Majorca Journal: Majorca Journal: Rounding, Romance and Derangement October 1971

Cover Design: Bryson Dean-Gauthier (brysondean.wordpress.com)

Majorca Journal:

Rounding, Romance and Derangement

October 1971 - March 1972

How I Meditated for Five Months and Lost 30 Pounds, My Heart and Several of My Marbles

by Andrew MacKenzie

WARNING: Be advised that what you’re about to read is not Siddhartha or Autobiography of a Yogi, and certainly not official TM-Literature, but the record of a somewhat confused (and often bemused) young man finding himself in very unfamiliar circumstances. This document contains occasional profanity, not to mention references to drugs and sex, plus irreverent comments about Maharishi and the TM organization (also referred to as S.I.M.S. and The Movement).

This journal also contains the seemingly endless tale of a romantic and mostly unrequited infatuation-bordering-on-obsession which runs through pretty much the entire journal and is a classic object lesson on why intense spiritual work and romantic relationships are generally not a good mix. You have been warned. Feel free to skip those parts.

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Foreword

I guess you could say that my spiritual journey began in Oz. Unlike the Judy Garland movie, in which Oz turned out to be a dream, the Oz books, which I read over and over and over from childhood through adolescence and beyond, made it quite plain that Oz was a real place on Earth. Not only that, but that it was quite possible for ordinary mortals such as Dorothy Gale to visit there. And indeed in later books not only Dorothy but her Aunt Em and Uncle Henry (and Toto too!) wound up living permanently in the Emerald City.

That sounded good to me.

Unfortunately, according to the books emigration was mostly accomplished either by happenstance – cyclones, shipwrecks, magic gone awry, etc. – or with the help of insiders such as the Wizard or Queen Ozma, neither of whom were returning my calls. And apparently the local Oz embassy was unlisted. So I waited; surely somewhere there was a cyclone with my name on it.

As I grew into adolescence my reading interests expanded to include a great deal of fantasy and science fiction. And it was in the pages of a sci-fi magazine that I first encountered an ad for the Rosicrucians. They must have had some smart marketing people: what group could possibly be more susceptible to the possibilities of learning to astral travel, read auras, view past lives, etc., than the readers of stories which took time-warps and intergalactic voyages for granted? I sent in my application.

The reply from the Chief Scribe of the organization informed me that since I was a minor I would only be allowed to join the Junior Order of Rosicrucians. I figured it was better than nothing – maybe I’d get the astral-travel equivalent of a learner’s permit out of it – and sent back my acceptance and first payment.

When the first lesson arrived, I shut myself in my room and tore open the envelope – did they send an aura decoder-ring? Nope.

According to the instructions in the envelope there was a ritual to be performed before reading the lesson. That made sense to me: magic stuff almost always requires a little preliminary ooga-booga. So I set up a card table and, as instructed, lit a candle and very quietly, so no one in the house would overhear, intoned the invocation printed on the sheet. I honestly don’t remember a word of it, but I found this one on a Rosicrucian website and I’m sure it was something similarly overblown:

“I hereby declare by the power of the Most High that the Rosicrucian Spirit within Man shall never die and never fall into the obscurity of philosophers and mystics who have not yet attained the Philosopher's Stone or the Pearl of Greater Price. Manifesting the Resurrection of an Ancient Order that governs the subtle planes of Matter, the mind and emotions of any and all aspirants is automatically purified by the Celestial Meditations of the Few who Care. Appointing the Council of Jehova to reign over my heart and mind - I am ready for the incoming blast of Cosmic Consciousness that is my birthright and my freedom of choice. Free to pursue the Sages of Innumerable Eons - I am ready to receive God into my Being. Free to be who I am - let me be at peace with Myself now and forevermore.”

I thought it was totally cool at the time, of course. All right, I’m psyched! Lay that cosmic wisdom on me!

I opened the lesson and began to read.

As near as I can recall it was some kind of nature study – something about wolves, I think.

Huh?

End of involvement with Rosicrucians, back to watching for cyclones.

My personal cyclone came along several years later, when I was nineteen. It’s name was psilocybin.

I’d been experimenting with marijuana and psychedelics since my senior year of high school. These experiences were the closest things to real-world magic I’d found yet. On this particular night, near the end of 1970, thanks to psilocybin mushrooms, headphones and the newly released All Things Must Pass album by George Harrison I had my first truly transcendental, Timothy Leary-style clear white light experience. For a few hours, everything in the universe was perceived as pure light/energy, including myself.

I thought this might be important.

I’m glad to say that I realized soon after that what I’d experienced was temporary - a window and not a door. Full-time magic was not to be achieved by full-time ingestion of psychedelics. So what to do?

As a major fan of the Beatles’ music (another great repository of magic) it didn’t take me long to remember that the Fabs had been involved with a Maharishi somebody who had taught them to meditate. And unlike the Oz Embassy, Transcendental Meditation was listed in the phone book.

Goodbye drugs, hello mantra!

I was initiated into the practice of TM in January of 1971. In retrospect I’m pretty sure I was doing it incorrectly for the first five months or so: straining to achieve transcendence rather than allowing it to happen. Instead of bliss, all I got was the occasional dull headache. Discouraged, I considered following George Harrison’s lead and joining up with the Hare Krishna folks instead.

Fortunately however, partly out of curiosity and mostly out of desperation, in June of that year I attended a one-month “Preliminary Teacher Training Course” on the Amherst campus of the University of Massachusetts, hosted by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi himself. There, thanks to Maharishi’s endlessly patient reviewing of the basic mechanics of meditation and answering of questions I began to get the hang of it and started having good if not particularly flashy experiences of deep inner silence and relaxation. I began to feel as though I was on the right track after all and signed up for the full-blown TM Teacher Training Course, to be held in Majorca, Spain, beginning that October.

When I arrived in Majorca I wasn’t entirely sure of why I was there. It certainly wasn’t because I had a burning desire to teach TM to the masses. If anything it was because during the Amherst course Maharishi had indicated that periods of long, intensive meditation would be necessary to achieve enlightenment - and this course was, at present, the only means of doing so.

In 1971, at the age of 20 I still looked very much like what would be described today as a hippie. This was my passport picture at the time (note barely visible ponytail).

I was also a college drop-out, pudgy, emotionally shut down, and generally clueless. Like many people at that time I was hoping that meditation would solve all my problems. From the perspective of some forty-two years later I’m glad to say that I eventually realized that the purpose of meditation had nothing whatsoever to do with that.

For those of you who attended Teacher Training Courses in later years, there are some things about this course that will interest you:

When I applied for the course (at the Cambridge, Massachusetts, TM Center) the guy in charge helped me fill out the forms – and then asked me, as a kind of afterthought, if I was a meditator. If not, no problem: I could learn when I got to the course. (And as I recall there were several people on the course who actually did this.)

To the best of my recollection the entire cost of the course was about $1800. This included airfare, tuition, private hotel room on the Mediterranean for five months and all meals.

There was absolutely no separation between men and women – people were just booked into whichever room was next on the list, regardless. This (and the fact that it was, after all, 1971) led to a certain amount of party atmosphere in the evenings, with people staying up late, playing guitars out on the beach and generally carrying on. There were rumors of orgies, and if these did in fact occur I’m still extremely miffed that I wasn’t invited.

All right, on to the journal. Apologies in advance for some of the language: there is, as mentioned above, occasional profanity, plus snarky comments and a great deal of embarrassing hippie-speak (please keep in mind that in 1971 referring to a woman as a ‘chick’ was not yet considered politically incorrect). This is not a sweetness-and-light inspirational TM book, just the rambling and somewhat bewildered record of a particular time and place.

Everything you’re about to read has been transcribed just as it was written except where I’ve corrected some grammar and punctuation and re-written the occasional sentence or two for clarity. Some names have been changed for reasons which will become obvious. In some places I’ve added explanatory notes and comments in italics, particularly for the benefit of readers who may not part of the meditation community.

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(Someone had given me a 1972 daily appointment book – in August of ’71, no idea why - and for some reason I decided to use this for my journal entries despite the fact that from October through December I’d actually be using it for the wrong year and therefore the wrong day of the week. Not to mention the fact that for each date there was only one page with 26 ruled lines.

Undaunted, for the first entry I continued the spillover onto the pages for the previous days. Then, realizing the limits of that approach, I bought a series of pads and spiral notebooks to use for the rest of the spillover from future entries.

Why I did this – and continued to do so for the entire five months - instead of simply using a spiral notebook to begin with and entering the dates as I went along, remains a complete mystery to me. I guess it was because I had an official book with dates for daily entries and by golly I was going to use it. Not only that but my very first entry is a complaint about the inconvenience of it all. Wow. All those months of meditation and the drugs still hadn’t worn off, apparently.)

So here’s the first entry. The reader will quickly become aware that your Narrator had not previously spent much time in airports.

October 17th, 1971 (On board flight to Spain)

Naturally no one has been clever enough to invent a diary that starts in, say, June of one year and ends in June of the next year, so I’ll be writing in the real day of the week every day until New Year’s. Add to this confusion the fact that I’m starting my diary on what is probably a 19-hour day. I think we lose five hours between here and Spain somewhere.

The flight from Boston to New York was no hassle. On the flight was a dude with a really full handlebar mustache. I couldn’t figure out why I kept noticing him. At the baggage claim was a chick that I kept noticing too. While waiting for the airport bus from Northeastern to Iberia terminal (airports, whew!) we discovered that we were all meditators and Handlebar was an Initiator*!

*(AUTHOR’S NOTE: I have no recollection of who the “chick” was, though a later journal entry identifies her as someone named Jane. But “Handlebar” was Walter Day, whom I still see regularly here in Fairfield, more than 40 years later.

‘Initiator’ was the official title used for someone who had already completed Teacher Training and was qualified to teach TM.)

Iberia terminal was a zoo! More than 300 people trying to get their baggage checked at about four desks. A brief wait in the lounge then we were all herded into this strange vehicle. You get on it like a plane, it has windows like a plane but the seats are back-to-back in the middle and also circling the walls. Nobody seemed to know what it was. So we were somewhat disappointed when, amidst cries of, “It’ll never get off the ground, Orville!” it merely taxied us over to the 747 we were supposed to fly in.

Now the 747 is what you call a mother ship! Holds something like three hundred and eighty people, nine across, and if the aisles were wider you could spend your flight-time bowling. There’s an upstairs lounge which the stewardess assures me is not allowed to be used by anybody. I’m on one of the middle aisles so I can get up and peek at the movie they’re seeing up in first-class. For $2.50 you can rent earphones and hear eight different channels of bad music. Or the movie soundtrack.

Also for our entertainment, we have to fill out a survey by the Harvard Psychology Department to see if we’re really weird enough to take a course like this. To aid me in this endeavor the seat light has been adjusted for minimum energy waste, i.e., it doesn’t work. The last part of this survey is: “Make up a story about a child and his friend.” Well, I doubt that the Harvard Psych Dept. has even heard of The Firesign Theatre*, much less Porgy and Mutthead.

*(AUTHOR’S NOTE: The Firesign Theatre has been described as ‘The Beatles of Comedy’. I was {and remain} a huge fan of their work, listening to their early albums so often that I had more or less memorized them. They’re referred to often in this journal. You can read more about the group here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firesign_Theatre.)

11:30 PM. Everyone trying to sleep.

11:40 PM. Everyone gives up.

October 18th, 1971 (On board flight to Spain)

1:12 AM! Breakfast! I guess it’s because it’s about 6:00 AM in Spain, but I just ate dinner three hours ago!

7:30 AM (Local Time). Just now flying over land. Everyone practically hanging out the windows to see the sunrise (at what feels like 2:30 AM!).

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(Hotel Eugenia, Majorca.)

(AUTHOR”S NOTE: Most entries from this point on were probably written the day after the specified date.)

Finally landed in Madrid at about 8:00 AM Spain time. Stumbled out of the plane and into a bus for a one-minute ride to customs, only nobody seemed to know where customs was so we wandered aimlessly about the airport for about fifteen minutes. Finally found it, and after all that they didn’t even go through our luggage, just stamped our passports and herded us onto another bus.

The driver of this one knew where he was going, alright. He made a complete circle around the building, stopped, thought awhile and then gave us a tour of the airport, going past special points of interest two or three times. Finally we found the right runway and were loaded on to a couple of Mixmaster Specials that were probably on the list of atrocities for World War II. There was a short pause while the pilot wound up the rubber band and then we were off.

During our one-hour flight to Majorca we were introduced to something brand-new in the way of in-flight entertainment: stereophonic noise pollution. The engine noise, teeth-grittingly loud, actually moved from one side of my head through to the other side every three or four seconds, seeking my threshold of pain somewhere in between. And when your watch tells you that it’s 9:30 AM and your sleepless body reminds you that it’s really 4:30 AM you start to wonder about the possibilities of hitch-hiking back across the Atlantic.

We finally landed at about 10:00, shambled out of the flying butter-churn and onto (Oh my god!) another bus! We had all got settled comfortably for (resigned to) the ride, so we didn’t know quite how to react when we were asked to disembark 45 seconds later at baggage claim.

In we went and stood about three deep by a long conveyor belt where the luggage was supposed to come through, and this is where the fun began. You see, when we changed planes at Madrid the three hundred and eighty or whatever of us were put on three smaller planes, the second leaving an hour after the first, and the third one an hour after that. Our luggage was distributed between the three at random. Therefore if you were to ride on the third plane your luggage could have been on the island waiting for you for two hours. In my particular case I was on the first plane and although I had no way of knowing this, my suitcase was on the last.

So the belt was turned on, a few people grabbed their luggage, the rest was piled on the floor and the belt was turned off. Somewhat disconcerting.

By the time the third plane came in I had been standing up for three hours and was so bleary-eyed that I wasn’t sure I’d recognize it if it ever did come through. At high noon it finally did and I dragged it (I couldn’t lift it) outside where I was told to leave it in a pile that would be distributed between three (you guessed it) buses.

Even though we’d just gotten our suitcases back, someone had decided that we’d had so much fun guessing which plane our luggage was on that we should play the same game with the buses. And for added fun they invented a rule that said that all the luggage wouldn’t fit on the buses and that the excess would be brought up by truck “a little later.” By this point I don’t think I need to say where my suitcase wound up, not should I need to explain that “a little later” is an old Majorcan slang term meaning “five or six hours after everybody else’s.”

The bus ride took about an hour and a half, and people were just nodding out by the dozen. I managed to stay awake; that is, my eyes were open but I thought I was having an acid flashback. It was like being in a movie and noticing that everything is two-dimensional. Really bad.

My head cleared up a little when we started heading up into the hills, though. Beautiful scenery: cacti and flowers and tall grass, very nice. We finally reached the top and got our first glimpse of the Mediterranean as we drove up to our hotel, The Eugenia*, which is about twelve stories of cement tourist-container, pretty much typical of anything you’d find in Miami or elsewhere, though maybe not quite so lavish.

*(AUTHOR’S NOTE: The Eugenia was one of three similar hotels in a cul-de-sac: The other two were The Samoa and The America.)

Well, here we were over the finish line at last. Now all we have to do is get our room keys, go upstairs and pass out for fourteen hours or so, right?

Not quite.

“Would you please fill out these seven forms and then line up, all three hundred and eighty of you, and present them to Mr. Somebody-or-other, who will make you do every one of them over if you don’t dot all your ‘i’s. If by some chance you get past him you’ll be referred to Miss Wait-a-minute-I’ll-ask-somebody, who may or may not give you a little shred of paper with a number on it. If she does, get in line at the hotel desk where you will be presented with a key and relieved of your passport. You will then notice that all the luggage that came up on the buses is piled up out in the driveway and it looks like rain. For those of you who last ate ten hours ago, you will be pleased to know that you just missed lunch. Dinner is at 8:30. Thank you. Oh yes: please don’t drink the tap water. If you’ve been thirsty since your last meal, bottled water will be served with dinner.”

Well, I went through all the form-filling and key-getting and wasted about fifteen minutes looking for my suitcase which hadn’t arrived yet. Then, practically holding my eyes open with my fingers I stumbled up the three flights of stairs and down the hall to my room, #310.

I did manage some slight spark of interest as I opened the door because all our rooms were supposed to have balconies “with a magnificent view.” I looked and there was my balcony and out on the balcony was my magnificent view…of the hotel across the way. Far out.

The rest of the room wasn’t bad except that the furniture had been designed for midgets, munchkins or five-year olds. Twin beds, a desk, two night-tables, a lamp and two chairs. Not bad on closet space. No soap in the bathroom. If you use the toilet don’t plan on doing anything requiring quiet for the next fifteen minutes.

Finally, a chance to rest. Nothing to unpack yet. I took out my travel-clock, which fortunately I’d carried in my coat pocket, and set it to local time, then set the alarm for 8:00 PM. Took off my boots*.

*(AUTHOR’S NOTE: As a concession to the course requirements I had cut my shoulder-length hair, shaved off my beard and donned a suit for the trip. But apparently I was still wearing my square-toed Dingo boots.)

Took off the shirt and the tie that had been choking and chafing me since yesterday afternoon.

Could wait no longer and fell right down on the bed, spread and all.

Ahhh, bliss.

Five minutes, literally five minutes later, my unlocked door flew open, banging against the wall, and in burst a chambermaid jabbering, “Uno momento, uno momento,” as she divested the other bed of its cover, blankets, sheets and pillow and then split. I guess there was a shortage. I thought about it for a good tenth of a second before falling asleep again.

I didn’t realize what a good bell my alarm clock had until it went off at 8:00. At that point I decided that when I got back home I would donate it to my local fire department if I hadn’t destroyed it by then.

Four hours of sleep had helped, but I still couldn’t quite get my eyes to focus as I struggled back into suit and tie and boots. Down the stairs, out the door and over a crude dirt path to one of the other hotels, The Samoa, whose kitchen facilities we were using. Tables for four and buffet dinner. Not bad: vegetable stew, salad, cheese, nuts and whole wheat bread. The bottled water is terrible, tastes like seltzer*.

*(AUTHOR’S NOTE: Obviously this was my first exposure to sparkling mineral water.)

And if you think that’s bad, try the milk*. Bleah!

*(AUTHOR’S NOTE: This may have been goat’s milk, but I’m not sure.)

Okay, dinner’s over, back to sleep, right?

Not quite.

Announcement. Rumor, actually: Maharishi wants a meeting tonight. Nobody knew when or where so we tramped back to the lobby of The Eugenia and sat for an hour. Then the news came that it was going to be in the lounge at The Samoa so back we went.

The lounge at The Samoa was not designed as a meeting place for three hundred and eight people - one hundred and fifty, maybe - so things were pretty much Standing Room Only. I was among the first to arrive and managed to get a seat in the fourth row of chairs, couches and sofas that had been dragged in for the occasion, and watched a couple of people carry in a chair for Maharishi, decide it was too short, carry it out, carry in a sofa, decide it was too short, carry it out, and carry in a couch, which was just right. They covered it with a sheet and, when Maharishi was about to come in, put his deerskin (It’s deer or cow or something. All I know is that Maharishi got it from his teacher, Guru Dev, and won’t sit on anything else.) over the sheet.

I didn’t see him come in. I only knew he was there because we were all suddenly on our feet with our hands in prayer position about chest-high, which is a gesture of respect. We remained that way until he sat.

After a while I spotted him walking quietly through the crowd with his hands held like ours, bowing slightly and saying, “Jai Guru Dev.” (Hail Guru Dev - Maharishi’s teacher) to people as he passed, and stopping to talk for a few seconds with people he knew.

I think Maharishi would stand out in a crowd even without his white robe and long gray hair and white beard. The fact that he is such a tiny man (less than five feet) would be a factor, of course, but what I’m getting at the energy, the radiance he has about him. If you were sitting all by yourself with your eyes closed and he were to come in as quietly as he could, you would know he was there before he got within three yards of you.

He sat down on the couch, in the lotus position as always, and asked if everyone was tired from the plane ride and all. “There is some tiredness, some stress?” is how he put it. Most of us said yes, but a lot of people couldn’t hear the question so there was a pause while the mics were set up.

The gist of the meeting was that we were to have tomorrow and the day after to recover and get used to the place. He also said that the one-month course we’d taken previously was to give us intellectual understanding of what we were going to experience during this course. Judging by what went on at the one-month course things should be getting pretty heavy soon.

The meeting was adjourned at 10:45 and we practically fell all over ourselves trying to get a good place to pay our respects as he left. It’s worth the hassle, though. This will sound kind of fan-club-ish unless you’ve experienced it but for the first time in my life, as he passed he looked straight into my eyes and said, “Jai Guru Dev.” His eyes, man, whew! You could write books about them.

At long, long last, back to my room and out like a light.

October 19th, 1971

Arose blissfully at 9:30 to the sound of someone hammering on a radiator, or at least that’s what it sounded like. Found out later that the heating system is undergoing repair and will be for a few more weeks. Therefore, we were told, we will be moved to another hotel for the duration next Monday. And I just unpacked!

Anyway, back to getting up. I did my asanas (yoga stretching) out on the balcony and got all kinds of good, clean air into my system. Then I went in and managed to meditate through the anvil chorus upstairs.

Went into the bathroom to shave and discovered that I wouldn’t be able to until I got a plug-adaptor ‘cause the holes are small and round and twice as far apart as American socket holes. Not to mention the change in current.

For our convenience, or maybe someone noticed the fact that the hotels are an hour from anywhere and saw a quick peseta to be made, there is a small row of shops between the hotels, consisting of a “super” market, a drugstore, a souvenir shop, a pearl shop and a hair-stylist.

I needed a plug-adapter for my electric shaver and some paper so off I went. On the way, I ran into a girl I’d met on the plane*.

*(AUTHOR’S NOTE: Re-reading this journal for the first time in over forty years I can’t help but be struck by how much is lost to memory. Apparently the woman I’ve just introduced here and I became pretty good friends, at least at the beginning of the course, as you’ll see - then she completely disappears from the story after the first week or two. And yet I have no recollection of her whatsoever, not the slightest idea of what she looked like or how she spoke. The name rings a small bell because it’s so memorable but that’s it.)

Her name was Fudge (don’t ask!) and together we attempted to transcend the language barrier at the little shop that served the hotels. We got our money changed (at about 6% interest) and I managed getting paper all right but it took about ten minutes of creative theater to get the idea of ‘plug-adapter’ across and then the answer was ‘no’ of course. Oh well, it’s not too late to start using a blade, I guess.

Fudge and I decided to see what the beach was like so we walked, stumbled and clambered until we got to a stone road with a five-foot wall that we could look over and see the ocean: thirty feet directly below us, no beach whatsoever. Far out.

We’d missed breakfast and lunch wasn’t until 1:40, some two hours from then, so we went back to the hotel, she to finish unpacking, I to finish the previous day’s somewhat lengthy entry in my diary.

We met again at lunch and someone there told us that there really was a beach somewhere nearby, so we resolved to go exploring that afternoon. She was still talking to someone when I’d finished eating so I told her my room number and went to do more work on the previous day’s entry.

3:00 rolled around and no sign of Fudge, so I went by myself. Bumbled around for about an hour before I found it, about half a mile from the hotel, but it was worth it. Beautiful, beautiful cove, surrounded on three sides by about a hundred feet of cliffs with steps carved right into them. I wanted to go right down but I’d spent too much time finding the place and I had to go back and get dressed for a 6:00 meeting with Maharishi.

When I arrived I found out that fifty or sixty late-comers to the course had just gotten there, which turned our already overcrowded lounge into a good old-fashioned phone booth-stuffing contest. By practically emptying the dining room we managed to secure enough chairs for everyone.

Maharishi arrived and announced that the meeting would be solely for group meditation before dinner, with another meeting afterwards. We began.

Now ordinarily meditation is a very, very easy thing. All you really need is a place where you can sit and be comfortable, preferably quiet but not necessarily. Well, I wasn’t really comfortable because I hadn’t worn a suit and tie in over two years and it takes some getting used to. Also we were, as you can imagine, packed rather closely and the air was getting heavy. Add to this the fact that arrangements for the nursery hadn’t been completed so all the parents brought their kids, and if there is any kid in the world who can sit quietly for more than five minutes he is either paralyzed, asleep or dead, and none of these fell into that category.

Despite all this there is always something special about group meditations in general, and group meditations with Maharishi in particular. Something just clicks, or falls away or something, and there you are! Also the average meditation is about twenty minutes in length – this one went on for forty-five. Whew!

We broke for dinner, which was really good, with brown rice and fresh apples, grapes and pears, salad and, joy of joys, real water! And sugared sweet rolls for dessert. Really mellow.

Back to the lounge. We waited for about an hour and a half, then the announcement came that Maharishi wouldn’t be there that night but would like to see all those staying for ten weeks at 3:00, twenty weeks at noon and thirty or more at 11:00 the next day.

(AUTHOR’S NOTE: Ten weeks was the minimum stay, though participants were encouraged to be on the course for at least five months, which is what I was doing, and some people opted for more. I think that other people began the course during the second or third ten-week period.)

Oh well, to bed then. I walked back with two bottles of water under my arm, just in case.

October 20th, 1971

Hey, no hammering this morning!

Got up, did my asanas – inside this time as it was a little cool – meditated and decided to shop for envelopes and stamps. Went over to the ‘shopping center’ and accomplished my mission with a minimum of pantomime. I was very proud of myself and was pleased to discover that air-mail letters to home only cost twenty-five cents. Also found out that if I’d had my money changed at the hotel instead of the store I would have saved about 4% interest or thereabouts.

As I walked out of the store I noticed that the hairdresser’s shop down the way was playing one of the local radio stations over a loudspeaker, and it turned out because of this that the first music I ever heard in Spain was “What is Life” by George Harrison and “Just Another Day” by Paul McCartney. Straaaaange karma!

After that spiritual uplift I went back and worked on my diary until about quarter to twelve, which was time to go to my meeting with the twenty-week group. Arrived at ten minutes before the appointed hour of noon, only to discover that the “11:00” meeting was just getting underway. They really run a tight ship here, you know? So I sat on the steps outside and talked to Fudge for the next hour and a half, which was how long the first meeting took. At 1:30, ten minutes before lunch, we got in for a short pep talk and some more form-filling. The reasons for the forms were (a) so they could group us by age, country, education and amount of drug history, and (b) to see how many of us had been meditating long enough to rate an advanced meditation technique: eighteen months for the first advanced technique, twelve months between each of the others.

That was it: ten minutes and out.

Had lunch and was walking through the lobby on my way back when, lo and behold, there on the mail table was a box of (Hot damn!) plug-adapters! My throat was saved! Ran all the way to my room and got rid of four days growth in one swell foop.

Fudge had told me that she had gotten hung up unpacking the day before and that’s why she hadn’t showed up. We resolved to try again and go swimming and touristing.

Once again I waited until 3:00 and no Fudge, once again I went by myself. The water was really warm. Once I got in it was almost like a bath. Spent all afternoon taking pictures of that cove and the one next to it. Beautiful colors: golden brown sunlit cliffs against shining turquoise water. Really nice.

Got back about 4:30, opened the door and on the floor was a note from Fudge saying she’d been there but I wasn’t. Typical. Went up and slipped a note under her door, saying I’d pick her up at quarter of seven. Went back to my room, wrote a couple of letters, showered, dressed, meditated and went to pick up Fudge.

