THE DREADED GOM-BOO
Part III: Spiritual Transmission
CHAPTER 22
Try the Suppository
by David Forsythe
Several years ago I was invited to play a role in a
videotaped skit, for the Spiritual Masters entertainment. I
played an extremely serious scientist in a satirical
commercial for “Preparation K, the Kundalinioidal Gel,”
which, as I said in the commercial, “could relieve the
fixation of attention in the lower life and speed relief to
the whole body by shooting energy up, up, up the spine.” I
delivered my lines in a tight, almost angry monotone,
illustrating them with a cartoon that showed the
“Life-Force” rising up the spine like mercury in a
thermometer. I had been instructed specifically not to show
any emotion, just to read the lines, which is what I did.
The role, therefore, placed a minimal demand on my acting
ability because it called for essentially the same angry,
uptight character that I animated all the time. At the end
of the commercial, when a voice-over intoned, “Preparation
K-available at your druggists in ointment or suppository
form,” I winked knowingly and said, “Try the
suppository.”
I later heard that the Master had loved the commercial
and asked to see it over and over, roaring with laughter,
especially at the last line. I was delighted that he had
enjoyed it, even though I was somewhat puzzled. I really
didnt see what was that funny about it.
The Master remembered it, however. Some time later at an
occasion when I was invited, along with other devotees, to
gather with the Master, he reminded me of it. As he received
a gift of several Siva lingams from a devotee, he held a
small one up and said, “Try the suppository.” Once again, I
was delighted, but although I was extremely grateful for his
Regard on that occasion, I didnt really get any particular
message from what he had said.
In fact, it has only been within the last few months that
I finally, through the Grace of the Spiritual Master,
understood the humor of the skit and the lesson that it
contained for me.
I have been extremely fortunate for the last year and a
half to have been able to work at Tumomama, a Renunciate
Sanctuary of the Communion. I made a number of trips to
Tumomama beginning in March of 1982. In August, however, the
visits took on a very different character because the Master
returned to live there after a years absence. In September I
was fortunate to spend time in the Masters personal company,
both formally on an occasion of meditation with Master Da,
and, for the first time in years, in an informal
circumstance as well. On those occasions I felt completely
embraced by the Master, and any sense that the intervening
years had amounted to separation was obliterated.
I had to leave the Sanctuary shortly afterward and I
stayed away for several months. In mid-November I returned
to Tumomama to prepare for an important meeting. I arrived
on a Friday. On Saturday I was invited to another gathering
at the Sanctuary and again had the opportunity to see the
Master. I offered a gift of a flower at his feet when I
arrived. He grabbed it from me fiercely, then embraced me
with tremendous love, chastising me for staying away so
long. I was overwhelmed by the force of his love and the
passion with which he moved. He asked me for my eyeglasses,
grabbed them from me and put them on, and squinted through
them at the room.
Master Da talked of other things for several minutes,
then began to consider the central question with which he
had been challenging devotees in recent gatherings: “Why is
no one practicing?” He was just finishing the consideration
with Crane Kirkbride when suddenly he swung his gaze to me.
“Why are you so crooked?” he asked. I tried to sit up
straighter. He told me to sit next to Crane. He pointed at
the two of us-tall, thin men-and exclaimed that we were
exactly the same person. By this time, I was completely
confused, and completely overwhelmed. The Master stood up to
leave the room, and announced that we would start
considering my failure to practice as soon as he
returned.
He returned in a few moments, and the consideration
began! After making only a few comments, the Master motioned
me toward him. He took his right hand and placed it on my
head, and poured out the tremendous Force of Transforming
Power that his body Communicates. I really didnt have any
idea how to receive It-I just relaxed as best I could, since
it was completely obvious to me that I just had to let It do
what It would do. The Master gave me a few minutes to relax
and let the Energy do its Work-and then the consideration of
the Great Question began.
Now, one thing that was really remarkable about his
consideration was that despite all my confusion and
inability to grasp what in the world was going on, I felt
able, mainly because of the tremendous Love and Energy the
Master had poured out to me, to respond to him by simply
saying what came to mind, not worrying about if it was right
or appropriate or if it even made sense. It was a very
humorous, even hilarious, although also completely awesome,
event.
Why was my name not on the list of mature practitioners?
