more deeper venuvian vibes...

 One of the most powerful women in my life was Sita. She was an upper-echelon devotee of Gurumayi, during the years I was involved with the ashram in Oakland. She knew Muktananda. I don't remember exactly how she and I met. I should ponder that some... the moment and situation in which she and I met and started our journey together... it must have been a seemingly inconsequential meeting in the Amrit (ashram dining room)... wow, some scenes are coming back to my memory... I think it might have been during a busy morning in the Amrit, perhaps a Sunday after the Guru Gita was chanted and I decided to ask if I could sit at her table because the Amrit would have been full, and it was at a time when my defenses of shyness were weakened... ashram life did that for me, opened my heart, emboldened me to just be myself and not be afraid of meeting new people. I had no intention of trying to make a connection with Sita... I don't even know if I had ever seen her before. I might have. I might have recognized her and one or two of her close friends, who later I would learn were also upper-echelon devotees that had also known Muktananda... "Old-Timers" were what they were called by most of the community... those that had been involved with the organization since its inception in Oakland... and I had only been a member of the community for a year, or less at this time.. was Sita looking for an acolyte like myself to mentor? Probably not... we must have had some sort of past life connection that brought us together. I do know that after our introductory conversations that she was impressed by the fervor I felt and expressed for the Guru and ashram life, and for God. 

It was after just a few Amrit conversations that she invited me to her home. Which she let me know was not something she did with just anyone. She really did treat me especially kindly. But it was all in innocence, and in love and adoration of the Guru. Our conversations were potent, even though there was not all that much that we really discussed. She was impressed that I was studying massage therapy, as she too was a massage therapist. She even allowed me to give her a massage as part of my study program. I remember that I used a technique on her that released tension in her back that she said no one else had ever been able to expose before. 

She was married to a businessman... and they were both revered as upper-echelon members of the community... her husband knew who I was, she talked about our friendship openly with him, and she assured him that our interest in each other was entirely platonic. Yes, there was something deep and complex about our friendship that helped me grow a lot in the ashram lifestyle, but I also fed her with some essence of brotherly love that she was missing in her life. It was the kind of friendship that I knew was based on the grace of God allowing it to happen at all, and that it could have ended at any time, for any unknown reason. She loved Billy too... he was only 10-14 years old during this stage of time that we were involved with the ashram life. You'd have to have been a member of this community to witness how these people lived their lives and interacted to more fully understand the specialness of this bond that we had together. I know I'm missing out on describing this clearly enough here for you to appreciate how majestic of an experience this was for me to experience.

In the latter part of our friendship, she started to tell me about her youngest daughter (maybe 5 years younger than myself), and I became interested in learning more about her because I was a single parent at this time in my life and I was open to the idea of meeting someone that might be interested in joining Billy and me as a family. I met her daughter, Tiffany, on several occasions (dates) but we were just very different types of people... and never felt a divine spark together. I never thought that this was the only reason that Sita and I were friends... I think she was hoping for her daughter to be able to unite with someone that was as serious about the ashram lifestyle and service to the Guru as I was... 

When I went to the ashram in upper New York state to take part in the Month-Long Course, Sita created a silk meditation shawl for me to take, and she invited me to call her collect daily to let her know about my experiences there. Whether I was like a brother to her, or perhaps even a son-like figure (she might have been 10-15 years older than I was), she cared a lot about me. I had no doubts about this. in the end, I think what caused us to drift apart was when I moved to Santa Cruz to attend UCSC. I'm not entirely sure about that.. maybe more reflection will help me visualize when we last interacted. I'm talking about a period of time (1990-1995)... so it really was a long time ago. After I started to recover from my mental breakdown in the mid-2000s I looked her up online. She and her husband had moved to Philadelphia... I might have emailed her (did not phone her) but never got a reply. She had become a Reiki Master. She was already doing healings at the time I knew her in Oakland... and now I know how powerful Reiki healing is, so she's an absolutely powerful woman. I hope she is still well, and happy.

UPDATE: After pondering for a day about my memories of when I exactly met Sita, it all came back to me. It was the day that I met Gurumayi for the very first time in 1990. I was enrolled at National Holistic Institute (which was about 3 blocks away from the ashram) at the time and there had been an effort to notify ashram members with phone calls that Gurumayi was making a surprise stop-over in Oakland on her way back to South Fallsburg (NY) on way home from Hawaii. I got the phone call that morning before going to classes. So after classes (noonish) I stopped in at the ashram and went to the bookstore. Not sure how I had the money, but I spent $200 on a rudraksha necklace (which I wanted to ask Gurumayi to bless for me on the occasion of meeting her for the very first time. After I exited the bookstore, I went into the ashram. That was when I saw Sita sitting alone at a table and she looked at me and began a conversation. She asked me if I had ever met the Guru before... I told her that I had only been in attendance since the Maha Intensive that had been held in October, so this was going to be my very first time meeting her. She told me a little about herself, but her main idea was that she offered to personally introduce me to Gurumayi. I said, "Sure! That sounds great!!"... not knowing that Sita was an "old-timer"... not even knowing what an "old-timer" was at this young stage of my involvement with the organization. And also not knowing that being invited by an "old-timer" to have a personal introduction to the Guru was a very special offering. I had no idea that there would have been thousands of people standing in line for hours this evening, stretching for blocks around the building waiting patiently for a chance to stand in front of the Guru.  And that all I had to do was meet Sita in the foyer and that she would essentially walk me past everyone that was waiting patiently to the front of the line and when she and Gurumayi met eyes, Gurumayi would shift her attention to me... it was an ultra-special experience... I remember asking Sita earlier if the Guru would bless my necklace, and she assured me she would. I had no idea what to say to her, or if it was even appropriate to try to speak to her. I had never witnessed "darshan" before. Darshan is what it's called when the public gets to meet with her like this. So I took off my necklace, and asked her point-blank, "Would you bless this for me, in memory of our meeting each other today?" She smiled and put out her hand. I put the beads into her palm and watched patiently as she bounced the necklace in her palm while looking back to the throng of others that were standing and kneeling in front of her, while she blessed them with the peacock feather wand that was in her other hand... it seemed like an eternity was passing... time both stood still and felt very, very deep... I kept looking at her bouncing the beads in her palm... until finally she looked me in the eyes again, and said, "Don't worry, I'm going to give them back to you!"... with a wry giggle... I reached to take them back, got a hold of them, and pulled on them, but she started pulling back and we had this little tug-of-war happening for an eternal moment... and the wry giggle turned into a laugh and my fingers touched her fingers... and then it was all over. She let go of the beads and I took them back... breathed again, started to step backward, and the long, long moment with her began to meld into the future I would spend adoring and learning from this lady, from THESE TWO ladies for the next 8 years. Sita was still there by my side, and she was beaming brightly from witnessing what had happened... I don't remember more of what she and I did that evening... Probably separated in the crowd and began deeply reflecting on the deep, hidden meanings of it all... And then, I'm sure it was not long before I began sitting in Amrit with Sita having chai and talking about the wonders of our lives...