AsiTis for. By exclusivity I don't mean that we stop reading other books or going to classical er gic concerts, or that if we go to see another blues concert besides Shri that we're having an affair or something like that.” Everyone laughed. “Although I do expect all Madents to have all of the music of all of the bands that we have produced. It’s justa sign of willingness to support the community in whatevet Woy we can. But as we become snore involved in wanting to be a student of this school, I expect to see more exclusivity. That means if you were a sannyasin, a student of Osho Rajneesh, but you're not anymore nd you'te looking for a new teacher, sooner oF later, | want the malai” Sporadic laughter sprang from those who knew that all Rajneesh sannyasins had a mala with Osho's picture onit. ‘Twas in Quebec at Eric's ashram, Mangalam. a few months ago. There was a woman there who had a mala from Siddha Yoga, Muktananda's organization, and a bracelet from ‘Aetmachi. She came up to me during one of the breaks and said, Can I have a mantra?’ I aan Absolutely not! For you it's just another souventr ke you buy at the circus.’ So to gget materials, or formal practices, I have 10 see 8 certain kind of sincerity, which, Louis, you've indicated. Then people have to ask ‘or it, Sometimes they get it, sometimes they yen't: But I don't give anything away unasked for. ‘All the people who have malas that you see, Inever gave any of those without having been asked, Does that address the ques- tion?” Louis nodded yes. "To take up time until ten-thirty—which i time to at! Idon’t know how some of you French women stay so thin in this country. We come ovet here and in four months we g0 Beck to America.” Lee imitated being fat, spread his arms out if over a huge belly and puffed his cheeks out. Once again he was poking fun at another form of body hatred— aeafear of fat, "You don't eat—that's how you do it! T watch you take one tomato and a little piece of goat cheese, one little slice of sausages PF thin slice of bread. People sit theresind watch us!” His eyes got big as if in shock at see's such a sight. “A couple of years ago we were being hosted and it was salmon season; our hosts served these beautiful litte slices of raw salmon with lemon, Tn America when we eat fish servvat these frozen white fish—terrible stuff! It comes ont of the ocean, so we call it fish! You can imagine, raw salmon is really a treat. So we walked in and saw it. It was just an appetizer to the meal—we were supposed t0 just take one or two slices—but Lee and the gang came inand everybody looked at the raw’ salmon, then they looked at me like, Raw Be mon! What should we do?'I wanted to make sure there wasa little left for the French, co L only took six pieces, just to start with! That was the go-ahead for the Americans, so spat the salmon plates were decimated —they looked like a war area! You know, the host eee was very polite, she came out and looked at the ‘salmon, you could just see the pupils Of her eyes dilate. She was very sweet and poli cra always wonder when we go to these houses and they se" these mountains of food__weeks worth of food! I wonder what they do ‘with all of it, because I know people Tike to go shopping and buy fresh food everyday. ! feel responsible to do my part and finish iroff! So if any of you ever host us, remember!” Lee chuckled before he said the next tivfence. “If you want anything leftover, don't serve it” Everyone was laughing hard at this point. Lee wiped tears out of his eyes from. Jatighing so hard. “Okay—I'm not sure howe got into that, but ... im not exaggerating, by the way. ‘Loe began to tell the story of how he realized that Yos! Ramsuratkumar was his teacher. By 1980 and 1981 Lee had ‘started to send Yogi Ramsuratkumar letters and poems of Aevotion. He then told the whole story of the 1986 trip to India with twenty-one people, 502AUGUST 1999 who he took to meet his master, Yogi Ramsuratkumar. “So we got to India in 1986, and when we got there Yogi Ramsuratkumar didn’t rec- ognize me. I'd been writing to Him for six years, and when I was there in 1979 I had already dedicated a book to Him. That story is the most miraculous of all, but I won't tell that this morning—perhaps at the next seminar! But seriously folks, I had the book with me in 1979 and He saw it and saw the dedication to Him and He praised the book over and over. So I figured He knew who I was. But in 1986 He didn’t remember me—teally! This was kind of disturbing, to put it mildly...” “So we went back to the States, the Work continued to go on, and two years later I got an invitation from one of his devotees, somebody I didn't know in southern India, invit- ing me to Yogi Ramsuratkumar's birthday celebration in Nagercoil. He wouldn't be there because He never leaves Tiruvannamalai. I didn’t know how this man had gotten my address in America, it was all very strange, but somehow significant. I wrote back and said that I would come. I found out when I got there that not only was I supposed to be the keynote speaker at the Jayanthi Celebration, but the way that he had gotten my address was very interesting. “Yogi Ramsuratkumar in His years on the streets collected many things. He had these big burlap bags, about a cubic meter, full of garbage and strings and rubber bands and newspapers and all kinds of things. He gave this man in southern India one of these big bags and said, ‘Don't open this for seven days, and then you can do what you want with it’ After seven days he opened it up and he couldn't find anything in the bag of any significance to him except a bunch of envelopes with my name on them. He went back to Yogi Ramsuratkumar and said, ‘I don’t know why you gave me the bag—this is all I found.’ And Yogi Ramsuratkumar said, ‘Invite this man to your celebration and he will come. “When I got there and found that out I was pleased, of course. I went back to see Yogi Ramsuratkumar in Tiruvannamalai, and there was a recognition that occurred. Since then Ive been returning to India on a regular basis to see Him, and I keep hoping every year that He'll continue to remember me!” Lee laughed. “So whenever I have a personal inter- action with Yogi Ramsuratkumar, I don’t consciously analyze it and try to figure itall out, but elements of it continue to surface into consciousness to reveal different levels of trans- mission, of meaning, The pivotal point of this whole story, at least this morning, is when He said, I know what you want, Lee. Go find a guru, go find a master. There are lots of them in India. This Beggar is not a guru.’ Of course in my own informal use of language Icall Yogi Ramsuratkumar my Master, my Guru, my Teacher. I use lots of words to refer to Him. But at the same time this interaction with Him has caused a very searching look at what distinctions there are between a saint, a guru, a master, and Yogi Ramsuratkumar, who calls Himself a Beggar and a Madman. It always seems to me that one of my functions is as a revealer of information and a ‘communicator of knowledge, information, data. For those of you who have looked on the book table in the back there is book after book, the Study Manuals—all of this is the transmission of information. In the East there is a several thousand-year-old tradition of guru/disciple relationship, or of master/ apprentice relationship. Not just in India, butin China, of course, which has a very ancient culture, and in other Eastern cultures. But in the West we are still very young in the wisdom and laws and protocol of the guru/dis- ciple process. This is true even though many of us have an intuitive response to it— obviously, from the literally hundreds of thousands of Westerners who have gone to 503,asinis India or Japan with a very instinctual sense of what the; that. So I've always seen part of my role as an educator. xy would find and the value of “Another aspect of this function is that lam a representative of Yogi Ramsuratkumar sn the West. Imnot one of these gurus who loves everybody. Actually people are sort of maddening to me—they re inappropriate and loud and aggress: 7% and needy and intru- five. They are extremely indiscreet. As a representative of You! Ramsuratkumar, it is not my function to invite Westerners to visit Him- God forbid! Many do, of course. Many Europeans have visited Yogi Ramsuratkumar because hey 1 been to one of my semi- ars Dut that isn’t my purpose or desire. Ifs to bring His Influence His Blessing Power, His Presence to the West. He aaid once to one of his closest devotees, ‘This Beggar will betray yout What He aster, if you mistake the was saying was that if you look to the physical body of the m ody of the master for the source of the Influence, the Blessing Power, the Presence, then you will be betrayed because the body of the master s mortal and the body will die at one point. So you have to resort to the teaching as it 6 represented by the master’s physical presence, but not to identify the master's body with the teaching. This is a very important Pouce. The degree to which Lee Lozowick is transparent to, of surrendered to, Yogi Rameuratkumar—or maybe we could say resonant to oF empathetic with Yogi Rammcuratkumnar_—the more fully I represent His Presence wherever | 80 IfTam seventy percent in resonance with Him, then I represent His Presence seventy percent. Obviously the aim is to be one hundred percent. “in this process of considering what my function is as a teacher, the form that has been given of guru and disciple is very absolute, Ive really struggled with it for years aid this is what's been given, this is what is. It is the reflection of the lineage; it has an Objective value and it gets brought to the West. At the same time, what are the functions coe vated with this form? Educator, cteator of circumstance in which people can experi- ence Reality, and representative of Yogi Ramsuratkumar. Conduit for His Blessing Force She influence, His wisdom, And how do all those things relate to who He is? The Divine Beggar, the Madman? clear that His function and my function are very different. Yori Ramsuratkumar doesn't educate, He doesn't write, He doesn’t discourse and discuss He does communi- tate brilliantly, but He doesn’t explain His communications in a linear way. He may have many functions, but essentially He is a Beggar. It's clear {9 that amongst my many Fearcions, that’s not my primary function. Whether it ever will be oF not, who knows? pont neademic: | really have no idea. But as things stand now, that's His function, not vhine.{ don't have the being for it He does. Whatever my students attribute to me, posi- tively,” Lee chuckled self-deprecatingly, “in the same way they attribute things to me negatively. My impracticality and so on my stucents view fault of mine, particularly these who are especially practical. But in any event, the divine qualities that are attrib- not io me are Him, coming through me. To whatever degree this creat has being, Tee touched his chest, “is the result of my association with Yogi Ramsuratkumar. It is puilding over time. But its nowhere near the Being of Yogi Ramsuratkumar, nowhere near. So it seems like in the function of a Beggar, or the other name He calls Himself, Madman, there isa tremendous tradition. In the field of Sufism, for ‘example, there is the wacttlom of the divine madman, which would be interesting to discuss af sche point. In the Middle Ages there was a group of Christians called the ‘ools for God. They weren't 504