Abandoned roads - Jos Lammers

who was in charge, when I could move in. Mornings and
evenings I meditated with a cloth over my head and bowed
afterwards to the picture of the guru. I didn’t get a
clear answer to my question, so after a while I just packed
my rucksack, brought Granny’s key back to my Mom and
simply announced in the ashram that I was there to stay.
The housemother, an American follower who cooked for
about thirty residents, showed me without further questions
a half shelf where I could put my clothes and a place
on the ground where I could roll out my sleeping bag at
night. No mattress, no pillow. And, just to be clear: “No
sex, no drugs, no alcohol, no meat, no contacts outside
the ashram except for in service to the guru, no books, no
newspapers, no TV, no radio, no possessions except your
clothes”, she counted off the ashram rules on her fingers
one by one. She smiled. I nodded. Whether my Carl Denig
rucksack was allowed as a possession, I didn’t know. In the
attic should be some space to put it away, she said. I stored
it out of sight as much as I could, behind some boxes and
old suitcases. Everything I was still attached to had now
come together in this perfect rucksack and I couldn’t let
go yet. At the bottom of it was the Lord of the Rings, a thin
paperback edition, three volumes in one binding, read to
pieces and taped together again. The only book I hadn’t
been able to part with. I held it in my hand and hesitated.
Shove it between my clothes hoping nobody would notice.
Or put it with the few holy books in the ashram cabinet,
which would pretty much show my lack of understanding
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