Am I crazy to think that the homeless situation has never been approached logically?
Let us just change our tack and consider the homeless to be human and worthy of dignity. That will change everything. Why should they not have their tents? Why should they not have plumbing. In every South American city there are tent cities, shacks, hovels. There are streets, there is an economy. Why punish these people constantly? Just start to treat them as another level of our economic system. They produce something. That can be honored.
Give them a tent city.
Give plumbing for showers and laundry. Make it outdoor plumbing, that's ok. Let them have toilets.
Where is the problem with this? Already they have to pee, they will do it somewhere, if you give the toilets, you will control where they pee. Giving out $50 and $200 citations to people who cannot pay them does not solve anything.
Then, set up an alternative scrip. Make Austin dollars. Pay the homeless to do some work on the city, clean up the parks, make things beautiful again. Let them buy the food you are handing out now for free with their new scrip. Give them their own economy. What would be so hard about this?
Let them connect with each other. Give them telephones where they can get incoming phone calls. Let people find them. At least make it easier for homeless children to connect and inform relatives or friends that they are ok.
Set up this currency and then let people work for it. Then let them buy things for this currency, things that you are now doling out. Turn it into a real alternative economy. Let people spend that money then as they please. No one has to sanction moonshine. Just let people spend their own money. People are going to be transient. Why can't we live with that finally?
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Today
This morning I came out of the shelter after breakfast and saw Maurice sitting there. Maurice is a black man. Something about him strikes me always. I think it is his open heart. He is simple. I feel a purity about him. I am well-dressed today. I feel well-dressed these days mostly. It is just grace. I feel that I don't look like a homeless person. I don't let myself go. Others in shelter don't seem to care much about how they walk around. I wonder if they think I feel superior to them. I wonder if I do sometimes.
I came out and I saw Maurice and went and greeted him, first in French, because I think he is French for some reason, then in German, then in English. I don't know why. He said he was tired. I said, "Oh". He had been up all night. "Why?" He didn't get a room at the shelter last night, so he was walking the streets. Here is a young man who does not look at all like someone you would think of as a homeless person. Immediately I felt a kind of shame. I was well rested. I had bathed, washed my clothes, eaten. I had everything. I was in good shape. I am not thinking of all the Maurices when I am in good shape. I left him with some words like, "have a nice shower." Of all things! It seemed crass of me. I went on and then almost turned back. I wanted to speak to him more, ask him about his experience of the night in the streets of Austin. Then I said, "No, I have turned down this ally. I will not go back. I will see him perhaps another time." I was shocked at my own behavior. Because, now that I am in a building, now that I have a place to go every day, I don't think any more about the others who don't.
I went walking then and went down to the river. There I found that the famous river walk of Austin is polluted very much with human piss. It stinks near the bridges. I saw so and so many homeless people asleep on the ground. I did not want to walk under the bridge because of the stink of it. I went up and around on the street instead. Finally I sat and chanted the Gita. That brought at least some feeling of unattachment. Walking I saw a man, I heard him actually. He had a 5 gallon plastic bucket around his neck like a drum and he was drumming and clicking with sticks. He was good. Again I marvel at the talent I see roaming around the streets.
After chanting I wanted to go up to the clinic. I went there but the door was closed. So I went to the ER and used the bathroom, then I left. I went down to the bridge. There is a place at the end of 6th Street under I35 where they hold a church service every Sunday for the homeless. They have some clothing there, coffee or lemonade, and some sweet roles. I felt hungry. I went and spoke to the women there. They were not ready yet. I think at first they did not also think I was homeless. I look too good to be homeless. I asked them if they needed any help. No, they said, twice. There is no cross-over. We are in two categories, the helpers and the helped. And never the twain shall meet.
I saw other people I know there. I had my cinnamon role and lemonade and then left with Heather, the woman from the "Sally" single women's dorm who has cancer. She is all red, her neck is stiff. She complains a lot.
I saw James, who is and Ex of Heather. He lives near Austin community college in the woods in a tent. He is content with very little. He also told me all about his medical condition. It is a preoccupation of the homeless, their doctors and meds, ops and so on.
I didn't know what to do today. I didn't want to go into the ARCH to use the computer. I stayed out and went to the park. There I started to write this story. but it is not going as well as it was in the morning. In the morning there was a totally different feeling. Now it feels as if it is coming from the mental. As is this whole thing, as well. Just a report, no soul in it.
_______
what I really wanted to say the whole time. I feel that there is no sense in all this. Yesterday I was in the park and watching why uniformed cops in shorts on bicycles with those dinosaur pointed ptheradactyl helmets gave homeless people $200 citations for sleeping in the park.
I think, this is not logical. There has to be a way to get this problem to some resolution. I spoke to James. I told him, I have to find the right person or people to hear this.
What needs to happen is something else. they have this wonderful river walk which is completely spoiled. They are just punishing, punishing, punishing the homeless. Why don't they do some other thing?
Why don't they make a camp somewhere where homeless people can go and live. For all I care they could live outside in tent cities. Then at least it would be all in one spot, contained as it were. Then the people could all focus their efforts in one area. Why don't they start some public works projects and try to involve transient people in these a la Woergl? They could develop their own currency for this project.
I have to set up some kind of a plan and try to get someone to look it over.
Make a tent city. Get businesses to donate. Set up a local currency to pay these people for their work. Set up little shops for them to trade with each other using that local scrip note.
Set up plumbing, where people can wash, keep clean, have some dignity, do their laundry.
Why don't we want to give dignity to the homeless? Well, we have to have something to scare the young people into the army so that we can have our wars, don't we? Otherwise, big biz would no longer rule.
I stepped into the Presbyterian church for a service here on 8th street this morning. I just walked in. They have all this talk about equality, etc. It seems all empty to me. the only thing I really liked was to sing the songs. I found out again this morning, I have a good voice and I love to sing, even if it is these bogus christian hymns.
In the prayer requests, a lot of people who have cancer or who have lost relatives and notably, someone who is worried about their 15 year old sick cat. They mentioned the homeless once, too. The sick cat got more air time, though.
It would be so easy to solve this homeless problem, so easy! Just finally decide that all human life deserves dignity. That is all there is to it. But no, we have to deny dignity in order to scare others, apparently, otherwise we will not have enough cannon fodder. They also prayed for the troops to come homes soon. If they only knew...
and the whole time today I think of Ashton... OM
I came out and I saw Maurice and went and greeted him, first in French, because I think he is French for some reason, then in German, then in English. I don't know why. He said he was tired. I said, "Oh". He had been up all night. "Why?" He didn't get a room at the shelter last night, so he was walking the streets. Here is a young man who does not look at all like someone you would think of as a homeless person. Immediately I felt a kind of shame. I was well rested. I had bathed, washed my clothes, eaten. I had everything. I was in good shape. I am not thinking of all the Maurices when I am in good shape. I left him with some words like, "have a nice shower." Of all things! It seemed crass of me. I went on and then almost turned back. I wanted to speak to him more, ask him about his experience of the night in the streets of Austin. Then I said, "No, I have turned down this ally. I will not go back. I will see him perhaps another time." I was shocked at my own behavior. Because, now that I am in a building, now that I have a place to go every day, I don't think any more about the others who don't.
I went walking then and went down to the river. There I found that the famous river walk of Austin is polluted very much with human piss. It stinks near the bridges. I saw so and so many homeless people asleep on the ground. I did not want to walk under the bridge because of the stink of it. I went up and around on the street instead. Finally I sat and chanted the Gita. That brought at least some feeling of unattachment. Walking I saw a man, I heard him actually. He had a 5 gallon plastic bucket around his neck like a drum and he was drumming and clicking with sticks. He was good. Again I marvel at the talent I see roaming around the streets.
After chanting I wanted to go up to the clinic. I went there but the door was closed. So I went to the ER and used the bathroom, then I left. I went down to the bridge. There is a place at the end of 6th Street under I35 where they hold a church service every Sunday for the homeless. They have some clothing there, coffee or lemonade, and some sweet roles. I felt hungry. I went and spoke to the women there. They were not ready yet. I think at first they did not also think I was homeless. I look too good to be homeless. I asked them if they needed any help. No, they said, twice. There is no cross-over. We are in two categories, the helpers and the helped. And never the twain shall meet.
I saw other people I know there. I had my cinnamon role and lemonade and then left with Heather, the woman from the "Sally" single women's dorm who has cancer. She is all red, her neck is stiff. She complains a lot.
I saw James, who is and Ex of Heather. He lives near Austin community college in the woods in a tent. He is content with very little. He also told me all about his medical condition. It is a preoccupation of the homeless, their doctors and meds, ops and so on.
I didn't know what to do today. I didn't want to go into the ARCH to use the computer. I stayed out and went to the park. There I started to write this story. but it is not going as well as it was in the morning. In the morning there was a totally different feeling. Now it feels as if it is coming from the mental. As is this whole thing, as well. Just a report, no soul in it.
_______
what I really wanted to say the whole time. I feel that there is no sense in all this. Yesterday I was in the park and watching why uniformed cops in shorts on bicycles with those dinosaur pointed ptheradactyl helmets gave homeless people $200 citations for sleeping in the park.
I think, this is not logical. There has to be a way to get this problem to some resolution. I spoke to James. I told him, I have to find the right person or people to hear this.
What needs to happen is something else. they have this wonderful river walk which is completely spoiled. They are just punishing, punishing, punishing the homeless. Why don't they do some other thing?
Why don't they make a camp somewhere where homeless people can go and live. For all I care they could live outside in tent cities. Then at least it would be all in one spot, contained as it were. Then the people could all focus their efforts in one area. Why don't they start some public works projects and try to involve transient people in these a la Woergl? They could develop their own currency for this project.
I have to set up some kind of a plan and try to get someone to look it over.
Make a tent city. Get businesses to donate. Set up a local currency to pay these people for their work. Set up little shops for them to trade with each other using that local scrip note.
Set up plumbing, where people can wash, keep clean, have some dignity, do their laundry.
Why don't we want to give dignity to the homeless? Well, we have to have something to scare the young people into the army so that we can have our wars, don't we? Otherwise, big biz would no longer rule.
I stepped into the Presbyterian church for a service here on 8th street this morning. I just walked in. They have all this talk about equality, etc. It seems all empty to me. the only thing I really liked was to sing the songs. I found out again this morning, I have a good voice and I love to sing, even if it is these bogus christian hymns.
In the prayer requests, a lot of people who have cancer or who have lost relatives and notably, someone who is worried about their 15 year old sick cat. They mentioned the homeless once, too. The sick cat got more air time, though.
It would be so easy to solve this homeless problem, so easy! Just finally decide that all human life deserves dignity. That is all there is to it. But no, we have to deny dignity in order to scare others, apparently, otherwise we will not have enough cannon fodder. They also prayed for the troops to come homes soon. If they only knew...
and the whole time today I think of Ashton... OM
Infinity
The story, any story, never has a beginning, nor can it have an end. Only the words slip in and out. Only these terms we use to describe some thing we hear, feel, see, do; ostensibly. That's what we use to describe the situation, for others to emulate, for them to see it in their minds, prehaps to feel it in their soul, but never for them to experience for themselves, for a story is not for everyone to live. Only the teller lives it, the others experience only the storyteller or some dry paper left by him, cold, a leaf on the ground. Either it has pretty colors, veins, twigs, holes, bites, or perhaps it is entirely green, not yet dead -- but in any case useless for anything except sense enjoyment -- a momentary diversion. Food for thought? Only for those who chew and digest, not for those who chug it down, swallowing whole, bent on it, out for the taste.
