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Rising Sun II
Spiritual Masters and the Art of Meditation
A Behind the Scenes Look at a Meditation Retreat on Ojai’s Auspicious Sulphur Mountain
by Alyson Dutch
Past the sleepy, 4 mile square town of Santa Paula, past one of America's original oil wells and up a one lane road on Sulphur Mountain, sits a place called Meher Mount. Many years ago, on this piece of land, a woman named Agnes Baron, hosted the most revered and highest spiritual superstar of India—a man named Meher Baba. The land has since born his name and serves as a ecumenical retreat center. However, one of the eight retreat centers in Ojai and many around the world, this place is no ordinary Kumbaya weekend campsite. Those of the spiritual persuasion will describe this place as one of the most auspicious in North America because it is "closest, energetically, to the other plane." It is just this quality that attracted one of America’s spiritual superstars here to host his annual summer retreat. Mark Griffin is a native San Franciscan, who is the protégé of a similarly revered and famous yogi named Muktananda. Griffin, Muktananda and Meher are all part of what is called the "Siddha lineage."
Beginning on the day of the Solstice (the longest day of the year and before organized religion, the highest holy day of the year), Griffin arrived with 40 devotees mostly from Southern California and some from as far away as Seattle, San Francisco and New Mexico. The group erected a 30' x 60' tent on the open land overlooking the hills of Ojai (complete with an outdoor kitchen including refrigerators) and entered into a 72-hour meditation retreat.
"The air is thin here," (even though the physical location of the land is maybe 500 feet above sea level) Griffin says during a Thursday night orientation lit by only a single candle. Griffin is surrounded by cross legged meditators sitting in the flaxen mowed grass, some in lawn chairs. He further explains that Meher Mount is a place where enlightenment can happen—and because the "fabric is worn thin" here, it is more probable that the divine spark within any of us could finally permeate our physical body and mind to shuttle us off to the Hindu version of “heaven” and perhaps to the level of enlightenment where he lives.
While taking a tour of Meher Mount's library, one learns that Meher Baba (born: 25 February 1894) was the Hindu "avatar" of our age. The text on a wall that describes his life uses capitol "H" when referring to “Him” and equates his spiritual maturation akin to Jesus, Mohammed and Buddha. When asking one of the retreatants about Baba (or "Father"), she tips her straw hat, with a brooch featuring "His" photo on the ribbon. The gal, an executive from LA's highest-ranking entertainment law firm who drove her Porsche to Meher Mount says, "Baba was known as a literal divination of God."
Interestingly enough, Mark Griffin, founder of a meditation organization in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle and New Mexico is not considered an Avatar, but has achieved a very high level of enlightenment, known as "Samahdi." In LA, where many fancy themselves as a guru of this or that, Griffin is said to be the "real thing." Griffin studied with Bhagavan Muktananda until his Mahasamadhi (passing) in 1982 and excelled so quickly that he became one of a few Americans to carry on the tradition of Shaktipat (igniting the divine spark within). The rigorous training that Griffin went through with his teacher far surpasses the eleven hours a day of meditation that this group will endure over the weekend. As he hurdled toward a level of attention worthy to become the teacher he is now, he meditated for years at a time.
Griffin's Hard Light Meditation Center has a small, but very devoted group of 50 to 75 students. "One of the reasons that I love Mark," said the owner of a PR firm in LA, "is that he gives a sort of a fast track to enlightenment." Although it might seem fitting to say that an American dreamt up such a concept, it was actually the basis of Muktananada's work and very unusual for an Indian spiritual teacher. "Traditionally, the teacher and student work together for many, many years," said a close student of Griffin's and an avid spiritual academic. "Often, a student will be imbued with 'shaktipat' which is sort of like an energetic blessing that opens the right channels of the student’s mind to receive and experience an automatic enlightenment." Whether the student can actually realize it and use it in this life is where the training comes in. Working with Griffin, students learn how to recognize and “burn off” karma. When our karma is finally exhausted, enlightenment occurs. Similar to the Catholic rite of confession which ritualistically wipes the slate clean for awhile to receive the full blessing of God, the Hindus believe that karma must be burned off—to jump to the next level. In Catholic-ese, this is similar to the concept of everlasting life or heaven.
