Chapter Excerpts From

Enjoy excerpts from each chapter in
A Modern Quest for Eternal Truth:

 

Prologue

       It started as a low rumbling. I had barely sunk into the arms of sleep after a late night video editing session, when the world went mad. The earth itself, metaphor for all that is stable and dependable, was dancing. But this was not a gentle dance; it was Lord Shiva dancing a dance of destruction. This was a display of physical force unlike anything I had witnessed before.

 

Chapter 1: Awakening

       We grew up with generally comfortable early childhoods filled with toys and birthday parties, but without experiencing the usual elements of touching, cuddling and sweet cooing words that come when parents truly want to have children.
       I suspect the maternal instinct was bred out of our family's genetic pool a few generations back. Even though I enjoy the company of children, I haven’t felt a strong pull of maternal instinct, which I’d imagine was probably also the case for our mother.

 

Chapter 2: A Being in Time            

       While unwrapping my presents, I held up a mirrored toy and saw my own reflection. That was me. Me. I stared into the mirror, entranced by my happy face. As the world and party faded away, I began to think, “I'm three, I'm three, I'm three.” Just a few days earlier, my mother had explained to me what three was. I had been one, then two, and now I was three. Standing there unwrapping birthday gifts, I looked at my face in the mirror, and had one of the most startling realizations of my life.
       One day… I would be five!
       What a shock! I would not always be exactly the way I was in that moment. Time slipped its noose around my neck. I was a separate being, locked in a linear world. I was going to keep getting older and older; change was inevitable. Life would never again be so simple.

 

Chapter 3: All in the Mind            

       Without reading the latest neuroscience research or the ancient texts of yoga, I learned by direct observation at age seven that the world as we know it is a mirage. Our life-experience is created and projected by our minds and pulled into distortions by inner and outer elements we may know nothing about.
       It’s the fairy-dust of illusion and subconscious programming that makes us feel that what we experience is independently real, honest, logical, and authentic.
       The idea that I was in control of a stable world shattered, as I realized that whatever I think I know may have nothing to do with the way things really are. This intelligent woman seemed to actually believe that she had always acted like a gorilla when she felt silly. The other woman's skin had been burned by a cigarette that didn't even exist.

 

Chapter 4: I Chose This?  

       Yet even all this turmoil brought some unique opportunities along with the troubles. The lack of fitting in with my classmates did make me feel like an outcast, but also supported my development as a more emotionally self-sufficient person. With little support at school or at home, I learned to depend on myself. I didn't get quite as indoctrinated into the worlds of groupthink that can come with entering social circles of close families and childhood friends.
       During recess, instead of playing with the other kids, I would often sit off to the side, observing their behavior as a kind of entertainment reality show. Or I would spend the time watching a squirrel gather food, or enjoying the contrast of sitting quietly in the midst of noisy and playful activity.
       In the fertile ground of inner silence, I would think about life. I evolved my own morals, desires and goals, at least to some degree. I learned to support and stand by myself no matter what. There was no need for me to put myself down, because plenty of others were doing that for me.

 

Chapter 5: Speed, Winning, and Jesus Christ Superstar

       At age twelve, I entered Junior High School, where my academic achievements and social life both improved considerably. Clothing-wise, jeans were now the way to go. It’s hard to mismatch anything with jeans. This school had a larger group of kids, and I found some new friends and more of a social niche. With a happier disposition, suddenly school became a fun place to be. My grades went from C's and D's to mostly A's and B’s, although part of the reason for this improvement may have been that I was taking significant amounts of speed.
       I took speed for over a year. My mother had befriended a somewhat shady “diet doctor,” who had access to pure speed, and I decided to join her in this new adventure. Though neither of us were more than a few pounds overweight, we would go every Tuesday afternoon to get a shot of pure speed and pills for the week. Each week, we would leave our appointment with packets filled with different kinds of tablets and capsules. At the time, we were studying drugs in one of my school classes, and I recognized and learned some of their street names, such as “Christmas trees” and “pink ladies.”

