by Nori Muster
December 1988
A dim room; a bright window
A cool room; a sunny day
A stack of medicine bottles. Most of them homeopathic, herbs, and vitamins.
Small framed photos of Krishna and Srila Prabhupada
A foil bag of ginseng tablets
A white coffee mug half full of water
A small stuffed bear with satin wings and a yellow felt wand. The bear has a red bow around its neck and a crown made of gold tinsel. A white lamp is attached to the back of the desk. The light is cocked toward the computer. A yellow flower garland hangs from the lamp. Behind the desk is a white wall with an air conditioning unit jutting out. The brown cord hangs down and plugs into a socket on the wall.
She sat at the keyboard typing in words, staring into the computer screen. A man entered. He was tall - about six-four, and had short gray and black hair. He wore mud-colored jeans and a brown shirt with cuffs. He dashed in the room and took a ruler off the drafting table on the other side of the room.
"Don't you want to see what I'm writing?" the woman asked. He was gone before she could get the words out. Oh, he doesn't care what I'm doing here. Maybe he wishes I would do something more productive. She walked a few steps to the kitchen. The bare linoleum floor felt cold underfoot. She stood for a moment staring out the window at the street and apartment buildings on the other side. She looked down at the sink - the stack of clean stainless steal pots, steamers, plates, cups, and bowls sitting in the drainer.
No one cares. No one cares, so why should I? she thought. She leaned back against the cupboards behind her and stared up at the window.
I walk into the room. It is cold and appears cluttered. There is a pile of file boxes - four high by three wide in the middle of the room. It is not the fact that they make the room messy, or the fact that they make it impossible to get to the light switch that bothers me. Their sight brings to mind the situation I now face: moving in with my father, thus ending my ten year association with the Hare Krishna Movement.
I enter the room and cannot escape their presence. I sit at my desk, facing my computer, but their ever-presence lurks behind me, urging me to look at them. I cannot bear the thought of leaving the temple, yet I am beginning to pack already. I will not move until Dec. 28 - more than two weeks away - yet I enthusiastically cleaned out file cabinets and cleared unwanted books off the bookshelves, and readied them for storage in my father's attic.
The move will not be without pain. It's not that I am particularly attached to this two-bedroom, West L.A. apartment - true it is on a nice quiet street, and true, it does have nice maple trees in the front lawn and a balcony where I can hang a bird feeder - but it is a symbol of my spiritual life. For, you see, the next block is Watseka Ave., the Krishna Consciousness community of Los Angeles. It is there that I have spent the last decade of my life worshiping Krishna, and searching for my own soul.
I wake up each morning before the sun comes up. The alarm rings and I rise obediently from bed. First I see the lighted digital dial on a bookshelf above me, it reads 4:00 a.m. I see the television and stereo system on a dark wooden wall unit as I walk - or float as one seems to do at that hour of the morning - into the bathroom to take my shower.
I turn on the light and look into the mirror. I see the once little girl with long brown hair and skinny frame, now with wrinkles and puffiness around the eyes. I smile slightly because I know my waking up is not an act of material survival in a cruel world; it is an austerity I perform to get God's mercy by attending the early-morning services.
I brush my teeth and braid my hair. About ten after four I open the door, back to the darkened bedroom. "Do you want to get up this morning?" I say. My husband, now merely a shadowy blob in one of two sleeping bags on the carpet, rolls on his back and pulls the bag down to reveal his short grey hair and face.
"Did you have any good dreams?" I say.
He groans before coming to full consciousness. "Only one," he says. "I dreamed I was running away from a temple."
We both laugh because that is a funny way of putting it.
"Who was with you, me?" I say.
"No, it was a man - a friend," he says. "It was Caru. We ran, but it was like we were sliding, like skiing - almost like we had some kind of booster pack on our backs. We got into a boat and paddled, using a yak-tail fan."
"A fan like they use at the temple?" I say.
"Yes, but with the change of seasons we stopped and used a peacock fan instead."
"I dreamed I met Frank Zappa," I say, recalling the vivid dream of fifteen minutes before. "He came to my house. He had a bird and it flew to my shoulder - it liked me; Frank Zappa liked me."
"What does it mean," he asks.
"I don't know," I say. "Do you want to get up?"
I put on a sari, wrapping it around and tucking in the pleats while my husband wraps a dhoti, the baggy Indian pants worn by pious Hindu gentlemen. We always walk out the front door by 4:25. The streets are silent and the air is still. It is dark out, and even in Los Angeles, sometimes you can see some stars. It doesn't look like a canopy, as in some rural areas, but you can detect pinpoints of light in the blackness. We notice the sliver of a moon in the cloudless sky. I mentally bid good morning to the rising moon. We walk across the car-lined street and through a church parking lot. The parking lot is clean and empty of cars; the church is tall and proud, with its carefully-kept lawns and bushes. We chant, using our beads to count the mantras, as we walk along together. It is brisk out and I pull my coat tight around my neck. Our path leads us past three more buildings before we reach Watseka Ave.
