Dadaji seldom talked to me about spiritual matters. He preferred old war stories and occasionally he would tell me great tales from his adventures after the war, travelling through Asia and India. When he saw me reading Carlos Castenada or any Indian saint or other authors who dwelt on such subjects he would become annoyed and recommend that I stick to cheap detective novels…”they are better quality mindfood than other peoples ideas about God”. I seldom took his advice because I found that especially under the influence of Castenada I could raise my level of consciousness to a place where I was a more competent operator on the spiritual level. From Castenada I could sometimes leap to an enlightenment state.

There were three books that Dadaji liked me to read. We both shared a deep love for the I Ching and once in a while we would do joint readings in which he was the top line and I was, I believe, a middle line. He was always very clear about the translation that he preferred in any book and he had a really superb eye for the best translation available. In those days Wilhelm was the only good translation of the I Ching, “barring that idiot Jungs’ introduction which is just a useless rehash”. He said that the middle section “The Great Treatise” the Ta Chuan, was the greatest magical text available to us, and he encouraged me to read and re-read it. He had altered his I Ching, crossing out any Christian references that Wilhelm has put into the footnotes. His distaste for the Black Dharmas, the three awful expressions of the desert fiend Jehovah, always amused me. He scratched out the offending words thickly, and darkly and totally.
Recently a new version of the I Ching has apppeared. Two women, Carol Anthony and Hanna Moog have used the I Ching to translate itself. It is a very clever technique and the result removes all traces of Confucius and his tired social regulations, hierarchies and judgemental commentaries. I suspect that Dadaji would be as delighted as I am to see the venerable old Sage cleansed of the detritus of ages and returned to the clarity of the original magical, nature-based, pagan work which celebrates the unique way we each travel our paths through life. His I Ching was underlined, hexagrams were occasionally re-named and all through the text he had red-lined the teachings that guided him through his life. His poem about the I Ching, which is found in Tantra Of Blowing the Mind is one of my favourites. It is called

Much of the tantra is devoted to the I Ching and his rewording of the ancient text in order to illuminate the beauty and deeper meaning of the hexagrams is his tribute to his favourite book. As we lit the incense and bowed our heads together to prepare to throw the coins on the little orange cloth that served as our altar, he would intone his invocation:

He would throw the coins, call out the name of the hexagram and then turn to me, his eyes full of light and sometimes even tears and he would say ” Do you see?”

Sleeping at the hermitage was different than sleeping anywhere else. At times I could feel Dadaji tripping along my nervous system and I would cry out in alarm. Mostly though I would be asleep and conscious at the same time. Dreams were rich and deep wells of wierdglow and otherworld life. One night I dreamt of the Magicians Ball. We were all in disguise, in fabulous costumes and dancing in a great room, stars for our ceiling, hung with lanterns and streamers of ribbons. The music was strange but intoxicating. The view from an upper balcony was one of riotous joy and also a stately decorum…an odd mix for any party. My escort was a very handsome young man with blonde. His face was uncovered but disguised nonetheless. We all attended this astral event at regular intervals of no-time and the many hundreds of us were perfectly at home in this no-place. Disguise was a game and only when I awoke did I realize with whom I had been dancing the night away. Some of you might also have memories of attending this grand celebration. Mostly the dream world was more didactic. I remember swimming in a sea of consciousness like a dolphin, leaping out of the water and diving forward or back-flippping and each time I hit the medium I entered another life, another point of view, in the vast ocean of consciousness. I felt I was being instructed, that I was practising to achieve a facility in this art of moving through the consciousness of others and of my own endless ocean of lives. This dreamlife helped to keep me in a state of apartness from the ordinary life going on all around me. It would be impossible to maintain a life in this magic bubble of the Hermitage of the Great Work if the mundane world were allowed to intrude.

Eventually, usually in the second or third month of the visit I would become sour, petulant and deeply unhappy. I would feel that Dadaji was a great burden, unbearable to be around. I began to yearn for the freedom of wandering about India alone. Our farewells were a relief to us both but also sobbingly and heartbreaking sad. I could no longer bear the heightened intensity and the powerful energy levels nor the level of discipline which I needed to maintain self awareness around his attuned Being. I had such admiration for the Patels. They never left his side and never tired or weakened. Once on my own I wanted to try out my new knowledge and understanding while still in a magical space that permitted the synchronicity and insight and powerful meditation to continue. Slowly it would fade away and I was left with no fairy dust at all, but usually a lot of ash and smoking fire.