Dinner was scheduled for 7:00, so we sat near the entrance and talked until it was ready – at about 7:45.

After dinner the whole group piled into the lounge for another meeting with Maharishi. Tonight’s topic was stress release and what to expect concerning it during long roundings*.

(AUTHOR’S NOTE: “Rounding” refers to a three-part cycle: asanas (what we in the West generally mean when we talk about ‘yoga’), pranayama (another type of yoga that focuses on the breath) and meditation. At the beginning of this course, one ‘round’ consisted of ten minutes of asanas, five minutes of pranayama and twenty minutes of meditation, with multiple rounds performed each day. Soon the meditation time was expanded to an hour.)

Stress, Maharishi said, is the result of overloading of the nervous system. Example: a flashbulb going off in your eyes or perhaps a rush of emotion from witnessing a beautiful sunset. Stress comes from overloading in any way, happy or sad. Some release of stress occurs when we sleep, but sleep is not a deep enough state of relaxation for all of the deep stresses to be released – hence, transcendental meditation, which produces a much deeper state of rest than sleep.

Stress release during ordinary, twice-a-day meditation, he continued, is a very gradual sort of dissolving; hardly noticeable. But long rounding is a bit like blasting. Great amounts of stress are released over a short period of time and things may get a little weird before you ‘come down’ – that is, return to two normal meditations a day.

It was basically a reminder that during periods of heavy ‘unstressing’, as Maharishi refers to it, moods tend to fluctuate rapidly from giddy euphoria to manic depression and everywhere in between. Now you see why they have these courses on an island.

Then he announced that Checking Notes (a step-by-step procedure for checking another person’s meditation practice) would be dictated tomorrow at noon, and that’s it for tonight, folks. Everybody got up to leave but then some guy asked everyone from 18 to 23 years old to hang in for a few minutes. After everyone else had left he introduced himself as Sanford Nidich from some college Psych. Department and handed out another psych quizzy for us to take tomorrow, then again in December and again in February. Wowee.

October 21st, 1971

Got up and did two rounds. Then over to the ‘shopping center’ to purchase a bottle-opener. You see, we are allowed to take as much bottled water back to our hotel as we want but unless you have iron fingers or an opener you’ll go crazy every time you’re thirsty and can only sit and stare at a nice, full, airtight bottle of water.

Had lunch, wrote and mailed a letter of great cunning and diplomacy to the college* of my choice, figuring to get out of a few entrance requirements by the fact that I was in Spain.

*(AUTHOR’S NOTE: The college in question was the University of Massachusetts and frankly, in 1971 the average student could gain admittance by just showing up, pretty much. But I didn’t know that at the time.)

Did my diary work and then suddenly realized that I absolutely nothing left to do for the next four hours until dinner. I considered rounding away the afternoon and was just about to begin when the little elves and dwarves and gnomes started rap-tap-tapping on the pipes again. Far out. Paced around my room for a few minutes, gave up and went to the lobby ‘cause I’d noticed they had some paperbacks for sale. What I hadn’t noticed was that most of them were either detective novels or in German. Of the few that remained I finally settled on a book that must have been a runaway best-seller on the island by title alone: The Ugly American.

While at the hotel desk I heard one girl complaining to another because her letter had been returned for insufficient postage. Seems that fifteen pesetas is just enough to airmail one tissue-thin piece of paper in a similar envelope. This meant I could look forward to seeing all my letters, which had been picked up not ten minutes before, very soon. Swell.

Took my book upstairs and submerged until about five, got dressed, went over to the other hotel and saw an announcement that there wouldn’t be any meetings with Maharishi until the lecture hall was set up with all the recording equipment, video cameras, etc., which would be about four days from today. To top this off, dinner was going to be half an hour late tonight.

Meditated, sat and rapped with Fudge and Joe, another acquaintance from the plane. Joe is really neat. He looks like Mr. Princeton Graduate, circa 1965, but spouts astrology, Zen, Secret Doctrine and astral projection every time he opens his mouth. Really knows his stuff, too.

At dinner it was announced that Checking Notes, which had been cancelled, would be given at 9:00 tonight. Went back to my hotel, got my notebook, went back to the other place and sat while they set up the mics.

Checking Notes are a process developed by Maharishi for mass-producing people who can help people having problems with their meditations, It’s a set of about thirty cross-referenced questions that cover just about any problem a meditator might have. Example:

#19. “Did you notice that thoughts came without effort during meditation?”

If yes: see #20

If no: see #17

So no matter what the problem was originally the meditator gets taken through, around, inside and out of these questions until he comes through at the end of #30. It’s really amazing how many problems are covered this way.

My only complaint is that these thirty questions, complete with notes to the Checker, which makes the whole set about ten pages long, must be copied down by hand while they are dictated to us, and that they must then be memorized, word for word. The reasoning behind that is that the person being checked would think we weren’t taking a personal interest if we just read off the form, and writing them down by hand is a good way to impress them on the memory. Maybe so, but my hands will be arthritic by the time I get out of here at this rate.

October 22nd, 1971

Well, well. The anvil chorus is back with a special 8 AM matinee. Far out. No point in trying to meditate so I got dressed and went over to the other hotel to have breakfast for the first time since I left the States. Fine selection: white bread, dark bread, butter, honey, yogurt and water. Almost as good as prison rations. Yummy.

Ate with the girl I’d met in Kennedy airport and then we meditated in the lounge. It was the first really good meditation I’d had in a while. Just kept going deeper and deeper. Whew!

I went back to my hotel room, did my diary work, did some asanas out on my balcony, meditated in my room (the elves were out to lunch) and sunbathed on the balcony for a while, then had lunch. When I returned the chorus had moved onto my floor and was really knockin’ ‘em dead. Tried to read through it but then they moved right into my room so I left, with the intention of doing some meditations over at the other hotel.

When I arrived, so had the mail. Nothing for me but the letters I’d mailed a while ago, each needing seven more pesetas, bringing the grand total up to about twenty-eight cents American per letter. Sheesh!

Started talking to a girl named Molly whom I’d met at the Amherst course and somehow the conversation got onto The Beatles…

…Two and a half hours later we’d gotten as far as Sgt. Pepper and it was time to get ready for dinner, so the ‘lecture*’ was discontinued until further notice.

*(AUTHOR”S NOTE: Back in my druggy days I had come up with something known to my friends as ‘The Beatles Rap’. I had – like so many others back then - concocted a theory about the overall meaning and intentions of the Beatles records, in my case believing that beginning with Rubber Soul and continuing through Abbey Road the Beatles had been consciously promoting some sort of cosmic evolution into a state of Love and Light. {And actually as it turned out I wasn’t that far wrong, according to later interviews with the individual Beatles.}

The Beatles Rap became something of a local legend in my town. People would come over, get high and sit spellbound for hours as I played the later albums and pointed out the various cosmic correlations in the individual songs and on the album covers. Ah, those Fabulous ‘60’s…)

Got dressed, ate dinner and received the second part of the Checking Notes in another two-hour speed-freak write-a-thon. When we finished I noticed that my index finger had a sort of reversed impression of the word ‘BIC’ on it.

October 23rd, 1971

No early matinee this morning. Got through two and a half rounds before the first performance. Managed for the first time to get into a passable, if painful, full-lotus.

Bought some stamps for my returned letters and sent them on their way again. At this rate my parents won’t even know if I arrived until two weeks after the fact. Reading and diary work, then lunch.

As I entered the building I noticed an addition to our already crowded bulletin board: “Cheap Flights to London, 18£.” They were trying to get people together to charter a plane for over “Christmas Vacation,” that is, the time between the first and second courses.

Wow! What an inspiration: I could write to George Harrison, care of Apple, tell him that I was writing a book about, say, the effects of the Beatles’ music on religion or something like that, and ask him for an interview. Then I could fly to London and really check this thing out once and for all*! Hot damn!

*(AUTHOR’S NOTE: Remember ‘The Beatles Rap’? I believe that’s what I thought I was going to “check out.”)

I wandered around the dining room like a sleepwalker, I was just so buzzed out by even coming up with an idea as scatterbrained as that. It was right out of a TV sitcom. It took me about an hour to come down to the realization that even if he was in the country there was small chance of him having free time that he’d want to spend being interviewed. Oh well, it wouldn’t hurt to write. Maybe we could do the interview by correspondence. I decided to let the whole thing simmer till the next day, just to make sure I’d gotten all the adrenalin out of the idea.

By this time I’d wandered back to my room. I started to round but the workmen came back from lunch, so forget that. I started to read but then they moved back into my room so I gave that up too.

There was a little Spanish fellow, about forty or so, who had come into my room to sweep up the debris that knocking holes in the walls for heating vents had left. He worked quietly for a little while, then he walked over to me, reached into the breast pocket of his overalls and pulled out a picture of Maharishi. Smiling proudly, he pointed to the picture and then himself several times. He was a meditator too! (Sheesh! Is no one to be spared? Everyone’s getting into the act!) He also managed to convey, by putting the picture down on the bedside table and lifting it by its right edge, like turning a page, the idea that he’d read Maharishi’s book, The Science of Being and Art of Living, which is more than I’ve done.

After exchanging a few ‘Bueno’s with me he finished up and left. Five minutes later someone else was at the door, wanting to check the plumbing or something. I gave up and went to the other hotel. Meditated in the lounge, went back to my room, changed into my ‘evening clothes’ and returned. Continued my Beatles lecture with Molly right through dinner. She too thought my London interview idea a bit unlikely but still possible.

Finally the last day of the Writer’s Cramp Convention, aka dictation of Checking Notes. Wrote for two and a half hours non-stop. Have you ever reached the point where someone pulls the pen out of your hand and your fingers stay in the same position?

October 24th, 1971

You’d think these people would at least take Sunday off, but no such luck. Pound! Pound! Pound! I’m going out of my mind!

About the only other place to meditate, as I mentioned before, is the lounge across from the dining room in The Samoa. Today, however, the people in the dining room seemed to have started a full-scale war with only silverware for ammunition. Whack! Clang!

I couldn’t see but it sure sounded like one side had also introduced sonic warfare in the form of a machine which had as its sole function the ability to make sounds similar to those achieved by dragging fingernails down a blackboard, only amplified to the Nth degree. Sort of made my fillings ache. So no meditation this morning.

With my day off to this fine start I could think of nothing else to do but sit in the lobby of my hotel looking hostile for an hour and doing diary work. When I went up to my room to pick up my diary there was the little Spanish guy, standing at what looked like attention, looking up at the picture of George Harrison I’d brought along for inspiration and hung on the wall. He seemed to know who George was. He pointed at the picture then pointed, nodding and smiling, at the pocket where he kept his picture of Maharishi, and said, “Bueno!”

Got my diary and wrote in the lobby for a while, went to lunch and decided to write my letter to George Harrison at Apple Records. I really wish I’d had a typewriter to make it look more official but I did the best I could with phrasing and big words and sent it off.

Then I suddenly noticed how quiet it was. 3:00 in the afternoon and quiet! What happened? Are they dead, or what? At any rate they were gone and stayed that way for the rest of the day. I got three entire rounds in before dinner.

I had an experience during these rounds that was entirely different from anything that had ever happened to me during meditation before. I was just meditating normally, repeating my mantra, sinking a little deeper, having thoughts, coming up a little, going back to the mantra, etc., when I suddenly just started going deeper and deeper, faster and faster, and finally seemed to sink, almost fall, into a field of warmth and energy that enveloped me (When I say me I mean my consciousness, my mind or whatever.) and penetrated me until the “I” was almost lost in blending with this sensation.

It was a little bit like digging a hole, stopping to pry rocks out of the way, getting further down a little at a time, then striking soft earth with no rocks and digging deeper and deeper until the ground suddenly gives way and you find yourself immersed in a subterranean lake of warm water. That’s about the closest I can come. This sensation only seemed to last about ten seconds, but whew!

A 9:00 meeting with Maharishi was announced at dinner. The meeting was in the lecture hall of the Hotel America. An improvement over the lounge but still crowded and overheated. This also, however, is not the final place. Wherever that might be is anyone’s guess at this point.

With the punctuality S.I.M.S.* is known for our 9:00 meeting got underway promptly at 10:15.

*(AUTHOR’S NOTE: The Students International Meditation Society was at that time the umbrella group for the Transcendental Meditation organization, and the organizer of this course.)

Maharishi did a little pep talk on the importance of memorizing the Checking Notes and then we got down to some good old-fashioned hassling about the noise in The Eugenia, the lack of hot water somewhere else and all sorts of things that should be brought to someone else. He’s a teacher, not a hotel clerk, for God’s sake. But he took it all in stride and said that announcements about moving would be made tomorrow at lunch.

Then he said that the schedule for this month would be: rounding from whenever we got up until lunch, rest and Checking Notes work until three then rounding until dinner, followed by the evening meeting. Also we were supposed to make up groups of six to meet in the afternoons for discussing material covered in Maharishi’s lectures, just as we did at Amherst.

I went to bed resolving to get up at 6:00 and beat the workmen at their own game.

October 25th, 1971

8:00 AM. I’ve almost gotten used to waking up to the sound of hammering. Went over to The Samoa for rations (breakfast being an inappropriate title), meditated there once and memorized the first eight points of the Checking Notes.

After lunch a meeting was called in the lobby of my hotel to inform us that the hotel was closing down for a week or two to put heating in and we all had to move out for the duration. The buses would be here any minute, we were told, so be packed and ready in the next five.

Picture two hundred people cramming into the elevators or flying up the stairs in what looked like a movie hotel-fire sequence in reverse. Then shoving everything into suitcases in a manner that gave each article of clothing permapress wrinkles with a five-year guarantee, dragging the suitcases down five flights of stairs, rushing out the door to the front steps, praying that they’re not too late…

…And then sitting there for three and a half hours while the management was in the back room, flipping coins to decide how many of us would go to some other hotel and how many would just be issued surplus tents from the Spanish-American War.

Around 6:00 we were split into three groups and taken to either The America, The Carinia or, in my case, Alexius Apartments – quickly re-dubbed Apoplexy Apartments when the rumors of leaky gas piping got around.

It was almost dinnertime so as soon as I was registered I dashed to my room, tore open my suitcase, threw on about the only shirt and jacket that were still in a condition to be worn to functions other that a Prune & Raisin Festival, ran out again and managed to flag down the bus that had brought us there, thus avoiding a ten or fifteen minute walk. And this is the course that’s supposed to make us tranquil and peaceful? Nirvana through exhaustion was not quite what I’d had in mind.

After dinner and the evening meeting, both of which had started (gasp!) early, I stumbled back to my room, tired but assured of a quiet place to round on the morrow, got undressed, pulled back the covers and…

…No sheets. No blankets. No pillowcase. Oh, fuck it! Got in, pulled the bed-cover over me and slept.

October 26th, 1971

After a somewhat shivery night I awoke at 7:30 to blissful silence for the first time in about six days and did five or six non-stop rounds until lunch. Well, almost non-stop: some idiot upstairs decided that 9:00 in the morning was the perfect time to find out how moving had affected his Jimi Hendrix tape. Also at one point I came out of meditation and started seeing moving patterns on the wall. I guess I was releasing stress accumulated on one of my acid trips. Sure felt like it, anyway.

After a somewhat buzzed-out lunch I did diary and Checking Notes for an hour (We’re not supposed to round right after eating) and then rounded until dinner. Everyone’s beginning to look a little spacey and several experiences of hallucinations and hearing things were brought up at the evening lecture, which were a lot of fun to listen to. It was like swapping anecdotes of acid trips.

When I got back to my room I discovered that even though I’d complained to the management, still no sheets, blankets or pillowcase. Borrowed a blanket from a friend down the hall – at 11 PM it ain’t easy.

October 27th, 1971

For the first time since my arrival the only event worth noting is that there is no event worth noting, really. Got up at 8:00, rounded with no unusual occurrences, had lunch, did diary and Checking Notes, rounded, had dinner, went to the evening lecture.

There was some news at the lecture: we would be going through all the hassle of moving back to The Eugenia in three-to-four days. Lectures would soon be moved there too. Also, next week when we’ve all (Ha! Ha!) learned the Checking Notes, we begin to learn the Puja, which is the ceremony by which a person is initiated into meditation. It’s kind of a pretty tune, but all the words are in Sanskrit. Should be a trip.

It was after I got back to my room that the big event of the day occurred: I finally got the pilot lit in the gas heater, signifying that I would henceforth have hot water. And it only took me three days!

October 28th, 1971

Was about half-way through meditation this morning when one of the maids came barging in on me, asking me all sorts of questions, all of which were completely unintelligible, being in Spanish. She then started tearing around the room – dusting, sweeping, changing the bed (sheets at last!) and talking so fast that I couldn’t even get out a “No comprendez.” I could see that no one in his right mind would mess with this lady’s karma so I went out to breakfast and she was gone when I returned.

Then I remembered that I now had hot water and could be clean again for the first time in three days. I turned up the gas then turned on the shower, which, after belching a few times, finally came out with… Well, it was more than a drizzle and less that a gush; sort of a drool, actually. But it was warm and I managed to get clean. Stepped out of the shower, reached over to the rack and…

…No towels. Sloshed back into my bedroom and dried myself with a shirt.

I did asanas for a few minutes to warm up and then sat down to meditate. After about ten minutes I was just beginning to sink into a blissful state when… Bang! In comes the maid, and what did she bring? You guessed it: towels!

The rest of the morning was a little bit off after that, but I bumbled through and then went over to The Samoa, where some more advanced asanas were being demonstrated. Had lunch then grunted, twisted and perspired my way through the afternoon. Asanas are very easy and painless once the body gets an idea of what’s expected of it but I’m going to be sore for the next few days, I can see.

Got dressed for dinner and went into the bathroom to comb my hair. It was getting dark outside so I flipped the light switch…

Nothing.

Oh, well. Walked over to The Samoa, which, as I wrote earlier, is about a ten-minute walk so it was pretty dark by the time I arrived. As I walked up to the building I looked up and wondered why no one in the hotel had turned on any room lights yet. It wasn’t until I got inside and saw everyone walking around with candles that I understood. The power failure was all over the island, I was told. Well, that was funky – and only three days before Halloween, too. Neat.

I had a fifteen-minute conversation with someone. She didn’t have a candle and neither did I, so neither of us will ever know whom the other was. Went over to The America and had a beautifully serene candlelight dinner with Jane, the girl I’d met at the airport in New York.

Precisely at 8:30 –evening lecture time – the lights returned. A few jokes were cracked about Maharishi having stuck his finger in the socket as we all went in to the lecture hall.

One of the main things which goes on at lectures here is discussion of experiences. In meditation the deep state of rest causes the release of stress in the body or mind, which causes activity in the form of thoughts. Just like dreams in sleep (which are also the result of stress-release) the person meditating has no real control over the thoughts that bubble to the surface of his mind. And, like dreams, some of these thoughts can be pretty weird.

The difference with meditation is that the person experiencing these thoughts is wide awake and can remember the experience in vivid detail. Also like dreams is the fact that if the stress being released is of sufficient quality or quantity (which generally only happens during long rounding) a thought can seem very real to the person until he “wakes up” or the stress has been completely released.

These experiences are what Maharishi - and all of us – really get a charge out of. It’s gotten to the point where we applaud when anyone comes up with a truly absurd fantasy. For example, one person “dreamed” that he was sitting in the middle of a giant flower with crystal petals, and on each petal (he said that for some reason he could see the petals behind him as well) was being shown a sort of movie of some segment of his life, with each petal showing a different period.

That one practically got a standing ovation. Someone else thought there were elves in the room meditating with her.

All of this has no real significance as far as progress in meditation; it’s just kind of a light way to start the evening meeting before getting on to heavier things.

October 29th, 1971

About the only accomplishment of this morning’s rounding was pulling a leg muscle trying to do a full-lotus. After all the discussion of experiences that went on last night I was hoping for something a bit more flashy. All that dope I used to do has got to come out somewhere.

Maharishi said last night that if we hadn’t broken up into groups of six we ought to, so after lunch I joined one. The groups are for discussion of the lectures, like at Amherst, but with one addition: we have to sit around trying not to yawn as each group member stumbles and bumbles his way through the Checking Notes. Because of this I have to take time out of my rounding to write my daily entry. What a drag.

At the evening lecture Maharishi announced his plans for getting TM into the governments of the world. He said there would be much publicity over all the media for the six or eight months, although he didn’t quite explain how he planned to arrange this or even what kind of publicity. Also, he said, he would be conducting a special January-to-June course and those taking it would be trained to present TM to the governments after public demand for it has been raised via the publicity. Ve vill rule ze vorld!

On a more mundane level he also announced that all of us in Apoplexy Apartments would be moving within two or three days. Oh well, anything to keep from living out of a suitcase for the next five months.

October 30th, 1971

I was so stiff that I could hardly get out of bed this morning. I don’t think I’m quite ready for the next set of asanas. I resolved to alternate work on Checking Notes with meditation in rounding today and go back to the first asanas plus lotus exercises tomorrow. In this way my mind got its first tenuous grasp of the whole of the Notes today. I’ll lose it all again by tomorrow, of course, but it’s a start.

At lunch we were issued some very soft blankets to use in addition to our bed blankets for asanas on the floor. Really comfortable and I don’t rack up my spine doing neck-stands and sit-ups. Thank you, Maharishi.

The evening was somewhat stressful but in the end rewarding. There is always a competition for seating in the lecture hall because sitting up close to Maharishi is always an experience. The first five rows are reserved for those who have already become Initiators and are here for the second time, so there are really only two or three rows left that are close enough to be worth fighting for.

The practice lately has been to sneak in before dinner and put a book or jacket on the chair the person wants reserved. I have always saved two seats when possible, on the grounds that it’s really status to be able to walk up to someone after dinner and say, “Come on, I’ve saved you a seat.” So you can imagine how chagrined I was to discover that due to an earlier open (to the public) meeting, the ten rows behind the Initiators had been cleared so the newcomers could have a good view.

Of course I didn’t find this out until I’d escorted my ‘date’ up to the row where my place-markers had been. On top of that nobody seemed to know what had happened to my notebook and glasses, said items having been used as the place-markers. I stormed around for a while trying to find out who had been responsible for clearing the seats, but with no luck, so I gave up and settled for finding a couple of seats in the back for myself and my companion.

The rewarding part of the evening was Jody Straub, my ‘date’. I don’t remember when I first noticed her but it wasn’t too long after I arrived, maybe three days. She’s very attractive: short and pixie-faced, with long blonde-brown hair and large, deep-brown eyes. So attractive in fact that I had crossed her off my list, so to speak, as being out of my range because I always get nervous when I talk to really beautiful girls for some reason, and it becomes hard to relax and get to know them as people instead of artwork.

Jody was no exception but she came up to me about three nights ago and started talking about astrology or something (Everybody’s into astrology here.) and just the fact that she had taken the initiative gave me enough self-confidence to hold up my end of the conversation. One thing led to another and we’ve been eating dinner together and going to lectures together for the last two days or so.

Our relationship was and still really is kind of superficial, just talking about general topics and not getting into each other’s heads too much – until last night when we got into talking about our problems with relating to people, and were honest with each other. This was sort of the first breaking of the ice, although I didn’t notice at the time, and I began to feel less panicky around her after that.

Anyway, at the lecture hall we sat in the back talking for a while until it was about time for Maharishi to come in, then she went up to give him flower as he entered. She came back and sat down and, while Maharishi was getting settled, reached her hand over to give me a blossom that had fallen off her flower. I told her she could keep the blossom if I could keep the hand – and she agreed.

I felt a small thrill of triumph as she knitted her small, soft fingers through mine, but after Maharishi had been talking for about ten minutes she said she didn’t feel very good and was going to her room to sleep. I’d heard that one often enough to know I’d blown it somewhere. Oh, well. I helped her pick her way through the crowded lecture hall and waited for the elevator with her, cursing my stupidity without even knowing what I’d done.

Naturally I was somewhat surprised when she put her arms around me, kissed me lightly but warmly and said, “You’re very sweet.” Surprised? Hell, I was so astounded that it was all I could do to cooperate.

After that the only thing I could think of to say was, “Thank you.” I returned the kiss and held her for a minute, then helped her into the elevator and pressed my face against the semi-opaque glass in the door to make her laugh as she went up.

I didn’t even attempt to go back into the lecture until it was over. I just wandered around thinking about the evening’s events for a while then after the lecture hall had emptied I went in and found my glasses and notebook and sort of headed in the general direction of my room.

(AUTHOR’S NOTE: At this point I think it would be wise to apologize on behalf of my younger self for what follows from here on out.

Although I was twenty years old at the time of this journal, when it came to love and romance my level of emotional maturity was still very much that of an average fourteen-year-old: very insecure, with a tendency to completely exaggerate (and generally misinterpret) the meaning of every look, word and gesture from my intended, and generally tie myself in knots over things that were trivial or even non-existent.

Add to that the general craziness of rounding and, well, you get the idea.

The Jody story continues, with a great many ups and downs, for the remainder of this journal. Read on at your own risk – you have been warned.)

October 31st, 1971

Halloween has been pretty much of a bring-down.

The day wasn’t too bad, though. I got up at 8:30, stood in the bathtub and let the shower perspire on me for a while, got dried and dressed, sat down in the chair that I meditate in, and suddenly had a very clear realization: that I didn’t believe in meditation, I didn’t believe in Maharishi, and I was wasting my time here.

It was really kind of a neat rush, but I remembered that a person doing long roundings always goes through weird moods and that Maharishi had said to stick to the rounding program no matter what. So chuckling to myself for my foolishness in coming here, I closed my eyes and proceeded to have the deepest, clearest meditation I’ve had in about two months. And the rest of my meditations today were almost as good. You never can tell.

The evening, however, was the worst so far. A total loss. I’d been waiting to see Jody all day with more than a little anticipation of cementing yesterday’s events to today’s and making a really solid foundation. To this end I had constructed a rather crudely executed Halloween card with notebook paper and red magic marker. On the front was a badly-drawn pumpkin and on the inside I had written, “May the Great Pumpkin shed seeds of wisdom into the depths of your soul’s trick-or-treat bag.” Not what you’d call profound, exactly but appropriate enough.

She came into dinner about forty-five minutes earlier than usual (I flattered myself that is was because of me) and walked over to me. I said, cleverly, “You’re early.” She nodded and smiled and put her finger to her lips as if to say, “Shhh.”

Oh, fine! This meant that she was ‘keeping silence,’ i.e. not talking. A lot of people here are ‘keeping silence’ for a day or two and a few are going for a couple of weeks. Everybody says it’s good; nobody seems to know why. You can communicate by nodding, pantomiming and, in ‘emergencies’, writing. Any conversation with Jody therefore tended to be a wee bit one-sided.

I nodded to show that I understood and handed her the card. She read it, smiled, and kissed me. On the cheek. I shyly put my hand on her head to ruffle her hair and she immediately pulled away from me. Swell – what did I do now? She opened her notebook, wrote in it and showed it to me: “I have lice.”

