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interaction. People become spiritually energized and change in Zipruanna’s smelly, garbage-filled presence. I keep a picture of him on my desk.
Gooch, in his implicitly and superficially righteous preoccupation with what he considered disenfranchising human vulnerability, recalls how the medieval church used the difficult to impossible vow of chastity for political control of their priesthood. He seemed to have missed Baba’s lessons about the remarkably simple sounding practices for mobilizing the energy of the God-receptive state. Once in this new state, the rest of the metaphysical work almost takes care of itself. I, like many others, adopted Baba’s mantra, Om Namah Shivaya, “I worship the God within me (and you)” that he was given by his guru. The inner chant of this mantra brings me to an internal quiet in which things become clearer. Meditation, chanting and service to the guru was motivated by his promise that my egoistic concerns ranging from the number of publications on my curriculum vitae, to the size and adroitness of my penis, would disappear autonomously in the Baba state of bliss. This sounds very much like the role of the transition to an “active intellect.” in Abraham Abulafia’s 13th Century Commentary on the Secrets. Arduous study of the spiritually dense writings of Sri Aurobindo during the days with Professor Spiegelberg at Stanford gave me a peak into the simple but difficult to execute idea of “simply” becoming the transcendently comprehending state of existence-consciousness-bliss.
Whereas Baba would occasionally lapse into terse Sanskrit verse and its multiplicity of potential meanings, Gurumayi keeps things simple. Sitting silently and immobile at satsang for hours, she radiates transformational energy, shakti, that makes ruminations about human affairs seem unimportant. The work is about getting the self concerned head noise of ones preoccupations sufficiently out of the way to allow the discovery of the God who has been waiting patiently within. A fellow ashramite gave me a photograph of my first audience with Gurumayi. It showed me on my knees in front of her. She appears to be dismissing me with a baleful, almost disdainful look as my introducer, gesturing broadly, was, unasked, reciting a list of my professional bona fides. The picture caught her waving me off with a long, peacock-feathered stick. Obviously unimpressed, she is sending me back to my all night, every night, tent cleaning labors at the Ashram. Rich Indian

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