That evening at the orientation, the land's caretakers warn of rattlesnakes and urge that retreatants use their flashlights to avoid turning their ankles in gopher holes. They end on a note that sends a silent grumble through the crowd when they ask that the tents that were pitched under the 500 year old "Meher Baba Tree" be moved. The property withstood a fire in 1985, which burned down the house and other trees, but saved a gargantuan oak, that shelters a memorial to Baba and to Agnes Baron. Though the property has been rented by Hard Light for four days, tourists continue to visit Meher Mount to see the Baba Tree and might find an encampment under it tantamount to a tent city in the Taj Mahal.
As the weekend progresses, the group "sits" with Griffin from 5-6 a.m. 9-11, 2:30–6:30 and again from 8:30–10:00. It is indeed a meditation marathon. Some wiggle and look for their water bottles every 20 minutes, other more seasoned meditators sit blissfully, soaking up the “transmissions” that Griffin provides silently.
Griffin, a 50-year old large man with a long curly ponytail sits at the front of the tent, in what seems an active trance. He prays silently, but his lips move unintelligibly. In the a.m., he launches into a fascinating dissertation that explains the dissonance between being human and being enlightened. He describes in utter, complicated detail how the "ocean of consciousness" (or God in Christian-ese) lives in a body and how it is activated through meditation. He instructs how to meditate to achieve this purpose. As the "guru" it is his job to help each student along by energetically showing them the way. It's sort of like a spiritual yellow brick road, but the man behind the curtain is NOT an imposter.
With the recent proliferation of adventure travel, a meditation retreat such as this certainly qualifies. Hard Light holds these retreats each summer at various retreat centers—this year it was Meher Mount. In years past it’s held in the High Sierras or Santa Cruz.
Though the retreatants are supposed to remain silent, there are many interesting conversations throughout the weekend that center around Griffin's two-hour discourse about a deity named "Devi," and the personification of her ten arms, each of which are goddesses in their own right. After the teaching, an extemporaneous half hour pause and a 40-minute meditation, the group plays "follow the leader" on a walking meditation. At dinner over stuffed bell peppers, baked tofu and bruscetta, the conversation finally turns to bursts of laughter over the retreatants former high school incarnations.
All in all, spending 12-14 hours a day "contemplating your belly button" as Archie Bunker would have described it is no easy task. Each participant, no matter how seasoned a meditator struggles with bad cases of "monkey mind" and some admit that they don't want to become enlightened. T wo women (one a Ph.D. of organizational development and an author on the subject) are heard sharing that they "simply want to learn to live this life more mindfully and richly—forget the enlightenment!" as they roll their eyes knowing that it would be too difficult to attain this.
In between teachings, Griffin holds question and answer sessions in the tent—or "hall" as the structure is referred to. Called “satsang,” the students ask personal questions about how they see their lives coming together or in many cases seeming to fall apart. "A spiritual life reveals to us the cycles of the Samskaric circle." says Griffin with a knowing nod and growing smile of understanding. The group joins Griffin in affirming they all can relate to the question and everyone laughs together. Griffin goes on to explain that this “falling apart” is really a “purification” and a necessary experience for every human to experience in their average 84,000 incarnations before reaching enlightenment.
