Gurukula

(In the House of the Guru)

[gurukula-blog]

Chapter Five: The Sign

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We went without any word at all for six months. Summer became winter for many people, but since we lived in LA, very little changed, except I needed a light coat at night. Los Angeles is the land of perpetual summer.

Mari found a boyfriend who came sniffing around a lot. His name was Andrew, and I remember liking him. He bought groceries and cleaned up our apartment. Azul the cat found him to be particularly useful for getting extra meals between feedings.

My “job” was going well, and I had gotten a raise. I remember we were all becoming brands in those days. I was a brand; Mari was a brand; Andrew was a brand; even Azul was a brand. It was the time of brand-building, and I was no slouch. A lot of those brands took off under my guidance, and I was able to recoup any money I had lost in the false ashram.

We were doing ‘well,’ or at least it would have appeared so to any outside observers. Really, it was a shadow of a life, like a dream where you go to work and come home, and nothing good happens and nothing bad. It wasn’t meaningful and it wasn’t real.

I was so bored with the whole thing that I was about to run away to Mexico to buy a roadside fruit stand when I heard an ad on the radio.

“Do you need a sign?” a voice asked.

“Yes, yes, I do. I pleaded.” I was just driving back from hot yoga class, and so was still a bit rank and sweaty when the voice spoke.

I moved my arm to turn the radio up when the car behind me started honking. “Move it, lady!” the driver screamed.

“Can you wait a minute?”

“The light’s green!”

“Up your’s guy! I’m fucking talking to God here!” I gave him the middle finger, and he peeled off and drove around me. “Jackass. I fucking hate people sometimes.”

By the time the commotion was all over, the voice was gone. I rushed home to Mari, stopping at no more lights, neither green nor red.

“Mari!” I shouted as I came through the door.

She was on the loveseat with Andrew.

“Mari, the sign is coming soon!”

She turned to her new beau. “You should go. Sage and I have to discuss some very important things.”

“Ok,” he said. “I’ll call you in the morning.” He grabbed his coat and walked out the door.

“You got a message from Swami Kurt?” she asked.

“No, but I got a message from the universe, and it said that the sign would be coming at some point.”

“When?”

“At some point.”

“Yea, that’s what Swami Kurt said too. Did the universe give a time frame? Like this week maybe?”

“No, just kind of reiterated what we knew. You know, to keep an eye out.”

“Hmmmm,” she said. “I think I got that sign today.”

I gasped. “I knew it!”

She reached for her phone. “Yes, it was an email for this yoga retreat at the foot of Mount Everest, very exclusive.”

“Really?”

She showed me pictures of a luxury Zen resort.

“Ok,” I said. “You think that’s where he’s going to be?”

“Yes, it has four saunas, very reasonable prices.”

Actually, the resort was pricey, but money isn’t real, so I didn’t argue with her about the affordability of the retreat.

I thought hard about her point. “He’s going to be a baby though,” I finally said.

“A what?”

“Like a baby. The baby would go to the resort? Isn’t a sauna is like a hot car? Aren’t you not supposed to put babies in hot cars? I guess I just don’t see it.”

“What if he’s mature for his age? He could be in a DJ’s entourage already. I think we should check it out.”

“I don’t know.”

“It really spoke to me.”

“I just don’t know if Swami Kurt would want to be reborn around a bunch of rich people again. Two lives back-to-back as a well-to-do playboy—what’s he going to learn?”

“You know all the best gurus start as well-to-do playboys.”

“True, but it doesn’t feel right.”

The doorbell to our apartment rang, and Mari went to answer it.

Sophia, our neighbor, a blonde college-aged girl in a blue t-shirt with white lettering stood on the other side. She thrust a paper into Mari’s hand.

“Hi, neighbor. Today, I’m representing ‘Help the Children,’ a charity which supports impoverished children in Africa. Would you be interested in sponsoring Joseph, a young boy from—“

Mari abruptly cut her off. “I’m sorry. We believe in Karmic Law. If Joseph is poor, it’s his own fault.” With that, she closed the door on the girl’s face, and threw the paper into the trash. “Bunch of damn beggars, like watch a documentary on Kabbalah, bitch. Get your head right. Who even lets them in the building?”

“She’s lived next door for at least six months now.”

“Yea, anyway, I think our guru is at this luxury resort, and I think he’s got a lot more to teach us about humanity.”

“Wait a minute,” I said. I rushed to the trash and took out the paper that misguided Sophia had forced on Mari. “It says Joseph comes from a big family. He’s got four younger brothers and sisters, and look, his mother is pregnant again. She’s due in a few weeks!”

“I can only imagine the bad karma all those kids built up to be born into such poverty. They don’t need money; they need to meditate. They must have been so selfish in their past lives!”

