty hearty western premie who had a singularly booming laugh whom she compelled to repeat his laugh on demand any number of times, long after the spontaneity left the moment. It was cute for about five seconds, then it became painful and embarrassing to watch and hear. I felt sorry for that guy. But it was 'show and tell', time to strut our stuff, I guess.
There were the meditation sessions in the main hall of the Prem Nagar ashram, with the (to my taste) rather messy and cluttery altar/stage, what with all the spangles, and photos, chairs, and 'Christmas tree lights' and assorted pots and trays and glittering paraphernalia. That was the first place I remember consciously 'leaving my body' in a meditation. It was an OBE for sure, but I didn't get too far, just hovering and looking around in the ceiling area of that room, for a while, just enough to be undeniable, but not controllable. I was a bit wobbly on my wings, so to speak.
There was the ongoing anxiousness to actually have 'close darshan' of M. I seem to remember only a little bit, on the roof where he mainly hung out if he was there. Access to the roof was carefully guarded by a phalanx of basically friendly but very serious security types. Rank and file premies would linger and press and try to insinuate themselves into that holy-of-holies, by strategem or bribe or quickness.
Once I got lucky, and M was up there playing around with some toy airplanes or balloons or something, with BBJ and maybe Bhole Ji. I thought I detected a sort of halo around their heads, against the clear blue background sky that day. I focussed on their eyes, looking for some recognition, connection, significance or love, or something, but didn't seem to personally connect. One thing I did notice was how concentrated they were, even in the midst of 'playing', as though they were on their own wavelength, and we all were just so much inconsequential background noise. To be fair, I grant how hard it would be to live amongst thousands of slobbering sychophants without putting up some sort of barriers. I don't think I could stand it.
I remember walking into downtown Haridwar, and feeling the oddness of being stared at by the indigenous passersby as a real curiosity: I may as well have had two heads painted green and blue for all the staring and giggles. Little kids would trail along beside me and try to practice their English, sentences involving pencils and books on the table.
There was the wizened old fellow in a scruffy turban, chin glistening with silver stubble, who came up to me and said, with the biggest most heartwarming smile, 'Meet to glad you!'
It took me a number of years to realize what a wonderful philosophy of life that was, however unintended was its first expression!
Best wishes from Carl
Date: Sat, Jan 19, 2002
From: livia
Subject: Re: How much $$$$?
It cost £150 English money, which covered everything: return flight, food and 'accomodation' for however long it was - I think it was a month. There wasn't that much food really, but no one starved as far as I know. I agree with someone below who said that whatever else one felt about it, it was a trip to India and a stunning, unforgettable experience of an utterly different world. I often think about it, and I'm glad I went. Even I did come back with dysentry weighing a stone less.
Date: Fri, Jan 18, 2002
From: PatD
Subject: Re: What I did on my trip to India in 1972
Synchronicity OTS, I'm trying to write my journey & have just got around to remembering that particular episode of it.
Getting a haircut 2 days before departure, I got a smile from the horrible cow in the local sweetshop where I bought my daily 10 woodbine cigarettes. She hadn't recognised me.
Digging out the old school blazer, tie and a shirt. Smart was the instruction, God's representatives have to show the hoi-polloi in India that they aren't a bunch of deadbeats.
Had a terrible row with my mother about going, not least because I jacked in a well paid job which I was good at & enjoyed in order to do so.......but when the Pied Piper plays his flute you gotta follow.
My 1st impression of India (the airport) was lots of officials with a nasty attitude & soldiers wierdly kitted out like 2nd W.W Tommies complete with Lee Enfield rifles, 'cept they were brown with turbans.
Camping out in some park in Delhi, that went on for days, I never ventured out of there, I felt like the little kid I saw later in Prem Nagar whose parents I overheard telling him not to be attached to them....dislocated, only I didn't know that's what it was called then. I felt really sorry for that kid & wanted to say so but I didn't.
In retrospect that's when I gave in to the prevailing vibe, surrendered my own instincts to those of the superior power, went with the flow, accepted moral corruption as part of the unknowable & capricious divine plan. LILA.
Those toilets were a masterpiece & I'm not being facetious, I never knew how long a turd could be until I saw one dangling from some guy's bottom opposite me. Lucky bastard must've had the detachment to stand for 4 hours in the food queue without freaking out.
I was sitting on the bank of the canal outside the back garden one day when Prem Pal suddenly appeared out for a stroll, followed by hundreds of people. He stopped right in front of me & I touched his oxblood patent leather shoes. Nothing. That's my fault, I'm not detached enough to get the Darshan hit. I took a photo, his mouth is turned down & he looks really pissed off.
He was hardly ever there as you say. Once he turned up for 5 mins & then pissed off again, the level of commitment (was that the buzz word then) wasn't right.
Everything you say rings a bell with me. Did you notice the premie rebellion, led by a beautiful dark haired girl from London, which Ashokanand had to spend several days defusing?
The day a large limo came up the drive, rich American parents on a rescue mission. How I admired their nerve.
Yeah that was a mindfuck alright, though I was lucky not to get sick until right near the end.
When we got back to England our plane was quarantined, the toilets had packed up over Arabia,the cabin crew had listened to 8 hrs nonstop satsang. We sat on the tarmac for ages until a guy in uniform appeared in the cabin. I can still remember the shock on his face as he looked at us,then he was down the aisle pointing to people comatose in their seats & instructing the crew.....him, her, not going anywhere, get the rest of them off.
Why did we go on with it? I don't know about you,but for me the golden doughnut inside was the proof that the sulky little bastard who got 2000 people to camp in his back garden & fertilise his roses for free, was God Incarnate.
