In this half of the world before I was 21 and left for India I had already grown up with Stokely Carmichael, the founder of SNCC and author of 'Black Power' in the Bronx during junior high. (If you don't know him or that phrase, stop reading. This blog is not for you.) When I was in college, Allen Ginsberg (my mentor) and the Beat and hippie generation poets, artists and filmmakers in Greenwich Village were all my compatriots. I went from Tangier poets to Athens poetry magazine, Residu, living with Dan Richter, the ape-man star of Kubrick's 2001. It was here I met Michael Riggs (who became Bhagavan Das) and took him to India. He eventually took Dr. Richard Alpert (now Baba Ram Dass, author of the game-changing Be Here Now) to his great guru Maharaji.
In the other half of the world, where I ended up later in 1965 I first met Raihana Tyabji, a sufi saint and Gandhi disciple in New Delhi, who steered me many times in India to gurus and saints.
I first landed with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in Rishikesh on the Ganges in the Himalayan foothills, where I lived for three months studying and being initiated in TM. I was also initiated as a monk by him, named Brahmachari Gyanendra, wisdom (I had a BA). The Beatles came after. I was his first western disciple.
I then met Ananda Mayi Ma mysteriously who gave me her blessings in Benares. The same old man on the banks of the Ganges before who told me to go see Maharishi also stopped me and told me to go up the steps and through the door to see her. (Obviously Maharaji, he can do that stuff.) Then, I went to Kathmandu where I was housed in a palace by the King Mahendra and taken to the sadhu forest home of the deceased Shivapuri Baba, (must read The Long Pilgrimage by JG Bennett). His disciples fed and took care of me for months. I ended living and meditating in his stone cottage on top of the tallest peak in the Kathmandu Valley with nightly tigers. Outside, the Bagmati River came out of a rock wall into a pool where I bathed. Not bad for a young hippie American. I was with the Baba in everything but physical form. He died at 137. I was 22. I went to Benares after Kathmandu, was quickly taken in off the street by a university professor's family. The richest man in India, Mr. Birla, in 1965 pleaded with me to stay, take money and study philosophy but I yearned to go back to the USA. (What if I didn’t?)
I came back to the USA in 1966 and miraculously worked at the biggest ad agencies in New York and got married for a short time, until the call of India beckoned again in 1969 and off to Raihana. She sent me to Swami Muktananda near Bombay, of Eat, Pray, Love fame where I was a monk for two years, Ron Swami. I then escaped and found Maharaji in the Himalayas with the help of Ram Dass. Maharaji said only to me (and Ram Dass) in the group that not only did he give me that name but I was also that saint from 500 years ago...Sant Ravidas…Sant Raidas.
So just those 10 years were so remarkable I doubt anyone ever went through anything like that. And I left out a thousand more details. Why was the universe so nice to me? Do I owe it anything? I know there are so many karmic reasons we all can think of and more to come.
Ravi Dass... Ron Zimardi in Nicasio, Marin County, CA 1975
So now it's time to get to work. Your personal world is so unpredictable from the time you are born till you die. I don't know why we are here and why we don't go crazy during our lifetime. Youth is the time we harden so we can bear it out till old age. Anything can happen to us after and even inside our mother's wombs. Even if you are a billionaire, you can't stop much from happening to your health, your family, your company. It's a crapshoot. But you have been given a free will or some liberties to advance your soul amongst the potential 'suffering' or misfortunes. Was the Buddha right, 'All I teach is suffering and the end of suffering'. My take on it is unpredictability and you can alleviate some of it. I don't know why he thought we could all get enlightened. (Maybe in a billion years.) As I said before all the modern spiritual teachers abuse language and you don't use your brain. That's why 'Incremental Yoga' is baby yoga. Get on the path, stay on the path, don't fall off. It's a circle.
I have started writing and when I do the words and truths just start pouring out. Why. Because it's not me writing. I am just a typewriter for something out there universal or Maharaji or Shivapuri Baba that sends the words through my brain in big thoughts. So essentially you need to understand mystics. There is a part of me connected to the divine, the universe, great, wow. I know things, I can pass or transmit good things to help you. But there is still Ron who stumbles through daily life making stupid mistakes, has fun on the ocean and with his girlfriend(s). Got it, that's how it works. Maharaji was enlightened but still yelled at his helpers, he was a yogi/saint but had a wife and kids. The words come anytime and I have to rush to a computer or pen, sometimes I'm on a motorbike and can't jot it down. My next book is a lot more difficult than an autobiography, luckily I was a philosophy major and an advertising Mad Man.
More explanation:
If you haven’t figured it out by now I will give you a clue as to my name and bio.
Maharaji told me my name and one former incarnation (I don’t know how western civilization carries on without a belief in reincarnation. My Jewish cousin always thought he was a steak.) Ravi Dass the 15th century saint was a cobbler and tanner. The lowest castes in India yet he rose to God-realization and preached the downfall of the caste system. So you’re asking, what do you think of the name Ravi Dass. I of course did not want to be named an untouchable when he gave other high-falutin names to the westerners. Understand? Look at my younger years. My family lived in the poorest sections of the Bronx. They scraped by in the midst of local thieves, bars on the windows kind of place. The Puerto Ricans used to throw banana stalks down from the roofs onto the old Jewish ladies sitting outside. Then we moved to upscale Yonkers but lived on the wrong side of the tracks in a black neighborhood. Had some fights. My father was into the mafia a little but straightened out when I was 4 and got real jobs in hard-ass back-breaking NY construction. Now compare this in a Christ-like manner with other rich brats and many of my spiritual friends in the satsang who grew up with silver spoons in their mouths and never had a job. (And no SSA) Still living on inheritance. Oh did I forget to mention our house was not a peaceful place. If you know Sicilians and what they think of their role in the house and outside of it you know what I mean. I am still working out childhood trauma and father issues at 74. That tells you how bad it was. I made damn sure I wasn’t going to raise my son like that.
incarnations
by ravi dass
like the Buddha… extreme for a moment
so many incarnations for one short life
how long is the time between changeovers?
the left & right path where is the middle?
bronx baby
jewish-italian toddler staring at the light
high school republican
college chemistry major
economics major
existentialist major
college marxist
the last beatnik
lower east side poet
hippie drug loonacy
sadhu india
madison avenue
marriage divorce
forest firefighter
horsetrader
editor
disciple again
neem karoli baba
yuppie
father husband IBM
outdoorsman
professor
unemployed
candle maker
the HP way
dot.com bust
retired somewhere between life as i know it and life as we live it
and death leaving my body another round within the round
am i getting tired of this?
is there something else?
Where is chiang mai anyway?
could i change into someone else really?
for more information see the sequel…