Abandoned roads - Jos Lammers

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Seven From New York’s LaGuardia Janny and I fly on to Denver. There we have an Avis rental car booked to drive through the Rocky Mountains and the deserts of Arizona and California to San Francisco. The peace and quiet of traveling to write down how it was. And to see what I missed out on before. The first time in my life I was in an airplane, was about half a year after I got that half a shelf and a place to roll out my sleeping bag at the ashram. Just like a few thousand other followers from Europe and the United States I was in one of the five chartered Boeing-747-s, on my way to a big festival in New Delhi to see the guru for the first time in person and then stay at his ashram in Hardwar on the Ganges for a few weeks. 36
It was hot, there on that concrete plain right next to Delhi Airport where we were told to assemble and wait. Maharaj ji himself was going to welcome us, a whisper said. After about four hours in the burning sun, it was clear that we weren’t ready for that. Too little meditation and too much ‘mind and illusion’, no doubt. So we left in rented buses to a campsite that the Indian followers had put up on a dusty plain outside Delhi. The tents were basically wooden poles affixed with ropes. On those poles sat a roof of colored pieces of fabric. The sides were open for wind, dust and warmth. Next to the campsite were the festival grounds - a wide open field with a stage at the far end that had microphones on it, a throne decorated with flowers for the guru and embroidered pillows for the mahatmas. After his father’s death, Maharaj ji was chosen to succeed him as guru and religious teacher at the age of eight. A daunting position, because the Divine Light Mission of his father had millions of followers in India. A few thousand of them sat on the festival grounds in red, purple, yellow and golden saris and white ‘Indian pajamas’, that were also quite popular among the Western followers. They had a red dot on their foreheads, put flower leaves on each other’s heads and sang songs that seemed to turn around over and over in the same intonation. On the stage the mahatmas took turns giving ‘satsang’: an improvised speech, directly from the meditative experience, about the virtues of the holy master and his divine knowledge bringing enlightenment for the true devotee. Again and again similar words in repeated 37
Page 1 and 2: Mescaline, Maharaj ji and Mojave De
Page 3 and 4: Colophon © Text and publication: J
Page 5 and 6: Colored and distorted This story ab
Page 7 and 8: One My memories of the United State
Page 9 and 10: Two New York. I had forgotten how b
Page 11 and 12: But a good follower kept far from m
Page 13 and 14: his organization. But then again, t
Page 15 and 16: of sand on a coffin. But I bravely
Page 17 and 18: Pity. I think, when I sit here over
Page 19 and 20: good friend, said he would stay wit
Page 21 and 22: ling Indian mahatmas of Maharaj ji
Page 23 and 24: without the protection of car steel
Page 25 and 26: only meant for those who understood
Page 27: After that he taught to listen to t
Page 30 and 31: y now, almost familiar Chinese woma
Page 32 and 33: and devotion. Or hand it over, as e
Page 36 and 37: circles, just like the songs. The m
Page 38 and 39: early in the morning at the end of
Page 40 and 41: the double row and remove me from t
Page 42 and 43: When I looked through the rear wind
Page 44 and 45: quarters (a door, a window frame, n
Page 46 and 47: listened to their endlessly repeate
Page 48 and 49: Ten Right. Denver it is. For me sti
Page 50 and 51: pillows on the porch. And the paint
Page 52 and 53: which I used to look out on the pav
Page 54 and 55: huge dusty parking lots alongside.
Page 56 and 57: that stuffed a large plastic crate
Page 58 and 59: Twelve It was about the greatest ho
Page 60 and 61: Even in Denver they agreed in the e
Page 62: efore we could open our Divine Shop
Page 65 and 66: meeting about international program
Page 67 and 68: When I was in Denver for about a ye
Page 69 and 70: the Rutgers foundation for the pill
Page 71 and 72: Everything looks dusty, hot and sle
Page 73 and 74: temple to praise the beauty of natu
Page 75 and 76: Fifteen At about four in the aftern
Page 77 and 78: The man behind the counter there, a
Page 79 and 80: Sixteen So there I was. In a city w
Page 81 and 82: vice principal. And won. We all got
Page 83 and 84: Seventeen Ludlow apparently knows i
Page 85 and 86:
The more the road descends, from ab
Page 87 and 88:
there. I walk over to the suitcase
Page 89 and 90:
The man follows the bird with his c
Page 91 and 92:
Afterward At this moment, over thir
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Abandoned roads - Jos Lammers

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