1973 was wierder.
Great recollection ; Thanks.
Date: Fri, Jan 18, 2002
From: housemum
Subject: staten island??
There was a group of us who were so sick on the jumbo jet home we were quarantined in a Public Health Service Hospital on Staten Island. Anybody else there?
What was the purple stuff we had for washing dishes in Punjabi Bagh, potassium something?
My service was peeling garlic in the food tent. I peeled mountains of garlic, unfortunately I stll got the shits. Remember the street vendors crying 'GORAM CHAI.' The chai on the streets of Delhi and Dehra Dun was the best. Remember how sour the yogurt was?
Yup, I washed my baby's diapers in the Ganges. Smart move, but it was the only place to bathe or do laundry. I did see them carrying a dead person on a stretcher through the streets, but it wasn't a premie. It was a funeral procession.
The food in stalls outside Prem Nagar was great. And every stall owner was a guru, at least that's what they told me.
Yeah and I never saw the dude while I was a guest in his home...actually once he waved to all of us dirt eaters from the top floor of the ashram in Punjabi Bagh. Mata Ji was there, too, she probably made him wave. And of course when he did the krishna hula at the Hans Jayanti dust bowl.
I remember being rebellious and leaving the mob at Prem Nagar to bathe under the fawcets in downtown Dehra Dhun (that's a joke, DD didn't exactly have a 'downtown.') I learned how to bathe fully dressed while squatting on a street corner. See, my time as devotee wasn't a waste.
Date: Fri, Jan 18, 2002
From: Richard
Subject: Re: What I did on my trip to India in 1972
Another hindu wobble dance down memory lane.
I flew to India on jumbo D, as it was known. Before the flight, a few of us premies from Tallahassee did a pilgrimage to the DLM New York ashram on West 86th(?). GMJ was about and, Rajeshwar told us to wait for a 'special prasad' from GMJ. We could hear GMJ giggling in another room and, sure enough, Rajeshwar brought out some fudge 'prasad'. Turns out, that trickster satguru of ours had whipped up a batch of chocolate Ex-Lax just for us. What bliss, we all crapped our brains out before getting on the plane and probably avoided Ghandi's Revenge that was visited on many others. Such lila!!!
At Prem Nagar, I used to jump in the Ganges and then soap up with Dr. Bronners' pepermint soap and jump in again to rinse off. The 'sisters' were supposed to bathe fully clothed but once the thin cotton granny dresses and saris got wet, the horny Indian premies would gather in droves to watch and catch a glimpse of pale flesh.
I also slept in that huge tent adjacent to the satsang hall. You'd wake at maybe 3 or 4 am to arti over the tinny speakers coming from countless other ashrams up and down the river. Made me wonder, if this trip is so special, how come everyone else is also singing the same song and who are they singing to?
Yes, the rose garden was nice and I did service folding those tiny little books of Shri Maharaji's quotes from huge broadsheets of paper. These were then collated and hand sewn by the women.
Another memory that should have been a 'drip' at the time happened in Punjabi Bagh ashram near Delhi. After kneeling outside M's door for awhile, Bihari Singh let me crawl in only to see GMJ playing with slot cars for the amusement of a group of PAGM (people around Guru Maharaji).
Food was generally so bland and starchy that one day, as I was walking through Prem Nagar, I had a vision of a cheesebuger with wings flying by. I loved the hand-made roti (chapati), fresh fried vegetable fritters and that huge vat of steaming hot water buffalo milk chai at Prem Nagar. My favorite meal was when Gwen Herrington (another Tallahasse premie) and I had grilled cheese sandwiches and fries at a fancy hotel on Connaught Circle in Delhi. Also the wonderful rose water laced cake and pistachio ice cream in Hardwar.
About the smuggled watches, etc. The official story was that they were gifts for the mahatmas. I recall Bob Mishler announcing that everyone would put all of their spending money in a Divine Bank for safe keeping. Donations were then requested to help out the local premies as they were having a tough time feeding us hungry Westerners. Later, we found out that the cash was used to help deal with bribing customs to ignore the briefcase full of jewelry.
As a life experience, seeing India was definitely outrageous. I saw a world I'll never forget.
Richard
Date: Fri, Jan 18, 2002
From: housemum
Subject: Re: What I did on my trip to India in 1972
Almost exactly like my experience there, too, except for the weeks I spent all alone with my child in a Delhi Hospital. Must have been his lila.
Date: Fri, Jan 18, 2002
From: Monty
Subject: Luxury
You were lucky. We lived for three months in a brown paper bag in a septic tank. We used to have to get up at six o'clock in the morning, clean the bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down mill for fourteen hours a day week in-week out. When we got home, out Guru would thrash us to sleep with his belt!
GC: Luxury. We used to have to get out of the lake at three o'clock in the morning, clean the lake, eat a handful of hot gravel, go to< work at the mill every day for tuppence a month, come home, and our Guru would beat us around the head and neck with a broken bottle, if we were LUCKY!
TG: Well we had it tough. We used to have to get up out of the shoebox at twelve o'clock at night, and LICK the road clean with our tongues. We had half a handful of freezing cold gravel, worked twenty-four hours a day at the mill for fourpence every six years, and when we got home, our Guru would slice us in two with a bread knife.
EI: Right. I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night, half an hour before I went to bed, eat a lump of cold poison, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Guru would kill us, and dance about on our graves singing 'Hallelujah.'
MP: But you try and tell the young people today that… and they won't believe ya'.
