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GARBAGE AND THE GODDESS

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THE STORM: The Second Miracle

Pat Morley had been with Bubba for about six years. She met him and his wife Nina in New York in 1968, and subsequently became a member of their household. She was among the first to whom Bubba showed his spiritual power to transform the conscious state of individuals. She awoke Wednesday morning in her bedroom on the ground floor underneath Bubba's house "anxious and feeling that something was about to happen." Several days later, in the form of a letter to Bubba, she wrote about a dream she had had during the night.

I saw you in your bedroom cleaning out what was there. There was a lot of movement in your house, people and furniture and cars coming and going. I saw you with several people at a house near the ocean. Someone said, "The red ball is going into the water." I said that I saw it and went with a flashlight to bring it back. When I got to the edge of the water the ball slipped away. The light from the flashlight grew and became blinding and white. My eyes burned and I screamed in pain. I was halfway in the water now, with strange moving forms I had never seen before. Somehow all of this meant to me that everything had changed and the world was changed.

Pat didn't mention this dream to anyone that morning. She rose and went through her usual morning routine. After breakfast she drove through the cold, heavy mist with a few coworkers to the printing company owned by the Ashram. She intended to work as usual, but, her letter continues:

I slowly became terrified. I assumed that the knot in my stomach was from a sense of separation from you, which was true enough. My fear was in seeing your tremendous force and power to destroy and finally kill me, but I wanted only that to happen. I knew only to meditate and turn to you. I kept thinking all day about how amazing God is.

It was a regular work day at Persimmon. The San Francisco group had finally returned home Monday night and Tuesday morning. Only a few of the others had seen any of the people at Bubba's house since early the previous day. On Tuesday morning Bubba had gone to Sal Lucania and Neil Panico, who had returned to their cabins and their wives after Monday's remarkable events. Bubba invited them to his house for a beer. Eventually a few others were also invited, and the party atmosphere was resurrected. Sal and others began to describe their various experiences that had taken place in the baths on Monday. Bubba told them of a vision he had had late in the night. In the vision he appeared in his room, where he found some of his old clothing rolled in bundles. He picked them up, and they suddenly all fell open. When this happened, great numbers of small crystalline Siva linga, sacred stones which express the power of Unqualified God, fell out onto the floor. The linga were of many colors, ovoid in form, in varying sizes, from perhaps one to two inches in height. When Bubba saw them he instantly felt that he had found some long-misplaced precious things.

After describing this vision, Bubba interpreted it to those present. He said the linga represented his own, the true devotees for which he had come into the world. Then he turned to Sal and Neil and told them he wanted them to move into his household. The invitation did not include their wives.

And so the move was made. The party continued, and the rain. Now it was Wednesday afternoon. The rain occasionally stopped for brief periods, but the mist and the blanket of low clouds didn't break. They kept brushing slowly across the top of Seigler Mountain, west of Persimmon, and sliding over the valley.

Late Wednesday afternoon a number of people were sitting in the lounge and kitchen reading, drinking tea, and talking quietly. Suddenly the sky darkened, and what had been a light misty drizzle abruptly became a pelting rain whipped by gusts of air tearing down across Persimmon from the vicinity of Bubba's house. At that moment Marcia Okun, one of the members of Bubba's household, came running out of Bubba's kitchen nearly hysterical. She met Louise Lucania and Jane Panico as she entered the lounge. Louise describes the events that followed:

Marcia came in and told us about what was happening at Bubba I s house. There was this sudden intense storm. I could feel there was something going on, but I didn't actually know what. She told us something was taking place for Neil, and that Sal had said Bubba was making the final transformation of Neil and totally possessed him now. Both Marcia and Jane instantly collapsed into my arms. In that moment we all fell into Satsang.

The three of them sank onto the floor together in meditation, and many other devotees from all over Persimmon began to arrive at the lounge and sit down near them. Some went into violent kriyas and mudras, or cried. Louise continues her account:

It was incredible! I had never experienced anything like that. I started crying, which is something I had never done in Satsang before. I cried and cried, and I had this intense energy pouring out of my hands. My hands were glowing and vibrating. It felt like electricity, like they were on radar or something, and they were just being directed to all of the people around me. I felt like I was conducting the Force through me to the others there. People were screaming and howling, crying and yelling out, and the feelings in my hands lasted a long time. I had nothing to do with it. I was just there, and the Force was just being pushed through me. Not being contained in me, just pouring out. I felt bliss. I was totally surrendered, and I wasn't feeling anything except what was happening.

Carl Lucania, the teenage son of Louise and Sal, was sitting with a few others in the kitchen when all this began, and he heard the sound of crying.

I avoided the sound for awhile, but then went in to see what was happening. As soon as I went into the room, I felt the Force. My head started jerking, and I sat down next to Billy Tsiknas and Joe Hamp. The Force went through and through my body, at first warm, then hot. It started to hurt. I was in a sitting position. My hand was raised, and I couldn't move it because of the Force moving through it. My head was bent down. I was so full of intensity, I started to cry.

When I had first come in, Marcia was babbling about what had happened at Bubba's. She said, "We're all going to die within the next two days." I was full of the fear of dying. Suddenly my head was jerked up. Light and heat that was unimaginable hit me and surged through my face, head and spine. At that instant, I was absolutely dying. Yet, it seemed there was nothing to die. I was still crying. All those in the room were going through experiences. I intuitively felt they might be similar to mine. Then, in the light, there was form. I don't know if it was there all the time, or if it just appeared. It was the form of a man sitting. I don't know if it was Bubba or not. Then my head was forced down again. There was nothing but this energy. This time there was total darkness, but still there was the heat, and I knew the light was there. Billy's hand was in my lap, and I took it. I felt the energy in him, as I did in myself and the room. I started to cool down, and I was still sobbing Suddenly my body changed position. I know I did not move myself. I was moved into a bowing position. There was absolutely nothing but the Lord. I can't seem to express how absolute He was. He was just there, and I knew that He would always be there. It seemed there was no difference between any of the "individuals" in the room, or, for that matter, between us and the room itself. He was just Present.

Syndi Ethridge had also been in the kitchen when this began. She sensed that Bubba was present, and sat down with the others.

It was as if I were in a huge space. I was alone in a sense, but the "I" seemed to include everyone and everything. The space was Bubba, absorbing energy, love. I felt as if I were being grabbed with electricity along the lower ribs on each side. As it got more of a hold on me, it began to devour me, gradually going up my spine. It seemed to go around and through each vertebra individually, slowly progressing upwards to the base of my head, where it stayed as a mass of energy. My head filled with intense pressure, especially in my forehead, in the sinus areas, and along my cheekbones. My chin felt like many, many pins were being stuck into it, and the nerves in my mouth were twitching violently. My hands gradually filled with energy, especially my left. It was so full of this energy that when I shut it, it would be forced open again. It also began to shake at some point.

Several times I began to cry. I was so full of love for Bubba, I felt like bursting. As all these things were happening, I was totally in the arms of our Lord. He was there and He was holding us, and, for the first time, I was completely unconcerned about anything that was happening. I just wasn't there to be concerned.

These experiences, like those on Monday, were effects of the Guru's movement into his devotees in the form of the Divine Light founded in the Heart. The movement of the Light provokes various forceful manifestations and sensations of energy, while the Presence of the Heart-Consciousness dissolves the assumption of separateness, leaving utter unconcern, surrender, and absorption in the Divine.

What was going on now seemed unique. There was this strange tempest outside and this air of finality. And what had happened at Bubba's house? Few, if any, had been able to hear or understand what Marcia was trying to say