Stories are only really useful to those who are intent on creating their own history, unique, who can surrender and follow, who can surrender and lead.
And while I am writing this down, on these papers, from the ER, on the back, for want of a notebook to keep it in, and re-reading what has been started there, I see, I, the teller, am similarly bent, upon enjoying the tale before it's even told. That is my weakness. Self-regarding ego, Mother calls it. But let us just see if I can become so engrossed in the saga. Let us see if memory will finally serve and no longer simply divert my whole system down useless pathways, see if it will finally do its job, respond to its true calling and present something that we could very nearly describe as an accurate account. So much has been forgotten already, because the story moves on and on and to pick up the threads means necessarily to drop still more and others. The result of this piecework is a distorted tapestry, some threads leading here and there, criss-crossing and disordered, or rather ordered by another coherence, a separate reason to normal human logic.
But finally, waht is this story and why do I prather on? It is love. Love motivates me to begin it. Love I felt? No, it is the love at the core of my being, the love that touched me, the love that I am, where I finally come to rest in the Self. That love wants to be told finally. And so, without beginning or end we fall in here and there, and eventually drift out.
What happened recently was just another in a line of the fantastic, dramatic and unfathomables, wonderful for the self in the moment, obscene or ugly seen out of context, as any outsider might.
It's so hard to do it any justice at all without giving so much background -- and nothing helps here, because all that background is just so much the same retelling and rehashing. There is no beginning; there is no end. There is only the endless journey of the soul.
Stories are only really useful to those who are intent on creating their own history, unique, who can surrender and follow, who can surrender and lead.
And while I am writing this down, on these papers, from the ER, on the back, for want of a notebook to keep it in, and re-reading what has been started there, I see, I, the teller, am similarly bent, upon enjoying the tale before it's even told. That is my weakness. Self-regarding ego, Mother calls it. But let us just see if I can become so engrossed in the saga. Let us see if memory will finally serve and no longer simply divert my whole system down useless pathways, see if it will finally do its job, respond to its true calling and present something that we could very nearly describe as an accurate account. So much has been forgotten already, because the story moves on and on and to pick up the threads means necessarily to drop still more and others. The result of this piecework is a distorted tapestry, some threads leading here and there, criss-crossing and disordered, or rather ordered by another coherence, a separate reason to normal human logic.
But finally, waht is this story and why do I prather on? It is love. Love motivates me to begin it. Love I felt? No, it is the love at the core of my being, the love that touched me, the love that I am, where I finally come to rest in the Self. That love wants to be told finally. And so, without beginning or end we fall in here and there, and eventually drift out.
What happened recently was just another in a line of the fantastic, dramatic and unfathomables, wonderful for the self in the moment, obscene or ugly seen out of context, as any outsider might.
It's so hard to do it any justice at all without giving so much background -- and nothing helps here, because all that background is just so much the same retelling and rehashing. There is no beginning; there is no end. There is only the endless journey of the soul.
Saturday, July 24, 2010
It's been a week
Today it's a week in Austin. Again in the night I slept in this dorm. The light is just above my head, the one that is always on. I don't complain. I try not to complain about anything. I feel it is totally against the truth to complain. My whole body itches. I have a rash. The medicine I used is supposed to take care of this, but it will take up to 14 days to take affect.
I slept again so long. In the night I woke up around 12:30a.m. There were two women up. They were talking. I spoke to them. The one woman was giving some tips about different things that are available for homeless people. So, I wrote down some telephone numbers. Then I went back to bed. There is nothing else to do. I had gone up to the shelter at around 4:40 p.m. and someone whisked me up to the dining room and I ate. I was not sure what was going on, but I tried to just do what I was told. The normal meal is at 5:00. I was confused, but Mother sent this person to get me into the dining early. I was hungry, too. Then I went to bed and slept. I thought I should not go to bed that early. Then I rationalized. I said, "I feel like sleeping. I should do what the body wants." This was probably not true. I don't know. I slept again after being up. I slept to 5:30 a.m. without really waking up in between.
I have been bombarded with so many chemicals and so much stress this week. I felt like sleeping. It is just to relieve the stress perhaps. Or I didn't know what else to do. I spent most of the day yesterday looking for work.
Then when I woke up in the night I realized, I had forgotten to sign in at the shelter. Every day at 7:00 p.m. we have to sign the roster. I had slept through it. That is not good. Again, Mother does things her way. I don't know why.
I felt then this feeling that the past is taking over again. There is a feeling of being liberated from the past. That was fading and the memory was becoming active. I can feel it. It feels likethis. There is guilt. There is a feeling of being a bad person. There is a feeling that I did something really wrong. Otherwise, whent he feeling of having a past is gone, there is no guilt. There is nothing.
I went down to the river this morning and chanted again. I chanted and was watching the feelings. I was seeing that the feeling that "I am doing this" was coming and going.
Strange, even though I am in such a deep tamasic state, I feel this coming and going. I feel that I am this, then I feel, I am doing nothing. I feel, I am, through Divine Grace, transcending even the feeling of being in tamas. It is, after all, simply a guna. Transcending means all the gunas, apparently, even the deepest tamas.
OM
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
It's Saturday and that is the day where there is so little to do, so little one can do. All the offices of the various agencies are closed. So, I called one of the numbers I got from the woman Debra in the night. It is the toll-free number of Assurance Wireless, a part of Virgin Wireless. They provide handsets and 200 free minutes a month to people who are on government assistance. I suppose for them this is a good deal. If the person uses more than 200 minutes in a month, they have to buy a top-off card at $0.10 per minute to use the phone after that. For people who live hand to mouth, this could mean that they would eventually pay more than they would if they were on a regular plan, that is, if they use the phone a lot.
Well, but anyway, the woman on the phone was really sweet. She sent some papers to me, through fax. I was not sure whether to do this, but this is what she suggested for me to do. So, I did that. Then, I was sitting in the computer room at the ARCH (Austin Resource Center for the Homeless). The man in there who was volunteering, taking care of the computer lab then introduced himself to me when I was walking out. He asked me if I spoke German. He said he was himself German, married to an American. We spoke then in German for several minutes.
He asked me how it came to be that I went to live in Germany and I told him my "tale of woe" or "tale of Poe" as it were. It's that story, that strange tale, how I remembered a past life, without even wanting to, without even believing it ever possible that people live multiple lives, that souls really do embody multiple times.
I kept saying to him, "People think you are (I am) crazy." He kept saying, "No, I don't think so." But I still feel at the end of the day, it alienates people when I tell them the truth. Nevertheless, I told him. I gave him my email and asked him to contact me if he hears of a job. I was there to finish up the online application for McDonald's. That was also a bit strange. I had to keep answering questions to which I had no answer. The answer is, I have never worked much.
That is the strange thing. I feel like I am coming out of a dream. I have never really seriously worked. I have never worked hard. I have never been sincere. I have never been serious about anything. I have been in this state in between everything for so long. But just yesterday I felt like I snapped out of it. I felt, "Ok, just work, just be happy. You can do anything and be happy, as long as you stay in the moment."
I was thinking, and thinking is this thing, it's a habit. I was thinking about the future, about where I might go, whether I will return to India and so on. Finally, I just said, I don't care. I cannot care about this. If indeed I return to India, it won't be tomorrow. It won't be next week. It may be soon, but I will have to work to get there. I have to do something to get myself there. I want to work also. I really and truly want to and I don't care what it is I do for the most part. There are certain jobs I cannot do. There are some that are so difficult and depressing, I suppose. But I think I have to rethink every job opportunity. I have to reconsider every time. There are some things I feel, when I look at the description, that it would just kill me to do that. To sit at a desk all day and do data entry. Yes, I can do that, but it must be limited. I cannot do this for years on end, perhaps. Well, I am in the process of getting very much less choosy than before.
This morning I felt this faith. I felt, "Things will come right. I know it." I keep vascilating between these two states, between the mental, that is somewhere thinking that everything is messed up and I am a terrible person, and this feeling that it is all the gunas anyway, that I have never been a terrible person, just that the gunas are so crazy in my system and I have so little control, because I am so dominated by tamas energy.
Then what happened? I was sitting and dial numbers on the telephone at the ARCH, just to have something to do, something constructive. But in the end, it is just all these help lines, it is just numbers where you are asking for a handout. And I realized, it's Saturday, so there is no point. A couple were sitting there. It was a young black man with acne scarring and a white woman in shorts and tank top with a bra underneith. She kept trying to sit in his lap. At first it seemed he did not want her to sit there. Then she sat again, then he held here there, just like you would hold a child.
At first I felt, Oh, here, these people are so tamasic. Oh, these people must constantly touch each other. But then when I saw the tenderness between these two I realized it is just like two people who are mothering each other. In this case the man was mothering the young woman and was that not what I was doing with this young man? He was like a father to me for those 10 days, was he not?
Why was I attracted to him and why were we moving together? He was, first of all, such an enigma. He was a god. He was a man. He was a boy. He was like my father, he was like my son. He was taking care of me. He was putting me in danger. He was keeping me from danger. He was all of this. He spoke to me the truth. He called me on all the untruth I was doing or speaking. He was so honest with me. He cried openly. He go angry. He was everything. I was so astonished. He was dominant with me. He was submissive also. When what I said or did was not something he could deal with, often he remained silent. He exhibited so many yogic qualities. At the same time he smoked, drank beer, ate meat and had sex. He was everything. I felt like he was Krishna, come to me in a form. He really seemed to be absolutely Divine much of the time.
He loved me without any compunction, even though I made all mistakes and did all kind of nuisance behavior. He treated me like a goddess. He treated me like human when necessary. I sincerely felt his love was real. He stayed with me even though I misbehaved so much.
He seemed to be really guided by something higher than the mental. Often the things he did didnt' seem to make sense to me and I was often trying to control him. That was painful for both of us. I could see that I was really not able to follow his lead. I felt for some time I could worship him just like that. I felt some times I could just do whatever he said, that IF I could follow him, I could come out alright. He seemed to have this perfect instinct. He spoke to people and they responded to him.
Never do people respond to me that way. I was trying to get him to do this or that thing very often. The problem was that my own mental was interfering constantly. At some point I said, "I promise, I see that it is going all wrong when I call the shots. Now I will do only as you say." Still, it was impossible for me to do what he wanted. But had I been able to do these things, the story would have ended much differently.
He was not identified with the body. He was not identified with his age or mine. He did not care. He simply saw something in me and loved that. I asked him about it. I asked him what is it that you see in me? Why do you love me? Why do you think we can stay together? He paused and said then, "I just know because there is no reason. I simply love you."
What broke us up in the end was that I started to pass judgment. I fell into fault-finding. He was simply a Divine being in a human form. I could not hold on to that fact. I kept being embarrassed or saying, "You have to dress like this or that." He wore torn and dirty clothes. But he told me that he never found that people responded to him any differently if he dressed any different. I was trying always to impose my own ideas on him. That is what ended it finally.