“No, Mari. She’s pregnant with Swami Kurt. This is the sign!”

Mari took the pamphlet and opened it up to the section about James’ village. “This place is really gross,” she said. “It’s like all dry and they don’t even have a hospital. Their well is all crappy and broken. I mean, look at this shitty school house. It’s made of cow poop!”

“We have to go there!”

“Yea?”

“Yes, this is the sign! It came right to the door. And so what if the whole place is made of cow poop? Mushrooms grow on cow poop! That’s why the cow is holy.”

“So it’s like a village of psilocybin mushrooms?”

“Maybe.”

“Can we leave tomorrow?”

“Oh no. I forgot about Andrew,” I said.

“Me too,” Mari answered. “It’s fine. I’ll break up with him.”

“You don’t have to do that. He’s such a sweetheart.”

“No, I was going to anyway.”

“Why?”

“He’s weird. Did you see him dance at the club the other night?”

I started laughing. I had seen him, and he was doing a strange little drunken shoulder shimmy thing. He looked like someone had put him in a straightjacket, and he was struggling to find a way out.

“Like this.” Mari started mimicking it. “What was this?”

I was laughing so hard that she nearly had me in tears. “Eww, I can’t believe you fucked him!”

Mari kept mocking his dance. “I’m coming to get you, Sage.”

We both cackled hysterically.

“Are you going to call him now?” I asked.

“No, I’ll just block his number. He’ll figure it out eventually.”

“No, we need him to watch Azul while we’re away.”

“Right! I won’t break up with him until we get back.”

[gurukula-blog]

Chapter Four: A Whisper on the Wind

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The events surrounding my beloved guru’s death weighed heavily on me for weeks. I had not just lost a mentor, but most of my world. It was similar to when I left high school and lost touch with all of my friends, except my high school friends didn’t shun me. They simply outgrew me.

The apartment that I shared with Mari, which had been like my dorm room, a place to go between meditations and ceremonies, became our home once again. The cat became bored with us being around all the time.

“Let’s go for dinner,” Mari said to me one night after a particularly long slump.

“I don’t want to go out.”

“Let’s go. How long can you stay like this?”

“Is anything real? What if all the meaning we give events is just to create a false sense of order where there is in fact none?”

“I’m hungry,” she answered. “If nothing means anything anymore, we’re going for barbeque.”

“Meat?!”

“Yes, we’re nihilists now, and nihilists eat meat.”

“I was just dabbling with the idea. I don’t know if I’m ready to go full nihilist just yet. Isn’t there like supposed to be a step first, like first I become an anarchist for a year and then I go to nihilism? I don’t want to rush.”

“No, it goes anarchist, spiritualist and then nihilist.”

“I thought it was the other way around, spiritual, anarchist and then nihilist.”

“Nope. Anarchist then spiritualist.”

“Ok. I guess I did have a little anarchy phase in college, but it wasn’t like … a phase phase. I saw a couple of art films.”

“Well, it counts.”

“Ok. Then, I guess I am a nihilist now.”

“Good! We’re having meat for dinner.”

“We have been vegan for so long. Are you sure you want to give it up over my loss of faith? Where is yours?” I asked her.

“I never had faith. Faith is nothing, just an illusion, just the Maya.”

Mari took me to her favorite Korean BBQ place where guests cook their own food on a hibachi in the center of the table. We ended up eating five different kinds of animal that night for dinner. We had chicken, duck, pork, beef and shrimp. Plus, since each shrimp is one individual life, we caused untold destruction to the karmic fabric which we had so carefully woven under Swami Kurt. I felt like Kali, the destroyer.

It all meant nothing. The tribe? Nothing. The diet? Nothing? The memories? Nothing. I saw my world painted black for one sweet-and-tangy night.

“That was the best thing,” I said as I relaxed on the couch later, digesting my prey.

“I’m glad you feel better. Here, try this.” Mari passed me a pipe.

“What’s in it?”

“Nothing you won’t like.”

*            *            *

I awoke standing on a purple cloud. The sky above was stormy and a deep pink color, like a human brain, and thunder sounded softly in the distance.

I turned around to my left many times and saw nothing but the clouds and the low flashes of lightning from a distant storm.

When I finally turned right, I saw my beloved guru, Swami Kurt, meditating in the lotus position. He was floating about three feet above the cloud, and sat just above my eye level.

I gasped. “Swami Kurt, is it really you?”

“Come, my child.” He waved me close. “You are grieved.”

“Oh, Swami. I have missed you so much.”

“And I you.”

“They said terrible things about you. Tell me it’s not true.”

“I know what they said, child. None of it’s true. They are just trying to turn people against me.”

