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listening to Warrior Saint.

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Welcome to Earth.

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you

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teacher is known generally as Yogi.

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And I actually met Yogi Bhajan in 19.

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Well, actually, I met him indirectly, would say starting in 1977 when I started on this
path that I'm on this spiritual path that I'm on.

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And I started, you know, without getting into, you know, we'll probably talk another time
about my entire trajectory into this, but whatever my trajectory in life was at the age of

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24, almost 25, a week before I was 25, I took my first Kundalini Yoga class in an ashram
in Brooklyn.

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Right?

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And it's really weird because uh I mean, it's kind of like the serendipity of your life
because it was one of these again situations and I've had this many times in my life that

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there's a lot of times that my head's been turned like 30 degrees in one direction.

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And if it had only been turned like 15 degrees in that direction, the entire course of my
life would be different.

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This happened many times.

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Actually, almost all the significant events in my life actually were serendipity that
easily could have been another way, but weren't.

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And that one was, I was walking in midtown Manhattan in 1977.

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my neck was turned 30 degrees away.

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At the corner of my eye, I saw a window of the Coliseum bookstore, I believe.

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And there was a book called...

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Kundalini the evolutionary energy of mankind.

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Yeah, is there anybody man named Gopi Krishna and you know, this gets back into our drug
talk a little from other episodes, but you know, I was at that point in my life I like

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doing LSD and these kind of things and something about the book cover just drew me in and
again I made the decision not only to see it but I that's interesting the book kind of

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drew me in I went into the store sort of flipping through it and the guy described
something that seemed very much like an LSD trip

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but not LSD.

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So I'm going that's there.

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And the word kind of caught in my head, the Kundalini and, and, uh, and then I found out
they were actually people teaching Kundalini yoga in Brooklyn, in Brooklyn.

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Right.

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And I go to this ashram and it was funny.

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So that, so first of all, I'm thinking, it's Kundalini yoga.

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has to do with this guy, Gopikrishna.

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Right.

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And then I don't know if you, you you've heard of this guy named

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from the 60s called Richard Albert Ramdas.

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He wrote Be Here Now.

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He was a very prominent uh new agey kind of writer in the 60s from Harvard, interesting
guy.

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And I had his books and I saw him speak so I knew him.

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So this is the two funny things.

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So first I see there is in the yellow page is a class of Kundalini Yoga.

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I go there and uh something it has to do with this Gopikrishna who wrote the book.

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Secondly, I get to the ashram address and there's a sign on the front door that says Guru
Ram Dass Ashram.

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So I'm thinking, oh, this must be like Richard Albert's ashram, because he's Ram Dass.

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I never even heard of Ram Dass.

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So I'm thinking that's the same guy.

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Wow.

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I read his books.

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How lucky am I?

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Was it?

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Well, this is what happened.

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I knock on the door.

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A guy opens the door, he's got a beard, guy more or less my age, mid-20s.

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He's all dressed in white, he's got a white turban and a long beard.

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And I'm like, what?

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It became clear that neither was this anything to do with Gopikrishna or Ramdas.

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This was a whole nother thing.

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And of course, my first reaction, this being in the 70s, was I actually was walking into a
cult.

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This was some kind of, I did, I thought this was some kind of cult and I got very, very
concerned.

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But I land up, and I did walk through the door and the thing that kind of got me to walk
through the door was actually the smell.

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Cause they were, when we talked about this today about the yogi tea, they were actually
brewing yogi tea in the back, you know, the background because they often would serve it

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after class.

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So the first thing I,

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smelled when I walked through the door was the yogi tea and that was enough to seduce me
into the room for the yoga.

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At the time was it branded as yogi tea or just tea?

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No, no, there was something called yogi tea that yogi budgen, who I'll talk about in a
second, he brought a lot of teachings including food and things like this.

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there was something called yogi tea.

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And actually what yogi tea is, is chai.

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mean, if you go into Jackson Heights, you go to Indian Place, he asks for chai.

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That's what

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pretty much what yogi tea is.

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all these spices.

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So it was all these spices I never smelled before.

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So that kind of just seduced me in.

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And the next thing I know, I'm in the yoga room doing yoga, but I was kind of, the smell
kind of got me in.

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Otherwise I would probably run away.

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And the guy teaching the classes, a guy with a white turban and a white and this, and I'm
like, I'm trying to wrap my head about what's going on in this room.

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But he did this Kundalini yoga.

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It was very, very powerful.

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And you know, we've talked about that in other classes, you know, its effect on me was
really life transformational.

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And it landed up that I learned soon enough that the person who had brought that whole
thing to the United States, you know, the person who brought that particular yogic

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practice from India, Kundalini yoga.

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And I saw his picture.

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His picture would be like on the walls of this place.

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But I didn't know who this was.

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So clearly I didn't know what was going on there.

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So what I could gather was there was something called Kundalini Yoga.

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There was a guy from India who brought that there.

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They had his picture around.

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It looked like a pretty powerful guy.

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ah Clearly these were his followers.

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I didn't quite know what that meant because I never had seen one of them before.

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Didn't even know what...

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their existence was.

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And so I'm thinking, well, this this is a some kind of guy here.

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I don't know what to make of it.

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Uh, I know that, uh, I was initially kind of, uh, put off and a little scared about that
because I had been pretty much brought up with and exposed to ideas, uh, of any person

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having that kind of

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Power and influence over others, you know, they we know there was a time of only first of
all, I was a hippie Yeah, so I didn't you know, didn't trust anybody.

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I really didn't trust anybody and I didn't even trust myself No, that's another
conversation.

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But but I I didn't I was like anti-authority So as a hippie, I kind of was like
anti-authoritarian anything that represented authority

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and I was at that age that I was against.

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So clearly this guy was in charge of something.

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I was kind of put off just by that whole energy.

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then of course that was a time that a lot of teachers were coming from over the East and
you had the Munis and the Hare Krishnas.

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And I didn't know what this group was, but my initial reaction was this was another one of
those cults and this guy was the head of a cult.

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So...

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I didn't even know what a cult was, except what I was reading in Time Magazine.

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so I'm going, wow, this yoga feels good, but I don't know who this guy is, and I'm feeling
a little uncomfortable and threatened.

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Yeah, what is this all leading to?

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Yeah, but something intuitively was saying to me it's leading to something, and I'm a
little uncomfortable, but something's going on here because I've never felt anything like

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this before.

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And so I kind of was intrigued and I kept this kind of at an arms distance.

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So what happened, that was in 1977 and so for the next year I would say this and then this
guy Yogi Budgen, I got to learn a little about him through his followers and from what I

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had read in books and stuff.

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I was kind of curious about him but I never had met him personally.

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But I was impressed with what he was teaching.

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I never had been around anything quite like that.

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And what did do for you?

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Like what after you took the first class, what changed?

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Well, and again, it's much different for me now, but the big switch for me back then, and
again, it kind of comes off our last conversation talking about LSD and drugs.

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So I would actually say that it would be in the area of altered consciousness, which I was
very interested in back then, about the very existence of altered consciousness from what

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we'd call regular.

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ordinary kind of day-to-day consciousness and most people are and I I kind of felt It was
there it was there for the taking and I was very compelled by it about what I read and

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then I had experimented a little with LSD and stuff so in having like an LSD experience
that kind of Validated that an alternative consciousness does exist.

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So I was very very Compelled by this and I had read

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uh, the teachings of some spiritual masters from thousands of years ago and people would
talk about this.

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So I was kind of compelled with this.

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And so what happened very early on practicing cleanliness yoga and this doesn't happen to
everybody, but it happened to me was that very early on practicing this, I was actually

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experiencing experiences that were way out of the box.

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from anything that I experienced in ordinary consciousness.

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So there was some kind of technology that I was practicing that came from this guy.

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Yogi Bhajan.

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I mean, wasn't just, it was kind of, I think, derivative, derivative-ly through him,
because it's not like he made it up.

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He got it from somewhere.

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But he was the one who brought whatever this technology is at this time and place to the
West.

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so I'm practicing this.

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And I, at this point, had

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I was 20, you know, 25, 26, I'm sorry, 24, 25.

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And I had already played a couple of years with meditation and yoga.

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I'd been doing yoga meditation on and off since I was 19.

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And so when you did that, what did it do for you?

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Uh, that was like really good too.

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I mean, it would, uh, slightly alter my perception, which was intriguing in itself.

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Uh, it did all the things you even hear about yoga these days.

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It relaxed me.

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Yeah, de-stressed me, made me kind of connect with a part of myself that I ordinarily
wouldn't pay attention to, all those things.

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So it was all good.

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Did you ever use yoga and LSD and meditation in combination?

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Oh boy, that's going to be, well, that'll be a story up the road because I definitely want
to share with people what happened when I was doing that.

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But that's the longest story and that's why I would never do that again.

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Because that's You gotta tell that story.

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Well, it's jumping ahead a little.

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You wanna hear that now?

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It's jumping a little ahead.

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This was after I started taking...

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Well, actually, let me just...

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I'll get into one minute because it's kind of chronological and it's almost like around
the corner.

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So I started doing Kundalini Yoga actually in 1977, in March of 1977.

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again, you were asking me, it gave me a...

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Definitely much expanded experience of reality that I that I never even had doing LSD It
may take an LSD like taking aspirin Wow, yeah Wow because to me LSD has no I mean I

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thought when I'd taken LSD when I was younger that was just like the most mind-blowing
thing and having actually practiced Kundalini yoga, you know, that's like that's like

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nothing.

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It's like it's like child's play

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So I I experienced something that was like a hundred times that and so I kind of lost my
interest in these kind of things and and so But it was a little I get into how I did the

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LSD But but it was a little different type of experience, but it was a bigger experience,
but it was different It was not like like an acid tripping Multiplied it was something

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fundamentally different but bigger.

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Okay, it's like still a little bit of apples and oranges

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But it was a bigger experience.

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And then I experienced something that was dramatically stronger than anything I had
experienced doing anything else.

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And I couldn't quite explain that one away.

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It made no sense to me.

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But it was like I accessed something that I didn't know even existed actually, except
maybe intuitively.

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And so that was my first actual experience of yogi bhajan was being...

