Justice: 3. The First Whispers of Satsang

The first I heard of Satsang was at a chiropractor’s office. A Sikh chiropractic office in Los Angeles. Receptika was the receptionist there. She was on the phone with someone and said the word “Namaste.” At the time, I was living with this girl who had given me a card and at the end she had written “Namaste” and I never asked her what that meant. So I asked Receptika . She said, “You and I are one” and did the prayer hands. And then she started sharing with me. I was in for a personal injury case and every time I went in she would be all over me and inviting me to these functions. So finally I went. I showed up at a function she invited me to… at the Zither House. I got there 10 minutes late. And the room was pretty full. I just sat on the front step because I was too shy back then to just walk in the front door and be seen as this late person coming in. So I sat down and the cat came out and there was a full moon and it was really pleasant, beautiful, still night. Somebody entered the room.. to this day I don’t know who it was… and they started talking… and they started talking about Jesus Christ and I was like “Oh, Jesus Christ. Thank God I didn’t go in.. this is some kind of trippy cult thing” Receptika hadn’t told me what it was about or what to expect or anything. She kept it very vague. It was a just-get-you-in-the-door thing. She was just one of the many lanterns out there trying to bring in the people. So I sat on the porch a little longer -- just petting the cat and enjoying the beautiful night… and a freaky thing happened. The door to go in opened. No breeze or anything. It just opened by itself. And I was like, “Wow that’s odd.” And I just sat there a little longer and it opened a little more. And that’s when I got up and left.

My roommate at the time was a psychic and we did things where we were bringing in different entities and things like that. I supposedly had certain entities that were protecting me. And I was used to things turning on and off on their own in her apartment… so as odd as it sounds…that was the world I was living in at the time. I thought, “Someone is trying to tell me to go in there, but I ain’t goin in there.” My main thought in leaving though, was that I had to go back to the chiropractor’s office again because of my personal injury case and I had to see Receptika again. She was the receptionist. And she was doing the hard sell with me. I was so insecure I was like, “Oh my God. I’m going to have to tell her I didn’t go in” and I was really anxious about that. I didn’t want to face her. I called her and she didn’t pick up so I just got to leave a message. Best case scenario. So, the next time I went into the office, she was fine. She stepped back a bit. But she still had the whole agenda going. And so a few weeks later she says, “Come on, just come, and I’ll walk you in and you’ll sit down and it’ll be fine.” I even asked her about the whole Jesus thing and she said, “No no no, it’s not about that.” So I agreed to go with her. So we went and she walked me in. I sat on the floor and Angelo shared. And I got touched, you know. I could not tell you a word of what he shared or what he looked like. But having that many people in a room.. still and focussed… was beautiful. After the meeting people would come up and ask how you liked it and I remember telling Hebetudino that my brain felt like scrambled eggs. “Oh that’s good.” he said. But I really enjoyed the peace of it. And so I never missed a meeting after that. I just kept coming. Little did I know the whole machine that goes into work behind the scenes once they knew they had my interest. At the time I wasn’t aware of it. But looking back, it’s freaky how it’s all orchestrated.

Why was I attracted to Satsang? I’ve come to understand that more and more. Remembering myself and what was happening in my world at the time. Life was getting darker and darker and I was making one bad decision after another. So I was trusting my intuition less and less and finding it hard to commit to anything. And I was wanting to be in a relationship. “Is that the right one? Another one is around the corner, what if THAT’s the right one?” I was so confused. And for a gay man, the impact of AIDS was huge. When I came out of the closet.. and it was like, “Yee haw! Gay power!” And then AIDS hit. And suddenly -- from every direction -- it’s was scary and dark. The modeling agencies are telling me that I can’t be seen in gay clubs. You couldn’t be “out”. It was in your contract you signed when you joined the agency. When I was coming out, my agent was gay and it was like, “Yeah, all for one and one for all.” But then everything got crazy and no one knew what to do. I mean, this is a whole subject on its own. Everyone was scared… but especially the gay community. The “gay curse”, “God hates us”, he’s killing everyone, there’s no cure, no one cares. It was scary. No one wanted to talk about it but everyone still wanted to screw. It was just nuts. And over the next few years it got progressively worse. When I lived in NY, Act Up was just starting to happen. They were this really militant group (Silence = Death… and it did) Yet, I’m not supposed to be out. I can’t have a voice. I’m just some guy that goes to the clubs at night and tries to get out unseen. And I lived in all the hot spots…the places where AIDS was the big thing. Miami. New York, LA. The main places when it started. And no one knew what to do about it so it was spreading like wildfire. So when I went to the Buddha Field, I signed on hook line and sinker. No sex? Great. That seemed like a relief.

Also, Satsang was so idealistic. Growing up, the best time for me was the Ziggy cards and the “Up With People” thing… that was the time I loved. All the smiley faces and the “we’re all one” mentality… and the Buddha Field was like an adult version of that. THAT’s what I was attracted to. To be honest, I don’t remember Angelo at all from that meeting or anything he shared about. I know people shared about the first time they met him and all this stuff they experienced but it was never that for me. It was almost like I had to bypass him to get turned on by what was going on. What drew me was the feel of the room.. the peace. And it was just great.

By this time, the spiritual things I had been involved with were: the psychic thing with my roommate, Shirley Maclaine’s Out On a Limb stuff. Louisa Hays a little. I almost got involved in something called Lifespring (where you could do it for $400 and it would change your life) but luckily that didn’t actually pan out. But I was open, and warmed up to the idea that something out there has answers to all life’s crazy questions. To make sense out of a world gone nuts.

I came to everything that the Buddha Field offered really quickly. I’m all about the program and this came with an instant program. Thinking back… Angelo must have latched on right away. The first thing I remember…I’m not sure how many weeks into it… someone at the meetings announced that they were getting together to knock down this chimney at the Zither House and they needed some friends for service. So that was the first extra-curricular activity for me. And I just got more and more involved from there. I didn’t actually meet Angelo outside of Satsang until Receptika started asking me if I wanted cleansing. Receptika told me that Angelo was a hypnotherapist. It was offered as something that would help me get rid of my psychological shit and become “clear.” It would, “help my being shine” or whatever the sales pitch was. It sounded good so I thought I’d try it. I remember him answering the door. He had these rosy cheeks and bright eyes and I remember thinking he looked so vibrant and healthy. Come to find out later it’s all rouge and makeup. But I go in the room and he’s quizzing me about my background and work and how stable I am financially and everything… And I was doing really well then. I had just gotten two commercials and was working at the Hard Rock Café. I wasn’t one of those that came limping in with nothing else going on in their lives. So he does this silent stare open-eye meditation thing – that dead stare he does -- and the room just disappeared and everything went white and all I could see was one of his eyes. I remember thinking, “This is where they hit me on the head and drag me somewhere.” I didn’t usually think things like that, but that’s what came into my head. And I must have had a little weird body twitch or something. Then he said The Perfect Thing. “It’s only love, don’t be afraid.” And you know… (softly) damnit…