 

Chapter 6: Exploring the Unconscious           

       I now had enough freedom from my previous life to consider who I was and what I wanted to do and be. My first interest was to learn more about my mind and the reality it presented to me, an interest I’d had since taking the hypnosis course at age seven and reading many psychology books in the years since.
       I began to use the self-hypnosis techniques learned in that childhood class to explore my inner consciousness. Every day, I would sit in our dorm room and turn my mental focus inward, often for hours at a time.
       I'd begin by using the standard techniques for putting myself into a hypnotic trance state, but then something unusual would happen. I would enter into a state of mind completely different from any other I had known. It was somewhat similar to daydreaming, but had a different, more enlightened quality, although that word wasn’t really in my vocabulary at the time.   Sometimes I could feel the physical energy patterns of my brain shift as this opening took place. Then I would sit with eyes closed, watching as new understandings began to move through my awareness like a flowing river of insights.

 

Chapter 7: The Threshold of Life           

       Due to exploring my unconscious for hours every day, the subconscious realm had become more accessible to my conscious mind. I’d also been studying about subconscious symbolism since age nine, when I lectured to my mother’s high-school psychology classes about dream symbolism from a Freudian point of view. So very naturally, after reading this Hidden Persuaders book, I was able to detect uses of subliminal advertising on a fairly regular basis.
       At first, I was entertained by this new project of finding subliminal manipulations in the advertising world, while looking through ads and noticing the shapes of bottles and other products. I had always enjoyed the feeling of discovering secret layers of reality, and this one was available to explore practically everywhere. Just walking into a store or flipping through a magazine became an adventure of subliminal discovery.
       But then my concern for humanity took over, and the excitement turned sour. The human minds that made up our society were being manipulated recklessly and subliminally by forces of greed! The keys to the control panels of our basic desires and behavior were being used for the purpose of getting us to buy more stuff! I began to see a bleak future ahead of us, as the burden of the world fell suddenly and heavily on my teenage shoulders. I could see a future where greed and unethical manipulations would devastate the world.

 

Chapter 8: When the Student is Ready           

       It turned out that our professor was a follower of Muktananda, and soon afterwards, our whole class took a field trip to the Ann Arbor Siddha Yoga Meditation Ashram — a residential community center based on Muktananda’s teachings. I was a little uneasy about going to a Hindu commune. One woman in our class told me that she had gone there once and received several calls inviting her to return. I decided not to give anyone my address or phone number. I was not interested in getting involved with some strange religious group!

 

Chapter 9: Magical Meeting           

       I bowed my head in thanks for the name card and went back to my seat. As I sat down, the strangest thing happened. It was as though someone had inserted a big straw into me, blowing me up like a helium balloon. I felt my subtle body getting bigger and bigger, really fast, and really big. I experienced myself expanding to fill the whole room, and kept growing until I seemed to encompass the whole city, and then more. I knew this was impossible, yet I was experiencing it clearly — not in a dream state, but right here in the supposedly trustworthy waking state. The sensation felt normal and strange at the same time. I seemed to be in the wrong dimension. We're not supposed to do things like that here.
       But again, I wasn't scared. Rather, the experience was ecstatic and pleasurable, as I expanded to contain all this potent spiritual energy. It was interesting to see how quickly I was able to let go of my usual conceptual structures of reality as soon as this new experience came into the picture. No longer was I just a person sitting there in this meditation hall. I was now an energy field, expanding far beyond my body. Thus ended day two of my visit.

 

Chapter 10: Toward the One           

       I began to dance while singing, and I danced in a way that was skilled far beyond my ability to dance. It was as though I was dancing with well-choreographed moves, but even I didn’t know what the moves would be until they happened. The movements flowed perfectly as I continued to sing perfectly, effortlessly.
       It may sound as though these beautiful skills were coming through without my participation, like someone who might be “channeling” an otherworld entity. But it was a deeper part of me that was suddenly free in that moment to sing and dance with such skill. I was the statue that Michelangelo saw in a block of marble, the sun that blazes behind a cloudy sky. Through these practices of meditation, teachings of ancient spiritual philosophy, and grace of being in contact with a spiritual master, I was somehow able in that moment to “get out of the way” enough to let the brilliance of skilled song and dance shine through the temple of my body, mind, and spirit.

 

Chapter 11: Who is Shiva?           

       Now there were several things going on in my mind at once. Externally, I was chanting the mantra; inside, my mind was repeating “Who is Shiva?” and in my vision, I was saying the mantra to all these faces from my past to thank them for whatever role they had played in this life and universe that now seemed to be undergoing a massive transformation and collapse into itself.
       I wondered if this was it, if this was the end of the world as I knew it. I wondered if I would ever be able to, or would even want to recreate that construct of reality again. Even if I desired to unroll all the flaps and put the boxes of that life experience back together again, would it be possible?
       This was new territory, and by now it was profoundly out of my hands. There was no congressman to write to, no friend to confide in. There was no turning back, because the land I had come from no longer existed.