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indirectly through his teachings and so I experienced I was compelled about what kind of
guy would bring this here and and and I read about his teachings and all I could get was

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He was a something of a different cat than the other people I've been around Okay, there's
some I mean, I don't know why but something about him.

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There's very different from what I had seen and then now you talked about the drug thing
what happened to me was I I immediately just

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just jumped in with both feet to doing this yoga.

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I nothing.

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I was doing this like four hours a day.

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Wow.

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was doing yoga.

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I mean, like I just jumped in.

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fact, I went to this yoga class and they told me that there was something called sadhana,
which is getting up four o'clock in the morning and it's, you do the exercise sets and the

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meditation and these are things I bought a manual and I got up the next morning four
o'clock in the morning.

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And in fact, in fact, uh, these days I kind of struggle with it a little bit more, but
when I started doing this, I'd

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From that first morning, I didn't miss one morning for the next 15 years.

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Every day?

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Every day.

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four to eight?

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From four to six thirty.

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Every day for 15 years.

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Didn't miss one day.

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And again at night you wouldn't?

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No, no.

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No, maybe not something else.

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But that was, I did that practice and I got up four o'clock the next morning after my very
first class.

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And so I was really into doing the yoga because it was giving me this like super high.

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And I loved it and I kind of

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For a while I kind of lost interest in everything else.

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All I wanted to do was Kundalini Yoga because I was just so intoxicated with it.

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And then it was about four or five months later, and during that four or five months I
actually kind of was not doing all these other things that I had been doing.

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I respected the people who were in the ashram and they didn't do drugs and they didn't
drink.

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They didn't smoke and so I didn't make any lifetime commitment to it.

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So I was like, you know, I'm not going to smoke a drink or do that because I'm going to
put my head into this.

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But the funny thing is I was still into the Grateful Dead and I went to a Grateful, this
is my drug story.

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we went, I, that fateful day actually, actually kind of changed the course of my life.

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ah It was actually, I believe Labor Day weekend.

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of 1977, I went with a bunch of friends to English town, New Jersey for a big concert
with, I still remember this was the Grateful Dead and Santana.

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Nice.

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Yeah, and the Marshall Tucker band.

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And it was a big full day.

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were a quarter of a million people.

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were 250,000 people at this concert.

211
00:16:48,998 --> 00:16:49,969
And I'm at the concert.

212
00:16:49,969 --> 00:16:50,709
It's a beautiful day.

213
00:16:50,709 --> 00:16:51,770
I'm into the Grateful Dead.

214
00:16:51,770 --> 00:16:55,822
And I remember even to this day that before coming in,

215
00:16:55,822 --> 00:16:59,382
to the concert, we were waiting to get in.

216
00:16:59,382 --> 00:17:08,002
And I was there doing all this very powerful Kundalini Yoga exercises and meditations to
get myself in the space.

217
00:17:08,002 --> 00:17:14,242
I was a hippie back then, so I'm going to get myself, I'm very much a beginner too in all
this, so very innocent.

218
00:17:14,242 --> 00:17:20,942
I'm going to do all this really powerful Kundalini Yoga to put me in a space where I'm
going to be really high going into Grateful Dead concert because...

219
00:17:20,942 --> 00:17:22,623
You know, I used to go there and take acid.

220
00:17:22,623 --> 00:17:28,125
Instead of dropping acid, I was going to do all this powerful Kundalini yoga and go to the
Grateful Dead concert.

221
00:17:28,125 --> 00:17:29,086
So I'm in the concert.

222
00:17:29,086 --> 00:17:30,316
I'm really enjoying myself.

223
00:17:30,316 --> 00:17:32,367
I'm feeling very expansive.

224
00:17:32,367 --> 00:17:37,889
I'm sitting next to a guy and he's got some, you know, blotter LSD.

225
00:17:38,170 --> 00:17:41,781
And I'm thinking, you know, this would be a cool idea.

226
00:17:41,781 --> 00:17:48,724
about, I did all this yoga and I'm really expansive and now I'll take LSD and that would
be like really cool, the two together.

227
00:17:49,524 --> 00:17:53,748
And I kind of ignored the fact that people were telling me this is not such a hot idea.

228
00:17:53,748 --> 00:17:55,539
Who was telling you that?

229
00:17:55,539 --> 00:17:57,741
The people who would teach me the Kundalini Yoga.

230
00:17:57,741 --> 00:18:00,483
They go, don't mix this stuff.

231
00:18:00,483 --> 00:18:03,605
That's a nasty cocktail right there.

232
00:18:03,606 --> 00:18:06,498
But I'm thinking, I know, I was very rebellious.

233
00:18:06,498 --> 00:18:08,800
I don't want people telling me, I know what's best for me.

234
00:18:08,800 --> 00:18:09,651
I can handle it.

235
00:18:09,651 --> 00:18:10,971
They don't know me.

236
00:18:11,552 --> 00:18:12,733
That was my attitude.

237
00:18:12,733 --> 00:18:14,355
Yeah, I can take LSD.

238
00:18:14,355 --> 00:18:15,326
And I know how to handle it.

239
00:18:15,326 --> 00:18:16,777
I've done LSD.

240
00:18:16,777 --> 00:18:17,427
I've done yoga.

241
00:18:17,427 --> 00:18:18,728
I know what I'm doing.

242
00:18:18,970 --> 00:18:20,622
But meanwhile, I basically was a beginner.

243
00:18:20,622 --> 00:18:22,292
I didn't know what I was doing.

244
00:18:22,773 --> 00:18:33,961
And I dropped this Ellis Day and I can tell you this, that I had lot of experience doing
uh those kind of drugs, but nothing ever happened to me like happened to me that day.

245
00:18:34,823 --> 00:18:38,205
And I was totally in another planet.

246
00:18:38,205 --> 00:18:41,167
And so much so that I lost my friends.

247
00:18:42,529 --> 00:18:45,030
And I...

248
00:18:45,358 --> 00:18:47,918
I had a car, was borrowing my parents' car.

249
00:18:47,918 --> 00:18:53,078
got to that from, I was living in Long Island with my parents at 25, going to law school,
right?

250
00:18:53,998 --> 00:18:58,218
And borrowed my father's car to take my friends, but I lost my friends and lost my car.

251
00:18:58,218 --> 00:19:00,998
In fact, I didn't even know what planet I was on.

252
00:19:00,998 --> 00:19:03,238
And somehow I find myself back in Manhattan.

253
00:19:03,238 --> 00:19:04,958
I don't even know how I got there.

254
00:19:04,958 --> 00:19:06,998
But the car and my friends are back in New Jersey.

255
00:19:06,998 --> 00:19:08,858
I mean, I don't even know how I'm in Manhattan.

256
00:19:08,858 --> 00:19:10,798
I figured out how to get back to Long Island.

257
00:19:10,798 --> 00:19:12,078
I get back the next morning.

258
00:19:12,078 --> 00:19:13,998
My parents are eating breakfast.

259
00:19:14,190 --> 00:19:18,910
I walk in the door and they look out the window and my father goes, where's the car?

260
00:19:19,470 --> 00:19:24,518
And I'm going, I can't handle that.

261
00:19:26,310 --> 00:19:27,682
You know like I'm going to bed.

262
00:19:27,682 --> 00:19:42,929
This is every he's going why I'm going just leave me alone I'm going to bed and of course,
I couldn't sleep and long long story short is I I just kept rushing on this LSD and I

263
00:19:42,929 --> 00:19:44,700
found myself in the hospital

264
00:19:46,388 --> 00:19:48,679
And I found myself in the psych ward.

265
00:19:49,139 --> 00:19:50,950
When did you go to the hospital?

266
00:19:50,950 --> 00:19:51,701
That day.

267
00:19:51,701 --> 00:19:59,524
They left to do something and I actually felt like I was losing my mind.

268
00:19:59,544 --> 00:20:02,786
And I was in trouble.

269
00:20:02,786 --> 00:20:05,947
And I got somebody off the street to take me to the hospital.

270
00:20:05,947 --> 00:20:10,589
And they put me in a psych ward and they started shooting me up with Thorazine to bring me
down.

271
00:20:10,589 --> 00:20:12,510
But that didn't bring me down at all.

272
00:20:12,928 --> 00:20:15,388
Finally, my parents somehow showed up at the hospital.

273
00:20:15,388 --> 00:20:16,339
I don't know how they got there.

274
00:20:16,339 --> 00:20:19,151
They brought me home and I still wasn't coming down.

275
00:20:19,151 --> 00:20:26,383
They took me to the hospital again a second time and they brought me into the emergency
room.

276
00:20:27,384 --> 00:20:35,087
And at that point I had the thing happened to me that you hear other people talk about,
but it happened to me.

277
00:20:35,087 --> 00:20:35,487
It did.

278
00:20:35,487 --> 00:20:42,540
I was on there and the doctors didn't know what to do with me and I saw my whole life
flash in front of me.

279
00:20:42,552 --> 00:20:45,804
from my birth all the way through to that moment.

280
00:20:46,045 --> 00:20:50,389
And actually that was death time for me.

281
00:20:50,389 --> 00:20:58,555
mean, I had that really changed my life because I actually had the choice at that point to
die or to live.

282
00:20:59,036 --> 00:21:10,870
And it was interesting because I had just this glimpse of clarity among all this craziness
that I could go and that's fine, but...

283
00:21:10,870 --> 00:21:15,902
I had enough clarity to know that I did not want to live that way.

284
00:21:15,902 --> 00:21:19,054
That was not going to be a life.

285
00:21:19,114 --> 00:21:27,898
So somehow I just actually, for some of my life I think I had experience of what real
choice and commitment is.

286
00:21:27,898 --> 00:21:30,569
I actually made, within that I had the choice to live.

287
00:21:30,569 --> 00:21:33,040
And I just thought I was going to live.

288
00:21:33,060 --> 00:21:37,062
And somehow I just kind of came somehow back a little bit.

289
00:21:37,230 --> 00:21:42,010
But they released me, but for the next three months, I was literally burnt out.

290
00:21:42,010 --> 00:21:42,870
My brain was burnt.