Having been embraced and overwhelmed by the Masters Love and
Force of Transmission, I had to explain why I had not been
practicing! I offered a couple of stock answers, first
blaming my own stupidity, and then “habits.”
Neither answer satisfied the Master. In response to the
second answer, he demanded “And who exactly is it that has
these habits?” Seeing my minimal level of understanding, he
took another tack. He said, “All right, then, think of the
mental image of a cat.”
I was tremendously relieved-here was something I could
do. So I mentally formed the image of a cat.
“Now,” continued the Master, “you arent identified with
that cat, are you?”
“No,” I said.
He responded, “Why should it be any different with the
body-mind?”
And I immediately saw that it was true. I could feel the
body and see a mental image, but I was not identical to
either one. The Master had shown me that I am
consciousness.
Then he gave me his most summary advice, instructions
that I had been given years before but that only now had
real meaning to me. He told me to “try the suppository.” He
went on to explain in detail that the suppository he had in
mind was the wealth of Teaching, the Spirit-Blessing, the
Baptism I had received. No wonder the line, coming from me
when I was so deeply embroiled in suffering and struggling
with my life, had seemed so humorous to Master Da.
The Master went on to remind me that the effects of his
great Blessing would be only temporary unless I became
responsible for the understanding and practice that It
demanded. He could show me the Truth of “the suppository”
but it was up to me to notice It, locate It, grasp It,
gravitate to It, and submit myself to It. He went on to
explain that it was not necessary to wait until one was a
Siddha in some exalted plane in order to practice! Certainly
I had bodily limitations to overcome-some of them
substantial, he noted-but that was no reason why I couldnt
take up the Way and practice.
By now I felt completely full of joy, and in such
intimate relationship with the Master that I could not
tolerate all the ways whereby I had always withdrawn from
the relationship before. I blurted out, “Master, I have
always been afraid of making a fool of myself in your
company!” (And it was true! By this time, I was so full of
joy and energy I didnt know what to do, and I felt myself
hanging back in hesitation and fear.) He roared with
laughter and said, “Nonsense! Ive made much more a fool of
myself in your company than you could ever be in mine.”
Everyone was laughing uproariously now, when suddenly Daji
Bodha yelled out, “Master, as he said that, he put a piece
of cheese on your tray!”
It was true. In an attempt to fortify me for my ordeal,
the devotees serving at the occasion had slipped me a plate
with cheese and crackers. I had eaten most of the cheese
except for a small cube, which had fallen on the floor. I
had picked up the scrap of cheese from the floor and
deposited it on the Masters tray-a faux pas if there ever
was one, since all of the utensils and furnishings used by
the Master are always treated by devotees with great care
and respect. I had done this just as I was confessing my
fear of making a fool of myself!
The Master looked down at the cheese and in a quick
motion picked it up and fed it to me from his own hand. As I
received his Prasad, I was amazed at how in the midst of all
of that, I had somehow, unconsciously even, made a gesture
toward him that in a crazy way had demonstrated the
sacrament that is alive in the relationship with the
Adept.
A short time later, the Master began to listen to
recordings of opera, as he often did during these
gatherings. As he requested one particular recording, I gave
a start. He had asked to hear the duet from The Pearl
Fishers by Bizet. Another devotee noticed my surprise and
pointed it out to the Master. I told Master Da that when I
was young, my parents had always played classical music on
the radio, and that this particular piece, even this
specific recording, had always been my absolute favorite,
one that had always seemed to me unbearably beautiful.
As we listened to the recording and devotees sang along,
I was overcome by emotion. My body was alive with love and
bliss beyond endurance. My head was full of light and
energy, an energy that pervaded everything. It was not
limited to a force in my body. The Life-Current did not seem
to be contained in my body, but rather my body was contained
in the Life-Current. I had no sense, in fact, of a defined
body. I just felt a Current of Bliss and Love.
I cried out to the Master that I loved him and bowed,
sobbing. What I felt was more than an aesthetic moment. It
was a recognition that all along, in my childhood, all my
life, I had been with the One that was now Revealed to me to
the depths of my feeling being. All along it had always only
been this relationship, this absolute Compassion and
profundity of feeling. The Master had first Awakened my
understanding and I had heard his Argument. Now I was seeing
the Vision of the Divine One as a feeling recognition that
transcended body, mind, time, and space.
