Denomio: 4. Life in the Inner Circle

During this period, I started coming into the “inner circle.” In doing daily service with Angelo, you get to see things – as far as him not doing things he guided others to do. I would see him not connecting before eating. His food would be put in front of him and he’d immediately start eating rather than sitting for a moment and connecting to meditation. I remember the first time I was ever really like, “Whoa, what the f.ck?” I was in his house (I had just started doing direct service for him) and they changed the position of the couches so Angelo walked by and bumped one of the corners of the couch and immediately started screaming at people. That they needed to bring the old couches back. That he couldn’t be bumped like this... were they trying to kill him? And I remember sitting there thinking, “You're enlightened... couldn't you just walk around the couch? And if you do get bumped... if you're enlightened... so what???” So that was one of the first times that I thought “That really doesn't seem like the actions of an enlightened being to me.” That he’s screaming at people for changing the couches. There weren't a whole lot of things that I thought were incongruous. There WERE things that I noticed as being odd but I just thought, “Well, he’s the master and he doesn’t need to do that.” That’s the rap. That he’s always in meditation so he doesn’t need to sit and formally connect. Later on I saw things that I thought were just not in integrity… it didn’t necessarily have to do with contradicting his own guidance. There’s a great Bob Dylan song that says “you don't need a weatherman to tell you which way the wind blows.” I’d see things and that just didn’t feel right to me -- and I don't need anybody to tell me what's right and wrong – some things just don’t seem in integrity. Toward the end of my time in the group I started to question more.... and started to point out the things didn't seem right.

I always resisted the concept of “doing it right.” And I always chaffed when things seemed hypocritical. A concrete example… not about Angelo... but another person in the inner circle. At one point, Angelo was receiving some bodywork that he liked and he wanted me and this other person to go get some training on it. I went first and it was a LOT of information. So when I got back, I was telling this other disciple that it was a lot of information and that he might, after 5 or 6 hours, have a cup of green tea to stimulate his brain so he could retain that last little bit of info. It’s not like I did a lot of caffeine. But this disciple looks at me and says, “You should never put anything into your body that the master wouldn't put into his body.” It was a reprimand from an older brother disciple and I just looked at him and was like, “All right... whatever.” I later found out that he was drinking a half a pot of coffee every day. That was the sort of thing that drove me nuts because I always tried to “express it like I experienced it.” And the idea that you just put on this show for people… it was one thing to hide things, it’s another to outright lie about it. Like sometimes, when there were new disciples around -- if I felt like I wasn't doing something that was in integrity then I might try to shield them from seeing it… or run away from them so they wouldn’t see me doing it… but I would never lie about it. I would never say “Oh no, that's a horrible thing to do... I’d never do that.” That hypocrisy was always something that really stuck in my craw.

There was guidance about which food we could eat and what movies we should watch.. but sometimes you wouldn't know what was expected or what was going to bring ridicule. Like I noticed that I watched a lot of TV, so one day I was in the room with Angelo and he asked what I had done the previous night and I told him that I read a book. I was feeling really good about having NOT watched TV and having read this book my mother sent me (“Angela’s Ashes” – a Pulitzer Prize winning book) And Angelo asked what it was about and then just ridiculed me for reading it… asking why I wanted to fill my head with that and why wasn’t I reading about Ramakrishna or Yogananda (the only things that were worthy) So there were times you didn't know what was expected or what was going to bring ridicule and then there were other times where you just got the feel for the group social consciousness of “This is how we are, this is what we do and these are the acceptable attitudes or concepts and these are not.” It was just apparent if you had any sort of social consciousness or awareness of group dynamics. It wasn’t really hard to see which way it was to fit in. But I personally always chaffed at that.

I remember one time, Guinevere (my girlfriend for the first 7 years in the Buddha Field) and I were in class, and somebody said, “Oh, I want to be in a relationship but I don't feel like I can.” Angelo immediately started ridiculing the idea of relationships and he asked if there was anybody in the room that liked being in a “relationship” and no one raised their hand. And I looked over at Guinevere and she looked at me and we both raised our hands... because we were in a relationship... if we didn't like being in a relationship we wouldn't be in one. It just seemed… it was a weird dynamic. I knew I was opening myself up for social ridicule from the group and that Angelo was about to rip us both... but I felt like, “You f.cking liars.” All the people in that room, all the people dating, and none of you like being in a relationship? Then why are you dating? And yes, Angelo ripped into us both and talked about how immature we were and how we were deluded and everything. But looking back, I’m glad I did it. Even though, I knew when I raised my hand that it would have consequences. That has been part of my discovery about the nature of my character. I don’t do well with being brow-beaten and I don't do well with trying to pretend that I'm something other than what I am. I guess I have enough of a sense of myself to say “No, this is what I believe.” It felt so shifty. There were times I would put up the fight because it felt too hypocritical not to, and other times when I would just toe the party line and other times when you just accepted what the party line was. It was all three.

