New York Hotel

It was a big deal. He flew in to see me at my hotel in New York. Hotel workers were running around, putting flowers in vases and such. As I checked my teeth in a big mirror, I spied behind me a large woman spraying herself with golden perfume.

The man was a swami. He stood outside the New York hotel for two days, refusing to enter. The cold could not bite him for he was strong of spirit such that his essence shielded his body from all earthly and extraneous experience. He stood there thinking and feeling with his spirit, and - darn it - I took him for a homeless man and sat dejected, hopelessly awaiting my spiritual father.

This has been the essential story of my life.