OK, so I made all the mistakes. It seems to me so. But then, I said to myself, this is the way Mother has of moving her chess pieces around the board. The whole thing that took place seems so fantastic, so unreal. How is it possible that I would meet such a person and fall in love, or become attracted so that I would leave with him and completely throw everything else away? Looking at every step of the journey, it becomes clear that this is the way things were to be. Mother Prakriti does these things and we have no control. We think we are bad because we do this or that thing or we don't do some other thing. But it is She who is doing Her work always.
I lead the strangest life. For the time I was with this man, all the normal rules were suspended. Everything went according to a totally different rhythm. Everything cooperated in a different way. People gave us money and food, often we did not even ask. We were together for 10 days without any source of income and travelled some thousands of miles without any money. He just had his guitar. He played and sometimes didn't even play and people helped us.
We got to Austin. Then everything went bad. That was when my mind started to take control. Then I left him standing and he went back to where he came from. That was all. And here I am. And the situation is that I arrived here with the clothes on my back and my purse with a toothbrush and some other things, like that.
So, I have gotten some more clothes, like I said. And today I was doing laundry. A man was also doing laundry and he offered me a red T-shirt. I did not want to take it. It was a nice enough shirt, a ladies' T with a nice design on the front, fitted. Then there was another woman, a young black woman. She was going to take the T-shirt and I thought, "Oh, I should have just taken it." I didn't want the woman to take it. I guess I wanted it. Then she turned and said, "Oh, this fits you, this is for you." and she held it up to me and I took it. Then I thanked the man. He had found it somewhere. People leave things everywhere here.
Then, the thing that has been bothering me now these several days is that I have to walk around without any bag to carry my things. I have my purse, but it is full. But I still need a bag to carry a few things with me, like a hat and some papers, etc. For a few days I had been carrying these things in a plastic bag. Then that bag was breaking. Then on the same day, that was when I met the woman at the MLF truck (Mobile Loaves and Fishes). She gave me some new plastic bags. Then I am still carrying allt his stuff around in these plastic bags.
But I said, "Ok, I may be a bag lady now." But I am not identified with this. It is just what is happening now. Then today, I went out of the ARCH. I went and thought, OK, just go to the library. Then I thought, "Why go to the library?" I had debated whether to go. Then I said, "No, I will just go there and do some work, any work." I cannot really apply for jobs yet, because I have no telephone number. I have no number where people can leave a message. I thought, anyway just go there. I had been at the ARCH using the computers there, but I wanted to spread it around a bit. You can use the library computers for 2 hours max per day.
So, I am on the way. Then I crossed over one very main street in downtown Austin and started up the hill. Then there was a bag, a women's sort of handbag, made of jute and leather. It was just empty, resting there on a stoop and next to it was a big suitcase. I thought at first, it belongs to someone. Then I passed by. I did not feel to take it. I definitely thought, this belongs to someone. Then I said, "Hold on" and went back. The suitcase was empty. I looked it over. Both were empty. Both were sitting out on a stoop, abandoned. No one was around. I looked around. I stood there. I thought, "Ok, this is being offered." Then I took it. But I felt, "NO, I have to wait for some minutes. Maybe someone will come and claim these things. I cannot simply take them and go." So, I waited maybe five minutes or more. I waited. I waited until I felt it was alright to take them. I wandered on up the hill, but kept looking back. I felt, I don't want to just take.
but then I felt, "How strange. Here I was thinking just now, whether I will ever get back to India, or what will happen. And there is Mother giving me not only the bag I wanted, but a suitcase as well." Because I had had nothing to put my clothes in. I thought then, I wonder if this means I will be out on the street altogether? If I will also lose my bed in the Salvation Army. But that is not now. I thought, thank you. I thought, I had relinquished this idea that I need a bag. I had gotten used to the idea of carrying my stuff around in a plastic bag. But Mother now gave me this handbag and a suitcase.
The point that I am coming to is that I can do anything if I remain in the moment and transcend the mind. The nature of mind is that it is in the past always. It is always somewhere, future or past, but never present. It always sees some problem, some difficulty. But in the present there is never any difficulty. It is always the mind that makes you feel this pressure. The pressure is, "what is coming? What pain will I feel now?" That pressure is only from the mind. Outside of mind there is no pressure really. You just are. You just flow, you just do thing that is in front of you and don't think of any future or past.
OM
I slept again so long. In the night I woke up around 12:30a.m. There were two women up. They were talking. I spoke to them. The one woman was giving some tips about different things that are available for homeless people. So, I wrote down some telephone numbers. Then I went back to bed. There is nothing else to do. I had gone up to the shelter at around 4:40 p.m. and someone whisked me up to the dining room and I ate. I was not sure what was going on, but I tried to just do what I was told. The normal meal is at 5:00. I was confused, but Mother sent this person to get me into the dining early. I was hungry, too. Then I went to bed and slept. I thought I should not go to bed that early. Then I rationalized. I said, "I feel like sleeping. I should do what the body wants." This was probably not true. I don't know. I slept again after being up. I slept to 5:30 a.m. without really waking up in between.
I have been bombarded with so many chemicals and so much stress this week. I felt like sleeping. It is just to relieve the stress perhaps. Or I didn't know what else to do. I spent most of the day yesterday looking for work.
Then when I woke up in the night I realized, I had forgotten to sign in at the shelter. Every day at 7:00 p.m. we have to sign the roster. I had slept through it. That is not good. Again, Mother does things her way. I don't know why.
I felt then this feeling that the past is taking over again. There is a feeling of being liberated from the past. That was fading and the memory was becoming active. I can feel it. It feels likethis. There is guilt. There is a feeling of being a bad person. There is a feeling that I did something really wrong. Otherwise, whent he feeling of having a past is gone, there is no guilt. There is nothing.
I went down to the river this morning and chanted again. I chanted and was watching the feelings. I was seeing that the feeling that "I am doing this" was coming and going.
Strange, even though I am in such a deep tamasic state, I feel this coming and going. I feel that I am this, then I feel, I am doing nothing. I feel, I am, through Divine Grace, transcending even the feeling of being in tamas. It is, after all, simply a guna. Transcending means all the gunas, apparently, even the deepest tamas.
OM
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
It's Saturday and that is the day where there is so little to do, so little one can do. All the offices of the various agencies are closed. So, I called one of the numbers I got from the woman Debra in the night. It is the toll-free number of Assurance Wireless, a part of Virgin Wireless. They provide handsets and 200 free minutes a month to people who are on government assistance. I suppose for them this is a good deal. If the person uses more than 200 minutes in a month, they have to buy a top-off card at $0.10 per minute to use the phone after that. For people who live hand to mouth, this could mean that they would eventually pay more than they would if they were on a regular plan, that is, if they use the phone a lot.
Well, but anyway, the woman on the phone was really sweet. She sent some papers to me, through fax. I was not sure whether to do this, but this is what she suggested for me to do. So, I did that. Then, I was sitting in the computer room at the ARCH (Austin Resource Center for the Homeless). The man in there who was volunteering, taking care of the computer lab then introduced himself to me when I was walking out. He asked me if I spoke German. He said he was himself German, married to an American. We spoke then in German for several minutes.
He asked me how it came to be that I went to live in Germany and I told him my "tale of woe" or "tale of Poe" as it were. It's that story, that strange tale, how I remembered a past life, without even wanting to, without even believing it ever possible that people live multiple lives, that souls really do embody multiple times.
I kept saying to him, "People think you are (I am) crazy." He kept saying, "No, I don't think so." But I still feel at the end of the day, it alienates people when I tell them the truth. Nevertheless, I told him. I gave him my email and asked him to contact me if he hears of a job. I was there to finish up the online application for McDonald's. That was also a bit strange. I had to keep answering questions to which I had no answer. The answer is, I have never worked much.
That is the strange thing. I feel like I am coming out of a dream. I have never really seriously worked. I have never worked hard. I have never been sincere. I have never been serious about anything. I have been in this state in between everything for so long. But just yesterday I felt like I snapped out of it. I felt, "Ok, just work, just be happy. You can do anything and be happy, as long as you stay in the moment."
I was thinking, and thinking is this thing, it's a habit. I was thinking about the future, about where I might go, whether I will return to India and so on. Finally, I just said, I don't care. I cannot care about this. If indeed I return to India, it won't be tomorrow. It won't be next week. It may be soon, but I will have to work to get there. I have to do something to get myself there. I want to work also. I really and truly want to and I don't care what it is I do for the most part. There are certain jobs I cannot do. There are some that are so difficult and depressing, I suppose. But I think I have to rethink every job opportunity. I have to reconsider every time. There are some things I feel, when I look at the description, that it would just kill me to do that. To sit at a desk all day and do data entry. Yes, I can do that, but it must be limited. I cannot do this for years on end, perhaps. Well, I am in the process of getting very much less choosy than before.
This morning I felt this faith. I felt, "Things will come right. I know it." I keep vascilating between these two states, between the mental, that is somewhere thinking that everything is messed up and I am a terrible person, and this feeling that it is all the gunas anyway, that I have never been a terrible person, just that the gunas are so crazy in my system and I have so little control, because I am so dominated by tamas energy.
Then what happened? I was sitting and dial numbers on the telephone at the ARCH, just to have something to do, something constructive. But in the end, it is just all these help lines, it is just numbers where you are asking for a handout. And I realized, it's Saturday, so there is no point. A couple were sitting there. It was a young black man with acne scarring and a white woman in shorts and tank top with a bra underneith. She kept trying to sit in his lap. At first it seemed he did not want her to sit there. Then she sat again, then he held here there, just like you would hold a child.
At first I felt, Oh, here, these people are so tamasic. Oh, these people must constantly touch each other. But then when I saw the tenderness between these two I realized it is just like two people who are mothering each other. In this case the man was mothering the young woman and was that not what I was doing with this young man? He was like a father to me for those 10 days, was he not?
Why was I attracted to him and why were we moving together? He was, first of all, such an enigma. He was a god. He was a man. He was a boy. He was like my father, he was like my son. He was taking care of me. He was putting me in danger. He was keeping me from danger. He was all of this. He spoke to me the truth. He called me on all the untruth I was doing or speaking. He was so honest with me. He cried openly. He go angry. He was everything. I was so astonished. He was dominant with me. He was submissive also. When what I said or did was not something he could deal with, often he remained silent. He exhibited so many yogic qualities. At the same time he smoked, drank beer, ate meat and had sex. He was everything. I felt like he was Krishna, come to me in a form. He really seemed to be absolutely Divine much of the time.
He loved me without any compunction, even though I made all mistakes and did all kind of nuisance behavior. He treated me like a goddess. He treated me like human when necessary. I sincerely felt his love was real. He stayed with me even though I misbehaved so much.
He seemed to be really guided by something higher than the mental. Often the things he did didnt' seem to make sense to me and I was often trying to control him. That was painful for both of us. I could see that I was really not able to follow his lead. I felt for some time I could worship him just like that. I felt some times I could just do whatever he said, that IF I could follow him, I could come out alright. He seemed to have this perfect instinct. He spoke to people and they responded to him.