As we approach, a man with shaven head, dressed in flowing white robes runs across Venice Blvd. There are no cars coming to impede his dash for the temple. His shoes make noise on the pavement as he runs. Other devotees dressed in robes walk quickly to the front door and go inside. The temple is a two-story, pink building with flood lights around its base. Trees grow up the sides and four white columns stretch from the cement steps in front up to the windows at the top. The inside lights are still on: we are not late.
Just within moments of reaching the cement steps and slipping off my shoes, the lights go out inside and I hear the sound of conch shells blowing, signaling the beginning of the service. My husband and I depart - he to join the men in the front and I to the balcony, where women can get a better glimpse of the altar. I grasp the brass door handle and pull back the heavy wooden door. I step inside onto the cold marble floor and bow down along with everyone else in the room, once to each altar. The only lights are on the altar, revealing the Deities of Krishna, Radha, and other incarnations of Krishna that we worship.
I run up the steps to my "spot" at the front of the balcony. From there I have a clear view of the Deities I love. As the devotees begin to chant the morning songs I look at my Deities - Their beautiful, smiling faces - and receive Their blessings. For the last 10 years, these Deities have been my source of life. I begin to cry, thinking that I am now moving away.
The physical distance from my father's house to the temple is only a matter of seven miles. But at 4 a.m. it might as well be a hundred. The magic of the early morning, and the convenience of walking that short block, and the association of friends, and singing are something I love and treasure. I cry to think I am leaving all this now. But here I sit, gazing into a computer screen, in a now otherwise completely dark room, with a pile of storage boxes behind me.
Why did I decide to move? Perhaps the move itself is not as painful to bear as the pain of what I would face if I decided to stay. But that is a long story. Suffice to say that I am driven out by politics within the church. You see, I write a newspaper for the Hare Krishna Movement. My husband started the paper many years ago, before he was my husband. Back then I was a secretary. We wanted to start a newsletter, so we hired Uddhava and he started a newspaper instead. I got involved, and after we got married I ended up an associate editor for the last few years. We just published our eightieth issue last week.
It is a sad story, but one that I want to tell - I say, better to speak what's on your mind than to live in hypocrisy. I suppose that is what I am doing.
In another way, I see it as Krishna's will for me. The Lord is directing me to make this change and because it is His arrangement, everything will turn out well. I am torn to say the least.
The services end with a dissertation and everyone goes home by 8:30 or 8:45 - 9 a.m. at the latest. The rest of the day I hardly ever come to the temple because I don't work there; I work at home. So it is only those hours from 4:30 a.m. until 8:30 a.m. that I depend on the temple - those precious hours. Sometimes I even leave before the end because the classes disturb me. First of all, it is only men that can give the class. Although I've been a devotee here for ten years, I cannot give class. But I have seen many men - newer than me - who now propound their conception of the philosophy before the assembly of devotees. Is it fair?
This morning the speaker - a seasoned old-timer - spoke about how asinine the material world is. If I hear too many classes like that in any given week, I begin to climb the walls. He presents the philosophy in such a sectarian way, in other words everyone else is truly going to hell - and there's not much one can do about it unless you become like him. The longer I stay the more I realize I don't believe that - the world is not full of atheistic demons now, nor will it ever be. Maybe I saw it like that once, but now I appreciate most people I meet and see their connection with God. I suppose that is some kind of deviation - no, I don't suppose it is - I know it is. Therefore, I keep my thoughts about this to myself when I am in certain company. I trust the world more than most devotees; so does my husband.
I walk home after class to find my husband sprawled out on the floor with the Los Angeles Times. I tell him about the class and critique it for him. He groans with frustration. I lean over the barricade of storage boxes and flip on the kitchen lights. The refrigerator is full of broccoli, zucchini, carrots, yams, banana squash, and brussel sprouts, all wrapped in plastic bags. I pull out an armful of produce and put a pan on to boil. In another pan I pour some basmati rice, chopped mushrooms and celentro, and add noodles and spices.
A stack of cardboard file boxes - thirty of them - stacked in the middle of the room. How long am I going to live like this? All the lights were out and the room was dark. I could see the outline of the front door, the window and drapes, the various tables and chairs, the drafting table, and the Xerox photocopy machine - and of course the boxes.
I walked into the darkness. "That guy was supposed to be here at 4:30! What happened to him?" I said.
"What guy?" my husband said from his office in the back room.
"The one who said he would work on my dad's yard today. He was supposed to be here by now so he could go with me to meet my dad."
Without turning on the lights I picked up the phone and dialed. "Hello, Dad?"
"Hi Nori. What's happening?"
"Still no sign." We talked for some time. I told him I felt hesitant about moving away from the temple.
"Don't feel like you have to do it," he said. "I'm getting along fine."
I felt weak in the knees and clutched the receiver in my hand. "I'll think about it - we can talk later."
After talking it over with my husband (who almost had a heart attack when I told him) I called my father back.
"It's me again," I said.
"Yes?" he said.
"I want to tell you - I very much want to move in with you and I've been looking forward to it. I don't want to change my mind now. I need to make this change - I bought some karmi clothes today - it's something I want - "
"You don't have to go through a whole routine," he said. "I hear you."
"I've already sent out Christmas cards to everyone I know, telling them that I'll be moving in with you. And, and - "
"It's okay," he said. His voice was calm and grave. "Your office will be ready for you here when you move in."
