Broadcast System.
The chant heralds the arrival of a man in flowing pants and a white caftan, who enters from a side door. The revered leader of the retreat— Rav Jon Yoma Maharishi.
Formerly known as Barry Stern.
Unwittingly, I grin and give him a little wave, but, fortunately, he doesn’t notice. I’d laughed when Joe Diddly told me that the nice, arty, intellectual boy I once knew had become “a spiritual leader and teacher of enlightenment, merging the philosophies of the early Chan masters, the Zen Buddhists, and Swami Chinduh.” (Why not throw in the philosophies of Dear Abby and the Reverend Al Sharpton just to be safe?) But Barry must be doing something right. The minute he walked in, my karma definitely improved.
Barry’s audience—aka Rav Jon Yoma Maharishi’s acolytes—are gazing at him in rapture. The chanting has continued and is only getting louder. I also stare at him intently. I don’t mean to be harsh, but Barry hasn’t held up over the years quite as well as Eric. I’m sure his soul is pure but his body is a little paunchy. Even under the caftan, I can see a bulging belly. I guess his retreats don’t involve fasting.
Barry raises his hands and the chanting stops.
“Our satsang session now begins,” he says in a soft voice barely above a whisper. “As you know, I will break the transforming spiritual silence of this weekend retreat only for this one ten-minute session.”
A silent retreat would explain the guy with the jerking head—and the women who walked away from me. But only ten minutes to talk all weekend? My Sprint plan’s a lot better.
“I will take questions on the pursuit of truth, the search for enlightenment, and the quest for selfhood,” the Maharishi says. That seems like a lot to cram into ten minutes, and then he adds, “We can also explore the joys of oneness.”
I wouldn’t mind exploring the joys of twoness, since current experience tells me that oneness leaves something to be desired. But the woman next to me is nodding vigorously.
“Maharishi, I’m seeking cosmic consciousness. Can you enlighten us on how you found it?”
“Hmmmmm,” says Barry, I’m not sure if he’s thinking or chanting. “My journey began on a mountaintop and suddenly I felt I was floating in infinite space. All boundaries disappeared and as the doors of perception opened, there were no walls to hold me in.”
As far as I know, there are never any walls on mountaintops, at least until the condo developers move in.
But the room is enthralled, and Barry continues. “I saw that life is One, that all the people in the universe, seen and unseen, known and unknown, experienced and not experienced, conscious and not conscious, glorious and not glorious . . .”
Yeah, yeah, all of us. Pretty and not pretty. Smart and not smart. Members of the Chaddick Tennis Club, not members of the Chaddick Tennis Club. Let’s move it along.
“. . . that everyone and everything that exists and has ever existed is really Love. And in its truest form, it provides an intensity that is joyous, transcendent, and almost overwhelmingly pleasurable for the human body.”
Am I reading something into this? Sounds to me like he’s saying that the goal of enlightenment is better orgasms. If the Sunday school pastor when I was growing up gave sermons like this, I might have spent more time in church.
A man in the middle of the room must think he’s at a presidential news conference because he raises a finger and says, “Follow-up question, Rav?”
I nervously look at my watch. These people may be trying to get in touch with their inner peace, but I’ve been trying for weeks now to get in touch with Barry. The vow of silence must extend to the telephone. We’ve used up six minutes on just this one question. Only four more minutes and we’re back to charades.
The follow-up query seems to take forever, and Rav Jon Yoma Maharishi’s answer even longer. Now the tension in the room is palpable. With time
The chant heralds the arrival of a man in flowing pants and a white caftan, who enters from a side door. The revered leader of the retreat— Rav Jon Yoma Maharishi.
Formerly known as Barry Stern.
Unwittingly, I grin and give him a little wave, but, fortunately, he doesn’t notice. I’d laughed when Joe Diddly told me that the nice, arty, intellectual boy I once knew had become “a spiritual leader and teacher of enlightenment, merging the philosophies of the early Chan masters, the Zen Buddhists, and Swami Chinduh.” (Why not throw in the philosophies of Dear Abby and the Reverend Al Sharpton just to be safe?) But Barry must be doing something right. The minute he walked in, my karma definitely improved.
Barry’s audience—aka Rav Jon Yoma Maharishi’s acolytes—are gazing at him in rapture. The chanting has continued and is only getting louder. I also stare at him intently. I don’t mean to be harsh, but Barry hasn’t held up over the years quite as well as Eric. I’m sure his soul is pure but his body is a little paunchy. Even under the caftan, I can see a bulging belly. I guess his retreats don’t involve fasting.
Barry raises his hands and the chanting stops.
“Our satsang session now begins,” he says in a soft voice barely above a whisper. “As you know, I will break the transforming spiritual silence of this weekend retreat only for this one ten-minute session.”
A silent retreat would explain the guy with the jerking head—and the women who walked away from me. But only ten minutes to talk all weekend? My Sprint plan’s a lot better.
“I will take questions on the pursuit of truth, the search for enlightenment, and the quest for selfhood,” the Maharishi says. That seems like a lot to cram into ten minutes, and then he adds, “We can also explore the joys of oneness.”
I wouldn’t mind exploring the joys of twoness, since current experience tells me that oneness leaves something to be desired. But the woman next to me is nodding vigorously.
“Maharishi, I’m seeking cosmic consciousness. Can you enlighten us on how you found it?”
“Hmmmmm,” says Barry, I’m not sure if he’s thinking or chanting. “My journey began on a mountaintop and suddenly I felt I was floating in infinite space. All boundaries disappeared and as the doors of perception opened, there were no walls to hold me in.”
As far as I know, there are never any walls on mountaintops, at least until the condo developers move in.
But the room is enthralled, and Barry continues. “I saw that life is One, that all the people in the universe, seen and unseen, known and unknown, experienced and not experienced, conscious and not conscious, glorious and not glorious . . .”
Yeah, yeah, all of us. Pretty and not pretty. Smart and not smart. Members of the Chaddick Tennis Club, not members of the Chaddick Tennis Club. Let’s move it along.
“. . . that everyone and everything that exists and has ever existed is really Love. And in its truest form, it provides an intensity that is joyous, transcendent, and almost overwhelmingly pleasurable for the human body.”
Am I reading something into this? Sounds to me like he’s saying that the goal of enlightenment is better orgasms. If the Sunday school pastor when I was growing up gave sermons like this, I might have spent more time in church.
A man in the middle of the room must think he’s at a presidential news conference because he raises a finger and says, “Follow-up question, Rav?”
I nervously look at my watch. These people may be trying to get in touch with their inner peace, but I’ve been trying for weeks now to get in touch with Barry. The vow of silence must extend to the telephone. We’ve used up six minutes on just this one question. Only four more minutes and we’re back to charades.
The follow-up query seems to take forever, and Rav Jon Yoma Maharishi’s answer even longer. Now the tension in the room is palpable. With time
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