Never do people respond to me that way. I was trying to get him to do this or that thing very often. The problem was that my own mental was interfering constantly. At some point I said, "I promise, I see that it is going all wrong when I call the shots. Now I will do only as you say." Still, it was impossible for me to do what he wanted. But had I been able to do these things, the story would have ended much differently.
He was not identified with the body. He was not identified with his age or mine. He did not care. He simply saw something in me and loved that. I asked him about it. I asked him what is it that you see in me? Why do you love me? Why do you think we can stay together? He paused and said then, "I just know because there is no reason. I simply love you."
What broke us up in the end was that I started to pass judgment. I fell into fault-finding. He was simply a Divine being in a human form. I could not hold on to that fact. I kept being embarrassed or saying, "You have to dress like this or that." He wore torn and dirty clothes. But he told me that he never found that people responded to him any differently if he dressed any different. I was trying always to impose my own ideas on him. That is what ended it finally.
OK, so I made all the mistakes. It seems to me so. But then, I said to myself, this is the way Mother has of moving her chess pieces around the board. The whole thing that took place seems so fantastic, so unreal. How is it possible that I would meet such a person and fall in love, or become attracted so that I would leave with him and completely throw everything else away? Looking at every step of the journey, it becomes clear that this is the way things were to be. Mother Prakriti does these things and we have no control. We think we are bad because we do this or that thing or we don't do some other thing. But it is She who is doing Her work always.
I lead the strangest life. For the time I was with this man, all the normal rules were suspended. Everything went according to a totally different rhythm. Everything cooperated in a different way. People gave us money and food, often we did not even ask. We were together for 10 days without any source of income and travelled some thousands of miles without any money. He just had his guitar. He played and sometimes didn't even play and people helped us.
We got to Austin. Then everything went bad. That was when my mind started to take control. Then I left him standing and he went back to where he came from. That was all. And here I am. And the situation is that I arrived here with the clothes on my back and my purse with a toothbrush and some other things, like that.
So, I have gotten some more clothes, like I said. And today I was doing laundry. A man was also doing laundry and he offered me a red T-shirt. I did not want to take it. It was a nice enough shirt, a ladies' T with a nice design on the front, fitted. Then there was another woman, a young black woman. She was going to take the T-shirt and I thought, "Oh, I should have just taken it." I didn't want the woman to take it. I guess I wanted it. Then she turned and said, "Oh, this fits you, this is for you." and she held it up to me and I took it. Then I thanked the man. He had found it somewhere. People leave things everywhere here.
Then, the thing that has been bothering me now these several days is that I have to walk around without any bag to carry my things. I have my purse, but it is full. But I still need a bag to carry a few things with me, like a hat and some papers, etc. For a few days I had been carrying these things in a plastic bag. Then that bag was breaking. Then on the same day, that was when I met the woman at the MLF truck (Mobile Loaves and Fishes). She gave me some new plastic bags. Then I am still carrying allt his stuff around in these plastic bags.
But I said, "Ok, I may be a bag lady now." But I am not identified with this. It is just what is happening now. Then today, I went out of the ARCH. I went and thought, OK, just go to the library. Then I thought, "Why go to the library?" I had debated whether to go. Then I said, "No, I will just go there and do some work, any work." I cannot really apply for jobs yet, because I have no telephone number. I have no number where people can leave a message. I thought, anyway just go there. I had been at the ARCH using the computers there, but I wanted to spread it around a bit. You can use the library computers for 2 hours max per day.
So, I am on the way. Then I crossed over one very main street in downtown Austin and started up the hill. Then there was a bag, a women's sort of handbag, made of jute and leather. It was just empty, resting there on a stoop and next to it was a big suitcase. I thought at first, it belongs to someone. Then I passed by. I did not feel to take it. I definitely thought, this belongs to someone. Then I said, "Hold on" and went back. The suitcase was empty. I looked it over. Both were empty. Both were sitting out on a stoop, abandoned. No one was around. I looked around. I stood there. I thought, "Ok, this is being offered." Then I took it. But I felt, "NO, I have to wait for some minutes. Maybe someone will come and claim these things. I cannot simply take them and go." So, I waited maybe five minutes or more. I waited. I waited until I felt it was alright to take them. I wandered on up the hill, but kept looking back. I felt, I don't want to just take.
but then I felt, "How strange. Here I was thinking just now, whether I will ever get back to India, or what will happen. And there is Mother giving me not only the bag I wanted, but a suitcase as well." Because I had had nothing to put my clothes in. I thought then, I wonder if this means I will be out on the street altogether? If I will also lose my bed in the Salvation Army. But that is not now. I thought, thank you. I thought, I had relinquished this idea that I need a bag. I had gotten used to the idea of carrying my stuff around in a plastic bag. But Mother now gave me this handbag and a suitcase.
The point that I am coming to is that I can do anything if I remain in the moment and transcend the mind. The nature of mind is that it is in the past always. It is always somewhere, future or past, but never present. It always sees some problem, some difficulty. But in the present there is never any difficulty. It is always the mind that makes you feel this pressure. The pressure is, "what is coming? What pain will I feel now?" That pressure is only from the mind. Outside of mind there is no pressure really. You just are. You just flow, you just do thing that is in front of you and don't think of any future or past.
OM
Friday, July 23, 2010
A new day
Today I woke up and felt a new thing. Somehow in the night I was rested. After the chaotic emotional ride that was yesterday and having somehow resisted the temptation to break out and run, I was calm and somehow more in control. The roller coaster had slowed down a bit.
I had gone to bed after putting cream all over my skin from the neck down to the soles of the feet. The doctor gave me this prescription and I read there that it is to get rid of scabies. I must say, all this is quite repulsive. I felt this,under the skin on my backside, there is this hardness. It is the human equivalent of mange I think. I remembered this feeling of the skin from the dog Alokh, who died at ashram last year.
So, I woke up around 2:00 a.m. and thought again, what use am I to society, I am just a parasite. But then I thought, "No, I can pray for others." Then a voice said, "Then get up and pray." But I did not. I did not get up until 4:00 a.m. I had gone to bed quite early, so I had slept at least 9 hours. I did then get up and took my bath. I wandered through the dorm, stopping in front of each bed as I brushed my teeth, repeating a mantra for each inhabitant. I tried then not to be so obvious. I think they might be frightened to wake up and see me standing there over them, fully dressed with this toothbrush in my mouth at 4 a.m.
After bathing etc I sat and sorted my papers and read some job descriptions that I found on the table in the day room. I organized my purse and got everything ready, tried to make some kind of a plan for the day. The thing that frightens me most is not having any plan, not knowing what to do, being confused. But somehow, it seemed that this was not as critical.
what I wanted to say more than anything is that the feeling of being identified with all this trouble was dissipating. I felt, this happened, this is in the past, now we move forward from here. For whatever reason, God created me like this. I have been like this. But somehow it seemed I would be able to transcend this. This is just gunatic, it is just tamas. I can go beyond it. It seemed possible. Then I ate breakfast.
I remember before going downstairs, someone was knocking at the dorm door to get in. I started to get up, but the non-pregnant pregnant woman stopped me. She said, "No, they will write you up for that." I felt, "Thank you". That is a first. Often I feel this anger when someone corrects me, but I really felt, this is Mother telling me how to behave. I felt love. I felt loved.
Then a few minutes later, I said thank you to her, and she took me out and showed me the sign on the dorm door and explained in detail. It was good, I felt loved by her, I felt loved by myself. I felt love everywhere.
At breakfast she offered me biscuits she did not want to eat and I took them. I did not feel repulsion. But when I went to eat them, I had to stop. There was then too much tamasic energy in the food and I had had enough of that.
I went out and sat in the park and finally, after so many months, chanted the Bhagavad Gita from start to finish. I felt all this tamas coming up. Squatting there, Indian style, I almost fell asleep after 2nd chapter. I was totally aware, but body was sleeping. I awoke then again and chanted, I forced myself to chant to the end and not judge.
Mind was going everywhere, but I finished it. Then I went up to have the TB test read by the nurse at the clinic.
After that I felt, I had felt all morning, now you will seriuosly look for a job, something I have perhaps never done. and I did not feel any fear about doing it either.
I wanted to call the place about the medical testing, but then I realized, "No, I don't want to lie about my address." If I lie, I am closing doors. I cannot do that.
OM
*******************
There is a sense in me now, this is all not me. It's just the gunas. I don't know where this comes from. I can only say it is purely grace. All the pain I experienced as a result of the recent attachment to this young man is gone. I don't feel helpless anymore. I don't know what happened. I felt love from this person. That helped perhaps a grea deal. I felt only love. He was patient, he put up with a lot. I was very impulsive. I was completely crazy, even. I was blown about by the mind, first one way, then another. The events of the past week went through my mind today. I did not feel any shame. I only felt compassion for the person that got dragged into the vortex with me.
It seems now amazing to me how Mother Prakriti works, how she moves about the pieces on the board, just like Sri Aurobindo said, "through the ego of the jiva in the lower nature". The lower nature did this thing and that. I was helpless, a puppet. I just watched it happening. I was actually in the lower nature much of the time it was happening. That was the pain. The pain was this identification with the mental. If there is no identification with the mental, there is no pain. But when you are identified there will definitely be pain.
Consider what happened. I was trapped, stuck. I had tried to leave several times, but I had had no success. I had even walked out several times, out of that house in Fort Wayne, away from that man, Brian, without any money, and almost, almost I had left for good, but every time I had been trapped and had gone back.
Then Mother created this opportunity, she created this with this young man to come and take me, and then she created all this confusion in my system to make it happen. It was so painful, but it worked. She got me out. Then there was the pain of being here in the first moment, but I realized, it is only attachemtn to a place. All pain comes only from this tamasic attachment. only.
I had gone to bed after putting cream all over my skin from the neck down to the soles of the feet. The doctor gave me this prescription and I read there that it is to get rid of scabies. I must say, all this is quite repulsive. I felt this,under the skin on my backside, there is this hardness. It is the human equivalent of mange I think. I remembered this feeling of the skin from the dog Alokh, who died at ashram last year.
So, I woke up around 2:00 a.m. and thought again, what use am I to society, I am just a parasite. But then I thought, "No, I can pray for others." Then a voice said, "Then get up and pray." But I did not. I did not get up until 4:00 a.m. I had gone to bed quite early, so I had slept at least 9 hours. I did then get up and took my bath. I wandered through the dorm, stopping in front of each bed as I brushed my teeth, repeating a mantra for each inhabitant. I tried then not to be so obvious. I think they might be frightened to wake up and see me standing there over them, fully dressed with this toothbrush in my mouth at 4 a.m.
After bathing etc I sat and sorted my papers and read some job descriptions that I found on the table in the day room. I organized my purse and got everything ready, tried to make some kind of a plan for the day. The thing that frightens me most is not having any plan, not knowing what to do, being confused. But somehow, it seemed that this was not as critical.
what I wanted to say more than anything is that the feeling of being identified with all this trouble was dissipating. I felt, this happened, this is in the past, now we move forward from here. For whatever reason, God created me like this. I have been like this. But somehow it seemed I would be able to transcend this. This is just gunatic, it is just tamas. I can go beyond it. It seemed possible. Then I ate breakfast.
