Retiring to India
My condo was waiting for me in Vrindavan. In 2001, right after the 911 incident, I bought one of the exclusive Iskcon condominiums thinking I may retire in India. I was following Srila Narayan Maharaja at the time and my whole understanding of self realization had matured with bliss. I had the cash and it seemed it would be my best retirement plan, not having a 401K or some pension from a company like my dad had from the railroad. The condos were set up on a Betnam system, meaning that since a foreigner could not buy property in third-world countries, they would buy a long-term lease. You could then take your condo and remodel the inside and add extra features to make it comfortable and functional for your own needs.
This may or may not have been a good idea because, unlike buying real estate, you can only sell it two more times or sell it for the balance of the 75-year lease. I was the second owner. If I sold it, the next person would not be able to re-sell it at all, but it would go back to the Trust when they expired. (This may be changing in India, so I was told.) I liked the devotees, but I also wanted to sail and be in clean air with civilized people. My mind was still vacillating back and forth between staying on my boat or going to India to live. So I made the decision to put both my boat and my condo up for sale and whichever one sold first, I would live in the other. I was leaving it up to Krishna. The boat sold in eight days.
It looked like I had made a good investment in the condo after all because it was paid for and it was the best community in town with lotus pools, a great courtyard for plays and concerts, a guesthouse with an international restaurant and guards everywhere. A generator comes on within 30-60 seconds after the power goes off and believe me, it goes off often in India. I bought a new air-conditioner, a new washing machine and hot water heater and a new refrigerator. I furnished my flat with beautiful wicker furniture, upholstered with a thick burgundy fabric. I bought an american-style double bed mattress with wicker shelving and a wicker dresser. I made beautiful curtains, painted a few off-setting walls and decorated with peacock feathers, silver vases and brass bells. Now, to be respectful, I couldn’t be drinking wine every night, nor could I bring a strange man home with me to spend the night (too many people watching me), but both of those things I could do without. Age kinda worked out a lot of things for me, right? So I was taking pleasure in researching, reading and writing, and because my home was rent free, I could travel from there to see places I wanted to see like Italy and Egypt. Besides, the atmosphere was filled with the holy names. Everywhere you went, someone was saying, Radhe’ Radhe’, Hari Bol or Hare Krishna. You were constantly reminded of the lovers hidden in the kunja forests of Vrindavan, waiting on you to find them in your heart.
I believed retirement would be good. The people in my community were kind. I not only knew the people in my community but in other communities around the area from all over the world, having traveled with them to different seminars over the years. I had friends from England, Spain, Venezuela, Canada, Australia, Greece, France, Russia, Iran and all over the United States. It was quite a cultural experience and a spiritual one as all of us coming together had one thing in common and it was Krishna. We were really attracted to that beautiful blue guy playing His silver flute, dancing through the forest and playing with the gopis.
If you wanted to connect with old friends, Vrindavan was the place to be, because most all devotees eventually went there to visit and some went every year to do parikrama and honor their guru.
I realized the Vaishnava devotees were some of the most wonderful people in the world. Not only were they making an effort to become self-realized themselves, but were helping others. In addition, they were treating the planet with kindness, not using chemicals to fertilize and were planting trees and taking care of cows. These devotees were kind to all living entities and believed we were all one, in that we were all of the same spirit. They fed hundreds of thousands of people all over the world for free when possible and happily chanted the names of the lord constantly while dancing in pure bliss. They made every effort to see the good in others and to never criticize. They were giving their lives to the service of God. The president of the Iskcon Vrindavan temple was a very humble and kind man and the managers at my community were sincere.
Something inside of me had changed. I kind of wanted to be alone. Guess I was accepting my fate! Me, the devotee turned party girl in my fifties, hitting happy hour every weekend and a few times in between, was happy to retire. My lifestyle in California was fun for many years and one never gets tired of Sunday Brunch on a yacht in Southern California. But there I was, living on a sailboat, sailing in the Santa Monica Bay, going to happy hour in the afternoons, checking out great jazz events, going to free concerts in the marina park or Santa Monica pier, watching fireworks on the 4th of July, barbecuing with friends and going to an endless stream of invites, checking out museums and new restaurants and yet there was just something missing. You know what I mean? Everyone feels it, that emptiness we are making every effort to fill with friends, lovers, music, drugs, athletics, art, vodka and so much more. I admitted to myself I was living in a sort of paradise, but my God, I gained 40 pounds with martinis and fine cheeses. Something had to be done. Although all that laughing was very much needed by me, I needed more. I made some great friends, true spirits, and for that I was thankful, but my heart was changing. Besides, I had just turned 65 and was ready to get serious about my promise. The trouble was, how does one leave paradise to live in a place likened unto the middle ages?
The truth was, I wanted both. I wanted to continue sailing all through my life but my desire to go deeper within myself and possibly find real self realization was beginning to burn in my heart. My original retirement plan was to live part of the year on my boat and part of the year in Vrindavan, but the income was just not there for me to do as I wished, and I was ready to make a change for the benefit of my soul.