291
00:21:42,870 --> 00:21:45,750
I mean, it was like somebody just throwing on a barbecue.

292
00:21:45,810 --> 00:21:48,230
And I was a pretty smart person.

293
00:21:48,230 --> 00:21:52,970
mean, I'd been in law school and I actually, it took me a couple of weeks where I could
even read.

294
00:21:52,970 --> 00:21:54,190
I couldn't read.

295
00:21:54,190 --> 00:21:55,230
And people would talk to me.

296
00:21:55,230 --> 00:21:57,150
I had no idea what they were talking about.

297
00:21:57,150 --> 00:21:58,710
All I knew is that that was not right.

298
00:21:58,710 --> 00:22:00,670
That was like really, really bad.

299
00:22:00,670 --> 00:22:06,230
And I had this sense that my life actually could be ruined.

300
00:22:06,632 --> 00:22:20,681
But I had enough, again, I just had enough residue of clarity to realize that I had a very
important choice to make in my life, that I knew I didn't want to be the person I was

301
00:22:20,681 --> 00:22:31,687
raised to be, which was to be a tax lawyer living in Long Island with a nice Jewish wife,
you know I'm saying, commuting on the Long Island Railroad to Wall Street, which is okay

302
00:22:31,687 --> 00:22:32,758
for some people.

303
00:22:32,792 --> 00:22:36,903
That really didn't hold much interest to me, but that's what I was programmed to do.

304
00:22:37,243 --> 00:22:38,864
And that wasn't gonna work out.

305
00:22:38,864 --> 00:22:48,527
And I really still believed in this lifetime that I could experience something just vast
beyond belief.

306
00:22:48,987 --> 00:22:51,547
And I just knew it deep within myself.

307
00:22:51,648 --> 00:22:59,890
And I realized that was like a turning, one of the turning points in my life because I
realized that it was either going to be drugs,

308
00:23:00,564 --> 00:23:04,635
or was going to be spiritual development, but it wasn't going to be both.

309
00:23:04,995 --> 00:23:09,657
Because that was my experience is that that stuff is a nasty cocktail.

310
00:23:09,657 --> 00:23:16,179
And the reason it happened, of course, is that when you do yoga and you meditate, you kind
of open up your doors of perception.

311
00:23:16,179 --> 00:23:22,331
mean, you really even on a physical level, know, you know, your spinal cord and
everything's kind of opening up.

312
00:23:22,331 --> 00:23:24,181
So everything is flowing.

313
00:23:24,281 --> 00:23:26,968
And now you're you're introducing

314
00:23:26,968 --> 00:23:31,359
this other substance in and it's like it's it's it's tsunami.

315
00:23:31,439 --> 00:23:31,889
Right.

316
00:23:31,889 --> 00:23:33,200
It just runs rampant.

317
00:23:33,200 --> 00:23:36,139
But if you had been some if I've been closed down.

318
00:23:36,139 --> 00:23:36,699
Yeah.

319
00:23:36,699 --> 00:23:38,661
Then it would have been I was too open.

320
00:23:38,661 --> 00:23:39,101
Yeah.

321
00:23:39,101 --> 00:23:49,524
I was actually too open and my nervous system was not anywhere close to being able to
really sustain that experience.

322
00:23:49,524 --> 00:23:55,598
was too was it was just it was really like getting electrocuted getting your brain
electrocuted.

323
00:23:55,598 --> 00:24:07,728
ah But somehow I was meant to survive that to have a story to tell about that which I
think I do and so I came back to this life and took me three or four months, I finally

324
00:24:07,728 --> 00:24:19,778
kind of got back to you know square one wherever square one was and and then I decided
that uh You know, I didn't want to have kind of like this life I was programmed to have

325
00:24:19,778 --> 00:24:25,642
but neither did I want to be in the drug culture anymore and I kind of realized that

326
00:24:27,278 --> 00:24:30,978
there had to be another path for somebody like myself.

327
00:24:31,098 --> 00:24:33,418
that's where I went into.

328
00:24:33,618 --> 00:24:36,418
So now that's in 1977.

329
00:24:36,418 --> 00:24:42,238
So then I think it was about March of 1978, I met Yogi Bhajan for the first time.

330
00:24:42,638 --> 00:24:45,158
Did I tell you about how I met him on a blind date?

331
00:24:45,158 --> 00:24:45,938
No.

332
00:24:45,938 --> 00:24:46,478
Oh, no.

333
00:24:46,478 --> 00:24:50,138
is guy, I forget because I tell these stories, I forget who I tell them to.

334
00:24:50,278 --> 00:24:53,518
I actually met Yogi Bhajan on a blind date.

335
00:24:53,518 --> 00:24:54,272
All right.

336
00:24:54,272 --> 00:24:55,542
I get a crazy life.

337
00:24:55,542 --> 00:24:56,482
this is a 19.

338
00:24:56,482 --> 00:25:04,955
So I knew that he, was going to be in Manhattan to teach what we know to be a tantric yoga
course with men and women.

339
00:25:04,955 --> 00:25:06,195
It's really kind of interesting.

340
00:25:06,195 --> 00:25:08,066
know, many tantric sex.

341
00:25:08,066 --> 00:25:09,436
yeah, but it's not like that.

342
00:25:09,436 --> 00:25:10,216
That's what people think.

343
00:25:10,216 --> 00:25:12,927
But no, that's, that's, there's different types of tantric.

344
00:25:12,927 --> 00:25:15,618
There's three, there's white, black and red tantric.

345
00:25:15,618 --> 00:25:17,409
You're referring to red tantric.

346
00:25:17,409 --> 00:25:21,830
Red tantric is using sexuality to achieve liberation.

347
00:25:21,830 --> 00:25:22,290
Okay.

348
00:25:22,290 --> 00:25:22,920
And

349
00:25:22,922 --> 00:25:24,263
That's dangerous.

350
00:25:24,263 --> 00:25:28,625
I mean, you know, I'm sure that they can do it, but you know, it's, you know, good luck.

351
00:25:28,625 --> 00:25:30,745
mean, that's tricky business.

352
00:25:31,226 --> 00:25:32,276
I wouldn't fire you.

353
00:25:32,276 --> 00:25:39,290
think people are crazy to fall into that because maybe they'll experience liberation and
maybe they're just gonna have a total meltdown.

354
00:25:39,290 --> 00:25:41,861
So that's not really, really smart to practice.

355
00:25:41,861 --> 00:25:48,564
Yeah, I mean, I think what people understand about tantric sex is that it's withholding
orgasm.

356
00:25:48,910 --> 00:25:51,401
Uh, there's some of it.

357
00:25:51,401 --> 00:25:53,052
I'm pretty well read in that.

358
00:25:53,052 --> 00:25:55,924
think in general, I know that's actually not true.

359
00:25:55,924 --> 00:25:57,245
Okay.

360
00:25:57,245 --> 00:26:02,818
And, and I think actually, people are just not honest with themselves in the West.

361
00:26:02,818 --> 00:26:05,979
I mean, look, they're interested in sex.

362
00:26:06,060 --> 00:26:06,560
Okay.

363
00:26:06,560 --> 00:26:10,102
So the longest amount of sex possible.

364
00:26:10,102 --> 00:26:17,356
Well, the thing is, is that they like sex and they want they believe there's some kind of
liberation.

365
00:26:17,356 --> 00:26:20,648
So wouldn't it be cool to do that just doing what I like to do?

366
00:26:20,689 --> 00:26:21,679
So it'd be great.

367
00:26:21,679 --> 00:26:23,751
I could have liberation going to Yankee games.

368
00:26:23,751 --> 00:26:24,479
That would be perfect.

369
00:26:24,479 --> 00:26:26,814
I could go to Yankee Stadium and have liberation.

370
00:26:26,814 --> 00:26:31,818
So they love the sex, and they're trying to convince you that their real interest is in
spirituality.

371
00:26:31,818 --> 00:26:33,259
But it's not.

372
00:26:33,259 --> 00:26:39,444
So in the East, it's a little bit different because there's not that attachment to it.

373
00:26:39,444 --> 00:26:42,846
So if you're coming in and you're not honest with yourself,

374
00:26:42,854 --> 00:26:45,535
You're not very, people are not very sophisticated either.

375
00:26:45,535 --> 00:26:51,038
I mean, it takes years to really understand any of this stuff and people think they know
more than they know.

376
00:26:51,038 --> 00:26:53,539
So that's kind of like the red, red Tantric.

377
00:26:53,539 --> 00:26:55,900
Black Tantric is black magic.

378
00:26:56,780 --> 00:26:57,230
All right.

379
00:26:57,230 --> 00:27:00,222
So that's also, uh, maybe an over your head there.

380
00:27:00,222 --> 00:27:02,423
mean, you may be out of your league.

381
00:27:02,423 --> 00:27:02,893
Yeah.

382
00:27:02,893 --> 00:27:03,203
Okay.

383
00:27:03,203 --> 00:27:03,663
And fine.

384
00:27:03,663 --> 00:27:06,264
People could do what they want to, but just be careful what you're doing.

385
00:27:06,264 --> 00:27:10,466
You know, I mean, uh, it's, it's not like it's risk free.

386
00:27:10,766 --> 00:27:12,767
All right, so, you know, it's dangerous.

387
00:27:12,767 --> 00:27:21,379
That's very, I mean, I'm not claiming that one can't have some sense of liberation doing
those things, but you know, you're playing with fire.

388
00:27:21,379 --> 00:27:23,669
So just get ready to be burned by fire.

389
00:27:23,669 --> 00:27:24,080
Right.

390
00:27:24,080 --> 00:27:24,730
Yeah.

391
00:27:24,730 --> 00:27:35,353
And white tantric yoga is, using the polarity of male and female energy, but it's not
sexual in the way that we're familiar with sexuality.

392
00:27:35,353 --> 00:27:39,114
It's more just using, you know, that yin yang thing.

393
00:27:39,114 --> 00:27:40,760
So he's, he's.

394
00:27:40,760 --> 00:27:42,011
He's a Mahantantric.

395
00:27:42,011 --> 00:27:47,675
So one of the things he brought here was this white tantric that he actually learned from
a Buddhist.