I remember before going downstairs, someone was knocking at the dorm door to get in. I started to get up, but the non-pregnant pregnant woman stopped me. She said, "No, they will write you up for that." I felt, "Thank you". That is a first. Often I feel this anger when someone corrects me, but I really felt, this is Mother telling me how to behave. I felt love. I felt loved.
Then a few minutes later, I said thank you to her, and she took me out and showed me the sign on the dorm door and explained in detail. It was good, I felt loved by her, I felt loved by myself. I felt love everywhere.
At breakfast she offered me biscuits she did not want to eat and I took them. I did not feel repulsion. But when I went to eat them, I had to stop. There was then too much tamasic energy in the food and I had had enough of that.
I went out and sat in the park and finally, after so many months, chanted the Bhagavad Gita from start to finish. I felt all this tamas coming up. Squatting there, Indian style, I almost fell asleep after 2nd chapter. I was totally aware, but body was sleeping. I awoke then again and chanted, I forced myself to chant to the end and not judge.
Mind was going everywhere, but I finished it. Then I went up to have the TB test read by the nurse at the clinic.
After that I felt, I had felt all morning, now you will seriuosly look for a job, something I have perhaps never done. and I did not feel any fear about doing it either.
I wanted to call the place about the medical testing, but then I realized, "No, I don't want to lie about my address." If I lie, I am closing doors. I cannot do that.
OM
*******************
There is a sense in me now, this is all not me. It's just the gunas. I don't know where this comes from. I can only say it is purely grace. All the pain I experienced as a result of the recent attachment to this young man is gone. I don't feel helpless anymore. I don't know what happened. I felt love from this person. That helped perhaps a grea deal. I felt only love. He was patient, he put up with a lot. I was very impulsive. I was completely crazy, even. I was blown about by the mind, first one way, then another. The events of the past week went through my mind today. I did not feel any shame. I only felt compassion for the person that got dragged into the vortex with me.
It seems now amazing to me how Mother Prakriti works, how she moves about the pieces on the board, just like Sri Aurobindo said, "through the ego of the jiva in the lower nature". The lower nature did this thing and that. I was helpless, a puppet. I just watched it happening. I was actually in the lower nature much of the time it was happening. That was the pain. The pain was this identification with the mental. If there is no identification with the mental, there is no pain. But when you are identified there will definitely be pain.
Consider what happened. I was trapped, stuck. I had tried to leave several times, but I had had no success. I had even walked out several times, out of that house in Fort Wayne, away from that man, Brian, without any money, and almost, almost I had left for good, but every time I had been trapped and had gone back.
Then Mother created this opportunity, she created this with this young man to come and take me, and then she created all this confusion in my system to make it happen. It was so painful, but it worked. She got me out. Then there was the pain of being here in the first moment, but I realized, it is only attachemtn to a place. All pain comes only from this tamasic attachment. only.
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Crazy day
This is the day that the Lord hath made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.
Today. That was hard. It's now hard every day.
OM
Opened the Bhagavad Gita and read one verse. Verse 53. That is where Arjuna is surrendering to the Lord finally. Have I surrendered? I don't know. But this seems to be the path.
When I came into the shelter last night, it was 5:00 p.m. I fell asleep. The place, whether it is tamasic or not, or whether it is just me, I don't know. I slept then. someone woke me to go and sign in at 7:00 p.m.
There is the feeling that I am alone in the world, that no one is helping me, that everything is lost. Then there is the feeling that I am held in the arms of Mother and that everything is indeed in Her hand. Both feelings are there and it goes back and forth.
I had spent a good deal of time yesterday on a project. That was to write 2 letters, one to the young man who brought me here to Austin and one to his father. I was writing these letters almost all of yesterday afternoon. These were apologies. I was apologizing. I was saying, "Gee, I am so sorry for what happened, for how I behaved, etc." This did not feel right. I just don't know why the things happened the way they did. I felt, this is not right, to apologize. But I felt I had to. There wre the two feelings.
These last months I have been preaching on this website that things happen for reasons, that bad things also happen for reasons. And I have been saying this and thinking, "watch out, something 'bad' may happen to you. Then what will you say?"
So, today, I am a homeless on the streets of Austin, and I am sleeping in this huge room with 39 other women. I slept last night, as I said, then around 10:30 p.m. I was awake. But where to go? First I have to say, there is one light in the room. There is a light on the whole night. So, they changed my bed and now it is that the one light that is on is directly over my body when I sleep. So, I slept from 5 to 10:30. That should have been enough. Then I was awake, but I thought, where should I go and what should I do? There is security. Actually, it is with the homeless in Austin as if you are a criminal. You are part of a herd. You are herded into these buildings. You sleep there. You shower there. The women there argue and fight, talk and gossip with each other. I feel love for them, but I don't feel to fight and gossip, too. I just try to listen and pray with them sometimes. Still, I am very arrogant.
so many things have happened. It will be difficult for me to record all this. I have to try to focus.
The question is now, what is happening? I have sunk very low. In the Gita it says that if you maintain the level of tamas, you will descend. I have descended. Last night, after being awake at 10:30 I decided to sleep again. I had taken off my clothing, having fallen asleep in my street clothes. Then I slept again and I was awake around 4:00 a.m. Then I got up finally at 5:00 a.m. So, I was in that bed for 12 hours. That is definitively too much sleep. That will never lead to yoga.
But I felt when I was waking up, the letters I wrote yesterday, I just could not send them. I felt hopeful, because finally a feeling was starting to kick in. The feeling that these letters came from the mental being and that I did not want to send them. I did not want to say anything from the mind. I only had to get the message to that man that the HIV test I had done was negative. I only wanted to relieve his fear, to make him stop worrying. That was all. So, I tore up the letters I wrote yesterday. I could see how they just came from the mind and they were not at all loving and useful. They were just mental. Thank God I felt this. So much of the time I am following what the mind wants.
What happened recently? There is a scripture that says, there are three gateways to hell: lust, anger and greed. And recently I followed one of these, lust. Hell is the mental, it is the mind. That is where I am again stuck.
What happened then this morning? I got up and showered at 5:00. I went out on the street at around 6:00 and saw that the sky was still dark, just twilight and a feeling overtook me to just run, run, run away from Austin. I felt terrible. I felt also last night, I cannot stay in this building any more. This building just chains me. There is the food here. There is breakfast, lunch and dinner in that building and the food is really not that good. I don't want to complain at all because it is food. I just feel chained to that location and the energy there is so difficult to tolerate. I feel it is so heavy.
The twilight was there and I wanted to run. I went back and took all my things out of the locker. I put them in a pillow case. I felt bad about taking the pillow case. I rationalized something to steal that pillow case. I don't know. I just had to go out. I went then and was ready to hitchhike out.
In the night I felt, go to Ashton, to that boy-man. Go there, that is what the heart wants. Then on the street I thought, why am I feeling to go there? It is because I am seeing someone is taking care of me. I always run to that. I always run to be cared for, for someone to look after me. I always run to be dependent on someone. After that it was a very difficult time to decide what to do with the day.
I feel hopeless, everything closed in on me. I then just was starting to walk to and fro, here and there. I thought, go to that place and tell them you are going crazy. I walked then down Waller Street to the Health Department. There I used the bathroom, sent off the letter, which now contained only one small note saying the test had been negative, after putting my email address on the outside. I wanted to make a phone call. I did call Brian before going down there. I told him not to send my cards, because my system was so unstable I was liable to run at any moment, to run away.
Then I sat at the bus stop and just go on the bus. I did not have any idea where the bus was headed. There was a lady there. She got on with me. Then we rode for half an hour, until I saw that the bus was going somewhere near to where that place is where I have to get my subscription filled, to the Walgreens Drugstore.
I then asked the bus driver and he told me where to get the bus up there. I got out the same stop as the lady. We spoke briefly and I got on the next bus. I went to the Walgreen's and got the medicine for the rash I have.
what I was thinking is to go and be a part of a medical study to get some money and then purchase a car and go around, or just get a ticket to India with it. But first I have to get rid of this rash first.
The medicine was ready, and it is just two things. One is a cream you leave on for 14 hours. That gets rid of the rash. the other was a thing which is supposed to cut the itching. I did not want that and was about to leave it there, then I saw that it is prescribed often to decrease anxiety. then I decided to take it with me.
I got on the downtown bus and got off at 30th street. There is someone there I met recently. He has a little store with vintage clothing. I thought, maybe he will agree to let me use his address and tel. nr. so that I can participate in this medical study. They won't let you do it as a homeless staying at the SA.
He was not there. The hours said 11-7. So, I went down 29th street to the park. I sat under the bridge. There I was feeling like, "ok, I'm homeless. I am outside. What of it?" There is this feeling of stigma, this feeling that it is terrible not to have a place to go. But then I felt, so many people are here, they have no place to go and they are ok with it by now. They don't feel bad because they don't live in a house.
There is food everywhere in this city and there are ways to do things, I have to simply find out how. For a few minutes I felt normal again. There are two men, winos, down by the Texaco. I spoke to them earlier today. The one man is a real philosopher. He told me, "you get a do-over. Just say 'ok, now I will start over and it will be a good day'". I was sceptical. But now I feel ok. What happened?
I was under that bridge and watching the joggers go past. I knew I could not stay there, that this place would not be good, because it is in full view of passers by. Then I went to the other side and found there is someone living there, of course. I went out to the road again and walked across, entering the park again. Then I went back to the spot where we had slept the first night in Austin. I changed into some decent clothing. Then I hid my bag as best I could behind a rock, under some branches. Then walked back to the vintage store, but the man was not there yet. He keeps odd hours, they said.
**************
I went to get back on the bus. Actually, today I had not eaten. I did not feel I could eat the food at the SA. I just went back to get my things and then I saw it was time to eat. I went up there, but there was this security guard looking at me. She had this look on her face, forbidding somehow. I then took my bag, my pillow case of junk and left. Here I am, a few days ago I had only the clothes on my back. Now I have this huge pillow case of "krempel". I walked out and down to the Texaco, spoke to the "Flintstones", as the two winos are called. Then I called Brian. He said I should try to seek guidance, then speak to someone I trust, then another person if necessary.
So, I had not eaten. I didn't much care about it. But body is getting weak, needs food. Then I was getting on the bus. I spoke to a man at the bus stop. Now I don't like to really speak to people. A few days ago I was speaking to all people, every person. And this was leading to a lot of problems. Ashton was disturbed about it. He cried actually. He said it was not him, he was not important to me. I just spoke to everyone. I was like a whore in a way. He never said that, but that is what I felt. A loose woman, with words, mental contact.
So, I got on the bus, headed downtown. The man told me when to get off to go to the library. I saw that the plastic bag I had been carrying around had developed a huge hole in the bottom and my stuff was getting ready to fall out. I felt, ok. I am thinking the whole time, I want a bag to carry my things. But I have done such nuisance. I don't know if prakriti will give to me a bag. I went to the library. I made a reservation for an express terminal and went to the bathroom. I came out again, but the reservation didn't take. Nevertheless, I sat down and logged on to a terminal. I started to adjust my couchsurfing profile.