 

Chapter 12: Destiny Calls           

       The emphatic invitation began, “Greetings from all of us here in Video at the Lord’s International Center. Hopefully your trip back home was a good one, filled with grace, and hopefully you haven’t yet unpacked your bags. We think we have an offer for you that you can’t refuse!” The message continued by offering me room and board at the ashram for however long I did this service.
       I was already in a state of shock from having passed out in class, and now I’d received this surprise letter. I thought it was compassionate of the video crew to try and find a way for me to come back. They knew I hadn't wanted to leave the ashram. Of course, they had made a bit of an error in satisfying my desire. I wanted to go traveling with Muktananda to Los Angeles, not to stay in a freezing, desolate place in the Catskill Mountains, stuck with twenty-five people I didn't know!
       Still, it was remarkable to get such an invitation. I walked over to the home of my professor who had introduced me to Muktananda, and showed him the letter. His response came with a soft smile, “It's nice to be needed.”

 

Chapter 13: Winter Wonderland         

       Since I was copying videos of profound spiritual teachings all day long, I would turn up the volume and bathe my mind in the powerful words and chanting while going about my other work of labeling, bookkeeping, and mailing.
       For me, listening to Muktananda was like eating a gourmet meal all day long. I was hungry to learn what he was teaching. Muktananda had studied different branches of Indian philosophy, and was able to explain each of them in a way that made sense to me, and was humorous and entertaining to boot.
       I’ve read many spiritual teachings since this time, and still feel that Muktananda generously gave the spiritual philosophy goods in a way that was especially accessible, at least for me. With a guru, it’s not necessarily about getting some hypothetical “best” one, but the best one for you in your current circumstances, and perhaps throughout your journey.

 

Chapter 14: This Karmic Dance         

       Another guard used to sit during the programs, looking out over his chanting book to eye the other devotees suspiciously. We were singing God's name, for goodness sake! Did he think we were going to steal the photos? Fake the words? Such silly, unnecessary behavior. And yet, I had an intuition that this man somehow needed to really get into that “security guard” mentality, to feel those feelings and think those thoughts, so he could finally learn certain life lessons about the nature of power and paranoia.
       Under normal circumstances, this fellow might have had to spend his entire adult life developing a career path that could have ignited these particular issues for him. However in the ashram, we had the opportunity to live many lifestyles in one lifetime.
       Here, we could be a secretary one day, and our boss's boss the next. We might find ourselves planting flowers in the garden, hauling trash, milking cows, supervising crews, organizing records, managing departments, giving talks, taking care of a room full of children, studying sacred texts, washing dishes, or answering people's questions at the information desk. It was even possible to find oneself doing several kinds of service with distinctly different groups of people in one day.
       Then you would go back to your six roommates. Then you would assume the role of a disciple, bowing down before the great master. Then you would sit during the chant, cringing with impatience at someone singing off key next to you, and then your soul would be lifted to unimaginable vistas of bliss and ecstasy. There was never a dull moment in this place!

 

Chapter 15: The Fruits of Surrender              

       As the time for my shift arrived, I sat down before the harmonium and began to play. After a few verses, the drummer came in with a slow beat, and I relaxed into the rhythms and started to lose my grip on me. The exhaustion had pushed me into a place where there was just the playing of this chant and nothing else. I closed my eyes, rested my head on my arm, and let go ...
       Falling into the blissful rest of deep consciousness, with minimal personal awareness, I started playing all kinds of riffs and trills around the basic melody. Sometimes I'd include a taste of these in my harmonium playing, but this time my filtering mind stepped aside, allowing these dramatic flourishes to be bolder and more fully integrated with the chant.
    My hands were moving all over the keyboard, dancing harmoniously around the more simple, basic melody being sung by everyone else in the hall.
       Bathed in a deep peace, I was no longer fatigued. I was residing in the boundless expanse of pure mind, as the music moved effortlessly through me. Exhaustion had taken over my body, and yet my will to fulfill my commitment kept the music going. This was the sweet fruit of my surrender. 
       I was awakened by a tap on my shoulder.