So I moved to Vrindavan, India, the Holy Land. All my dying days were coming to and end, I hoped, and I thought I needed to take this old age thing seriously. I didn’t want to take birth again. What did George Harrison say in “Give me Love”? “Give me love, give me love, give me peace on earth. Give me light, give me life. Keep me free from birth.” I keep thinking of that song! Maybe GH had the same experience as me. I never got the chance to ask him, but I remembered the terrible womb and didn't want to go there again!
In addition, the sheer pain I saw all around me in this world was enough to make me curl up in a fetal position and cry. Everywhere there were people crying and dying of a broken heart. There were bullies causing major pain to other living beings. There were cripples, cancer laden adults and children, obese people limping around with canes, down syndrome, victims of abuse, the poor and the hungry, races being discriminated against, the mafia in many countries, cleft palates, loneliness and the list went on and on. So how could a kind God let us suffer like that?
Eventually we learned we do it to ourselves, life after life. But who was to say we were doing the right thing when we tried to change. I wanted to help others, but how? If I gave money to the alcoholic lying on the street, wouldn’t he simply do more harm to himself? What kind of philanthropic work could I do? If I had good money karma, how would I use it to help others? Were the wealthy who didn’t help others simply using up their good karma only to find themselves in trouble in their next life? I didn’t want that. But as a devotee, I didn’t need to focus on philanthropic work to do right by others. Instead, I could actually help people by giving them knowledge of Krishna. Karma would no longer be something I would be concerned about.
If reincarnation was true, then we were put in situations for our learning. And if reincarnation were true, we are reaping the benefits of the good deeds we have done, as well bad. I was beginning to see this world for what it really was, a place of learning, and I thought I had learned enough lessons, persuading me to get out! This material world was a perfect school, but I wanted to graduate.
After years of enjoying every pleasure I could possibly imagine and squeeze into my life, all the while engaging in some spiritual quest and making an effort to do some genuine service to God and humanity, I was now making the effort to spend my final years in that serious quest for samadhi. Different paths have different explanations or conceptions of samadhi. My chosen path taught the trance-like state of samadhi is ‘absolute absorption in my personal relationship with the Supreme.’ And how did I know what my relationship was? My guru told me, and my desire for that type of relationship seemed natural. But not only that, I had a glimpse of my spiritual form during a seminar in Florida when I was with my Guru. I also had a glimpse of Krishna during a time when I was doing so much service, transcribing lectures, that when I threw myself down on the bed to finally rest, a glimpse of Krishna appeared for only a second and then was gone. These glimpses were not just visual, but encompassed love, sound, light, ecstasy and truth. Hard to explain. In my glimpse of Krishna, I simultaneously realized He was non-different from His Name and His Beauty and His Love. These experiences were definitely not material. They were way beyond the sensual experiences of this body.
Anyway, great sadhus or holy people lived in India. They went there to become absorbed in the holy places where saints and gods appeared. They went there to hear from other saintly people who only wanted to speak of truth. They went there to teach what their guru taught them and they came there to give up their material body. I wanted to seek the association of those sadhus to absorb myself in reality. But I still wanted to sail. I still wanted to stay in a five-star hotel and order room service. I still wanted my cup of coffee! I wasn’t sure I would ever be a traditional renunciate.
Now, I was not an advocate of renunciation, ever. If you have to renounce something by force, then you are simply not done enjoying it. So, all renunciation was false renunciation, in my opinion. What is real is when a person has no desire to enjoy an object or activity anymore, understanding it will not bring them the satisfaction they require at that point in their life. Renunciation is when you are truly ‘just done’ with something! Some call this practice Tantra yoga. I only briefly studied it, so I am not sure of the technicalities, but what I was realizing was, I may have been done with some of my material desires, but definitely not others. What I knew was I was tired of pursuing them only to find some mild intellectual or sensual satisfaction and left feeling empty in the end.
My siksha guru said we did not have the ability or power to renounce our sensual nature, but we must try, and by trying, our guru would be pleased and ask Krishna to help us. In Bhagavad Gita, 3.33, Krishna said, “Even a man of knowledge acts according to his own nature, for everyone follows his nature. What can repression accomplish?” This verse appeared to me to be about trying to become something you are not, like a dancer trying to give up dancing and become a mathematician, but it also showed the futility of trying to renounce. My point is that we could not renounce our senses, nor could we renounce the nature we have been given, but what we could do is to occasionally fast or restrain our senses for the pleasure of god, nothing more. We could do a little ‘sacrifice’ for the pleasure of the absolute. I was trying by fasting two times a month and on other special holidays, as well as chanting as many mantras a day as my mind would allow. But was I completely renounced?