396
00:27:47,695 --> 00:27:49,677
It's not necessarily a Sikh thing.

397
00:27:49,677 --> 00:28:01,636
He learned it from a Buddhist and the people lined up and is male and female and they look
at each other and there's certain meditations and there's certain energy that goes through

398
00:28:01,636 --> 00:28:02,367
the group.

399
00:28:02,367 --> 00:28:03,497
So I'd heard about this.

400
00:28:03,497 --> 00:28:07,250
So he was giving one of these things in Manhattan.

401
00:28:08,046 --> 00:28:10,166
And it's funny because I was working as a cab driver.

402
00:28:10,166 --> 00:28:10,806
was going to law school.

403
00:28:10,806 --> 00:28:17,126
I was working as a cab driver and everybody knew in the cab company that I was kind of
like the flaky one.

404
00:28:17,126 --> 00:28:19,446
So I was into these weird things.

405
00:28:19,706 --> 00:28:22,286
So somebody who was in the cab company.

406
00:28:22,286 --> 00:28:24,986
You're the only white cab driver with a turban.

407
00:28:25,026 --> 00:28:34,698
Back then, Back then, the only people who drove cabs were like the old guys, the old Irish
guys with the hats and the cigars.

408
00:28:34,698 --> 00:28:44,406
And then also would be like, you know, out of work artists and, you know, people that like
artists and, and, uh and aspiring writers and people like that.

409
00:28:44,406 --> 00:28:47,018
was a different taxi driver than today.

410
00:28:47,018 --> 00:28:47,403
Yeah.

411
00:28:47,403 --> 00:28:49,989
Did you have a beaded seat cover?

412
00:28:50,660 --> 00:28:50,810
yeah.

413
00:28:50,810 --> 00:28:51,711
In the summer I did.

414
00:28:51,711 --> 00:28:52,052
Yeah.

415
00:28:52,052 --> 00:28:53,483
It was really hot and sticky.

416
00:28:53,483 --> 00:28:54,323
They had leather seats.

417
00:28:54,323 --> 00:28:55,594
It was, yeah, I did.

418
00:28:55,594 --> 00:28:57,296
And back then I didn't have a turbine.

419
00:28:57,296 --> 00:28:59,537
I mean, I was, I wasn't a seat yet.

420
00:28:59,537 --> 00:28:59,998
Okay.

421
00:28:59,998 --> 00:29:00,654
I was just

422
00:29:00,654 --> 00:29:11,054
Law student, you know, and I was a hippie basically like that was stone most of the time I
was driving cab I mean, I I was like a hippie driving cab, you know, and and so they they

423
00:29:11,054 --> 00:29:15,174
knew I was into these like weird things So so one of the other cab drivers.

424
00:29:15,174 --> 00:29:25,874
Hey, you know, I know I know a girl who's kind of into the things that you're into You
know, you should give her a call sometime So I knew that in this tantric yoga thing.

425
00:29:25,874 --> 00:29:27,314
It was male female things.

426
00:29:27,314 --> 00:29:29,006
So I thought well, that's

427
00:29:29,006 --> 00:29:34,306
I'm gonna call this woman I never met and ask her if she wants to be my partner in this.

428
00:29:34,306 --> 00:29:36,626
Well, so I bring her to this thing.

429
00:29:36,626 --> 00:29:40,686
And she had no idea what she was getting.

430
00:29:40,686 --> 00:29:45,046
I didn't even know what I was getting into, but I had been at least doing Kundalini Yoga
for a year.

431
00:29:45,046 --> 00:29:46,466
She had no idea.

432
00:29:46,466 --> 00:29:48,186
And I brought her into this thing.

433
00:29:48,186 --> 00:29:53,526
was like, why do all these people wear in white and turbans and this guy walks in.

434
00:29:54,066 --> 00:29:55,606
And so this is what happened.

435
00:29:55,606 --> 00:29:58,466
I'll tell ya, that guy walked in the room.

436
00:29:58,578 --> 00:30:00,960
And I forgot that I even had a partner.

437
00:30:00,960 --> 00:30:07,864
I forgot what her name was because I was much more interested in him than I was in her.

438
00:30:09,226 --> 00:30:19,112
And I remember that to this day, he walked in that door and my life changed in one second
because I didn't know who the hell he was.

439
00:30:19,112 --> 00:30:26,577
But I never had seen anybody like that in my life and still haven't actually.

440
00:30:27,766 --> 00:30:35,171
He came in and he started like, and at this point I've been around all these like famous
teachers from the East.

441
00:30:35,371 --> 00:30:38,193
I've been around their shtick for years.

442
00:30:38,233 --> 00:30:46,619
You go in, they had their robes and the rose and they put like a feather over your head
and you're blessed.

443
00:30:46,619 --> 00:30:50,026
I'm like wiping away your karma and here's a rose.

444
00:30:50,026 --> 00:30:57,546
And people really would like buy into this, and they'd be very sweet and you know, and you
know, and.

445
00:30:57,598 --> 00:31:02,881
know, clear their aura and the whole and they have their disciples and this.

446
00:31:03,641 --> 00:31:09,465
you know, just there's something that it was very nice, but I didn't quite connect with
that.

447
00:31:09,465 --> 00:31:17,389
And he came in the room and he came in the room and going, Whoa, what is that?

448
00:31:17,389 --> 00:31:20,031
And he, he started like yelling at people.

449
00:31:20,031 --> 00:31:23,793
I mean, he didn't, he didn't like brush away their aura as he was like, man.

450
00:31:23,793 --> 00:31:25,954
I he obviously knew some of the people.

451
00:31:26,634 --> 00:31:29,175
And he would be nailing them.

452
00:31:29,255 --> 00:31:39,118
And I'm thinking to myself, now I don't know the people he's nailing, but I think whatever
he's saying, think he's really getting to the bottom of this.

453
00:31:39,118 --> 00:31:44,319
Yeah, sounds like he knows what he's talking Yeah, and he was not cut mints in words.

454
00:31:44,679 --> 00:31:48,480
A very powerful personality, and he started talking.

455
00:31:48,500 --> 00:31:52,721
And now I'm kind of almost mesmerized, because I never actually saw somebody like this.

456
00:31:52,721 --> 00:31:55,142
uh

457
00:31:55,468 --> 00:32:04,300
And he's talking and my first reaction was that I didn't understand what he was saying
because he had a strong Indian accent.

458
00:32:04,421 --> 00:32:09,022
And the stuff that I did understand that he was saying, I didn't actually agree with.

459
00:32:09,622 --> 00:32:12,703
And I found myself debating in my head everything.

460
00:32:12,703 --> 00:32:15,104
Everything, that was a lawyer in me.

461
00:32:15,204 --> 00:32:17,965
Everything he was saying, I was trying to negate.

462
00:32:17,965 --> 00:32:19,145
That was how my mind was.

463
00:32:19,145 --> 00:32:22,706
He's saying this and I'm thinking, prove it to me.

464
00:32:23,362 --> 00:32:25,233
You know, yeah, well, that's not my experience.

465
00:32:25,233 --> 00:32:25,763
That's you.

466
00:32:25,763 --> 00:32:26,744
You're from India.

467
00:32:26,744 --> 00:32:29,786
You know, I mean, I'm playing all these head games.

468
00:32:29,786 --> 00:32:32,028
Everything he's saying, I'm questioning.

469
00:32:32,028 --> 00:32:34,489
Everything he's saying, I'm debating.

470
00:32:34,729 --> 00:32:38,271
My reaction to him is, I don't like that guy.

471
00:32:38,271 --> 00:32:42,564
I'm glad that I'm not one of these mindless disciples of his.

472
00:32:42,564 --> 00:32:44,255
That was my thought.

473
00:32:44,255 --> 00:32:45,496
They're getting abused.

474
00:32:45,496 --> 00:32:46,927
Oh, not even abused.

475
00:32:46,927 --> 00:32:49,298
I'm going, thank God I'm my own person.

476
00:32:50,114 --> 00:32:59,963
And, you know, I really love this yoga, but, you know, thank God I'm not one of these
mindless people who are just following him all over.

477
00:32:59,963 --> 00:33:08,880
So even as I'm doing all this stuff and he's saying to do this and this, I'm doing
everything, but I'm going through, and it was like for three days.

478
00:33:08,880 --> 00:33:11,434
It was that night and two days, it was a whole weekend.

479
00:33:11,434 --> 00:33:14,495
the whole weekend I kept coming back, but I kept going through the same thing.

480
00:33:14,495 --> 00:33:16,336
I don't like him, I don't agree with him.

481
00:33:16,336 --> 00:33:18,550
You know, I enjoy the yoga, but...

482
00:33:18,550 --> 00:33:20,530
you know, just at arm's length.

483
00:33:20,911 --> 00:33:27,333
But I kept thinking to myself, I scared myself because I keep looking at him and thinking,
that's who I want to be in my life.

484
00:33:27,333 --> 00:33:28,693
I want to be like him.

485
00:33:29,094 --> 00:33:32,875
I'm thinking, wow, well, how can I be like, to be like him if I can't stand him?

486
00:33:32,875 --> 00:33:37,356
If I'm questioning, if I'm debating him, but I kept thinking to myself, that's a real man.

487
00:33:37,356 --> 00:33:39,857
That's actually the first real man I've seen in my whole life.

488
00:33:39,857 --> 00:33:40,938
That's what a real man is.

489
00:33:40,938 --> 00:33:42,638
He's got balls.

490
00:33:43,508 --> 00:33:45,240
totally, totally got balls.

491
00:33:45,240 --> 00:33:55,568
But not that, it's not, I met guys who had balls, but I never, I never saw a person who
had steel balls who had a heart as big as him.

492
00:33:56,338 --> 00:33:58,471
So that's the trick.

493
00:33:58,471 --> 00:34:01,933
And I never, I saw, I saw very sweet.

494
00:34:01,933 --> 00:34:11,767
mean, I was around men who were very sweet and well intentioned and loving, you know, I've
been around guys who were like very like tough as hell.

495
00:34:11,767 --> 00:34:16,599
tough as nails, but all of them were lacking something.

