The following morning, instead of reporting to Sita at the seva desk, I went directly to the basement and the Audiovisual department. I was warmly greeted by Jake Gooding, the department head, who was expecting me. Jake was a tall, soft-spoken man in his late forties, with kind eyes and graying hair. “Your mission, young man, is to fast-forward and to rewind all the video and audio tapes in the library.”
“What’s the point of that?” I asked. Then I remembered that questioning one’s seva assignments in the ashram was frowned upon.
Jake smiled good-naturedly and took a large video cassette off one of the shelves. “Doing that every few months helps prevent creases from forming and causing permanent damage to the tapes.”
He popped the cassette into an enormous tape deck, pushed play, and a monitor mounted on the wall above flickered on. After about ten seconds of color bars and a high-pitched tone, images appeared of a younger, darker-haired Baba meeting a group of blissed-out hippies at what looked like a farmhouse. The guru’s eyes were hidden by dark sunglasses. He wore an extravagant orange knit beret with a large pom-pom, and a red plaid bathrobe over his orange silks. Dressed like that, he reminded me of a funky jazz musician.
“This is footage from Baba’s first trip to America in 1970. It was filmed in sixteen-millimeter. Later we transferred it to video. As you can see, the picture quality is excellent. We want to keep it that way.”
“Are there a lot of old videos of Baba like this?” I asked, marveling.
“Hours and hours,” Jake answered. “But I’m afraid there’s no time for you to watch them. Your job is simply to fast-forward them all until the end, and then rewind them back to the beginning again.”
The camera zoomed in to a tight shot of Baba’s face, then tilted down to a close-up of the guru’s quickly changing hand gestures. One moment Baba was pointing upwards toward the sky. The next, his thumb and forefinger curled into an “okay” sign. A moment after that his hand appeared to be raised in blessing. The fluid and graceful movements of Baba’s hands were mesmerizing. I could have watched all day.
After giving me my instructions, Jake sat down at a desk on the far end of the room, and left me to work on my own. It took approximately five minutes to fast-forward and rewind each cassette. With nearly six hundred tapes in the library, I figured it would take over two weeks to get the job done.
Most of the videos were of the many talks Baba had given all over the world. The labels on some listed special events, such as “Inauguration of Melbourne ashram” and “Baba meets Governor of California.” Others contained miscellaneous footage, like “Ravipur elephant” or “Baba takes ride on golf cart.”
While the tapes were rewinding and fast-forwarding, I had a chance to poke around. Adjoining the Audiovisual library was an editing suite. A picture of a wide-eyed Baba with his forefinger raised to his lips was taped to the closed door. From inside I could hear the constant switching between normal playback and the high-pitched, accelerated sound of fast-forward and reverse. Another office and darkroom belonged to someone named Avadhoot Plotnick, who was Baba’s personal photographer. Like Arjuna Weinberg, the cameraman, Avadhoot was now in India with the guru. There was also a repair room, with various pieces of broadcast equipment in different stages of disassembly. Inside was young man with acne and a mop of curly blond hair. His name was Mahendra Albright, and he was tinkering with a portable video tape deck.
“What’s wrong with it?” I asked the technician.
“Nothing,” Mahendra smirked. “I’m retrofitting it with a timecode generator.”
“You’re an engineer?”
Mahendra laughed. “Well, I don’t have an engineering degree, if that’s what you mean.”
“Mahendra is our resident genius,” said Jake. He was standing in the doorway of the repair room. “Completely self-taught. He designed and built that timecode generator himself.”
The resident genius giggled. “It lays the code down by cannibalizing the VTR’s second audio channel.” I had no idea what “timecode” meant, but it sounded impressively technical.
Jake smiled and slowly shook his head. “The ashram should patent that thing. The Mission would make a fortune.”
The VTR clicked in the other room, which meant it was time to change tapes. I went back to my station, hit eject, and was about to pop in a new cassette when Sita Perkins suddenly appeared. She stood in the doorway of the library, frowning, with her arms crossed. “Doug, what on earth are you doing down here?”
I felt a tightening in my chest. “Alan told me to report to the video department. He said it was my new seva.”
Sita tapped her foot on the floor and thrust out her bosom. “Alan is not in charge of the seva desk—I am.”
Jake came out of the repair room. “What seems to be the problem, Sita?”
Just then the door to the editing suite opened and out came a limping Kriyadevi Friedman on crutches. There was a fresh white plaster cast on her leg. In her hand she clutched a large cassette, and she grinned self-consciously when she saw me.
“Hey, Doug.”
I was curious to know what had happened to her leg, but it would have to wait. Sita turned to confront Jake. “Baba’s arriving in three weeks. We have fifty plus rooms to prepare and suddenly you need an extra librarian?”
