Denomio: 6. Brothers and Sisters

There wasn't any sexual contact between me and Angelo other than when I first started going and seeing him in cleansing. He was asking me various questions ... at one point he had me undress.. and I stood there naked and turned around in front of him. But that was it. I think at the time I thought it was strange but the way I thought about it was that I was just getting naked in front of the guru and it was a way of looking to see if I was truly surrendered and open and naked (literally and figuratively) to him. I was only naked for about two minutes. I got up and took off my clothes and then turned around and sat down and he said I could put my clothes back on and I did. Nothing else sexual happened between us. But all of my psychological issues… week after week… involved women. It was really clear that I was not gay. There was the perception in the group -- that most straight guys were actually gay but they didn't know it. That “they hadn't given themselves permission to experience that” or that “they were suppressing it.” It came up in cleansing generally, and once or twice on an outing he had me kiss a guy – and it was just kind of an exercise to drop my mind. It didn’t really mean anything. I didn't feel like I was homophobic and at one point, I actually did make out with a man… just to see. Because the idea was proffered that if I was really in tune with my experience, that I would want this. So I thought, “Well, maybe…” I ended up making out with this guy and then I thought, “That didn’t make me horny at all.” I told Angelo about it and he didn’t push it. There were times when I felt he was encouraging it… I remember that he led me through a homo-erotic visual in cleansing where I had oral sex with a man. I wasn’t told that I had to be gay, but he said I probably was and it would be good if I was in touch with that, but if I wasn’t, then that was fine. But I was also providing a service for him already… he didn’t need me to be his lover cause I was already giving him four or five hours a day. But maybe if I had been more receptive to the idea, it would have been a different story. But this is all in retrospect. I just saw it as his predilection but at the time I was not aware of the sexual exploits with some of the other disciples. I never saw first-hand any direct sexual contact with any of his disciples. Later of course, after hearing the stories, I’d remember being in cleansing and I’d hear the TV turn on without any sound and I’d think it was odd. But I’d think he must be watching ballet videos (for choreography or something).

Actually, towards the end of my time in the group, I actually did have sex with a man once. I thought maybe the kissing thing didn’t do it… maybe it was the wrong man or circumstance so I did end up doing it. But it was much the same thing. Nothing to write home about. I didn’t need to do it again. Nothing wrong with it, but it didn’t do anything for me. But I did tell Angelo about it because I knew he’d be fascinated by it. I knew he still had that in his character and he was riveted. I knew he would be. But still, the reason I left the group was not because of any inappropriateness on that level. It was much later that all that stuff came out.

I hung out with a wide variety of people in the group. Whatever girl I was seeing at the time, the people I did my daily service with, the people I saw in the morning at the garden and then there were the people I did evening service with (the other bodyworkers) – some of them I was close to, others not so much. And different at different times. One person I felt really close to, but later, when I was leaving, I felt like he was trying to kill me. That was literally the feeling I got. When I was like, “This is not in integrity.” He would say, “I’ve experienced those sorts of thoughts before and you just have to surrender and if you get to the other side of those thoughts, there is so much beauty and so much love.” And I remember feeling as he was telling me that, that he was trying to kill me. In that he was asking me to go against something that I felt in my depths and telling me that it’s not right and that all I need to do is go into the void and that’s where I’d find fulfillment. But there were different people I felt close to at different times. One period where I felt close to Tiger and Mirra, one period where I felt close to Dharma… one period where I was close to some young nubile hotties… different people rotated in and out. But primarily I hung out with whoever I was dating. Mostly women. I think I hung out with more women than men.