What mode I am in is called "error, sleep, sloth". This is the lowest, this is tamas, when it get really thick. This is when you cannot hear the inner voice. This is hell. This is when you don't know up or down, in or out, you just drift. and you are in constant fear, you are feeling, I am doing everything wrong. And you are.
so, I got up from that terminal and left the library. I went out on the street. It was around 11:45 a.m. I looked in front of me and on the sidewalk was a fresh donut. I picked it up. It was clean. I carried it with me. I felt, "Oh, people will see me." but I did not care. It was a clean piece of food. Ok, it had been on the sidewalk, but it was not dirty. Perhaps someone had dropped it there seconds earlier. I felt, "Ok, Mother wants me to eat." So, I walked across the street, into a park.
I tore a little piece of the donut off in my hand. I could not eat yet. I was mentally offering it, I guess. Then I saw a man who headed down the hill, dropped his bag off at the base of a tree and trucked out over the meadow to the opposite side of the park. He was headed for what looked like a lunch truck.
I watched for a while. then I got up and followed him. I saw that he was a homeless, perhaps. Others standing near the truck seemed also street people. Then, I got closer. There was a woman there. I don't really look very homeless. Not yet, because my clothes are still new and clean, perhaps. The woman offered me water to drink. I agreed. Then I asked here what this truck was.
She told me it is part of a program called "meat, loave and fishes". It had started somewhere and now has spread to many cities in the US. I was thinking, I have eaten this donut, but I would like to eat more food. Then I thought, I won't eat unless someone offers. Finally the woman offered. I stood there. I did not get in line. I felt shy. I feel actually that I have violated so much that Mother is punishing me, that I must suffer. But finally, the young woman asked me if I, too, wanted to eat. I said yes. She offered me sandwich, meat or peanut butter. Then she offered an apple, chips and apple juice. I took the sandwich and the apple. I thought, no need of the salty chips, no need of the apple juice. Water does just as well. I don't feel this thing that I want to taste anything. I just feel hungry.
I spoke to the woman. She showed me that there are clothes on the other side of the truck. I saw the clothes. She offered me them. I did not take, because I have enough clothing. The clothes I have are in the woods. I should have perhaps taken something, it will be cold later. But I never think to take what is offered to me. This happens quite often. I don't take when I should and other times I grab stuff when I should not.
Then, I was talking to her, but I realized I have the wrong vibration. I am feeling sorry for myself still. I went to the park. I sat under a tree. I ate my sandwich and started on the apple. Then there was a woman. She came and I saw that she was going to offer me more food. She did so. I said, I have already eaten one sandwich. Then she said, "ok, do you want another?" I said, "Ok" and I took another PB&J sandwich and ate it.
I felt, "OK, Mother wants me to eat."
This whole time I am struggling with this question of what is the meaning of verse 360 in the Gita. Because when I first came last year that incident occurred where the little girl came and kissed me on the cheek. I was to study Gita only, igoring everything else. But I feel always afraid, like I won't have what I need. Then I am looking for a job. But here in Austin, it seems almost, I will get what I need. I just have to study Gita. I am still so confused. Do I look for work? Do I study Gita every day? What? This has been bothering me all this time. But here today, I have enough food and I never had to go back to that terrible SA place.
___________________
There is a feeling that I don't have enough. I am recognizing this as that feeling of poverty and lack. It is there and sometimes it is not.
Even though I have such a feeling about myself, that I have done wrong, that I am a bad person, that I have made many mistakes, that I am tamasic, that this is the end, that all is lost -- from time to time I get the feeling that God is still watching over me, that things are ok. I don't know which way to turn, what to do. I wander about. I remember, Lord went through this, too, but he was not like I am. He was interested only in Gita. I am still interested in other things.
It feels almost like what is in Chapter 6, that I am being forced into this direction, that there is no choice for me.
Today I read verse 53 and I remembered something about this. What is this experience?
"We do not know which would be better for us." this is the state where I am. I don't know whether to lay down and die or to fight. I am in a state of indecisiveness, weakness, cowardice. I don't know whether to completely kill all my relatives or not.
What does this mean? It means I am at a point of completely annihilating my old life, my past, and with it the future that I was expecting or wanting to come. This is the most painful place and I have been here literally for years.
I feel this, "I am overcome by pity and misplaced compassion." That feeling is there. These people, I love them. But they are not helping me. These homeless people. These are the ones who have given up, who have called it quits. These are the ones who have decided to be rather struck down than fight the battle of karma. I am also at this point. I have almost decided to be struck down. This seems to be where I am. I don't know how to find a job, I don't know how to find work. I don't know what to do. I seem to reject all the signals presented to me.
It is most precarious. Why did I return to the library? Because it started to rain. So, I came back. I initially wanted to record this, but then I went out. Then it started dropping water on me from sky, so here I am.
"... killing whom we will not want to live..." This is the phrase. I am trying not to kill that old life, trying to hold these options always open. This is the thing. That is why I went to that SA building. That is the old life. That is the old thing. That is, I am not sure, it feels dead when I am there.
I was crazy last night, I felt this morning, just go, get out, don't go back. I have not gone there yet today. I feel better away from there and I don't know if I will return this night. I don't know. It seems extreme. It seems crazy. I have no perspective. That is what I feel.
I am not finding it possible also to get rid of this grief. I find this also.
Today. That was hard. It's now hard every day.
OM
Opened the Bhagavad Gita and read one verse. Verse 53. That is where Arjuna is surrendering to the Lord finally. Have I surrendered? I don't know. But this seems to be the path.
When I came into the shelter last night, it was 5:00 p.m. I fell asleep. The place, whether it is tamasic or not, or whether it is just me, I don't know. I slept then. someone woke me to go and sign in at 7:00 p.m.
There is the feeling that I am alone in the world, that no one is helping me, that everything is lost. Then there is the feeling that I am held in the arms of Mother and that everything is indeed in Her hand. Both feelings are there and it goes back and forth.
I had spent a good deal of time yesterday on a project. That was to write 2 letters, one to the young man who brought me here to Austin and one to his father. I was writing these letters almost all of yesterday afternoon. These were apologies. I was apologizing. I was saying, "Gee, I am so sorry for what happened, for how I behaved, etc." This did not feel right. I just don't know why the things happened the way they did. I felt, this is not right, to apologize. But I felt I had to. There wre the two feelings.
These last months I have been preaching on this website that things happen for reasons, that bad things also happen for reasons. And I have been saying this and thinking, "watch out, something 'bad' may happen to you. Then what will you say?"
So, today, I am a homeless on the streets of Austin, and I am sleeping in this huge room with 39 other women. I slept last night, as I said, then around 10:30 p.m. I was awake. But where to go? First I have to say, there is one light in the room. There is a light on the whole night. So, they changed my bed and now it is that the one light that is on is directly over my body when I sleep. So, I slept from 5 to 10:30. That should have been enough. Then I was awake, but I thought, where should I go and what should I do? There is security. Actually, it is with the homeless in Austin as if you are a criminal. You are part of a herd. You are herded into these buildings. You sleep there. You shower there. The women there argue and fight, talk and gossip with each other. I feel love for them, but I don't feel to fight and gossip, too. I just try to listen and pray with them sometimes. Still, I am very arrogant.
so many things have happened. It will be difficult for me to record all this. I have to try to focus.
The question is now, what is happening? I have sunk very low. In the Gita it says that if you maintain the level of tamas, you will descend. I have descended. Last night, after being awake at 10:30 I decided to sleep again. I had taken off my clothing, having fallen asleep in my street clothes. Then I slept again and I was awake around 4:00 a.m. Then I got up finally at 5:00 a.m. So, I was in that bed for 12 hours. That is definitively too much sleep. That will never lead to yoga.
But I felt when I was waking up, the letters I wrote yesterday, I just could not send them. I felt hopeful, because finally a feeling was starting to kick in. The feeling that these letters came from the mental being and that I did not want to send them. I did not want to say anything from the mind. I only had to get the message to that man that the HIV test I had done was negative. I only wanted to relieve his fear, to make him stop worrying. That was all. So, I tore up the letters I wrote yesterday. I could see how they just came from the mind and they were not at all loving and useful. They were just mental. Thank God I felt this. So much of the time I am following what the mind wants.
What happened recently? There is a scripture that says, there are three gateways to hell: lust, anger and greed. And recently I followed one of these, lust. Hell is the mental, it is the mind. That is where I am again stuck.
What happened then this morning? I got up and showered at 5:00. I went out on the street at around 6:00 and saw that the sky was still dark, just twilight and a feeling overtook me to just run, run, run away from Austin. I felt terrible. I felt also last night, I cannot stay in this building any more. This building just chains me. There is the food here. There is breakfast, lunch and dinner in that building and the food is really not that good. I don't want to complain at all because it is food. I just feel chained to that location and the energy there is so difficult to tolerate. I feel it is so heavy.
The twilight was there and I wanted to run. I went back and took all my things out of the locker. I put them in a pillow case. I felt bad about taking the pillow case. I rationalized something to steal that pillow case. I don't know. I just had to go out. I went then and was ready to hitchhike out.
In the night I felt, go to Ashton, to that boy-man. Go there, that is what the heart wants. Then on the street I thought, why am I feeling to go there? It is because I am seeing someone is taking care of me. I always run to that. I always run to be cared for, for someone to look after me. I always run to be dependent on someone. After that it was a very difficult time to decide what to do with the day.
I feel hopeless, everything closed in on me. I then just was starting to walk to and fro, here and there. I thought, go to that place and tell them you are going crazy. I walked then down Waller Street to the Health Department. There I used the bathroom, sent off the letter, which now contained only one small note saying the test had been negative, after putting my email address on the outside. I wanted to make a phone call. I did call Brian before going down there. I told him not to send my cards, because my system was so unstable I was liable to run at any moment, to run away.
Then I sat at the bus stop and just go on the bus. I did not have any idea where the bus was headed. There was a lady there. She got on with me. Then we rode for half an hour, until I saw that the bus was going somewhere near to where that place is where I have to get my subscription filled, to the Walgreens Drugstore.
I then asked the bus driver and he told me where to get the bus up there. I got out the same stop as the lady. We spoke briefly and I got on the next bus. I went to the Walgreen's and got the medicine for the rash I have.
what I was thinking is to go and be a part of a medical study to get some money and then purchase a car and go around, or just get a ticket to India with it. But first I have to get rid of this rash first.
The medicine was ready, and it is just two things. One is a cream you leave on for 14 hours. That gets rid of the rash. the other was a thing which is supposed to cut the itching. I did not want that and was about to leave it there, then I saw that it is prescribed often to decrease anxiety. then I decided to take it with me.
I got on the downtown bus and got off at 30th street. There is someone there I met recently. He has a little store with vintage clothing. I thought, maybe he will agree to let me use his address and tel. nr. so that I can participate in this medical study. They won't let you do it as a homeless staying at the SA.
He was not there. The hours said 11-7. So, I went down 29th street to the park. I sat under the bridge. There I was feeling like, "ok, I'm homeless. I am outside. What of it?" There is this feeling of stigma, this feeling that it is terrible not to have a place to go. But then I felt, so many people are here, they have no place to go and they are ok with it by now. They don't feel bad because they don't live in a house.
There is food everywhere in this city and there are ways to do things, I have to simply find out how. For a few minutes I felt normal again. There are two men, winos, down by the Texaco. I spoke to them earlier today. The one man is a real philosopher. He told me, "you get a do-over. Just say 'ok, now I will start over and it will be a good day'". I was sceptical. But now I feel ok. What happened?