 

Chapter 16: That Gracious Glance                    

       After a few verses, I felt Baba brush by me, and watched as he bowed to the chair of his spiritual lineage and sat down, sitting quietly with his eyes closed.
       Though a little nervous about playing in front of this great master, I also felt a certain confidence due to his praise for my harmonium playing just three weeks earlier, when he had been listening to our seven-day chant by audio broadcast in his room.
       We continued singing the mantra in call-and-response format. I would sing a verse into the microphone, and the rest of the group repeated it back. Muktananda sat completely still, with his eyes closed. I realized at one point that he was listening to my voice.
       While playing and chanting at the feet of my guru, I noted once again how drastically my entire life had changed. Here was little Sharon Janis from Southfield, Michigan leading a powerful Sanskrit chant in front of one of the world’s great spiritual masters — who would have ever imagined?
       Bathed in a mixture of emotions, I was nervous, thrilled, focused, devoted, and surrendered to the inner intelligence that could do everything right as long as I stayed out of the way. For this to go smoothly, I had to remain centered in a deeper inner space, beyond ego.
       Suddenly, Muktananda opened his eyes. My breath stopped. He was looking directly into my eyes, and I froze. Not outwardly — no, I continued to play the harmonium and chant the mantra. But inside I froze with his glance.
       Time stopped. My false, limited identity slithered off like the skin of a snake, and it was just me, the me that I've always been, even before becoming this personality. With that one glance, I was ripped open to the soul.

 

Chapter 17: Farewell                     

       With news of Muktananda’s passing, most of the people at the upstate New York ashram hopped on planes to go to the Indian ashram, where his burial ceremonies would take place. I didn’t have the means to go and still had to continue to do certain video work, although we put the subscription series on hold for a week or two.
       At first, I did indulge just a bit in the ashram’s prevalent group-thought that the truly devoted would, by crook, hook, or karmic miracle, be in the Indian ashram at this time. But I quickly shifted my point of view and realized that solitude would be more in harmony with my nature in honoring my guru’s passing than sitting on a plane for thirty hours en route to an unfamiliar country, where the ashram would be filled with tens of thousands of people in various stages of intense grief.
       Satisfied that the universal Guru gives us what we are meant to have, I settled into my own way of grieving and honoring Baba Muktananda and all that he’d given me. During the first week, I moved into a little room behind the main meditation hall, where I found the big wand of peacock feathers that Muktananda would use to give initiation.
       Sitting there, contemplating all this great being had given to me, I was moved to make an offering in honor of his presence and memory.

 

Chapter 18: Totally One With Him                    

       I slid into the ashram through one of the back doors, and headed toward the dining hall. The gathering had just disbanded, and everyone was getting ready for lunch. Several people stopped to mention that I had been the topic of discussion. My guru had praised  me publicly again.
       This time, instead of feeling elation and joy, my heart began to sink. Gurumayi had told the whole story about how she sent me out to work, and how I'd found a job and offered her my first income that very afternoon. It did sound pretty good!
       But I had sadly demonstrated the truth of “easy come, easy go.” I found the job in a couple of hours and had quit in just about as long. I was a sorry specimen of a human being.
       And here, as I wallowed in my lack of fortitude, were these people looking at me with admiration for the great surrender I had revealed, as had been narrated by our guru. Each person who praised me must have thought they were making me feel really good about myself, but every look of admiration was like another dart being fired into my ego. I realized with a flash of relief that I could still return to my job that afternoon. I hadn't really, officially quit.

 

Chapter 19: Clothed in Devotion               

       I gratefully received all these beautiful clothes my guru was so happily giving to me, knowing they would be both wonderful and challenging to wear. Then, Gurumayi handed me a pair of Ted Lapidus red gabardine wool pants. Pants?
       These were not just pants, but really expensive pants that probably cost hundreds of dollars — one of my guru’s attendants later told me that Gurumayi herself had worn these pants in certain situations such as going to the dentist. Here my guru was giving me her own pants just a week or so after giving me a very clear instruction to not wear pants.
       I often became tongue-tied in my guru's presence. Sometimes, I couldn't speak at all. What I meant to say at this point was, “Oh, I guess that means it would be okay for me to wear pants in the garden,” since that had been my main quandary of the week. However, what came out of my mouth when my guru showed me these Ted Lapidus gabardine pants was, “Oh, in the garden.”
       Gurumayi looked at me with a surprised face, and very compassionately explained, “No, these are expensive pants. You can't wear them in the garden.”