After each session, the group circles the tent in a single file line three times and upon returning, does the same thing. The movement signifies keeping a "warmth" or strength of energetic intention around this temporary place of teaching. Most walk silently, anxious to get to the next meal, and some talk. Two women discuss the seeming infinite amount of names that Griffin imparts about every state of being and amazing quantification the Hindus seem to have figured. "Sometimes I just sit there think to myself that he just makes this all up," says one pixie blond. "How the heck does he come up with numbers like 84,000 lives before we become enlightened?!" The other more seasoned redhead explains that from her studies in India that many of the teachers spend so much time studying meditation and the process of enlightenment that they almost have nothing else to do, so of course, they come up with names for everything. The blonde responds that the organized large religions of the world must have done everything they could to “dumb this down” and simplify, thus introducing just ONE major prophet and only 12 disciples, for example. “That could be true,” the redhead says as they head toward the lunch tent.
What does it take to put something like this together? High on meditation, low on activity, a Hard Light retreat does not include any ropes classes, trust falls or the like. It requires a high degree of patient focus and the ability to sit still. With much more ritual than a Catholic Mass on Christmas Day, the Hard Light prep team first erects the tent and stations a chair, rug, table, flowers and decorative fabric hangings of various spiritual significance throughout the tent. Griffin sits at the front. A “puja table” stands opposite Griffin at the back of the tent. Forty pounds of rice, enough saffron to choke a horse, endless sticks of incense, (this batch that reminds me of the shampoo I used as a kid), candles, and frankincense are amongst some of the buckets of ritual tools used in plenty. A very staining red powder (traditional Indian kum-kum) is used to dot the forehead of each retreatant every morning. Lots of coconuts are also used. Every morning, Griffin says prayers over the puja table, which has been topped with a copper bowl and tied with significantly colored threads. Two 20-pound bags of rice are poured over the bowl. The rice is a symbol of life. A coconut is placed atop the rice mound and Griffin dips his finger into the red powder and imprints a red dot, similar to what one would see on a married Indian women's forehead onto the coconut. Flowers flank the puja table; rose water is splashed into the offering. The significance of this table is not to worship the coconut or befriend it as Tom Hanks did of his coconut in the film "Cast Away," but it serves as a symbol of the group honoring the Infinite Divine, or "Ishvara" as seen through these chosen elements of food stuffs. Griffin then goes through the tent applying a red dot on all the participants' foreheads. The dots symbolize the Divine connection of all the retreatants who are here to focus on God and how it shows up in them for the next three days. Griffin returns to his chair and applies a dot to his forehead as well.
And so it goes for three days. On Sunday night, Griffin explains that the retreat is drawing to a close and that tomorrow morning, he will be giving final blessings and helping each student to "close themself up" so they can "reenter into the world." He does this silently and through a beautiful ritual where he invites each student up to the front of the tent and gives them a mango and t-shirt with an "Om symbol" on the front. The t-shirt is symbolic of the retreat where the focus was on what is called "the Om point." The Om point is the place between the absolute nature of God and what Griffin describes as the "throb of creation" or Ishvara.
After this weekend, it becomes obvious, that this tradition does not subscribe to the Adam and Eve, and seven-day creation theory.
The retreatants share breakfast and then begin to pack up their tents and pack their cars. The large tent is dissembled and all the giant woks, refrigerators and kitchen tools are packed into trucks.
As I leave, I take care to remain grounded and focus on driving. Last time I left this retreat, I felt like Johnny Depp in “Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas” and really had a difficult time doing more than one thing at a time. I think that I insisted on talking to my boyfriend on my cell phone all the way home on the 5 hour drive from Santa Cruz. This time, I stop at a ranch on the way out of Ojai to pick up a brown bag of freshly picked apricots on the side of the road. Each bag is marked with "$3" on the side; I pick the most fragrant and leave a $5 dollar bill. I don't have the change and don't care. I'm happy to be on my way home and hear the radio again, yet I find myself yearning for the protection and incredible peace I felt while in retreat. As I descend into the Santa Paula valley and pass that old oil well, I feel like I've slipped out of a womb. I feel warm, peaceful and satiated. I dare to check my voicemail and begin to rearrange my attention to focus on clients who have called over the weekend and my boyfriend who is waiting to meet me for dinner. And so it goes, until next summer, when I will do it all over again.
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