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See this phrase translated! |
COURT JESTER?
Choice of Buckwheat Pancakes
or Granola - with homemade yogurt, or rice milk
 FTER A happily uneventful drive to New York,
our crew of eight seekers found Rudrananda's Ashram - in the city - near Cooper Union Square in
Manhattan. To tell you the truth, Rudrananda - or Rudi, as those who knew him called him - is
now Blessed of Memory, and I want to say, here and now, I Wish him Only Well. He could
be a hard task master, operating as he did in the City that Never Sleeps...But I
definitely learned to stand up for myself in his presence... I recall having some people to stay with in Brooklyn. I had just enough money for
the subway out from Manhattan. It was night-time when I got off about 12 blocks
too soon - it turned out. Quickly, upon reaching street level, I asked a fellow
on a 10-speed bike where the street address that I had been given was. He said
it was those 12 blocks away. Crestfallen, I said how could I walk. The bike guy
said you don't want to, that's a dangerous place between here and there. I guess
I'll have to wing it I thought. The fellow looked at me and said he couldn't
let me go it alone on foot. "Skootch up on the bike cross-bars, man," he
said. What about my guitar, pack and sleeping bag? "We'll manage..." As I
recall, he put the pack on his back, and I cradled the guitar in my arms, as he
reached around me to steer the bike. What a sight we must've been! ~PEACE! pass it
ON!! INDEED!!!One
darshan,
or teaching session, stands out in my mind. An assistant was
translating for Muktananda, as Rudi sat next to them, and did his kundalini yoga techniques. For those of you who have not met the man, it would be quite hard for me to describe. Suffice it to say, Rudi knew how to re-distribute the energy in a room...People would give Baba Muktananda gifts: hats, scarves - BABY RATTLES! He
would playfully shake the Rattle, from time to time as his assistant translated.
What I recall of the teaching concerned what one might sometime see in meditation.
Baba spoke of a Blue Pearl which the seeker might see. Of course, the moment you,
I, we - I'n'I - focus our "attention" on it, it disappears...One
learns to see by NOT seeing...then the blue pearl becomes a little blue man, who
tells you who you ARE, and what you are doing with your life. We began to
meditate. Soon, I heard the baby rattle! My eyes popped open, and spontaneously I
found myself "scoping" the rest of the room with one eye. At the same time I saw
Baba with the other. He was looking at some of us all doing what I just described
about myself with one eye. With his other he glanced at the rattle, and with true
glee in his visage, shook the rattle again, playfully. Did any of those who
remained in the closed eye instruction of the lesson see the pearl or the little
blue man? Does it matter, gentle reader?Rudi
sponsored a number of week-end retreats for Muktananda and his devotees,
at a "Borscht Belt" resort affectionately known as Big Indian. I recall
attending one, and maybe two. For me, living life off the cuff (as the saying
goes...), the choice was paying a fee for the retreat, or signing up to volunteer
to help "stage" the event. Pocket consideration required the second option. I
went to work in the Hotel/professional kitchen. It was indeed a ZEN experience
- no pebble seemed out of place in that "garden" - one task was assigned a
worker at a time. when you completed the first, you were assigned another discreet
task. What I remember best about my time in that "Wholey **OTHER** Kitchen"
was the virtual silence. None of the clattering dishes and clanging pots and pans
- the Din I associate with for-profit food operations...ever been a "dish-dog"?
(Actually, I call myself Sculleryman! when I pick up casual labor from time to
time these days. You can sing sculleryman to the tune of...know what jingle on TV
and the radio?) What follows isn't necessarily in sequence. Don't recall if the
guitar anecdote happened after the "survey" interview, anymore.One of
the week-ends my ride got lost getting to Big Indian. It was Midnite or
after when we found the guest house. Not one empty room, so our party each had to
find other people to double up with, for the night. I saw an open door. Some
fellow was stirring in a sleeping bag, so I asked if he would allow me to put my
bag down in the room. Then, I told him why we were so late, and requested he wake
me in the too-soon-coming morning. He agreed. I immediately fell to sleep.Next
thing
I knew, I was being vigorously shaken by a hand on my shoulder...Rudi,
himself, was standing over me, stern look on his face, saying, "Wake up, you
bum, whattaya think this is, a resort hotel? I might've laughed if I'd been
more awake, because after all, it was a resort hotel, a fine
one, to boot! - (right here, let's "cross-cut" to a scene from the 25th
anniversary "director's cut" of the 1969 Woodstock Festival Movie...You hear
Wavy Gravy's voice over some Documentary style audience footage, as he sez: "Some people are talking about there being `bum trips' going on. There are no bum trips - only hobo sojourns..." - YES! both thumbs UP!!) I protested that I was in a group that arrived quite late the night before, but to
no avail. Rudi was out the door and down the hall.Sometime
later that day, I got wind of a team of people going around surveying
folks about why they were at the retreat. Not a bad idea, really. But the
"grapevine" was that Rudi thought there were some "Woodstock hippies" who were
posing as yogis in order to get a free meal. Maybe there had been a problem with
that before, yet I knew as far as I was concerned that I was quite willing to do
the stipulated volunteer stint, which I've already described above. I didn't
know what I was going to say when I was approached, yet I worried not about
it.A
woman
in her late twenties or early thirties walked up to me, and identified
herself as a person with the retreat staff. Would I mind answering a few
questions? Of course not, I said. (From here on I will break the dialogue into
direct quotes, as I recall the exchange...)"What is your name, please?" " Peter Rabbitt." (I kept that nickname, after it was conferred out in New Mexico, in the fall of 68.) "Really?" "Yes, really...spell it with two "T"s. "What's your occupation?" "Jester." "Com'on, really?" "REALLY! Court JESTER to the EMPIRE of the SPIRIT!! Write that down..." - She wrote it down - (Didn't feel like a lie or a tall tale when I said it - rolled right off of my tongue like a blues glissando does...) "OK. Mr., uh...Rabbitt. How long have you been meditating?" "All my life..." "No, I mean formally." "Since you walked up..." I do hope there was a cheshire grin on my face... - With this, the questions ceased. She thanked me - most graciously, I might add - for my time, wished that I would find my retreat experience quite rewarding and walked away, as formally as she had first approached. I stood there wondering, WHO'S WRITING THIS SCRIPT? One morning at the retreat, I was on line before breakfast commenced, waiting for
the door to the dining hall to open. Someone had a nylon string guitar with them,
so I asked if I might play it. I was "noodling" through arpeggios on chords when Baba
Muktananda and his retinue came out of a room where they had been doing their own
meditation. Baba looked at those of us who were on line, beatific smile on his
face. When he saw the guy with the guitar, he made a gesture with both hands which
I intepreted as, "You strum?" So, I fingered a simple folk player's "C" chord and
strummed a one-chop staccato stroke of the chord. His response was immediate. He
got a very pleased look on his face, and with a twinkle in his eyes, gave me a
very powerful LOOK, threw both hands up in the air over his head, shook them once
or twice, and strode on through the hall. That powereful LOOK is still a source of
inspiration for me decades later.What will follow soon is the final
segment in
"COURT JESTER?" It occurred back in Bloomington, Indiana, once a small number of
people decided to become disciples of Swami Rudrananada. They formed an ashram
collectively pooled their resources, and bought the New Age Deli Restaurant -
which I've already mentioned - from its founder. |
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