496
00:34:16,599 --> 00:34:29,925
And now I'm with a guy who's absolutely, I mean, a very, I mean, super hard oriented,
sweet, generous, uh wise man who's got balls of steel.

497
00:34:29,925 --> 00:34:31,386
So they were, whoa, you know what?

498
00:34:31,386 --> 00:34:31,726
Wow.

499
00:34:31,726 --> 00:34:35,748
I mean, I was like so out of my uh point of reference.

500
00:34:35,748 --> 00:34:38,229
I hadn't have actually met anybody like this.

501
00:34:38,229 --> 00:34:40,398
And so that was very compelling.

502
00:34:40,398 --> 00:34:54,638
But it also was a little scary because I didn't want to end up like these other people who
clearly were like Joe Smith wearing turbans and beards and like I don't want that to

503
00:34:54,638 --> 00:34:55,938
happen to me.

504
00:34:55,938 --> 00:35:07,738
So that was 1978 and I would say that my next, he lived in Los Angeles so I actually
didn't see him personally except if I went to some event, some national event that he was

505
00:35:07,738 --> 00:35:08,390
at.

506
00:35:08,504 --> 00:35:09,524
which I started going to.

507
00:35:09,524 --> 00:35:15,999
I started going to these solstice retreats and he was the center of attraction at all
these things.

508
00:35:16,580 --> 00:35:26,906
But, you know, for the next two or three years, I went through this whole big inner
conflict about how I was going to relate to him.

509
00:35:27,267 --> 00:35:32,871
So, but that, you know, I was telling you earlier, there was like a whole nother
relationship because I never had a relationship.

510
00:35:32,871 --> 00:35:38,214
And the relationship like this was really from the beginning with me and him is that

511
00:35:39,278 --> 00:35:44,518
I always felt a mix with him of love and hatred.

512
00:35:45,098 --> 00:35:48,478
I was always pissed off at him and I always loved him.

513
00:35:48,478 --> 00:35:54,778
It was like he always, you know, it was like a very different relationship than a parent
or a school teacher.

514
00:35:54,778 --> 00:36:00,238
was kind of like he, his job, and that's how he described himself as a spiritual teacher.

515
00:36:00,238 --> 00:36:01,918
Now I find myself in this role.

516
00:36:01,918 --> 00:36:09,166
It's a very different role, but he always, he always described his role, not as a person,
but his role as

517
00:36:09,166 --> 00:36:12,226
a person who really kind of sculpts.

518
00:36:12,226 --> 00:36:17,785
It's kind of like a sculptor and you're subjecting yourself and he's going to chisel you.

519
00:36:18,426 --> 00:36:23,686
he's either going to break you or he's going to chisel you into something really
beautiful.

520
00:36:23,686 --> 00:36:27,706
And in a way I kind of let him chisel my life.

521
00:36:28,586 --> 00:36:31,806
And how he taught was he would challenge you.

522
00:36:31,806 --> 00:36:33,026
That's how he taught.

523
00:36:33,026 --> 00:36:38,840
He taught a lot of technology, he gave a lot of stuff, but he would really test you.

524
00:36:38,840 --> 00:36:41,391
to see where your limit was.

525
00:36:41,432 --> 00:36:49,077
And as you kept passing every test, you just kept getting stronger and clearer, wiser.

526
00:36:49,077 --> 00:36:52,219
And to this day, that's my path.

527
00:36:52,219 --> 00:36:54,741
That's to me the best way to learn.

528
00:36:54,741 --> 00:36:57,643
So he really took everybody out in the school of life.

529
00:36:57,643 --> 00:37:03,346
He made you be real and really challenged you.

530
00:37:03,907 --> 00:37:08,360
that was, so eventually in 1980,

531
00:37:08,398 --> 00:37:09,918
Now I'm 28.

532
00:37:09,918 --> 00:37:11,618
Actually I was just about to be 28.

533
00:37:11,618 --> 00:37:13,478
I was 27, almost 28.

534
00:37:14,218 --> 00:37:28,078
I actually decided, and it was something that he actually said to me, he kind of decided
that I was actually going to even take on his religion.

535
00:37:28,938 --> 00:37:29,878
Which was Sikhism.

536
00:37:29,878 --> 00:37:30,778
Which is Sikhism.

537
00:37:30,778 --> 00:37:34,338
I wasn't raised that way and of course I was scared like hell.

538
00:37:34,678 --> 00:37:37,548
And I remember that I, you know, was...

539
00:37:37,548 --> 00:37:49,113
And I think I was telling you about the story about how I the secretary and, you know, I
took her to, I forget sometimes who I tell these stories to, but, uh, you know, I, I, I

540
00:37:49,113 --> 00:37:56,045
moved into an ashram in Oregon and I, I, I lasted for one week.

541
00:37:57,166 --> 00:37:59,427
This was back in 1979.

542
00:37:59,427 --> 00:38:06,950
I last it for one week and I left and I got a fifth of Jack Daniel's.

543
00:38:07,570 --> 00:38:11,993
and just hitchhiked to New York, swearing all of this off.

544
00:38:11,993 --> 00:38:13,614
I still wasn't wearing a turban yet.

545
00:38:13,614 --> 00:38:15,310
This was before all that.

546
00:38:15,310 --> 00:38:17,727
This is when I was in my formative time with it.

547
00:38:17,727 --> 00:38:26,643
mean, I was going crazy because I was kind of between two lives and I just couldn't make
my decision about what life I wanted to own, my old life when I want my new life.

548
00:38:26,643 --> 00:38:31,216
And I pushed myself to actually move into an ashram to kind of experience it.

549
00:38:31,216 --> 00:38:34,128
And once I moved in, I mean, I barely last a week.

550
00:38:34,128 --> 00:38:35,299
I almost just blew up.

551
00:38:35,299 --> 00:38:36,832
I was so conflicted.

552
00:38:36,832 --> 00:38:48,088
So the middle of the night, one night I just took my things and I just moved out and I got
a fifth of Jack Daniels and I hitchhiked across the country to go back to my old life.

553
00:38:48,349 --> 00:38:50,790
But I still kept practicing Quinlan yoga.

554
00:38:51,290 --> 00:38:58,054
But I swear I never have anything to do with him or any of his students because I didn't
want to be in what I perceived to be a cult.

555
00:38:58,054 --> 00:38:59,605
You still perceived it as a cult.

556
00:38:59,605 --> 00:39:00,165
Yeah.

557
00:39:00,165 --> 00:39:04,910
So I was very conflicted, but I couldn't deny what was happening to me, which was all like
amazing.

558
00:39:04,910 --> 00:39:12,010
So I'm conflicted between these amazing experiences and my fear that was provoked by many
other things.

559
00:39:12,010 --> 00:39:17,650
So I went back to New York, but I was still actually practicing and even teaching
Kundalini Yoga.

560
00:39:17,650 --> 00:39:20,330
But I didn't want anything to do with the group or him.

561
00:39:20,750 --> 00:39:25,630
So I was working in a law firm and then I a job working in law firm.

562
00:39:25,630 --> 00:39:29,990
This is 1979 and I'm like meditating on my desk.

563
00:39:30,150 --> 00:39:33,996
I went into a 1979, somebody in a suit and a tie.

564
00:39:33,996 --> 00:39:38,490
meditating at lunch and everybody in the law firm is looking like, well, what is that guy
doing?

565
00:39:38,490 --> 00:39:41,082
At the time, this is like way, way ahead of the curve.

566
00:39:41,082 --> 00:39:42,663
You would just sit on your desk?

567
00:39:42,663 --> 00:39:44,545
Yeah, at lunch, just meditating.

568
00:39:44,545 --> 00:39:46,657
And then people wanted to learn the yoga.

569
00:39:46,657 --> 00:39:48,082
And so this is 1979.

570
00:39:48,082 --> 00:39:51,140
I'm actually teaching people in the law firm about Kundalini yoga.

571
00:39:51,140 --> 00:39:51,781
Ha!

572
00:39:51,781 --> 00:39:52,271
Can you?

573
00:39:52,271 --> 00:39:54,203
mean, very straight people.

574
00:39:54,203 --> 00:39:56,885
One of the people, the office manager, right?

575
00:39:56,885 --> 00:40:03,210
The office manager is very compelled, I don't think by being personally, but

576
00:40:03,330 --> 00:40:06,551
She just, she didn't know anybody who was doing this kind of stuff.

577
00:40:07,492 --> 00:40:08,493
It's a really great story.

578
00:40:08,493 --> 00:40:13,975
So, so she's very compelled by this and she wants to start doing Kundalini Yoga.

579
00:40:14,716 --> 00:40:22,780
And since I had not really kind of graduated to the levels of integrity with this, it was
just wanting to have an experience.

580
00:40:23,201 --> 00:40:26,562
I didn't see any problem with, with sleeping with her either.

581
00:40:27,283 --> 00:40:33,166
And she was a married woman to boot, but I didn't, mean, then that I didn't care about
those things.

582
00:40:33,198 --> 00:40:37,958
So I land up teaching this person Kundalini Yoga and sleep with her.

583
00:40:38,718 --> 00:40:42,978
So, but she was, I think really more interested in what I was doing than me as a person.

584
00:40:42,978 --> 00:40:45,598
She was very intrigued by what I was into.

585
00:40:45,598 --> 00:40:47,998
Cause this was like way ahead of its time.

586
00:40:48,118 --> 00:40:56,538
I had a magazine and she saw the, the ad and she goes, well, she goes, I'm in New York at
the time.

587
00:40:56,538 --> 00:41:03,078
And she goes, well, I see this yogi budging guys giving a white tantric yoga course in
West Virginia this weekend.

588
00:41:04,270 --> 00:41:05,170
And I said, yeah.

589
00:41:05,170 --> 00:41:07,081
And she goes, I want to go to that.

590
00:41:07,081 --> 00:41:08,612
I want you to take me there.

591
00:41:09,692 --> 00:41:13,774
So I said, listen, I've never seen that guy again.

592
00:41:13,934 --> 00:41:15,375
I'm staying away from those people.

593
00:41:15,375 --> 00:41:18,343
I'll teach you Kundalini Yoga, but I'm keeping my distance.

594
00:41:18,343 --> 00:41:19,416
I don't want to be around him.