Who was I inspired by? I don’t know that I was inspired by anybody, but there were those I had respect for. Like, I had a great amount of respect for Simone in that I knew what he was going through. He was in the inner circle as well and saw the insanity (that Angelo was in and creating) and even so, he was able to stay in love and still keep doing his service… able to put all that aside and keep going and keep surrendering. He used to be a news anchor and before that he used to make huge amounts of money as a TV producer. He has actual skills and talents and could go and do these other things and yet there he is, doing what this crazy person told him to do. I had respect for that. People that I felt were there with me in the trenches, yeah, there were people in that close five or eight people that were doing daily service with Angelo, spending hours a day with him, that I respected for what they were doing. I had respect for Guinevere. She was always fairly grounded and in a loving space. I loved listening to Ryker’s Satsang. I would actually get more blissed out listening to Ryker’s Satsang than I would to Angelo’s. It was often hard… when we started doing the weekly meetings… I really only wanted to go and listen to Ryker because there were other people that it would be difficult to keep my eyes open for two hours… where with Ryker… I would say I had respect for Ryker in that. I would go and listen to him and there would be something he’d say that would stick with me, that I could apply into my own consciousness.

There were a couple of people that I felt like I had serious conflicts with. And I’d work on them in cleansing but I didn’t feel like anything would ever be resolved. I mean, I’d drop it, but I never really got a satisfactory answer why certain people were never called out for their shit. Like, Quentin was someone that I felt kept f.cking people over. He f.cked me over. My story with him was that I was trading with him and he f.cked me over for some money. I forgave him and dropped it. I started interacting with him again and six months later, he f.cked me over again. And then I felt done with it. At one point he actually attacked me physically. I was like, “Why is this person still under this umbrella of protection? Why are people making excuses for him?” It was one of those “secrets” of the BF… like people should still go and see him and we don’t talk about the stuff he did. I didn’t understand that. Why not call a spade a spade? Not just with me. There was story after story with certain people. Why were we so concerned with image? We don’t talk about what Quentin did, we don’t talk about what Martina did or Malario f.cking people over financially. In other communities, that would be called out. People would say it was wrong and others would be warned not to get involved. So that was something I had serious conflict with. Angelo would say we had to have compassion and we don’t want to create more drama – but he just talked around the issue with certain people. I never really got that.

One of my favorite moments that I look back on, was when I started to go to a 12 step program again (towards the end of my time in the group.) I remember talking to Angelo about it and he had such scorn for the whole concept. And talking to Malario about the 9th step (where you go and make amends to all the people you have f.cked over) and Malario was like, “How could you get in touch with all those people?” He was flabbergasted that you would be able to do that. And I was just amazed that it was so beyond him. And then it occurred to me, that he had been doing that his whole life, to so many people. That’s why it seemed so daunting. That was very telling.

There wasn’t anything that friends or family could have done about my involvement in the group. They might have been able to put up a stink and create problems that would have forced me to separate from the group, but I think after I started working on Angelo’s body, he was hugely invested in me. I was providing this thing so I’m sure we would have created some huge elaborate lie so I could continue doing it. Mostly I thought that people that weren’t in the BF were spiritually dead. They didn’t have the kind of understanding that we had because we were the beautiful people. We were the people that were in this beam of grace. Mostly I saw my role for most people as just trying to share the light. And that was what was encouraged. The framework that we were given. We were in this special thing and most people are outside of it – completely asleep and unconscious to it – so we need to share that specialness with them if there is an opening. So there was a certain amount of proselytizing.

There was once that I almost left the group but didn’t. One morning when I went in to do my morning service, I don’t remember the exact circumstances – there was something I wanted to leave and go do.. and of course, Angelo didn’t want me leaving. But I was always really direct with him about what I was feeling or thinking and I had told him I wanted to go and he said, “Go! Go do it then!” and I just looked at him for a second and then said OK. And I got up and walked out. I went home and called a friend of mine outside the group. She didn’t answer right away but she called me back later that evening. I wanted to ask her if she could put me up if I left the ashram. This is about four or five years before I actually left. I called Martina too and talked to her about it, and she showed me how I was in my mind and I saw the ways I had created this thing. So I went later that afternoon back to the dance studio and I apologized to Angelo for being in this drama and thanked him for his patience with me. Then I resumed my daily service. By the time my friend called me that evening, I had settled back in. But that was the closest I ever came to leaving before I left the group. I had actually called someone and was prepared to walk that day.

When other people left, I thought they were deluded. I thought they were in their minds and that they weren’t seeing clearly. When Aurelius left, it felt like he was really manic. Nobody that I was really close to left other than Aurelius. I was not really good friends with anyone that left. So I was never involved in those kinds of games.