“You didn’t have a drug fueled orgy after we left.”

“Of course not. If I were going to have an orgy, I would have invited you first.”

“I knew it.”

“You are very pretty, much prettier than the other initiates, who are a bunch of catty bitches anyway.”

“That’s what I said!”

“You were right! You are always right.”

“Yea, like surprisingly often, and I try to tell people, but they don’t listen.”

“Yes, my child. You should tell them that you told them so later when they are suffering. Don’t say it outright, but imply it in a backhanded compliment.”

“I will, master. Master, they rejected me. I cannot go back to the ashram.”

“Why would you want to? The ashram is in my teachings, not a building. You were my one true disciple. The building is just a concrete shell, unmoving, dead. My child, why have you turned away from my teachings?”

“I did not turn away from you. You left me! You abandoned me before you could finish your teachings.”

“But did I?”

“Yes, you died.”

“My body died, but I am here with you now, and I will be with you in the flesh again.”

The storm grew closer, and the thunder became louder.

“Watch for signs of my rebirth,” he continued. “You must find me, so I can complete your lesson.”

“How will I know—“

With that, a strike of lightning threw me from the purple cloud and sent me hurtling down to earth.

I awoke with a thud on the couch with Azul licking my face. Mari was on the loveseat eating a tub of ice cream and watching her goofy Spanish sitcoms.

A high-pitched voice on the TV said, “Jesús, ¿cuántas veces tenemos que decirte lo mismo? Tienes un coco para una cabeza.” Canned laughter followed.

Mari laughed. “You were snoring like a dude,” she said to me.

“What was in the pipe you gave me last night?”

“That pipe was just herb. I didn’t put anything in there. You just fell asleep because you had the itis.”

“The itis?” I looked around the couch. I was wearing the same clothes I had on for dinner, and there was a dried puddle of drool on the sofa cushion by my mouth. “I saw Swami Kurt. He spoke to me. He told me what we must do.”

[gurukula-blog]

Chapter Three: Separation

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We organized a memorial service for Swami Kurt to be held at 4:00 PM at the next day at the ashram in the Hollywood Hills. Everyone who mattered was there. Their names escape me now, but they made up the core of the tribe that had been my family for the prior two years. There must have been at least thirty people in that house, all of whom had been very dear to me.

Mari and I arrived together in my Lexus coupe. We had to park down the hill and hike up, because there was nowhere to park at the ashram. I feared Mari would not have the strength for the hike after her nine-day sunlight fast, but she was just fine. I think it’s because she was cheating and stealing the cat’s food, but I had no proof.

I held the urn with the ashes as I went through the gate that had just the other day been cordoned off with yellow police tape. Now, a blonde woman in white robes was humming to guests as they entered.

“Oh, you brought him,” the woman said.

“Yes,” I answered. “We took care of everything.”

Mari added, “We’ll need to be reimbursed. Who do we see about that?”

She waved us away. “Oh go see Geena. She’ll take care of you.”

“There’s no rush,” I said as we moved to the roof where the alter was to place the ashes.

We walked through groups of crying initiates. “What do we do now?” they wept. “We did not deserve you.” Each touched the box of ashes as we passed.

They all wore white, while Mari and I were dressed in black. It being a funeral and all.

At the foot of the stairway to the roof, I did see Geena, a red-haired woman who handled much of the ashram’s financial affairs.

“Oh, you brought him,” she said.

“Yes.”

“Did he transform into pure light?”

“No.”

“Really? I thought he would.”

“Yea, me too. We had to cremate him. It was a whole long thing. No one else from the ashram was there.”

“Yea, we can’t talk to cops right now. Thanks for doing this!”

“Definitely!” I should have probed further into that comment, but I chose to move on. “I was told to come to you about reimbursement.”

“Yes, of course! Was it much?”

“Just over three thousand dollars in total.”

“Three thousand dollars?! Yikes. Well, we’ll get that to you.”

“No rush. What matters is that you do all get to finally say your goodbyes to our guru.”

I ascended to the roof with Mari and the ashes. The alter had been set on a small table, about three feet tall, with flowers on either side. The pillows were set up around it for his disciples to sit during the service.

I delicately placed the ashes in the center and bowed.

“It’s almost over now,” Mari whispered to me as we took our seats on an oversized cushion. “How do you feel?”

“I feel empty, like I haven’t learned everything I was supposed to learn from him.”

“This is a deep blow that we will all feel for many years.”

A young man in a white robe blew a yak’s horn and we knew it was time to start the ceremony. One by one, our guru’s initiates approached the alter and touched the blessed urn.

“Did he turn into a being of light?” one asked.

“No.”