Jake winced and rubbed his brow. He took a deep breath and held it. “Listen, Sita, Alan called me yesterday and asked if I could put Doug to work down here. If you have a problem with that, take it up with him.”
“I’m really sorry for the confusion, Sita,” I said.
Turning to me, she managed a smile. “Oh, don’t worry, Doug. This isn’t your fault. Alan hasn’t been manager very long and I’m afraid he isn’t quite up to the job.” Sita scowled at Jake, then left in a huff.
I was about to apologize to Jake, when he raised his hands in front of him and spoke: “Don’t worry—Baba’s shakti will take care of it. For the moment, you work here.”
“Nobody ever fights about where I should do seva,” Mahendra called from the repair room.
“That’s because you don’t know how to do anything else,” Kriyadevi quipped.
Mahendra giggled.
Kriyadevi limped across the room to return the cassette she was carrying to the appropriate shelf. Then she picked out another, and made her way back toward the editing room.
“What happened to you?” I finally asked.
Kriyadevi rolled her eyes. “Oh, yeah—my leg. I had a little accident early this morning before meditation.”
Anger flashed across Jake’s face. “She slipped on the icy path to the Brahmananda temple—that’s what happened.”
“I clean the Brahmananda temple and bathe the statue twice a week before morning meditation,” Kriyadevi said.
“Kamala’s kid—Madhu—he’s to blame,” Jake said. “It was his seva to keep that path clear.”
I remembered how warm and wet it had been all day yesterday. The ice had probably formed during the night when the temperature dropped again.
“Just up and left the ashram yesterday and didn’t even tell anyone,” Jake continued. “We had to take her to the emergency room in Liberty.”
Kriyadevi chuckled. “I’m sure there’s a message from the guru in it for me!” She gave me a pat on the back. Then she hobbled back into the editing suite and closed the door.
With Baba’s arrival only a fortnight away, the ashram was inundated with newcomers. Their name tags were marked with green stickers, like mine.
“Why are there so many new people in the ashram all of a sudden?” I asked Jake. We were bussing our lunch trays to the dirty dishes station.
“God bless ‘em,” he said. “They’re here to help with the final push to get everything ready for the guru. Anyhow, you haven’t seen anything yet. Just wait until Baba gets here. The place will be packed every weekend and holiday. In the summer the ashram won’t even be able to accommodate all the visitors. Folks will be forced to stay at local motels and camp out.”
I wanted to go to my room after lunch, for some quiet time before afternoon seva. But the reception area in the lobby was so mobbed with suitcases and people waiting to check in, it’d be impossible to get through without pushing people out of my way. I decided to avoid the crowd by going around the outside of the building. I let myself out through an exit next to the cafeteria and headed toward the main entrance. In the driveway, a couple of taxis were dropping people off. As I drew nearer, a black town car pulled into the driveway and parked directly in front of the sliding glass doors. A uniformed chauffeur got out and opened the door for his passenger. Out stepped a tall, brown-skinned man with jet-black hair. He was wearing dark sunglasses and a long camel hair coat. The driver popped the trunk and set his passenger’s suitcases on the curb.
As I walked past the man to go back inside the building, he noticed me and smiled warmly. “Hello,” he said, removing his sunglasses.
I gasped, instantly recognizing the man from all the photos I’d seen of him with Baba in Raja Path Magazine. “Um—hi. Can I help you with your bags?”
“Yes, thank you,” he answered, shaking my hand firmly. “I’m Suresh.” His voice was gentle, and his Indian accent soft and lilting.
“I know—I mean, I’m pleased to meet you, Suresh. My name is Doug.”
“I know,” he said, wiggling his eyebrows.
“You know who I am?”
The Indian smiled puckishly. “You’re wearing a name tag.”
With Baba’s visit just around the corner, I wondered when I could expect a visit from Jeremy and Carrie. I decided to give them a call. They said they wouldn’t be at the ashram for Baba’s arrival. Jeremy couldn’t get away from work that day. They’d be coming soon after, however, and had already registered for the first shaktipat retreat of the season.
“You’re so lucky to be able to live in the ashram,” my brother said.
On another extension, Carrie squealed with delight. “You’ll get to see Baba every day!”
“We’re so envious!” Jeremy added.
Carrie let out a long sigh. “You see, Doug, you’ve been through a very tough time, but everything that happens is part of the guru’s plan for us.”
“Believe me, I know. I thank Baba every day for all of his blessings.”
“We can’t wait to see him again!” Jeremy said.
“Jai Gurudev!” I exclaimed, beating them to it.
“Jai Gurudev!”
