When I was around 20, my mother and I went out to Los Angeles to visit my cousin, Aurelius (who was in the Buddha Field). I hadn't seen him in a long time. Growing up, he was my version of an older brother. We would spend one weekend a month together, and pretty much grew up as brothers. He was the one that talked to me about the Buddha Field and talked to me about this person who could touch you and reveal an experience of God. At the time... that sounded intriguing. There were other members of my family who were into meditation and eastern religion. My uncle (Aurelius’ father) had a guru and was into eastern religion. And -- while I hadn't studied it myself -- I had an aunt who was into transcendental meditation. So the concept of enlightenment wasn’t new to me. But still, the idea of somebody who could reveal an experience was very appealing.
But also around that time, I was being pursued by a Hawaiian Kahuna (a healer in the Hawaiian tradition) Actually, Aurelius encouraged me to follow that path as well but it never quite seemed to work out -- I would go and do this or that... but either I couldn't find the place, or the money wasn't available... always something… so that just never manifested.
But then later -- when the BF left L.A. -- Aurelius was part of the group that was sent to Atlanta. But there was also a group of disciples who came to Phoenix (about 10 or so). So when Aurelius came out to visit me, he introduced me to some of them. And I was curious. I wanted something more. I was sober and looking for an experience of God. So pretty much right from the time I was introduced to people, I started becoming part of their small community there. We had weekly Satsang meetings and would spend time with each other. That was about the only "formal" thing going on at that point.
Around that time I met Guinevere. I fell in love within five minutes of meeting her. So Guinevere and I got involved but when we started dating, there was a little resistance because Guinevere didn't think it was “spiritual” and I didn't want to be "trapped in a relationship.” But within two weeks of spending time together, we were like, "OK, we're in a relationship" (or "hanging out" as it was called.) So we were in Phoenix for about 6 months and then there was a relocation. All of the BF people in Phoenix relocated -- half went to New Mexico (that's what we were told but I think they actually came to Austin) and the rest of us went to join the group in Atlanta. It was about a year and a half until those of us in Atlanta were invited to move to Austin. Austin was where I met Angelo for the first time, so I was around about 2 years before I even met him.
My first impression... you know, I remember the first bit of drama happening on the move to Austin. We had been told what day to arrive, but on the way we found out that a member of our group had a brother in Round Rock -- so it created a “situation.” Valerii had just joined the group as we were about to leave Atlanta and wanted to come to Austin with us, but when the Powers-That-Be found out she had a brother here, it was decided she should not come. But we were already on the road. (There was a fear that her brother might want to get involved with her life… which turned out to be a totally unfounded fear because he didn’t care at all.) But what that meant was that we had to break apart from Valerii. We told her we were going to San Antonio and so our first several days here we weren’t allowed to leave the house for fear we’d run into her somewhere in the city. That was one of the things that early-on was part of the drag of being in the Buddha Field. We were told to create this story that we were living in San Antonio, so I had to get a mailbox and a driver's license address there so I could tell my parents we weren’t actually living in Austin. And it wasn’t until I had been here a year or two that I could tell them we were moving up to Austin.
Anyway, we arrived in Austin and then were sequestered in our houses for a few days (for fear of running into Valerii in the health food store or somewhere) and then a few days later we went to our first group function: a Satsang where Angelo was sharing. I remember getting really high. I was really excited to meet all these other disciples and all these other people. And I really enjoyed the social-ness of meeting all of these new people who were of the same mindset. Instead of the six or eight people that I had been spending my time with... suddenly there were 100 of us. And it was intoxicating. And after that first Satsang, we started going to Satsang and class every week. But it was at least 6 months until I was allowed to go to the garden (at Angelo’s house) or have cleansing with him.
