Tags
ashram, bali, dr. mishra, pottery studio, s., yoga
the work on al bonk's pottery studio was finished. before the fall rains the roof rafters and beams were placed and a quick layer of plywood and tyvek would keep the water out. flagstone now covered the shale floor. one elegant arch of stone formed the exterior doorway. the other led to the kitchen.
al bonk was then s.'s guide to cool, the expert on all things indian and mexican from serape to peote. s. was still reading 'the trilogy' and in his thoughts he now equated 'gandalf' with gurdjieff, and saruman the soft spoken white wizard was timothy leary. dr. mishra's ashram in monroe, the fairytale land of the elves and tall heroes.
it was mid october and the red maples, yellow birch trees, light green aspens ruled the landscape with their brilliance in the crisp autumn air. s. fell in with the men on the grounds crew. he shared a room with jean pierre. it was barely a garret with two cots but it was cozy.
"Nobody is a fool and nobody is wise. It is the space which makes you foolish or wise. If you have space within your mind, then you become wise, and if you have no space in your mind, then you become 'otherwise'."
– Shri Brahmananda Sarasvati (dr. mishra)
bill haines was left in charge of the country estate of ananda ashram. dr. mishra had taken a slow boat to australia just a few weeks before s. moved in.
but there were plenty of amateur gurus and everyone loved to teach. bali ram coached s. in hatha yoga. Bali had a large room at the west end of the second floor where he could practice his dancing free of distractions. this is where he showed s. the asanas of hatha yoga.
s. observed the quietening effect of these exercises and always looked forward to learning more of them. some were very hard to do but some were easy and relaxing.
bill haines was the example of a careless hindu 'boss'. he taught gnana yoga and played the role of beloved for sarasvati and bali (that was bhakti yoga). Every day the play of personalities was a constant joy to watch as sarasvati crouching at the guru’s feet is banished for three days for smiling. Even the verbal attacks and counterattacks between sarasvati and bali ram were comical, they seemed so much to enjoy their mutual hatred of each other all deriving from petty jealousy.
jean pierre, s.’s partner on the wood cutting team was knowledgeable about health, or ayurvedic yoga. he knew the herbs. jean pierre was the most gentle man s. had ever met.
princes from foreign lands, young drifters, intellectuals and reformed prostitutes gravitated to dr. mishra's ashram. there were daily meetings where people complained that it was always the same people who cooked and cleaned while some others seemed to have the right to just bliss out. drugs were commonplace, mostly hash, pot and lsd.
s. took charge of the wood gathering. he was good at it. he loved wood cutting, splitting firewood and stacking in cords. at night he was the self appointed fire maker and tender. that's about all he did at the ashram except read on the floor by the fire. men and women lived on the large estate. then on weekends, the people from the city joined them; they had jobs and if it weren't for them, there would be no ashram.
one day they just simply threw the whole company of 'ashramites' out. leary heard about it and invited everyone to live at millbrook. most of them did. s. did. and it was an easy transition. he did the wood, slept in the 'fish room', philosophised with jean pierre and bill haines and attended the same house meetings about how the same people did all the work.
L2D2 said:
Have, of course, heard and read about ashram's, Scott, but you are the first person I have met who actually lived in one. Very interesting. Seems a lot of people back when had a guru whose every word was gold and believable. Interesting times they were.
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IArtMan said:
i didn't really have a guru linda, i was just hanging around doing my 'thing'… just 'being' was enough for a while. :happy:
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ricewood said:
Oh, what nice pictures and thoughts from back in the day. When everybody was going east.
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PainterWoman said:
Such an interesting time this was for you Scott. I often wonder, with my parents being so strict, why I didn't rebel and leave to follow the wanderings going on in my head. Who knows where I might have ended up. I think maybe my roots were too strong for one place….because I'm still here after all this time.
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ellinidata said:
such a different world,s. for sure has been places..nn to be back meli,one read doesn't do it for me 🙂
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IArtMan said:
allan, that's right. there was a trend towards the east and it kind of tsunamied right around then. zen and ashrams and communal living experiments just blossomed from coast to coast.pam, that is so wistful… love you for that. adventure was in the air. freedom was all we needed; and we had it. you led a more protected life i guess. :smile:meli :heart: i know you will have 24786473893 serious questions when you come back. 😆
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ellinidata said:
Originally posted by I_ArtMan:
+1 :lol::heart:
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nopanic said:
It´s funny. Today yoga has become, among many, as common as brushing your teeth. I do it every day for app 20 minutes to half an hour. 🙂
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IArtMan said:
hi nic, glad you could drop by. yes, many people do yoga now just as a healthy discipline. 🙂
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nopanic said:
Yeah. It´s a good thing :up:
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IArtMan said:
i can still stand on my head. 🙂
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L2D2 said:
I have never been able to stand on my head.
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IArtMan said:
never linda? never? not even in school? you don't know what you are missing then. :cool:lmao allan… i knew some wiseguy would get to play with that phrase… 😆
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ricewood said:
Scott, I think I can stand on your head, too…..