Oh. Maybe I have a suspicious nature but her hair looked a lot cleaner than mine and I don’t have lice. But that might not mean anything. Okay, no talking and little physical contact – should be a great evening. We sat down and ate and after about ten minutes she communicated that she was leaving me to sit in the lecture hall and work on her checking notes. By this time I had the distinct feeling that something was amiss but said nothing and continued eating.

When I sat down next to her in the lecture hall (This I figured to be my right; after all I had saved the seats) she looked up, smiled and went back to her notes. For the next two hours (It was announced that Maharishi would be late and a tape of an earlier lecture as played) I tried every trick in the book to open up some channel of communication, with no luck. Every time I built a bridge she seemed to put a roadblock on it.

Finally it was announced that Maharishi wouldn’t be making it at all (I guess he was out trick-or-treating or something) and we all left. Jody fell behind me as we were going out the door to the hall and when I turned around to see where she’d gone I saw her kissing some other fellow on the cheek. I quickly turned back again so she wouldn’t know I’d been watching and waited for her by the elevator.

I guess she expected me to try some repetition of last night because she stood very close with her face turned up to me. Without moving I said, evenly, “Good night, Jody,” then, patting her head, “Good night, lice.”

I then turned and stalked out into the darkness, not noticing the heavy rain until I was halfway back to my hotel.

November 1st, 1971

This is the first time I’ve gone to sleep angry and woken up still angry. I’m either releasing or accumulating a lot of stress over this. All day long I could hardly meditate because every time I would sink into it a little bit a whole string of angry thoughts would bubble up about what I would say, what I should have said and the like. But you can’t meditate seven or eight times in one day without getting fairly calmed down – to the point of apathy, practically – and I went to dinner resolving to follow Maharishi’s advice concerning just about anything: “Take it as it comes.”

With this in mind I went in and sat down with some friends instead of waiting for Jody as I had been doing. When she came in she came right over, normal as anything, gave me a squeeze on the arm and started to sit down. With a certain amount of malicious pleasure I told her that the seat was taken (which it was). It didn’t faze her in the least, as I had expected, and she went to sit at a table with three other boys. Typical.

By then my entire plan for the evening had been formed: I would go through all the same motions, being polite and ‘affectionate’ but with complete detachment. I was no longer going to be affected by the rules of this chick’s game.

It was a good idea but it didn’t quite make it. That’s what I get for trying to beat a pro at her own game. For a while it was all right; I was being closely attentive and completely ignoring her simultaneously and she knew it. It was somewhat analogous to the babysitter who is taking care of the wants and needs of her charge, but whose interest is almost completely focused on the TV.

It was easy to listen as we had some jim-dandy experiences related that night. One fellow ‘dreamed’ while meditating that Jesus had appeared before him and told him to pick up his cross and follow Him into deeper states of consciousness – but he knew that to go any deeper he would have to stop breathing. His hands, which had somehow raised themselves into prayer position, then began to close his throat and nose. At this point his mantra returned and he realized that he was ‘dreaming’.

Maharishi’s only comment was, “So the mantra was really your savior, eh?” which cracked everybody up.

But to get back to Jody: I don’t know how she did it, because she was still in silence, but I found myself playing by her rules before the night was out. Must be those big brown eyes. This time however I retained enough of my objectivity to know what was happening and I could see that she was just playing for the sake of the game, to see if I could be kept dangling at the end of her string, not because of any real interest in me.

I considered this calmly on the way back to my hotel. Having given up by now any hope of an honest, loving relationship, the only thing to do was to get into it on her level, i.e. the game, just for fun, and to see if I could give her a little taste of her own medicine. However, being as much a novice in this as she was expert the only strategy open was to catch her by surprise.

By the time I was in bed and asleep I had my plan.

November 2nd, 1971

Today has been one of the better days, all in all.

I woke up feeling pretty cheerful ‘cause I’d finally straightened my head out about Jody then had, for the most part, very clear meditations all day. Two phenomena of interest occurred during these meditations:

The first is so common with me that I hardly notice it anymore, but today’s experience continued so much longer than usual and the actual subject of the experience was so different that I thought it worth mentioning. The phenomenon I refer to is what I call ‘musical unstressing’. Instead of thoughts bubbling up during meditation I sometimes have snatches of or even the entireties of songs and music going through my head.

Generally it’s recorded material by people like Donovan or James Taylor and of course Beatles by the hour, all of them usually in good stereo if that was the way I heard them originally. But once in a while my memory gets downright fiendish and dredges up things just to blow my mind. For example, at Amherst for two days I couldn’t meditate without hearing the theme music from the Captain Kangaroo show. Who needs it?

Today however my memory did its first feature-length production and played me the entirety of Amahl and the Night Visitors, Gian-Carlo Menotti’s beautiful Christmas opera which was televised every holiday season when I was growing up. Once in a while just for kicks it would throw in the picture to go with the sound, but the music! I’d never heard it so clearly before and the majesty and the poignancy of it was just ripping at my heart.

I was almost in tears when it was over and I couldn’t figure out what had brought it all on for several minutes. Then I remembered something Maharishi had said concerning stress accumulation and release: stress can be accumulated by pleasant means as well as unpleasant. A flashbulb shot off in our eyes can cause stress but so can, for example, witnessing a beautiful sunset, which could cause “stress in the heart” from the intensity of emotion evoked by the sight. When you unstress the flashbulb stress your eyes might twitch or it could be a more gradual dissolving. Unstressing the sunset, however, if it was a quick release might cause a short but intense wave of the same emotion that caused the stress, and perhaps a flash of gold and red light, for instance, would pass before your closed eyes.

Perhaps my heart has been stressed, as if from watching a sunset, by the emotions that stirred me from the effects of all the music I’ve listened to, and that’s why it keeps happening. I think I’ll bring it up at one of the evening meetings.

The second phenomenon is a fairly common occurrence for people doing long roundings, but which I had never experienced before. It’s just the body jerking suddenly as a large block of physical stress is released.

My meditation had been getting kind of foggy, which is usually a sign of a large stress being dissolved, but slowly. So I lay down on my bed to be as relaxed as possible while the stress was cleared out. That’s when it happened: just one quick death-rattle and it was over.

My head wasn’t quite clear yet so I decided to just lie there a minute or two to get it completely out. This was at quarter to five. I remember thinking a lot of unconnected thoughts and then, figuring three or four minutes to be enough, I got up.

It was dark out. I looked at my watch: ten after six. Whew!

I was dressed and combed and out the door before I noticed how strange I felt. I was feeling completely clear-headed and downright giddy for the first time since I don’t know when. I felt like skipping all the way to dinner. It was what Maharishi calls “euphoria unstressing”. Apt title.

I lost it quickly however when I got to dinner. An important phase of the plan I’d come up with called for one more night of game-playing from Jody, but she seemed to have lost all interest in the proceedings. She didn’t even sit next to me at the lecture as she’d been doing for the last four or five nights. Curses! Outmaneuvered.

I sat there fuming for a while but I gradually realized that revenge wasn’t al that important. Besides, the opportunity might yet arise. I cheered up and for some reason began to feel creative. My whole situation with Jody, including my frustrated plan for revenge, seemed to be the perfect basis for song lyrics somewhat similar to “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes” by Crosby, Stills & Nash. If the plan doesn’t get sprung soon I’ll either write it out or maybe the lyrics if I get a chance to finish them. All I’ve got now is a few tentative lines and the title: “Rainbow Girl (I Could Have Loved You)”.

(AUTHOR”S NOTE: Yes, I did finish these lyrics and yes, I still have them and yes, they’re every bit as trite, awkward and filled with horrible adolescent cliches as the title suggests. And yes, I am without shame and will insert them at the appropriate place in the timeline. Something to look forward to.)

Maharishi came in about half an hour late. We went through the usual experience-and-explanation routine for about an hour. Then at about 10:00 he suddenly said something that I heard as, “Tonight we walk on the moon, yes?”

His Indian accent fooled me; what I thought he’d meant was that the U.S. had landed on the moon again. We’re sort of cut off from the news here unless we read Spanish, and he might just announce something like that to remind us that the outside world was still there. But what he had actually said was, “Tonight we walk under moon, yes?”

What a mind-blower! I’ve never seen him do more walking than was required for getting to the lecture platform from the car and vice-versa, and suddenly he just gets up and walks out of the hall and onto the road in the light of the full moon, accompanied only by a lantern, five bouncers for protection and over eight hundred astounded meditators. I guess the people who’ve been here before weren’t surprised because he supposedly does this every night of the full moon on Majorca, but the rest of us were positively gaping, and I overheard one of the hotel people say to another, “Is he going out in just that nightie?”

What a picture it made, though: around seven hundred and fifty people walking around and behind this tiny, fragile-looking old man and the other fifty or so of us running ahead and stopping to look back on the whole scene.

We followed the road curving down from and around the plateau that the hotels are built on until we reached a large open area that looked out upon the full moon over the sea. We stood silently together for about five minutes - I could have touched Maharishi from where I was standing. We just stood there, eyes glowing, listening to the ocean whispering. The only thing I needed that would have made it perfect was some one person to share it with. I was conscious of a great loneliness then, but the ache seemed almost appropriate for the setting and I didn’t mind it.

Then quietly, joyfully, we drifted, one by one or in couples towards our hotels.

November 3rd, 1971

Things remained fairly uninteresting today until dinnertime. While waiting for the dining hall doors to open a girl dressed in an outfit that could only be described as Early Suzy Creamcheese* sat down next to me and began complaining that (a) her room was so cold that she couldn’t get out of bed to do asanas so she was just meditating for two or three hours at a time, and that (b) the guy at the desk only laughed when she complained and was a lecher as well.

*(AUTHOR’S NOTE: ‘Suzy Creamcheese’ was a fictitious character – though based on a real person – created by Frank Zappa. She made occasional appearances on the early Mothers of Invention albums. On their first album there’s a “letter” from Suzy Creamcheese on the back cover, and her character gives the impression of being extremely dorky and unhip. So I’m guessing that this woman was dressed in an extremely conservative manner.)

I was in a passably good mood so I endeavored to cheer her up. She turned out to be the only genuine Firesign Theatre freak I’ve found on the whole island so far. This could have been the basis of a good friendship but then the talk turned to music and it seems she was not only a Rolling Stones freak (a great rarity among mediators for obvious reasons*) but actually disliked The Beatles and thought that their music, including Harrison’s All Things Must Pass, was bland.

*(AUTHOR”S NOTE: At this point in time The Rolling Stones were often perceived as dark and even satanic by large portions of the hippie subculture, thanks to songs like “Sympathy for the Devil” and because of the murder that took place during their performance at the 1969 Altamont Speedway Free Festival. So among many meditators the music of the Stones was considered a negative influence and not conducive to spiritual evolution.)

She even went so far as to say that any high school kid could match RIngo’s drumming capabilities. Talk about being ignorant to three decimal places! She was equating simplicity with lack of artistic talent, not to mention the fact that Ringo’s drumming on certain songs would have give Gene Krupa a rough time. But never mind the musical dissertations; suffice it to say that ours was not a lengthy relationship.

The only other event of interest was the sudden appearance of ice cream in the dining hall. My god! Ice Cream! It was the first real dessert I’d seen since I arrived. Two hundred people fell all over each other trying to get some – and after all that effort it was disappointing to discover that what looked like chocolate had only a vague, unsweetened banana flavor.

Oh yes: tomorrow we have lectures at The Eugenia. Maharishi says that the pillars there are thinner and therefore easier to see around.

November 4th, 1971

It’s definitely been a rollercoaster of a day. Somewhere in the middle of my second afternoon round I fell asleep and didn’t wake up until sometime after 5:00. This was good – it clears out a lot of stress and freshens you up. Did a couple of rounds more, got cleaned up and went over to The Eugenia to see if I could get in to reserve a couple of seats.

When I arrived the place was almost completely dark and locked tight. Hmm… At dinner it was announced that someone hadn’t shown up with the key to the place and consequently there would be no lecture.

Everyone freaked. A night off! What are we going to do? This was a chance we might not have again for months. The dining hall emptied as if someone had yelled “Fire!”

I remained where I was, having somehow gotten into conversation with the Rolling Stones freak again. We agreed to disagree as far as Beatles and Stones and let it go at that. We got along quite amiably in discussing other artists, and the fact that we were both from the Boston area didn’t hurt. It seemed strange, sitting in a hotel dining room in Spain, talking about WBCN and Boston Gardens.

After a while she went up to her room to get some money to buy some ice cream at the bar. While I was waiting I go to talking with a German fellow and heard the S.I.M.S. Bummer Rumor of the Week. (S.I.M.S. is known for its huge and completely unreliable grapevine.) This was a two-part special: (1) Satyyanand, one of Maharishi’s disciples, has been meditating for thirty years and still hasn’t reached Cosmic Consciousness (the point where the fourth state of consciousness experienced in meditation, pure being, becomes constant in and out of meditation, co-existing simultaneously with the other three states of sleeping, dreaming and wakefulness). Considering that ten-to-twelve years is thought to be the outside limit, with five-to-eight much more likely*, this was not exactly encouraging. (2) Maharishi himself only achieved Cosmic Consciousness about fifteen years ago and Unity Consciousness (experiencing all things, including the self, as pure consciousness) about five years ago.

*(AUTHOR’S NOTE: Those were the expected timelines given by Maharishi - I believe it was during the Amherst course. At the time I don’t think he’d fully realized what a stressed-out bunch we Westerners are.)

Swell. Even knowing S.I.M.S. rumors for what they are it’s a little depressing to hear that it might take a lifetime or two to get anything accomplished.

Debby (I think that’s her name) came back down and we went over to The Samoa to get her ice cream. When we arrived the joint, to coin a phrase, was jumping. Everyone had changed their suits and ties or maxi-dresses for jeans and sweaters. It looked like the first party of Christmas vacation. Everybody was talking in little clusters or playing guitars and singing, and there were two cassette players going, and loud.

Debby got lost in the crowd somewhere but I didn’t care: one of the cassettes was Rubber Soul. I went over, sat down and didn’t move for two hours while Rubber Soul was exchanged for Sgt. Pepper and that in turn for Abbey Road. Talk about soul food. I needed that.

I walked back to my hotel with the Initiator I’d met at Kennedy Airport – the one with the handlebar moustache. I told him the S.I.M.S. Bummer Rumor of the Week and added one I’d heard a day or two ago: a fellow had been pointed out to me at the lecture and I was told that he had gone into Cosmic Consciousness three months after being initiated, which would be pretty neat. I’d never seen anyone besides Maharishi and Jerry Jarvis (The head of S.I.M.S.) who was supposed to have made it.

The trouble is, people who reach C.C. don’t go shouting it from the rooftops and unless you’re rather highly evolved yourself there’s no way you can tell by looking at them. That shining quality of Maharishi’s only comes with Unity, as I understand it, and the Movement hasn’t been going long enough for many people to have reach that stage.

Walter (the Initiator) said that he didn’t know anything about the Maharishi-Satyyanand rumors but the case of reaching C.C. in three months he knew to be fact because he knows the man. That’s encouraging, to say the least.

November 5th, 1971

Everything’s completely out of whack today. It started last night when I couldn’t sleep because of the long nap I’d had yesterday. I tossed and turned for about three hours then got up and meditated for about fifteen minutes and went back to bed. I must have fallen asleep, and it was 8:30 when I got up.

My first round was all right but during the second I suddenly got fed up with the fact that it takes me half an hour to loosen up my legs to where I can get them into anything resembling a full lotus, and then fifteen minutes later they’re as bad as they were before. I said screw the asanas and for the rest of the day alternated work on the “Rainbow Girl” lyrics with my meditations. This seemed to work well and I decided to skip lunch and just take an hour to rest and write instead. In doing this I discovered four things:

The man upstairs plays guitar and sings during lunch hour.

He has a set of voice training exercises.

After he does the exercises he plays and sings for half an hour.

The exercises haven’t helped him any.

Did meditation and lyric work until 6:30 and went to dinner. No one had found the key or whatever it was we needed for The Eugenia so the lecture was held in the same old place.

Pulled a couple of possibly very good strategic moves on Jody, both more or less accidental. I just happened to be in the area when she was looking for a seat, all of which had been taken or reserved back to the twelfth row. I indicated that I had an extra seat next to me in the seventh, waited for her to sit down and then left instead of playing the clown for her as usual. When I sat down again, an hour later, I did just that: sat down and nothing more. Someone was playing a tape of All Things Must Pass so I had no trouble staying ‘aloof’. This was one thing she couldn’t take (Why do I play these stupid games?), as I had expected, and she became a lot more solicitous.

The second move was completely accidental. The notebook I’ve been writing the lyrics in is the same I use for taking lecture notes, and I was just glancing at the lyrics for the first part of the “Rainbow Girl” suite, which I had almost completed. She playfully grabbed my notebook away and noticing what was there began to read. The first part has nothing to do with Jody except symbolically so there was no way she could have known it was about her. It therefore had no immediate effect but when it’s completed it will be obvious who it’s about and now I have a conversational wedge with which to present it to her, e.g. “Want to see how that poem came out?” If she has any feelings for me at all, this will prove it.

We heard the tape of last summer’s Maharishi/Buckminster Fuller press conference before the evening lecture and it was amazing how much there was in common in the ideas and philosophies of these two men who came from such entirely diverse backgrounds.

The big event of the evening was filling out some more little forms. It seems they might be getting ready to move us finally, as soon as the man with the key gets back from Palma, where he’s vacationing until Monday.

November 6th, 1971

We had our first ‘tropical’ storm this afternoon. The thunder was really shivering our timbers and was a little difficult to meditate through. Otherwise fairly uneventful until the evening lecture.

Naturally any movement or organization involving anything spiritual is going to attract its share of kooks. S.I.M.S. is no exception and they really started coming out of the woodwork tonight. When Maharishi asked for experiences this one fellow with the kind of face that seemed to indicated that he spent his spare time watching Romper Room* stepped up to the mike and told us how sees whole buildings disappear into clouds of mist, not just when he’s taking rounding courses but all the time. (Maybe he lives in Los Angeles.) Now, I believe that anything can happen during heavy rounding; hallucinations are common. But all the time?

*(AUTHOR’S NOTE: Romper Room was a television show for pre-schoolers.)

Among the ‘normal’ experiences there were people who looked into their mirrors and saw other faces where theirs should have been. But the #1 experience for tonight, and as far as I’m concerned for the course so far, was related by a fellow with a voice that, if it had had just the slightest British accent, would have sounded like Boris Karloff reading “The Raven”.

It seems that while meditating he had fallen into an incredibly realistic fantasy: he was in an Elizabethan-era castle dungeon, where he was employed as a torturer. He had to punish a man and a beautiful girl - without being told what their crimes, if any, were. To this end he employed two devices: for the girl a ring with sharp teeth on her finger. The ring was attached by a chain to the wall, with two holes on each side of the ring through which he would run a sliver of metal to make her jump and cause the chain to pull the teeth of the ring into her skin. For the man, a board to which his hands were lashed, with only the tips of his fingers projecting over the edge. Then came the old burning-splints-of-bamboo-under-the-fingernails trick.

He said to us that he had experienced all the agony these two people went through, and that the fantasy had taken a couple of hours. He also said that the feeling of guilt had remained afterwards for several hours and that he was thankful to Maharishi for explaining how it was only stress-release. Must have been some stress.

Most of us were looking rather open-mouthed at the end of this recitation, as you can imagine. How come nothing neat like that ever happens to me?

November 7th, 1971

I’m just not keeping it together these days. I spent all my between-meditation time working on the “Rainbow” lyrics instead of doing asanas as I should have. It’s funny though; every time I got stuck on a word or a verse I’d just stop and meditate for a while and I’d usually be able to work it out with a few minutes afterwards. In this way I finished them, in rough form. When I’ve polished them up a little I’ll copy them into this journal.

S.I.M.S. has finally pulled itself together a little bit and we had our evening lecture in The Eugenia tonight. The set-up is all right: there are plenty of little floodlights hanging from the ceiling for the benefit of the three color videotape cameras which are recording all of Maharishi’s lectures. It’s a good thing too, because unless you can see around the cameras these tapes may be our only hope of finding out what happened.

After the usual lecture material Maharishi explained in brief the mechanics of the Puja, which is the ceremony by which an Initiator prepares to instruct someone in meditation and give him his mantra. To describe it here would spoil it for anyone who isn’t meditating yet, but it really is a beautiful thing.

November 8th, 1971

I got out of bed determined to, as Maharishi says, “stick to the routine.”: meditation, asanas, pranayama, meditation, asanas, pranayama. I went straight through the morning then went out to lunch feeling somewhat proud.

As I was walking towards The Samoa to eat I was (gasp!) picked up by Robert, Maharishi’s chief assistant or secretary, in (gasp!) Maharishi’s car. He informed me and the other two people he’d picked up that all of us in Alexius Apartments would be moving to The Eugenia so we ought to be packed and ready by 3:30, at which time the bus would come.

Well, there goes the routine! He dropped us off at The Samoa, where we ate and then I walked back at about 2:30. I packed slowly and carefully, taking my time because if the bus was supposed to be there at 3:30 it would be a good idea to bring along something for dinner.

Even with minimal effort though, I managed to be packed and out front by 3:20, just as (gasp!) the bus drove up. Not only that but they actually had our rooms already assigned to us and I was in mine and unpacking by four. Fantastic!

I was unpacked within the hour. I was going to take a shower but the hot water hadn’t been turned on yet and my rounding routine was all messed up for today so I spent the rest of the afternoon polishing up the lyrics. The scansion is off in a number of places but that’s intentional because of the music I have in mind for them. I’ll copy them in when I get time.

Tonight’s meeting was somewhat unusual. One man started describing an experience he’d been having on and off for the last four years. The first time it happened was about three months after he’d started TM: he was talking to a friend about TM for about fifteen minutes when he suddenly felt a pulsation beginning around him. After a few minutes the room he was in began to change color, from gold to violet and back to gold, every time he blinked. This phenomenon then began to affect his friend, who was not a meditator.

The man describing this to us said that this phenomenon had been repeated a number of times over the years until he found that he could bring it on at will if he was with someone whose “vibrations were compatible.”

Maharishi started asking him all sorts of detailed questions about it and I’ve never, ever seen him look so serious. He was staring at the man intently, as if to see some sign or symptom, and the room was deathly silent, with every one of us hanging on each work spoken.

When Maharishi had finished questioning he said that the man was exhibiting signs of mediumship (psychic abilities), the use of which should be avoided until he was in Cosmic Consciousness because use of this ability when his nervous system wasn’t sufficiently strong could be harmful and a hindrance to development. Whew!

Maharishi has always avoided talking about powers that can be attained, probably to keep us from going off on one tangent or another, and also because any hints of mysticism would hurt the ‘scientific approach’ image he had built up. People as a rule just can’t dig the combination, even though things like karma and mediumship follow natural laws too.

November 9th, 1971

Had a little trouble sleeping in my new room because the room overlooks (a) the ocean, which smashes against cliff walls instead of the beach, causing more that a little noise, especially at high tide, and (b) the construction site of a new hotel which, in order to be finished by the beginning of the tourist season next March, is being worked on night and day, non-stop.

Got up at nine, showered and then had several very deep and clear meditations as I rounded through the morning. I just couldn’t believe how calm and peaceful I was when I went out for lunch.

A terrific storm blew up during the afternoon. It was a joy to watch from the comfort of my sixth-floor room. Unfortunately there was a window missing in the hallway, which made things not only noisy but cold as well, seeing as all the heating pipes had been installed but none of the radiators.

The storm had passed by dinnertime but left winter as a calling card. Unbelievable! People had been swimming two days ago and now we’re wearing our heavy coats to go outdoors.

November 10th, 1971

About the only significant event of the day was locking myself out of my room, so I’ll use the time to copy in the “Rainbow Girl” lyrics*.

*(AUTHOR”S NOTE: I warned you this was coming. You’ll notice that I use little typographical symbols to denote changes in the music; this should not be interpreted as meaning that I had the slightest idea what the music should be, except in the vague sense that it would be something like “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes” as mentioned earlier – and not being a musician I’m pretty sure I had no idea who was going to compose it either. But here are the lyrics in all their glory.)

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Suite: Rainbow Girl

(≈) indicates small changes in the tone, rhythm or instrumentation and (ø) indicates a complete change in the music.

I still remember playing in the rain,

my feet, boot-heavy, scattering puddles.

I saw beaded grass through a vinyl frame

and the sidewalks clean and dark from washing.

(≈)

Then the sun melting through and the clouds so much duller

than patches of blue and glistening air.

The last few drops fell as my eyes first beheld

(≈)

an arch of shining water colors.

(≈)

Oh, to touch such a thing, to have such a thing!

How loud was the sound of my boots as I ran

down the block, down the street,

just as fast as feet would bring me

just to touch those shining colors with my outstretched hands.

“It’s over that hill… No, around the next bend,

just a little bit farther. Oh rainbow, please wait!

I only want to touch you and show you to my friends.

Won’t you let me come closer? Oh please, won’t you wait?

(≈)

And well I remember the forest that day,

the bent, dripping branches, the muddy pathway.

The leaves blocked the sky, and the path was so long…

(≈)

Then it was gone.

It was gone and I was so alone.

And I cried and I didn’t know the way home.

Short instrumental and (≈)

Later mother said, “My son,

the rainbow seeks only admiration

but she knows she must her distance keep

and let no one up on her creep.

(≈)

For to touch her is to know that she isn’t there at all.

So beware, my son, of that which calls

and beckons you close as it moves away.

Beware, no matter how pretty it’s spell.”

And I learned this lesson well.

Long instrumental and (ø)

Nowadays I’m wasting time

I could have used to find myself

to count your footprints on my love

and make statistics rhyme.

(≈)

But words are only index cards; would you look up my pain?

Or maybe do research on how broken dreams hurt.

Perhaps then I could wound you with the shards.

I’ve somehow learned to keep the score without knowing the gules of your game.

But following you is really just déjà vu

of a game that I’ve played once before.

(ø)

You’re just a Rainbow Girl.

Is there more to you than smile and pastel?

Why won’t you let me get close enough to tell?

Rainbow Girl.

Your beauty can please me but there’s no way you can tease me

into getting lost so far from home again.

(ø)

I’ve already followed you too far this way.

It hurts too much to watch you fade.

But the wind will take you fallen leaves,

I’ll let them wave goodbye.

And perhaps, as I left, one or two heard me say,

“I could have loved you, pretty one.

I could have loved you.”

But words are only…

Damn it, can’t you understand?

I could have loved you…

(Fade.)

(AUTHOR”S NOTE: If you sit with your head between your knees and breathe slowly and deeply the nausea will pass more quickly.)

November 11th, 1971

It is so cold! The heating hasn’t been installed, the window in the hallway hasn’t been replaced and it’s really hard to meditate when your teeth are chattering. It takes great strength of will to get out of bed and do asanas to get warm.

At lunch rumors were going around that Maharishi was sending someone around to stomp on any guy with long hair – that is, gently persuade everyone to look like nice, straight Initiator-types – so I figured it was time to take the big step and surrender two years’ worth of individuality.

One of the meditators is a professional hairstylist and has set up Ron’s Room, featuring “The Initiator Look” for a mere 300 pesetas*, so there I went.