When I returned again to my home, I knew I was taking
with me a precious Gift. The time I had spent in the Masters
Company had Awakened in me a new Energy, and I felt that the
Masters Touch had made an indelible mark on my heart. I felt
an obligation to use his Blessing, to keep It alive, to
share It with others and to practice. I knew absolutely that
the process quickened by the Masters Touch was real and It
showed Itself as real changes in my life. I realized that
the greatest gift I could give the Master in return was to
stop acting as if the process were somehow in doubt and
instead to start living with the passion and freedom that he
had demonstrated to me.
I discovered a tremendous enjoyment in my relationships,
and I became more real, direct and emotional with others. I
looked almost hungrily for opportunities to consider the
Teaching and to magnify the Masters Transmission with other
devotees.
I saw that the pious and “churchy” character I had always
animated was rooted in fear. I had always tried to look like
a practitioner but my practice had been a means to protect
myself from feeling desire and conflict. My navel had been
chronically in a knot, holding off feelings that had always
seemed threatening and dangerous to me.
Now I saw the self-contraction from a free point of view
and so was able, even compelled, to move beyond my habitual
limits of doubt and fear.
I particularly noticed the crunch of doubt and fear in my
navel relative to my work. I began to make real, practical
use of our Masters Teaching relative to Ignorance and
conductivity. I remembered the lesson I got from imagining a
cat. I was Ignorant. In my Ignorance I could relax my
fearful contraction in the lower body and allow the Force of
Life to circulate. I noticed that when I practiced this I
became effective in my work and things seemed to “work out.”
At times the contraction in my navel released completely and
I would feel the full Circle of Energy just as Master Da
describes. It is a great pleasure in the body.
I began to intensify my study. When The Fire Gospel was
published, I was so excited by the book that I read it in a
single evening. I began to do the sacramental services and
felt something Real that I had not felt before.
I started to participate differently in devotional
occasions. I wanted to celebrate this Transmission with
others, but with real energy, not piety and rigidity. When I
saw people who were depressed and inward-turned, I wanted to
shake them up, even if that meant getting a little
exaggerated and foolish myself. I had some very humorous and
out-of-character moments in the process, and I soon
discovered that I was going to have to put up with being
seen, looking bad, all of that. A few times, as I told
others of my time in Master Das Company, I felt the same
light begin to fill my head and the same energy fill my
body. I hesitated to become Gods fool in front of others.
Each time, I finally released my own self-consciousness, and
gave myself over to that Presence and Divine Force. I was
simply Happy then. As I grew more confident in the integrity
of my practice, I cared less and less about what other
people thought.
At the same time, I also began to lose some of my naive
gleefulness about what I had been given by the Master, and I
began to enter into a deeper appreciation of his Gift.
Having been given the great Blessing of the Masters Baptism,
I had to confront the stark fact that everything I was
accustomed to doing, all the ways I related to people and
every part of my life, was dedicated to the opposite
principle.
The newly-Awakened Energy that moved me into
relationships gave me an opportunity to see what I had
really been doing all along, and to change my action.
When I returned to Tumomama after a month, I was again
invited to gather with devotees in Master Das Company. I
bowed in surrender. Master Da looked up and asked gruffly,
“Whos this?” I offered a garland of flowers at his feet and
as I started to rise, he motioned me to him and embraced me.
We held one another for what seemed a long, long time. In
that embrace, I could only allow my body to relax and
dissolve into him. He had no limits. As I surrendered more
and more deeply, every form that arose of body or mind
became obvious as only a limit on Love, only a contraction
of Feeling, and I couldnt do anything about any of it except
surrender. The Master gave me a last loving squeeze and
released me. We sat for a moment gazing at one another,
resting in the fullness of Feeling. The Masters expression
and his entire body showed that he was completely
overwhelmed by and surrendered in the emotion of that
Fullness. “So what have you been doing?” he asked.
All I wanted to do was express my love and my gratitude
for everything he had given me. I said, “Master, Ive been
feeling your Presence everywhere, in California, everywhere.
I went back there and felt you there. My body has been full
of a Life, Light, and Energy that have blown my mind. And
when I surrender into It, I can feel you living me.”
He responded softly, “Tcha.”
Devotees who had been at the Hermitage during my time
away told me that Master Da had asked many times to hear the
duet from The Pearl Fishers “for Da-vid.”
The Dreaded Gom Boo – Table
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