Ten
Right. Denver it is. For me still synonymous with the International
Headquarters (IHQ) of Maharaj ji’s Divine Light Mission at 511 16th
Street. The sound is even more mythical than Prem Nagar. But never the less the
place where it all ended for me after five years of ‘satsang, service and
meditation’, the true life of a devotee.
The plane that brings Janny and me to Denver, at first has a broken
generator, but eventually flies anyway and the stewardess assures me with a
friendly touch on my arm that everything is going to be just fine. And it is.
As non-car owners we even know after an attempt or two how to handle the
windows of our rented car, resulting in the woman operating the barrier at Avis
waving and laughing us good bye as we drive into the city with a view on the
Rocky Mountains. There I booked a bed & breakfast in Gilpin Street, just
around the corner and in exactly the same type of house as the ashram at
Franklin Street where I used to live.
The ashram was a big, detached house, about a hundred years old with
lots of wood in and out and a large porch next to the front door. The Divine
Light Mission rented around ten or so of such houses in Denver. About twenty
five people shared the house on Franklin Street and inside and out it was a
bare and severe place, with a tiled garden that for a seeker of enlightenment
was obviously out of bounds.
Now we stay just around the corner at John Walters’, a retired
pharmaceutical researcher. He decorated his B&B inside and out with
flowers, copper bars, draped fabrics, pleated borders and ornate furniture. We
have the Rose Room, a room like a stuffed animal with a high wooden bed to
climb up on to and sink in. “It works for you huh?”, John giggles when he sees
our faces and hears our cries. He’s sixty now and was thirty when he bought the
house, ‘a complete mess’. Piece by piece he hammered and painted everything
whole again and bought European antiques by the container, unseen. That’s where
the gold-plated lion paw is from that functions as support for a piece of
heavy, red velvet in our Rose Room. Just like the woman made of stone that
empties her amphora in the pond with goldfish. And the metal rocking couch with
huge flowery pillows on the porch. And the paintings of frisky young women and
sturdy looking old men on the wall.
His garden almost bordered on that of the previous ashram on Franklin
Street. When I stayed there, he was here painting, replacing roof tiles and
shining copper. No way we would ever have talked to each other about that back
then. I didn’t even know where my own housemates were from or what they had
done in the past. Aside from satsang, service and meditation, everything was
illusion and deception.
That evening Janny and I walk along Colfax Avenue to 511 16th
Street, the address that for the Western followers of Maharaj ji came closest
to paradise on earth. In reality it was a rather gloomy office building, with
heavy rough stone walls and narrow windows. Inside it was basically dark. A
wobbling elevator, wooden paneling in the corridors and offices and dark wooden
desks that probably came with the building. The ‘executives’, like me as
‘international coordinator Europe and Australia’, had their own offices on the
first two floors, rented by the Divine Light Mission from the arms manufacturer
Joe Gould. The floor above was an open space with wooden benches, that served
as a cafeteria during the day and for satsang gatherings in the evenings. On
top of that were three more office floors with large open working spaces for
bookkeeping, arranging travels and festivals, managing houses and gathering
halls throughout the United States and the production of printed material and
films about Maharaj ji and the Divine Light Mission. About five hundred people
all together, I guess. Since the guru had decided we had to be acceptable for
the world, everyone dressed in wide robes and tight suits. Pierre Gardin, Van
Gils and Laura Ashley for the executives, the junk circuit for the rest.
The building is still there, I notice when we enter the street. But the
entrance is now made of glass, shiny gold and polished marble. In the hall the
Divine Light Mission’s own security, the World Peace Corps, is replaced by a
doorman in a gold braided uniform. Joe Gould, who marked the entrance to his
own office on the first floor with grenade shells, is dead, he says. According
to the shiny polished signs at the entrance, the building is now filled with
lawyers, attorneys, real estate agents and advisors to private investors. “It’s
gone up in style”, the doorman nods, after I tell that thirty years ago I worked
on ‘the third’. He’s too young to know that the coming of the kingdom of a
thousand years of peace was being seriously prepared for here. Including
departments of planning and control, research and development, audiovisuals,
international communications and human resources.
So my thoughts linger on the doorstep. I mumble some ‘thanks’ and ‘bye
then’, peer up at the window through which I used to look out on the pavement
of 16th Street and then swiftly return to John Walters’s warm flower
bed with Janny.
The next morning he serves us in shorts and an apron. ‘John Walters One
And Only Special Breakfast’ with juice, coffee, fried eggs, fried potatoes,
fried tomatoes, toast and sweet rolls. “My family is from Scotland”, he smiles
in explanation, while outside under the pergola he puts our flowery plates on
their flowery mats. “Enjoy.”