*(AUTHOR’S NOTE: As near as I can tell, 300 pesetas in 1971 translated to about eighteen dollars.)

He does it in two parts: he cuts it more or less to your specifications then tells you to wash it and come back the next day so he can see where it sticks out funny before final trimming. Good thing, too: I told him to leave some hair over my ears and now that I’ve washed it all I need is a propeller on my nose.

November 12th, 1971

Well, well, a cosmic experience at last. Whilst sitting in meditation this afternoon I noticed a peculiar sensation in my heart, sort of a burning feeling. After a while whenever I thought my mantra it would seem to go directly there and sort of ‘tune in’ with the sensation, causing it to increase in intensity.

“Aha,” I thought, “I’m clearing out stress.” And after that I sort of encouraged my mantra to go there though I wasn’t concentrating on it. Soon, whenever I thought the mantra it would seem to ‘appear’ right next to the sensation, and after a while it seemed to be appearing in the center of the sensation, causing my heart to throw off stress even more quickly.

The sensation was mildly painful but it was a good pain, a feeling of purification. Meanwhile my head had cleared completely and as the mantra radiated from my heart I started going deeper and deeper, seeming to be filled with energy until all there was was the mantra and the burning sensation. All else was just clear, pure energy.

After a while my body began to grow uncomfortable from sitting so long and I came out of meditation. I looked at my watch and I’d been sitting there for an hour and a half. Considering I’ve almost never meditated more than forty minutes that’s really noteworthy.

The feeling of energy was still very much with me but I was so buzzed out that I didn’t really feel like doing anything so I just sort of wandered out onto my balcony. That fresh, cold air off the ocean really did a number on my head: my vision seemed to change; not hallucinations or cosmic detachment but rather as if the entire view was an hallucination. I think it was just a combination of fresh air, unstressing and standing up after an hour and a half of deep rest, but it was some rush.

I was still feeling kind of spacey when I came in and didn’t really feel like doing asanas or meditating again so I put on my coat and walked over to The Samoa to see if the mail had arrived. It had: nothing for me. Oh well, walked back and rounded until about 5:30, at which time a couple of workmen finally showed up to replace the missing window in the hall. All right! Now if we could just have some heat!

Went up to Ron’s Room before dinner and had him remove the wings from over my ears. Also got him to agree to let me come back tomorrow and use his current-transformer on my electric clippers so I can trim my beard. Next thing you know I’ll be carrying a briefcase.

The evening meeting was really chaotic. Up until today the people staying for eight months were all in the Hotel Karinia, which is some distance away from the other three hotels so Maharishi would do two lectures, one here and one at The Karinia. But for the next few days (they tell us) he’ll be too busy to do two lectures so everyone from Karinia is being bussed over here and it’s really SRO in the meeting hall.

Top experience of the week: one lady was lying in bed at about 7:30 AM and she said that she thought that her eyes were open but the curtains were drawn and it was dark so they might not have been. At any rate she saw dinosaurs and a hippopotamus. She touched the hippo and it rolled over on its back so she rubbed its stomach. Then her mantra came into her mind and all the animals disappeared.

I’m beginning to understand why Maharishi holds these courses on an island.

November 13th, 1971

Aside from an almost exact repetition of yesterday’s meditation experience there wasn’t too much of interest worth recording here.

Oh yes. Dinner. Shock of the week: Pizza! Organic, no less. I never thought to be reacquainted with that dish again, at least not this year. Of course it wasn’t exactly pizza, just a whole wheat crust with tomatoes, toasted cheese and spice, but it was a close enough facsimile to inspire the ‘swarm of locusts’ technique among the diners whenever a fresh pan was brought out. Dinner, hell – this was Combat Survival 101!

November 14th, 1971

Leftover pizza for lunch. Cloudy meditations. Realized I must have sent the claim slip for the film I was having developed home in my last letter to my parents. Far out.

November 15th, 1971

I found out today that Jody still has lice. Poor kid, it’s been over three weeks now and S.I.M.S. is so untogether that they didn’t bring enough medicine and Jody didn’t get any, so she has to wait for it to be sent from the States – IF it gets through customs. Meanwhile she can’t sleep, she can’t meditate, she can’t touch anyone and is probably itching constantly.

I haven’t seen her in a week or two and I thought she’d already gotten rid of them, so it really tore at my heart to hear about it. I’ve gotten over my hung-upedness, I think, though I still think she’s a mean game-player and I’m going to show her those lyrics one of these days, but I really feel sorry for her and I slipped a note under her door telling her to come and get me anytime I could help, even if she just needed someone to talk to if she couldn’t sleep. Yet, I honestly feel that I’m not hung-up anymore. This is good.

Also the deadline for reservations for cheap flights to London over Christmas is soon and still no word from Apple. Oh well, it was a good idea.

November 16th, 1971

Several deep meditations today and a profound sense of silence within.

Ran into Jody at the evening meeting and sat next to her. She was bad off. The medicine is being sent from England and is hopefully due on Thursday. Meanwhile her room has been fumigated, her clothes have all been soaked in something or other, and she walks around wrapped in a treated blanket so no one else can get her lice. She really can’t sleep and can only meditate a little and is generally miserable.

Seems she moved out of her room yesterday so it could be fumigated and never saw the note I slid under the door. My luck. I told her the gist of it, which pleased her greatly and she said she’d remember. And I noticed how much easier it is to talk with her now that I really don’t care that much. I can even play games without getting hung up in them. Far out. We might be friends yet.

Jerry Jarvis, Director of S.I.M.S., has arrived from India where he has been scouting around for sites to build a new Academy of Meditation. Seems that plane-fare rates have changed and if we’d had proper facilities we could have held this course in India for almost the same price. He said he’d found a good site too, though it would take a few years to develop it properly. Where? The Himalayas! Hot damn!

He also brought good news from the States: October was the biggest month in the history of the Movement, with over eight thousand people initiated. Also he is leaving for Washington, D.C. tomorrow (I don’t think he sleeps), where he is making a full hour and a half presentation to the entire research departments of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare. Whew!

Jerry is really something else. If he had his eyes closed and wasn’t smiling he’d look like Mr. Typical-American-Businessman: blue suit, white shirt, regimental-striped tie. But he’s been more or less constantly at Maharishi’s side for ten years and when you look at his eyes you know it! Tom Swift and His 50,000 Kilowatt Smile Machine has nothing on this dude.

November 17th, 1971

It’s high school Gestapo time again. It was announced that I.D. pictures will be taken soon. No one will have a picture taken who isn’t clean-cut. No one will be admitted to lectures or meals without the I.D., so…

A tape of a couple of monks ‘singing’ one of the Vedic hymns was played. It sounded a little bit like the overture to a cat-fight.

Oh yes: tomorrow we will have been here one month. To celebrate, the hotel management has begun, with the minimum efficiency and maximum volume that we have come to know, to install radiators.

November 18th, 1971

It’s interesting, the changes I’ve been going through these past few days. It’s almost like I’m beginning to see myself more objectively, discerning personal problems and hang-ups and working on them For example, I’ve noticed how hard I’ve been trying to be friendly and sociable, especially with chicks, and I think that it becomes obvious to people that I am trying, in such a way that it seems unnatural and phony, which puts people off. My self-confidence is practically non-existent and I get embarrassed and fumbling in conversation. I’m always worrying about how I look to others.

I began to perceive this and how ridiculous it was a day or two ago. It’s almost the way I was three years ago. I like being friendly but if I have to force it and get all stressed up over it then it’s just got to go, so I’m going to drop out of the game completely for a while. I’m not going out of my way to sit with anyone or talk to anyone and in fact will avoid these completely when possible. It’s a little like curing indigestion by fasting.

Speaking of fasting brings up another, similar point. I’ve always had a problem with overeating and the lack of willpower to control it. At first I thought that just the vegetarian menu and lack of between meal snacks here would be enough to help me lose weight, but my digestive system has slowed down so much and my taste for a certain delicious heavy bread with honey seems to have created only a balance. But as soon as I noticed that I wasn’t losing weight I was able to cut out the bread and about half of the rest of my food intake with hardly a second thought. Power!

November 19th, 1971

Lots of weird karma going down here.

I had just finished writing yesterday’s entry, proud of being so ascetic and renunciative, and was waiting for the elevator on my floor. I heard the sound of footsteps coming down the stairs and when I looked up it was Jody. I honestly thought I’d gotten my head together about her, at least, so I just smiled and said hello without being overly conscious of it.

But when she saw me her face just lit up and she ran over and put her arms around me and hugged me like she wasn’t planning to let go. Somewhere in the back of my mind was the thought, she probably got rid of the lice finally, and that’s why she’s so happy. But my newfound objectivity had chosen that particular moment to take a walk and holding her like that turned something loose inside me that I’d never felt before: I held her close and kissed her, I guess the adjective would be ‘passionately’, for about ten seconds as both elevators went by.

I’ll never forget the astonished look in her eyes when we separated again. But I just smiled and said, “I needed that,” and she smiled too. (Score 1 for Andy!)

I pushed the elevator button again and we waited, not saying anything (not much point: she was ‘in silence’) for about three minutes until it became obvious that the elevator was not forthcoming. Then she held out her hand to me and we walked down the stairs to her floor, from where I continued to the ground level, where I had a small meeting to attend.

But this time I didn’t fool myself; I just dug the experience while it was happening and left it at that. I don’t chase rainbows anymore.

Well, if that wasn’t enough to kill off all my ascetic ambitions, the experience after the lecture was more than sufficient. Remember Debby, the Rolling Stones freak? I somehow got to talking with her in the lobby and she was saying how cold her room was and how she hated the bus ride back to her hotel, so I jokingly invited her to stay in my room. From there the conversation went to how horny we both were; it seems she was living with not one but two guys right up until she came here and the sudden cut-off of activity was keenly felt.

Well, we went up to my room for a while but we spent the whole time talking as I just seemed to be aware of Something Wrong. I’m not exactly sure what: I think maybe it was because more of my sexual experience were gradual developments of a love relationship, something that was definitely not occurring here. Her head and mine are so completely different – just the fact of her being into Mick Jagger’s head and me being into George Harrison’s was really the most fitting possible beginning of our relationship.

And it isn’t even a case of opposites attracting; I don’t really feel anything, attraction or repulsion, towards her and I think she feels the same way about me. If this is true then maybe we can have an uninvolved sexual relationship. We shall see.

(AUTHOR"S NOTE: One memory of this encounter that comes back to me now is of Debby lying provocatively on her side on my bed, head propped up on one hand, smiling up at me and saying, teasingly, "Well"? Aren't you going to seduce me?" This was followed by me blinking stupidly at her for several seconds, completely nonplussed.)

Anyway, as I said I didn’t feel quite right about it at the time and besides she was wearing her Suzy Creamcheese outfit (she says that’s what they’re wearing in Paris these days) which just didn’t turn me on, so we talked about this and that for a while, making a few seductive jokes every so often, and then I took her down to the lobby where she got a ride back to her hotel. On the way down she told me about how she once had a boyfriend in a mental hospital, and how they would just get into the elevator together then stop it between floors. Far out.

November 20th, 1971

I just do not believe all the changes my head goes through in one day. I could hardly meditate today for horny thoughts of Debby and getting her up into my room again, and spent a good deal of time during the evening meeting craning my neck looking for her.

Someone asked Maharishi if he would check our mantras after the meeting. He asked for a show of hands of how many wanted checking and as there were only about five of us, he agreed.

There is a small room just outside the lecture hall and this is where he went after the meeting. One by one we took off our shoes (I haven’t heard an explanation for that custom yet), went in, sat down in a small chair next to Maharishi’s and repeated our mantra to him as we had been ‘hearing’ it in meditation, for him to correct if necessary.

I’d never been in a situation where it was just me and him and nobody else before and so naturally I was more than a little nervous. After I had struggled out of my boots I waited at the door, wiping my palms on my pants and watching as the two people ahead of me went in and came out. I could see Maharishi quite plainly as he was just far enough away so that the checking wouldn’t be overheard. He was sitting in his white dhoti, gray-and-white hair spilling down the front of his shoulders as he leaned forward to hear the whisper of the person being checked.

Then it was my turn. I walked in slowly, hands in prayer position in front of my chest, and said, “Jai Guru Dev.” My voice seemed to echo in the emptiness of the room. Maharishi softly repeated the salutation, very slowly and distinctly, as I sat down.

I don’t remember more than just glancing at his face as I told him that it was my first mantra (after two years a different one can be given) and pronounced it for him. He hesitated a second then nodded and said, “Beautiful,” in a tone that said, “of course”. I said thank you and left, somewhat dazedly. In fact I just picked up my boots with the rest of the things I’d left outside and walked upstairs to the lobby, not even feeling the cold cement through my stockinged feet.

I ran into Debby and talked to her for a while, but somehow neither of us seemed to care one way or the other. I didn’t even feel like suggesting that she come up to my room. It was sort of like the little ‘voice’ Herman Hesse’s Siddhartha heard, or Pinocchio’s conscience, Jiminy Cricket, saying, ‘This is not for you.” There was just a definite feeling of wrongness between us and we both seemed to feel it. So she gave me a flower someone else had given her and got on the bus for her hotel.

For some reason I felt very elated and kind of silly after that and on impulse I took the elevator up to Jody’s floor with the intention of finding her room, knocking on the door, handing her the flower and leaving without saying a word, just to blow her mind a little. I found her room but she didn’t seem to be in it so I just sort of draped the flower over the doorknob and left. It’ll give her something to think about anyway.

November 21st, 1971

Well, diary, it finally happened. I hadn’t intended it so soon, but it just happened. I finally laid the whole trip on Jody, lyrics and all.

I was talking to her (to, not with; she was in silence again) in the lounge after the evening meeting. Seems she’d been wondering about that flower all day and was sort of relieved when I asked her if she’d gotten it. Somewhere in the middle of explaining the whys and wherefores of that event she suddenly stopped me and started to ask me a question in pantomime. I didn’t get it after about three minutes so she gave up and wrote, “You seem strange tonight. Like I am an effort.”

RIght on. I said, “Well, sort of, but it’s a long story and maybe we ought to go into it some other time.” But of course she wouldn’t hear of it and I had a semi-final draft of the lyrics with me so I thought, ‘Well, here goes,” and plunged into it. I covered everything, from the first night we talked onward, no holds barred.

Needless to say, she came out of silence quick enough and we had a personality-dissection session until it was long past midnight, spending minutes with out faces just inches apart, trying to plumb the depths of each other’s eyes as we talked as if what we were was written there in very small print. So intense, so painful, so slow and yet somehow I felt as if it didn’t matter, as if I were a coroner. Still, although we reached no conclusion we did, I think, come to know each other a lot better and perhaps a friendship will eventually come of this.

Also the catalogue and application for UMass that my friend had sent has finally been forwarded from home. Still no reply from the college though.

(AUTHOR’S NOTE: At some point I’d obviously decided to complete my college education after all and written to a friend back home who was a student at the University of Massachusetts/Amherst, asking him to send me some info and an application. Looks as though I wrote to the Admissions Dept. there as well, I think with some questions about transferring the few credits I’d received during my first abortive attempt at college.)

November 22nd, 1971

As of today I am going to try to adopt what I call the ‘straight-line’ attitude. It’s sort of an outgrowth of the ascetic impulse I’ve been having. What it means is that I will not go out of my way; what I have to do I will do and nothing else. I don’t try to avoid anything that comes along but don’t go looking for distractions. Maharishi would call it “one-pointedness”.

This attitude is mainly in regard to my habit of ‘chasing’ chicks. Not that I think there’s anything wrong with that; it’s just that I’ve been completely over-doing it. Example: From now on when I go to meals I will sit down at an empty table. If someone joins me, fine. If not, I’m not going to worry about it. Gee, don’t I sound holy?

Of course now that I’ve set this iron discipline on myself I’ve already made an exception: Jody again, naturally. It was just something my fiendish imagination came up with while I was meditating and I just couldn’t resist following it up. I may turn out to be a good game-player yet.

It went something like this: a few week ago, during the first days of our ‘courtship’ I had written out part of the lyrics to “I Want to Tell You” by George Harrison and shown them to her as a way of trying to express what I was trying to say:

I want to tell you.

My head is filled with things to say.

When you’re here

all those words, they seem to slip away.

When I get near you

the games begin to drag me down.

It’s all right,

I’ll meet you maybe next time around*.

*(AUTHOR’S NOTE: The actual line is “I’ll make you maybe next time around,” but I didn’t know that at the time.)

But if I seem to act unkind

it’s only me, it’s not my mind

that is confusing things.

Sometimes I wish I knew you well

then I could speak my mind and tell you.

Maybe you’d understand.

Very appropriate in that context. As I said, I showed it to her (we were sitting in the lecture hall) and she, being in silence (she does that a lot), underlined the second-to-last verse, wrote “thank you” underneath and handed it back. Quick thinker, she.

What I realized in meditation today was that the lyrics were even more appropriate in the context of last night’s discussion so, chuckling at my craftiness, I went over to the ‘shopping center’, bought a rose for 15 pesetas, came back, tore the same sheet of the lyrics I had shown her out of my notebook and went up to her floor. I laid the sheet and the rose outside her door and split.

I saw her later at the lecture but she didn’t see me and I didn’t try to attract her attention. She gave the rose to Maharishi, as I expected. After the lecture, in keeping with my ‘straight-line’ policy, I went directly to my room instead of socializing in the lobby as usual, with hopes of having sufficiently blown her mind to make her come looking for me, but no such luck. That might have been interesting.

The workmen are catching on! While we were all out at the lecture they lined up all the radiators next to the rooms they’re going into. By Gawd, we might even have heat someday!

November 23rd, 1971

Only three events worth noting today:

1) The radiators have all been installed on our floor. People have noticed that the holes at the top and bottom of each radiator almost all have stoppers. We’ll see what happens when the hot water is turned on.

2) I dropped my watch on the floor, face down. The second hand now feels that it deserves a break every few minutes and the minute hand, when it is so inclined, makes up for it by falling to the half-hour mark almost any time after reaching the hour. Really makes the day go.

3) A brief, undramatic run-in with Jody, who thanked me for the rose and the note and declined further comment.

November 24th, 1971

Fell out at 7:00 this morning - new record.

I’ve discovered that my watch will keep more or less correct time if I don’t move it too much, which is helpful.

The morning meditations were pretty foggy on account of getting up so early, except for the last one which was two hours long (another new record) and was just full of cosmic goodies.

The evening meeting was something else. While waiting for Maharishi to arrive we heard a couple more vedic tapes and, to help us get our pronunciation down, a tape of Maharishi singing the initiation ceremony. We sing this as a group at the end of each meeting but this is the first time we’ve ever heard Maharishi do a solo. I’m glad he didn’t do the Vedas for an encore.

Also we had a guest speaker named Dr. (I’ll spell it as pronounced) Warka-jee.

(AUTHOR’S NOTE: I’m guessing the name was actually ‘Varka’ but that’s all I can recall or find with a quick search. I’m sure other people within the Movement know much more.)

He holds three university degrees, has held many important posts and in his younger days helped free India from British control.

He spoke on the importance of self-realization and he looked like he was speaking from experience, too. The topic was not unfamiliar to us meditators but hearing him speak and hearing Maharishi speak are two entirely different experiences, even though they say almost exactly the same things. Warka-jee is emphatic and energetic and really makes a startling contrast to the placid, soothing flow of Maharishi’s words. Sometimes one gets the impression that Maharishi has set himself on automatic and gone off somewhere while he’s speaking but definitely not so with Warka-jee. There is a feeling of near-urgency to him, like he’s really trying to get through. He looks down at his feet like he’s gathering himself to strike a blow then looks up suddenly and spits out a phrase as if he were throwing it as hard as he can. Very inspiring.

Speaking of inspiration, we were all greeted by a rather amazing sight on coming out for lunch today: not one but two rainbows stretching from the hills to the ocean, and we could actually see where they touched down in the ocean. I don’t think anyone got anything accomplished all afternoon from constantly looking out their windows to see if the rainbows were still there.

November 25th, 1971

Thanksgiving.

Today has been, as they say, one for the books. Talk about ups and downs!

I woke up at 7:00, 8:00 and 9:00 respectively. I woke up at 7:00 because I’d noticed that in spite of two blankets I was curled up in the fetal pose and shivering. Then my ears picked up the sound of incredibly heavy winds whipping the rain against the window. Kee-rist, it was cold! I wrapped the blankets a little tighter around me and went back to sleep.

At 8:00 the storm was still going and I went back to sleep. At 9:00 it was stronger than ever but I just couldn’t sleep anymore so I got up, got dressed, felt the radiator (Nothing!), put on my winter coat and gloves and tried to meditate.

Have you ever been really relaxed and peaceful while your teeth were chattering? After about two minutes I gave up and went to The Samoa, then back to The Eugenia and then to The America in search of a warm, quiet place. I thought I’d found it in the lounge of The America and was about five minutes into meditation when one of the hotel people decided his pool game was getting a little rusty:

Clackety-ackclackclackclack!

I finally got one good meditation in before lunch in the basement of The America, sitting amongst stacks and stacks of piled up chairs.

The monsoon was still at it when I got back to The Eugenia after lunch but it was at this time that the most mellow part of the day occurred. It was warm in the lounge and people were beginning to drift in for the small-group discussions. Michael*, one of the people in my group, had brought his guitar and he began to play beautiful, soft classical melodies, making a perfect background to the muffled sounds of wind and rain.

Looking out the window I saw Andrea*, a friend of mine, running through the biting wind with no coat, hugging herself for warmth as she ran from The America to The Eugenia. It was right out of Nanook of the North. I grabbed my coat and ran to the door as she was coming up the steps, pulled her into the lounge and threw my coat around her. She was still shivering for a while but I told her to “...sit down and listen to some warm music,” which she did. And after a while she stopped shivering and leaned back into her chair with her eyes closed, my coat still wrapped around her. It made me feel good in a motherly sort of way. After a few minutes she thanked me and went to her group meeting.

*(AUTHOR’S NOTE: Fairfielders and other Movement folks may know Michael Laughrin - brother of Tim - and Andrea Bell.)

A minute or two later I felt a hand on my shoulder and, tilting my head back I looked into the face of...Jody. Egads, how long is this melodrama going to go on? She had a warm look in her eyes though, for some reason, so I placed my hand on top of the one she had laid on my shoulder and led her around to the chair beside me.

I released her hand twice but she kept it right where it was and even squeezed mine a couple of times. Very confusing chick. She was wearing her “silence” sign again, only it was spelled “silenc”. “‘Silenc’?” I said, pointing at it. She looked me straight in the eye and said - said, mind you:

“The ‘e’ is silent.”

Sheesh.

Well, we just sat there for a while, holding hands and listening to the music and I, for one, was content. Then she thumbed through her copy of the Bhagavad-Gita (part of the Vedas) until she found the passage she was looking for and showed it to me. It was something about love and devotion being signs of high states of development. She waited for me to read it then smiled, patted me on the head and left.

Hmmm…

During the group meeting I found out that the heat had at last been turned on in our rooms, so right afterwards I zipped up to my room to behold the miracle. When I walked in it didn’t feel much better than when I’d left but there was almost enough heat coming out of the radiator to thaw a steak patty. It’s gonna be a long winter. Still, after I plugged a few leaks in the doorway to my balcony it became warm enough to meditate with just a sweater and gloves. And if this monsoon doesn’t go on all winter it might even get (dare I say it) warm in here someday.

The kitchen really knocked itself out preparing our Thanksgiving dinner. Really. I saw three-year veteran vegetarians succumbing to all that golden-brown fowl. Candlelight, giblet gravy, pumpkin pie, the works. It was fantastic.

On top of all this, my first real, unmistakable flash of C.C.

(AUTHOR”S NOTE: C.C. is short for Cosmic Consciousness. Maharishi describes seven states of consciousness, Cosmic Consciousness being the fifth. The first three are Deep Sleep, Dreaming and the normal Waking State experienced in daily life. The fourth is Transcendental Consciousness, or pure, unbounded awareness, experienced during the practice of meditation. Cosmic Consciousness occurs when Transcendental Conscious is experienced at all times, whether sleeping, dreaming or awake.

A more in-depth explanation can be found here:

http://www.globalcountry.org/wp/personal-enlightenment/)

It wasn’t all that dramatic, but it was definite. The nearest comparison I can think of is a feeling of detachment I sometimes get when I’ve been up late at a party or something, but that’s only half. It’s being detached and involved simultaneously, and it isn’t a tired feeling at all. I was startled by it as I walked into the lecture hall. It was like listening to music through headphones and having someone suddenly flip the switch from mono to stereo. It’s still the same music but there’s a new dimension to it, see? Like that.

It lasted about about fifteen minutes and then faded away after that. Happy Thanksgiving!

November 26th, 1971

Aside from a slight increase in the intensity of the monsoon, not much of interest today. I sure hope this isn’t the standard winter weather.

As I may have mentioned before the only socializing done outside of mealtimes is right after the evening meeting, in the lounge of The Eugenia. Fruit and cookies are provided as evening snacks and hot chocolate (chocolate powder in hot water) is available for fifteen pesetas.

Tonight I wasn’t feeling all that sociable and after a few minutes got into the elevator and pushed the button for my floor. I wasn’t too surprised when it went right past and on to the top because it does that sometimes, but I was somewhat bothered when it went past my stop again on the way down and continued to the main floor. I figured I wasn’t meant to go to bed yet so I got out and sat in the lounge for a while.

As I sat I thought of a couple of bad rhymes, wrote them down and taped them to Jody’s door on my way up. Example:

I round as much as I find the time for,

but I find that it makes me quite spacey.

My mantra’s vibrations were just not designed for

two hundred and twenty volts A.C.*

*(AUTHOR”S NOTE: The last line refers to the difference between American and European power outlets.)

November 27th, 1971

“Still raining, still dreaming.”*

*(AUTHOR’S NOTE: A reference to the song of the same name by Jimi Hendrix.)

At least my room is up to room temperature now but I’m sure tired of using towels to mop up all the rain that come in under the door to my balcony.

Traumatic experience of the month: I went to get my I.D. picture and was told, though not in these words, to ‘shave off or ship out’*. So my beautiful beard, which even my anti-hair father liked, went the way of the rest of my foliage.

*(AUTHOR’S NOTE: I may have already mentioned this but at this time all Initiators were supposed to be clean-cut, wholesome in appearance and conservative in dress. I think this was more or less a marketing strategy designed to distance us from the hippies and make Transcendental Meditation look as non-cult-like as possible.)

I was thinking of putting the clippings in an envelope and giving it to Maharishi with a flower, but…

I spent all afternoon unstressing about it. I just couldn’t get used to seeing my face in the mirror and was getting downright self-conscious about my double-chin but by the time the dinner hour rolled around I was almost beginning to like it, I’m sorry to say.

All the people leaving in December have to stop rounding and going to lectures for the rest of the week in order to learn (a) the puja, (b) the checking notes and (c) the lecture material*, so the meeting hall was a lot less crowded this evening.

*(AUTHOR’S NOTE: I may have already covered this, but the puja is the traditional ceremony performed when a teacher is initiating someone into TM. The checking notes you’ve already read about, and the lecture material refers to the introductory lectures each Initiator must learn to give for making public presentations about TM.)