595
00:41:19,416 --> 00:41:21,137
He's too dangerous to me.

596
00:41:21,717 --> 00:41:25,479
So she goes, listen, if you're fucking me, you'll take me there.

597
00:41:26,299 --> 00:41:27,320
So I guess, well, OK.

598
00:41:27,320 --> 00:41:29,340
I guess I don't have a choice then, right?

599
00:41:29,340 --> 00:41:31,281
So I take her to this thing.

600
00:41:31,281 --> 00:41:33,642
She gets really inspired.

601
00:41:34,654 --> 00:41:38,795
So now she had two daughters and one of them was a runaway.

602
00:41:38,975 --> 00:41:40,346
The other one was very together.

603
00:41:40,346 --> 00:41:41,596
All right.

604
00:41:41,596 --> 00:41:42,696
I knew that.

605
00:41:43,496 --> 00:41:44,117
Okay.

606
00:41:44,117 --> 00:41:50,498
So during the break, the exercises of again, a white time to go across, she was my
partner.

607
00:41:50,698 --> 00:41:52,749
She goes, I want to talk to him.

608
00:41:52,749 --> 00:41:55,310
And I'm like, well, great.

609
00:41:55,310 --> 00:41:56,880
There's the line right there.

610
00:41:57,020 --> 00:41:59,321
She's going, I want you to stand by me.

611
00:41:59,861 --> 00:42:01,381
I don't want to do that.

612
00:42:01,921 --> 00:42:04,182
She's going, look, you brought me here.

613
00:42:04,182 --> 00:42:07,524
I want you to support me, I want to talk to him, you stand next to me.

614
00:42:08,986 --> 00:42:11,367
It's okay, okay, I'll do that.

615
00:42:11,367 --> 00:42:18,452
So I'm in line and we get up to the front and I'm very nervous because I'm thinking this
is all wrong.

616
00:42:18,452 --> 00:42:25,217
said, I have spent the last year doing everything I could to avoid this man and here I am
right in front of him again.

617
00:42:25,217 --> 00:42:26,798
How the hell did that happen?

618
00:42:26,798 --> 00:42:29,260
And I did it myself, I put myself in this position.

619
00:42:29,260 --> 00:42:30,641
I mean, go figure that.

620
00:42:30,641 --> 00:42:32,590
So here it is, I can't get away from him.

621
00:42:32,590 --> 00:42:39,290
And here I am, I'm like 10 feet away from him and I've done everything I could to be
thousands of miles away and here he is again.

622
00:42:39,410 --> 00:42:49,430
So we get to the front of the line and she says to him, well hello, my name is so and so
and he's rolling his eyes and that's how he was, he's rolling his eyes.

623
00:42:49,430 --> 00:42:50,230
He goes, what do you want?

624
00:42:50,230 --> 00:42:55,630
And she goes, well, maybe I'm not happy in my work.

625
00:42:56,110 --> 00:42:58,604
He's rolling his eyes, yeah right, right.

626
00:42:58,604 --> 00:43:00,836
Well, maybe I'm not happy in my marriage.

627
00:43:00,836 --> 00:43:03,057
And she's going down the whole thing.

628
00:43:03,057 --> 00:43:05,498
Now she hasn't said anything about her children.

629
00:43:05,579 --> 00:43:10,302
And then in the middle of it, he just puts his hand up and he says, your daughter's
problem is ba-ba-ba-ba.

630
00:43:10,302 --> 00:43:13,404
And if you want to deal with this, you need to do ba-ba-ba.

631
00:43:13,905 --> 00:43:18,367
She just freaked and literally just ran out the room.

632
00:43:19,128 --> 00:43:21,130
She just smoked, just ran out the room.

633
00:43:21,130 --> 00:43:23,131
And now I'm standing in front of him.

634
00:43:23,491 --> 00:43:24,842
I'm like, oh shit.

635
00:43:24,842 --> 00:43:27,033
I mean, I can't believe this is happening.

636
00:43:27,438 --> 00:43:34,918
And here I am, I went and I'm standing right in front of and he looked at me, he looked at
me and he's going, what do you want?

637
00:43:35,958 --> 00:43:40,238
And I'm thinking, what I want is I definitely don't want to be here.

638
00:43:40,638 --> 00:43:48,138
And I just was like paralyzed and he just started yelling at me, what do you want?

639
00:43:49,618 --> 00:43:50,998
I just couldn't even talk to him.

640
00:43:50,998 --> 00:43:54,438
Third time he goes, tell me what it is that you want.

641
00:43:55,218 --> 00:43:57,304
And I just said,

642
00:43:57,304 --> 00:43:59,345
Well, you know what I want is to be a Sikh.

643
00:43:59,345 --> 00:44:01,545
And I'm like, who said that?

644
00:44:01,545 --> 00:44:02,836
Did I say that?

645
00:44:03,156 --> 00:44:04,496
I mean, I was like freaked.

646
00:44:04,496 --> 00:44:06,677
I mean, that actually came out of my mouth.

647
00:44:06,677 --> 00:44:09,538
But deep down, that's actually is what I wanted.

648
00:44:09,758 --> 00:44:11,218
But I had the whole thing locked up in me.

649
00:44:11,218 --> 00:44:14,879
And I said I absolutely was stunned that I actually said that.

650
00:44:16,480 --> 00:44:21,381
And I'm still like, I'm shaking at this point because I can't believe I said that.

651
00:44:21,782 --> 00:44:23,362
And then.

652
00:44:23,512 --> 00:44:35,150
He started saying some stuff I couldn't hear a word he was saying and I just got literally
couldn't move I I couldn't walk and and Then he said to me and I had never I tell you this

653
00:44:35,150 --> 00:44:47,399
truth I I known him for 30 years and at the point I knew him very very well in the years
that followed I had never ever heard him tell anyone to be a Sikh Never not once except

654
00:44:47,399 --> 00:44:48,139
one person.

655
00:44:48,139 --> 00:44:52,130
That was me and he said to me give you head to the guru

656
00:44:52,130 --> 00:44:55,231
which means basically give you a head and that's your life.

657
00:44:55,231 --> 00:44:59,652
I never heard him say that to anybody in the 30 years I was around him, but me.

658
00:44:59,652 --> 00:45:02,933
So I was not actually prepared for him to even have said that.

659
00:45:03,574 --> 00:45:07,035
And I walked away and I Oh shit.

660
00:45:07,035 --> 00:45:09,895
You know what he's really telling me?

661
00:45:09,895 --> 00:45:15,227
He's not telling me, he's not telling me to be a Sikh, but he's really, he's doing me a
big favor.

662
00:45:15,227 --> 00:45:18,718
He's basically telling me to shit or get off the can.

663
00:45:19,298 --> 00:45:20,329
That's what he's telling me.

664
00:45:20,329 --> 00:45:22,261
He's doing me a favor here, actually.

665
00:45:22,261 --> 00:45:22,921
Enough time.

666
00:45:22,921 --> 00:45:24,182
I'm wasting enough time with this.

667
00:45:24,182 --> 00:45:30,938
know, either gonna jump in and do really what I'm afraid to do, but I wanna do, which
people do all the time.

668
00:45:30,938 --> 00:45:36,173
I I wanted to do it, but I was too afraid to do what I wanted to do, or I'm just gonna
kinda move on.

669
00:45:36,173 --> 00:45:38,434
But I can't play this game anymore.

670
00:45:38,515 --> 00:45:47,442
So I barely slept for the next month or two, because this was like I knew the biggest
decision in my life, which it was, certainly.

671
00:45:47,630 --> 00:45:52,530
And at some point, I can't even point to, just said, you know what, I got nowhere else to
go.

672
00:45:52,530 --> 00:45:53,210
What the hell am gonna do?

673
00:45:53,210 --> 00:45:54,750
I got nowhere else to go.

674
00:45:54,790 --> 00:46:01,310
So I was supposed to go to Florida the next month, you know, and I decided when I went to
Florida, they were gonna have this retreat.

675
00:46:01,310 --> 00:46:03,010
I was gonna take my seek values.

676
00:46:04,686 --> 00:46:11,666
And the night before I went to Greenwich Village, with really kind of just finished my old
life up.

677
00:46:11,906 --> 00:46:16,406
So I a big steak dinner, because know, the Sikhs are vegetarians.

678
00:46:16,406 --> 00:46:27,666
Nice big steak dinner, I got a big, big rum cocktail, you know, Bacardi 151 or whatever,
remember it to be, because I wasn't going to be drinking rum anymore, because I was having

679
00:46:27,666 --> 00:46:28,886
my last rum.

680
00:46:29,346 --> 00:46:32,146
And I got stoned, that was going to be my last joint.

681
00:46:32,206 --> 00:46:35,326
And I went to bed with the waitress and that was going to be my last waitress.

682
00:46:35,326 --> 00:46:36,866
Wow, you had a good night.

683
00:46:36,866 --> 00:46:38,366
I had a good night.

684
00:46:38,366 --> 00:46:42,726
And then got up the next morning and the waitress said to me, well, when am I going to see
you again?

685
00:46:42,786 --> 00:46:44,986
And I said, never.

686
00:46:45,566 --> 00:46:49,466
And she's going, you know, she thought she took it personally and she goes, why is that?

687
00:46:49,466 --> 00:46:54,986
said, well, you basically I'm going to become a And she.

688
00:46:58,334 --> 00:47:04,574
No, no, but I'm going to be telling about I'm going to be telling people about you for
years to come, which I'm still doing right.

689
00:47:04,574 --> 00:47:05,521
If you're out there.

690
00:47:05,521 --> 00:47:06,222
Okay.

691
00:47:06,222 --> 00:47:09,685
So I went I flew to Florida.

692
00:47:10,266 --> 00:47:23,018
I when they had this ceremony that service, they called the people forward to take their
vows who want to take their vows and Yogi Bhajan was sitting right next to me.

693
00:47:24,790 --> 00:47:28,752
And he say a word to me and all I could think was fuck you.

694
00:47:28,752 --> 00:47:30,473
That's all I could think, fuck you.

695
00:47:30,473 --> 00:47:31,473
I was so angry.