I was under that bridge and watching the joggers go past. I knew I could not stay there, that this place would not be good, because it is in full view of passers by. Then I went to the other side and found there is someone living there, of course. I went out to the road again and walked across, entering the park again. Then I went back to the spot where we had slept the first night in Austin. I changed into some decent clothing. Then I hid my bag as best I could behind a rock, under some branches. Then walked back to the vintage store, but the man was not there yet. He keeps odd hours, they said.
**************
I went to get back on the bus. Actually, today I had not eaten. I did not feel I could eat the food at the SA. I just went back to get my things and then I saw it was time to eat. I went up there, but there was this security guard looking at me. She had this look on her face, forbidding somehow. I then took my bag, my pillow case of junk and left. Here I am, a few days ago I had only the clothes on my back. Now I have this huge pillow case of "krempel". I walked out and down to the Texaco, spoke to the "Flintstones", as the two winos are called. Then I called Brian. He said I should try to seek guidance, then speak to someone I trust, then another person if necessary.
So, I had not eaten. I didn't much care about it. But body is getting weak, needs food. Then I was getting on the bus. I spoke to a man at the bus stop. Now I don't like to really speak to people. A few days ago I was speaking to all people, every person. And this was leading to a lot of problems. Ashton was disturbed about it. He cried actually. He said it was not him, he was not important to me. I just spoke to everyone. I was like a whore in a way. He never said that, but that is what I felt. A loose woman, with words, mental contact.
So, I got on the bus, headed downtown. The man told me when to get off to go to the library. I saw that the plastic bag I had been carrying around had developed a huge hole in the bottom and my stuff was getting ready to fall out. I felt, ok. I am thinking the whole time, I want a bag to carry my things. But I have done such nuisance. I don't know if prakriti will give to me a bag. I went to the library. I made a reservation for an express terminal and went to the bathroom. I came out again, but the reservation didn't take. Nevertheless, I sat down and logged on to a terminal. I started to adjust my couchsurfing profile.
What mode I am in is called "error, sleep, sloth". This is the lowest, this is tamas, when it get really thick. This is when you cannot hear the inner voice. This is hell. This is when you don't know up or down, in or out, you just drift. and you are in constant fear, you are feeling, I am doing everything wrong. And you are.
so, I got up from that terminal and left the library. I went out on the street. It was around 11:45 a.m. I looked in front of me and on the sidewalk was a fresh donut. I picked it up. It was clean. I carried it with me. I felt, "Oh, people will see me." but I did not care. It was a clean piece of food. Ok, it had been on the sidewalk, but it was not dirty. Perhaps someone had dropped it there seconds earlier. I felt, "Ok, Mother wants me to eat." So, I walked across the street, into a park.
I tore a little piece of the donut off in my hand. I could not eat yet. I was mentally offering it, I guess. Then I saw a man who headed down the hill, dropped his bag off at the base of a tree and trucked out over the meadow to the opposite side of the park. He was headed for what looked like a lunch truck.
I watched for a while. then I got up and followed him. I saw that he was a homeless, perhaps. Others standing near the truck seemed also street people. Then, I got closer. There was a woman there. I don't really look very homeless. Not yet, because my clothes are still new and clean, perhaps. The woman offered me water to drink. I agreed. Then I asked here what this truck was.
She told me it is part of a program called "meat, loave and fishes". It had started somewhere and now has spread to many cities in the US. I was thinking, I have eaten this donut, but I would like to eat more food. Then I thought, I won't eat unless someone offers. Finally the woman offered. I stood there. I did not get in line. I felt shy. I feel actually that I have violated so much that Mother is punishing me, that I must suffer. But finally, the young woman asked me if I, too, wanted to eat. I said yes. She offered me sandwich, meat or peanut butter. Then she offered an apple, chips and apple juice. I took the sandwich and the apple. I thought, no need of the salty chips, no need of the apple juice. Water does just as well. I don't feel this thing that I want to taste anything. I just feel hungry.
I spoke to the woman. She showed me that there are clothes on the other side of the truck. I saw the clothes. She offered me them. I did not take, because I have enough clothing. The clothes I have are in the woods. I should have perhaps taken something, it will be cold later. But I never think to take what is offered to me. This happens quite often. I don't take when I should and other times I grab stuff when I should not.
Then, I was talking to her, but I realized I have the wrong vibration. I am feeling sorry for myself still. I went to the park. I sat under a tree. I ate my sandwich and started on the apple. Then there was a woman. She came and I saw that she was going to offer me more food. She did so. I said, I have already eaten one sandwich. Then she said, "ok, do you want another?" I said, "Ok" and I took another PB&J sandwich and ate it.
I felt, "OK, Mother wants me to eat."
This whole time I am struggling with this question of what is the meaning of verse 360 in the Gita. Because when I first came last year that incident occurred where the little girl came and kissed me on the cheek. I was to study Gita only, igoring everything else. But I feel always afraid, like I won't have what I need. Then I am looking for a job. But here in Austin, it seems almost, I will get what I need. I just have to study Gita. I am still so confused. Do I look for work? Do I study Gita every day? What? This has been bothering me all this time. But here today, I have enough food and I never had to go back to that terrible SA place.
___________________
There is a feeling that I don't have enough. I am recognizing this as that feeling of poverty and lack. It is there and sometimes it is not.
Even though I have such a feeling about myself, that I have done wrong, that I am a bad person, that I have made many mistakes, that I am tamasic, that this is the end, that all is lost -- from time to time I get the feeling that God is still watching over me, that things are ok. I don't know which way to turn, what to do. I wander about. I remember, Lord went through this, too, but he was not like I am. He was interested only in Gita. I am still interested in other things.
It feels almost like what is in Chapter 6, that I am being forced into this direction, that there is no choice for me.
Today I read verse 53 and I remembered something about this. What is this experience?
"We do not know which would be better for us." this is the state where I am. I don't know whether to lay down and die or to fight. I am in a state of indecisiveness, weakness, cowardice. I don't know whether to completely kill all my relatives or not.
What does this mean? It means I am at a point of completely annihilating my old life, my past, and with it the future that I was expecting or wanting to come. This is the most painful place and I have been here literally for years.
I feel this, "I am overcome by pity and misplaced compassion." That feeling is there. These people, I love them. But they are not helping me. These homeless people. These are the ones who have given up, who have called it quits. These are the ones who have decided to be rather struck down than fight the battle of karma. I am also at this point. I have almost decided to be struck down. This seems to be where I am. I don't know how to find a job, I don't know how to find work. I don't know what to do. I seem to reject all the signals presented to me.
It is most precarious. Why did I return to the library? Because it started to rain. So, I came back. I initially wanted to record this, but then I went out. Then it started dropping water on me from sky, so here I am.
"... killing whom we will not want to live..." This is the phrase. I am trying not to kill that old life, trying to hold these options always open. This is the thing. That is why I went to that SA building. That is the old life. That is the old thing. That is, I am not sure, it feels dead when I am there.
I was crazy last night, I felt this morning, just go, get out, don't go back. I have not gone there yet today. I feel better away from there and I don't know if I will return this night. I don't know. It seems extreme. It seems crazy. I have no perspective. That is what I feel.
I am not finding it possible also to get rid of this grief. I find this also.
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Worth a book a day
Yesterday was worth a whole book,
Every day is full of things to tell. Yesterday particularly. And I cannot say enough, I need a camera.
I would like to share it with everything, but there is never enough time to write down what is happening.
So many people we met and so many experiences we had. I cannot even begin to recount.
Each episode rife with perfection and delight. We get everything we need. always.
We were trying yesterday to get a Motel room. We wanted to sleep indoors, but we ended up out by the highway. It was ok.
I don't think sleeping outside is really that bad at all.
We can stay in the library working up to midnight perhaps. It's cool in here. As I type this, Ashton sleeps, his head and shoulders on my lap.
We are obviously street persons. I don't care. Just don't give a damn, but I do ask him to behave.
What did we do here in this city today? I woke first and went to get my morning rituals done. There was a tub of water. I feel like things are prepared just for me. It was clean and warm, like rain water. But I think it was perhaps meant for repairing automobile tires. It seemed quite ok. so, I got in it. It was big like a jacuzzi. I took my bath and washed my clothes. I then put them on wet.
It's not cold here. and in the morning it feels good to have clean clothing. so, I just washed everything. It dries quite readily. Then I tried to wake up Ashton, but he wanted to sleep.
We had been awake quite late. AT some point around 1 a.m. I had said to Ashton, Please stop. Stop running up and down, please don't leave. I am tired. I just want it to stop. It is so amazing, so engrossing. But I cannot take any more. I need rest.
Then we slept for perhaps a few minutes. Then another man came. On the street you have no door that you can close. You just are there and people come up and start to talk to you, even though you may be asleep or not feel like it.
This man came up to us and he had his story. This man's name was Ryan. but he was not the most amazing. He was not the highlight of the day.
Damn, I wish I had a few days in an apartment with a computer just to write this story. I learned so much, felt so much, experienced so much.
Ashton just started telling jokes after he woke up, singing crazy lyrics and entertaining me.
Then we entertained a woman who gave us a ride uptown. Eva from the Austinian something something newspaper. She does the music column. I cannot remember the name of that paper. It just would not stick in my mind.
She didn't want to give her by-line or her email. It was again, "Show me yours, but I won't show you mine." Everyone has stress jobs.
We walked down the street. I was not really relaxed. Ashton led. I tried to just follow. We ended up sitting on a corner where he used to play with his brother, getting a bit of cash from passers-by. Ashton is a great performer. He really is just doing it because he loves the music. I accompany him with tambourine. It helps a little.
We sat there and talked and made jokes with each other and behaved like lovers, without any shame for about an hour. Neither of us felt really hungry. I think we didn't eat until after lunch.
Then the day went on. We met more drunks. These guys said, "We are not alcoholics, we don't go to AA. We are just drunks." They were from Arkansas.
We found that food was being served at the local Caritas house at noon. There we had lunch.
Well, so much also happened today. I did not write it all down. I didn't even start to try.
I only know one thing. If we have made some person happy with the music and if we have told someone the truth, the day's purpose has been served.
We met Maxine and Lauren, mother and daughter, who have lost their house, and are on the street. Perfectly normal people. I told them, you are blessed. Be happy that the system has spit you out like poison. When it falls you will be protected. You will not go down with it, you will survive.
Then after this the security guard came and chased us away. I had no idea we are not allow also to sit on the sidewalk in front of the homeless shelter.
No where in the town are you allowed to sit out on the street and talk to one another. Life outside is against the rules. Ha! It's all against natural law. That's what I said to Ashton. All their laws go against nature. They try to keep people separated from each other. The ones who are going to survive the coming troubles are the ones who know how to stick together and help each other.
After this we wanted to go to the library. We wandered up town. I was feeling very tired.
