Observations, After

MY FATHER, THE GURU

Part I

Recently, while eating a wholesome breakfast of 100% bran flakes, my father had a spiritual moment: angels sang, his heart was pierced, he might have levitated for a while. God spoke to him.

(OK, I made that up, not about the interview with God—about the bran flakes. In the true story—the one my father tells on his website—this moment happened in Rome and it was dinner. This suits my father, Rome sounds (to him) lush, exotic. It implies wealth and ease and discernment. I pick a fibre filled breakfast for the same reason, because it suits him also. But I get ahead of myself.)

Let’s assume that it really is true—this lovely, joy filled moment. It could happen. Peter was a fisherman, Theresa was just another rich lady in a convent. By definition a life changing moment changes your life. So, how did it change his life?

My father stops his career as an Interior Decorator, for which he has some talent, and becomes a Guru, for which he has none. He now sells satsang, an ancient, revered, traditionally free form of teachings imparted by a master to his disciples.

Part II

Up until this point my father’s ‘spiritual background’ was a hodgepodge of New Age crap. When ‘everyone’ sat in hot tubs, he sat and soaked. And when everyone ‘re-birthed’, then he too was ‘re-birthed’. Other fathers wrote of baseball or politics (Watergate in this case), but not my dad, nope, he put prune-like fingers to paper and before he got too stoned on the home-grown weed he wrote of deeply felt yet vaguely held experiences.

And I joined him. When my father took EST I took baby EST. (You draw pictures in the morning, then you get brain-washed in the afternoon.)

The next big group was the Sedona Method, a Hindu/Buddhist/land scam, whose copyrighted idea was ‘the Release Method.’ Briefly: give the group all your money and then life will be just peachy—especially when the world falls apart (sometime around 2000).

Part III

You should know that our faces—my father’s and mine—are nearly identical; we appear to be the same person at different ages.

The plastic surgery started when I was twenty and he was forty-one.

I want to look like myself—only younger.

But, that would be me.

What’s your point?

Well, I’m myself—only younger—and it’s not that great.

Part VI

We formed the kind of intimacy that people form during intense yet ridiculous encounters. This is ‘friendship’ for narcissists, closeness for people without an inner life. It happens all the time.

We became ‘friends’, not in the sense of, ‘Hey buddy, let’s go fishing,’ but close enough for my father to complain to his eight year old son that, “I’m not there for him.’ He said this so often and so emphatically that in it you are able to trace our history.

The actual statement isn’t, “I’m not there for him.’ Even now, I’m protecting my father. He said, “You don’t love me, not really.”

Here is the history:

At eight and nine I was baffled, so I said nothing.

At ten and eleven I thought I understood, so I answered,

Get out, of course I do.

At thirteen and fourteen he was busy getting divorced.

At fourteen and fifteen I was ugly so he wouldn’t be seen with me.

At sixteen and seventeen I was pretty again, so he restarted our ‘closeness.’ But I wasn’t interested. So I’d say,

“You hungry? There must be ice cream somewhere.”

At eighteen, I didn’t have a mother anymore (she was busy, smoking.) And although I paid for college myself, when my father said,

“You don’t love me, not really.”

I, embarrassingly, burst into tears. Finally, I began to see his pain, but wasn’t adult enough to see the depth of the imposition.

My father, the guru, staged these scenes in public—in restaurants—and he waited until after the food arrived. To fully appreciate the bitchiness you should know that I’m built like a Romanian peasant, when I’m not dragging an ox around I’m very very hungry.

I would take one bite and my father would say,

“You don’t love me, not really.”

And a two hundred pound child in a sweatshirt starts bawling. Worst of all, he has to stop eating.

When I was twenty-three I negotiated.

At twenty-four I read him the riot act.

At twenty-five I left the city and went as far away as I could inside the country. He sent presents. I went back for a visit and he had a psychotic episode. (General themes: ‘lies’ and ‘the devil’). Later, he apologized and I left the country.

Part V

I hope his other disciples are as lucky.

Observations, After