Ballad of a Reluctant Yogi -part 2

Up to that point, I had tried and experimented lightly with different forms of spirituality in the past. I stole the teachings of Buddha from a Japan-town hotel in San Francisco. I skimmed it a bit. I tried meditating with a candle. I read the Dharma Bums again. I said Hail Mary’s when I heard an ambulance. When I got sober, I was so desperate, I even went back to Catholic mass. I was fine until I got to the professions of faith. I had that same feeling of inner knowing that I had had when I was six. It stuck in my throat. I fought my middle finger. So, in a purple flash of Lenten guilt, I left. After four years, I was still basically lost in a dark night of the soul, so to speak. I was willing. I tried to pray, but later I came to find out I was conditionally incapable of receiving. My trauma protection mechanisms had become too strong. I didn’t know how to pray, as well. I only knew how to beg. My inner soil wasn’t mixed right energetically to receive. I was closed off in an unconditional traumatic protection response that I had no control over. I was stuck in an energy vortex that was constantly folding back on itself and keeping me stuck.

But that night, as the moonlight shone down, and little Jimmy Dickens faded out with a twang, I must admit, in hindsight, there, in that moment, that I asked the universe for something. In that place, under that moonlight, a call went out, and it was heard through some kind of quantum vortex. That request was received somewhere, somehow out in the energy field of the cosmos. Even now, it brings tears to recall it. But at the time, I thought nothing of it. I looked at my watch, cranked up the car, hit the headlights, and weaved my way down the road to the meeting. As I walked into the meeting, a buddy of mine came up to me straight away and said, “Dude, I gotta talk to you. I met this guy, and he is amazing. You have to check him out. It’s the most incredible thing I’ve ever experienced.” I paid him no mind and said, “Whatever, man. I gotta get a cuppa joe,” and pushed my way past him toward the pot of shitty AA coffee. I knew I had time for one more cig before the meeting started. If I timed it right, I could take my seat just as they were finishing the annoying AA preamble. But my buddy wouldn’t give up. He followed me outside and kept yakking incessantly about some little, Indian guy that did amazing things. I got my coffee and headed outside with him following me all the way. I lit my smoke and felt that awful vapor hit my lungs. My friend continued by saying that this guy was giving a talk and that I had to come with him.

I hemmed and hawed and said, “Man, I’m really not into it. I have a very busy schedule. Ya know?” Trying to be a rock star took a lot of time. On top of that, I had a two year old, I was working a job, I was broke, I wasn’t feeling very well these days, it had rained that day, the moon was in the second house, I was out of smokes, my family needed me, I needed to get laid, I already had a service commitment, it was daylight savings time—you know, anything—but that. But he persisted until he found my weak spot. And as we all know, Grace always finds the weak spot. He said if I went, he would buy me dinner. I lit up, and I swung around. “Steak?” I said. “Whatever you want,” he said. I said, “You are on,” and we set the date.

A few days later, my buddy picked me up on a dark, rainy night, and we went for steak. He went on and on about how amazing this little, Indian guy was. I tried to change the subject, as really, all I was interested in was the steak and hanging out with another sober guy in the program, but he wouldn’t shut up about it. He was profoundly affected by the guy. I tried yucking it up, yakking about the program, and recounting all my personal recovery woes, but nothing worked. We cleaned our plates and headed down the road to the Unity Church. I was thinking to myself that it would be good to get this over with. My head was full of the week ahead and all the shit I had to do to propel myself into greatness. Walking in, I got the same terrible feeling I always got when I walked into a church. But the crowd was thick and that soon faded. There was some light Indian music playing. The air smelled sweet. It was a fragrance I had not smelled before. I asked a volunteer what incense they were burning. He said they weren’t burning any. There was a chair covered in white cloth with fresh flowers around it. We took our seats. Then a presence The Secret of Recovery 7 seemed to overtake me that was a part of the fragrance itself. Next thing I knew, this little, Indian man was walking down the aisle. People were bowing to him and obviously ecstatic to see him. The whole energy in the room seemed to shift, and as he took his seat, I felt something inside of me shift as well. What proceeded to happen over the next hour, as he quietly spoke and took questions, I cannot really explain. But to put it simply, when the man opened his mouth and started to speak, it was like I had been waiting to hear what he had to say my entire life. I’d never seen or heard anyone speak, laugh, and expound that way. He was an explosion. It was like he was speaking from another dimension entirely—a human dimension.

I was well read. I could explain, pontificate, and process things intellectually. I prided myself on it. But this was beyond that. He glowed in a way I’d never seen a person glow before. His skin was electric. He was ageless. Although he was spotted with gray hair, I would have not been able to even approximate his age. He resonated from the inside out. People were caught in his spellbinding energy and presence. He answered questions with a deep knowing and sense of humor without an ounce of reservation or pause. The whole room would respond with laughter and joy at his responses. He spoke on a wide variety of subjects and took idiotic questions with the most awe-inspiring grace, humility, and humor. I have never seen, heard, or experienced anything or anyone like it—then or since. In his presence, my cynicism faded, and something clicked deep within that I really couldn’t put my finger on. I looked at my friend, and he was smiling ear to ear. He said, “Ya see? I told you.” He was right. I had to admit it... It was amazing. The short of it was that they offered a yoga program that started the next week. I signed up. I went and spent a week with the man. He taught me things and practices which I did over the next ten years that set me on a path that would completely rewire and change me from the inside out. It was beyond knowing. He did things that I could not explain. He moved the energy in the room. He moved the energy inside of me. He would open us up and start singing, and the whole room would start weeping. I would go home at night, and I couldn’t sleep because energy was billowing up my spine. He had a way of opening us up that I could not put together with my own mind. It was beyond the comprehension of my little mind to understand it…yet I could not deny that something was happening. There was a deep fear that bubbled up as well, and I fought the urge to run away from it. In hindsight, I realize that my ego knew the jig was up. When the ego senses this, it responds fiercely.