Actually, I met a bi-polar woman today. She told me all kinds of crazy shit. But I felt she is sincere. She lied and lied, I suppose. I told her, you know, I don't know if what you say is true, but you are certainly very intelligent. But she talked very much and only wanted to drink alcohol. I was struck because she could speak German she said, and apparently she did speak a little. She sang a little German song. But I think maybe she was making it all up. She was really kind of magnetic, but she was proclaiming the whole time how important she is. After she and I went off to find some bathroom and I never found any, I came back and told Ash, we have to go
there was a man there playing Ashton's guitar. I yelled at him. I just blasted him and told him to shit or get off the pot. He kept talking and talking, holding the guitar but not playing and completely monopolizing the corner where we were supposed to be playing. It was just like a bunch of drunks were crowded around us. We were in the midst of this, and I felt, this is not what we need. I just felt like this drunk scene is not the thing I want around me all the time. I was not repulsive. But I simply felt, this is not real.
Then we walked away and I said, "I want to leave this place, let's just get out of Austin." And we headed out to the highway. We wanted to just jump and go to Colorado. But I have a terrible sunburn and Ashton made me sit in the shade. Then a man came and took us to the homeless shelter, ostensibly to get some food, but that food was finished.
But after that we met the homeless people and started to talk to them and found that we had something helpful to say. They seemed also receptive of the message. But then they also had to leave.
After this we were wandering again up town and we were hungry. We wanted this library. But then came a man we had met downtown, a very aimiable drunken Chinese, with few teeth and as many English words, it seemed. He wanted to tell us, "Go Chinese restaurant, they feed you..." And he was directing us across town, not uptown. I started to kind of follow him. Then we can to Quiznos and went in to get a small sandwich and some bread.
Then, I had gone to the bathroom and Ashton came back from ordering the food. He brought my sandwich, b ut I did not want to eat without him. I waited, though I was hungry. Just then a man behind us spoke up, "You guys want a coupla subs? What can I get for you, ask for anything." And Ashton did not understand, that the man wanted to just buy us some food.
He got us 2 foot-long subs. I felt again, universe is helping us. We simply have to do our jobs. WE have to sing to people and tell the truth.
After this we met some people in the park and they took a video of us singing and playing. This may be uploaded to youtube. Perhaps, we will see.
finally, we started out again for the library. I had to pull A. away from these people. He just wanted to talk more and more to them. I felt that they wanted to leave however and I said, "Hey, let's go, we need to get out of here." He would have talked their ears off I suppose.
AFter this again I felt awful and had to stop on the road. Then A. came to sit with me on the sidewalk. I was really hot, exhausted, frustrated and didn't know where to go next. Being out is not easy. I was cursing that I carried all this stuff with me. I felt hot and tired and something amiss. We sat but I didn't feel comfortable, thinking any moment cops will stop and harass us.
I will try to write these things as they happen, but really we need digital help. It's too much. And it would be much better as a documentary in video format. It just would be way more interesting and fun.
So many people we see. So many people speak to us and are real. So many are sincere. Others are not genuine, distant, so called "a-holes". But I see they are simply trapped. They are children, scared. I don't have anything to be afraid of any more and often they are afraid of me.
There was a black guy a few days ago. I don't know why I just went up to him. It was night and we were trying to get cigarettes I think. I just said to him, "Man, you are really big!" because he was. He was packing a piece I think. there was this bulge under his t-shirt and he was like trying to be very gruff and frightening, but I just said, "Man, are you some kind of bouncer?" He was saying like, "Just go, this place is closed." It was like I walked into the middle of a drug deal going down. But I was not afraid. Nothing was going to happen to me. That guy was really disturbed. I didn't have any problem.
Ashton like to see problems now and again. Then it's my turn to see them. I yell at him when he starts to want to fill my head with some fucked up negative image. He then gets pissed off, but I don't care. I don't want to hear that shit.
There was another woman we met today, a very humble soul. Debbie. She told Ashton that his music is good and he needs to record.
A couple in the park made a video of us, did I already say that? They showed me also playing and hopefully they will upload it so that you can now see what we are doing.
Every day is full of things to tell. Yesterday particularly. And I cannot say enough, I need a camera.
I would like to share it with everything, but there is never enough time to write down what is happening.
So many people we met and so many experiences we had. I cannot even begin to recount.
Each episode rife with perfection and delight. We get everything we need. always.
We were trying yesterday to get a Motel room. We wanted to sleep indoors, but we ended up out by the highway. It was ok.
I don't think sleeping outside is really that bad at all.
We can stay in the library working up to midnight perhaps. It's cool in here. As I type this, Ashton sleeps, his head and shoulders on my lap.
We are obviously street persons. I don't care. Just don't give a damn, but I do ask him to behave.
What did we do here in this city today? I woke first and went to get my morning rituals done. There was a tub of water. I feel like things are prepared just for me. It was clean and warm, like rain water. But I think it was perhaps meant for repairing automobile tires. It seemed quite ok. so, I got in it. It was big like a jacuzzi. I took my bath and washed my clothes. I then put them on wet.
It's not cold here. and in the morning it feels good to have clean clothing. so, I just washed everything. It dries quite readily. Then I tried to wake up Ashton, but he wanted to sleep.
We had been awake quite late. AT some point around 1 a.m. I had said to Ashton, Please stop. Stop running up and down, please don't leave. I am tired. I just want it to stop. It is so amazing, so engrossing. But I cannot take any more. I need rest.
Then we slept for perhaps a few minutes. Then another man came. On the street you have no door that you can close. You just are there and people come up and start to talk to you, even though you may be asleep or not feel like it.
This man came up to us and he had his story. This man's name was Ryan. but he was not the most amazing. He was not the highlight of the day.
Damn, I wish I had a few days in an apartment with a computer just to write this story. I learned so much, felt so much, experienced so much.
Ashton just started telling jokes after he woke up, singing crazy lyrics and entertaining me.
Then we entertained a woman who gave us a ride uptown. Eva from the Austinian something something newspaper. She does the music column. I cannot remember the name of that paper. It just would not stick in my mind.
She didn't want to give her by-line or her email. It was again, "Show me yours, but I won't show you mine." Everyone has stress jobs.
We walked down the street. I was not really relaxed. Ashton led. I tried to just follow. We ended up sitting on a corner where he used to play with his brother, getting a bit of cash from passers-by. Ashton is a great performer. He really is just doing it because he loves the music. I accompany him with tambourine. It helps a little.
We sat there and talked and made jokes with each other and behaved like lovers, without any shame for about an hour. Neither of us felt really hungry. I think we didn't eat until after lunch.
Then the day went on. We met more drunks. These guys said, "We are not alcoholics, we don't go to AA. We are just drunks." They were from Arkansas.
We found that food was being served at the local Caritas house at noon. There we had lunch.
Well, so much also happened today. I did not write it all down. I didn't even start to try.
I only know one thing. If we have made some person happy with the music and if we have told someone the truth, the day's purpose has been served.
We met Maxine and Lauren, mother and daughter, who have lost their house, and are on the street. Perfectly normal people. I told them, you are blessed. Be happy that the system has spit you out like poison. When it falls you will be protected. You will not go down with it, you will survive.
Then after this the security guard came and chased us away. I had no idea we are not allow also to sit on the sidewalk in front of the homeless shelter.
No where in the town are you allowed to sit out on the street and talk to one another. Life outside is against the rules. Ha! It's all against natural law. That's what I said to Ashton. All their laws go against nature. They try to keep people separated from each other. The ones who are going to survive the coming troubles are the ones who know how to stick together and help each other.
After this we wanted to go to the library. We wandered up town. I was feeling very tired.
Actually, I met a bi-polar woman today. She told me all kinds of crazy shit. But I felt she is sincere. She lied and lied, I suppose. I told her, you know, I don't know if what you say is true, but you are certainly very intelligent. But she talked very much and only wanted to drink alcohol. I was struck because she could speak German she said, and apparently she did speak a little. She sang a little German song. But I think maybe she was making it all up. She was really kind of magnetic, but she was proclaiming the whole time how important she is. After she and I went off to find some bathroom and I never found any, I came back and told Ash, we have to go
there was a man there playing Ashton's guitar. I yelled at him. I just blasted him and told him to shit or get off the pot. He kept talking and talking, holding the guitar but not playing and completely monopolizing the corner where we were supposed to be playing. It was just like a bunch of drunks were crowded around us. We were in the midst of this, and I felt, this is not what we need. I just felt like this drunk scene is not the thing I want around me all the time. I was not repulsive. But I simply felt, this is not real.
Then we walked away and I said, "I want to leave this place, let's just get out of Austin." And we headed out to the highway. We wanted to just jump and go to Colorado. But I have a terrible sunburn and Ashton made me sit in the shade. Then a man came and took us to the homeless shelter, ostensibly to get some food, but that food was finished.
But after that we met the homeless people and started to talk to them and found that we had something helpful to say. They seemed also receptive of the message. But then they also had to leave.
After this we were wandering again up town and we were hungry. We wanted this library. But then came a man we had met downtown, a very aimiable drunken Chinese, with few teeth and as many English words, it seemed. He wanted to tell us, "Go Chinese restaurant, they feed you..." And he was directing us across town, not uptown. I started to kind of follow him. Then we can to Quiznos and went in to get a small sandwich and some bread.
Then, I had gone to the bathroom and Ashton came back from ordering the food. He brought my sandwich, b ut I did not want to eat without him. I waited, though I was hungry. Just then a man behind us spoke up, "You guys want a coupla subs? What can I get for you, ask for anything." And Ashton did not understand, that the man wanted to just buy us some food.
He got us 2 foot-long subs. I felt again, universe is helping us. We simply have to do our jobs. WE have to sing to people and tell the truth.
After this we met some people in the park and they took a video of us singing and playing. This may be uploaded to youtube. Perhaps, we will see.
finally, we started out again for the library. I had to pull A. away from these people. He just wanted to talk more and more to them. I felt that they wanted to leave however and I said, "Hey, let's go, we need to get out of here." He would have talked their ears off I suppose.
AFter this again I felt awful and had to stop on the road. Then A. came to sit with me on the sidewalk. I was really hot, exhausted, frustrated and didn't know where to go next. Being out is not easy. I was cursing that I carried all this stuff with me. I felt hot and tired and something amiss. We sat but I didn't feel comfortable, thinking any moment cops will stop and harass us.
I will try to write these things as they happen, but really we need digital help. It's too much. And it would be much better as a documentary in video format. It just would be way more interesting and fun.
So many people we see. So many people speak to us and are real. So many are sincere. Others are not genuine, distant, so called "a-holes". But I see they are simply trapped. They are children, scared. I don't have anything to be afraid of any more and often they are afraid of me.
There was a black guy a few days ago. I don't know why I just went up to him. It was night and we were trying to get cigarettes I think. I just said to him, "Man, you are really big!" because he was. He was packing a piece I think. there was this bulge under his t-shirt and he was like trying to be very gruff and frightening, but I just said, "Man, are you some kind of bouncer?" He was saying like, "Just go, this place is closed." It was like I walked into the middle of a drug deal going down. But I was not afraid. Nothing was going to happen to me. That guy was really disturbed. I didn't have any problem.
Ashton like to see problems now and again. Then it's my turn to see them. I yell at him when he starts to want to fill my head with some fucked up negative image. He then gets pissed off, but I don't care. I don't want to hear that shit.
There was another woman we met today, a very humble soul. Debbie. She told Ashton that his music is good and he needs to record.
A couple in the park made a video of us, did I already say that? They showed me also playing and hopefully they will upload it so that you can now see what we are doing.
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