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ellinidata said:
"the work on al bonk's pottery studio was finished" I did create a couple of pieces in a class of pottery, I can never forger the feeling of creating with my hands, nothing like painting, somehow painting is a pleasure of the eye, mind soul, but pottery is all of the above plus the touch!" s. fell in with the men on the grounds crew. he shared a room with jean pierre. i"where is Julie and the babies?are they supported financially? are they well?"Bali had a large room at the west end of the second floor where he could practice his dancing free of distractions. this is where he showed s. the asanas of hatha yoga."s.was restless again and needs an inner peace? why Bali gets involved in s.'s life and masters hi life? what does he get in return from s.?? "men and women lived on the large estate. then on weekends, the people from the city joined them; they had jobs and if it weren't for them, there would be no ashram.'lost souls trying to find a "parent " to tell them what to do … do you feel that a leader is powerful because of his weak followers?" he did the wood, slept in the 'fish room', philosophised with jean pierre and bill haines and attended the same house meetings about how the same people did all the work."how these people made a living?was it a place that members paid a fee? philosophy shared is a wonderful way to connect,did s. stay faithful to the mother of his son?:heart:
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IArtMan said:
true to your word meli :heart: these are weighty questions which i will take a little time with. thank you for being interested. the strange thing is that this little junket and the next created a crossroads which determined the quality of the rest of his life.
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ellinidata said:
Originally posted by I_ArtMan:
I am getting more anxious …but you knew that already…should I put s. back to the dog house?? or he deserves to be out? :heart:
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IArtMan said:
Originally posted by ellinidata:
this one i can take right away. it has nothing to do with weak or strong or finding an authority to serve. things just happen. especially at that particular 'hot' time, there were a lot of shocks to the status quo and anyone seeking another life-style or 'raison de etre' landed like seeds in the wind here and there. each on its own and free. these souls were freer than anyone in history to determine their futures in a new way spiritually. they were on their own recognizance for once.many many good movements came from the scattering of protestants, catholics, mormons, jews, black race and red; and every walk of life were interested in new potentials. materialism had not received a death blow, but it was wounded to the quick.in other words people became individuals thinking for themselves.the ashram and places like millbrook were homes which became forums for discussion. no one knew what they were seeking exactly. but they did know they were seeking a better quality of being. a better intention for their lives.
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nopanic said:
Yeah – The seek keeps you going. Good seeking is like walking in a steady pace. Bad seeking is like steering desperately into the dark bushes, without moving.Much meditation is like circles. You always get back, but not as the same person. Every time you return you are a liiittle bit older. It´s funny when you do the same moves every day and yet they feel different and new, every time. Though you´re on the move through life, you give yourself a little sequence where you start all over, every day. It´s like picking up things you´ve lost the day before 🙂
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nopanic said:
Yes – It´s like in all good music. The breakes.the silence is important too 🙂
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IArtMan said:
that's very good nic, i get your meaning. it's almost like we are on safe ground within our own minds, providing we can settle them down a little. when a separation occurs between the flow of thoughts and feeling, and the watcher… that becomes more interesting than anything else.calm down and new ideas appear.
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IArtMan said:
the intervals… yes. exactly. without understanding anything at all we can still appreciate the significance of intervals. how they help us through the hard parts.
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nopanic said:
Yes (said with a whisper) :happy: (silence)
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IArtMan said:
Originally posted by ellinidata:
remember julie is marrying s.'s best friend. so faithful is not necessary anymore. :cool:and i guess the millbrook post answers the question about bali ram.
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IArtMan said:
no. he never stayed there. there was a constant exchange of persons between millbrook and the ashram though.
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anonymous said:
Anonymous writes:did timothy leary stay at ananda ashram, in monroe? i am curious because i had some connection with the ashram.
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anonymous said:
Karen writes:I lived at the Millbrook estate for almost a year and it was interesting reading about it. Haines and Saraswati were a fascinating pair. There were others — Sheets, for instance, and his dog, Iggy, who hated a Lhasa Apso named Tashi so much that he jumped out of the ashram window. Steve came by with the most wonderful German Shepherd, Lady, who was loved by the entire community. When the Millbrook estate became too troublesome, the Ashram removed to a ranch near Benson, AZ. I left to return to the "ordinary" world. Some of it I recall warmly, other things were not so great. All told, though, it's not a time I totally regret.
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IArtMan said:
hi karen. you probably won't be back, but hi anyway. i remember both dogs but no sheets. bill haines is embedded in my memory as is saraswati and her amazing devotion. i learned a lot in those few weeks.
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anonymous said:
Ted writes:Scottt, I lived at the Ashram for four years and I was there at Millbrook. I don't remember you, so you must have left before I got there which was just before Christmas 1966.I am presently writing a book about the year-and-a-half we lived at Millbrook, and I'm wondering where you got the photos you posted and if I could get ahold of them.I have a comment for anonymous Karen who posted near the end. If you are the Karen I think you are, you should know that we know you gave evidence against us in the case of Dutchess County vs. Timothy Leary.
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IArtMan said:
hi ted,keep in touch. i would read that book. :happy:i left right after thanksgiving 1966. you wouldn't remember me since i was only at the ashram a couple of weeks before the ousting. i don't remember your name.shame on karen. that is just not cool. i got those three pics just surfing. i don't know where i stole them. go ahead and right click these and save them if you want.the drawings are from my book. "the modern yoga handbook", doubleday
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anonymous said:
Anonymous writes:My book, Millbrook Memories, is now available as an e-book until I can find a publisher.https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/32197
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IArtMan said:
thanks for the link to "millbrook memories". i will check it out. :up:
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