Looking back... there were things I was required to participate in that I didn't really like doing... like lying to my parents on a regular basis about where I was and what I was doing. And coming up with all these stories. I understood the concept of why it needed to be done – Simone explained it to me once. He explained that if someone was going along in their life and suddenly they realize that what they really want is God and they lose interest in their religion or their career or they no longer want to have babies and 3.2 kids… their parents get freaked out by that and want to call Cult Awareness and that creates all sorts of secondary problems for Angelo and the group. Rather than do all that, it was easier to just lie about everything and create these stories because, even if you didn’t think your parents would do that… you never knew. Because there were all these other people that had thought it would never happen to them, and it had. So go ahead and spin tales about where you are and what you’re doing and why they can’t visit. My mother finally came out and visited me when she realized that I was never going to invite her out. One year she just said, “I’m coming to Austin. I’m going to be in San Antonio and then I’m coming up to Austin.” She just TOLD me rather than asking me because she realized I’d never invite her. So that was a real drag. Also, when I first started doing my service, I thought it was a real priviledge. I thought I was really fortunate and blessed. My service was being Angelo’s primary bodyworker. And I started to get cleansing with him and started going to the garden… And one day his body is hurting and I got a call to come in and work on him. And I worked on him and he liked it and I got blissed out and I thought I was climbing the ranks. But that was secondary. I got to be around him more. And have close contact with him outside of class or the other functions – contact that most people don’t get to have. So I started working on him once a month or so and going to the garden more. And on the days I was at the garden, he would usually call me into the house and so one day I asked if he wanted me to start coming every day. And he immediately said YES, like he had been waiting for me to make that suggestion. So, I started going to the garden every morning. And then after that he started occasionally wanting to have an adjustment after his ballet session or after he’d go work out… So it started creeping into a twice-a-day thing. At first it was a little like, “OK, fine.” But soon it became a heavy thing for me. He’s a hypochondriac. He perceived it as he “has all this energy coursing through his body” and he would have muscle twitches all throughout his body. His muscles would go into spasm and he was very sensitive. It was like The Princess and the Pea… the story of the princess who was on fourteen mattresses and can still feel the pea and was uncomfortable. Angelo would hurt himself regularly just from sleeping. But he was also obsessive compulsive in how he slept. Like there had to be three tissues under his pillow and then, “Oh no, that’s too much.” Or, “That’s putting pressure on my sacrum… here, let’s put this bandana on and take one of the tissues away.” And he’d sleep in that one position all night (because he couldn’t turn on his side and he couldn’t sleep on his belly.) Like the less he would move, the more he’d hurt himself. He thought he had all this energy coursing through his body and that’s why he’s so sensitive. I now think he’s in the early stage of Parkinson’s or some similar neurological disorder. He has this really shaky finger and he would stick out his hand and his hand would be trembling and he’s say, “Look! That’s all the Shakti coming through.” But I think it’s a neurological disturbance based on how he took care of his body. Like I saw a huge transformation… Angelo was very, very disciplined in how he took care of his body. Obsessively disciplined. In that he would do the same thing every day. He’d eat the same food every day. He would say, “This works” so let me have this over and over and over and over. And that’s not good for the body. He was getting worse and worse as far as not being able to do things and only being able to move in particular ways. But then this new bodywork came along, and he was open to trying new types of bodywork, so he started doing a bunch of new exercises and the transformation in his body was amazing. The other bodyworkers and I were in awe at how differently he was moving. But what happened was he went to a certain point and then he took it over… like he turned it into a routine so he did the same thing over and over instead of progressing on that evolution. So, now he had incorporated this new routine and it had helped. But it was an intense source of frustration to see how much his body had changed… and I’d say, “Let’s do some more of this… take it to the next level.” But he had stepped back into his routine. “This is what I do every day. This is my pattern.” And he stopped transforming. Maybe that’s indicative of what happened in his spiritual life. That was one of my deepest senses of frustration during that period. I was working on him every day and what he was doing was driving me nuts. I’d constantly be making little barbs (like in class) because it was just eating away at me. Because he’d have the same complaints day after day. And day after day he’d want the same treatment. Every day. And he’d say, “Did you do this muscle test? Did you do that one?” After a while, I just gave him what he wanted. I ran through the routine. I know that I need to do these seven muscle tests and if I just gave him what he wants he would be fine with that. But why are you still complaining about the pain in your side if you’re not going to do anything different? He just wanted me to do what he wanted me to do. The same thing we had done the day before. I don’t know how many times I said, “OK, let's do that exact same treatment that we've been doing for the last six months. Maybe this time it’s going to make it all better.” That was incredibly frustrating for me.