 

Chapter 20: Nemesis              

       One day, Gurumayi was standing outside, talking informally with the maharaja whose family land we were using for programs. With super-8 camera in hand, I started filming a few shots of their conversation, first as a wide shot, and then a closer scene of the maharaja’s face, panning over to Gurumayi’s profile. Then I noticed Gurumayi’s beautiful hands. Behind her back, she was moving bead by bead of her rosary-like japa mala. Traditionally, one repeats the mantra inwardly with each turn of a bead.
       I was moved to see my guru engaged in silent focus on the highest while in the midst of this conversation with her royal host. I thought this would make a beautiful image, and moved in to get a closer shot of her hands. At that moment, Ralph came up behind me and sneered, “Why do you always shoot stupid things?”
       I turned around, and was so surprised by his lack of politeness that I took a quick shot of his face with the camera, and said, “There. Now I've got another one.”

 

Chapter 21: She Still Thinks She Did It!         

       My guru looked as though I had just uttered the most ridiculous statement in the world. “She STILL thinks she did it!”
       Now I was sweating. I decided maybe it would be good to abridge my description significantly. “I logged the tapes.”
       “She STILL thinks she did it!”
       I was practically ready to say that I had just made the coffee, when I glanced toward the monk seated next to me. He gave a look of kind encouragement that somehow helped me to know what to say. With an inner shift, I started to realize that this was not about who did what. It had nothing to do with the video or with Tony or me. I glimpsed that we were dealing with an entirely different level of identification with action.
       It is the universal energy that does everything. Everything happens through Grace, every moment born anew from that ever-flowing stream of creative Consciousness. The person who logged the tapes in Vancouver was not the same person sitting before my guru today. One universal creative expression is moving through and as all of us.

 

Chapter 22: Perfect Mistakes              

       I turned back toward my guru and the small group I was sitting with. As if I hadn't just crashed their meeting, they continued to discuss matters that were none of my business. What should I do now?
       If I got up and walked away, surely my blunder would not go unnoticed. I would have to deal with the situation right then and there, and I was feeling way too shy for that. I had hoped for an interaction with my guru, but not like this! In addition, the large group of people waiting in the lobby would see what a silly thing I had done and would certainly laugh at me. Also, the truth is that I was right where I would have liked to be, at the feet of my guru. I decided to postpone my fate.
       After a few minutes, I started to loosen up, and even began to chuckle with their jokes. I felt like a kamikaze pilot — inevitably there was going to be a confrontation about my being in the wrong meeting, so why not enjoy the ride down?
       Finally, the jig was up. Gurumayi told one of the monks, “Let's go around and have each person tell where they're going.”
       I wanted to laugh, but managed to control myself. She was always so creative. Each person gave his or her response, and finally it was my turn. I looked up and didn't quite know what to say. My guru broke the ice and asked the supervising monk, “What is Kumuda doing here?”

 

Chapter 23: Taming the Beast               

       As we reached the temple area, our guru arrived, and told us to release the cows from their leashes. This did not sound like a good idea. What if they ran out into the nearby street? But our faith was stronger than our doubts, so Patrick and I unleashed our respective cows.
       They took off running, but didn't run away. Instead, the two cows dashed up and down the garden hills together, like two huge puppies playing with one another. They'd run up one slope and slide down another, tearing up the sod with playful bovine glee.
       I couldn't help but chuckle while thinking about the poor landscaping woman. So much for a few subtle hoof prints along the edge of lawn! And she couldn't reprimand us about this situation, because it had been at our guru's request. We all laughed with delight, watching the cows play. I wondered how on earth we would ever catch them.
       At that point, my guru spoke without even looking at me. “Kumuda, go get Lakshmi.” Here these two enormous animals were bucking wildly across the garden, and my guru was asking me to get one of them? It was testing time again. This was a direct command, and I was somehow going to accomplish it.

 

Chapter 24: Leaving the Ashram               

       My guru turned her head to the side. I felt that she didn't want me to see that my words had touched her. I whispered, “It's true.”
       She turned back and looked directly into my eyes. This part is difficult to describe, but I actually felt her conscious awareness entering through my eyes. I could feel it travel down into a deep core of my being. There, I could feel her looking into my soul. It was like a “souloscopy”. After a few moments, I sensed her consciousness moving back up through my body, and then exiting through my eyes once again.
       She had made her decision. “You should go out and work in the world.”
       With my mind in a state of shocked surrender, I let go of all the potential fear-based reactions to this monumental decree. I looked up into my guru's face, bowed my head in gratitude for her grace in any and every form, and asked, “Where should I go, and what should I do?”