Just look at Sex. Could I have renounced it and gone into a cave to meditate? NO! But what I had to do to get good sex was ridiculous. I usually found myself in a relationship with someone whom I simply did not respect or really love. First husband just didn’t do it often enough, though he was a really great man. Then, the second relationship was a real basket case emotionally from Viet Nam or something. I was not sure why. Then there was one guy with the masters degree in the arts who was never quite sure if he wanted me for anything but sex. Number four was more concerned about owning me than loving me. Number five criticized me and treated me like a dog. When I wanted sex, he was too drugged to care. Number six was pretty damn good. We were together for 13 years. I finally bingo-ed! The sex was great, but as it turned out, he had a habit of going to strip bars and having girls give him private dances and who knows what else. Made me feel inadequate.
Then I met the sociopath, number seven. I became addicted. Already told you that story. Sex was frequent but by that time I had begun to learn some lessons about men and about myself. I had a few short-term affairs after that and finally I thought, “I think I am done!” I used the word “think” because I didn’t want to curse myself. All I knew was I was done with pursuing men just for sex and as far as a relationship was concerned, I was happy living on my own. I did what I wanted, when I wanted!
My whole point in this sexual dissertation was to explain my understanding that there was no such thing as renunciation. You simply lose desire for a thing and you move on to something else. Sex desire rarely goes away. Even as I approached old age, I had not completely given it up, but it was gradually diminishing. I wondered if my age had much to do with my sex desire waning or if I was actually realizing the ! Then I went and had a sex dream.
I’m working on something electric in a public place like in a cafe where there are other people in the booth next to me. I’m trying to skin back the plastic on some electrical wire so I can connect it to ‘something’ to make it work. (Skinning back the wire has its own sexual connotations.) One guy comes up to me and says, ‘You’re cutting the wire too short. Joe is just outside. He is an electrician and will be glad to do it for you.’ I say, ‘no, that’s ok, thanks. I’ll figure it out.’ But Joe walks in and of course is this hot, younger (forty something) guy with dark hair and broad shoulders and says, ‘Here, let me do that.’ I relent and say, ‘Ok.’ He pulls out the proper tool and starts pulling back the plastic from the wire as I sit and watch him work. As I watch, I begin to notice his dick is getting hard. My breathing changes and I’m starting to get wet. ‘Oh no, this is not right, I think.’ But obviously he thinks this is great. All of a sudden he stands up and his dick is right in my face. The rest is pornographic. Well, maybe that part was pornographic too. I laughed when I woke up thinking, yeah, connect the wire to something meant ‘to me’! I have amazing dreams!
Now does that sound like a woman who is renounced from the material world and all it’s pleasures? My dear God, how does one ever give up this material world for the pleasure of Your company? I did not know. Certainly old age did not keep me from being able to perform or enjoy sex. Old age doesn’t dissipate your desire for sex but hopefully it makes you wise. And in that regard, whatever you do, don’t do it in a cafe!
What I knew, however, was I was no longer willing to put up with the bullshit and lack of affection just so I could get laid. And that did not mean I was really done with the pursuit of happiness in the form of sex. Would I pursue it again? I could actually say no at that point. The thing was, and you have to laugh at this one, if the right person came along, I thought . . . you know, prince charming . . . , I might have jumped in feet first again but I would never again pursue it. All someone would have needed to do was to charm the wits out of me and all my so-called wisdom would have gone right down the drain! Good thing I knew there was no prince charming, until I meet my eternal lover, that is.
But I looked at the men around me and saw their shit before they ever open their mouths. I was just not interested in getting into a relationship with any human. Sex was a different issue. I once heard Aphrodite was the name of the Goddess who had lots of sex but was never attached to anyone. “Fully and joyously sexual, Aphrodite remains Virgin in that her sexuality is unbridled, untamed, and her own. Though married to Hephaestus, according to Olympian mythology, she is neither submissive or faithful to him. Though she is a mother, her child Eros, Love or Desire, is but a reflection of her sexuality.” This quote is from Wikipedia.
Honestly, I thought I was a little too old for that one, but I could see myself in that role. After all, sex was good for you, right? It was the attachment that killed you!
So there I was in the holy land of India. Not completely renounced, but ready to approach the last stage of my life, the stage of absorption. And in the midst of the holy land, I was in one of the most holy places, the place where Krishna displays his past times with his consort, Srimati Radharani. A new chapter was beginning.
My desire to connect with Radha and Krishna was growing daily. I was happy. But, as I made an effort to retire in Vrindavan, I realized I still had salt water in my veins and I was not sure I could stay there. Money had a lot to do with my choices for retirement, as it did with everyone’s choice. Would I have been on a yacht in the caribbean if that were possible? Something tells me that experience would have gotten old, as well. Absorption is the goal I was driven to attain, so I was going give it a try. But while I was on this side of the world, I planned to complete my Bucket List, if possible. I had already been to London and Paris and experienced the museums there and more recently had returned from Madrid and Barcelona. My hope was to visit Italy and Egypt before the age of 70. But for some time I decided I would stay in the holy land, hear from the sadhus , chant and save money.