I had met a premie, Gary Toth, in Kalamazoo, Michigan.
He and I were both going to college there, at Western Michigan
University. We got along fine. We liked the same music, the same
bars to meet girls at. He had his meditation and I had my martial
arts and Hatha yoga. But I couldn't stand his premie friends.
Then an instructor, Parlokanand, was going to come to town,
and Gary invited me to come hear him. By that time I'd given
up on organized groups and, thinking he would be just the front
man for another one where I immediately would see why it wasn't
for me, I expected to be bored to tears. So I prepared myself.
I figured if I ate some magic mushrooms I had, plus ate some
hash I'd just made, plus smoked some of the weed I'd made the
hash from (I still had a couple of ozs left), I'd have a good
time no matter what.
Parlokanand was late. Much to my surprise, I found myself
enjoying the hell out of the event. Nobody was preaching; they
were just either sharing their own experience or playing some
music and singing. Then I felt someone come in, at the back.
Literally could feel it when he came in. I turned, and saw this
bald headed guy in saffron just gliding down the aisle. He dropped
down on the floor in front of a picture of Maharaji I hadn't
even noticed. He got up, sat in a chair next to the one that
held M's picture, and began to sing a barjan.
Before he was done singing I was straight. Even a mild
allergic reaction I always had to mushrooms had gone away; I
was physically straight, not just a psychological reaction. He
began speaking when he finished his song, and, within about 10
minutes I was high again, but not a drug high. In fact, I was
higher than I'd ever been in my life, which is saying a lot.
After a little while I figured out that I was getting high off
his high, that he got from what he was saying he could show me.
The next night I went to my 1st local event. Parlokanand was
going to go to Grand Rapids, a couple of hours to the north,
and a few of us agreed to car pool to go hear him again.
I was blown away again. And when everybody else was ready
to go back home I found I just couldn't. I'd been looking for
self-realization in so many ways, for so long. I couldn't let
Parlokanand get away before I knew if what worked with him worked
for me. And people were following him around from town to town.
So I joined them.
The local premies in each town put us up. I often rode
with Parlokanand when we moved on to the next town. I'd usually
be able to be at the foot of the stairs when he came down from
his bedroom for breakfast. (The house he'd stay in always had
2 stories, somehow.) The first thing he'd see to start his day
was me, asking him again if I could receive Knowledge. I'd sit
as close to him as I could get when he spoke, and I'd stay up
late with the premies who were putting me up that night, bugging
them for more details.
There were 3 selections for initiation, and I got turned
down. I wasn't quite ready, according to him. I began to despair
of ever being picked. When he first asked, at my 4th Knowledge
selection, "Who wants to take this Knowledge?" I can't
say to this day if I moved it or if it moved itself. But just
as I had it fully raised a thought floated through my mind, "If
these guys are right, they are talking about giving me an infinite
gift. What have I ever done to deserve such a thing?" and
my arm began to slowly, Oh!, so slowly, sink down again. It was
perhaps the first moment of true humility I had ever had. Parlokanand's
arm stabbed out at me, and he turned slowly to see who had just
been picked; he clearly had not known, had not himself picked
me.
All of this had taken less than a week. When the techniques
of Knowledge were revealed to me the next day, at an ungodly
early hour, they surprised me by how well they worked; I'd learned
them before, 3 times, from others. Before, I'd been under whelmed
by them. They helped me center myself; I could use them to go
into an alpha state. But I got more out of candle gazing or the
breath of fire or out of chi building exercises. But now, empowered
somehow by his teacher, they overwhelmed me. But, I had no commitment
to Master; just to the Gift.
