Baba in mudra.
Sunday, January 2, 2011
The Big and the Little.
Instill a little fear in the small people whom you distrust. That's how I feel after a letter from Linda Ellerbee denying it was she I saw in the DARSHAN line at the Birthday Intensive for Gurumayi in 1992. She had a name tag but it was some spiritual name. Perhaps indeed it wasn't her. But she was short and curt with me about it. She didn't like my letter to Salon, perhaps, but that's not the issue. I would use some choice words but I fear the great and well known journalist would sue me. Ain't that America?
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3 comments:
So sorry. I didn't mean to be curt, really, I didn't. It's only that it does get tiresome reading that you were here or there and said this and did that — and none of it is so. But, by golly, once it's online, it's gospel...and gets repeated.
Nevertheless, I should have been polite about it, and I wasn't. I do apologize, and hope you will accept my apology
Best wishes,
Linda
Linda
Hadn't seen this or realized who Linda was until today. Thank you for this apology.
I surely did believe it was you in Darshan line at Gurumayi's Birthday Intensive in 1992. I had heard/read that you were involved in this kind of subculture activities. Maybe that was just before you became a newswoman. There was talk about communal living, etc.
Of course, the name tag didn't say Linda. Many people have spiritual names there. Whomever I saw looked just like the infamous newswoman but I was just passing by. A woman who hosted a workshop by Ram Butler who was associated with Siddha Yoga in those days and wrote a correspondence course for it, brought me up to the front of the line to "meet" Gurumayi. It was something that had me a bit confused in my years at Siddha Yoga, "meeting" Gurumayi. Followers asked me if I would like to meet Gurumayi and I didn't understand the significance. Would this make the mantra more effective? Would I receive diksha into the yogic tradition that way? What was the significance and why did I have to say yes to this question which seemed to be the polite thing to say. When meeting Gurumayi I told her my name and address. This was significant to me in that I felt I had already met her through her tapes and the magazine DARSHAN and lately I remember the first time I saw her face as a translator who helped in the translation of Lalleshwari by Swami Muktananda. I told her this, my name and address, and turned around and left. I didn't know what this meeting could have been about. Now that I think about it, this wasn't when I passed by the woman who looked exactly like you in those days. It was another time, another line.
Anyway, so much is made of Gurumayi and her peacock feathers but I have never seen her with them nor been blessed by them. This day she had a yak tail whisk, which is only an uneducated person's estimate of what it was. I remember bowing to her and she dropped that thing down in my direction and it hit the stage while my head was bowed down upon it and I heard it knock and I lifted my head. Didn't seem like much of a thing but it was "something." It was something.
It's still hard for me to believe that that person with the spiritual name in the Darshan line in So. Fallsburg wasn't you. I know of your health concerns and it seemed consistent in my mind that would see an exalted person like Gurumayi, if you could, but if you say it was not you I accept your statement though it's really no big thing to me. Marsha Mason is associated with Siddha Yoga and I know Shirley MacLaine met Baba. James Brolin and Peggy Lipton were at this even celebrating Mayi's birthday, June 24th, for 10 days and it was hosted by Phylicia Rashad who wore a beautiful gold outfit. I don't remember any other significant celebrities though many spoke. The ashram is not far from Manhattan. I have heard Broadway entertainers sing at Intensives broadcast by satellite and read of entertainers visiting in the pages of Darshan so it was not hard for my mind to conceive of your being there.
I accept your apology and thank you for it.
I have only been to the ashram once. It was the 10 day birthday intensive in 1992. James Brolin and Peggy Lipton WERE there. They were hosts. Phylicia Rashad, too. She was the main host and clad in golden outfit. It was memorable.
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