A few days after Dadaji died in 1992, I returned to the village and the home that we had shared for so long. As soon as Kapilnath and Garudanath, who had arrived earlier from Seattle had left, I collapsed into a puddle of tears and sweat and diarrhea. I lay on the floor of his room and limply wept. Eventually I gathered a bit of self respect and headed out into India feeling like a ronin without direction or purpose. I went to Pushkar. I rented a little domed tower room and slowly began to create my new life. Thus began a dramatic time of adventure and shock and wildness and power. I became a shemshani, a burning ground girl. A crew of Naths and Aghoris and unnamed ones gathered around me. We would make pilgrimage, riding on camels or in a camel cart, into the wonderful Pushkar desert. Bengalis sing and most of my crew were Bengali and eventually we were even joined by a a young wandering Baul singer. We would arrive at some destination in the desert, an ancient temple or oasis, and we would sing all night. Out of the darkness somebody would arrive with a drum or cymbals or wonderful voice, spiced tea would appear and the chillums would be passed from one to the other.

A young Nath boy, Brihaspatinath, offered to take me to see some of the great Nath places and to go and visit the remarkable and immensely wealthy Durganath, a 6 ft tall French nath woman who lived alone in a huge cave, armed with an uzi and the ability to turn into a tiger. She turned out to be a petite Australian woman, armed with a spear, who was surprised to learn she had ever been a tiger. Our meeting was fateful. Her cave was under the protection of Reechishvar, the Lord of Bears and an aspect of Shiva. In one night my hair turned into lightning bolt dreadlocks. I had no money and I left there barefoot, dressed in ragged orange robes and an old turban to cover my head. Thus I wandered for seven months. The shock of a sudden shift back into mundane reality caused me a great deal of damage. My nerves broke. Without a visa, I was forced to return to Canada.

My storehouse of Dadaji magic was all dried up. I felt like a shell, neither human nor magical. I felt unstable and unable to continue my life as I had before. This is a typical condition for one who is orphaned of a great guru.

It is now 2007. After years of effort and lack of effort I begin to feel my way and to remember the knowledge and sensations of the past. Along the way I learned to be a good housewife, I created a home, I learned to drive a car, I learned gentleness with kids and little animals, I watched too much television. I learned to draw and paint, to sew, to carve stone, to garden and I learned about attachment and responsability and belonging to a place and time. I learned how to follow rules and care a bit about how I appeared to others. These are some of the parts of a good human life. One afternoon when it looked like I could not become more content with my life in Vancouver I suffered an anxiety attack that I thought was me dying. After that I was never free of them. My sound sleep become much less sound and I began to experience fear although there was nothing to be afraid about. My amnesia for the past was complete at this point. I knew events had transpired but they held no power, no resonance for me. My magical past was missing and my happy Canadian life had turned sour and frightening. I have used the I Ching, Reiki, fasting, drugs, ritual, amulets and Chi gung, to help me find my way through many levels of unfamiliar suffering. Varieties of modern Energy Therapy have proven to be the most useful tool so far. What modern psychology has to say about our ancient practices, our beliefs about ourselves and our manifestations is radical and new. It speaks of pathology and dissociation where I think of shamanic manifestation. On the other hand it brings the mystic firmly back down into the body. The necessity to respect, honour and listen to what is after all our physical expression is a new idea for me. It may be the most useful contribution of modern western thought to the ancient but tired paths of eastern spirituality.

During our years together, one or the other of us would slip into a state that I can only describe as enlightened. These states were full of bliss and information. Sometimes the ecstasy would last for days. Reading Avadhoota Gita brought me into just such a state for almost a week. Dattatreya writes of his delight in his wild freedom, his expansive self-expression, his spontaneous knowing. He learned nothing from books or the words and ideas of others, let alone the rules and regulations of the world. His wisdom came from his twenty-four gurus, the wasp, the bird, the turtle and the greatest of all gurus his own perfect Self, the Inner Guru. The Avadhoota Gita is a celebration of the Self, a celebration of the royal path of Liberation. Once I entered into the state of wildness, the distractions, noise and illusion of life on earth no longer had a hold on me and for that short period I was the avadhoot. I saw Dadaji for what he was, I saw us for what we both were. We were eternal Life, star stuff, the expressive universe in microcosm. When Dadaji would enter the state, the territory of bliss, he seemed to grow to another size and proportion and he glowed fiercely with inner fire. His words were liquid honey that poured into my heart and resonated with my own all-knowing, all-encompassing, all-understanding condition of the information-rich state of enlightenment.

This is the reason that Dadaji never “taught me anything”. This is why he never wanted me to read what other people think, other people’s patterns, ideas, concepts of the ways and means of attainment. This is the reason he ridiculed every guru, every wise speaker of great words, every hero and saint. He knew deeply that each sentient being is star stuff, is the Inner Guru, is Spontaneous Knowing, is perfection of Cosmic Expression. That means YOU too. Words mostly obscure this truth. Forms and systems create masses of impenetrable overlay on the simplicity of Self. May we all enjoy Ecstasy in Absolute.

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