Four
So now I’m in that same New York that back then with K and Jody remained
a bit behind glass. A world of others I couldn’t reach. I think because it was
my first timid attempt to step back into a world that I had turned my face away
from for five years. And because this was undoubtedly true for K and Jody as
well, coming on top of the Italia-chauvinism of Jody’s family, who actually
considered Brooklyn (‘Bwwoeklin’ for all of them) the only place in New York
where human life was possible. Everything outside that neighborhood, with its
sturdy, Victorian houses, old trees and views of Manhattan, we therefore
visited in Jody’s Mom’s car. Accompanied by the specific instructions to lock
the car doors thight and keep the windows rolled up when visiting China Town,
if we ever decided to visit it (‘who on earth wants to go there?’). I looked at
New York but hardly saw a thing.
Pity. I think, when I sit here over thirty years later at one of four
wobbly little tables that defy the sloping paving stones outside this little
Italian bar around the corner from where we’re staying in the East Village.
Warm wind along the facade, carafe of white wine on the iron table. Local
residents that look just as worn down as the buildings and streets around us.
An older man at the little table besides me reads in his book for an hour over
just one cup of coffee. The woman who owns the place smiles and puts a new
glass of water in front of him.
Earlier that same Sunday afternoon we strolled with, it seemed, every
other New Yorker, through Central Park. The weather was hot, people were barely
clothed, dozing off in the grass, making music, twirling around on their
skates, swaying to music that, through a tiny wire, reached only their own
ears. On one open spot, five big black guys danced, making the public laugh and
collecting money in oversized garbage bags. “If you think five bucks is a lot
for a show like this, we say: you can do better. If you think ten bucks is a
lot, we say: get a job man.” They gave a lifelike impersonation of a crab,
jumped without any visible effort over each other (‘don’t try this at home,
kids, try it at school’) and hopped on their hands up a wide, majestic
staircase where they said good bye, accompanied by loud cheering. I laughed and
applauded for the New York that my eyes then, after five years of Divine Light
Mission, couldn’t find. No longer used to look at normal life.
I can actually pinpoint it, maybe. The beginning. Or the push in the
direction of a guru and a life as a monk anyhow. It was on a Monday. Sunny,
just like now. The philosophy course where, after high school, I thought all my
questions about life were going to be answered, I had given up only after a few
months. Calculating statistics and probabilities didn’t do the trick of finding
my way back to that feeling that flowed right through my head when lighting the
big eastern candle as an altar boy, with the church organ roaring and everyone
singing Gloria for god being among us. Or when on Saturday mornings, after a
whispered confession of my sins (‘nagging my brother, chatting in the
classroom’) to a face in the half dark, the priest made the cross and said god
had forgiven me everything. Frolicking home through white streets, everything
was just fine inside. Till the next sin.
Doing good, I thought, after quitting the university’s statistics
studies. So I worked as a nurse’s aid in the Onze Lieve Vrouwe Gasthuis and
wondered ‘what next’. Even though that question gradually penetrated less often
through the glass bell that the daily water pipes and pills put over me. Like
that mescaline trip that sunny day. A reward for putting one of the flower
children in the Vondelpark in touch with the woman with the green eyes. “Heavy
stuff”, she added. So Fred Winkelman, a good friend, said he would stay with me
while I tripped. We were in his room, somewhere close to the Westerkerk at a
little square with old trees. Fred studied theology and had a beard and a
virtually bald head that glowed along with his eyes when he laughed, which he
often did. The windows, almost as high as the room, were open. The mescaline
made everything soft and almost fluid. The sunlight fell in bundles through
silver painted holes in a fluffy white blanket of clouds. High in the air a
flock of birds glided from bundle to bundle. Like the hand of a flamenco dancer
they alternately turned their white belly and black back from dark into light.
Playing with the sun and the clouds they drew flowing lines in the air, from
black to white to black to white. I only saw these birds on their swaying
flight and all of the sudden everything fell in its place. I saw the world
breathe. That simple. ‘Look Mom, no hands!’ Fred laughed. “And if you
see... don’t make a sound”, we
softly hummed along with Pink Floyd.
Life, with a little help from my friends. This was the way to go. But
while emptying urine jars and washing flabby old women’s asses, it was hard to
hold on to. In spite of a quick water pipe in the Oosterpark during lunch
break. That is until this American patient, passing through from India, arrived
on my ward 9 with hepatitis-B. He had found a guru. That man had taught him
meditation techniques that enabled him to experience life in its purest form.
Always. Everywhere. The beginning of a new world. He was going to devote his
life to this guru. I gave him his pot, his clean sheets, his antibiotics and a
whole lot of attention. After a few days, I visited the Amsterdam ashram of his
guru and just knew. The serenity in the house, the wise smile on the faces, the
smell of incense, the songs at a whispering guitar: it all came together. I
wanted to be part of this. The next day I quit my job and my room and brought
everything I owned to the Salvation Army. I then reported at the ashram of the
Divine Light Mission of guru Maharaj ji with my sleeping bag and some clothes
(always longed for just one bag - in this case my Carl Denig rucksack, bought
with my first hospital salary - as maximum baggage in life). There they told me
that I had to wait. Until I was ready for a life of meditation, dedication and
devotion. I bowed deeply to the picture of the fourteen year old guru that sat
in the reception room of the ashram in a gold colored frame on a chair with a
shiny cloth over it. As far as I was concerned, I was totally ready for it.
Fortunately in the meantime I was able to use my grandmother’s
apartment, as she was permanently staying with one of her children. There, on
the floor between her old heavy furniture and her television in a wooden
cabinet, I spread out my sleeping bag. On the shiny polished coffee table I put
a small version of the picture that stood on the chair in the ashram. I was waiting
for one of the traveling Indian mahatma’s of Maharaj ji to initiate me in the
meditation techniques. When one would arrive, nobody knew. Or if he would even
initiate me. It all depended whether I was ready.
So I went to the ashram every day. Help vacuum (‘cleanliness is next to
godliness, brother’), peel potatoes, wash dishes and stick up posters of the
guru in town (‘The lord of the universe has come’).