As the date of the guru’s arrival approached, Sita became noticeably impressed with my willingness to work long hours and to take orders without questioning them. I could tell she felt this way because she began treating me differently from the others. While their best efforts were met with frowns and disparaging remarks, I could do no wrong. Whatever I did in her presence was met with cheerful smiles and words of praise.
The night before Baba’s arrival, Sita found me on the far end of a corridor in the VIP wing.
“I have a special mission for you, Doug!” the seva manager called out as she hurried toward me. She told me to take a hand truck from the Housing office and go down to the basement. “On the south end you’ll find a large storage unit labeled ‘Keep Out’,” she said, handing me a key. “Inside are several boxes labeled ‘Baba’s bedroom.’ They need to be delivered to his house right away. Get them and bring them up here.”
I was elated. Finally, I would get to see the inner sanctum!
The storage unit was a treasure trove of sacred objects not currently in use: an elaborate but worn throne, a chipped statue of the elephant god Ganesh, and various pieces of furniture of even higher quality than what I had seen in some of the VIP rooms. There was also an array of medical equipment, including a hospital bed, an I.V. pole, a wheelchair, and an examining table with a pair of metal foot supports, which, as an eighteen-year-old male, I didn’t recognize as a gynecologist’s table.
I wondered who had been sick. Surely not Baba, I thought. I was incapable of imagining the guru as an ordinary man in need of medical care. It didn’t jibe with my view of Baba as the personification of God on earth. I made a mental note to ask Sita about it.
Next to the furniture, medical equipment, and personal effects of the guru’s closest disciples, was a stack of boxes labeled “Baba’s Bedroom.” When I came upstairs with the boxes, Sita was waiting for me at the top of the ramp, across from the reception area. She asked me to set the boxes down on the floor so she could check their contents.
“Good work, Doug,” Sita said, smiling brightly. “Now bring these boxes to Baba’s house with me.”
Sita led the way and I pushed the hand truck behind her. In the lobby, we passed several new arrivals. Some were carrying suitcases in through the front entrance, and others were standing around talking, waiting for the reception to open so they could check in. Two or three of them did double takes when they noticed the labels on my load. From their expressions of awe, you would’ve thought they were seeing Baba himself.
When we arrived at the long gray curtain at the end of the lobby, Sita pulled a section aside and we stepped behind it. On the other side was a windowless wall. There was just enough space for us to stand between it and the curtain. Directly in front of us was a vault-like metal door and an intercom. Sita pressed the talk button, and then spoke into an intercom box: “It’s me.”
A few seconds later, the bolt was pulled, the heavy door opened wide, and we were greeted by Baba’s young Indian disciple, Suresh. We followed him through a corridor, up a sweeping staircase, and into a spacious duplex apartment, where we heard the steady drone of a vacuum cleaner.
Baba’s house was lavishly decorated with plush white wall-to-wall carpeting and black lacquer furniture. So this is where God lives when he’s on the East Coast, I thought. From where we stood on the upper level, I could see a large living room below. At the bottom of the stairs, a lithe young woman with blonde hair was busy vacuuming. Suresh helped me to unload the boxes from the dolly. The girl looked up at me and smiled. When I realized who she was, I almost fell over. It was the angel Gopi! I wasn’t sure who I envied more: Gopi, for having the honor of cleaning Baba’s house, or Suresh, for being lucky enough to get to hang out with her. Then foolish thoughts filled my head: What is the most beautiful girl in the ashram doing alone in Baba’s house with Suresh? Is Gopi his girlfriend?
“Do you need any help bringing the boxes to Baba’s bedroom?” I asked Suresh. I glanced at Gopi, staring at the curves of her gray sweat suit.
Suresh wiggled his head a little and smiled kindly. “No, thank you.” Then he escorted Sita and me back to the lobby entrance, gently closing the heavy metal door behind us.
When we were alone again in the darkened space between the wall and the curtain again, Sita let out a long sigh and clutched her hands to her breast.
“Well, that was exciting, wasn’t it?”
I nodded, distracted by thoughts of Suresh and Gopi alone together. Sita lifted the curtain out of her way and stepped back into the lobby. I was about to follow her when something odd caught my attention: pinpricks of light in the fabric of the curtain. I lingered for a moment to look at them.
“Doug, are you coming?”
The tiny holes were at my eye level. They weren’t large enough to notice from the well-lit lobby side of the curtain. I thought they might have been made by moths, but they were spaced apart at regular intervals. No, these were definitely man-made.
The door to Baba’s house opened again. A man in paint-splattered overalls came out, carrying a drill and a toolbox. I recognized Daniel Groza immediately—from the photo of Baba with Daniel and his wife in the Prasad VIP room—and moved out of his way.
I was relieved: Suresh and Gopi hadn’t been alone together after all.
“Doug?” Sita called from the other side of the curtain. “We have work to do.”