They sat around us in their new matching white robes, and I had to wonder where they had the time and the money to buy white robes. The man was not dead three days, and I could barely put my grieving aside long enough to drive to the coroner’s and back. Here, they had gone shopping. I figured it was because they had kept with their sunlight diet and were working off divine strength, whereas I had to disobey my guru to serve my guru. The irony stung like a lit stick of incense.

“I’m so sorry,” a young bronze man said to me. “I was just bringing the incense to the alter.”

“I didn’t even notice,” I answered.

As the incense smoke wafted into my nostrils while the familiar sound of Indian ragas playing over the Bluetooth speakers, I longed for our beloved guru to emerge from somewhere and say that it was all a test, to see how we would perform, that he was not dead, that it would all continue as before, that our ashram would live forever.

A man in white robes did emerge from the house. He had brown hair with a thick graying beard and golden brown skin. “A transformation?” I whispered.

The man walked between us and stood at the alter facing us.

“Let us pray,” he said.

I touched my thumb to my middle finger and rested my hands on my knees, the position of prayer.

“Ohm dally dally shiva yuuuum,” the man said.

“Ohm dally dally shiva yuuuum,” we repeated in unison.

“Ohm dally dally shiva yuuuuum Swami Kurt.”

“Ohm dally dally shiva yuuuuum, Swami Kurt.”

He continued. “It means peace be unto us. Peace be unto Swami Kurt.” It actually doesn’t mean anything at all, just gibberish. That was an embarrassing trip to India, but it is a story for another day. “For today, we say goodbye to our beloved guru and send him into the eternal light.”

“Is he in our ashram?” Mari whispered to me.

“I’ve never seen him before in my life,” I answered.

The mysterious stranger continued. “Swami Kurt was called to the Brahmin, because his role had ended here on the mortal plane. I am told he transformed into pure light at the morgue and left us with these lotus flowers.”

The bronze crowd applauded.

“He didn’t,” I tried to tell them. “We had to get him cremated. I actually need you to pay me back.”

“For like Moses, Swami Kurt has brought us as far as he could, and now it is up to us to move on to new heights, to new insights under a new guru. I am honored that Swami Kurt selected me to be that new guru.”

The bronze crowd applauded. “We love you,” they said. “Praise our new guru.”

The man continued, “I am Swami Jeff, and I love you all.”

I raised my hand. “Excuse me, when did Swami Kurt choose you? Was I here?”

“In a vision. We were on the astral plane together,” he answered. “He placed his finger on my third eye and told me that I would lead his flock after him.”

The bronze crowd applauded.

“Don’t take my word for it. He told his follower Geena.” He motioned to the woman with the red hair that was supposed to reimburse me for this whole memorial/coronation.

“He told you that?” I asked.

“Yes,” she answered.

“When?!”

“Two nights ago.”

“So like after he was dead?”

“Yea. It was in a dream.”

“Oh I see.” I respect dreams. If Swami Jeff had in fact come to her unannounced in a dream, then it was the will of the Brahma. “Just out of curiosity, was that before or after you met Jeff?”

“After.”

“Oh, after,” I answered. Then, I turned to this new guru. “And how did you get here?”

“I ubered.”

“So on the astral plane, Swami Kurt gave you this address which you told to your Uber driver who punched it into his GPS? On the astral plane?”

“Yes. It was divine,” he replied.

“In my dream, Swami Kurt told me that some people who were not ready to advance would be left behind,” Geena said.

“Fuck you, Geena, you Goddamn bitch! Am I the only one who doesn’t buy this?” I surveyed the crowd, and they all bought it.

Mari called from the alter. “She does not believe!”

WTF, Mari? I thought. “You had the dream because this guy contacted you and put the idea into your head.”

“Swami Jeff has proven himself,” she replied. “He has the gift of trance, just like Swami Kurt! We have traveled the astral plane together.”

“Swami Kurt didn’t have the gift of trance,” I answered. “He had the hook-up for good acid.”

“Her vibration is too low,” someone screamed. “We cannot advance with her among us!”

“You must leave,” the false Swami said.

“You guys still owe me for the cremation!” I shouted. “Which no one else bothered to come to or even answer your phones, BTW.”

“She’s only after money!” someone shouted.

“I am not!”

“Yes you are,” impressionable Geena said. “You’ve mentioned it three times already.”

“You’re the person who handles money! You know I am generous with the ashram. Swami Kurt was your guru; you should want to share in his funeral expenses.”

“I think your love of money is keeping you trapped in your vibration,” the false Swami said. “I don’t think you can stay here in your current frequency.”

Mari stood next to this… man. “Look at his beard. Could a man with a beard be a false guru?”

WTF, Mari?