Maharishi didn’t arrive until 9:30 and when he did he got into some incredibly boring rap about science and the Vedas that I couldn’t make head nor tail of, so I left and went over to The America to see one of my friends who was leaving in December.

November 28th, 1971

Woke up this morning at about 8:30 thinking dismal thoughts of another dismal day. Turned my head towards the door to my balcony to see how much rain had accumulated on the floor and… My God! Sunshine! Blue skies!

I was so glad that I leapt out of bed and threw open both the door to the balcony and the door to the hallway to let all that fresh air pour through and clean out three days accumulation of stress. It really felt good.

Speaking of things that feel good, I finally found a release for any sexual stress I might be carrying: her name is Anna.

She’s the friend I went to see in The America last night. She’s about 5’ 6”, a little thin and frail-looking, short red hair and pale green eyes touched with brown. She has a way of holding her mouth in a straight line that makes her look like she’s trying to keep from laughing, which is somewhat disconcerting when trying to talk about something serious to her.

I used to notice her in the dinner line at Amherst, though I never spoke to her because I always thought she looked mad at something. When I mention this to her later she told me she’d unstressed a lot at the course.

As with everything else in my life, it seems, I ran into her via the Beatles. She was sitting at the table next to mine at dinner and someone there was doing the rap about the one inevitable Beatle song for discussion by TM’ers: “Sexy Sadie”* by John Lennon. Naturally I barged in on the conversation with my own theories.

*(AUTHOR’S NOTE: A derogatory song about Maharishi from The White Album.)

Anna didn’t take much part in the discussion but that was how we met, and after a while we started eating and going to the evening lectures together occasionally.

As I said, she’s leaving in December and all the December people are supposed to skip lectures this week in order to work on all the teaching material, so when the lectures get dull or I just feel like going somewhere I go up to Anna’s room. Last night we just worked on the Puja a little bit, then talked for a while and I kissed her good night for the first time as I left. But tonight was a different story. It started out the same: I checked her memorization of the Puja and then we started talking about nothing in particular. The strange thing is that I had no definite seductive intentions. But then we were kissing and then… Well, there we were. Really neat.

November 29th, 1971

Woke up at 7:00 this morning and got seven hours of meditation in today. Kind of buzzy.

I hadn’t noticed how routine-oriented and sort of lethargic I’d become until I got letters from my brother Duncan and his wife. I’d really completely forgotten about the outside world except for my home town, which is all that letters from my mother ever covered.

My brother and sister-in-law, on the other hand, really knew what I liked to hear about, along with a couple of things I would have been better off not hearing*. Really woke me up.

*(AUTHOR’S NOTE: Nope, no idea what any of those things were.)

Aside from ‘rollin and tumblin’* with Anna, not much else of interest.

*(AUTHOR’S NOTE: Refers to the title of a an old blues song with a sexual theme. The best-known version was recorded by Muddy Waters, but I’m most likely referencing the version by Cream.)

November 30th, 1971

People are starting to unstress creatively. Every time I wait for an elevator or look at the bulletin board there’s something new. Examples:

Sherlock Wombs and the Case of the Missing Muntra (This was written in the style of John Lennon’s In HIs Own Write);

Maharishi on Majorca (A musical featuring songs like “What Can You Do with a Problem Like Maria Eugenia,” which is the full name of my hotel);

Cosmic TV, featuring programs like Father Knows Bliss and Yoga Bare - Nude Asanas.

December 1st, 1971

The first of December looks more like the first of September, or at least October.

Been a strange day. Half-way through my first meditation this morning I suddenly decided that I had to get my application for school ready without delay and spent the whole morning filling it out. This afternoon, in my first or second meditation I decided that I just had to write back to my brother and sister-in-law and spent a couple of hours at that*.

*(AUTHOR’S NOTE: As it happens, my brother kept this letter and returned it to me some years later. I thought the following excerpt might be appropriate to insert here:

“It’s hard to describe the environment here. The closest analogy is to imagine a thousand people taking a special kind of acid that lets you peak slowly over a period of five months. Everybody is running around getting caught up in one little thing or another while the whole scene just gets progressively more and more intense.

It’s reached the point where the sense of reality is almost lost. There is no fixed mental state that can be used as a measure. No mood is valid and it likely to be completely different every five minutes. There is no chance of playing head games. The only thing to do is go with it.

On the whole it’s been fairly pleasant. I’ve been averaging seven hours of meditation a day and (ta-da) even had my first flash of C.C. a couple of weeks ago for about fifteen minutes.

Speaking of Cosmic Consciousness, you need no longer worry about the possibility of achieving it through TM. I’ve met quite a few people here who have made it, and one fellow made it three months after being initiated. The average is 5-8 years for normal meditators, another year or two depending on drug input. Initiators and others who take long rounding courses naturally knock a lot of time off. I figure I’m doing roughly the equivalent of three years’ worth this time. Also, doing the initiation puts the initiator into C.C. for a few minutes every time he does it. Should be fun.

“History of ages past,

unenlightened shadows cast

down through all eternity

the crying of humanity.

‘Twas then that the Hurdy-Gurdy Man

came singing songs of love…”

J.G.D., --Andy

P.S. Ridiculous rumor of the week: Paul McCartney is here. Also: Ayn Rand.)”

------------------------

Anna has some kind of virus so no boogeying* for a few days.

*(AUTHOR’S NOTE: “Boogeying” was a fortunately short-lived euphemism for sex.)

Naturally, being the faithful type I immediately went back to playing head games with Jody. It’s kind of fun and I’m winning a lot more often. I’m thinking of trying to write a sonnet to give her for Christmas. That would really mess up her mind!

The whole thing is so absurd: somedays I’m deadly serious and some days I’m just having fun. I think the Dept. of Karma just sent her for me to unstress over.

December 2nd, 1971

The trouble with keeping a diary at a rounding course is that I get so buzzed out that a lot of the little things are dismissed as irrelevant or simply forgotten. Yet it’s the little things that make up most of the day: watching people casually sidle towards the serving tables as the rumor gets around that chocolate cream pie will be the dessert (for most of us the first chocolate we’ve eaten since arrival) or the expression on someone’s face or the strange memories and thoughts that come up in meditation that aren’t all that important. But I somehow feel that I haven’t yet captured the wholeness; the image is still very two-dimensional. I think (hope) that when I get back to the States I’ll be able to take a more objective stance, to see it as a whole and fill in the gaps.

December 3rd, 1971

Only one significant event today: I bought two roses before the lecture and gave them to Maharishi, saying that one was from me and one was for a friend of mine in the States. Maharishi told me to take a petal off one of them and send it to him, which I did.

December 4th, 1971

Tonight’s meeting was really something else. Maharishi announced that as of today his plans for the expansion of the Movement are complete. All that is left to do is put them into action. To give an idea of how comprehensive his plans are, he not only hopes but expects to have 85% of the world population meditating within the next five or six years!*

*(AUTHOR’S NOTE: Needless to say this goal hasn’t been reached even as of 2014, never mind, say, 1976. On the other hand, there are certainly thousands more meditators in the world now than there were then.)

This is all he has been thinking about and planning for since he first went out into the world some thirteen years ago, and he said that now that his plans are complete he is sort of at a loss for something to do. It gave me a sense of historical significance, as if I’d been there the night the thirteen states voted to become independent of England, not knowing what would have to be gone through to achieve it. Not that I’m equating the Movement with the Revolutionary War, exactly; it’s just the feeling of being present at the start of something that could change the world.

When he started talking my first impulse was to chuckle at his optimism but then I remembered that this man, who had started thirteen years ago with literally nothing but the clothes on his back, was now the head of a Movement with over 250,000 meditators. In thirteen years that’s no small potatoes, and if it continues to grow at this rate…

His plans are unbelievably together, though. He’s not only making arrangements for a special package of tapes, books and videotapes to be sent with a pair of initiators to each of the three hundred and fifty largest cities of the world, he’s even making arrangements for advance publicity to ‘warm up’ the areas before the initiators even arrive. And that’s only Phase I!

Jerry Jarvis is back with some apropos good news; the presentation to the various U.S. government research departments went well, and not only are plans being made to investigate TM more thoroughly but seventy-five of the research people want to start TM themselves. Heavy! Also, a course on the Science of Creative Intelligence (a TM-based study) is being introduced at the U.S. War College (!) by the Commandant!

Sheesh! I can just picture all those colonels and generals going into Cosmic Consciousness and realizing how ridiculous the whole business of war is.

December 5th, 1971

Nothing much to report today.

I’ve been deliberately ignoring Jody for the past few days and will continue, as part of my plan for the biggest mind-blower yet. If this doesn’t mess her mind, nothing will. I will let her forget my existence completely, if possible, until Christmas. And then is she gonna flip out when she sees a stocking full of goodies nailed to her doorway Christmas morning. She won’t even know who it’s from, hopefully. I don’t know why I do these things but sure is fun to plan them.

December 6th, 1971

No electricity from about 4:20 PM until 7:30. It was really weird trying to get into a suit and tie in the dark.

All the hotels were without power. Walked down eight flights of steps and over to The Samoa to see if I got any mail, which wasn’t easy by candlelight. Got my first non-relative-written letter and read it during my candlelit dinner. I’m beginning to feel like a monk: the next thing you know I’ll be using candlelight to copy ancient manuscripts.

Oh - you must be wondering about Anna. I still eat lunch and dinner with her but I’ve had second thoughts about balling* with someone I’m not in love with, so that’s just not happening anymore.

*(AUTHOR”S NOTE: Yes, another charming euphemism for sex.)

December 7th, 1971

One slightly weird experience during meditation this morning: it was as if I was sitting still and my body, the chair and the rest of the room were swinging slowly back and forth like a huge bell. I was afraid I was going to fall out of my chair.

December 8th, 1971

During the lecture tonight a woman came up to one of the mics and began speaking, in an awe-struck but controlled voice, about how she had been going into Cosmic Consciousness for the last three days.

She’s been meditating for six years, which is just about average. She saw Jerry Jarvis sitting in the audience and reminded him of how, six years ago, he had initiated her and then told her to go sit in her car and meditate because there wasn’t anywhere else; the Movement hadn’t made enough money to rent a big enough space for initiations and meditations.

Then she reminisced about the first lecture by Maharishi she’d ever seen. She said that at the beginning of the lecture he was holding a rosebud; by the time he was finished speaking it had blossomed...and that was just how she felt now.

The last thing she said was that she wished she could write a postcard to everyone who is still unstressing, saying, “It’s so beautiful! Wish you were here.”

December 9th, 1971

Made myself get up at 4:00 this morning just to see what would happen if I started rounding then. Meditated for about fifteen minutes then said the heck with it and went back to bed ‘til 9:00 AM.

Had a complete freak-out coming back from lunch. I walked past an empty bus on my way into the hotel and hardly noticed it, thinking that the people staying at The Karinia had been brought over for something or other.

I felt something wrong when I walked into the lounge and saw the people sitting there but it took me a good five or ten seconds to put my finger on it: my god, more than half of them were smoking and most of them were drinking either Pepsi or beer! Shee-it, there aren’t more than three people at this course who smoke and nobody drinks that stuff.

What I was being confronted with was the first bunch of non-meditators I’d seen since October, outside of the store owners and hotel staff. French tourists, apparently, though they were all speaking English. Nobody knew how or why they wound up here, but they only stayed long enough to pollute the atmosphere and carbonate the floors, then left.

On the way out I saw a few of them staring at our bulletin board. When I stop and think of how that board must look to someone not ‘in the environment’, I can understand why: incense for sale, asana demonstrations - and even the ‘straight’ items contain references to the lecture material and eastern philosophy, for example, “It would be good kharma if whoever found my notebook would return it. Jai Guru Dev,” that would really mess up the innocent bystander.

One strange experience during afternoon group discussion: I began to sense a feeling of power and energy, coming not just from me but from everyone in the group. I could almost see it in everyone’s eyes and, as we were sitting more or less in a circle it seemed to be concentrated in the middle. Not really pleasant or unpleasant but so profound, so deep. It lasted about fifteen minutes.

Also today I finally finished my work of trying to make fifteen aerograms look like Christmas cards using just a red and a black Magic Marker, writing an appropriate quote from the Beatles or Donovan or someone like that then signing, addressing and mailing them. It took me four days of not doing asanas between meditations just to do the designs: the rest I did during lectures.

Well, that takes care of my Christmas duties for this year except for Jody’s stocking. As I suspected, the one thing she can’t stand is being ignored and has been very friendly of late. This is gonna be fun.

December 10th, 1971

When I went to bed last night I set my ‘mental alarm clock’ for 4:00 AM, in hopes of getting in some rounds. Woke up promptly at quarter to seven.

December 11th, 1971

Well, today I succeeded in getting up at 5:00 and staying up. The instant I woke up I jumped out of bed, put on my clothes and coat, walked down six flights of stairs and out of the hotel for a short walk around the parking lot. Then back to my room and twenty minutes of asanas before my first meditation. Rounded non-stop until almost 1:00 PM. What a buzz!

Towards the end of my first meditation I was getting very deep and I was feeling a throbbing sort of sensation from inside the middle of my forehead. I figured that maybe my ‘third eye’ was unstressing and was really beginning to get into it when… The phone rang.

Now, I’ve been here for about a month and a half without being conscious of having a phone, so when it’s quarter after six in the morning and I’m deep in meditation and the bloody thing rings, I’m sure the rules of conduct call for at least a small coronary. On top of that, I jumped out of meditation to answer it, giving myself a terrific headache in the process, and there was nobody on the line. Good morning.

December 12th, 1971

I’m not sure what time I got up this morning as my watch seemed to have stopped at a little after eleven last night. It was just wound too tight, I guess, because it started again as soon as I turned the stem a little.

I’m rounding all day now except for my group meeting in the afternoon. In other words I’m only eating one meal a day. It’s really improved my afternoon meditations and I’ll hopefully lose weight in the bargain. If I can continue getting up early I’ll be averaging about nine hours of meditation per day.

The lobby of this hotel turns into a transcendental flea-market between dinner and lecture time: people selling pictures of Maharishi, pictures of Guru Dev*, incense,TM bumper stickers, Indian and Spanish jewelry - you name it, they’ve got it.

*(AUTHOR’S NOTE: Guru Dev was Maharishi’s teacher.)

Tonight something new was added: Cosmic Christmas Cards. They’re prints of a painting that was done just two or three weeks ago (according to rumor) by a newly initiated and I guess thoroughly impressed Majorcan artist. Someone who claims to know about such things told me the style is cubistic, whatever that means.

It’s beautiful. whatever it is. It’s of Maharishi and Guru Dev, with a girl playing flute, to sort of balance the picture,looking down at her flute, Maharishi on the right in three-quarter profile, looking out at us and Guru Dev in the middle with his eyes closed. They are seen through and around a scattering of large and small bubbles which seem to get closer and closer together towards the top of the picture and finally form a sort of crown and aura for Guru Dev’s head and shoulders. Also, near the bottom, flowing in and around and across the picture is a sort of stream of daisies, almost as if they were caught up in the wind. Beautiful.

December 13th, 1971

Woke up with little difficulty at about 5:30. Rounding went well until about 9:00, when someone on the construction crew that has been building a supermarket or something on the other side of the hotel decided that it wasn’t fair for just the people on that side to get the benefit of the jackhammers and had some of them start tearing things up on this side.

It took me two hours to hit upon the idea of moving my chair into the bathroom. It’s quieter in there now than it was before the jackhammers. Also, because the the bathroom light makes a rather loud buzz I meditate in the dark, which is actually somehow helpful.

At the lecture Jody suddenly walked up to me and asked me how my heart was and whether I’d “gotten over” her. I was so spaced that I didn’t even understand the question. I just sort of nodded. I’ll write her a note tomorrow.

December 14th, 1971

(AUTHOR’S NOTE: At the top of this page was a note to myself: Pick up lockets. Among the many items offered for sale at the transcendental flea-market were small gold lockets with paintings of Maharishi inside, and I ordered at least three for my brother and his wife and another friend and sent them off for Christmas presents.)

I was so stressed, that is to say I was unstressing so heavily when I went to bed, that it took me until 8:30 this morning to sleep it off.

Wrote Jody a note reassuring her that I’m not still hung up on her - and I’m not, but I’m still planning the Christmas stocking stunt just to blow her mind. She’ll never figure out who did it.

At the evening meeting Maharishi announced that the three-day unstressing extravaganza, i.e. little or no food, no meetings and darn little sleep will commence on the 17th of this month - three days from now. What we will be doing is taking a little food, like a couple of bananas and a few crackers, up to our rooms and staying there for three days of almost non-stop rounding. Maharishi said that after this we’ll understand how the “cave yogis” felt. And strangely enough the day after all this, the 20th, is Guru Dev’s birthday. Should be an unusual day.

Except for a couple of cards from relatives it’s really not the least bit Christmas-y.

December 15th, 1971

We had what is becoming known as our ‘weekly blackout’ tonight. Somebody keeps forgetting to feed that hamster in the treadmill, I guess.

Dinner was something of a surprise: french fries and onion rings, both of which were thought to be verboten. Naturally I scarfed down handfuls of the greasy things, which I found myself regretting by the time I got to bed.

December 16th, 1971

Oh, pain and agony! Woke up at 7:45 really feeling like shit warmed over. One of the people in my discussion group had stomach flu a day or two ago so that’s probably where it came from. Between that and belching up the taste of onions I was in bad shape. I dragged myself out of bed and meditated for about fifteen minutes but I couldn’t take it, so I went back to bed and slept until one.

Tomorrow begins the three-day special so unless something unusual happens, like unstressing all my acid trips at once or seeing God or something, today’s will be my last entry until the 20th.

----------------------

(Six or seven hours later.) Wrong again. Maharishi has decided we should wait until we have either stopped the construction noise around the hotels (They have been blasting for these past few days) or moved! He said that he is prepared to move us all to Manorca, wherever that is, if necessary. That would be some exodus.

I wonder if Buddha ever had problems like this.

December 17th, 1971

Dear Diary,

You won’t believe this one. How would you like to come out of the elevator after a typical dull day of rounding until 7:00 PM, only to be confronted with a sign telling all us March* people to be packed and ready to move by 8:15. My god! The dude doesn’t mess around when he’s got his mind made up, does he?

*(AUTHOR’S NOTE: “March people” refers to the group of people on the course who were scheduled to leave in March. As mentioned earlier the course was divided into three ten-week segments and people could sign up for one, two or all of them.)

Dashed over (of course, after two months of rounding my dash isn’t much more than a fast walk) to The America for a quick dinner, dashed back, ran around my room like a maniac, trying to pack and was actually done and in the lobby with luggage by 8:00. Naturally, in order to make sure that we released as much stress as possible in the process someone made sure that one of our two elevators was broken. Nothing like one hundred people with luggage all trying to move out at once with the aid of a six-capacity elevator. A million laughs.

After a brief how-what-why-and-where meeting with Maharishi we were loaded onto buses and taken to our destination, Hotel Levante, some forty kilometers from everyone else at the course. This means we may never again see the people who are leaving this Wednesday. I didn’t even get to say goodbye to Anna.

The bus ride was something to remember. I was so high on the ridiculousness of the situation that I was almost speeding, spewing out Firesign Theatre and miscellaneous humor to anyone who would or wouldn’t listen. Meanwhile at the back of the bus everyone was singing Christmas Carols. Ho, ho. Merry Christmas and pass the suntan oil.

After about a forty-minute ride three busloads of stoned out, giggling meditators arrived at the Hotel Levante and actually managed to register and get to their rooms with the next three hours. The rooms are really nice; once again I copped an ocean view, or at least half of one.

And you know what else I got, three rooms down from me? You guessed it: Jody! There’s no escape.

Unless something exciting happens this will be my last entry for the next three days; Maharishi said we should start the Big Push tomorrow, now that we’ve got a quiet place. What he didn’t say is that we’ve got a quiet place with cold radiators.

December 20th, 1971

Strange things have been happening, but not the kind I was expecting.

Jody and I have become pretty good friends these past few days although I haven’t seen her since the night we arrived. Heck, I haven’t been out of my room for more than five minutes since arrival. But we’ve been sliding notes under each other’s doors - sort of a duel of wits by correspondence.

(AUTHOR’S NOTE: I still have some of these notes - silly little jokes, spiritual song lyrics, whimsical half-poems and conversational tidbits - just some human connection between our monastic cells while rounding our brains out. Here are a couple of examples from Jody:)

“Tonite I go to bed with the sun (never mind whose)

so if you hear we’re changing to another place

let me know? please

by your good grace

so I too can inhabit a space

(or another banana tree

with thee, whee.) Amen.

-------------

Dear Nut,

It is great to be worshipped from afar.

A far is a small craft used for sailing

and precedes the next level of worship

which is “wooden ships”

or war shits

and what strange things are happening.

Your friend, the fruitcake.”

The March group must have the world’s worst kharma: two days after we move into our ‘quiet’ rooms the ground across the street is broken - by a bulldozer- for the building of a new hotel. Surprise, surprise. Not only that but it’s the same goddamn bulldozer that was hassling us at The Eugenia! Same driver and everything!

This being Guru Dev’s birthday (although we’re not having the official celebration until the 30th due to all the moving around) I rather thought something special would happen but that wasn’t what I had in mind. It didn’t really bother me much though: I just transfered my chair to the bathroom once again and I’m right back where I started from in The Eugenia.

The weird experience happened tonight at about 10:30. While coming back from slipping a note under Jody’s door I met someone who told me we would be meeting with Maharishi in a few minutes. I said okay, put on my shoes and went down to the meeting hall with her.

Now I’ve been rounding literally non-stop, except for sleep, during the past three days without noticing anything out of the ordinary, but it’s a little bit like smoking dope in that you don’t realize how stoned you are until you have to try to perform some ‘normal’ function like talking. Now imagine two hundred of us in that condition: haven’t talked for three days ‘cause you’ve been rounding all by yourself and suddenly you’re in a whole room full of people and you have to relate.

Everyone was wasted and giggling like idiots. Someone got up to complain to Maharishi about the bulldozer and we just thought that was hysterical. Maharishi picked up on it right away and saw there was no point in trying to discuss anything serious so we just diddled around discussing possible sites for future courses. He said that he had someone scouting around for a good helicopter for him so that next year they won’t have to hassle trying to find five or six empty hotels in one spot. Wait until the newspapers get hold of that!

Also, for the next couple of weeks we are to de-round by half an hour every day until we’re only doing about four rounds a day. Seems the body builds up a toleration for long meditations which this will break up. After that we go back up to the usual rounding-til-seven for a month or two before starting to come down to go home.

December 21st, 1971

We’re supposed to be coming down gradually and I’m completely screwing up. I not only spent an hour and a half cruising the stores for possible Christmas stocking fillers for Jody but went to the dining hall to pick up my usual fruit and cookies to munch between rounds, started talking to someone and wound up staying for two and a half hours and consuming a full meal including almost an entire package of cookies!

That plus digesting time must have knocked a good five hours out of my rounding. And I was only supposed to cut down half an hour!

December 22nd, 1971

Something must be happening. About half-way through my first meditation I remembered that I had once wanted to try to write a sonnet about Jody. In fact, I think I did try once about three weeks ago but never really got started ‘cause it’s such a strict form. The only one I ever wrote, more than a year ago, took me a whole week. Today I just sort of absent-mindedly decided to take another whack at it between meditations and before the day was done, so was I! Incredible! I’ll copy it in when I get time. I’m going to give it to her for Christmas, I think.

Would you believe I heard “Yummy, Yummy, Yummy” by The Ohio Express coming out of the local radios?

We were supposed to meet with Maharishi (who didn’t come) at 10:00 tonight and when he hadn’t arrived by 10:30 our local guy in-charge suggested a group meditation. Which would have been fine except that some of the people had been non-stop rounding for five days. All it took was one smothered giggle to set everybody off for half an hour. Chaos!

December 23rd, 1971

Did my Christmas shopping today. For about 150 pesetas I managed to collect enough stuff to fill Jody’s stocking. Most of it’s candy (including a few of those foil-covered chocolate ornaments - really a find around here) but I also included some incense and a genuine hand-carved Spanish clay thingamabob to hang around her neck. I’m going to thumbtack the stocking to her door after she goes to sleep tomorrow night. Between that and the sonnet it should be a memorable Christmas.

Up to the time I moved out of The Eugenia I’d received one - count ‘em - one letter that wasn’t from a relative. Now that I’m in The Levante and the mail isn’t being forwarded for a few days there are five and maybe more waiting for me, according to someone who went back to visit. Typical.

December 24th, 1971

This has been the most incredible day of the course so far. The day itself was ordinary enough but from dinner on, whew!

Feeling mischievous I slipped a note under Jody’s door:

“Merry Christmas Eve! Are you coming to my room for the Christmas Ball? We might even have a dance afterwards (Yuk, yuk!).”

Coming into dinner I saw two notices taped to the door next to the evening menu. The first was the schedule for the Christmas Program:

Tonight

8:00-9:00 Taped music (Moody Blues).

9:00-10:00 Live music, readings, etc.

10:00- ? Maharishi

The other notice said that everyone should hang up their stockings on the door because Santa was coming. Uh-oh. This could complicate things a little for placing Jody’s stocking. We’ll see.

It had been so long since I’d heard any music that I arrived in the meeting hall before everyone else (except one person who’d been meditating in there) just to be sure of being near the music. When the guy arrived and set up his stereo cassette player* I asked him if perchance he had the All Things Must Pass album by George Harrison, which he did, and everyone else that arrived wanted to hear it, so we heard part of side three and all of side four. Ecstacy! My god, how I’ve missed it!

*(AUTHOR’S NOTE: Commercial cassette players and mass-produced cassette albums had been around since the mid-60’s but the quality of both were so bad that they didn’t begin to catch on until the technology was considerably improved. In 1971 they were just starting to become a popular alternative to vinyl records. The Sony Walkman was still eight years away.)

Afterwards the crowd wanted to hear Days of Future Passed by The Moody Blues but the guy said he might play the rest of George tomorrow night.

The live stuff was weird. First about twenty spaced-out and totally unrehearsed meditators did an acapella improvisational misinterpretation of “The Twelve Days of Christmas”. Then the three Spanish busboys from our dining hall stood up and one of them knew almost two chords on a guitar, so he played them for about ten minutes and repeated one ten-syllable lyric twice while the other two watched him. Lots of applause ‘cause heck we don’t want to get on their bad side; they handle our food and it could be dangerous. Then the usual guitar and flute-playing for a while. Last and probably least, the German meditators got up and did an old German Christmas song. The delivery and overall sound was almost indistinguishable from “The Twelve Days of Christmas”.

At this point, thank god, Maharishi arrived and we had a reading from the Bible about the birth of Jesus, which Maharishi then interpreted into TM for us, which got us off into some rousing theological discussions.

Someone had finally brought our mail from The Samoa and I got not five but six letters so my already high spirits from the Christmas program really started peaking as I went up to my room to read them. I left my room door open to get some fresh air and in case Jody wanted to stop in to say Merry Christmas, and settled down to read.