As I followed Sita to my next assignment, I thought about the holes in the curtain. They had been put there deliberately, I decided. They looked like peepholes.
By late afternoon, the ashram was mobbed. The line of people waiting to check in stretched all the way down to the curtain in front of Baba’s house. There were also quite a few men and women in orange robes settling in, some of Baba’s East Coast-based swamis. Like Akhandananda, they were all white.
On my way through the lobby to Sita’s office, I counted at least five different languages being spoken. I also recognized a few celebrities, including a folk rock singer-songwriter and two movie stars. One of the celebrities was the Academy Award-winning actress Sylvia Preston. She had been a favorite of my mother’s. Her husband Richard Foxman, the famous film director, was standing by her side.
“Hey Doug!” called someone. “Over here!”
I turned to see Menaka Atkins, Robert Cargill, and Lakshmi Dunn among the crowd waiting to check in. I marched up to them and Menaka gave me a big hug. I tried to hug Lakshmi, but she cringed and I backed off. Still a bitch!
“Is this the Ithaca contingent?” I said, proud of my status as a resident of Baba’s American headquarters.
Menaka looked me up and down. “Look at you—the ashramite! You look taller!”
“Well, I suppose I could still be growing.”
A knowing smile played on Robert’s lips. “It’s your posture, Doug. You’re definitely standing up straighter.”
Menaka hugged me again, and Lakshmi turned away, frowning.
“Excited to finally meet Baba?” Menaka asked me.
“Totally psyched!”
Seeing Menaka and the others in line waiting to check in was oddly gratifying. It was as though they were in my territory now. But the instant the thought took shape in my mind, I shot it down. Sinful pride rearing its ugly head again.
“Excuse me,” someone said, tapping me on the shoulder. I turned around to be confronted by Sita. Her hands were on her hips and the tight-lipped smile on her face looked forced. “Doug, could I please see you in my office?”
I thought about introducing her to my friends from Ithaca, but Sita didn’t give me a chance. She quickly did an about-face and headed in the direction of the lobby. I followed closely behind. Am I in trouble for something?
“Take a seat, Doug,” my seva supervisor said, gesturing to an empty chair in front of her desk. I racked my brain, trying to think of what I might have done wrong. Sita leaned against the edge of her desk and stared down at me. “Doug, I want you to know how much I appreciate all the great seva you’ve been doing since you arrived at the ashram.”
I let her words of praise wash over me. I was relieved I wasn’t in any trouble. I took a deep breath. “The purpose of my life is to serve the guru in any way I possibly can.”
Misty-eyed, Sita went to a cabinet behind her desk and took out a tiny glass bottle containing a clear liquid.
“I want you to have this, Doug,” she said, handing me the vial. “This is Baba’s bath water.”
“Oh, Sita! I don’t know what to say!” Tears welled in my eyes and a feeling of warmth spread through my entire body. As far as I was concerned, it was the nicest thing anyone had ever given me. “Thank you so much!”
Sita smiled brightly and wrinkled her nose. “Use it sparingly.”
“I will!” I promised. I admired my gift and tried to imagine how much pure shakti it contained.
“Save it for difficult times.”
“Okay—but what should I do with it?”
“Well, whenever you feel you could use an extra boost of guru’s grace, just sprinkle a few drops of it on your head.”
Her suggestion sounded good, but I had other plans for Baba’s bath water: I was going to drink it.
Sita took my hand in hers and looked into my eyes. “Alan told me about what a hard time you’ve been through. I was so sorry to hear about your mother passing away.”
I eyed Sita’s chubby fingers as she stroked the back of my hand. “That’s very kind of you to say, Sita,” I said. Then I gently pulled my hand out of hers and rose to my feet.
Sita stood up too. “You do realize, of course, that Baba is the only parent you’ll ever need.”
“I know that, Sita, and I’m so grateful to be one of his children.”
Sita moved closer to me. Then she pulled me toward her, cradling my head with her hands and holding my face against her bosom. “You’re a member of Baba’s family now. You don’t need anyone else.”
“Yes, yes,” I answered, my voice muffled. I had no control over what happened next. Sita was holding me so closely, with my dick coming into contact with her hip, that I found myself getting hard.
Sita suddenly tensed up. She pulled away from me, and furtively glanced at my crotch. A smirk spread across her lips. She folded her arms in front of her chest. In that moment, I wanted to disappear.
Sita took a seat at her desk. She took some papers out of a folder and began to study them, pretending I wasn’t there. After an excruciatingly long silence, she finally spoke. “You can go now,” she said without looking up.
With my head hung low, and my hard-on rapidly shrinking, I left her office. I prayed to Baba for forgiveness, and then went to the cafeteria in search of my friends from Ithaca.