696
00:47:31,473 --> 00:47:38,546
I mean, I took my vows, I was so angry at him because I just saw my whole life go up in
smoke and he never made me do anything.

697
00:47:38,546 --> 00:47:40,397
Nobody put a gun to my head.

698
00:47:40,397 --> 00:47:44,979
But I was thinking, you know, if you just had stayed in India, I would have had like a
normal life.

699
00:47:45,599 --> 00:47:47,480
But you know what?

700
00:47:47,480 --> 00:47:50,115
From that day, I always trust my intuition.

701
00:47:50,115 --> 00:47:52,108
I don't pay attention to anything else.

702
00:47:52,108 --> 00:47:55,341
My heart was telling me, my intuition was telling me, you got to do this.

703
00:47:55,341 --> 00:47:57,362
Even if you don't want to do it, you got to do this.

704
00:47:57,362 --> 00:47:59,714
ah And I listened to that.

705
00:47:59,714 --> 00:48:00,845
was smart.

706
00:48:00,845 --> 00:48:01,416
And I did.

707
00:48:01,416 --> 00:48:09,522
I took those vows and then my life was really kind of much stronger in this direction.

708
00:48:09,522 --> 00:48:21,402
And it was a very hard transition, but that also at the same point deepened my
relationship with him as my teacher because

709
00:48:21,524 --> 00:48:27,958
actually by even doing that I recognized which was not a little thing.

710
00:48:27,958 --> 00:48:37,623
This again gets back to this whole student teacher relationship is that you have many
relationships in your life based on many different needs.

711
00:48:38,003 --> 00:48:45,487
But at the end of the day and you know and different people serve different purposes in
your life.

712
00:48:46,108 --> 00:48:50,514
But this relationship with a spiritual teacher is that you're

713
00:48:50,514 --> 00:49:03,198
actually putting your liberation in the hands of a person that you really are banking your
life on the fact that you can trust this person.

714
00:49:03,198 --> 00:49:11,340
Because if you made a mistake, uh is a mistake of immense proportions.

715
00:49:11,680 --> 00:49:13,400
You're way off tracking your life.

716
00:49:13,400 --> 00:49:15,621
You're going to get your life way off track.

717
00:49:15,621 --> 00:49:19,422
You're going to sacrifice a lot and you'll never get it back again.

718
00:49:19,754 --> 00:49:30,199
So you're walking in a way and you're actually saying, know, I'm actually, trust you so
much that I'm willing to put my life in your hands.

719
00:49:30,480 --> 00:49:31,520
Okay.

720
00:49:31,580 --> 00:49:34,922
And you don't actually even have to like this person.

721
00:49:35,803 --> 00:49:37,323
You don't have to agree with them.

722
00:49:37,323 --> 00:49:46,809
And I didn't, but you have to trust them and you have to trust, you have to trust like two
things and they're huge things.

723
00:49:46,809 --> 00:49:49,570
First of all, and there's no other relationship in your life.

724
00:49:49,570 --> 00:49:51,150
quite like this.

725
00:49:51,231 --> 00:49:59,138
One is you have to trust that the person really cares about you unconditionally.

726
00:49:59,138 --> 00:50:04,442
They unconditionally love you for who you are and they're not trying to exploit you.

727
00:50:05,463 --> 00:50:12,529
Now a lot of people, you know, you may want to be around and trust, but they're going to
actually exploit that trust.

728
00:50:12,529 --> 00:50:19,058
So you have to trust that your trust in them is unconditional.

729
00:50:19,058 --> 00:50:21,899
and they're not exploiting you.

730
00:50:22,100 --> 00:50:32,926
The second thing is you have to trust they actually have the goods to deliver, not just
their intent, not just that they're pure at heart, but they actually can deliver it.

731
00:50:33,627 --> 00:50:36,528
And that's a very cold decision.

732
00:50:36,528 --> 00:50:39,330
mean, you just have to trust your...

733
00:50:39,330 --> 00:50:46,642
And in the end, what I've learned, why it was so helpful to me is that to really have...

734
00:50:46,642 --> 00:50:59,088
healthy relationship with a spiritual teacher like this you have to be able to trust
yourself because you're making that decision and you have to trust your You can't be like

735
00:50:59,088 --> 00:50:59,998
in La La Land.

736
00:50:59,998 --> 00:51:11,023
You're putting your life in somebody's hands You have to trust your judgment that
somebody's the real deal and so I made a big big choice I basically put my entire life in

737
00:51:11,023 --> 00:51:12,564
the hands of a stranger

738
00:51:13,234 --> 00:51:19,899
and figured, know, this guy's, this guy's got the key to where I want to go.

739
00:51:20,000 --> 00:51:32,250
And not only is he pure of intention, but that he actually is going to bring me to where I
need to be, where I want to be.

740
00:51:32,591 --> 00:51:36,134
And that is a, that's really scary.

741
00:51:36,134 --> 00:51:37,015
That's real.

742
00:51:37,015 --> 00:51:38,817
And it should be really scary.

743
00:51:38,817 --> 00:51:40,716
And I think a lot of people actually make

744
00:51:40,716 --> 00:51:44,289
biggest mistake of their life in choosing wrongly on this.

745
00:51:44,730 --> 00:51:48,106
So I had to make a big decision.

746
00:51:48,106 --> 00:51:51,315
I didn't have much life experience to make that decision on.

747
00:51:51,315 --> 00:51:53,707
I made the decision that that was my guy.

748
00:51:53,707 --> 00:52:01,684
And you know, for the next 30 years, he had a major influence on my life.

749
00:52:01,684 --> 00:52:06,868
Although I was, you know, I whatever he said I should do, I just did it.

750
00:52:07,209 --> 00:52:09,490
And I'm a very rebellious person.

751
00:52:10,306 --> 00:52:13,428
But he said, you know, basically he said, jump, I jumped.

752
00:52:14,169 --> 00:52:19,513
And there's no other person in my life I have that relationship with because I'm a very
independent person.

753
00:52:19,794 --> 00:52:30,023
But I decided that it was going to be one person on this planet who I would actually have
that respect for that he knew more than I did.

754
00:52:30,023 --> 00:52:33,686
And I felt that he knew more about me than I knew about myself.

755
00:52:34,027 --> 00:52:37,163
And over the 30 years, he gave me a lot of reason to...

756
00:52:37,163 --> 00:52:38,185
He did.

757
00:52:38,334 --> 00:52:41,277
I mean, he was incredible, incredible person.

758
00:52:41,458 --> 00:52:44,320
And he made my life tough.

759
00:52:44,801 --> 00:52:51,307
And then he actually is the person who also delivered me to the Sikh path.

760
00:52:51,809 --> 00:53:00,864
But at a certain point, I kind of separated a little bit from him.

761
00:53:00,864 --> 00:53:04,757
at the end because I realized that his job was to deliver.

762
00:53:04,757 --> 00:53:06,799
My job wasn't to worship him.

763
00:53:06,799 --> 00:53:10,862
His job was to deliver me, which I believe he did.

764
00:53:11,663 --> 00:53:18,820
And so my thing in life now is to kind of keep that legacy together.

765
00:53:18,820 --> 00:53:20,071
But he was a tough teacher.

766
00:53:20,071 --> 00:53:27,417
In fact, in my 30 years with him, I think I only talked with him maybe 10 or 12 times in
30 years.

767
00:53:27,417 --> 00:53:29,038
So how would he teach?

768
00:53:30,434 --> 00:53:35,226
Well, again, mean, one thing I learned from him is that you're teaching really 24 seven.

769
00:53:35,226 --> 00:53:37,017
There's no time you're not teaching.

770
00:53:37,017 --> 00:53:40,559
It's like as a teacher on a stage.

771
00:53:40,559 --> 00:53:42,299
I mean, there's many ways he taught.

772
00:53:42,299 --> 00:53:51,963
mean, when he was officially on, you know, and he's giving a class to me, he was like the
hammer.

773
00:53:52,064 --> 00:53:54,405
He was a really tough teacher.

774
00:53:54,405 --> 00:53:57,266
He taught very tough classes.

775
00:53:58,210 --> 00:54:00,695
physically, emotionally, psychologically.

776
00:54:00,695 --> 00:54:02,438
um

777
00:54:05,151 --> 00:54:06,992
He never taught down to people.

778
00:54:06,992 --> 00:54:09,133
He taught from where he was coming.

779
00:54:09,133 --> 00:54:16,217
And you had to either bring yourself up to see the view from where he was standing.

780
00:54:16,558 --> 00:54:26,163
But as much time as not, he made no sense, but he was planting seeds that you'd actually
understand what he was saying years later.

781
00:54:26,864 --> 00:54:30,546
So there's stuff that I'm just now understanding that I heard 20 years ago.

782
00:54:31,994 --> 00:54:38,435
And so he was just an incredible teacher that gave, and actually it wasn't just his words.

783
00:54:38,435 --> 00:54:47,118
A lot of the other teachers that I was around tried to impress you with their words, but
he actually gave you things that you could do and you'd have your own experience.

784
00:54:47,118 --> 00:54:49,159
And I really appreciated that.

785
00:54:49,379 --> 00:54:57,661
So he taught the technology, he pushed you to the max, ah and he taught, he was very, very
funny.

786
00:54:58,101 --> 00:55:00,852
And all the great teachers are funny.

787
00:55:01,166 --> 00:55:05,406
Because you have to, if you take yourself seriously, you're off my list.

788
00:55:05,406 --> 00:55:07,706
Because it actually is pretty funny.

789
00:55:07,746 --> 00:55:09,346
The whole thing is actually pretty funny.

790
00:55:09,346 --> 00:55:13,206
And if you can't be funny, then you're definitely not evolved.

791
00:55:13,246 --> 00:55:17,306
So he was an incredibly funny, well-rounded person.

792
00:55:17,306 --> 00:55:19,346
Also, he was very different than the other teachers.

793
00:55:19,346 --> 00:55:22,546
You could actually talk to him about anything.

794
00:55:22,566 --> 00:55:28,806
You could talk to him about music, food, jewelry, politics.

795
00:55:30,406 --> 00:55:35,066
numerology, astrology, he actually could talk to you about anything and everybody.