“Jesus had a beard!” a bronze idiot screamed out. “You get out of here!”

“You smooth-faced nonbeliever!” another shouted.

“Leave us,” the crowd chanted. “Leave us. Leave us, Leave us—”

“Oh, I’m leaving. I can’t believe I dropped so much acid with you assholes.”

I stormed out of that former ashram, now a house of fraud. I wore a pair of Givenchy lamb’s leather sandals with a Greek inspired strap. They were my favorite at the time, but they did nothing for my feet along the hot concrete and dry rock that makes up the Hollywood Hills.

“Sage, wait up!” a familiar voice called.

I turned back. It was Mari!

I had tears in my eyes, and my face was beet red. “What the fuck, Mari? How could you leave me out to dry out back there?”

“What? Are you mad, you idiot? I stole the ashes and like two vials of acid!” She lifted her robe to reveal the urn. “I put the acid in my bra. Let’s see his power of trance now. Can you believe that shit?”

She wrapped her arm around me and let me lean on her as we walked down the hill together. “Why are you weak? I thought you were back on food.”

“Because everyone hates me, and my shoes are stupid.”

“They’re all a bunch of idiots. Half of them will be on heroin or in porn by the end of the year anyway, especially under that false prophet. Rest here. I can support you now. I’ve been on this new diet, very dense, high protein kind of thing.”

She drove my coupe to the Pacific Ocean, to Malibu at Point Dume. It’s a pleasant ride along winding hills. The point itself a large brown cliff edge with seals and pelicans. There was a slight wind blowing west.

“Goodbye, Swami Kurt,” I wept. “We loved you so.”

“Thank you for all you taught us. Thank you for being you.”

We dumped the ashes over the cliff, and they drifted to a seal covered rock off-shore. The tranquil creatures didn’t even notice the ashes were not sunlight.

We watched the ocean in silence for a few more minutes until I finally spoke. “I can’t help but thinking I haven’t finished my lessons with him yet.”

“Maybe you haven’t,” my dearest friend answered.

[gurukula-blog]

Which taxi driver should Sage and Mari choose?

www.adevinecomedy.com

[gurukula-blog]

“Lay off, guy! I’m f$%#ing talking to God here!”

[gurukula-blog]

Azul the Cat

[gurukula-blog]

“You should tell them ‘I told you so.’ Not now, but later, when they are suffering, and don’t say it directly, but imply it in a backhanded compliment.”

“Yes, master.”

[gurukula-blog]

Sage and Mari go to get BBQ.

[gurukula-blog]

They all want something from him.

[gurukula-blog]

Seals

[gurukula-blog]

Sage and Mari Uber to the ashram

[gurukula-blog]

This Mortal Coil

Mari and I called for an Uber immediately, neither of us having the strength to operate a car.

“How could this have happened?” she sobbed in the backseat of a Ford Focus belonging to Joshua, our driver, a plain looking boy who seemed like he was on the autism spectrum. He drove us through the winding mountain roads to our ashram.

“He was fine. We were all dancing, and then, I blacked out. Did anything happen after I blacked out?”

“No, we wrapped you in a blanket, and he carried you to the Uber. He was the picture of health and beauty, and now, he’s gone.”

“He can’t be dead!” I screamed. “He just can’t be.”

Joshua chimed in. “I don’t have service up here. Do you know how to get there?”

“Of course,” Mari cried. “We go there every day.”

I had a thought. “Maybe it was some kind of a mistake. Maybe it’s a test.”

“A test!” Mari exclaimed. “I suppose it could be a test.”

“So do I take a right?” Joshua asked. “I don’t even have the address saved. I’m so sorry. My phone is not getting any apps.”

Annoyed by the interruption, I remembered what Swami Kurt had to say about annoyances like these. ‘Be kind to the plain. They will remember you a lot longer than you will remember them.’

I said calmly, “I think it’s a left actually.”

Josh turned left and we wound up on a dead-end street.

“We passed it,” Mari sobbed. “Turn around and take right and then another left.”

“Oh, the right was back there,” Joshua answered.

“Yes, it was back there!” She was absolutely inconsolable.

By the time we arrived at the ashram, the police had already cordoned off the house.

“Wait here,” I told Joshua. “We might need you in a few minutes.”

We rushed up to the door but a detective stopped us. I forget his name, but he was short and bald with slender shoulders. I didn’t like the look of him at all. He looked like he couldn’t wait for a murder to go down so he that could get an invite to the Hollywood Hills. He’d never be here otherwise.

“I’m sorry, ladies,” he said, “but this is an active crime scene.”

“We’re family!” I shouted.

“What relation are you to the deceased, a Mr. Kurt Leer?”

“It’s Swami Kurt, and we are his disciples,” I answered.