Another application form from the University of Massachusetts; Christmas cards from my aunt, my mother, and my oldest brother.

The fifth letter was from my friend Kris, sister of my best friend Steve. I opened it, expecting all sorts of little hometown tidings and Christmas wishes, etc.:

“Dear Andy,

I wish I could write a sunshiney letter but I can’t. Kim

- her sister, also a friend of mine - was hit by a car on November 24 and died yesterday on Dec. 2.”

It went on, but I couldn’t. Oh, my god! I just kept staring at the word “died”. I couldn’t comprehend it. I remember thinking, “...and it’s Christmas Eve. Why did I get this on Christmas Eve?”

I was shattered. I couldn’t function, couldn’t think, couldn’t move for several minutes. I could only stare at the word “died”. Then I knew what I had to do and it didn’t even strike me as strange that I hadn’t done it for years: I literally got down on my knees and prayed, if prayer it was. I wasn’t really praying to anyone, I was just sort of sending everything I was feeling out into the ether.

I stayed there like that for a minute or two, then stood up again. I didn’t know what to do next. I just stood there holding the letter in my hands, staring at the wall in front of me. And that was how Jody found me when she came in a few minutes later.

She didn’t notice at first and started to joke around in our usual fashion but stopped quickly when she saw that I was just barely keeping up my end of the conversation and asked me what was wrong. Almost in a monotone I said, “This letter… A friend of mine just died…” looking at her and past her.

If Jody has one talent that really stands out among the rest it is being female. She knew just what to do. She sat me down on the bed and put her arm around me and held my hand and talked to me, first about Kim and then gradually away onto lighter subjects. After about an hour she had calmed me down to where we could meditate together, which we did for about half an hour.

By the time we finished it was a little after midnight and I figured that as long as we were in a this state of closeness and it was, after all, Christmas morning I should give her the sonnet, which I also did. She liked it of course, and while I was at it I thought I might as well avoid any possible conflict with Santa and gave her the stocking as well. That she really flipped over.

By then it was going on 1:00 and we were both very tired. She asked me if I wanted her to stay the night with me in case I needed someone to hold onto. I thought my motives out very carefully and said no, but thank you, and that I’d like to just sleep with her, some other night, but I didn’t really need someone tonight.

This was cool, and she said that she would leave her door unlocked just in case. Oh, any other night but tonight, Jody!

December 25th, 1971

Well, well, well - Santa’s been here and I even forgot to hang up my stocking. Piled outside my door were a chocolate Santa, some hard candies, a candle and matches, some nuts and a nutcracker.

Not too much of a depression hang-over from last night. Rounding keeps my mind in such a state of flux that no mood can be maintained. I did think about it quite a bit, though.

Around noon I opened my door to let in some air just as Jody was about to slide a note under it, and then I went with her to see if she could find some Tampax (Yessir, there’s always something special about Christmas).

The kitchen staff really outdid themselves tonight. Walked in to be confronted by about four million cornish game hens and similar goodies, including doughnut holes, cookies, peanut butter squares and fruitcake for dessert. Massive overdose of the year!

The evening program was all right, too: one Moody Blues album on cassette, then a couple of Irish meditators played tin flutes and recited some original poetry. Really nice. After that some self-nominated organizer, who looked and acted like and probably is a retired junior high school music teacher, tried to get us together to sing Christmas carols for Maharishi. It was pitiful. She was up there singing in B-flat above high C and doing an imitation of either Mitch Miller* or a Mississippi double-wheeled steamboat with her arms, and we’re all singing and cracking up after every two words.

*(AUTHOR’S NOTE: Mitch Miller was a bandleader who in the early ‘60’s had a popular TV show called Sing Along with Mitch, during which popular songs were performed while the lyrics were shown on the screen so viewers could sing along. He was often parodied for his somewhat robotic style of conducting.

And just as a side note: it says something about the homogeneity of those times, and the fragmentary nature of our current culture, that a weekly singalong show could be aired on national television with the expectation that viewers across the nation would be familiar with at least most of the songs being presented. I suppose Glee is the closest approximation we have currently.)

But by the time Maharishi arrived we were sufficiently chuckled out to do a pretty decent verse of “Joy to the World” as he came in. Not too inappropriate in view of his World Plan.

December 26th, 1971

Started off my day with a chocolate Santa Claus. My stomach may never forgive me.

For some reason coming down from rounding (I’m down to about eight from the fourteen or sixteen I was doing during peak time) causes stress to be released more quickly for a while. Consequently many of us come out for dinner in extremely bitchy moods for no reason.

Jody and me, for example. When I walked up to her table and asked if I could join her she looked up from the book she was reading and said, “At your own risk.” I was feeling just ornery enough to take her up on it, and did. Fortunately after a few rounds of sparring we gave it up and got into a serious discussion about the value of serious discussion, which of course led nowhere.

Then we took a walk along the beach. That was strange: we were both pretty spacey but there was a feeling of something happening, I don’t know what. There was a place where three cement steps went down to where the surf was splashing over the rocks. Jody sat down on the steps and I went and stood on the rocks, looking out. We stayed like that for a while then Jody said, “Come here,” and made room for me on the step next to her.

When I sat down she put her arm through mine and leaned against me. I turned and looked into her eyes and it was probably just the light, or the lack of it, but I thought I saw something there that hadn’t been there before, so I kissed her once, lightly. She neither gave nor resisted; she might as well have been asleep. In fact there was a slight look of surprise on her face as if I’d woken her.

I thought maybe I’d done the wrong thing and started to go off into one of my Firesign raps to relieve the situation a bit, but she said, “You don’t have to talk to me all the time.” Cleverly I replied, “Don’t I?” She nodded and I clapped a hand over my mouth and held it there for a minute then dropped it again. We sat there quietly watching the fireworks of ocean spray for a few minutes then went back in for the evening lecture.

December 27th, 1971

Nothing much of interest today, aside from a short moonlight walk with Jody, so I’ll copy in the sonnet.

(AUTHOR’S NOTE: Okay, if you managed to read “Rainbow Girl” you’ll have a pretty good idea of what to expect. It does have the advantage of being considerably shorter but I made up for it with sheer pretentiousness.)

-------------------------------------------------

Sonnet #2: For Jody (Who Might Not Have Seen the Changes)

“Exist!” said I, the beggar at your door.

“Be real, for hunger fills my eyes like joy

until hallucinations find employ,

as pain and costume images adored.

“Begone!” said I, a shadow on your screen,

“And in my darkness I’ll pretend disdain.

I look at you in disillusioned pain

and see in you but shards of broken dream.”

“Come play!” said I, the kid with two left hands.

“Come laugh with me; I’m really quite a clown.

And just for love I’ll weave a daisy-crown

to give you (if you won’t misunderstand).

My love’s no more a burden to defend:

I’m free of love (and I love you), my friend.

---------------------------------------------

December 28th, 1971

Kind of a weird day. I woke up this morning with a really intense feeling of loneliness. I really needed to see someone. So I wrote a note to Jody asking if I could “unstress a hug” on her because “someone stole my security blanket,” and signed it Linus*, then slipped it under her door.

*(AUTHOR’S NOTE: Linus is a character from the Peanuts comic strip who always carries around a security blanket, or at least he did during the early years of the strip.)

I then meditated for about forty minutes and was just coming out when I heard a piece of paper slide under my door. The answer was, “Yes. I just came out of meditation and it would at least be on the level of Cosmic Crush.”

As I read it there was a knock on the door. As I opened it I heard her say, “I heard you get up.”

Her hair was sort of tousled and hung in her face a little as if she’d just gotten up and she looked so cute standing there looking up at me that I couldn’t wait any longer. I just sort of gathered her in and held her so tight that it must have hurt a little, and she wasn’t doing too bad either. We just stood there like that in my doorway for a while, then returned to our separate rooms.

(AUTHOR”S NOTE: It was at this point in my journal-keeping that I decided that because so much of each day’s entry was centered around Jody and our interactions I would use another notebook for jotting down a sort of shorthand version of Jody-related items, with the intention of somehow expanding on them later on - which of course never happened - and reserving the main journal for everything else.

For those of you keeping track, this now meant I was using three different means of recording the day’s events: The original, single-page-per-date journal, the notebook for the overflow from the first and now another notebook for all things Jody. I still have absolutely no idea why I did this.

Since the Jody material was, as I mentioned, not as fully written out as the rest of the daily entries I’m going to have to fill in somewhat as I go along, so what follows won’t always be word-for-word transcriptions.)

After Jody left I started another meditation but my mind kept returning to the way she had felt in my arms, her warmth pressed against me. After a while I couldn’t stand it anymore, gathered my courage and sent her another note:

“I’m getting weird vibes from somewhere - do you want to make love?”

Needless to say I was unable to do anything but wait nervously for her reply which arrived fairly quickly but seemed to take forever:

“My body digs it but my head couldn’t take it at a course like this. Besides we’ve already made LOVE.”

Later that evening, sitting in the lecture hall, alternately reading Yogananda out loud to each other and then just falling silent, staring into each other’s eyes. Later she told me she’d thought I was upset about something until I kissed her good night. She also said that she’s going back into silence tomorrow.

December 29th, 1971

(AUTHOR’S NOTE: The following note from Jody was dated Dec. 29 but I can’t remember what time of day it was delivered. The date may be wrong anyway because it’s in my handwriting and as I recall I went back and assigned dates to our notes much later on, guessing in some cases, in an attempt to keep them in order for later inclusion in the journal.)

“Dear Andrew,

Long after days grow dark

Starshine and moons circle the days

after we’ve gone our separate ways

I’ll remember the clear, bright sparkle of the sea

blue… like your eyes.

And I’ll remember the rain of today and my chocolate bar trips to the milky way of unstressing

and my nightie which just recently took off over my balcony - a pretty yellow thing to do.

Now I’m unstressing the word “Fare Well”.

Farewell.

The very word is like a bell

tolling me back to my sole self.

--Jo”

I went down to about four rounds today and was unstressing so heavily that I thought it advisable to go into silence as well.

I made a small sign: “Shhhh!” in descending bubbles to indicate I was in silence, “Unstressing - Go to hell - Jai Guru Dev” on the other, and attempted to be silent all day.

This was a mistake It was like leaving a bottle of fermenting substance corked too long and by nighttime I almost popped mine. I finally had to communicate or go nuts. Whew!

We haven’t seen Maharishi in about five days due to a “Symposium on the Science of Creative Intelligence” he’s running this week. I hope he gets here for New Year’s Eve - all we do nights is listen to tapes of S.C.I. lectures. What a drag.

Oh - speaking of New Year’s Eve, in order to “...inaugurate the World Plan,” Maharishi has declared seven days of silence from midnight of the 31st on. And I couldn’t even last a day!

No notes from Jody. I sat with her at lunch but was getting uptight vibes from her and left quickly. Sat in my room unstressing at her all afternoon but eventually I realized it was just sensitive unstressing.

At dinner I deliberately sat by myself. Then I saw Jody talking to someone, which made me extremely uptight but I stayed in silence. After the laser lecture* I saw her look at me and start to write a note so I went to look over her shoulder.

(AUTHOR’S NOTE: Apparently Maharishi sent us a guest speaker to talk about lasers, possibly in relation to S.C.I., but I have no memory of this whatsoever.)

She gave me a friendly smile as I read the note which said that she was unstressing too heavily to stay in silence. Then she said, “I’ve got to get away from you. I like you too much.”

Stunned, I immediately broke my silence, of course: “What was that?”

Then she added, trying to be off-hand about it, “This’ll turn you off: I’m married.”

I didn’t believe her at first but it’s true. She was on the verge of legal separation when she came here. I kept my poker face until she went to talk to someone else, then I went into shock.

Married!

So many piece of the puzzle fit together; reactions that I hadn’t understood before. I pondered these new revelations as I made my way back to my room. After a while I realized that she had been correct when she’d once said to me that we’re very much alike under our respective acts.

I felt a surge of empathy and affection for her. From memory I wrote out the lyrics to “Bridge Over Troubled Water” by Simon & Garfunkel and then “You’ve Got a Friend” by Carole King. At the bottom of “You’ve Got a Friend” I wrote, “Forgive me if I’m a little slow to ‘come running’ the first few times - this shining armor takes getting used to. I love you. You’re crazy, but I love you.”

Then I slipped the pages under her door and went to bed.

December 30th, 1971

Jody wrote back:

“Don’t let them take your soul.*

*(AUTHOR’S NOTE: a reference to a line from “You’ve Got a Friend”.)

I’m trying to free myself from attachments - I left two behind to come here and don’t think it wise to form another one. So stop sulking (I could/can feel it).

“You’re really a fine person, which is grade AA in my book (a good egg?). Thank you for loving me in spite of or because of my craziness.

My watch stopped, so if you could get your armor working could you slip the time under my door?”

I replied:

After all those lyrics I slid under your door last night, how could you think I was sulking? I meant every word they said. And just that way, dig?

Love, the second-hand poet.

P.S. Speaking of second-hands, the time is 11:58.”

Before leaving for lunch I stopped outside her door to see if I could hear any activity that might indicate that she was getting ready to leave. Just as I arrived she opened the door and practically walked into me, getting scared half to death in the process.

She became very angry. “Well, what do you want?” she snarled.

I suddenly went back into silence.

But only for a moment. Then I laughed, backing up against the opposite wall and twitching in a pantomime of the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre.

Ignoring me, she started walking down the hall. I walked beside her. She pulled ahead and almost ran down the stairs, while I maintained my normal pace and burst out laughing again. I don’t think she was expecting that.

At lunch, later, I caught her eye. She said, “Don’t even look at me,” but smiled.

Back in my room, after about forty-five minutes of deep meditation, during which a lot of emotional stress was being released, a note was slid under my door - followed by a second one about five minutes later. I finished my meditation feeling still very emotional and picked up the notes, expecting some little angry message about scaring her.

“Dear Andy,

Thank you for letting me unstress on you. And don’t ever do that again!

P.S. I see ghosts - spirits, angels sometimes, and that was freaky ‘cause I never saw one waiting or that close.

In case you haven’t noticed I’m avoiding you. You are not very helpful. If you meant all those lovely words…some distance is implied, no?”

The second note:

“Listen: I just thought you’d like to know without you Christmas would have been a real dud.

Love, Jody” (with a sun drawn around her name)

Thanks for the bone.

My reply:

“Dear Jody,

If that’s what you want. Just thought you’d like to know that without you Christmas Eve would’ve been really dead.

Know anyone who’s in the market for a good second-hand second-hand poet?

Love, Andy”

I tried to avoid Jody as obviously as possible at dinner.

Weirdness prevailed tonight. Maharishi was definitely coming, “...either tonight or tomorrow morning,” so about half the people figured this meant a good chance to go to sleep early. The rest of us die-hards gathered and listened to tapes for three yawn-filled hours ‘til eleven, when he showed up.

We diddled around for a couple of hours planning the seven-day silence and a seven-day period of heavy rounding, then someone got up to bitch about the fact that we had gotten almost no mail since Christmas Eve. Someone else said it was all sitting out in the kitchen staff truck. Maharishi said to bring it in there.

When this was done he said dump it on the floor and five or ten of you start reading out the names. It was right out of the Marx Brothers or Firesign: eight people yelling out eight different names, simultaneously followed by cries of “Here!” from at least fifteen people. S.I.M.S. organization at work. But it somehow worked and I got five letters. Spotting Jody across the room and feeling more cheerful, I waved them at her.

My mood darkened as I read the letter from my friend Steve. He had been, as mentioned earlier, a fellow traveler on the path of spirituality, but the death of his sister had thrown him into a tailspin and he wrote that he had gotten back into taking acid, which upset me greatly.

The evening finally ended at about 2 AM. Still upset and in need of comfort I went looking for Jody but couldn’t find her so I gave up and went back to my room to read the letter again. Soon after I arrived there was a knock on the door. It was Jody, holding a sign saying, “I came to see you say Hi! But you weren’t up here yet. Hi. Love, me.”

I crooked a finger to bring her in, holding the letter up with my other hand. She said, “Not another one,” concerned.

“Well, not really,” meaning not another death at least, and explained about my friend, adding, “I wouldn’t want to make you go through that again, you’ve got enough problems.”

“Like what?”

“Like trying to avoid me and I won’t let you.”

We hugged for a long moment. Then she pulled back and, looking into my eyes, said, “It’s just that I’ve been feeling too comfortable with you.” She paraphrased something from Yogananda’s book about how it’s hard to feel universal when you’re too attached to one person.

Oh.

“Also it was getting so that I felt like I couldn’t sit where I wanted to or even open my door ‘cause you’d always be there.”

“True. Anyway, thanks.” We hugged again and I sent her off to bed. Then I sat down and dashed off another note to her:

“Note: one small point(edness)*.

As near as I can recall you have only come to my room voluntarily, that is, without invitation, twice and both times were when I had just received some really terrible news and was consciously needing you. What you are doing?* Whatever it is, thank you for doing it.

Love you (from afar, and a far is a small craft used for sailing…), --Andy”

*(AUTHOR’S NOTES: Remaining focussed on the rounding program and undistracted by outside influences was, in Movement argot, “staying one-pointed”.

“What you are doing?” was an affectionate imitation of Maharishi’s way of speaking, which happened quite a bit among the course participants.)

December 31st, 1971

There was a gift-wrapped candy bar outside my door this morning. On the inside wrapper was written, “To my special friend...Andy dear. Happy, Happy New Year. Absolutely* yours, Jody.”

*(AUTHOR’S NOTE: A subtle joke. Jody was saying that although she was not mine in the relative world she was mine on the level of the absolute, that is to say the level of pure being where all is one.)

I sent back two replies:

(1) “Unless you’re in C.C. your kharma is bound to catch up with you. Need we analyze the effects of giving chocolate to an unstressing meditator? Keep your door locked tonight, sadist. I thanks ye and loves ye, --Andy”.

(2) “Which reminds me: since this week of silence is to inaugurate the World Plan, are you coming to my room for the Inaugural Ball? We could even… Oh, you’ve heard this one before? Oh well.”

---------------

This has very possibly been the most miserable day of my life. Finding out about Kim’s death and Steve’s freaking out caused me great sorrow but there’s even some good in feeling sorry for others; misery is feeling sorry for yourself.

All I really wanted out of New Year’s Eve was to be with someone, i.e. Jody, but she was with someone else, which filled me with jealousy. On top of that the first performer of the New Year’s Eve program was playing all sorts of down-and-out love songs like “4 + 20” by Steve Stills, “Rainy Day Man” by James Taylor (which had a line about chasing rainbows that almost killed me) and “Just Like a Woman” by Bob Dylan. It was all I needed.

I had deliberately sat where Jody could see me being miserable, but the sadness of the music made me get up and practically run out of the room (secretly hoping that Jody would catch the significance, of course). I sat on the stairs leading to the beach for a while, feeling sorry for myself and listening to Mike (Laughrin) play guitar. I went back inside later; there were a few other performers then a puja and we got out at 11:20.

What to do? I went up to my room for a while then came downstairs again - just as Jody was coming out of the lecture hall. I waited, hopefully, just long enough for her to see me then continued downstairs without speaking. Sat on the beach steps again. Fantasized about Jody coming out and finding me there.

I saw a couple walking in the other direction and thought it might be Jody and her friend. Consumed with jealousy I followed them - I had to know for sure. It wasn’t them.

I went back in but it was only 11:55, so I sat on the beach steps again, looking at the full moon and thinking about last New Year’s Eve with Rachel.* I felt totally alone and miserable. So incredibly down.

I went inside and it was 12:10. Whoopee. Went to bed.

*(AUTHOR’S NOTE: Rachel was the woman who had kindly taken my virginity just over a year previously. That New Year’s Eve she and I took psychedelics - I don’t remember what kind - and I did the entire Beatles Rap for her.

I’d been hoping she would join me on my spiritual quest but it didn’t work out. She lived in another part of the country and once I got home we wrote back and forth for a while but gradually drifted away from each other. That New Year’s Eve was the last time I took psychedelics - I started TM a little over two weeks later.)

January 1st, 1972

Woke up with a fairly heavy depression-hangover. Yesterday I’d written out the lyrics to Bob Dylan’s “New Morning” with the idea of sliding it under Jody’s door as a New Year’s Day present so I did it anyway. In my mood it was a beautiful piece of sarcasm.

We’ve been broken up into groups again and I’m leader of my group because I’m at the end of the hall. For this week of silence I’m just supposed to make sure that the other five members of the group (Just to show how well you know my kharma, can you guess who one of the other group members is?) haven’t killed themselves and report any who do to the medical staff. Laugh riot.

Since Maharishi is also in silence, no lectures this week; in other words, absolutely nothing to do after dinner. Can’t talk, there’s nothing to read and the TV’s in Spanish. I’ve got a feeling I’m going to be well caught up on my correspondence and sleep by the end of this week.

January 2nd, 1972

A truly nothing day. Studied my Checking and lecture notes, wrote letters and slept. It’ll probably be like this for the rest of the week. Silence is golden - phooey.

At lunch I sat by myself in a place where Jody would be sure to see me, but pretended not to see her when she came in. Naturally, she came over to wave hello. I smiled and squeezed her hand and, noticing she was wearing her monk’s robe, asked her via pantomime why she was wasn’t wearing the little clay ornament I’d given her for Christmas. She mimed a shocked expression as if to say, ‘How could I have forgotten’ and I made the ‘shame-shame on you’ gesture with two fingers in reply.

She wandered away shortly after that exchange, and I couldn’t help but notice some other guy putting an arm around her shoulders to say hello. Immediate feelings of irrational jealousy followed, of course. I had to focus on calming down and telling myself how ridiculous it was to be jealous. Such possessiveness! I hope it’s being unstressed and not stressed.

Later, during my afternoon rounds a note was slipped under my door:

“We have to talk sometime soon (6 days). Love, Jody”

Surprise tactic: I didn’t answer. And it worked. Passing by my open doorway (since she was in my group she’s supposed to check in with me) on her way to dinner she came in, gave me a big smile and stood there. I waved casually and pretended to look back at my letter as if I thought she was just checking in.

After a few seconds I looked up and gave her a questioning look, as if to ask, ‘Is there something else?’, unconcerned. This too seemed to catch her off-guard. She wrote on an envelope:

“Did you get something small & white with letters on it (like T and A and L and K)?”

I read it and nodded. The next question obviously would have been ‘How come you didn’t answer,’ but I was expecting it and before she started writing again I showed her the little clip-on badge I had prepared:

“In silence -- Incommunicado -- Incoherent”

She was impressed. She wrote, “Totally?” and I nodded and she continued, “Wow, good boy” and split.

One battle won.

January 3rd, 1972

This is only the third day of silence and already I’m going stir-crazy. Did nothing but pace up and down in my room from 8:30 to 10:30 last night. Gonna be a long week.

Each member of my group had a check-in sheet posted on his or her door. Jody’s entry for the day was “Depressed”.

January 4th, 1972

I think I just lost the war.

After all Jody’s talk of non-attachment and avoiding me because she “likes me too much”, I just looked out over my balcony and saw, near the empty swimming pool, someone in an orange robe kissing and hugging with a guy, I’m not sure who. There are three other girls with the same kind of robe so I continued to watch. I had to be sure.

At the finish of one kiss she looked up and saw me, I think, at the same moment that I recognized her. I turned and stepped back into my room before she could see the expression on my face. I felt mortally wounded, in real pain. I didn’t know what to do. It’s a good thing we’ve still got three days of silence left…

One hour later: wrong again, maybe. Looking over my balcony again I saw Jody coming up the beach with the same guy, who was skipping stones or something. Then she stopped and wrote something in the sand with her foot. I was eating my heart out, thinking it would be some sort of ‘Jody + ...whoever he was’ message, but she simply wrote the word “Harmless”.

Meanwhile there was a sudden splattering sound as if someone was pouring water from the top floor. I looked out and up and sure enough. A game had been started, somehow; the person in the room on the first floor directly in line with the one at the top would stick his head out and the other person would try to him with the water before he could pull his back in.

Pretty much everyone was watching - all those heads popping out over balconies looked like a bird sanctuary somehow.

Sometime later a note appeared under my door:

“Dear Andy,

Q: Is it possible to love many at once… A: Yes. In the universal heart there are no boundaries. So it is in the individual heart. It is only a question of time...love from one is as beautiful as from another, but love for all is best of all - recall my feeling for you doesn’t alter with the wind or with a swimming pool or time. It always is...we all are oneness.”

My reply:

“I’d like to meet your husband someday.”

This is getting confusing. I knew, or at least hoped, that my reply would make her mad. I thought about it all during my last meditation of the day, trying to figure out how she’d answer. I had all my replies prepared and I even had my best general answer already written out to either slide under her door when she answered or to give her personally when she check in:

“I love you, Jody. I know I do or it wouldn’t have hurt so much to do that to you* - but I had to know if your love is more than a bunch of worn-out philosophy cliches. I wouldn’t have done it if you weren’t important to me.”

*(AUTHOR’S NOTE: Apparently I was under the impression that sending her a snide remark about her marital status would be utterly devastating to Jody. I have no idea why.)

Well, she didn’t reply by 6:30 so I opened the door for check-ins as usual. 7:00, 7:10, 7:15. Everyone had checked in but Jody, who’s usually out by 7:00. I was about to go knock on her door when she strolled past my doorway from the wrong direction, i.e. from the stairs instead of from her room. Somewhat puzzled I followed her to her door and tapped her on the shoulder.

She turned around and I just stood there waiting for for an answer. It’s hard to say how I decided what the answer was but we wound up hugging and kissing and carrying on in the hall, much to the embarrassment of someone coming out of his room for dinner. She pointed to the golden sun embroidered on the leg of my jeans* and pantomimed putting it in my heart.

*(AUTHOR’S NOTE: Apparently since there were no meetings during the period of silence everyone had reverted to casual dress. My sister-in-law had embroidered a lovely sun just above the knee of my favorite bell-bottom jeans.)

Anyway, I started to pull her back towards my room to show her what I’d written but she thought I was trying to drag her out for dinner and signaled that she had to get something from her room first. She opened her door and there on the floor was my reply to her first note. She hadn’t been back to her room, hadn’t seen it yet.

Uh-oh. That means she thought I’d taken her note at face value without replying. Oh well, too late to backstep now. I shoved it at her playfully with my foot as if to say, ‘Here’s a laugh.’

She read it...and it was a laugh. She cracked up. Then she wrote on it, handed it back and pointed at her check-in sheet where she’d written “depressed” yesterday. It (the note) said:

“Caused by letter from Husband.”

Oh boy. Good thing she didn’t interpret my reply the way I’d meant it. I went through my ‘egads’ routine, expressing dismay and sympathy. After Jody got organized we left her room and stopped by mine on the way to dinner. I motioned her to wait, put on my shoes and started to write a reply to something she’d written on my “No molestar, por favor” sign: “Who’s Por Favor?”

I scribbled, “You’ve heard of Canis Major, the Dog Star? This is Por Favor, the Mole Star.”

Unfortunately while I was writing this she wandered into my room and picked up my ready-made ‘reply’ where I’d stupidly left it. Once again, uh-oh. But she read it with no reaction, none whatsoever. Then she wrote on the back: “Does it bother you that Greg is waiting downstairs?”