796
00:55:35,186 --> 00:55:40,726
I learned from him from that and that's the kind of person I've developed into.

797
00:55:40,726 --> 00:55:48,306
I like to think that I'm the kind of person that could actually talk to anybody on the
planet about what they're interested in, not what I'm interested in, what they're

798
00:55:48,306 --> 00:55:49,366
interested in.

799
00:55:49,366 --> 00:55:53,326
And that's because I'm interested in everything and everybody and that's how he was.

800
00:55:53,326 --> 00:55:57,516
He was way out of the mold of what people think a spiritual teacher was.

801
00:55:57,516 --> 00:56:06,168
I mean, you could find him at any sacred temple, but you could just as well see him on
Rodeo Drive at a fancy Italian restaurant.

802
00:56:06,168 --> 00:56:11,770
I mean, he just was, you'd see him at an orphanage or at a football stadium.

803
00:56:11,770 --> 00:56:15,081
I mean, he could mix with anybody.

804
00:56:15,081 --> 00:56:15,891
That blew my mind.

805
00:56:15,891 --> 00:56:18,432
I never met anybody like that.

806
00:56:18,432 --> 00:56:23,893
And uh he also built, as I was telling you before, a couple of very big businesses.

807
00:56:23,893 --> 00:56:27,414
So the guy was actually a tremendous businessman.

808
00:56:28,166 --> 00:56:32,348
And he was very political and he built a big organization.

809
00:56:32,348 --> 00:56:36,986
He was personal friends of every president of the United States while he was live here.

810
00:56:36,986 --> 00:56:38,030
I mean, he knew Reagan.

811
00:56:38,030 --> 00:56:42,492
He didn't care for his politics, but he knew Reagan and Carter.

812
00:56:42,492 --> 00:56:46,673
He was actually a good friend with Clinton, very good friends.

813
00:56:46,854 --> 00:56:50,475
I mean, good enough friends they were on a first name basis.

814
00:56:50,675 --> 00:56:56,558
he's here, some spiritual teacher wearing a robe from India and he's on a first name basis
with Bill Clinton.

815
00:56:56,558 --> 00:56:57,268
In fact,

816
00:56:57,268 --> 00:57:04,501
One of the really impressive uh moments I had with him, I was with him and Clinton.

817
00:57:05,241 --> 00:57:12,785
And you know, Clinton at that time was president of the United States, maybe the most uh
visible person in the world.

818
00:57:12,785 --> 00:57:13,625
know?

819
00:57:13,898 --> 00:57:16,326
And a great public speaker in his own right.

820
00:57:16,326 --> 00:57:16,536
know?

821
00:57:16,536 --> 00:57:17,317
Charismatic.

822
00:57:17,317 --> 00:57:18,827
Very charismatic.

823
00:57:18,827 --> 00:57:24,990
And when I was in a room with him and Clinton, I was watching it, it was very interesting.

824
00:57:24,990 --> 00:57:25,920
It was like...

825
00:57:26,070 --> 00:57:30,994
My teacher, he's very great social skills, very elegant man.

826
00:57:31,335 --> 00:57:37,180
But it was really clear in that room who the boss was, and it wasn't Clinton.

827
00:57:37,180 --> 00:57:41,944
No, Clinton was looking at him as he was the boss, not the other way around.

828
00:57:41,944 --> 00:57:43,805
He was taking his cues.

829
00:57:44,406 --> 00:57:45,086
That's the man.

830
00:57:45,086 --> 00:57:48,879
mean, Clinton walked in the room and he knew who the top dog in that room was.

831
00:57:48,879 --> 00:57:50,060
Wow.

832
00:57:50,230 --> 00:57:52,531
Okay, that's the president of United States.

833
00:57:52,732 --> 00:57:55,273
but so my teacher wasn't just a regular guy.

834
00:57:55,273 --> 00:58:03,257
He was so radiant that it was clear who had the top job there.

835
00:58:03,418 --> 00:58:14,714
And it really made me understand that, you know, in this society here, you know, the
people, you know, we look up at celebrities and movie stars and politicians and Donald

836
00:58:14,714 --> 00:58:15,237
Trump.

837
00:58:15,237 --> 00:58:16,245
You know what?

838
00:58:16,245 --> 00:58:18,266
He was top dog, always.

839
00:58:18,846 --> 00:58:23,548
And he's top dog because he actually had what everybody wants.

840
00:58:24,268 --> 00:58:25,249
And then some.

841
00:58:25,249 --> 00:58:26,509
And they knew it.

842
00:58:26,670 --> 00:58:31,352
And they couldn't buy it with their fame and with their money and with their good looks.

843
00:58:31,352 --> 00:58:38,175
Nobody could buy what he had, which is he had a connection with himself and with the
universe.

844
00:58:38,175 --> 00:58:41,916
And he was infinite in his radiance.

845
00:58:42,276 --> 00:58:46,264
And it was really interesting seeing him around people.

846
00:58:46,264 --> 00:58:50,076
who were far more famous than him and they knew it immediately.

847
00:58:50,076 --> 00:58:53,298
They weren't even like a hundredth of the radiance.

848
00:58:53,318 --> 00:59:01,202
And so it really convinced me that that is the highest calling in the life is to be
president of the world.

849
00:59:01,202 --> 00:59:03,183
He was like president of the world.

850
00:59:03,624 --> 00:59:05,254
And he was like totally amazing.

851
00:59:05,254 --> 00:59:11,594
that's so, and you know, but as I said, about my relationship with him, I was around him
for 30 years.

852
00:59:11,594 --> 00:59:15,882
I only talked to him 10 times and he never talked to me once in 30 years.

853
00:59:16,322 --> 00:59:18,084
He never initiated.

854
00:59:18,084 --> 00:59:19,054
No, I'd be there.

855
00:59:19,054 --> 00:59:23,098
No, he'd actually he this how he was with everybody.

856
00:59:23,098 --> 00:59:23,835
He was amazing.

857
00:59:23,835 --> 00:59:31,955
There'd be like 30 people and he would relate to each person how that person needed to be
related to for their personal growth.

858
00:59:31,955 --> 00:59:33,409
And he did it all at the same time.

859
00:59:33,409 --> 00:59:35,037
It's just amazing.

860
00:59:35,197 --> 00:59:40,021
And uh like, for instance, you know, I by nature, I've got a very big ego.

861
00:59:40,021 --> 00:59:42,233
I mean, that's that's my, you know, I came with my package.

862
00:59:42,233 --> 00:59:42,743
I do.

863
00:59:42,743 --> 00:59:46,386
I very big ego and he knows that and he had a very big ego.

864
00:59:47,246 --> 00:59:49,946
you know, he channeled in the right direction, but very strong ego.

865
00:59:49,946 --> 00:59:51,526
I got a very strong ego.

866
00:59:51,526 --> 01:00:00,966
And what he did was he would be in a room, I'd be right next to him and he wouldn't even,
every time, for 30 years he'd always look at me and if he ever said anything, he'd say to

867
01:00:00,966 --> 01:00:02,786
me, who are you?

868
01:00:03,586 --> 01:00:10,806
And yet he appointed me to all these positions and he ought to know he made, he appointed
me to be a minister, he appointed me on all these councils.

869
01:00:10,806 --> 01:00:14,226
And yet whenever he saw me, it's like, do I know you?

870
01:00:14,706 --> 01:00:16,486
Did that for 30 years.

871
01:00:16,578 --> 01:00:18,398
Was he just fucking with you?

872
01:00:18,398 --> 01:00:32,939
I think in the way that you say yes, but out of kindness because the thing was is that for
me to be the kind of person I need to be and for me to be of help to the world like I

873
01:00:32,939 --> 01:00:36,131
needed to be, I had to like get over myself.

874
01:00:36,992 --> 01:00:39,153
And he helped me get over myself.

875
01:00:39,153 --> 01:00:40,768
That's what I needed.

876
01:00:40,768 --> 01:00:52,796
Other people he was like super sweet with, how you doing, love you, but everybody was
different and he dealt with me in the way that I needed to be dealt with, which was in my

877
01:00:52,796 --> 01:00:58,751
case, he needed not to pay attention to me because that's exactly what I wanted.

878
01:00:58,751 --> 01:01:06,356
I wanted attention and recognition and that's exactly what he wasn't going to give to me
because that's how he was helping me.

879
01:01:06,356 --> 01:01:09,632
And at the end, I figured the whole thing out and I realized

880
01:01:09,632 --> 01:01:12,024
I mean, it's like a huge breakthrough in my life.

881
01:01:12,024 --> 01:01:17,268
I didn't realize it up to then is that it took him 25 years.

882
01:01:17,268 --> 01:01:21,011
So my life, but finally I had an experience with him.

883
01:01:21,011 --> 01:01:25,635
I realized that I didn't need any attention recognition because I like myself.

884
01:01:26,076 --> 01:01:28,099
I don't need anybody to validate me.

885
01:01:28,099 --> 01:01:30,479
I don't need anybody to give me recognition.

886
01:01:30,479 --> 01:01:33,641
I recognize my own self and I like myself.

887
01:01:34,182 --> 01:01:37,115
And that's how you asked how he taught.

888
01:01:37,115 --> 01:01:38,986
That's how he taught.

889
01:01:39,278 --> 01:01:40,578
He was amazing.

890
01:01:40,738 --> 01:01:50,598
He taught people by just giving them, putting them in positions where they had to deal
with themselves in the way they needed to deal with themselves.

891
01:01:50,598 --> 01:01:52,858
The guy was beyond a genius.

892
01:01:58,658 --> 01:02:02,300
The music you're listening to is by Auntie Depressant.

893
01:02:02,301 --> 01:02:04,622
Hari Nam wants to hear from you.

894
01:02:04,622 --> 01:02:12,628
Email him at harinam56 at gmail.com and find him at yogaheaven.com.

895
01:02:12,628 --> 01:02:18,432
Subscribe to Warrior Saint on iTunes and be sure to rate and review us while you're there.

896
01:02:18,432 --> 01:02:22,234
And if you liked this podcast, share it with your friends.

897
01:02:51,638 --> 01:02:53,200
Mmm, stinky.