He snickered. “Blood relatives only.”

“What happened to him, huh? We were with him last night,” I said.

“Was he called by the Brahma?”

“Yea, probably not. Why didn’t you say you were witnesses?” The troll man pulled out a little notebook. “Did you arrive before or after the orgy started?”

I looked to Mari for answers. Orgy?

“There was no orgy!” she exclaimed. “Swami Kurt has taken a vow of celibacy.”

“Oh, there definitely was an orgy.”

“Lies!”

“Hey, I’m not a liar. Two paramedics had to free a young man whose genitals had gotten trapped in Mr. Leer when the deceased’s buttocks seized. We got all three talking to PTSD councilors now, and the boy may never get an erection again.”

“It’s not true!” I said.

“So, you weren’t here for the orgy?”

“No, we left after my friend here got sick, around 9:00.”

“And did you see who brought the cocaine?”

“There was no cocaine!” I exclaimed. “Swami Kurt swore off any and all ego-centric drugs. No cocaine. No alcohol. He didn’t even allow mirrors.”

“There was absolutely cocaine. We found powder in seven of his orifices.”

“Seven?!” I screamed. I didn’t realize people had so many orifices.

“And he was found in a room of mirrors!” the officer continued.

“That’s the clown room,” Mari said. “So we can see our inner clown. I’ll never do coke in there the same way again.” She sobbed into my shoulder.

“I think we left before all of that.”

“Then, you’re not going to be much help to us, I’m afraid. We need you to clear the area for our investigators.”

We turned and began to walk towards the car, but even though the detective had been rude, I still needed to warn him.

I turned back. “Don’t be alarmed if he turns into a being of pure light. It’s perfectly natural and it won’t hurt you.”

“Excuse me,” he answered.

“The true Brahman will transform into energy shortly after death, like Jesus did. It’s called rainbow body. When Swami Kurt turns to light, don’t be afraid.”

“Yea. Okay,” he said.

We walked back to Joshua in the Ford Focus, and drove home to await news of the funeral.

Two days later, the troll detective called us to fetch Swami Kurt’s body, even though we weren’t ‘blood relatives.’

We arrived by car. By this point, I had fallen back into the embrace of material food. Swami Kurt’s death had been too big a blow, and I no longer had the strength to maintain a light fast.

Mari was much stronger than I was on this front. She was on day eight of her fast. As I lifted her in and out of the passenger’s seat of my pink Lexus coupe, I could not help but admire her steadfast resolve to the teachings of our beloved guru.

The detective met us in the lobby with a technician, an attractive young Black man in teal scrubs.

“Thank you for coming, Ms. Devine,” the detective said.

“I thought you could only speak to blood relatives,” I answered, Mari being too far into the other realm to mimic our mortal tongue.

“Apparently, he died owing all of his blood relatives money, and they won’t give him another dime. You are the only one who will answer the phone.”

“What is left of him after his ascension?”

The detective looked at the technician with a raised eyebrow. “Like on the autopsy table? His body?”

“Is it a shell? Lotus petals perhaps?” I asked.

Mari rejoined us from heaven. “We will scatter them in the desert at Joshua Tree.”

“Uhhh…” the cute technician mumbled. “He’s a corpse.”

With that word, Mari fell back to the divine city, and I had to catch her and prop her up before returning to speak with the men from Los Angeles city.

“We didn’t get the name of your funeral home you wanted us to send him to,” the detective said.

“Can we see him?”

The technician led us into a cold blue room, the city morgue, a ghastly place with very low energy. He opened a metal door and pulled out the corpse of our beloved guru.

“It’s a body!” I gasped.

“Yea,” the cute technician answered.

“Is it him?” the detective asked.

“It is his corporeal shell,” I answered.

“Ok, so that’s a yes,” the crude little man said. “The official cause of death is listed as heart attack brought on by cocaine use and of course the excessive physical activity of anal sex with an underage boy. We obviously can’t charge him for that now that he’s dead.”

Mari gasped. “You’re wrong! It must have been a kundalini awakening exercise. It’s the only explanation.”

I agreed. “The boy’s soul is trapped!”

“His demons must be very strong to have stopped the ceremony.”

“Alright,” the detective answered.

“You never sent us any directions for delivery. Which funeral home will you be using?”

“We will burn the body by funeral pyre and leave his ashes in our Ganges, the LA River.”

The troll detective did not understand, instead leaning on his bureaucratic masters. “We don’t really allow funeral pyre’s in California because of the threat of wild fires. You can have him cremated though.”

The cute technician backed him up, probably because he felt threatened by his authority. “And you can’t dispose of human remains in the LA River, because there’s usually no water in it, and it’s just going to sit there, and pollute the homes of whatever wildlife do try to live there, like pigeons and ducks.”