Yes. I shook my head, No.

Oh well, back to the same old shtick. When we got to the bottom of the stairs I waved to Greg, who’s really a good guy even though he’s the one of whom I’m usually insanely jealous, and continued on to dinner by myself. I think I’ll continue to ‘help’ Jody by avoiding her as much as possible. We’ll see what happens.

January 5th, 1972

Nothing today - I’m going stir-crazy. Can’t even write letters. I don’t know if I can last two more days.

I ate lunch with the guy who was smooching with Jody yesterday. Had a lengthy discussion - via napkin since we were still in silence - swapping Firesign Theatre bits and a few dirty jokes. For example, he wrote, “Things we don’t tell the Master: my second C.C. wet dream.”

Later I gave the napkin to Jody, whom I think (hope) was a little freaked when she came in and saw us sitting together after the events of yesterday.

Interesting evening. Just for something to do I went out on the beach and drew the words, “Hi Jody” in the sand with my foot, hopefully big and clear enough to be seen from her balcony but I won’t know until morning.

No sooner had I finished when who should come walking up the beach? Uh-huh. With friend, of course. I walked up to them, waved, pointed in the general direction of what I’d written and continued past them. I’m not sure because I didn’t look back in time but I think that due to the dark and the size of the letters they just walked right over it without seeing. Something symbolic there, I’m thinking.

I started to go in but something was really beginning to gnaw at me and I sat on one of the stone beach tables to think about it. It may be just my jealous, unstressing mind but it sure does seem that for all she says about loving me as much as anyone else I sure have been feeling ignored lately. In fact, now that I think of it I’ve had to incite every goddam bit of attention she’s give me.

Anyway I just sat there thinking for a while, then gave in to a long unsatisfied desire and began to sing quietly. Just a few random songs by The Association* and George Harrison. Really felt good.

*(AUTHOR’S NOTE: Some musical trivia. The Association were mostly, um, associated with catchy pop tunes but had some cosmic leanings. A song of theirs I’ve always enjoyed and admired, awkwardly entitled “Pandora’s Golden Heebie-Jeebies”, is very much about the search for enlightenment. You can hear it and read the lyrics here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMz657kJsLs)

I was right in the middle of “My Sweet Lord” when Jody and what’s-his-name came back. I fell silent as they drew closer and turned slightly so they’d think I was watching the ocean and hadn’t seen them. It worked. They ‘snuck’ up on me from behind and sat down with me and started playing all sorts of giggle-games like trying to stick a carrot in my mouth. Cute. I smiled at them and continue watching the ocean as if that was what I really wanted to do. I don’t really know why.

God, I wish I could hurt that chick. Make her know I’m alive and have feelings. Make her know that I feel like I’m getting stepped on. I guess I thought that if I sort of ignored them she’d see something anyway. If only she’d show some genuine concern instead of throwing me bones over her shoulder.

Well, they got the idea finally and left without waving or anything - good sign, I guess. I sang a couple more tunes then went in.

I don’t believe the state of mind I was in. I actually stopped and listened at her door for any suspicious noises. Of course, they could be in his room… Damn.

January 6th, 1972

I’ve started doing an extra round every day so I’ll be well in the groove when we go for a seven-day non-stop next week.

Broke my silence* today and broke it good.

*(AUTHOR’S NOTE: Apparently I didn’t consider singing on the beach the previous night to be a breach of silence. Go figure.)

Couldn’t take it in my room any more so I went downstairs to the lounge. Some incredible pianist was jamming with a flute-player and the results were really good; I hardly noticed that the piano hadn’t been tuned in about twenty-five years.

Then they got to messing around, playing oldies like “Misty”, “Tenderly” and then, for some reason, “Rock Around the Clock”. Someone started singing and suddenly everyone there began dancing the twist. We were all just cracking up. No chance of being mistaken for Hindu monks. I hadn’t realized how depressed I’d been for the past week or two. Was I high!

I sat with Jody’s friend again at lunch today. Really a nice guy even if I don’t know his name. We had some more napkin conversation.

I didn’t see Jody come in. She came up from behind, smiled at him and patted me on the head. Arf. She went and sat by herself. He wrote, “I wonder why our pal Jody won’t sit with us?” I had my ideas but, indicating the leavings of the three oranges he’d eaten, wrote, “I can’t understand it. You certainly have a-peel.” Ha-ha.

He took the napkin over to Jody to ask her and never came back. I win again. Shit.

After lunch I put my 1-7 Beatle lyrics* up on the bulletin board.

*(AUTHOR’S NOTE: As near as I can recall, this was sort of an offshoot of the Beatles Rap wherein my idle mind had come up with seven Beatles or solo Beatles songs which illustrated the Seven States of Consciousness as described by Maharishi, and I had written out the lyrics to post for the enjoyment of the other course participants.

I no longer have the list, but some obvious examples would be “I’m Only Sleeping” for the Sleep state of consciousness, “Tomorrow Never Knows” for the Transcendent, etc.)

As I was coming down the stairs for dinner I saw Greg looking at the lyrics just as Jody came up to him. Greg made some sort of questioning gesture, as if to ask ‘Who did this?’ Jody saw me coming down the stairs and pointed. I took a little bow and kept moving.

After dinner I went out to sit on the beach table and sing again, and who should come back from a walk on the beach, alone, but Jody’s other ‘boyfriend’. He sat down next to me and we had a sing-a-long for about an hour, finishing off with about fifteen repetitions of “Tomorrow Never Knows” so he could learn it, and some Puja. Later, inside, we got into some lengthy silent ‘conversation’ about the Beatles. (His name is Rob, by the way.)

Also I don’t think Jody ever saw my ten-foot message, and it’s raining now, so I guess she won’t.

January 7th, 1972

The last day of silence, thank god. Not that I’ve been maintaining a vacuum or anything. There was another musical free-for-all in the lounge today, which was fun.

Rob and I took a long walk after dinner, had another sing-along and later had some chuckles looking through a Spanish phonebook. We cracked up when we saw the page index that said Hot-Imp - who else could it be? Then we looked at the other side of the page: Imp-Joy. Egads. Rob also got some mail from M.I.T., where he’s working on his Master’s in Business Administration, of all things. He also ‘said’ he was staying in silence until February 15th. Hmm…

January 8th, 1972

Nothing doing, really. Maharishi isn’t due to come until tomorrow so a lot of us sat in the hallway to the lecture room and chatted while a couple of people played guitars and it was all very mellow.

As I was going out to mail some letters I saw Jody looking over the Beatles lyrics I’d posted on the wall. I gave her a sort of blank, vaguely friendly look as I went out. She was still there when I came in so I walked over to see if anything graffiti-ish had been added, which there hadn’t.

I turned and said, “How are you?” and she practically fell over, but for some reason she didn’t answer. Then I got it. “Still in silence?” She nodded.

Swell. I waved and left. If I find out she’s staying in silence until February 15th I’m gonna be pissed.

I took another walk with Rob after dinner then sat up near the entrance to the lecture hall shooting the breeze with folks for a while. Jody showed up, talked for a while, mostly to Rob* - and was giving me the strangest looks. Then Rob & I started doing Firesign Theatre and Bill Cosby routines and chased her away.

*(AUTHOR’S NOTE: Yes, I know they both just said they were staying in silence.)

A lot of people were sitting and playing guitars and stuff like that in the hallway to the lecture room, and Jody went in there. Rob and I followed a little later. Rob just stretched out on a couch. After a while I went to sit next to Jody - who managed to sit with her back to me. Damn. Just when I’m feeling like I’ve gotten it out of my system, too.

She left after a while and somehow Rob did too though I didn’t see him leave. When I saw them later they were together, of course. Later I was still feeling speedy from doing Firesign and really wanted to rap things out with her, but then I couldn’t find her. Figures.

January 9th, 1972

Today I finally felt that I’ve got it together about Jody and wanted to talk with her. The plan: the next time I see her alone tell her to close her eyes, then kiss her and tell her forcefully that I want to talk sometime.

Didn’t work. When I covered her eyes with my hand she said, “Ooh, cold,” and backed away just as I was bending down. Rats. I said, “I want to talk to you sometime, okay?” Not exactly forceful. I continued, “Actually, it was your idea in the first place but you forgot.” Which was true.

She said, “Yeah, I thought about it in meditation this morning. After dinner tonight, okay?” Then she smiled, tweaked my beard* and left. It was really okay.

*(AUTHOR’S NOTE: Like many of my fellow male course participants I had shaved off my beard in order to meet requirements at the beginning of the course then immediately started growing it back.)

That evening she came over and talked to me during a break in the lecture tapes. The gist of it was that she’d felt as though she’d been getting hate vibes from me until yesterday. And that she really likes me ‘cause I’m open (I looked down at my fly). She said she hangs out with Rob so much because he’s learning to relate, not unlike her husband, Dett. And that she’s afraid to be friendly to me ‘cause I might start following her around again. I told her that that phase was over. Cool.

January 10th, 1972

We all got our first glimpse of Maharishi since December 30th and were definitely overjoyed to see him even though he only stayed for about an hour. He gave a nice explanation of the purpose of going into silence for long periods and how it enhances the inward experience of meditation.

January 11th, 1972

After hearing Maharishi talk about the value of silence I decided to try it again for a while.

Today we played the waiting game:

“Maharishi said he would be here at 2:30 but he just arrived in Cala Millor* at 2:00 so he probably won’t be here ‘til 3:00. Everyone go meditate.”

*(AUTHOR’S NOTE: The course participants were distributed around Majorca in various clusters of hotels, so Maharishi would visit each in turn.)

“Maharishi was supposed to come at 3:00 but someone just called and said not ‘til 4:00. Everyone go meditate.”

“Maharishi was supposed to come…” Etc., etc., etc…. 5:00, 7:00, 8:30.

He finally showed up at 9:00, talked for about twenty minutes, then got an important transatlantic phone call and left, saying he’d be right back.

At 10:30 we were told, “Maybe tomorrow. Go sleep.” Oh well.

Even during such a short meeting Jody managed to ask Maharishi a question about a golden glow she had been experiencing in meditation. Maharishi definitely seemed to approve.

During the afternoon, while waiting, I smiled at Jody as I walked by and got a huge sunshine special in return. I was so surprised that I turned and looked back and it was still going! I pantomimed surprise and then mimed taking a picture to commemorate the event.

January 12th, 1972

And speaking of pictures, I got back the ones I took of her on her balcony and on the beach a week or so ago. Pretty bad, for the most part, generally out of focus, but the best I could do with my cheap camera, I guess.

I slid them under her door along with a note:

“Jody: As you can see, modern science, together with my nimble fingers, has produced some startlingly unlifelike reproductions of my second-favorite enlightened person. I guess maybe your golden glow was too much for the film. Just thought you’d like to see them. Maybe we can try again sometime, hm? --Andy (Warhol)”

I squeezed her elbow by way of greeting at dinner and she gave me a friendly smile, pantomimed the pictures. Big smile and bow, hands pressed together.

Going up! An hour more of meditation every day from now on. I’ve heard that beginning on the 15th or 18th we start seven days of completely non-stop rounding.

January 13th, 1972

I’m starting to freak out on boredom: round all day; listen to boring old tapes of Maharishi ‘cause he’s so busy that he won’t see us ‘til Saturday at the earliest.

It’s getting so I either don’t see Jody at all or else she’s with Rob. I don’t think she would have stopped to talk tonight if I hadn’t been sitting with him. We did a little Firesign on her head then Rob pulled a fast one and left for a few minutes, leaving her stranded with me.

“How have you been?”

“Okay. How have you been?”

A long pause, just looking deeply into each other’s eyes. After a while Jody murmured, “You’re really very open Have you started having flashes of C.C.? That kind of openness is really needed for it.”

Rob came back and we went to see if there was any mail. Later they headed up to the snack area and I started to follow but...fuck it. Went back to my room to sleep.

January 14th, 1972

As I said, with Rob or not at all. Weird scene, very insecure. Talking with Rob at the mail desk, he said, apropos Jody, something like, “That chick - I almost got waylaid by the roadside. I’m being followed.” I showed polite interest on my part as we walked back to his room talking about it.

In walks guess who. Heavy scene followed. I sat in my defensive position - arms crossed, leaning forward on my elbows - ready to take almost anything if it looked masochistic. Jody played cute-and-cuddly with Rob, using a bottle-cap as an ‘ice-skater’ on his back and talking in a little-girl voice. Rob pretty much acted as though all he really wanted to do was sleep.

Rob stepped into the bathroom and Jody immediately leaned forward and whispered, “I want to talk to Rob,” - as if she’d been doing something else for the last three weeks. Right - I took the hint and started to leave, just as Rob came out of the bathroom in his underwear and turned out the light. Good timing. I think he was honestly trying to get rid of us both, but… Oh, well.

He mentioned his girlfriend back home while we were both there, something about the guilt, so I don’t think his interest in Jody is the same as mine. But what is my interest in Jody? I think she has some kharmic purpose as the last (hopefully) of a long line of fucked-up emotional hang-ups. I feel that I’m releasing, not accumulating. God, I hope so!

One good thing happening now is the afternoon meetings. Doug, the Course Coordinator for this hotel group, answers our questions that we would have taken up Maharishi’s time with, if he can. Doug’s been with the Movement for quite a while, it seems, and really knows a lot.

January 15th, 1972

We haven’t seen Maharishi since the 11th and no one seems to know when and if. The World Plan is really keeping him busy. In a way we’re lucky: Any teacher can prepare a student to go out into the world but our teacher is also preparing the world for us! How considerate.

Weird. I was fooling around on the piano in the lounge. Enter Jody and friend. Friend continues on out, Jody walks over, playing a small harmonica with one hand and looking like a little girl.

“Can you play?” she asked me.

“What did you have in mind?” (Waggling my eyebrows in an attempted double-entendre.)

“No, silly. Just trying to remember the one song I know.”

“Sit.”

She joined me on the bench and continued, “I’m depressed. Got another letter from Dett today.”

“Another?”

“Yes,” and added bitterly, “He’s quite prolific lately.”

“What did he say?”

“He didn’t really say anything. It was just in between the lines. I know he’s living with somebody. I’ll kill him.” This was followed by a harsh laugh. “Oh, I’m unstressing on you.”

“Oh, that’s okay. It’s the most attention you’ve paid me all week.”

“An-dy...”

“Jo-dy...”

A pause, then, “I’m going for a walk on the beach.” I gave her an inquiring look, asking if she wanted me to come along. No answer.

“You’re depressed.”

“How did you know, besides that I told you?”

“Oh, I don’t know, it’s sort of the way you underline your words. Well, let’s go for a walk.”

I started to stand, held out my hand, but…

“No. I’ll just sit here.”

“You’d rather go by yourself?”

“Yes.”

Ouch. “Okay.”

I sat back down and she stood up. “Well, have a nice a walk,” I added wistfully. And off she went, hitting single note on her harmonica that slowly faded into the distance. I sat there for a while.

In the evening I sat outside the lecture hall talking to Rob for a while. He’s coming down from rounding so he can organize S.I.M.S.’ finances for them. Heavy.

Jody and Greg showed up and we all chatted for a while. Greg went into the lecture hall. Jody went in. Rob went in. Jody came out and left. Rob came out carrying a broom.

“Where’d she go?”

“I dunno.”

“Boy, try to do her a favor and she leaves. Well, come on, let’s go do it anyway.” And we walked off to deliver the broom to Jody’s room.

Along the way we got to talking about Jody’s husband. I said, “Well, I don’t know much about it.”

Rob: “Me neither.”

“Yeah, but she’ll talk to you about it. She likes you. Me, she doesn’t like.”

“Oh, she likes you.”

“I dunno.”

“Well, it’s not my place to comment or judge but I get a lot of weird vibes from you whenever she’s around. And she’s very sensitive to things like that.”

“Don’t I know it!”

“I think she’s just afraid to be too positive.”

“Right.”

We went our separate ways after dropping the broom off in Jody’s room. I went for a walk on the beach. As I came back in so did Jody from across the street. I kept walking, but slowly. I heard the elevator door open behind me, then Jody’s impish whisper, “I’ll race you!”

I kept walking until the door closed then took off up the stairs, coming to a sliding halt in front of the third floor elevator door three seconds before it opened. It freaked the hell out of her.

“How did you do that?”

“Took a broom.”

“Oh.”

“You don’t believe me? Look in your room.”

I shot the breeze with some friends while she went to check. She came back out with the broom in her hand and I gave her an open-handed shrug and a smile. If it had ended there it would have been great but then we got into a misunderstanding where I thought she was done with the broom and was going to return it for her.

“Can I save you the trouble?”

“No.”

“Well, I will anyway,” playfully trying to grab it.

“No.” Holding it out of my reach.

“Can’t I return it for you?”

“I was going to sweep up some hair.”

“Oh. I’m sorry. I can’t do anything right.”

And for some reason this minor scuffle, even though it meant nothing at all, completely bummed me out as if it had symbolized all of the communication difficulties between Jody and me. I went back to my room to sleep but tossed and turned and finally decided it was time to clear the air between us or go nuts. I wrote ner another note:

“Jody,

This is driving me crazy. Every time I think we’ve finally got things cleared up between us I wind up banging my head on the same wall. It’s frustrating to be held at arm’s length when all I’m trying to do is get close enough to feel honest with you. And I don’t now, and you know it, I’m sure.

I’m not as perceptive as you but I get the feeling that you’re not being honest with me as well. I’m afraid to react normally to you.

Let’s straighten it out once and for all, okay? If you really and truly dislike me, fine. That at least is understandable. But if you’re just not being positive to me for fear that the old situation is going to come up then it’s just a matter of clearing the air.

Love, --Andy

P.S. Excuse me if the above was incoherent but I got out of bed to write this.”

January 16th, 1972

No answer all day.

I was sitting with Rob at dinner when Jody came in with Greg. When she saw me she sort of started, as if to say, ‘I knew I forgot something’, but came over to say hello, and showed us that she was in silence again. Then she turned to me and shaped the outline of a piece of paper with her hands, indicating the note I’d sent.

Said I, “You wrote back?” Head shake. “You will write back?” Nod - you got it - and indicated ‘later’.

Later she came back and sat down with us. Got paper from Rob and a pen from me and wrote:

“I don’t hate you. I just wanted to be alone.”

I replied out loud, “Yeah, but it wasn’t just last night.”

Rob realized there was something personal going on and split. Jody came out of silence.

“You want to go somewhere else, like the lounge?”

“Yeah.”

We sat on a couch in the darkened lounge hassling it out once again; all my insecure feelings, all her “fears of attachment”. I told her that I wasn’t trying to possess her and reminded her that two months from now, after the course ends, we’ll probably never see each other again.

It went on for quite some time and ended with Jody offering me a haircut. All straightened out. For today, anyway.

Today is my one-year anniversary of learning TM.

January 17th, 1972

We were supposed to start our week of heavy rounding today but now we have to wait until Maharishi comes. We’ve only seen him for about an hour and a half all this year. That’s quite a comedown from the two hours a night we were used to.

Rob, Jody and I all sat together for dinner. Jody was still in silence. We had a lot of fun anyway, then went and sat together in the lecture hall.

A little later Rob said, “I’m going to brush my teeth,” and left. A minute later Jody “said” ‘guard my place’ and left as well.

Fifteen minutes later my jealous mind decided that Rob was either brushing his teeth one at a time or…

No sound from his room. I went and listened at Jody’s door and by god, there they were, talking!”

I went out and sang in the rain for a while, then went back to the lecture hall. Rob and Jody came back in and I sat with them and we all got silly for a while. I slipped a couple of haiku into the hood of her robe and later that evening to make sure she found them I slipped a note under her door with a quote from Maharishi:

“Even when the car is running well, is good to check under the hood once in a while, no?”

January 18th, 1972

She didn’t answer. Later she joined Rob and I at dinner and I found out she hadn’t understood the note. so since she was still wearing her monk’s robe I pulled the haiku out of the hood to show her.

Later I split and spent some time gossiping and chatting with some friends: Marc, Joanne, Dukie, Joe and Andrea*. Really fine people. Somewhere along the line decided that my whole issue with Jody wasn’t love or even hung-up-edness, just grasping loneliness. Could have been focused on anyone and in fact was, a little bit, on Andrea. Really sweet girl.

*(AUTHOR’S NOTE: Nope, no idea who any of these people were except for Andrea, who was mentioned earlier.)

Huzzah! Maharishi finally showed up.

Kind of a weird night though; it’s been kind of monsoon-ish for the past couple of days and the power keeps going on and off.

The plan: seven days of silence, fifteen days of heavy but not non-stop rounding - we’re not supposed to round after dinner. I figured my way out of that though: I’m not going to eat dinner this week. Seven days of silence, fasting and long rounding. We’ll see what happens.

Really got off on the Puja for the first time - there was something really heart-warming about it.

January 19th, 1972

The combination of silence, no food and two extra hours of meditation (making a total of about twelve) was almost too much to handle all at once. I was really too high when I came out at 9 PM; sitting in the lecture hall I was beginning to feel like I couldn’t handle it. It was a little bit like getting off too quickly on acid; there’s nothing bad happening, exactly, it’s just so intense.

I think lack of food is inhibiting my body’s heating system; I really needed an extra blanket and even then I was shivering.

January 20th, 1972

The second day of no food, and feeling like it too. Started remembering all the hot fudge sundaes and hamburgers and all the other stuff that I liked so much - really a distraction. But at the end of the day it was worth it: I was so high when I came out that I almost turned right around and went back in. Whew!

January 21st, 1972

I blew it.

I couldn’t meditate because my stomach was giving me so much grief. So I said to myself, well, maybe a little fruit juice. I had a bottle out on my balcony but I knew even before I opened it that it wouldn’t do. I had to have food!

I went over to the other hotel and had an apple, three bananas and about twenty Ritz crackers (known as Krit here). Three hours later I had lunch and five hours after that, dinner. What a relief.

I think Rob has left the course to help S.I.M.S. organize its finances, as he said he might.

I hardly saw Jody at all during the past couple of days due to fasting and long rounding but when I decided I couldn’t take it any more I freaked the hell out of her by walking into the dining hall for breakfast - something I haven’t done since October.

She was standing just inside the door talking to Greg. I just smiled and kept walking as she gasped and practically fell on Greg for support. Munching on a cracker I sort of ambled back over to them.

“Did you go out for dinner last night?” she asked. For a change, I’m in silence - I shook my head.

“I saw your check on the sheet but I didn’t believe you.”

Ah-ha! She’s been watching.

Have you ever tried to pantomime ‘fasting’? Didn’t work, so I said, “I was doing a three-day* fast but it didn’t work.” So much for silence.

They left and I ate.

*(AUTHOR’S NOTE: Yes, I know my original intention was to fast for a week, but obviously I was too much of a coward to admit the extent of my failure and so shortened the intended time.)

I saw her briefly after lunch at the door of The Levante Park, where she’d dashed in out of the rain.

“Hi. How are you?” she asked.

“High..and partly cloudy.”

Later she slipped a note under my door:

“If devotion is any criteria for God Consciousness you’ll soon see-see it. ‘Let It Be’.”

I did.

January 22nd, 1972

Now that I’ve stopped fasting I can’t get back on my old schedule of one meal a day. Had to have lunch.

I went to the regular 8:30 evening meeting in hopes of something besides old tapes, but no luck. The meeting ended at 10:00 and I went back to my room, meditated and was just about to climb into bed when someone ran into the hallway and yelled, “Maharishi’s here!”

Everybody bailed out of their rooms like the hotel was on fire. It was really strange: usually Maharishi comes in after everyone is seated but he was already there as we all came piling in. I was just ecstatic at seeing him again, couldn’t stop smiling or take my eyes off him.

As I sat there I could see him looking at all the freaked-out meditators scrambling to get in. I didn’t have my glasses on but I’m almost sure he turned and smiled at me as if to say, ‘I think you and I are the only ones sitting still in this whole asylum.’

After all that he just had Rick Stanley* play two songs and then they all split. Just came to get us high, I guess. Sure did.

(AUTHOR’S NOTE: Rick Stanley was one of Maharishi’s troubadours at the time, a singer/songwriter who would express Maharishi’s teachings in musical settings. Another one was Paul Fauerso - he and Rick often played together as The Natural Tendency, a name inspired by one of Maharishi’s sayings: “It is the natural tendency of the mind to move toward greater happiness.“)

Jody came over and sat with me at dinner without being asked, so I was sure Rob was gone. Poor Jody. Still it was a very high and pleasant dinner, not too much in the way of head games for a change. Once, I was looking into her eyes with a long, searching stare and she said, “Your head’s really in a cute place.”

“Oh yes? And where is my head at?”

She leaned toward me to whisper, “Between your shoulders.” Right on.

After dinner when I was meditating there came a knock on the door. I knew who it was. Opened the door.

“Hi. I’m taking a survey…”

Closed the door part-way. Opened it again. This time she began with a mock-flirtatious, “I need you tonight.”

Then we giggled up and down the hall trying to get her organized on the group reports*. She didn’t know what the German member of our group looked like and we discussed various insane way of remedying that. Fortunately (for him) the German came walking down the hall at that moment. She walked me back to my room and apologized for disturbing my meditation.

*(AUTHOR’S NOTE: I’m guessing it was her turn to be in charge of our check-in group that week.)

January 23rd, 1972

I slipped another haiku under her door, “Temple Cleaning Haiku for the Seven*”:

Soon Come Dawn’s Changes;

What Clouds Then Could ConCeal God

Coming Up Crimson?

*(AUTHOR’S NOTE: It took me a moment to figure out what I’d meant by the title but it finally came back to me. The first letters of each word in the haiku represent the first letters of the seven states of consciousness: Sleep Consciousness, Dreaming Consciousness, Waking Consciousness, Transcendental Consciousness, Cosmic Consciousness [All right, I cheated on that one to make the correct number of syllables for that line], God Consciousness, Unity Consciousness. And I assume the “Temple Cleaning” part of the title referred to the process of purification we were all undergoing during the course.)

There was no reply all day and I didn’t see her at dinner. I finally found her meditating in the lecture hall, slumped down in her chair with a flower in her hand. She looked like a little kid, especially when she had to sort of jump and stretch to give her flower to Maharishi when he came in.

Whew! Maharishi was here for quite a while and I was getting so high! It’s unbelievable the love for him I find swelling up inside me these days. For so long it’s just been Maharishi Superstar, to be respected and even a little feared. But now I am growing. I can feel the difference: my attention doesn’t wander as much when he is speaking and I’m able to comprehend what he says just by sort of floating easily in the feeling of love for him.

And yet I know I am not yet clear in my heart. But I will grow.

After the evening meeting I was up on my floor talking to someone when Jody walked up and asked if I had a scissor I could lend her. We then got off into a conversation about how I didn’t want to take apart my scissors just so she could have one scissor. We went into my room and I looked among the jumble until I found the scissors, all the while continuing our insane dialogue.

She told me she had an appointment to see Maharishi privately tomorrow but wouldn’t tell me why. I told her she couldn’t leave until she told me.

“You don’t really want to know, you just like me.”

“True.”

