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Authors: Marco Vassi
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nobody here have any notions to the contrary.” I had succeeded in blowing the lid off the scene, and for my pains suffered ostracism from the overlord and his underlings.
It is odd that the single most radical force on the campus should have been run dictatorially, and that period of my life once and for all dispelled the idea in my mind that there is something inherently better about democracy as a social form. I suspect that the health of a state depends on the quality of the people, and it doesn’t matter what particular form they choose to express their sanity or their madness.
By registration day, I had written up a blurb for a workshop in “Relaxation, Awareness, and Breathing.” At the time, I was floating in a more or less continual euphoria. The sheer joy of San Francisco, the golden rich September days, the freedom from all the habits of my New York life, came together to keep me permanently high. The campus was such a continual feast day that soon I had shed all the gray eastern film, and had begun going barefoot, wearing a leopard-skin cloak, carrying a wooden staff, and playing a harmonica instead of talking. It was a perfect time. I could do nothing wrong. If I danced in the street, I would have an appreciative audience. If I wanted a particular girl, I had only to smile at her.
I was getting very deeply into the power of dance and mime, learning that in any given communication, if one responds to breathing patterns, muscle tensions, and eye contact, and if one is sensitive to the nonverbal vibrations in any given group, then one is like the man with one eye in the land of the blind. I found that charisma was nothing more than letting this multileveled awareness, and its concomitant energy, glow. In short, I was becoming a strangely influential force, and the fear of the EC rulers had a basis in fact.
All around the Gallery Lounge we stood and sat. All the current legends were there, and as the morning progressed, and the crowds grew, and music swelled, and the grass circulated, the entire place began to lift off the ground. The vibes were so high that just to walk through the door was like smoking a joint of good-grade dope.
Michael Parker had the booth next to mine, and just to be in Michael’s presence is the equivalent of a lick of acid, so by mid-afternoon I was infatuated with enlightenment. The energy poured out of me like sweat. When I went to the John, my eyes in the mirror were like strobe kaleidoscopes. The Spirit was in me, and the people saw. I started dancing, and soon, scores of students were flocking to the booth, wanting to sign up, not even knowing what it was I was teaching, not caring. It was the classic guru scene; one judges the master not by what he says, but by the force of life which flows through him.
By day’s end, I had over two hundred people signed up for a workshop which was designed for no more than twelve. The other high tally was for Michael’s Monday Night Class, and he drew almost three hundred. Michael continued his class even after the EC closed down, and eventually went on to become perhaps the foremost American-born spiritual teacher, with over fifteen hundred people coming every Monday night to hear his rap, and share in the circle of beauty and truth he and his family have created.
My first class was for a Wednesday night, and all that week, I prepared. I drew up a list of graduated exercises, beginning with deep physical relaxation, and going into mutual support workouts, and ending with group movement and chanting. The point was to get everyone into the same psychic space by relaxing the normal tensions of uptight daily life. There was a danger of creating a cheap instant-intimacy, such as the kind that Esalen thrives on, but I was guarding against that. It was possible to keep critical intelligence even in the midst of the most turgid touchie-feelies.
That Wednesday I held silence until evening, eating lightly, spending a good deal of time sitting
It is odd that the single most radical force on the campus should have been run dictatorially, and that period of my life once and for all dispelled the idea in my mind that there is something inherently better about democracy as a social form. I suspect that the health of a state depends on the quality of the people, and it doesn’t matter what particular form they choose to express their sanity or their madness.
By registration day, I had written up a blurb for a workshop in “Relaxation, Awareness, and Breathing.” At the time, I was floating in a more or less continual euphoria. The sheer joy of San Francisco, the golden rich September days, the freedom from all the habits of my New York life, came together to keep me permanently high. The campus was such a continual feast day that soon I had shed all the gray eastern film, and had begun going barefoot, wearing a leopard-skin cloak, carrying a wooden staff, and playing a harmonica instead of talking. It was a perfect time. I could do nothing wrong. If I danced in the street, I would have an appreciative audience. If I wanted a particular girl, I had only to smile at her.
I was getting very deeply into the power of dance and mime, learning that in any given communication, if one responds to breathing patterns, muscle tensions, and eye contact, and if one is sensitive to the nonverbal vibrations in any given group, then one is like the man with one eye in the land of the blind. I found that charisma was nothing more than letting this multileveled awareness, and its concomitant energy, glow. In short, I was becoming a strangely influential force, and the fear of the EC rulers had a basis in fact.
All around the Gallery Lounge we stood and sat. All the current legends were there, and as the morning progressed, and the crowds grew, and music swelled, and the grass circulated, the entire place began to lift off the ground. The vibes were so high that just to walk through the door was like smoking a joint of good-grade dope.
Michael Parker had the booth next to mine, and just to be in Michael’s presence is the equivalent of a lick of acid, so by mid-afternoon I was infatuated with enlightenment. The energy poured out of me like sweat. When I went to the John, my eyes in the mirror were like strobe kaleidoscopes. The Spirit was in me, and the people saw. I started dancing, and soon, scores of students were flocking to the booth, wanting to sign up, not even knowing what it was I was teaching, not caring. It was the classic guru scene; one judges the master not by what he says, but by the force of life which flows through him.
By day’s end, I had over two hundred people signed up for a workshop which was designed for no more than twelve. The other high tally was for Michael’s Monday Night Class, and he drew almost three hundred. Michael continued his class even after the EC closed down, and eventually went on to become perhaps the foremost American-born spiritual teacher, with over fifteen hundred people coming every Monday night to hear his rap, and share in the circle of beauty and truth he and his family have created.
My first class was for a Wednesday night, and all that week, I prepared. I drew up a list of graduated exercises, beginning with deep physical relaxation, and going into mutual support workouts, and ending with group movement and chanting. The point was to get everyone into the same psychic space by relaxing the normal tensions of uptight daily life. There was a danger of creating a cheap instant-intimacy, such as the kind that Esalen thrives on, but I was guarding against that. It was possible to keep critical intelligence even in the midst of the most turgid touchie-feelies.
That Wednesday I held silence until evening, eating lightly, spending a good deal of time sitting
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