Bureaucracy can pollute a mind more than human remains can pollute a river, I thought, but I held my tongue because both men were too deep into their chosen illusions to see the truth.

“I can give you the name of a good funeral home that will give you a no hassle cremation,” the technician added. “They don’t have any religious affiliation either if that’s a problem.”

I nodded, and we left to meet Swami Kurt’s shell at the home. The cost was just over five hundred dollars, which I happily paid from my savings, just like I had always happily paid for the ashram’s needs. I reasoned, whatever I had to pay in worldly dollars was a pittance for the prize of enlightenment.

We arrived at the funeral home half-an-hour later, just after the van which delivered the body. The home was in a 1920’s mansion in Hollywood, very chic. Swami Kurt would have been happy to be handled in a place with such ambiance.

A middle-aged Armenian man named Michel greeted us in the lobby, which had wonderful wallpaper and a fetching chandelier. Very fashionable. We sat in a receiving area where a young woman, his daughter I think, brought us tea.

“The coroner tells me you are looking for a cremation,” Michel said.

“Yes,” I answered.

“No,” Mari interrupted. “We want to see his body go back to the Earth, to be recycled or he will be trapped on the mortal plane.”

I understood what she meant from our lessons with Swami Kurt. “Like in the Tibetan Book of the Dead, where they are fed to vultures. What are your options for something like that?”

“We don’t have a vulture package. You can get a burial or a cremation. If you get a burial, we will have to prepare the body according to California law, and I can do cosmetic things to prepare it for viewing.”

“What sort of cosmetic things?”

“He’ll have to be embalmed. Then, I can give him makeup for the burst blood vessels under his eyes. I can stitch up his anus too. Whatever you need.”

“What sort of viewing do you think this is?!” I exclaimed.

“No, we cannot have him exposed to unnatural chemicals.”

“He died from unnatural chemicals,” Michel’s daughter added quite unprompted.

He shooed her out of the room.

Mari pressed her point. “We may not be able to feed him to vultures, but what about coyotes? We’ve got a lot of coyotes in California.”

“No, we have vultures here too,” Michel responded. “We just can’t feed him to animals.”

“But his soul…”

“No, I get that, but California law won’t let us do it.”

You see: Law. Order. The bureaucracy of the mind.

“Then, give him to us,” I shouted.

“What will you do with him?”

“Nothing.”

“No, you’re going to feed him to animals, and I can’t allow that.”

“Nuh-uh!” I insisted.

“I don’t believe you,” Michel answered.

Mari scoffed. “Such a waste!”

“Do you want a cremation?” Michel asked.

“I guess if that’s our only option,” I answered.

“Ok, and who is paying for this?”

“I will,” I answered.

“No,” Mari said. “It’s too much, Sage. At the coroner and now this…”

“Just for now. The ashram will pay me back.”

“Ok. I’m just going to need a credit card on file.”

I gladly handed over my Visa for the procedure.

[gurukula-blog]

Sage travels the universe.

[gurukula-blog]

Swami Kurt preaches to his pupils on this Hollywood veranda

[gurukula-blog]

Chapter One: The Spark

I will never understand why people go to war over different beliefs and different gods. They kill children trying to decide whether one bronze idol should be revered and another bronze idol smashed to bits. Religions are much more alike than they are different. Even those on opposite sides of the world.

I say this not as a start to some atheist spiel about how we must move past this or that and become blah blah. No, I say this more as a warning. Don’t waste your time going on pilgrimage to Jerusalem when you can learn the same thing at home. Save yourself the air fare, and buy a nice pair of shoes or some drugs.

“The kingdom of heaven is within you,” the Bible says. I left my Catholic upbringing behind when I moved to Los Angeles, so I never gave it much thought.

* * *

We start on a veranda of a Hollywood Hills home of our beloved guru, Swami Kurt. Mariela—Mari for short—my best friend, and I were on the sixth day of what we hoped would be a lifetime diet of pure sunlight. I knew it was working by the third day when the spirits of the sun and the earth were making themselves known to me. I could hear their blessings in my ear and see them as blurry shapes out of the corner of my eye.

There were six or seven other people on that veranda, lounging on the marble floors and colorful oversized pillows imported from India. Their names escape me now, but they were all beautiful and young and bronze, just like me and Mariela.

A serene Indian raga played over the ashram’s Bluetooth speakers, and I found myself lost in the notes. After a six-day diet of sunlight, it was hard for me to concentrate on more than one thing at a time.

The sun beat down on my head so harshly in the June California afternoon. I would have gone to the shade, but didn’t for fear I would starve.