“And I like you - I have to reassure you once in a while so I won’t get paranoid notes under my door.”

We said good night and I immediately drew a picture of a musical note saying “Help! Help! Everyone’s trying to kill me!” Underneath I put the caption: “This is a paranoid note.”

I went to slide it under her door, but I found it open. She wasn’t there so I put it on the floor, noticing as I did so that three of the pictures I’d taken of her were taped to the bench where she would see see them when coming out of the bathroom. Hmmm. Some trip.

Just as I stepped out of her door I saw her step into mine, so I took off on a running slide down the hall and yelled, “Stop, thief!” just as she came out.

“Where were you?”

“Oh, floating around, astral projecting or something.”

She said something about turning in the group report and something about rearranging her head. I said, “Could take years, especially with people slipping paranoid notes under your door.”

“Ohhh…” - just as she was walking in her door.

I remained leaning in my doorway. A moment later she leaned out of her and said, “So that’s where you were.”

“Right. Good night.” I closed my door.

January 24th, 1972

When I came out of my room for dinner there were two slightly mangled but otherwise fresh flowers lying outside my door. Hmmm. I slipped a note under her door:

“Dear Lotus-Foot,

Thank you for the flowers. I hope you enjoyed your All-My-Tea*. Love, Moss-Mouth.”

*(AUTHOR’S NOTE: I assume this is a reference to her meeting with Maharishi.)

When I returned from dinner about an hour later Jody was just coming out of her room. Seems that her clock freaked out or something and she had no idea what time it was. I told her it was time for the evening meeting and she went and got her flower for Maharishi then I walked her down to the lecture hall.

Maharishi said he would be with us every night for a while, and that’s something.

January 25th, 1972

Note from Jody: “Hi.”

Reply: “And glad of it.”

I managed to lock myself out of my room again on the way to dinner.

Walked into the lecture hall a little late and was somewhat surprised to hear “The Art of Dying” and “Isn’t It a Pity” by George Harrison coming out of the sound system. I was hoping they’d play “Hear Me Lord” and Maharishi would walk in but no dice.

We didn’t hear any more of George but we did hear some really good Indian music. I think that hearing music after I ‘come down’ from this course will be quite an experience.

After that, Puja practice. A couple of other guys and I worked up a dandy three-part harmony for it, much to the dismay of everyone within hearing distance. Then it was announced that Maharishi wouldn’t make it tonight and we all left. Jody and I had a small giggle and hug session by the elevator.

January 26th, 1972

On coming out the first ‘Three Days Checking’* meeting I ran into Jody by the elevator again. She was wearing big, round, silver wire-rim glasses which looked kind of strange on her. With eyes like hers I can see why she doesn’t wear them much.

*(AUTHOR’S NOTE: ‘Three Days Checking’ is different from the Checking Notes.

From Wikipedia:

On the day after the personal instruction session, the student begins a series of three, 90 to 120 minute "teaching sessions", held on three consecutive days, called "three days of checking". Their stated purpose is to "verify the correctness of the practice" and to receive further instruction. The first day's checking meeting takes place in a group on the day following personal instruction, and gives information about correct practice based on each student's own experience. The second day of checking uses the same group format, and gives more details of the mechanics of the practice and potential results of the practice, based on student experiences. The third day of checking focuses on subjective growth and the potential development of higher stages of human consciousness, and outlines the follow-up programs available as part of the course.)

She returned my scissors and borrowed my first page of checking notes as she had been late to the first meeting. That evening we spoke briefly at the back of the lecture hall: I asked if she was through with my notes and then we had a slightly insane discussion about the fact that the notes weren’t supposed to be copied by non-Initiators, and since neither of us was an Initiator she had made an illegal copy of an illegal copy, etc.

January 27th, 1972

I finally got a good grasp of the concept of life in Unity Consciousness. Someone here had a flash of it and explained that he felt like a well through which pure being (he called it “Divine Love”) was rising and flooding over from an unlimited reservoir. But, he continued, it also seemed a bit pointless, as the pure being was overflowing into pure being, in other words not actually going from one point to another and yet passing through him.

I had a talk with Betsy Galt about names and how the sound affects the personality of the person. She wants to be called Elizabeth henceforth. And this struck me as being something that had bothered me for years too, so henceforth my name is Andrew.

And now the big event of the entire course: I saw the uncut and uncensored version of King Kong for the first time. Only trouble was that it was on local TV and the dialogue had all been re-dubbed into Spanish. Strange.

On my way to dinner I passed Jody talking to Betsy - Elizabeth - Galt and went on to check the mail. Nothing for me but three letters for Jody, so I picked them up and handed them to her on my way upstairs for dinner. Elizabeth split and Jody caught up with me, saying something about how when she looks there’s never any mail for her but when I look there are three letters. I told her I wrote them all myself.

In the dining hall Jody went and sat in the ‘Silent’ section to read her mail. I sat at my usual table and after about forty-five minutes she came over, put her books on my table and held out her hand to show me a small capsule, saying, “You need this more that I do.”

“What is it?”

“Sex hormones.”

“Fine. Just what I need.”

“Really it’s Vitamin E, made from wheat germ.”

“Okay.”

She went to get some more food and I ate the E.

When she came back and sat down I asked her, conversationally, if Straub was her married name. She said yes and revealed that her maiden name was Catena.

Hmmm. Jody Catena. Nope. Ah: Johanna Catena. Good sound. We left together and took a short spacey walk on the beach. I finally told her about writing “HI JODY” in the sand, and she replied that she’d seen it but hadn’t actually read it. Oh well.

We went back upstairs and on entering her room she discovered, with a “Wow!” that brought me running, an unsigned “Happy 1 Year of TM” card and flowers. I said, “Egads, I’ve been outdone,” and gave her the card I’d made for her. She thanked me and asked me to save her a seat as she was going to meditate for a while, which I did but she never showed up.

January 28th, 1972

Note to Jody:

“Johanna Catena just couldn’t be meana.

I saved her a seat but I still haven’t seena.”

Reply (attached to an envelope of the negatives from the pictures I’d given her):

“Much as I hate to send anything negative your way…”

At dinner she came and sat right down at my table and said, “Hi.”

“Oh, you’re not in silence?”

Silently she mimed ‘Oops!’

“Oh, you are in silence.”

Silence.

“You’re welcome.”

She went and got some citrus fruits, then apparently decided she wasn’t in silence after all, and we wound up getting into a mock-sexual conversation about her juicer. She said she was trying to get a lot of Vitamin C and I offered her the three sore throat fizzies I had left, saying, “Wanna buy some Orange Sunshine*?”

(AUTHOR’S NOTE: For those who missed the 60’s, ‘Orange Sunshine’ was a popular brand of LSD.)

It’s been about four days since I stopped eating meat. I find I don’t miss it as long as there’s something else to fill up on like cheese and nuts.

January 29th, 1972

A woman named Rose told me I have a nice aura. Afterwards I went up to my floor and found Jody and Andrea talking there, so I said to Jody, “Rose just told me I have a nice golden aura so I thought I’d better check it out with an expert.”

Andrea jokingly said, “Yes?”, but Jody went right into a professional routine, moving me over into better light, etc. She looked me over for a moment and said, yup, it’s pretty good, and started talking about how she couldn’t see colors often, just auras. She said she’d put my golden glow on the group report and left to deliver it.

A little later Marc, Duke and I and a couple of others went over to The Levante Park to gossip for a while, then decided on a whim that we’d go visit the roof. While walking up the stairs I discovered Jody getting some fruit juice in the kitchen and invited (dragged) her along up in the elevator and then another flight of stairs to the roof. The view was nice but it literally smelled like shit so Jody and I left.

On the way down Jody said that she’d been worried about me, that I hadn’t been as friendly of late.”

“On the inside, yes, outside no.” Then I continued, “That’s a little bit weird. First you tell me you’re avoiding me then you complain that I’m not friendly enough.”

“Well, what do you want from me, consistency? Normalcy?”

At last. No longer a perfect idol - just as messed up as me.

I carried some of her stuff to her room for her, then bent down and kissed her good night.

“Gee.”

“Gawrsh. Friendly enough?”

January 30th, 1972

I was up in my room after dinner this evening when I heard the giggling that was distinctively Jody’s - I can pick it out of a crowd. I opened the door and looked around the corner and there she was, bidding farewell to one of the Irish meditators, who gave her a tiny yellow flower that looked like a buttercup. After they parted and she came around the corner towards me we each said “Hi,” and then she suddenly gave me a big hug. I gave her a slightly startled look and said, “Oh, we’re playing shock therapy tonight, it that it?” It cracked her up.

We had a few giggles with the flower and an apple she had and then we returned to our respective rooms. I left my door open and and little later she came in and asked about borrowing my Three Day Checking notes, also mentioning in passing that she’d been to the doctor.

“What for?”

“No, I don’t want to flip you out.”

“I’m getting used to it by now.”

She left and I called after her, “An immaculate conception maybe?” No answer.

When Maharishi arrived for the evening meeting Rob was among his staff. Hmmm.

By then I definitely was flipping out, and my unstressing mind really began to take off:

Jody bothered + 1 trip to the doctor + not wanting to tell me about it + Rob showing up soon after = ?

I talked with her briefly in the lounge afterwards - asked how Rob was and received a vague answer, still with that undercurrent of worry or bother. I went back to my room and tried to meditate. Thoughts just kept coming: “What if…?” “It’s none of my business.” “But she’s my friend…” Etc.

Finally had to write her another note - with another drawing of a paranoid note at the top:

“Jody,

For once this is not a self-centered paranoid note. As I’ve said before, I’m not a very perceptive person so maybe this is all just unstressing, but I definitely sensed that something was or is worrying or bothering you - at dinner, in my room and after the lecture. Especially when you said you’d been to the doctor and didn’t want to tell me why ‘cause I’d flip.

To an unstressing mind the power of imagination run in ever-widening circles and not knowing is flipping me out much more effectively than anything you could tell me. So please, is everything alright? --Stresshead.”

January 31st, 1972

Her reply:

“Everything is fine. All systems are go. But thanks anyway. --Unstressfoot.”

I wrote back:

“So how come the remark about the doctor?”

No answer.

I found a couple of flowers outside my door but they weren’t from her. We spoke on the stairs later, on our way to lunch. She said, “I’m all right.”

“I figured. But what about the doctor?”

“Oh, that was just some gross physical thing. Nothing to worry about.”

“Okay.”

At about 6:00 this evening someone went up and down the halls yelling, “Jai Guru Dev - Dinner’s at 6:30!” so we all piled out early. I thought maybe it was because tonight is a full moon and perhaps Maharishi was going to take us on another little Magical Mystery Tour or something, but no such luck.

He just wanted to separate the people having problems (headaches, heavy unstressing, insomnia, etc.) into groups and consult with them. I had started having little headaches a few days ago but they started the same day I began doing a more intensive pranayam (breathing exercise) so I didn’t think it was worth taking up his time.

February 1st, 1972

There was no evening meeting tonight as Maharishi was giving out special techniques for the people having problems. But a friend and I went into the meeting hall afterward and dug on the vibes. You see, a Puja had to be performed for every person getting a technique and there were so many people! ***Five Puja Tables - No Waiting*** Yeah, five people doing non-stop Pujas for two hours makes for quite an atmosphere.

Afterwards I ran into Jody:

“Hey, you look kinda buzzed out, lady!”

“I just spoke to Maharishi, what do you expect?”

I passed along the Pluto Water diet* to her as she’d requested.

(AUTHOR’S NOTE: I have no idea what this diet might have involved but pluto water is a naturally laxative mineral water so you can just imagine…)

February 2nd, 1972

There has been a rumor floating around that the entire course might be moving to Yugoslavia but instead it appears that mafia country is calling: yup, Italy.

I was feeling spaced but good at the afternoon meeting and when I saw Jody I just walked up to her, hugged her and kept going. She squeezed my hand…

February 3rd, 1972

This evening we were all given some nice pocket-sized, gilt-edged copies of The Holy Tradition (the Puja). Really classy. We’re supposed to get big copies too.

Also, today was our (the group of people leaving in March) last day of peak rounding. From tomorrow we have fourteen days to come down to two or three hours a day. Also our goal is to learn all three phases of teaching (lecturing, Puja, checking) by the 25th. Lotsa luck.

I went with Jody to see if she could buy a suitcase since the one she arrived with had fallen apart. Later we had a little hug and co-wrote a note to Rob.

February 4th, 1972

Spoke briefly with the guy who was the cause of the ‘Paul McCartney is here’ rumor. The resemblance is pretty amazing - brown eyes and musical ability are all he needs. Whew!

I was talking with Jody after lunch and casually started to remove something from her hair. It was probably just a piece of lint or something but she completely freaked. Totally.

February 5th, 1972

The next time I saw her she had just been washing her hair, so I guess she’d been worried about lice.

Today we had Puja practice and learned the movements (offerings) that accompany the singing of The Holy Tradition. There are now about fifteen Puja tables set up around the perimeter of the lecture hall. The atmosphere really gets heavy.

(AUTHOR’S NOTE: Readers who may be interested in learning more about the Puja ceremony can look here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puja_(Hinduism)

Some clown came shouting down the halls, “Maharishi is coming at seven o’clock!” So since it was quarter of seven we all dashed into the lecture hall and sat there until 7:30, when we were told to go and eat quickly as Maharishi would be coming at 8:00.

Needless to say the meeting got underway promptly at 11.

February 6th, 1972

Kind of funky: I made a makeshift practice Puja table in my room using a cardboard box, my Guru Dev pendant, an ashtray, two candles, a bottle cap, some aluminum foil, a glass, a stick of incense, a bar of soap and a handful of pens substituting for flowers.

After dinner Jody and Deon cajoled me into doing a puja for them. The two of them have very sweet, whispery sort of singing voices.

February 7th, 1972

I sent Jody a note requesting the haircut she’d promised me:

“Do you feel like playing Delilah sometime soon or are you rounding too much? If so, I’ll consult one of our other follicle-butchers.”

Her reply:

“Perchance his lordship could wait until the lady comes down

(or else she could just find a plate and cut an edge around).

Otherwise rather incapacitated...but coming soon on the 13th, Down from A Round (space flick)

--a groovy chick. ick.”

We all got bussed over to some other hotel for a lecture tonight. For a while the clowns at the door wouldn’t let me in because of my facial hair*. Got pissed off and went in anyway.

*(AUTHOR’S NOTE: Obviously I had grown my beard back yet again.)

February 8th, 1972

Note:

“Could the lady be cajoled into allowing some more of her light to be captured on film? Lord Fumblethumbs isn’t too thrilled with the first batch and is hoping you’re in favor of Decent Exposure. --L.F.”

February 9th, 1972

I outflanked the door guards tonight by using a side entrance someone had showed me.

It was a dyno* lecture. Maharishi talked about Guru Dev and God and the Puja. Rick Stanley played about six new songs which were really excellent. All in all a very inspiring evening.

*(AUTHOR’S NOTE: ‘Dyno’ was short hippie-speak for ‘Dynamite’, meaning excellent.)

I saw Jody holding hands and playing cuddly with someone at the evening meeting and wondered if maybe this was her husband Dett come to visit. I asked her afterwards.

“Funny you should make that connection. He was my Initiator.”

“Huh?”

“What bigger debt could I have?”

Good grief.

February 10th, 1972

I woke up with a sore throat which gradually developed into the flu. Tried to meditate and passed out on the bed for two hours.

Practicing lectures is a trip. I’ve had more fun at wakes.

February 11th, 1972

God, ab I bizerable! What a cold! I can’t even meditate.

The combination of suddenly sliding from four to zero hours of meditation and having the flu is really outstanding.

Spent some time making a valentine for Jody:

“Johanna,

Sada Vasantam Hridayarvinde*.

Happy Valentine’s Day.”

*(AUTHOR’S NOTE: A Sanskrit phrase from the Holy Tradition meaning, “Always residing in the lotus of the heart”. I made a heart out of the ‘H’ in Hridayarvinde.)

February 12th, 1972

Good grief! I could hardly talk today. Had to blow my nose every minute.

Finally copped some Vitamin C and prepared to blast.

February 13th, 1972

The cold was three-quarters gone this morning.

Maharishi paid us a personal visit, which is a little unusual as we generally get bussed over to Cala Millor. He dropped a few hints that we March people might be moved to a more noisy hotel as the people who were still rounding a lot needed our quiet rooms.

February 14th, 1972

This might be my last entry about Jody - on Valentine’s Day, how ironic.

I slipped the Valentine’s Day card under her door in the morning. I saw her at lunch and talked about taking pictures but she decided she wasn’t ready to have her picture taken just yet.

Then halfway through the afternoon meeting word came: be ready to go by dinnertime. Typical.

Fortunately I ran into Jody*.

*(AUTHOR’S NOTE: Jody was apparently in the 30-week group and not leaving in March, so was staying where she was.)

She put on her yellow summer dress and I got some shots of her on the beach and then on my balcony .

I said goodbye to her several times: first in the lobby, then again after we took the balcony pictures. I offered her my framed picture of George Harrison and she kissed me.

She sat with me at dinner for a while, then kissed me on the forehead as I got on the bus.

(AUTHOR’S NOTE: And that, more or less, is where the Jody story ends. We saw each other briefly at the evening meetings over the next few weeks, maybe exchanged a word or two, but never had another real conversation or spent any further time together. And as I recall we never offered to exchange home addresses, tacitly accepting that there was nowhere for this relationship to go in the future.

When the course was over I left without any further good-byes, to the best of my recall. And to this day I have never heard from or about Jody again.

And even though I’m sure my feelings for Jody throughout our time together were genuine, in retrospect, given the confused and emotionally needy sort of person I was at the time, plus the general insanity caused by all that rounding and unstressing, I have to admit that if Jody hadn’t been there I probably would have found someone else to obsess over. Jody was a charming, intelligent, funny, beautiful, creative and playful companion to have with me during these long months of barely controlled lunacy, but it was never capital-‘L’ Love between us and I’m pretty sure we both knew it.

And as you’ll see in the very next entry it didn’t take me long to recover.)

February 15th, 1972

Kharmic result of moving: I was introduced to a cute Beatles-freak at the evening meeting. She lives over at Hotel (get this) Hippocampo but is now coming to my hotel for meals.

February 16th, 1972

Jill (the Beatles-freak) and her friend have started coming over to my hotel (Playa del Moro) for meals under the guise of Beatle-discussion, though I suspect there’s already an element of flirtation going on. She is on the short side and petite, sort of pale with very light freckles, green-blue eyes and shoulder-length brown-blonde hair parted down the middle and pushed behind her ears from a wide forehead. She has kind of a funny laugh, more like a quick series of gasps. But no one’s perfect.

February 17th, 1972

Well, “curiouser and curiouser”, as Alice said. Jill and I got into a big personal discussion over lunch, and it seems she has the same long line of emotional mess-ups behind her as I do. She’s also the youngest of three children, as I am. The likenesses were really too much to be believed. So now I just know that this will turn into something mellow because she’s not in the March group with me and apparently everyone but the March group is moving to Italy in about two weeks. That would be about par.

I passed my Three Day Checking test today. That’s a load off. Only Puja, lectures and 7 Steps of Consciousness presentation to go.

February 18th, 1972

Hmm. Methinks I’m being more successful than I thought: when I sit down with Jill, her friend tends to ‘see a friend’ or whatever and splits, leaving us together. Also I was sitting with a friend at dinner and when the two of them arrived Jill’s friend spotted me and without thinking said out loud, “There he is.” I pretended not to hear. What to do?

February 19th, 1972

I kissed Jill for the first time today. Also the second, third and fourth.

First, after lunch as she left to go back to her hotel. Just a friendly peck.

Second, after walking hand in hand all the way over to her hotel for her group meeting with Maharishi. That time she slipped her tongue into my mouth. I said, “What are you trying to do, keep me up all night?”

“I’d like to.”

“You’re supposed to be one-pointed.”

“I am.”

Hmm.

So all during the lecture at our hotel, whenever I wasn’t wishing I hadn’t worn such tight pants I was thinking: there was no doubt of where things were at, sexually. But I remembered my promise to myself not to ball anyone I wasn’t in love with. I wrestled with that for a while and finally convinced myself that it was right.

On returning to my room I found a note from Jill asking me to come over because people from her hotel weren’t going to be able to eat at mine, so no more mealtimes together. Well, I went over and somehow managed to maintain my one-pointedness in the face of seduction. I was really proud. Horny, but proud.

February 20th, 1972

Here we go again. Another note:

“If you have time after the lecture…”

I decided it would be good not to make a habit of going over there every night. Spent the evening talking Beatles-gossip with Ira Goldberg.

February 21st, 1972

More seduction attempts. Almost decided to give in but finally convinced myself, if somewhat shakily, that my promise to myself should be kept. But how to tell her?

February 22nd, 1972

Problem solved. I told her.

Meanwhile, back at the purpose of this course: I’m starting to feel a little paranoid about not being able to get the lecture material down. It’s the only real obstacle I can foresee to becoming an Initiator. Got to get on it.

February 23rd, 1972

A short pep-talk from Maharishi has strengthened my resolve to remain celibate until or unless my real true love comes along.

I’ve also resolved to memorize all the lectures, word by word, since nothing else seems to help.

February 24th, 1972

I spent all of today grinding away very one-pointedly at memorizing the first lecture; seems to be working.

Two announcements: (1) Puja testing begins today and (2) in order to take the Puja test one’s appearance must be “acceptable”, i.e., totally straight.

Well, I’d been preparing for this battle ever since I started to regrow my facial foliage but the S.I.M.S. bureaucracy won out again by calling my bluff and telling me I’d have to talk to Maharishi about it.

So, naked chin in hand and disposition somewhat out of hand I reported for the Puja test without having practiced since before we moved. Even my good kharma couldn’t carry me through that far and I messed up a little bit on offerings although I was okay on understanding and letter-perfect on pronunciation. But not quite good enough to pass that time.

So in that tender frame of mind I went over to visit Jill. I think I have an important lesson to learn about myself from her.

February 25th, 1972

I was feeling all bright and fresh this morning and went to take the Puja test again without even practicing and passed this time.

As the days progress I find myself wishing more and more that I could find some way of breaking things off with Jill without hurting her feelings. It’s really hard but I feel like I’m getting smothered; all this lovey-dovey stuff and making plans to visit me(!) when I don’t even care about her that much. Well, they should all be leaving for Italy soon, I hope.

Nature supports once again as I tried to avoid going to “Rip-off” Ron for a 200 peseta haircut. Brooke, everybody’s favorite sexy blonde, offered to do it for 50 and she’s a professional (hair-stylist, that is).

February 26th, 1972

Beautiful day today, weather-wise. So good that I sat in the sunshine outside the lecture hall so I could catch rays and listen at the same time.

In the afternoon I started to practice and memorize my lectures as usual but I couldn’t seem to focus somehow so I decided to lie down for a minute or two to clear my head up a little…

Two hours later I woke up and meditated before dinner.

Looks like Maharishi is going to be strict about the fifteen-month requirement for the second technique*. Oh well, maybe this summer.

*(AUTHOR’S NOTE: In addition to the basic TM technique there are a number of “Advanced Techniques”, designed to deepen the experience, which can be obtained after meditating for the requisite number of months between each one.)

February 27th, 1972

It’s been a surprising day to say the least. As I wrote yesterday, I’d given up all hope of getting the second technique until summer at the earliest. But sitting next to my friend Larry Z. during the afternoon meeting we discussed it and he said he was going over to The Osiris to talk with Maharishi about it even though he’d only been meditating as long as I have, thirteen months. So I went along just in case.

We went in and were among the first ten or twenty to receive the technique even though about a hundred and fifty people had applied and had appointments! I hadn’t even applied or brought fruit and flowers* or anything, but they sort of materialized and I got my second technique just like that. Very weird.

*(AUTHOR’S NOTE: As part of the initiation ceremony each student is asked to bring two or three pieces of fruit and several flowers as an offering.

A memory from this day that I apparently forgot to write down at the time:

When Larry and I and the others in the first group went in to see Maharishi he started by asking each of us how long we’d been meditating. “Fifteen months, Maharishi,” “Thirteen months, Maharishi,” etc.

Then he just sat and looked at us all for a long moment. Finally he shrugged and said, “Well, we can try it. If it don’t work, don’t use it.” And that was that.)

February 28th, 1972

The only unusual event for today was meditating with the new technique. Really puts the buzz on.

February 29th, 1972

Four months of rounding caught up with us tonight and we all just broke loose and had a spontaneous Aboriginal Amateur Hour*.

(AUTHOR’S NOTE: A Firesign Theatre reference - naturally - which in turn refers back to Ted Mack’s Original Amateur Hour, a radio, and later TV, program that ran from 1934 to 1970 and was the model for more current America’s Got Talent types of shows.)

It was announced that Maharishi wasn’t coming this evening so one guy got up and played his guitar, and everybody liked that so our resident opera singer did an a capella version of “Across the Universe”. Peter, one of our course instructors, revealed his insane side by playing Ted Mack and MC-ing the proceedings. There was also a fellow who did a just flawlessly hysterical version of Ed Sullivan throughout the evening.

A few of our musicians went next, guitars and flutes and things. People who had heard me before asked me to do some Firesign so I did “Ralph Spoilsport” as a commercial between acts. I was brought back for an encore and performed “W.C. Fields Forever” - at least until I was taken off-stage by an umbrella being used as a hook. (It was done as a joke but I suspect that some people were a little uncomfortable with all the drug-reference humor so close to where Maharishi usually sits).

There was other stuff but the hit of the evening was Mike Love and Al Jardine of The Beach Boys (who followed my act), who did a song about vegetables and were then cajoled into doing “Barbara Ann”.

What a night. Peter couldn’t get us to quit until around midnight.

March 1st, 1972

Another non-meeting of sorts tonight. The course leaders just said they wanted to talk to a few people and read off a list of names. My name was among them so I sat and shot the bull for two and a half hours with Ira and Mike Love* and a couple of others until I couldn’t wait anymore, wondering all the while what possible trouble I could be in.

(AUTHOR’S NOTE: The Beach Boys had been in a commercial and artistic slump for a few years during this period and very few people had been buying their new records, so I’d impressed Mike during an earlier conversation by reciting some of the lyrics from one of their more recent songs.)

I finally just walked up to them and said, “You wanted to talk to me?” And after all that they just wanted to know if everything was alright and where I would teach TM, etc. S.I.M.S. efficiency in action.

March 2nd, 1972

After the evening non-meeting (Peter read out some revised asanas or something) I wandered back into the hall and was fortunate enough to hear some music. First was part of Faust, which is described on the record cover as “An electronic theater for Transcendental Meditation” composed and recorded by one of the German people on the course. The music was fairly ethereal in a transistorized way. A little too much on the intellectual side.

But then a symphony for piano and orchestra was played and it was then that I realized what five months of rounding had done. I’d never been able to appreciate music so fully before. I must study it.

After getting thoroughly stoned on that I wandered upstairs and into someone’s birthday party where our Irish poet was reading one of his works. I felt so high and clear. Look out, world.

(CONTINUED...)

Majorca Journal

Friday, May 9, 2014

Majorca Journal: Rounding, Romance and Derangement October 1971 - March 1972

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