“Isn’t this beautiful, Sage?” Mari whispered to me.

I’m Sage. Sage Devine. Yes, that is my real name. It’s a family name.

I nodded my head that it was beautiful.

“I don’t need to eat anything ever again.”

“Me either,” I answered. “This is how plants do it, and they’ve been around for billions of years. Much more than humans.”

“Why do we mortals think we know so much? We should listen to the plants.”

I nodded in agreement. Mari is by far my best friend, and not just because she’s the only one who will still speak to me. Mari is my friend because she is wise.

We melted back into our music and hunger for a few more minutes—or maybe hours—until Swami Kurt finally stood for our lesson.

“Children!” he said. “When you have eaten your fill gather around.” He waved his hand in front of him and motioned us to sit.

We all pulled up cushions around his, and stared at him like we had just done the sun. He was like some kind of star himself. Not literally, of course, since his acting career didn’t go anywhere. No, he was a different kind of star. One that captivates and shows you everything but keeps you around for the mystery.

Swami Kurt was beautiful, even though he was super old, like forty-five or something. He wasn’t a normal forty-five. We rubbed his skin with oils so that it stayed youthful. We kneaded his back so that it never bothered him, and we massaged his joints so that they never ached. He was how the avatar of a god would look at forty-five, and we all genuinely believed him to be just that.

“I feel your energy. Mmmmmmmm,” he said.

“Mmmmmmmmmm,” we all said in return in unison.

“Your auras are becoming so strong.” He threw himself back on his cushion. “I feel them physically, like giant beach balls of pure light. Mmmmmmm.”

“Mmmmmmmm,” we all said in return.

“It’s time children.”

We looked to each other in confused anticipation for we expected nothing from our beloved guru, but he would surprise us with spiritual gifts.

Swami Kurt took a small straw out of his pocket. “I want you all to get comfortable. This will only last an hour, but you may want to lie down.” He knelt by one of the other initiates. “Tilt your head back,” he instructed the man. Then, he blew a small bit of yellow powder into his nostril.

The man coughed, and his eyes opened really wide. “Woah,” he said. He leaned back and closed his eyes.

Swami Kurt came to each of us one by one and put the same straw in each of our noses. Mari and I were at the end of the circle, me behind her, and so I saw all the others go first.

“Do you have another straw?” I asked when he got to me. “Like maybe a fresh unused straw?”

Swami shook his head no. “What are you afraid of, my child? Disease can only take hold in a diseased mind.” With that, I tilted my head back and he blew the powder into my nose too.

It hurt going down, like it had some kind of chili in it, or maybe it was the force with which he blew. I coughed and then forgot all about the pain.

I gently fell back into my Indian cushion, now an elaborate spider’s web on the edges of space, time and consciousness.

“Whoa.”

Space itself, the dark backdrop that is the vacuum, was stained with giant colorful clouds from a nebula where stars are born.

A giant spider came by and danced to the sound of the raga on her web. She eyed me, but I did not care, because I was not stuck in her web. I was just lying in it like a hammock, and she knew she could not eat me. I am still not sure that she wanted to eat me.

I rested there with her, enjoying the rhythmic vibrations of her feet as they shook my whole world, which was my hammock, her web.

When I came to, Mari was sitting with my head in her lap. “You were calling out for mama spider.”

The sun was setting, and Swami Kurt had built a small fire in his iron fire pit. The others had already begun to dance to yet another raga.

“It was a dream,” I told her. “A good one.”

“Come, let’s dance,” she said.

I stood up with no problem. Most of the effects of the drug had completely worn off, and I was no more clumsy and awkward than my sunlight fast had left me.

As we danced around the fire with our Swami and the other initiates, I realized that not all of the drug had worn off. It had left me with a feeling of lighthearted wonder. I felt a sense of love and commitment to those people, whose names escape me, that I had never felt before. It was bliss. Swami Kurt had shown me bliss.

I woke the next morning in the apartment I shared with Mari in Santa Monica. Our cat, Azul, a furry white ball with blue eyes was nuzzling against my chin. Mari was standing in her window drinking the sunlight when I came to.

“What happened?” I asked.

“You passed out when we were dancing.”

“That’s crazy,” I said. “I must have been too happy.”

“Yes, happiness of that level is difficult to sustain in a mortal body. You want some sunlight?”

“I’m starving.” I stood up and took a place next to her in the window.

When we had eaten our fill, we decided to spend the rest of the morning in meditation before we left for afternoon meditation with our beloved guru. We weren’t twenty minutes into it when we both received a mass text from our ashram in the Hollywood Hills.

“I’m sorry to inform you that Swami Kurt is dead. All activities are cancelled until further notice. Namaste.”